14ymedio

Havana, One Step Away From a Night Curfew Due to Unstoppable Increase in Covid

14ymedio, Havana, 23 January 2021 — The health authorities of Havana acknowledge that the situation of the covid pandemic in the capital is “very complex” and that in the coming days they could declare a night curfew, as it already happened last August.

The president of the Provincial Defense Council (CDP), Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, detailed this Thursday that 180 health workers have been infected so far in January. As on other occasions, the official attributed these cases to the “relaxation of the sanitary protocol,” but also to “the transfer systems of suspected and confirmed” cases and to the breach of home isolation.

For his part, Francisco Durán García, national director of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Public Health, detailed that 54.4% of people diagnosed with Covid-19 since last November 15, after the reopening of the José Martí International Airport, have a source of infection related, directly or indirectly, to travelers from other countries. continue reading

“It is not the foreigner or the traveler who arrives incubating the disease, it is the violations that we commit and the breach of the protocol that is established, because if it were complied with we would not have these results,” claimed Durán, who also attributed the infections to “the repeated violation of the sanitary protocols.”

Officials from the Ministry of Health also reported two other outbreaks. One originated in the Salvador Allende Student Residence for foreign students, in the Boyeros municipality, presumably at a New Year’s Eve party.

As of Wednesday, there were 23 confirmed, six of them external personnel who in turn became sources of contagion in their respective communities. As a consequence, the foreign student program has closed down and the internal contacts, which include 45 professors, are in total isolation, pending a second PCR test.

Another outbreak occurred in the Cerro Pelado Athletes Training Center, from two athletes from the Artemisa province, and has resulted in 26 infected, all from the sport of Wrestling.

Given the increase in cases, the Havana authorities have decided to reinforce the management of hospitals and isolation centers with cadres from companies and other sectors. The measure seeks that “health personnel can concentrate on medical assistance,” as explained.

However, no new restrictive measures have been announced to those already existing in Havana in relation to mobility, the operation of private businesses or public transport. If the current trend continues, “it would be considered to totally restrict the mobility of people and vehicles at night,” according to the Tribuna de La Habana.

This Friday, Cuba reported 530 new cases of coronavirus and, again, four deaths, which gives a cumulative total of 20,060 positives and 188 deaths from the disease. The provinces with the highest incidence continue to be headed by Havana, followed by Matanzas, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo.

In addition, the Ministry of Public Health warned of the presence on the island of one of the new genetic variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the one detected for the first time in South Africa and which has spread, as of now, to 20 countries.

According to María Guadalupe Guzmán Tirado, head of the Center for Research, Diagnosis and Reference of the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK), the mutation was discovered in an asymptomatic traveler from South Africa from the PCR test that is carried out at airports to all travelers arriving in Cuba.

Guzmán said that the patient’s contacts were negative, but he warned that there is a possibility that the variant is found in Cuba and could establish itself as a circulating strain.

The main difference of this strain is that it is more contagious than the original, although, said Guzmán, it is not known that it has a direct effect on lethality or that it causes more severe cases of the disease, nor that it will affect the “Cuban vaccine candidates.”

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Building Your Own Home in Cuba is an Obstacle Race

After decades of strict controls on the sector, in the last decade the permits have been made more flexible for those who wish to start these works. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Pedro Acosta, Havana, 21 January 2021 — Five years ago, Edelmira Rodríguez laid the first brick in her house. It was the beginning of a dream, of building her house with her own efforts, which at times turns into a nightmare. The shortages and the lack of liquidity mean that, to this day, the roof has not even been installed.

Rodríguez, an employee of the Ministry of Labor and a resident of Havana, was enthusiastic about the push the authorities gave a few years ago to the construction of houses by the interested parties. After decades of strict controls on the sector, permits have become more flexible in the last decade for those who wish to start this kind of work.

Given the lack of State resources, more than half of the homes built in Cuba between January and October 2020 were built by individuals, according to the Minister of Construction, René Mesa Villafaña. During that period, 40,215 houses were completed in Cuba, of which 23,429 (over 58%) were built privately. continue reading

During that period, 40,215 houses were completed in Cuba, of which 23,429 (over 58%) were built privately.

But behind those numbers there are thousands of stories of difficulties and moments of hopelessness like the ones Edelmira Rodríguez is living through today. “The land they gave me is only seven meters long by six meters wide and that forces me to build a two-story house,” she explains to 14ymedio.

A construction of more than one story requires that the lower structures be able to support the weight of the second story. This translates into having greater quantities of steel, cement and other materials, but these resources are not always available, or of the required quality.

“I started five years ago and have not even been able to install the first-floor ceiling. Since before the pandemic began, the materials were nowhere to be found, and the price of cement in the black market is prohibitive, and let’s not even mention the rebar”, Rodríguez laments.

Those shortages also encourage the theft of building materials. Avoiding losing aggregate and bricks becomes such a nightmare that it often forces families to permanently camp on the construction site.

More than half of the homes built in Cuba, between January and October 2020, were built by individuals. (14ymedio)

“Not only do you have to monitor whether they are taking cement or not in the wheelbarrow, but also keep your eyes open so that they do not steal in one night what has cost you months to obtain”, says a young man who is making repairs to his home in Calzada del Cerro. In the front porch of the house, whose roof collapsed a few years ago, sandbags and stone dust are piled up.

“My father watches at night and I do so during the day, because we cannot lose any of this material. Here, in this neighborhood, there are many people who are trying to repair or build their own little houses, but cement is only available at the foreign currency stores”, explains the young man. “Rather than because of self-effort, this is due to self-strain, because nothing is guaranteed”.

The improvised builders complain that banks grant very small loan amounts, ranging between 20,000 and 80,000 pesos, but currently in the informal market one bag of cement exceeds 500.

The improvised builders complain that banks grant very small loan amounts, ranging between 20,000 and 80,000 pesos, but currently in the informal market one bag of cement exceeds 500.

In recent years, this material has become a rare “gray gold”, sought by all those who want to repair a kitchen, modernize a bathroom or touch up a facade. For two years, the product has barely appeared in the stores that take payment in Cuban pesos and has been rationed in State construction yards for victims of natural disasters.

The shortage of the product was aggravated by a tornado that hit Havana in January 2019. With thousands of houses affected, the State guaranteed a 50% discount off the cost of construction materials for people with houses damaged by the disaster in the neighborhoods of Luyanó, Regla, Guanabacoa and Santos Suárez.

Avoiding the loss of aggregate and bricks becomes a nightmare that often forces families to permanently camp on the construction site. (14ymedio)

The monetary unification and the rise in many prices of products and services since last January first, the has had a negative effect on those who dream of finishing their own home. Some, like Tomasa Correa and her husband, have had to move into the house while still waiting to be able to buy what is left to finish construction.

“We still have to install the glass on the windows and front doors on both floors,” says Correa. “Public Health gave us the go-ahead and for a few months we have been living in the house but we have the biggest problem with the money we owe,” she acknowledges. Debts in excess of 60,000 pesos have been accumulating and now the couple does not know how they are going to repay that sum.

“We have a food stand offering vegetables and fruits located in a privileged area and over two hundred people pass through there in any given day. In addition, attached to the stall, we sell soft drinks, juices and condiments, but sales have been declining for months in a tailspin, due to lack of products”, Correa details.

However, Correa feels lucky to have been able to finish her home, in a country that needs around a million homes. Others have barely advanced beyond the foundations or some walls of what will be their future home. As is the case with Gerardo Mena, who has been with his family for 15 years in a shelter for victims of the disaster after the collapse of their building.

“Economically, we are not doing badly, but in Cuba, it is not enough to have money to solve things. Three years ago, I bought a piece of land in Monaco [Cuba] from the State and began to build a house for the family.”

“Under these conditions, my wife and I had two daughters because time went by and we couldn’t keep waiting to become parents until we owned a house,” Mena told 14ymedio. “Economically, we are not doing badly, but in Cuba, it is not enough to have money to solve things. Three years ago, I bought a piece of land in Monaco [Cuba] from the State and began to build a house for the family.”

A brother who emigrated helps him with part of the resources he needs to buy materials, but even his solvency has not materialized in advancing with the construction. “In these three years I have not been able to go beyond raising the walls and building the supports on the first floor,” Mena laments.

After decades of strict controls on the sector, in the last decade, permits have been made more flexible for those who wish to start these works. (14ymedio)

But even those walls that have yet to be plastered are an unattainable illusion for Eduardo Portales, a Havana native who has been trying for a long time to buy a piece of land on Vento Street from the State. About four years ago there was a small store that offered its products, selling its goods from a metal container placed on the site. Now, the metal box is rotting in the open while officials of the Physical Planning Institute and those of Tiendas Caribe play hot potato avoiding the responsibility of removing it.

Until the container is removed, the land purchase process cannot be finalized. But when the site is finally liberated, Portales will still have the long and tortuous path of starting to build with his own effort.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Cuban State Company Threatens To Fire Charcoal Makers If They Persist In Their Protest

The charcoal workers have been threatened with losing their jobs if they do not return to work. (Trabajadores)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 January 2021 — The dispute between the workers of the Empresa Integral Agropecuaria de Las Tunas and the directors of that entity has escalated one step further. According to Martí Noticias, the charcoal makers, on strike due to the low wages they received this January, have been threatened by their bosses and State Security itself.

“They were told that if they continued [striking] they would be seen as ‘counterrevolutionaries’ not as workers, and a disciplinary measure could be applied so that they would not work anymore, that is, they would be expelled from the company,” the apostolic pastor Yoel Demetrio told the Miami-based media; Demetrio is the president of the Missionary Church of Cuba, and has served as spokesman for the charcoal makers, whom he is supporting.

The workers were considering denouncing, for theft of wages and corruption, Jaime García Oquendo, director of the company, official of the Ministry of the Interior and former head of prisons in the province, and Vladimir Rodríguez Acosta, a representative of the workers. But, apparently, the threats from the authorities led them to step back from a responsibility that their wives have now assumed. continue reading

“A lawyer prepared all the documentation for them and they, with these pressures and fears, did not want to go to the Prosecutor’s Office to file a complaint; however, the women decided to go to court themselves. When they arrived, the prosecutor did not want to receive their claim,” says Demetrio.

After an energetic protest, the Las Tunas Provincial Prosecutor’s Office accepted the complaint and indicated that the deadline for a response is 60 days and that time will start from this Wednesday, when the document was registered.

In addition, the prosecutor informed them that they should go to the company’s Labor Justice Body, where they were received by the head of marketing, Nelson Batista Serrano, and Oquendo himself.

According to the pastor speaking to Radio Martí , both verbally attacked the women for having denounced them before the independent press, which automatically turned them into counterrevolutionaries. They were then warned that their husbands would be summoned to their workplace this Thursday to be told that, if they persisted in striking, they would be fired from their jobs.

The charcoal makers began the strike after having received just 113 pesos this January, to which should be added the advance of 1,000 pesos received in December. The sum of both amounts does not reach half the minimum wage announced by the Government for 2021, which is 1,910 pesos for 40 hours and 2,100 pesos for 44.

In addition, they did not receive the stipend that they usually receive as a bonus in a sector considered strategic by the Government, which from 2005 to 2019 (the last year for which there is consolidated data) has exported more than 266,100 tons of the product, bringing about 100 million dollars to State coffers, about 700 million of which was in 2019.

The company alleges that the drop in exports does not support the payment of benefits, but the workers believe that the company is stealing money that belongs to them.

This protest has been added to that of the Sancti Spíritus stevedores, who have also gone on strike due to the low amount they will receive when the payment per bag loaded is just 0.50 pesos.

Organized protests by state workers have been very unusual in Cuba, where unions are yet another offshoot of the Communist Party. In recent years, the increase in private work has resulted in some notorious protests, such as those staged by taxi drivers or the drivers of the horse drawn coaches used as buses, due to the labor conditions imposed, but the “OrderingTask,” which has increased wages but also prices—in some cases a lot—and this has provoked some sectors to start raising their voices and using the right to strike, won by the labor movements which, paradoxically, the Government denies.

____________

Before a New Thaw, the Strategy is Already a Matter of Debate

Although it is difficult to acknowledge it, the link with the United States has a determining weight in the future of the Island. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 22 January 2021 — Once Joe Biden assumed the presidency of the United States for the next four years, a space opened to serenely analyze the meaning that it may have for Cuba’s relations with the world’s leading power, since, although it is difficult to recognize it, this link has a determining weight in the future of the Island.

Thus, arises the temptation to steer the issue, risking speculations or issuing recommendations. Both approaches can be directed both to the concerns of United States Government and to the steps that Havana can take and, of course, to the roles, in both scenarios and in different directions, of all those who can exert some influence from exile, in the internal opposition, from the environments of civil society or independent journalism.

Fellow journalist Wilfredo Cancio, of CiberCuba, has advanced what, in his opinion, would be the 22 tasks that the new White House team should take into account to relaunch its relations with Cuba. A useful and detailed list of pending subjects. continue reading

Far from claiming sterile impartiality, as an observer I limit myself to voicing my speculations about the actions available to the Cuban Government and the way in which it could use them at a possible negotiating table.

The first notable thing is the enormous disproportion between the degree of concern that exists on the island about what the United States might do and the concern that may be felt in that nation in relation to the decisions of Havana. Cuba’s concern goes beyond government halls and spreads to every corner of the country until it reaches the most humble kitchens in the most remote places.

The United States can indefinitely postpone actions that lead to a new thaw, while for Cuban rulers the arrival of the Democrats to the White House represents a relief compared to what was expected after Trump’s re-election. In sporting terms they do not take it as a victory but as a standing eight count: a period of time that they are obliged to take advantage of so as not to repeat the mistake made with Obama.

Although they are aware of this disadvantage, it can be presumed that the Cuban rulers will send their delegates to the negotiating table wrapped in the mystique of defenders of national sovereignty and with the arrogance of someone who says to their counterpart: “We have resisted. We are and we will remain the same; you will be here as long as your electorate allows it.”

The introduction of democratic habits that put at risk the permanence in power of those who rule in Cuba will be the most inflexible point; what they will caution is that they are not willing to cede one iota, while the so-called “compensation for the consequences of the blockade” will constitute the demand that will force other side to assume an equally intransigent refusal.

Dictators around the world have the perception that this matter of “the human rights of citizens” is nothing more than a grandstanding speech for democratic countries and as long as those from here continue to think that way, they will not move an inch; at most they will carry out the occasional symbolic gesture such as releasing a couple of prisoners, whom they will re-imprison whenever they feel like it, unless they go into exile.

The Cuban leaders are interested in having flights resume to all the island’s airports, normalizing the sending of remittances, have work resume at the Embassy in Havana and opening the flow of tourists with the “people-to-people meetings,” but as these points are already on the new president’s agenda, and Cuba’s leaders sense that they will not have to offer anything in return to achieve it.

Nor will they have to make an effort to restart the sports, academic and cultural exchanges, or for the island’s players to play with the Major League teams, because for that there are already enough pressures coming from the American interests themselves and because those actions are part of the so-called Lane II through which the same subversive purposes are supposed to pass subtly with different methods.

The instructions received by Cuban negotiators will include showing the greatest interest in the immigration issue, because it is known that it is a useful point for the other party.

One of the weapons that the Government of Cuba has used the most has been the veiled threat to activate an immigration bomb and, from that position of blackmail, they will try to persuade their counterpart of the advisability of holding the biannual migration talks, favoring family reunification and restoring the 20,000 annual visas for immigrants, along with five-year visas for visits to the United States.

These hypothetical instructions are also certain to include the demand that Cuba ceases to be on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism; that the US end the “black lists” that limit commercial transactions in the United States and prevent citizens of that country from staying in hotels run by the Cuban military; and they will certainly demand that Titles III and IV of the Helms Burton Act be deactivated.

They will seek those conquests, but they will be reluctant to return the fugitives from US justice and terrorists from the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) who are in Cuba; nor will they stop supporting the Maduro regime in Venezuela.

If the pandemic allows it, this year the IX Summit of the Americas will be held in Miami. The event, should Cuba be invited and Díaz-Canel not decline the invitation, it will give the opportunity for a meeting, in person or virtual, at the highest level between the two countries.

This is how the first thaw attempts were forged, when at the VII Summit held in 2015 in Panama, Raúl Castro and Barack Obama had the opportunity to talk.

Today the panorama is very different and if the meeting in Miami occurs in May, when the previous ones have traditionally been held, the Cuban delegation could boast of having completed the generational transfer announced for April at the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party, and sell it as if it were a transition to a new stage post the “Ordering Task” (some name they will invent).

Never better can it be said that they will put on an “I didn’t go” face and be open to listening on any subject, even if their ears are plugged.

The pending reflection is what part will be played by the non-conformists who yearn for a real change in Cuba. A foreseeable proposal will be to resist another approach or, on the contrary, to demand participation in the dialogue.

____________

Diaz-Canel Tried to Manipulate John Paul II’s Visit to Cuba in 1998

Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II, during the latter’s visit to Cuba in 1998. (EFE / Archive)

14ymedio, Havana, 20 January 2021 — The former spokesman for the Archdiocese of Havana, Orlando Márquez, revealed that the current president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, tried to manipulate the visit of Pope John Paul II to Santa Clara in 1998.

At that time Díaz-Canel was the first Party secretary in the province, and, according to Márquez in an article published in the magazine Otra Word, he pushed for the mass of the head of the Church to be celebrated in the Plaza Che Guevara and not in the Loma del Capiro, as originally agreed.

Márquez affirms that he cannot help but recall the uneasiness of the Bishop of Santa Clara, Monsignor Fernando Prego, “when the local authorities proposed that this papal mass be celebrated in the Che Guevara Plaza de la Revolución,” one of the “sacred” symbols of the Cuban regime. continue reading

It was there that in 1997, a year before the arrival of Karol Wojtyla to Cuba, Fidel Castro received with pomp the dubious remains of the Argentine guerrilla to the island.

“Someone decided that the best moment to resuscitate the memory of Che Guevara was the one in which the thirty years from his death coincided with the preparation for the Pope’s visit,” said the former spokesperson for the Havana archdiocese without naming names.

According to Márquez, the Cuban Catholic Church refused because of “the interpretations or consequences” of a mass in that place, dedicated to a man who was responsible for hundreds of executions and who openly affirmed that the purpose of every revolutionary was to become “a cold killing machine.”

Jesuit priest Roberto Tucci, who was responsible for the Pope’s travels at the time, rejected the proposal, and the Cuban authorities had to give in and allow the Eucharist to take place at the Santa Clara Sports School.

The visit of John Paul II, a pope from the Soviet bloc, was seen by the world as a sign of the opening of the Castro regime, which for decades persecuted believers, but immediately the system returned to its own devices. Nothing prevented, for example, years later, the persecution of Catholics united by Oswaldo Payá around the Christian Liberation Movement.

____________

Las Tunas Charcoal Workers Denounce the Theft of Their Wages by State Company and the Union

The workers also plan to denounce Jaime García Oquendo, director of the Empresa Integral Agropecuaria de Las Tunas. (Trabajadores)

14ymedio, Havana, 20 January 2021 — A few months ago, the Empresa Integral Agropecuaria de Las Tunas was distinguished with two awards, one last October and the other in December. Judging by recent statements from the charcoal workers, the authorities do not seem disposed to let the awards be joined by an improvement in the workers’ income.

Several employees in the sector have gone on strike after having received wages of 113 pesos this January, to which should be added the advance of 1,000 pesos received in December. The sum of both amounts is just over half the minimum wage announced by the Government for 2021: 1,910 pesos for 40 hours and 2,100 pesos for 44.

14ymedio tried to find out the reasons why company would pay such a meager amount, but the official who answered the call refused to provide any information and maintained that it’s “something la gusanera* is saying,” a falsehood, according to his version, about which they have already posted something. “If you are a journalist, come and talk face to face, if that’s not the case, search for information on Google,” he said. continue reading

This newspaper has checked the internet and has not found the alleged information “on Google.”

In addition to the announced strike, the charcoal workers also plan to denounce Jaime García Oquendo, director of the company, official of the Ministry of the Interior and former head of prisons in the province, and Vladimir Rodríguez Acosta, representative of the workers, for theft of wages and corruption.

On Tuesday, Radio Televisión Martí broadcast the statements of Luis Silva, one of the striking workers who announced his intention to stop working until he received a decent payment. “I [am not going to] work any more until they resolve the salary. With 113 pesos it is not enough for anything. There are four of us, my wife and two children,” he said.

According to the Miami-based media outlet, charcoal makers usually receive an extra payment for exports at the end of the year but the company did not do so this year on the grounds that sales had plummeted as a result of the pandemic.

The workers of the Empresa Integral Agropecuaria de Las Tunas deny the company’s sales data and insist that they exported more than 15,000 tons of the product for a price of about $432 per ton, according to the apostolic pastor Yoel Demetrio, president of the Missionary Church of Cuba, speaking in an interview with the Miami-based Radio Televisión Martí.

Several agricultural workers from Las Tunas received recognition from the National Union of Forest and Tobacco Workers. (Time21)

“In January they only paid 113 pesos. That is not enough to live on, and then those workers have decided not to work anymore until the authorities increase their salary. Here, in the protest, there are 22 charcoal makers, but there are others in different municipalities. For example, in Jobabo they are also protesting, because they are from the same company,” added Pastor Yoel Demetrio, who supports the complaint.

There are still no official consolidated data for the year 2020, but there are some partial figures that indicate good production and even higher exports than the previous year. For example, as of June of last year, only the Agroforestry Company of Matanzas had produced almost 534 tons to export, “a figure that exceeds forecasts,” according to the official press. For 2020, company had planned to produce about 1,650 tons to break the record of 1,614 that it reached in 2019.

The 16 companies of the Ministry of Agriculture in Camagüey dedicated to the export of charcoal, managed to sell three million dollars worth in the first four months of 2020, a figure similar to the same period of 2019. As of April, they had sold more than 9,390 tons on the international market, less than the 11,914 planned.

The Ceballos Agroindustrial Company, from Ciego de Ávila, is the entity that exports the most charcoal in the country, and as of August 2020 had sold more than 25,000 tons destined for Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain and other European nations. Its director said a year ago that since 2005 the company had exported more than 266,100 tons of the product, bringing about 100 million dollars to State coffers, about 700 million of which was in 2019.

In February 2020, the Villa Clara company Valle del Yabú exported its first 16.8 tons of charcoal to Europe, the newspaper Trabajadores highlighted.

According to official figures, Cuba annually produces about 40,000 tons of charcoal each year to satisfy national demand and cover exports, mainly to the European market. Cuban charcoal — made from the invasive marabou weed — is sold mainly to Europe and several Asian countries and, in 2017, it became the first product, in more than half a century, to be exported to the United States.

*Translator’s note: Gusano literally means ’worm’ and in this context la gusanera refers to ’counterrevolutionaries’, government opponents, and Cubans in exile.

____________

Price Hikes Reach Cuban Movie Theaters, Which Double Their Rates

In some provinces the ticket prices are variable but at Cine 23 they are fixed. (14ymedio/Archive)

14ymedio, Havana, 20 January 2021 — The “Ordering Task*” has arrived in movie theaters, the latest victims of the price increases, according to data published by Cubacine.

Irinka Cordoví, director of Project 23, manages the five cinemas on 23rd Street in Havana’s Vedado district, said that the ticket price to normal functions will go from 2 to 5 pesos, while the functions in 3D, which varied between 5 and 10, they will cost 15 pesos for children under 12 and 25 for adults. In the case of children’s and circus shows offered by some cinemas such as Yara, the price will be 20 pesos for children and 30 for adults.

When it comes to musical or humorous shows, Cordoví added, the price could reach 150 pesos, “depending on the level and quality of the artists.” continue reading

The official insisted that the increase, which responds to the new economic measures dictated by the Government, will be accompanied by “better operations within theaters and cinemas” and that there is “a commitment to elements such as hygiene and atmosphere, quality of the programming, as well as in excellent treatment from to the assistants.”

At the same time, she recognized that for some years the attendance of the public to cinemas has decreased and that, for this reason, they intend to “reinforce the advertising and promotion of [the] programming.”

In a call to the Riviera cinema in the capital, an employee insisted that at this moment it is “closed due to the pandemic, like all other cinemas,” but that “as soon as this is over, we will open with the new prices.”

The Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso also announced last December an increase in the ticket prices, which was widely criticized on social networks for considering the excessive price of 125 pesos for a function, even if it is the first balcony. Critics also pointed to the cost of tickets to recreational parks and the Miramar Trompoloco Tent where a seat costs as much as 100 pesos.

*Translator’s note: The “Ordering Task” is the Cuban government’s efforts which include ending the dual currency system and other major adjustments in the economy.

____________

Not at 45 Pesos, Not Even at 50 Pesos: There is No Bread in Havana

“I send the kid to buy bread and sometimes he gets back at nine o’clock at night without it because after waiting in line there isn’t enough,” complains a resident from Centro Habana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 18 January 2021 — Antonio’s face, after walking through several streets of Centro Habana this Sunday looking for bread without success, sums up his fatigue and disappointment. “What is happening is terrible,” he laments. “I don’t know if there is no flour or no oil, but the truth is that bread is missing from the map.”

The difficulties in buying this staple food have been multiplying in recent months. At the beginning of January, people in Havana reported that there was no bread in any non-State establishment for that sells unrationed bread, and that even in the private ones, where sold for almost twice the price, it was in short supply. A situation that occurred last October was repeated.

Now, not at 30 pesos, nor at 40 nor even at 50 for a package of rolls: there simply isn’t any bread. Antonio had received news that on Zanja Street they were selling a bag of eight rolls for 50 pesos. “I didn’t want to go there because on the corner of my house I always buy it cheaper, at 40 or 45 pesos, sometimes at 30,” the young man explains, referring to a paladar — a private restaurant — where they have a bread sales counter. “And it turns out that when I arrived there wasn’t any!” continue reading

The bread, Antonio continues, is barely enough to be displayed on the counter: the neighbors are “chasing the car” that brings the bread, a Lada car filled to the roof, and as soon as it arrives, “the line forms and in three minutes it’s over.”

In the bakeries where the state sells un-rationed bread, the situation has not improved: “In the Carlos III [shopping center] you have to line up so that you can spend hours,” says another resident of Centro Habana. “I send the kid to buy bread and sometimes he gets back at nine o’clock at night without it because after waiting in line there isn’t enough,” he complains.

Other neighborhoods, such as Nuevo Vedado, don’t have better luck. Both in private bakeries and in state bakeries, the shelves are empty most of the time. “The only thing in private bakeries is cookies and sweets, but no bread,” says a resident on Panorama Street. “In the state bakery, to buy the bread with the ration book, the line is constant; they put out the bread, a very limited amount for a very limited time, so it’s gone right away.”

The reason for the shortage of such a basic product changes depending on who you ask. Private sellers say demand has skyrocketed and that where the product used to last on the shelves for a full day, it now sells out in an hour. State employees insist that in the bakeries that sell rationed bread “flour, fat and sugar are scarce.” On this subject, the Government is silent.

____________

‘This Year the Dictatorship is Done,’ Says Artist Otero Alcantara

Otero Alcántara has been the victim of a smear and harassment campaign orchestrated by the Cuban government, the signatories maintain.

14ymedio, Havana, 18 January 2021 — The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara posted a live video on his Facebook page, which has already been watched more than 17,000 times, in which he says “the dictatorship” dead and asks the authorities to accept that everything is over, avoiding prolonging the suffering of the population.

“Cuba is going to enter a democratic system very soon. It depends on them how much blood is spilled or not in the streets, the sacrifice that we have to make, as a group of artists, intellectuals, politicians, activists,” he says.

The artist is one of the most visible leaders of the San Isidro Movement. His hunger and thirst strike, this November, for the release of rapper Denis Solís led him to become an internationally known opposition figure. He insists in the video, about 28 minutes long, that he does not intend to turn himself and his friends into a kind of fashionable activists, but rather they are part of a very broad collective with multiple ideological sensibilities, and what they share is the arrival of democracy as their sole purpose. continue reading

Otero Alcántara expresses his support in particular for the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) and its leader, José Daniel Ferrer, who was arrested this week after his eldest daughter was denied entry to the country. “José Daniel Ferrer and his family are being violated. Do not make people suffer more,” insists the activist.

In his opinion, the Internet has revolutionized the situation of the opposition in Cuba and the Government is not aware that it can no longer maintain power as it did. He considers that the population has already realized that the situation is unsustainable and the fall of the regime is imminent.

“A social outbreak can happen the day after tomorrow, controlled or uncontrolled,” he predicts. And he asks the citizens to take power. “This year the dictatorship is done, it is done, we are building democracy right now. We are going to impose the word dialogue as a civic structure, dialogue with character demanding freedom,” he says

The opposition activist also refers to the economic situation as a generator of popular unrest. Otero Alcántara believes that the vertiginous rise in prices as a result of the “Ordering Task,” has damaged the most fragile, the retired or elderly whose pensions barely cover the prices that are asked of them just to feed themselves. “Retirees used to eat for little more than one peso, not now. They raised everything,” he is indignant.

In recent months, the artist, who has suffered multiple arrests since he founded the San Isidro Movement to reject Decree 349 with which the Government tried to curb independent art, has seen the pressure on his surroundings and himself increase. The regime has questioned his artistic merits, has linked him to the CIA, as it usually does with those who express their rejection of the regime, and has accused him of terrorism.

However, Otero Alcántara maintains that the most recent campaign against him, highlighting him in the official media, has only served to attract the sympathy of the citizens. “People adore us in the street, old women who touch me and say ’we are with you’. That is what is happening in Cuba right now, the dictatorship is done,” he continues.

Finally, he insists once again that he will support any opponent of any sensibility. “Now we have to take power, I’m with Unpacu,” he says. But he also cites platforms based abroad, such as Cuba Decides, or a priori movements that are more social than political, from animal rights to the LGBTI community.

“Free Denis Solís, free Luis Robles (arrested last December 4 for protesting with a banner in the center of Havana), free all political prisoners, free the Cuban! Stop the abuse! Have mercy on the old men who cannot drink their coffee with milk!

____________

Cubadebate Criticizes Friends at the Gabo Foundation for Supporting the Independent Press

Nobel laureate for literature Gabriel García Márquez with his friend Fidel Castro. (Portafolio)

14ymedio, Havana, January 13, 2021 — The Gabo Foundation has gotten another scolding from the Cuban government for including three independent journalists in the list of finalists for its annual award.

The relationship between the two parties has all but collapsed since the Foundation for a New Ibero-American Journalism, an organization founded by García Márquez in Cartagena, Colombia, asked the Cuban government to lift a fine it levied against independent reporter Monica Baró, a winner of one of its prestigious awards, and allow her to freely practice journalism.

The new clash began on January 7 when the foundation announced its selection of forty works competing for the 2020 Gabo journalism prize, postponed until January 21 due to the Covid pandemic. A total of 1,443 works were submitted, from which the jury chose ten for each of the four categories.

Among the finalists are pieces by three independent Cuban journalists: Argelia Flores Is a Tough Woman by Abrahim Jimenez, published on the independent website El Estornudo; The Price of Nickel by Cynthia de la Cantera, and YucaByte by Alberto Toppin. continue reading

“These works stand out for their solid research and reporting, high narrative and technical quality, and ability to upset the powerful by portraying the complex realities of Latin America with depth, rigor and ethics,” the foundation said in a statement.

For the Cuban government it was the last straw. This time it decided to inventory what it considered insults by the foundation created by Fidel Castro’s old friend. In an article published in Cubadebate entitled “NED Is Writing to Someone”, the first five paragraphs are devoted to praising the prestige of the journalistic award before castigating it, noting that among its finalists are “not one but two” Cuban authors who who write for “digital platforms that have recently been identified as recipients of financing from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Open Society Foundations and similar outlets engaging in U.S. interference in Cuba.”

The article later states that in 2017 Jorge Carrasco from El Estornudo received an award which, to make matters worse, was accepted by Carlos Manuel Alvarez, one of the country’s most internationally recognizable opposition figures after the events in November involving the San Isidro Movement.

The article also discusses what happened in 2019 when Baró received an award for a piece published in Periodismo de Barrio,a publication which, along with El Estornudo, is considered counterrevolutionary by the government.

It also points out that the Gabo Foundation invited Elaine Díaz, founder of Periodismo de Barrio, to its 2016 and 2018 awards ceremonty and, as though that were not enough, promoted the publication in an interview posted on the foundation’s website.

Cubadebate is puzzled by the fact that such a prestigious award could have come to this and offers an explanation. Over the years, it believes, the foundation has received funding from respectable institutions but also from “a web of journalistic and financial front organizations associated” with NED. As a result, it believes there has been a “distancing from the values promoted by García Márquez, who was a correspondent for Prensa Latina, a longtime companion of the Cuban Revolution and a close friend of its leader Fidel Castro.”

There was also room in this lengthly article to deplore the topics selected by the foundation, which are, in the opinion of Cubadebate, monothematic. Likewise, they mention Yoani Sanchez, director of 14ymedio, whom the paper accuses of being “committed to journalistic manipulation as well as the propagation of fake news and pro-American propaganda.” According to the article, the pattern the Gabo Foundation is now following began years ago with Sanchez when it awarded her “numerous prizes as justification for funds [she had received], and as a way to increase her visibility and facilitate her access to the pages of the international press.

The attack was echoed on Tuesday during the nightly news on Cuban television when the anchor disparaged 14ymedio’s director as a mercenary and counterrevolutionary. The TV offensive against Sanchez had an unexpected effect, however. Several passersby recognized her as she walked down the street and openly expressed their support for her.

Another organization targeted by the article is the Press and Society Institute (Ipys), which has been involved in several disputes for doing just the opposite: giving awards to government journalists. In 2020, the organization gave Ayose García Naranjo, deputy editor of the Matanzas state newspaper Girón, its Cubacrón award for the chronicle Donalciano, the Devourer of Mountains, published in the magazine El Caimán Barbudo, which was forced to decline the distinction.

It also tried unsuccessfully in 2019 to honor several government journalists such as Dayamis Sotolong (from Escambray) and Haydee Leon (from Juventud Rebelde) for their reporting.

In both instances the Cuban Union of Journalists rejected Ipys’ attempts to “buy” the reporters and its “new campaign against Cuba’s public system,” calling it counterrevolutionary.

____________

For Melissa Barreto Galvez, a Cuban from Santa Clara, the Trip Ended in Mexico

For Melissa Barreto Gálvez, a Cuban from Santa Clara, the trip ended in Mexico (Cortesía)

14ymedio, Lorey Saman, Mexico, 17 January 2021 — When Melissa Barreto Gálvez boarded the plane in Havana that would take her to Nicaragua, the only thing on her mind was her three-year-old son Mylan Kahled. She left him behind, under Grandma’s care, but he was her driving engine to make the big leap and become an immigrant.

“Leaving my little one in Cuba, whom I love most in life, causes me pain that grows stronger every day, which leaves me hardly able to breathe. It’s as if the world is going to fall on you,” this 22-year-old resident of Santa Clara said moving to 14ymedio.

Melissa is one of thousands of Cubans who in 2020 chose to petition for refuge in Mexico. This process has been triggered in the last four years among the nationals of the island, who have ranked as the third highest of nationalities that requests it, behind Hondurans and Haitians. continue reading

Here she arrived last July, in the midst of the health crisis across the region, dodging obstacles, corrupt cops, dealing with scammers, and some fears. “I left Cuba with other people. When I arrived in Nicaragua, blind, I got my rent by myself and a way to sustain myself,” recalls the young woman, who left in the middle of her medical career in Cuba to seek a better future.

“Since every Cuban is known by our accent and even the way we dress, on my way out of work I met two Cubans. We started sharing and struck up a great friendship.” Like her, the boys also wanted to jump the borders into Mexico, and that’s what they did together.

Melissa and her friends were set up to a contact with coyotes. Within a few days, they had set out on the road. The $1,200 of the initial fare for the trip ended up at $3,500. “I spent some very difficult days, because in the end coyotes took money from us whenever they could. They left us 15 days in a house, almost without food because, according to them, the passage was difficult, but they did it all in order to ask us for more money. Most people arrive in Chiapas [Mexico] in four or five days, I spent 26 days and they were the worst.”

The young woman, who never gave up hope of arriving in Mexico, says she felt a lot of distrust at first “because of the things she heard” about the journey. “But along the way I was losing my fear, because I also knew my friends wouldn’t abandon me.”

The day after she stepped on Mexican soil, on July 12, she showed up at the Office of the Refugee Aid Commission (COMAR). “I did it all very quickly and easily, there were no queues. In those months almost no one was entering the country, mainly because Honduras and Guatemala had their borders closed because of COVID.”

“The third month after I went to the COMAR, I was called to interview for the asylum process. Within a few days I was told to go and pick up the resolution that recognized me as a refugee in the United Mexican States.” She is already in the process of obtaining permanent residency.

The migration landscape in Mexico for Cubans has changed a lot in a few years here. The usual, before, was the immediate deportation of the nationals from the island, a procedure interrupted for a few months, just over five years ago, when, faced with the imminent elimination by the Obama administration of the wet foot/dry foot policy, there was an avalanche of Cubans who entered the Chiapas border with the intention of reaching the United States by land. They then received an expedited “letter of exit” from the Instituto Nacional de Migración (Mexican National Institute of Migration), which allowed them to remain in the country legally for 15 days, until they reached the northern border.

Melissa now lives in Monterrey. She went a few days without a job, but she then was able to find one in order to move ahead. She claims that the important thing is to work, and she has lived it from the south to the north of the country, within a Cuban community that grows every day. And she also found love in another Cuban, a man who is young like her, who also wants to “throw in” (echar pa’ lante = work hard to get ahead), she says.

If everything becomes better on the northern border, does she plan to apply for asylum in the United States? “My son is not here with me and I have no plans to go to the USA yet. Maybe tomorrow, when I have my son, I will be able to tell you, but the truth is, I want to be here, in the beautiful country that has welcomed me.”

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

____________

Santiago de Cuba Stops the Sale of Food in Pesos and Dollars From Friday to Sunday

La Plaza shopping center, in Santiago de Cuba, closed. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Francisco Herodes Díaz Echemendía, Santiago De Cuba , 15 January 2021 — All state and private businesses that surround La Plaza de Santiago de Cuba dawned this Friday completely closed. The shopping center, one of the three that sell food products in freely convertible currency (MLC) in the eastern city, has had its doors closed since the beginning of the year due to an outbreak of Covid among its workers.

Now that the city has regressed to the local-transmission phase, the authorities imposed 58 measures in response to the unstoppable increase in infections. Among the measures, they determined to close all establishments from Friday to Sunday. Only essential services in “health, death and production” will be maintained.

The sale of food in foreign currency stores was another anguish for many people from Santiago. However, these stores are where there are more products, especially meat, which is scarce in state shops that sell in pesos. continue reading

“What appears the most is ham, cheese and ground meat. The Ten Cents store recently opened and began selling food,” a customer explains to 14ymedio, “the other stores in MLC, all they have are toiletries and home appliances.”

In Telegram and on social networks groups have been created to keep up with the supply in these stores. “I understand that they closed La Plaza. Do you know if there is some meat in the others? I am from Palma Soriano and I would not want to go to Santiago unnecessarily,” asked a young woman in a local Facebook group on Tuesday. “In Cubalse they have chicken breasts for $6.55 but there is tremendous line, so come prepared,” another user replied.

The most commonly repeated question in these communication channels is “What’s there?” Many cautious people prefer to inform themselves first before going to the stores at their pleasure, as they are almost always without products or run out quickly. And they also prefer to play it safe and not spend more than 50 pesos on transportation, the average it takes to move around the city today.

“If Santiago was expensive before, after January 1, the salt has rained down on us,” says an anguished housewife living in the town of Boniato, who, in order to buy unrationed food must travel to the center of the city. “The price of station wagons and motorbikes, which are essential to travel urgently, have skyrocketed to the point that if you don’t have 50 pesos a day for transportation, it’s better to not go out.”

____________

The Survivors of the Cuarteles Street Tenements in Old Havana Speak Out

On Calle Cuarteles Number 4, in Old Havana, 22 families live in uninhabitable accommodations. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Eustaquio García, Havana, 16 January 2021 — Residents on Cuarteles Street, located in Old Havana, do not know what it means to have a decent home. The so-called ciudadelas [tenements] located on this road, one of the oldest in the capital, suffer continuous collapses, but its inhabitants have never been able to leave some of the buildings that have been considered uninhabitable for decades.

“I’ve lived here for 35 years and, although there have been more than ten collapses, and our apartments are damp, and we have a shelter order, we have never been able to leave this place,” Damaris Luna tells 14ymedio; Luna lives on the street at Number 4, between Cuba and Aguiar, where 22 families live in a similar situation.

The precarious situation of their home even affects their income, explains Damaris, a manicurist by profession, who claims to have lost many clients. When they look at the entrance to the tenement, they lose the desire to enter. And even more so to climb the stairs. continue reading

“All the authorities know it, but they do nothing. They have promised on more than one occasion to get us out of here and give us a home but that never happens. The last promise was at the end of 2018 and we are still waiting,” she laments.

The most recent collapse of this building occurred on September 19, 2020, when a wall collapsed and disabled the shared bathroom, used by five families, for several days.

The tenements located on Calle Cuarteles, one of the oldest in the capital, suffer continuous collapse. (14ymedio)

Neighbors recall, however, how diligent action was taken in a 1988 collapse on this site. The apartment belonged to the famous national baseball player Lázaro Valle. “They took him out and gave him a better house, but we’re still here, we don’t even have our own bathroom. Our houses are propped up inside, and so are the stairs and hallways. Whoever enters this building seems to have reached the stage of a film from the 19th or 18th century,” says María Vega, a woman in her 70s who has lived at Number 4 all her life, with regret and a slight smile.

On the street, just three blocks long and located very close to the bay, some tenements are more than 400 years old and are completely in ruins. This is also the case of Numbers 7 and 11, which in a competition against time and abandonment have an extremely gloomy aspect.

Damaris, a manicurist, claims to have lost many customers: when they look at the entrance to the building, they lose the desire to enter. (14ymedio)

“This lot has had a shelter order since 1961, but the houses that are supposedly supposed to go to us are always given to other people. The little that we have been able to fix, such as the roof of our rooms and the railing of the second level, has always been by my own effort,” complains Mariela Santiesteban, a resident of Number 11.

“There are 28 rooms here and they all get wet or have a lot of dampness. They have never even given us a sack of cement or sand to fix it, only once did they put some very bad tiles that immediately deteriorated again due to their poor quality. Because of this we are still in the same situation: total helplessness,” adds the 53-year-old woman.

José Antonio Moreno, one of her neighbors, would be satisfied with any alternative. “I can even use an apartment in Siberia to get out of here!” He says between a smile and resignation. At 60, he adds, he can barely clean the floor in his room. “It leaks on the neighbors downstairs and it’s in very bad shape. One time my roof was ripped completely off with a cyclone and I had to repair it myself, but here we are in constant danger.”

In the lot of Number 7 there are only the small rooms located on the ground floor. All of the upper floors have collapsed in recent decades, and its residents are not even in the mood to speak.

Three years ago the Government recognized a deficit of almost one million homes on the Island, a very serious situation that it aspired to alleviate in a period of ten years, but the shortage of materials due to a persistent crisis affects a problem that continues to leave millions of families in suspense, not knowing when they might see their roof coming down.

According to a report from the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights, from last October, almost half of the homes in the country need repair, and 11% of families live in places at risk of collapse.

____________

Cuban Artist and Designer Rolando Pulido Dies at 58

A painter and designer, in 1980 and only 18 years old, Rolando Pulido decided to leave Cuba during the exodus known in the US as the Mariel Boatlift. (Natacha Herrera / El Imparcial Digital)

14ymedio, Havana, 16 January 2021 — Cuban designer and artist Rolando Pulido died this Friday in New York at the age of 58. The artist, who decorated emblematic cultural spaces and was a great promoter of the cause of democracy on the island, died in a hospital in the Bronx, in the city where he lived.

“Our beloved brother, Rolando Pulido, rested last night, grateful from the heart for all the solidarity that we all transmitted to him until the end,” announced emigrant writer Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo on his Facebook account.

A painter and designer, in 1980 and at only 18 years old, Pulido decided to leave Cuba during the exodus of the Mariel Boatlift. Shortly after declaring his intention to emigrate, he was the victim of a massive act of repudiation where, as he recalled in testimonies and interviews, he was “humiliated and severely beaten.” continue reading

“The Cuba I knew I did not like one bit. It had been the place where, since I was born, they tried to indoctrinate with an ideology that I did not like, it was not what my parents would have preferred for me,” he explained years later, recalling his early days in New York.

“The country where a foreigner is the only one who has the right to be free. The country that beat me when I wanted to leave. My country, which forbids me to touch its soil,” he reiterated. Among the most iconic works of his career are the designs of the Blue Note jazz club, Cooper’s Bar, Strand Bookstore, and also some of the Saturday Night Live stages.

Starting in 2007, Pulido became enthusiastically involved with the independent blogosphere that was taking its first steps on the island. Most of the posters, visual campaigns and logos associated with the phenomenon of digital blogs were born from his creativity.

His activism on the networks helped to give visibility to numerous Cuban reporters. “For many years I looked for the most effective way to denounce the atrocities that occur in Cuba on the part of the government, and I found that it was through my graphic work,” he said. “Today thanks to the internet, I can share my work with other Cubans in many parts of the world, even within the island, and we can do projects together.”

Dedicated, supportive and talented, that’s how his friends and collaborators remember Rolando Pulido, a designer who “took the denunciation of the Cuban situation to the level of beauty and visually attractiveness,” as an Internet user said this Saturday on hearing the news of his death.

Translator’s note: This translator had the great pleasure of knowing Rolando and mourns his passing. This link shows some of the art and design work Rolando did for Cuban freedom.

____________

Cuban Convertible Pesos Not Accepted, Even in Cuba

A Caracol store located on the ground floor of the Havana Libre hotel (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, January 13, 2021 — Faced with complaints from citizens that they could not find places to spend their Cuban convertible pesos (CUC), the Cuban government announced that no fewer than 500 stores would accept the old currency. The list included the Caracol chain of stores, the Palmares Company, and the Artistic and Literary Promotion Agency (Artex). 14ymedio confirmed on Tuesday, however, that these businesses are now only accepting Cuban pesos (CUP).

At the Caracol branch in the Habana Libre hotel they had not even heard the news. “We only accept CUP here,” said an employee when a customer asked if she could pay in CUC.

“I still have 20 CUC and I would like to spend them on something useful without having to wait in line at the bank. I heard the news on television and came to this store, which is on the corner near my house. But as you can see, either Murillo was lying or these people don’t know how to do their jobs,” said the customer, waiving the rejected bill. continue reading

Marino Murillo, the so-called “reform czar,” said it himself during a Roundtable broadcast and reiterated it on his official Twitter account: “The conditions have gradually been created so that, starting today (Monday), CUC will now be accepted in more than five-hundred establishments of the Caracol, Palmares, Artex and Egrem chains throughout the country.”

In addition to the establishments newly designated to accept CUC, he claimed that stores run by Cimex corporation and the Caribe chain were already following the new policy.

At Arte Habana, an Artex store located on San Rafael Street, the employee was blunt: “Look, I don’t know what they said on the Roundtable but here we’ve been told we can only charge in pesos, no CUC.”

“I don’t have that information. Call back tomorrow,” said an employee of the Tropicana nightclub, a subsidiary of Palmares, in response to a question posed during a phone call.

Handmade signs that read “CUC not accepted” have become a common sight in private businesses and taxis since late December, days before the new economic measures took effect.

Despite the Cuban government’s announcement that it would expand the network of businesses that accept CUC, a sign in a Caracol store suggests otherwise. (14ymedio)

As part of the monetary unification process being implemented throughout the country, the government had stated that the CUC would remain in circulation for six months. In practice, however, very few businesses are accepting it.

“A lot of people come here expecting to pay in CUC because they heard on television that they would have up to six months to spend it. But the truth is that we as private businesses are under no obligation to take them,” an employee of a privately owned cafe in Nuevo Vedado told 14ymedio.”I don’t accept CUC but, look, in addition to Cuban pesos, anyone who so desires can pay me in dollars or euros.”

____________

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: