14ymedio

It Took 23 Years to Deliver Apartments to 11 Havana Families Whose Buildings Had Collapsed

14ymedio Havana, 1 January 2020 – On Thursday, the authorities of the Cuban capital handed over 11 apartments to families in Central Havana, an event picked up in the official press and celebrated “in commemoration” of the 62^nd anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

The homes, according to a report in the Tribuna de La Habana, occupy former warehouses of the Drug Supply Company, which began to be remodeled in January of 2020.

The winners come, always according to the official press, from buildings that suffered collapses or that are in critical condition.

One of them is the project manager, Geolbis Denis Martínez, who told the local newspaper that he was “satisfied”: “I have been waiting for a moment like this for 23 years, I am happy to be a participant in such a valuable human gesture and to give this pleasure to a people who deserved, and anxiously waited for, the dream of having a home be fulfilled.” continue reading

In 2018, the Cuban government acknowledged that there was a deficit of almost a million homes on the island, which it assured would be resolved within ten years.

Housing is one of the most pressing problems in Cuba. According to a report from the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights from October, almost half of the homes in the country need repair, and 11% of families live in buildings that are at risk of collapse.

The shortage of materials, due to the endemic economic crisis on the island, and the strong hurricanes that hit the island have contributed to the deterioration of the national housing stock in recent decades.

The Government implemented a program of subsidies and credits for the construction of homes in 2013, but the problem has persisted, due to the increase in the population, aging and the lack of maintenance of the existing buildings.

On October 14, the most recent reported collapse took place. It was a three-story building on Lucena Street in Centro Habana, which left several families homeless. Some of the victims were later detained by the Police after a meeting with an official, which ended in a fight.

A few yards from there is the property on the corner of Belascoaín and San Miguel where last July a worker from the Communal Services company died after a wall fell on him while he was sweeping the street. The same month, a resident of the Cerro municipality died when she was trapped in the collapse of a building at 1061 Monte 1061 street.

At the end of September, 14ymedio also reported a collapse that occurred in a multi-family building on Amargura Street, between Aguacate and Compostela, in Old Havana, in which a 74-year-old woman lost her life.

The most serious collapse in Havana in the last year occurred when a balcony collapsed on three girls between 9 and 11 years old. The minors were returning from school when the structure fell on them, killing one on the spot; the other two died in the hospital.

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Raul Castro’s Distorted Memory

Raúl Castro embraces his successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel, on the last commemoration held for the 26th of July assault on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. (EFE)

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Valencia, 1 January 2021 – The newspaper Granma, on December 31^st of this cursed 2020, presents us the testimony of Raúl Castro published in the book El pueblo cubano, from the collection La Naturaleza y el Hombre, by Antonio Núñez Jiménez.

I do not know if it is their intention – as it was with his brother in the last years of his life – to turn Raúl Castro into the author of “Reflections” in the privileged space of the official newspaper of the Communist regime. If this is the case, welcome to the writer Raúl Castro. At least this way we can find out what he thinks, what he believes and what has led him to live the life he has lived.

The article, titled When I found out about the fall of the Batista regime, features a snapshot of the young Raúl entering the Moncada barracks alone with his bodyguard, where he seems to be talking with Colonel Rego Rubido, chief of the Santiago de Cuba’s military. continue reading

And after narrating the events, the battles, with the sympathetic reference to “gerolán” (a restorative medicine for old people from which the soldiers borrowed the name to describe the bonus they were paid in the campaign), very well known, by the way, because it has been referred to so many times in the Castros’ historiography that it’s now boring, the article enters into a description of the situation in Cuba at that time, which it relates as a “bleak outlook” and among the poorest countries in the world. And it does this with numerous indicators that seem taken from the Guinness Book of Castroism records.

It is precisely at this point that either Raúl Castro’s memory fails or he wantes to forget those times prior to 1959, when he was lucky enough to live in Cuba. Sometimes the memory disappears, or tends to overshadow events that occurred long ago, due to a serious illness. On other occasions, passions obscure or distort times lived in the past, basically because something happened that remains recorded in the subconscious and prevents objective vision. Whatever the ailment, there is no doubt that if Cuba had been in 1959 as Raúl Castro describes it, it is most likely that neither he, nor his brother, nor all those who seized power so as never to return it to Cuban society, would have existed. And it can be demonstrated.

I’m not going to bore readers with a lot of data. A few points will tell the story. For example, Raúl says that “secondary and higher education was reserved for only a minority.” Well, then he and his brother were part of this select group of students who in Cuba could escape from a “miserable” life. He and his brother, and most of the rebels, were not among the 23.6% illiterate — the million who could not read or write. They had gone to school, unlike the 45% of children who, according to Raúl Castro, did not attend school. Furthermore, they were not part of the 6% of children who managed to graduate from public school. Of course not, they went to religious schools in Havana, with high prices and elite education, where only the “privileged” went.

I do not think it appropriate to continue citing the figures that Raúl Castro offers about his alleged distortion of the historic reality. The interested reader can go to the Granma article and draw their own conclusions.

What I do think is convenient is to explain to Raúl Castro why he is wrong in his description of reality.

In that false scarecrow that he remembers and describes, it would have been impossible for Cuba to achieve a GDP per capita higher than that of Spain or Italy in those years and to have more than half a million visa applications from nationals of these countries wanting to realize their Cuban dream. Nor would it have been possible to have a currency, the Cuban peso, exchanging at parity with the dollar, the result of the competitiveness of an export sector that combined being the leading world power in sugar with the development of other activities in the service sector in which Cuba had clear world leadership, as in television for example.

With the Cuba described by Raúl Castro, it would not have been possible to count on generations of professionals who were contributing their knowledge to the country, for its accelerated development and modernization. The Cuban agricultural sector produced a surplus to feed the population, the markets and warehouses were well stocked, lines and ration cards were unthinkable, and the population enjoyed freedom of choice.

Motorization levels were approaching those of the United States and tourism was beginning to emerge as an economic activity. There were medical and educational services throughout the country, to which the population had access, both public and private, so that they could choose freely, and Cubans had bank deposits, pension and retirement plans, physical and economic assets, built with the effort and work of several generations.

Raúl Castro lived through those years and benefited from that vibrant society that, politically, did not want a regime like Batista’s, but rather aspired to a democratic, plural and free society, like those that were beginning to appear in Europe in those years of the Cold War. A society with advanced institutions for its time, with a relatively advanced level of governance compared to other countries, which aspired to progress and achieved increasing levels of quality of life.

History, however, did not want it to be so. Raúl Castro, his brother and that group of revolutionaries had a lot to do with this nation’s coming to a standstill. And that is why, 62 years later, starting this January 1st, with the implementation of the umpteenth of the Castro economic reforms — the so-called “Ordering Task” –Cubans will continue to think about how to ensure they can put one meal a day on their tables, or how to get deodorant or cleaning products by standing in some unknown line. Cubans who remain from before 1959 know that the country today is much worse than it was then. It makes no sense to go against historical memory, because stones that are thrown upwards at some point fall again.

As much as Raúl Castro insists on distorting reality, the existence without freedom, without respect for political rights, and dependent on the crumbs of the omnipotent state, it is the daily reality of Cuba that he and his generation leave for the future. Those who disappeared in 1959 had built a society with difficulties, of course they did, but notably better than today, and any contrast is not open to dispute.

I insist, although the data Raúl Castro offers in the article does not serve to understand what Cuba really was like in 1959, the grandfather’s war stories and the reference to gerolán deserve a few minutes. It’s not worth the trouble to talk about it here. I leave to his distorted memory the little battles to entertain the bored. Whoever has had the option to lead a Government and to adopt concrete and necessary measures to improve an economy and society, and simply does not do it, or, what is worse, is not capable of doing it, must assume that one day history will forget him, because his legacy is useless. However much effort the chorus and the applauders put forth, this is what is happening with his brother, Fidel, who, honestly, left the country much worse than Raúl.

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Editor’s Note: This text was originally published on the Cubaeconomía blog and is reproduced here with the author’s permission.

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In 2020 the Cuban Regime Suffered its First Defeats

The last two months of 2020 brought a barrage of news, such as the actions carried out by the San Isidro Movement. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 31 December 2020 — What happened in Cuba throughout this year can be related in a fragmentary way through a chronology, but the most important did not begin in January 2020, but on Wednesday, September 11, 2019, when the President of the Republic, to calm the citizenry, advised that on the 14th a ship with fuel arrived. Thus, began the so-called ‘temporary situation’, which, far from being transitory, has become chronic.

The novelty was that this time the Government lacked a commitment to improve the economic situation and the governed began to show their disagreement like never before.

Unlike when Fidel Castro was in command of the ship and could count on the absolute monopoly of the media, the emergence of social networks, which recorded exponential growth throughout 2019 with the ability to connect from mobile phones, enabling hundreds of thousands of people not only to learn more about what was happening but also to express their discontent. continue reading

The collapse of a balcony in Old Havana at the end of January 2020 resulted in the deaths of three girls; the fatal event unleashed a wave of protests that reached the comments section in the digital version of the official media comments. The momentous thing was not that the Government knew that its governed were blaming it for the tragedy, but that each dissatisfied person discovered that they were not alone.

The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic on March 11 unleashed an intense citizen campaign that urged the closing of airports to prevent the entry of new cases. The government’s irresponsible reaction to proclaim the country a “safe destination for tourism” caused a widespread reaction of disgust that included Communist Party supporters and activists. By the end of the year, more than 11,600 people had been infected and the death toll on the Island reached 145.

Shortages of food products in 2020 touched the agricultural markets that sell their products in a ‘liberated’ form – that is unrationed – and take payment in Cuban convertible pesos (CUC). As an inevitable consequence, the informal market gained in importance for consumers. Faced with the state’s inability to produce and market what the people need, the regime’s response was to persecute and punish those who were capable of doing so. National television, violating all known ethical standards, dedicated itself to making these cases public to serve as an example to others.

Faced with such actions, voices were also raised inviting the Government to unblock the productive forces, to permit rather than to repress.

The appearance in the middle of the year of new format of state stores where basic products can be bought only with bank cards backed by freely convertible currency – such as dollars and euros – appeared to promise to be the most unpopular measure of the year, especially since supplying these stores with goods (also in deficient quantities) rested on withdrawing numerous products from traditional stores.

To many it seemed inadmissible that the currency with which the government pays the workers to build socialism – the Cuban peso (CUP) – was not accepted as currency in these stores and that those who shopped in them were, by necessity, those who had relatives abroad able to recharge their cards with the required foreign currency. Furthermore, the cards created by the Central Bank of Cuba for this purpose, did not offer the service of changing Cuban pesos into dollars of euros.

The increase in restrictions imposed by the United States Government, in particular the sanctions that resulted in the suspension of Western Union as a remittance processor, were also protested by many Cubans and not only because of their effects on the family economy, but also because the measure was used by the dictatorship as an argument to justify its poor economic management.

The last two months of 2020 brought a barrage of news. In November, the events led by the San Isidro Movement, later resized with the presence of hundreds of young artists demanding freedom from the Ministry of Culture. In December, the so-called “Tarea Ordenamiento” (“Ordering” or “Statutory” Task) announced the end of the circulation of the convertible peso and significantly modified the relationship of wages to the prices of goods and services.

What happened around the San Isidro Movement, especially the disproportionate repressive response of the regime, dispels any doubt about the corrosive effects that freedom has in the middle of a dictatorship. The Government rejected the ability to meet with a small group of artists who decided to gather in their headquarters to protest the arrest of one of their own, rapper Denis Solís.

The government’s assault on the movement’s headquarters did not go unpunished and, although some of those who stood on November 27 in front of the Ministry excused themselves by clarifying that they did not share everything that was done in San Isidro, they agreed that it was necessary to recognize the right to express dissent.

Coinciding with the celebrations for Human Rights Day on 10 December, President Miguel Díaz-Canel, with the silent presence of Raúl Castro, announced in a special speech broadcast on National Television the beginning of new economic measures to take effect on January 1, 2021.

The exchange rate of 24 Cuban pesos for one dollar, the final extinction of the convertible peso and a set of measures aimed at eliminating the gratuities and subsidies that some workers receive through their jobs, will introduce the most profound changes in the daily lives of citizens.

The rise in the price of the electricity tariff from 9 centavos per kilowatt hour (kWh) to 40 centavos faced a reaction of such magnitude that a few days after it was announced it had to be rectified, leaving the price of one kWh at 33 centavos. For some, all this was a trick and from the beginning they announced prices that they already knew were going to drop; for others, it was a triumph of citizen protest reflected essentially on social networks.

Subsequently, increases in water rates and drug prices were announced and it is expected that in the first months of 2021 other bad news will become known. But beyond what remains to be known and the many facts that would serve to narrate this year that is ending, 2020 showed that Cubans are no longer the same. The pulse between the Government and the citizens was settled — on repeated occasions — at tables or with officialdom giving ground. 2021 could be the scene of many other defeats for the regime.

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2021 in Cuba, Goodbye to the Revolutionary Mask

Many lost patience to invest, prosper, and chart their dreams in Cuba. A quarter of a century lost for true change. (EFE)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 31 December 2020 – Cuba is going through a very difficult time. What is problematic this December lies not only in the economic crisis expressed in an 11% fall in the gross domestic product, nor is it entirely due to the confinement and pain imposed by the pandemic. The year 2020 says goodbye in dark hues for the Island, particularly in the uncertainty, the inability of its 11 million inhabitants to make plans for their near and medium term future.

In the face of this description, some will respond that there have been worse moments in our recent history. However, in the so-called Special Period of the 1990s — when the cutting off of the Soviet subsidy was followed by long blackouts, cuts in transport and food shortages — there were reserves of change that gave hope to the reformists and nurtured citizens’ dreams. In the midst of the collapse, there was a feeling that some political decisions taken in high places could unblock the productive forces and bring material relief to the people. There were even those who fantasized about a popular revolt that would finally bury, once and for all, the authoritarian model.

Although the only insurrection that occurred was that of thousands of desperate Cubans who tried to escape from the island during the day of the popular uprising known as the Maleconazo, those who bet on the long-awaited economic easing were not wrong. When the situation reached rock bottom, some of these transformations were a bitter pill that the ruling party had to accept: the dollarization of trade, the permission for agricultural markets to exist outside the ration system, the authorization to exercise private work, and the opening to foreign investment. For the first time in a long time, onions were once again seen on the market stands, private taxis filled the streets, and in restaurants run by the self-employed, known as paladares, some lost recipes from the national cuisine were recovered. continue reading

Now, unlike then, the capacity of Castroism to transform itself without breaking completely is very limited, almost nil. The system reaches 62 years of existence fossilized in its political core, lacking ideological magnetism to attract new followers and having wasted its wealth of reforms in half-done modifications, lukewarm transformations and steps that once looked forward but had to be turned back. In the time that separates both crises, the one caused by the collapse of the socialist camp in Eastern Europe and the current one, many lost the patience to invest, prosper and chart their dreams in Cuba. A quarter of a century lost for true change.

Today, up against the ropes, the authorities have proposed a package of measures to try to re-float the country in 2021, but so far the announced decisions are oriented more to the loss of subsidies and the cutting of budgets than to the deployment of formulas that promote entrepreneurship, trim nationalization and remove partisan politics from central decision-making. Because to do any of those things would seriously endanger the continuity of Castroism, although not doing them is also anticipating the date for its funeral.

Reactionary and immobile, fearful of news and distrustful of everything that has not come out of the laboratories of the Communist Party, all that remains of the current Cuban model is to repress. For the coming year it will finally set aside its mask of revolution and social justice to show itself as it is: a twentieth century dictatorship that geopolitics, chance and fear have allowed to get this far. Without results, all it has left to show is its teeth, and that further complicates any prognosis.

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This text was originally published in Deutsche Welle for Latin America.

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The Perfect Storm: San Isidro and Currency Unification

14ymedio, Jorge Hernández Fonseca, Havana, 27 December 2020 — The abolition of the Cuba’s dual currency system is, as we all know, essential to the development of a healthy economy on island. It is a reform the Communist nomenklatura has said it will adopt but which it is reluctant to undertake for fear of losing the political power it holds by force. Nevertheless, the Castro regime decided to go ahead with the so-called “ordering task” at the worst possible moment for the economy. It did so to play down and distract attention from the government’s reaction to a grassroots movement which has sprung up spontaneously in opposition to the dictatorship. This has only added fuel to an already out-of-control wildfire: rebellion.

You cannot do currency reform without providing goods and services. The viability of any currency is decided in the marketplace, not in some bureaucrat’s office. In essence, the market is about supply and demand for goods and services, exactly what universal socialism cannot provide. There can be no “ordering” possible without first offering goods and services. However, the problems caused by the government’s attempts to suppress the San Isidro Movement and clumsy public missteps by top officials of the Ministry of Culture have continued unabated.* The disruptions brought about by the ordering task will have dire consequences when chaos and disorder increase in 2021.

Additionally, there is the underappreciated level of expectation in Havana in regards to support the the regime might receive from the incoming American administration. In any case, economic support will not be forthcoming during first phase of a new relationship with the Biden administration, which will be faced with both repression in the streets of Havana and chaos caused by a disorderly currency unification process in an economy with few goods or services. This creates a situation in which the most vulnerable sectors of society — retirees, the elderly and the underprivileged — will undoubtedly suffer the most harm. continue reading

It is clear that, for a variety of reasons, the bipartisan establishment in the U.S. is not interested in defeating and replacing the Cuban dictatorship right now. However, the disorder that the island’s own authorities have planned for the beginning of next year could jeopardize this stance. One thing the American establishment does value is the island’s stability, which could be threatened by the perfect storm of political challenges posed by the San Isidro Movement and the economic disruption Cuban officials have planned.

For the first twenty days of January the U.S. government will still be led by Donald Trump, who will not hesitate to react forcefully to any possible violations of civil and political rights which the Cuban regime refuses to respect. In the event of blatantly repressive moves, the new Biden administration will be forced to take action against the regime. Civil recognition is one thing but support for a repressive dictatorship in full attack mode against a people without food or freedom who are demanding their rights is quite another.

*Translator’s note: The San Isidro Movement (MSI) begin in September 2018 as a protest against state censorship of artistic works and has become a platform for Cuban dissidents both at home and abroad. In November 300 MSI members and supporters, surrounded by police, demonstrated outside the Ministry of Culture, demanding dialogue with its vice-minister, who met with them for five hours.

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The Russian Ship ‘Alicia’ Participates in Cuba’s ‘Looting’ of Venezuelan Oil

The oil tanker ‘Alicia’ was renamed after the legendary Cuban dancer Alicia Alonso last year. (Trabajadores)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 December 2020 — On Tuesday the Alicia, an oil tanker with a Cuban flag but owned by a Russian company, is heading to the Venezuelan refinery in Amuay on its usual route to bring fuel to the island. It is not the only cargo ship that will bring supplies from the partner country of the Cuban regime. The Sandino, which left Cienfuegos on the 22nd, is heading to the same port.

The operation is one more among the usual crude transfers between the allied countries as denounced this Monday by Julio Borges, commissioner for Foreign Relations of the Government of Juan Guaidó, recognized by more than 50 countries. The politician assured that Venezuela’s Chavismo regime delivers up to 10% of the country’s daily oil production to the Cuban regime.

“Despite the PDVSA (state oil company) crisis, Nicolás Maduro delivers up to 10% of our daily oil production to Cuba,” Guaidó wrote on Twitter.

Borges, who is exiled in Colombia, cried out against Maduro for what he considers “one more example of his submission to Castroism” and expressed his annoyance in another message on the social network. continue reading

“Outrageous! Yesterday the tanker Alicia arrived in Amuay, a ship operated by a Russian company that transports crude oil to Havana. It is the second trip of that ship this month,” he said, without knowing that, probably at same time, the Sandino is also on its way to his country to load oil destined for Cuba.

The information was provided on Monday night by the oil expert Armand Delon, who gave the position of the ship and stated that on December 18 the Sandino left Puerto de La Cruz with 390,000 barrels of crude “for the sanctioned military mafias Cubametales/Cupet.”

For Delon, who also asked his followers not to confuse Cubans who support the regime with the “majority” that is against the two dictatorships, this continuous coming and going of ships reflects that both governments are mocking US sanctions that prevent them from trading.

According to the Venezuelan press, gasoline consumption has increased in Venezuela in the last month by 20,000 barrels per day and PDVSA’s production amounts to between 70,000 and 80,000. In the previous months, when Venezuelans were in quarantine, consumption was about 130,000 barrels a day; in December, with a certain normalization of life, 150,000 are being consumed, according to the figures of the Oil Chamber of Venezuela.

“The world and Venezuelans must join forces to stop this looting,” said Borges, alarmed by the possibility that shortages continue to increase in Venezuela as crude oil is given away to Cuba.

In September, seven ships left the Caribbean country bound for Cuba. At the beginning of October another two joined, Ícaro and Sandino, the latter, in particular, has loaded in Venezuelan refineries to return to the island every month since July.

Both the Alicia and the Sandino are owned by Caroil Transport Marine LTD, a company registered in Cyprus and under the control of the brother of Brigadier General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Callejas, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, head of the V Department of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and director of Gaesa, the economic emporium of the island’s military. He is particularly affected by individual sanctions, but also by Caroil Transport Marine LTD itself, which, nevertheless, has spent the whole year bringing crude from Venezuela, including some supplied by Iran, a country also affected by being on the United States Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) list.

The tanker Alicia, formerly known as the Kriti Amber, was renamed in honor of Cuba’s late prima ballerina Alicia Alonso. Previously, the ship also received the names Oriental Emerald and Ocean Globe. It was built at the SLS Heavy Industries shipyard, (Busan, South Korea), has been operating since 2005, and is currently owned by the Russian company Sovcomflot.

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14ymedio’s 2020 Faces: Roberto G. Pantoja, Chess Grandmaster

Pantoja was removed for denouncing the non-payment of the ‘stimulus’ that was owed to him as a Chess Grandmaster. (Asere)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 December 2020 — Cuban Grandmaster (GM) Roberto García Pantoja made news in 2020 beyond his triumphs on the board. On June 29, the chess player denounced on his Facebook wall that the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder) had not made the payment of 100 CUC that was owed to him for nine months for being a GM.

Far from rectifying the error and paying him what he is owed, the Inder summoned him to a disciplinary court, where they reproached him for making his case public through social networks.

The president of the Cuban Chess Federation, Carlos Rivero González, even published a letter in which he said that the Grandmaster faced an “open process” for various “indisciplines,” and that no athlete in that case can be approved a “stimulation” to receive payments.

In response, Pantoja, who had already mentioned that his case was not the only one, requested his separation from the Federation.

Cuban chess thus suffered the loss of another Grandmaster, adding to others who emigrated and now play under the flag of other countries, such as Lázaro Bruzón, Leinier Domínguez Pérez and Yuniesky Quesada.
Several chess players on the island, did express solidarity with Pantoja. This was the case of Yuri González Vidal, winner of the national championship in 2018, and Yusnel Bacallao, the second best Cuban player in the international ranking, who withdrew in protest from the World Chess Olympiad.

See more 14ymedio’s series Faces of 2020

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14ymedio’s Faces of 2020: Alejandro Gil, Minister of Economy

Alejandro Gil, Minister of Economy, in one of his many appearances on the Roundtable TV program.

14ymedio, Havana, 26 December 2020 — Almost unknown when Miguel Díaz-Canel appointed him Minister of Economy and Planning of Cuba, he has become a key man on the island in a year in which the pandemic has finished sinking an economy that was already in a coma.

Of the same generation as the president, Alejandro Gil has always been a civil servant and held the position of vice minister when the octogenarian Ricardo Cabrisas was in charge of the portfolio.

From his personal life it is known that he is the brother of Cuban television presenter Vicky Gil, now a resident of Spain, who has described the minister in his social networks as “a brilliant, simple, dedicated, studious, intelligent and self-sacrificing man” who “lives with his family in the same dilapidated apartment as always. He does not benefit from his position. He only lives to work and to support a dying economy. He changed his life of privilege in England as manager of the mixed company Seguros Caudal to return to Cuba and work from dawn to dusk without perks or comforts. “

Whether or not this is the case, Cubans have seen him recite the official discourse without any news of the great deal that could be expected for a man at the helm of the economy at a key moment. The most far-reaching reforms carried out this year, with monetary unification at the head, have been reserved for Marino Murillo, while he has been in charge of minimizing criticism of the expansion of foreign currency stores, which since this year sell food and personal hygiene and cleaning products, to the annoyance of citizens.

In May he dared to spill the beans at a meeting of the Council of Ministers in which he admitted the seriousness of the crisis. His words were picked up by the official press, which was forced to withdraw the article, letting the orthodox version of avoiding pessimism prevail.

See more 14ymedio’s series Faces of 2020

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14ymedio’s Faces of 2020: Ruhama Fernández, Youtuber

The young ‘youtuber’ Ruhama Fernández knew that she was banned from leaving the country when she went to get her passport. (Facebook/Ruhama Fernández)

Ruhama Fernández became known in March, when she won the contest for influencers organized by the ‘Red Cuban Power’ platform, in the category “future society, dreams for Cuba.”

On her YouTube channel, the 21-year-old former medical student from Santiago de Cuba talks about political and social issues, always from a critical point of view towards the regime.

After winning the award she was a victim of harassment by State Security. Just one month later, she was summoned by the police in her hometown and, in July, the authorities forced the interruption of the internet service she received through an informal network managed by one of her neighbors. The police visited the neighbor and threatened to cancel all her service if she continued to facilitate the connection for Fernández.

When she went to get her passport to travel to the United States, where her parents live, in August, she discovered that she is regulated – the island’s authorities euphemism for being banned from traveling – for reasons of “public interest” and was prohibited from leaving the country.

In recent months, the authorities have continued to summon her frequently. In one of her last interrogations, in early November, she reported that a State Security officer sexually harassed her. “Do you know how beautiful you are to be involved in that?” the agent told her, Fernández said, disgusted.
Her case, reported by the independent media, was put forward by Human Rights Watch (HRW) as an example of the harassment to which the Cuban government is subjecting influencers , who have become a new target of repression on the island.

See more 14ymedio’s series Faces of 2020

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14ymedio’s Faces of 2020: Pedro Junco, Writer from Camaguey

Pedro Junco López was expelled from the Cuban Writers and Artists Union in August (Courtesy)

Pedro Armando Junco (b. Camagüey, 1947), was one of the most successful writers and intellectuals in Cuba. But as he became more belligerent in his political demonstrations, his luck changed, to the point of being expelled from the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac), to which he had belonged for dozens of years and which had distinguished him with the National David Prize in 1987 for his book La furia de los vientos (The Fury of the Winds).

As early as 2015, Junco began to commit himself with more of an emphasis on politics. That year, his son, the rocker Pedro Mandy Junco, was murdered in an unfortunate event that led the author to become involved in a campaign in favor of tougher penalties for this type of crime in Cuba.

But the radical change came this year, when he addressed an open letter to Miguel Díaz-Canel in which he lamented the sale of food and hygiene products in stores in freely convertible currency and claimed the right to question political decisions without being branded as enemy, as should happen in a democratic country.

The text annoyed, according to the author, due to its wide repercussions, which led to his expulsion from Uneac. But that was only the first step. Junco then began to sponsor a literary club that was held in August and September, not without problems, since in the second meeting a woman participant backed out, a sign that the intellectual did not know and did not want to see.

The suspension of the third meeting was already accomplished. An official telephoned one of the guests to warn him that it was best not to attend. Although Junco decided to go ahead, he was summoned by the authorities and told that the event was not going to take place. A new demonstration that censorship does not stop even with those who once were the standard bearers of culture.

See more 14ymedio’s series Faces of 2020

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14ymedio’s Faces of 2020: Francisco Duran, Director of Epidemiology

Francisco Durán has been the visible face of Covid in Cuba, as well as the strategist of epidemiological decisions.

14ymedio, Havana, 26 December 2020 — Originally from Santiago de Cuba, the person in charge of leading the response to Covid-19 in Cuba seemed predestined to be a doctor by family tradition, since he is the son of a psychiatrist and a stomatologist.

He graduated in Medicine in Havana in 1975 and began his professional work at the Military Hospital of Camagüey, although it was not until 1980 that he began to specialize in the field that he commands today. Then he began his work in the Provincial Budget Unit of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Santiago de Cuba, where he ended up being the deputy director.

In 1991 he took charge of the AIDS Sanatorium, and in 1994 he was appointed rector of the Higher Institute of Medical Sciences of the Province of Santiago de Cuba, of which he was the director of Health until 2014. In 2018 he was elected national director of Epidemiology of the Ministry, which has led him to be the person responsible and the visible face of the fight against the pandemic on the Island.

With Durán at the helm, Cuba has managed to successfully emerge from a disease that has cost the lives of millions of people arund the world, according to some experts due to a combination of factors that especially relate to prevention rather than the treatment of those affected. The widespread primary care, epidemiological surveillance, the early closure of borders and the ease of limiting public liberties have contributed to the good official data.

On the negative side, Durán has had to face criticism from those who have rejected his constant appeals to responsibility and individual fault in a public health problem.

See more 14ymedio’s series Faces of 2020

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Pork Available with Ration Book, Stamp and ID Card

A line in Havana on Tuesday to buy pork. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, December 23, 2020 — “Three hours in line for a couple of pounds of pork is crazy. I have never waited in line to buy pork. They used to bring it to my house from Cienfuegos but, since the pandemic started, not anymore,” laments Teresa Crespo on Monday afternoon before she left the line at the market on 17th and K streets in Vedado where, for three days, the state has been selling the product there for forty pesos a pound.

“I waited in line because this year I wanted to have a proper [holiday] meal and there’s no other way to do that. You have to bring your ration book and your ID card. And when you buy it, they stamp your hand so you can’t come back and buy more,” she said.

The coordinator of provincial government programs, Julio Martinez, admitted to official media outlets that, although they are “very far from meeting public demand” they have created various networks to sell fresh and smoked pork, cured sausages, other meats, frozen fish and “a level of beer” in a controlled way. continue reading

He also said the items could be purchased from December 20th to 31st, from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, “in an unrestricted but controlled manner,” Buyers are required to present a ration book and ID card. The goal, he said, is to limit each household to one purchase in order to avoid hoarding.

With Christmas and New Year’s Eve just around the corner and the country facing severe food shortages, many family members leave home early in the morning in search of these commodities, hoping to get them before supplies run out. In some neighborhoods people wait in lines several kilometers long.

“The worst thing about it is I get in line without a guarantee that I’ll even be able to buy anything,” says one customer. “It’s nerve wracking. My neighbor waited in line for four hours and left empty-handed.”

The situation is the same in neighborhoods throughout the city, including Central Havana. “At the moment I’m in a line that’s full of police and they don’t allow photos. But it’s very crowded. They’re also giving out cases of beer but you have to return the empty bottles,” a young man told this reporter.

“Before, if you wanted to buy something at this price, between forty and forty-five pesos, all you had to do was go to the market and, presto, the meat was in your bag, ready to take home. Not anymore. Now you have to wait in a very long line,” says a retiree from the same area.

“What’s bad for me is that they’re not selling it at neighborhood stores. They’ve set up a couple of places in different areas and it’s difficult for older people who live alone to get there to buy it,” the woman said.

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Cuban Police Seize Seven Tons of Meat Products in an Illegal Mini-industry in Matanzas

The supplier of the business was a driver from the Construction Services Company in Varadero. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havna, 25 December 2020 — A mini-industry that was dedicated to the sale of meat and the production of sausages was dismantled by the police in the municipality of Jovellanos in the province of Matanzas, according to Cuban Television. In the operation, seven tons of meat products were seized.

The supplier of the business was a driver from the Construction Services Company in Varadero who is in provisional prison. The objective of the precautionary measure is to find others involved in the criminal network, the official media reported.

Although no details were given about the owners of the mini-industry or how many people worked there, it was learned that they did not have a license to carry out the activity and they are being prosecuted for the crime of illicit economic activity. continue reading

Those responsible for the business bought some meats at a lower price and then resold them, an official from the Interior Ministry said in the report. They also did this with chicken, a product of which 162 imported boxes were seized.

Among the violations that were detected and that were reported by the criminal investigator in charge of the case, is the theft of electricity for not having a meter installed. The debt with the Electric Company for the electricity they used without paying amounts to more than 700,000 pesos.

The police also seized equipment from the mini-industry and several bags of polyphosphate that were used in the manufacture of the sausages.

For some months now, the official media have been publishing information related to criminal acts in state institutions or that involve the participation of their officials and workers. A new way of reporting robberies to the State itself, which in other times were kept out of the official press.

This Wednesday, the National Television Newscast reported that the Police detained four workers from the Lactea Company in Holguín province for stealing 1,336 kilograms of industrial cheese to sell in the informal market.

At the beginning of the week in the same space it was learned that several Aerovaradero workers were arrested for an alleged crime of theft and misappropriation, in a new episode within the Government’s strategy of showing its “relentless fight against corruption.”

This end of year, meat products are among those with the highest demand, highest prices and the greatest shortage in Cuba. The authorities have tried to alleviate this deficit by selling pork at subsidized prices but the distribution of the limited supply has brought long lines, crowds and fights.

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Cuban Professor Harassed by Political Police Manages to Make His Walk ‘For Freedom’

Physics professor Pedro Albert Sánchez was able to carry out his peaceful walk this Thursday. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 26 December 2020 — Physics professor Pedro Albert Sánchez was able to make his peaceful walk this Thursday “in honor of freedom” from the sculpture dedicated to the Knight of Paris, in Old Havana, to the El Quijote park in El Vedado, after the last Sunday when he was detained for 24 hours after launching the call.

“As I had promised, I made my walk in honor of the freedom of expression of all of us who feel excluded from this regime. Despite not being interrupted while I was walking, I did notice a lot of tension around,” Sánchez commented on his Facebook account.

Internet users responded to Sánchez with words of support and encouragement. “Professor, I hope there will be more walks and that you will do them accompanied by those who identify with your ideas. We have only one life and we deserve to live it with dignity,” said a profile who identified himself as “all Cubans.” continue reading

Other commentators congratulated the professor on the initiative and recommended that he take special care in case of possible reprisals that the Cuban political police may take against him and his family.

“I can even say that someone recorded me, the question would be which side is that person on, whether on the side of freedom or repression,” the professor inquired. “My position before the political police remains the same, I have no accounts to render to injustice and to them as human beings I tell them that the security of the State does not depend on the abuse of power they commit, but on the dignity with which they carry out their work.”

Sánchez also referred to the confiscation of his mobile phone during his arrest: “Those bunglers taking a phone from an old man who wants to tell four truths added to everything they have done for more than 60 years that does not guarantee the security of the State, which guarantees is the absolutization of the power of the elite.”

“My mission is to demonstrate as long as I have the strength that what they are doing is not for the good of the Cuban people, they are guaranteeing the power of an elite that uses the people as hostages. I, like many Cubans, wish to safeguard the true conquests of our people and not the nonsense of the elite.”

The 62-year-old professor was arrested last Sunday for calling for a peaceful walk in Havana demanding freedom of the press and expression. He was not heard from again until the police decided to release him. “They took away his phone, the only thing he has to communicate with and without the chance of having another one. He is already at home, but in solitary confinement,” his former student Ileana Medina said at the time.

Shortly before the arrest, Sánchez, who does not consider himself an opponent, released a video from John Lennon Park in which he called for the unity of people “excluded from socialist society” and asked the president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, “to be responsible for a situation that could turn dangerous.”

In his message, Sánchez demanded the immediate mobilization of “those who understand this, those who want to feel themselves to be civic human beings even though they are apolitical. This is the beginning of a process, but not 40 years from now, when my granddaughter is 15 years old, no, it is for now.”

The teacher had previously released a video from his home in which he said he felt a lot of pressure, but was not afraid; and he demanded the help of the press to spread what he considers “the truth of what is happening,” in addition to calling the State repudiation rallies state terrorism. “If they think they are doing those things for the love of the people, for the love of all society, they are making love to us by force.”

Sánchez, in another video published this Wednesday on this Facebook profile, said that if necessary, on 31 December there would be another walk for freedom on the Island.

The professor’s arrest was one more case among the many arbitrary arrests made by the political police lately. Following the hunger strike organized in November by various artists to demand the release of rapper Denis Solís for the crime of “contempt,” most of these young people are forcibly confined to their homes and immediately detained every time they try to go out.

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Cuban Priest Censures Leaders Who ‘Cling to Outdated Ideas, Already Obsolete’

Father Maikel Gómez said that “the freedom of the children of God”… “can never be coerced, much less conditioned.” (Facebook)

14ymedio, Lorey Saman, Mexico, 26 December 2020 — The voices of Cuban priests have made themselves heard with great force in recent months. This December 24, as Christmas was being celebrated, Deacon Maikel Gómez, from the Parish of San Juan Bosco, in Havana, gave a homily in which he reflected on freedom within the Island.

“Our society today needs the touch of love, a love that unites and not disunites, a love that joins together and not separates,” said the Catholic father.

“We do not have the right to say that our streets are for some or for others, our streets belong to everyone, to all of us who were born here, wherever we are,” said the priest amid a growing official campaign of stigmatization against critics of the system. continue reading

Gomez affirmed that progress could not be made if they continue to “build walls that Christ once demolished for you”… “We need to transform our hearts, we need to transform our thinking, and this will be the only way to transform our society, a society based on Christ, founded on love, understanding and solidarity among all.”

He added that, “Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of the Father,” came to “a Cuba ripped apart, in the midst of sadness and uncertainties, in the midst of poverty and pain, in the midst of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of many,” but also he comes “to guide us with his light in the midst of so much darkness and uncertainty.”

The priest affirmed that the “Word of the Lord” is present “in response to the desperate cry of a people who, like Israel, walk in a desert led by others who do not want to see the light and cling to outdated ideas, now obsolete.”

During the homily, which was shared on social networks by the Center for Coexistence Studies, Gómez said that “the freedom of the children of God” “can never be coerced, much less conditioned.”

In addition, he made reference to the religious censorship that has been experienced on the Island: “His birth [of Jesus] today echoes once again of the need for love that still exists among all, the need for love and love of God, love that at some point they tried to erase from our minds, and that, despite all these years, even when the Church was decimated, threatened and intimidated, that love continued to beat and the fact of our presence here confirms my words.”

Quoting the Cuban philosopher and educator José de la Luz y Caballero, he affirmed that it will be necessary to give up training “purely mechanical and routine men,” and to achieve a legion of thinkers with the necessary capacity for reflection on existential issues, including social problems.

Deacon Maikel Gómez’s reflections come a few days after the Cuban Catholic bishops, in their traditional Christmas message , included a call “for dialogue and negotiation between those who have different opinions and criteria”, amid strong smear campaigns of the Government against its critics.

At the end of November, more than 200 priests, religious and lay people residing in Cuba joined the wave of solidarity with the San Isidro Movement and the activists on hunger strike and signed a letter asking the Government not to let them die. They requested that the event not end in a fatal outcome, “to be consistent with the demands of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which proclaims the dignity of every human being as an absolute value.”

On the other hand, among the religious who have spoken individually about the situation on the island in recent months are Father Alberto Reyes, parish priest of the church of San Jerónimo, in Esmeralda, Camagüey, who posted on his Facebook wall a text in which he lamented the fear and oppression that Cubans suffer; and the priest Jorge Luis Pérez Soto, parish priest of San Francisco de Paula, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre, in Havana, who claimed that “the Church does have to get involved in politics.”

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