Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara Will be Tried for ‘Property Damage’

Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara has been arrested twenty times in recent years. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 3 March 2020 — Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara will be tried in a “summary trial” to be held in less than ten days, according to the members of the San Isidro Movement of which the artist is a member. The movement denounced the coming trial.

The authorities arrested Otero Alcantara last Sunday afternoon to prevent him from attending the LGTBIQ ‘kissing call’ protest before the Cuban Radio and Television Institute. During the arrest, curator Claudia Genlui was beaten by a police officer and thrown to the ground on the public street. In addition, her cell phone was searched without documentation or an authorization for the search.

On Monday, artists Iris Ruiz and Amaury Pacheco, along with Genlui, went to the headquarters of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) on Rancho Boyeros Avenue in Havana to find out the whereabouts of Otero Alcántara. continue reading

The police informed them that Otero Alcantara is in the detention center known as Vivac, accused of property damage.

“They told us at the national PNR address that he will be subjected to ‘abbreviated summary judgment’ and that this should take place before ten days have elapsed according to the current legal system,” explains the group in a note published on Facebook.

According to the group, the authorities have sought an accusation of greater severity than on previous occasions to increase the probability of a trial and, eventually, a subsequent conviction. In the past, the activist had been charged with the alleged crimes of aggravated contempt and outrage against national symbols which had no judicial path.

The San Isidro Movement has not taken on this situation unprepared. “We will start a campaign based on the freedom of Luis Manuel, as well as towards the fundamental freedoms of all Cubans. We will be in the streets and in the courts, and as long as we exist we will be raising our voices because the injustice that prevails is great and unacceptable. All our operational options are on the table,” they warn.

In addition, they called on all Cuban artists who want to contribute some creative idea that supports “those who defend freedom on the Island of Cuba” to join the campaign for the freedom of Otero Alcantara, and to demand support from cultural communities to “raise their voices before the injustice and the oppression that is experienced on the island, because these procedures can happen (and they do happen) to any citizen who has decided to live in freedom.”

Otero Alcántara has suffered almost twenty arrests in recent years, especially for his activism against Decree Law 349, which seeks to regulate dissemination and artistic creation, keeping control in state hands.

“This is the 17th detention of this independent artist, and they will continue… because there is one goal: to bend, to tire, to eliminate his creative spirit, his conviction, to condition his art … I really believe it impossible [for them to achieve this], at least for a long time,” Genlui explained on Facebook.

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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.

Cuba Offers Canada Doctors to Care for Indigenous Populations

Jerry Daniels in Havana with doctors preparing to go abroad. (@MCDRSC)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 5 March 2020 — A Cuban doctor arrived last Monday in the Canadian province of Manitoba as an advance guard for a project for the hiring of Cuban health personnel to serve the native populations of that country.

To compensate for the forced withdrawal of its medical missions in several Latin American countries, especially in Brazil, the Cuban government is trying to find new markets for the export of services that represent the country’s primary source of income, ahead of remittances and tourism. And the indigenous Canadians offer an opportunity in a rich country that has difficulties in serving these populations.

The Cuban government brought Jerry Daniels, great chief of the southern Manitoba region, and David Ledoux, chief of the Gambler people, as well as Nelson Genaille, of the Sapotewayak Cree nation, to a press conference at the National Hotel in Havana last Friday to sell the offer from the Cuban government. On Monday there was a Cuban doctor deployed in the field who will be the pioneer of a project to which they hope to add many others if the experience is good. continue reading

In their presentation in Havana, the indigenous leaders explained that the Canadian Government has failed to bring to their villages the high standards of healthcare found elsewhere in that country and Cuba will be able to do so.

“We want our communities to have clinics, hospitals and other care centers, and I urge the other leaders of the ‘first nations’ to open up to this possibility of collaboration with Cuba, which we need so much,” said Daniels, who regrets that natives abandon their communities to move to big cities due to lack of support.

In an interview with the Russian agency Sputnik , Michelle Chantal Dubois, an advisor of Mohawk origin and promoter of the initiative, said that the problems of offering good quality healthcare in the indigenous villages are linked to the lack of capacity of the Canadian Government to train health services that serve these areas, so the project with Cuba, if it materializes, will cover that aspect as well.

“Even if Canada were willing to do so, it would be impossible to train a sufficient number of doctors. There are no doctors and nurses for all of Canada, […] 38% of them are foreigners and of those, a large number have been trained in Cuba,” said Dubois.

Among the problems that afflict these communities, according to Dubois, are alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide associated with poverty. “The Cuban vision of health is mainly focused on prevention. The goal is to prevent problems. This is really what we need. Cuban doctors are also sensitive to the reality of suicide, which is a serious problem in indigenous communities,” she pointed out in the interview.

The indigenous chief of Manitoba believes that individuals from the national health services experience a large cultural shock and remain very few days because they are part of an elite that is not prepared to face the living conditions of the indigenous people, and they expect the opposite of what those who arrive from the Isand will expect. “Cuban doctors take the time to adapt and integrate into the communities they go to. On the contrary, Canadian doctors seem to have little interest in the aboriginal reality,” Daniels said.

From the first contacts, at the end of last year, this current campaign developed by Cuba to attract new contracts was born. On December 5, 2019, Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Health, Marcia Cobas, delivered a speech in Ottawa to representatives of the native peoples, a large market that consists of 634 communities and about 1.6 million people.

Last year, Cuba increased its presence in new parts of the continent by negotiating with countries that were not previously in its sights. The French Parliament approved a project in July to reform the health system to respond to the demands of its overseas territories, which for months had been requesting to hire Cuban doctors.

The provision authorized the territories of the French Antilles to hire doctors and health workers from outside the European Union. The promoters of the idea lamented that the great distance that separates them from Europe, together with the laws, was leaving them without medical personnel.

At the beginning of 2019, French Guyana hired one hundred Cuban doctors, under an ordinance in force since 2005.

Far from there, but in the same country, a French town in the department of Ardèche (Privas) asked to be able to bring Cuban personnel to reopen the maternity hospital that they had to close in September due to lack of staff.

Cuba’s efforts are also very focused on the Middle East, where in recent years it has maintained numerous international missions in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

This latter country was the focus of an extensive article in the British newspaper The Guardian, which visted a hospital in Doha and found that each Cuban doctor received about 1,000 dollars a month, approximately 10% of what other foreign doctors earn in the country’s hsopitals. The rest of the money paid for the Cuban doctors, betwen $4,000 and $9,000 remain in the hands of the Cuban State.

This same newspaper published a report this month dedicated to analyzing the efforts of Donald Trump Administration to put an end to the international missions, which it describes as slavery, based on the the labor and salary conditions of the professionals that serve on them. For this article, The Guardian interviewed several doctors who said they were happy to do this work although they dared to confess their discomfort with the small percentage they receive relative to what the State earns.

The impact that the breaking of the huge contracts Cuba had had with countries such as Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia especially, although also in Uruguay, is unknown.

The Plaza of the Revolution also had the Mexican option, which it tried at the end of 2018 after Andrés Manuel López Obrador became president, but it was rejected by the president himself. Another instance was Venezuela, with whom Cuba maintains collaboration in all areas, although it has withdrawn part of its medical staff in that country.

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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.

Mike Porcel, From Censorship to Censorship

Mike Porcel has arrived from the hands of the young filmmakers who have lovingly told his story and his attempt to leave the country during the massive Mariel Boatlift.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 4 March 2020 — I had heard of him in the same terms that are used to describe a mythological creature. Those who listened to Mike Porcel told me about his lyrics, his mastery of the guitar and a voice that stood out among other troubadours, but my generation never heard him on the radio or saw him at a concert. All we knew was that he had existed, that he had been erased from our musical history and that his songs were taken from us.

This February, decades later, I heard Porcel’s name again. The censorship of the documentary Sueños al pairo (Dreams Adrift) at the Young Filmmakers Festival has once again hidden the work of this troubadour from Cubans. However, unlike in the 1980s when the cultural authorities could condemn any ‘uncomfortable’ artist to ostracism or social death, this new excising out of intransigence only serves to turn our focus to the author of Ay, del amor (Alas my Love) and Diario (Diary).

Porcel has returned through the front door, as well he should. Instead of through one of those cynical official tributes to those who were once excluded and vilified, the singer-songwriter has arrived from the hands of the young filmmakers who have lovingly told his story and his attempt to leave the country during the massive Mariel Boatlift. And they tell of the later silencing of his voice during the nine long years he was forced to remain in Cuba condemned to ostracism with the collaboration of the artistic guild that was complicit in his banishment from the stage. continue reading

The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) has treated “guest of honor” Porcel, as expected. Not only excluding the documentary from the young Filmmakers Festival, but also denying permission for the use of images of his work from their archives. The result is that, instead of a heroic Cuban under siege, for long minutes we see a vulgar people, disposed to lynch those who want to leave the “socialist paradise.” Many of those faces that we see in the execrable acts of repudiation, are spending their old age in Miami or living in Havana off remittances from that city.

The directors, José Luis Aparicio and Fernando Fraguela, manage with their work to confront us with our own responsibility, even those of us who were just children when Porcel’s voice was prohibited. Although the guilt is not inherited and many didn’t even know of the troubadour’s existence, the mere fact of having accepted and contributed to – with a lack of curiosity or fear of asking questions – the support of a partial version of our culture, with some names authorized and others forbidden, represents a collective burden.

Passing before the camera we also see some of the faces of the troubadours of that time, drinking buddies, the singers who added Porcel’s songs to their own repertoire, among them those who were silent or looked away when the stigma of “gusano” – worm – that word hurled by Fidel at those who wanted to leave – was placed on the artist’s life. Some of them contributed – out of envy, fear or mediocrity – to burying alive a man who, just before, they had hugged and wanted to appear in family photos with when his song En busca de una nueva flor  (In Search of a New Flower) became the hymn of the 9th Youth and Student Festival in 1978.

Sueños al pairo is a painful journey through the unhealed wounds of a nation. To this day, the Plaza of the Revolution has not offered a public self-criticism of those excesses in which it fostered the confrontations of Cubans against Cubans, protected by some in an alleged ideological superiority that, unfortunately, continues to be instilled in schools and promoted in the national media

The hordes of political intolerance still remain and, even today, they gather – out of economic opportunism – though they no longer act out against emigrants but they remain ready to destroy the life of a dissident, of a human rights activist or of an independent journalist.

The double-censored, the outlaw Mike Porcel, has returned to make us understand how little the limits have changed.

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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.

Construction Materials Will Be Sold with a Magnetic Card to Prevent Corruption

The sale of construction materials with a magnetic card is aimed at “achieving a greater transparency in the selling and the cash handling, using e-commerce platforms.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 2 March 2020 — Construction materials will only be sold with the use of a magnetic card in four Cuban provinces and one municipality. This measure seeks to prevent the corruption and theft prevailing in the so-called rastros [flea-markets], the common moniker for the state-owned outlets where construction materials are sold. Mayabeque, Cienfuegos, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo and Isle of Youth will be the first territories where cement, sand, water tanks and bricks will no longer be acquired in cash.

According to the Ministry of Internal Commerce, this measure will be extended to Havana in the following month and in May, it will be implemented in all the provincial capitals.

The report also points out that the use of other means of payment will be authorized on an exceptions basis by the Central Bank of Cuba for the beneficiaries of subsidies and credits approved between 2012 and 2019 or due to any weather situation during the time specified. continue reading

According to the Ministry, this resolution seeks “to acheive a better transparency in sales and in the way the cash is handled, using e-commerce platforms.

Depite the new local production programs for sand and gravel and construction blocks that have received plenty of attention by the official media in the last few years, the so-called rastros are unable to meet the high demand of a country where more than 60% the housing units are in a fair or poor condition.

This situation has contributed to theft, wrongful management, the arbitrary variation of prices and shortages of the most in-demand items, such as cement, steel bars, fibre cement tiles and zinc boards.

In these outlets that sell in Cuban pesos there is usually lack of doors, windows, bathroom fixtures, paint, plastic pipeline pieces and hydrolic and sanitary connections. The situation is even worse when it comes to ceramic tiles, concrete joists and water tanks.

Another alternative is the stores that sell only in Cuban convertible pesos (CUC), where they have a limited offer of construction materials at high prices. At the so-called ’shoppings’, a P350 bag of cement, used for concrete roofing and kitchen counters, is worth 6 CUC (roughly $6 US). Depite this price, which equals the wages of one week’s work for an average professional working for the government, the demand of this product is still high.

Since the collapse of the Communist Bloc and the end of the Soviet subsidies, the national cement industry has suffered decades of decadence. In 1989, 3.7 million tonnes of cement were produced in the Island but by 1993 the number had dropped to 1.04 million.

Although slightly recovered, the recent years show disturbing data; such as 2017, when a little over 1.4 million tonnes of gray cement were produced in Cuba. According to a report by the Association of Producers, the numbers are still very far from the 5.2 million achieved by the Dominican Republic that same year, and also far from the amount produced by the Island itself in 1958, with a record of 4.27 million tonnes, according to Foresight Cuba.

It has been more than a year that this product has almost disappeared from the retail chain that sells in CUCs, while in the rastros it has been limited to customers who have been granted subsidies for the restoration of their houses damaged by  hurricanes or tornados, like the one that impacted more than 3,000 houses in Havana in January 2019.

After the hit of the tornado, the government granted a 50% discount on the cost of the construction materials for those affected by the natural disaster in the neighborhoods of Luyano, Regla, Guanabacoa, and Santo Suarez, and a 70%  discount on water tanks. However, the damages were way greater than the country’s capacity to produce or import many of the materials.

“It is necessary that the rastro in the Plaza de la Revolucion district starts selling products for the people who cannot count on a subsidy, as most of the buildings, especially in the Vedado neighborhood, are more than 60 years old and need some restoration and at that rastro they always say that they only have construction materials for those receiving subsidies,” complains Maricel, an internet user who reacted to the press release about the new measure from MINCIN (Ministry of Internal Commerce, for its acromyn in Spanish) published by the state newspaper Granma.

Others, such as Yunior, hope that the new measure “eradicates the smuggling of materials and we can all acquire them according to the needs of each one.” Smuggling materials is a widespread practice and one to which families who decide to repair their home must frequently appeal. In the informal market of the Island you can find many of the products stolen from the rastros and also other diverted from the state buildings.

“Everything for construction materials,” says an ad on one of the most popular classified digital sites in the country. “We have galvanized glazed doors and windows, cement, bricks, glass blocks, large slabs and all of the best quality, the best prices and the best deal in the market. Our stock is impressive and stable, and we have transportation available,” it adds.

Some of the outlets that  sell construction materials are closed to the public, such as in La Timba neighborhood, and are only attending to tornado victims. (14ymedio)

Customers who are in a hurry and have more economic resources turn to this informal sales network, as they tire of waiting for products to appear in the state outlets.

“They gave me a subsidy to buy sand, cement and a water tank,” says a resident from La Timba neighborhood in Havana whose roof did not withstand the rains last summer. However, they have not yet supplied all the products needed at the state sales office closest to her home. “It does not matter if it is with magnetic card or with cash money in hand, the fact is that the materials are not there,” she laments.

At the entrance door to the premises, a sign indicates: “We are closed to the public and we are only attending to victims.” Outside, a dozen informal sellers approach the frustrated customers who arrive and do not qualify for materials. With the informal sellers, payment can be in “Cuban pesos, convertibles, dollars, euros or pounds sterling,” one boasts.

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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.

AECID’s Cuban Website Hacked With Messages Against the Castro Brothers

The hacked page before it was taken down: We are anonymous, we are legion, we don’t forgive, we don’t forget, wait for us, freedom for Cuba, down with Raul down with Diaz-Canel. (Screen capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 22 February 2020 — The Cuba Anonymous Group announced on Twitter this Sunday that it had accomplished a new hack, this time on the web page of the Physics Faculty of the University of Havana. Beginning in the morning, one could read on the digital site messages such as “Freedom for Cuba” and others saying “down with” Miguel Díaz-Canel and Raúl Castro.

Hours later, the web page remained out of service and now presents an “error” message to those who try to visit it. However, the YucaByte project managed to grab some screen captures while the intervention lasted. “We are anonymous, we are legion, we do not forgive, nor forget. Wait for us. Freedom for Cuba, down with Raúl, down with Díaz-Canel,” the group wrote.

“We are telling the dictatorship that we are here to stay, enough of lies and deceptions towards our people,” they added. continue reading

Last Thursday they hacked the web page of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), in Cuba and for some hours messages against Díaz-Canel and Fidel and Raúl Castro appeared.

A screen grab of AECID’s website with the message “Fidel Castro is the greatest assassin the Cuban people have ever known.. Down with the Dictatorship!” To the lower right the box says, “Fidel sent for Che to be killed and all the Cuban people know that.”

“Fidel Castro is the greatest assassin the Cuban people have ever known,” at the top of the web page, along with phrases such as “we demand freedom,” and “down with the dictatorship.”

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Facebook account of “Anonymous Cuba Oficial,” a group previously unknown on the island, whose page on the social network was recently created and has only two posts.

“We decided to launch this attack against the Embassy of Spain in Cuba because of its support for the Cuban regime. If you support the communists and repressors you are our enemy,” the group wrote when it assumed responsibility for pirating the AECID website in Cuba.

Although it belongs to the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this portal is administered from the local headquarters of the AECID in Havana, attached to the Spanish embassy.

“These are the articles that the people must read so that they know the truth, in the 21st century the internet has opened the eyes of many people,” added Anonymous Cuba in its message, in relation to the publications inserted to replace the original from the Cuban portal of AECID.

“Fidel sent for Che to be killed and all the Cuban people know that,” “Raúl Castro is a murderer” and “Down With Díaz-Canel (the current Cuban president) and the Castro regime” were other phrases that appeared for hours on the website, which is currently inactive.

The group said “this is only the beginning of what awaits them” and added: “You will not escape from our hands, we are there within your system and we know everything you do, every key you press, what pages you search on the Internet, all your secrets will be revealed.”

“Freedom for the people of Cuba and our brothers,” the message ended.

The Spanish Embassy and the AECID office in Havana have declined to comment on the attack and refer inquiries to the Office of Diplomatic Information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid.

This is not the first time that a digital site hosted on Cuban servers has suffered an attack. In May of last year the official newspaper Granma was hacked and on its cover photos of opponents were published being repressed by the police. The Alliance group claimed responsibility for that action and placed its logo on the cover of the official organ of the Communist Party next to Raúl Castro’s photo.

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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.

Cuba Needs a Civilizing Revolution

When activists, intellectuals, academics, religious figures, artists, students, professionals, and workers rise up and take a step forward, the door will be opened to a future of peace, brotherhood, and prosperity. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, February 28, 2020 — The English Revolution of 1688 was called ’Glorious’. It happened 48 years after the first one broke out in 1640. That one was against the absolute monarchy and was violent, and the king was sent to the gallows. But the second one was peaceful, freedom of the press was declared, and the first declaration of human rights was approved.

The final result was an order so stable that it has lasted until today. “The spirit of this strange revolution was opposite to all revolutionary intent,” the historian G. M. Trevelyan would say. Another historian, Juan Pablo Friso, explains why it is called that: “To be glorious a revolution must bring together this: that it is driven by impulses like moderation, consensus, pragmatism, prudence, and impartiality.”

That is what we Cubans need to put an end to the coven of these 60 years. If in 17th-century England it was to correct the errors of a bourgeois revolution, in 21st-century Cuba it would be to correct those of a supposedly socialist revolution. continue reading

The aim of socialism, according to Marx, was “to put an end to the divorce between producers and the means of production,” (in other words, workers should be the masters of the instruments with which they work) and that was a principle shared by other socialist theorists, like the anarchist Proudhon, who imagined a society of artisans and small business owners.

Of course, workers didn’t have the power to expropriate the bourgeoisie and take hold of those means, which is why they needed, according to Marx, to topple first the bourgeois State and raise in its place a revolutionary State responsible for carrying out this task: expropriating capitalists and landlords to then transfer those means to the hands of the workers, that is, two steps or phases: expropriation and empowerment.

But the Russian revolutionaries of 1917 made their own interpretation of socialist revolution, something then copied by their followers everywhere they triumphed: carrying out only the first part, expropriating but not empowering.

They invented the sophism that the revolutionary State, by representing the workers’ interests, should be the one managing those goods in their name. It was a very simple syllogism: “Everything belongs to the people. I represent the people. Therefore, everything belongs to me.”

The leaders of the Cuban Revolution followed that same line, expropriating the bourgeoisie without empowering the workers, and handing over to a new bureaucratic class the properties, which they distributed not based on ability but rather on “political reliability.”

And then they made their own contribution, marching in the opposite direction of the map of the route drawn by Marx, by expropriating as well, in 1968, from those who possessed their own means to make a living for themselves. This they called a “Revolutionary Offensive.”

The result was the most extreme form of monopolist capitalism of the State, with absolute control of the nation: legislative, judiciary, prison, sole owner of the press and all means of communication, of industries, banks, and companies, to which everyone must submit and serve, because not to do so was “antipatriotic,” and the cost could be ostracism or prison.

If revolution is a radical change of the structures of a society, then that revolution ended 52 years ago, with the “Revolutionary Offensive,” the last of the measures that radically transformed the structure of Cuban society. In all that time, at most there have been reforms, and to reform means “to change the form” while the essence remains intact. And if in all that time there has not been revolution, neither have there been “counterrevolutionaries,” but rather people unhappy with an unjust order.

However, when the structural crisis deepens and conditions mature for a new revolution, many of these unhappy persons who until then were adopting attitudes of rebellion, come to form the revolutionary crop of the new times to carry out a radical change of the structures established by the first revolution.

Now it would be a question of expropriating the only great monopoly that still remains, the State, in favor of the workers; that is, taking the second step that was never taken.

If that State has satisfactorily demonstrated its inefficiency in managing the goods that according to the Constitution itself belong to all of society, to the point that a large part of the industries in which Cuba used to excel have been destroyed, it must be removed for incapacity as an administrator of those means and transfer them to grassroots collectives.

Cuba is experiencing the greatest crisis of its entire history due to an order that blocks or checks all the means of productive forces. The Cuban leadership turned its back on a fundamental principle of Marxism mentioned by Engels during Marx’s funeral: “Man needs, first of all, to eat, drink, have shelter and clothing before he can create politics, science, art, religion, etc,” which is why it’s required to stimulate the creativity of human beings.

Cuban liberals, to demonstrate the superiority of capitalism to that socialism imposed on the Island, highlighted the fact that it is not the same when interest in productivity is only held by a small group of the Central Committee, than when that interest is held by thousands of capitalists. Following the same reasoning, the result would be even more significant when millions have that interest.

Individual or family ownership, for example, like the so-called self-employed, must be stimulated by reducing taxes and licensing costs, as well as eliminating the prohibitions intended, disloyally and unfairly, to protect the state-controlled companies from the competition of small owners, something that is paradoxical, since what normally occurs in capitalist countries is that laws are passed to protect small business owners from the voracity of monopolies, like the United States’s Sherman Act of 1890, which forced monopolies to dissolve or divide into various companies, and which even sat Rockefeller himself in the dock of the accused.

In Cuba, on the contrary, the State protects its monopoly with laws that limit the activity of the private sector, as one trying to protect a tiger from the possible aggression of a harmless kitten. This fact is revealing in itself, because if the State sees it as necessary to adopt coercive measures to counteract the competition of small businesses, this clearly demonstrates that state companies are inefficient, and moreover, the high efficiency of workers when they work for themselves.

What to do, then, with those inefficient state businesses? The key question would be why they are not efficient and why are private ones efficient. The answer is obvious: the State’s salaried employees lack incentives, while private employees are indeed stimulated. Thus, the solution is handing over to State workers a part of the utilities they produce, thus giving them a voice and a vote in the direction of the companies and businesses where they work. Is this capitalism? Quite the opposite. It would be a form of labor organization more in accordance with the original conception of socialism.

But this is not an ideological question, but rather the pragmatic search for the most effective methods to get the population out of the deepest crisis that this country has experienced in its entire history and prevent social explosions that will drag the country into total chaos.

And that is not the only danger: given the methods in which the decentralizations have been carried out, it is almost certain that there will be the birth of a business mafia which, without the control of the so-called historical leadership now at a point of disappearing, will have no qualms about making pacts with the big drug cartels needed for new routes to the United States market.

How could this new revolution be carried out in a peaceful manner? First, why does it have to be peaceful? Because a violent revolution would repeat the ways of thinking of the same civilizing paradigm in which was implemented the order that we want to supplant, in this case, the patriarchal thinking of armed violence and executions, which means falling again into the same errors that lead again to the starting point to repeat the same cycle. A glorious revolution need not be only political and economic, but rather, above all, civilizing, that is, in the consciousness of citizens.

Second, is a peaceful revolution to empower workers and restore citizens’ rights and freedoms possible? Carrying it out does not require the power of a revolutionary State, as Marx believed. Starting with the principle that no dictatorship is sustained without the collaboration of the people or part of the people, one concludes that nobody governs without the consent of the governed.

If civil society becomes aware of its responsibility for the salvation of a people on the edge of social explosion and chaos, it will have to act in unity and demand the necessary transformations. It will have to be conscious of its own force, what the leader of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, called “the power of the powerless.”

If, as everything indicates, that leadership does not commit to taking the steps that would avoid the approaching disaster, then it could become essential, before it’s too late, that the most conscious elements of the citizenry come together to make clear that necessity before civil society and call on it to wake up.

And when activists, intellectuals, academics, religious figures, artists, students, professionals, and workers rise up and take a step forward to demand, peacefully, without hatred, but energetically, the door will be opened to a future of peace, brotherhood, and prosperity.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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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.

Despite Its Enormous Internal Shortages, Venezuela Sends Medicines to Cuba

The shelves of Cuban pharmacies have been experiencing serious supply problems for at least three years. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 2 March 2020 — The government of Nicolás Maduro will send 16 containers of medicines to Cuba this Tuesday, according to Venezuelan journalist Javier Ignacio Mayorca. The writer published through his Twitter account that the Armed Forces in the state of Vargas launched “a special unit” for this operation.

“Vargas FAN [National Armed Forces] ordered a special unit for the shipment of 16 medicine containers, donated to Cuba by the Venezuelan government. The cargo is scheduled for Monday on ship of the Armada of the Island, called Saturn. They will also deliver corn flakes, courtesy of Agrofanb,” Mayorca said.

Julio Borges, former head of Parliament and current presidential commissioner for Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, confirming the information, lamented that, despite the shortage that affect Venezuelans, the Government sends the products that its citizens need to the Island. continue reading

“Every day Venezuelans die because of the shortage of medicines, however the dictatorship prefers to send cargo to Cuba, rather than to help its own people. This only reaffirms that Nicolás Maduro is a puppet of the Castro regime, international pressure against Havana will not stop.”

Last January it transpired that 150 BioCubaFarma specialists had to leave their jobs on the Island due to a staff cut. Although the company initially hid it, it was forced by the independent press to admit it, which made the news public through the testimony of the workers.

In a statement, BioCubaFarma admitted that “due to the real situation with the unavailability of raw materials, the levels of drug production have decreased.”

The cuts in the pharmaceutical industry began at least two years ago, causing shortages in analgesics, antibiotics, recommended medications for heart disease and insulin for diabetics.

In the early 2000s, to increase its imports, Cuba promoted the pharmaceutical industry after signing collaboration agreements with the Government of Hugo Chávez that flooded the Venezuelan pharmaceutical industry.

“Venezuela went from being a market that barely received 0.53% of the exports of medicines that left Cuba in 1998, to be the destination of 97% of the drugs produced by laboratories in Havana in 2009, and by 2014 had become the almost exclusive destination of its pharmaceutical exports”, revealed a report by 14ymedio and Armando.info.

In 15 years, Cuba received some 2.2 billion dollars in revenue from sales of medicines to Venezuela. With Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan economic crisis, which has reduced the country’s GDP by more than 40%, forced Caracas to reduce imports by 76% in the last four years.

Last year it was Cuba that sent medicines to Venezuela. In February 2019, the Minister of Health, Carlos Alvarado, reported the arrival of a shipment of 933 tons of medicines and medical materials from Cuba, but also from China, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and “some direct purchases” of the Ministry.

Alvarado explained last week that Venezuela has expanded epidemiological surveillance to face the possible arrival of the coronavirus in the country, but experts consulted by the EFE agency have warned that it is the worst prepared country in the region to face the disease, precisely because of the lack of medicines and supplies, the difficulties of the public health sector and the lack of diagnostic centers.

Julio Castro and Jaime Torres, both infectologists, consider that the protocol is insufficient and that strict measures are required to stop the expansion of Covid-19, which Venezuela has escaped so far.

“The only way to contain the virus and prevent it from spreading is with very strict, very massive measures, with the participation of the population, and health and safety authorities that are not easy to implement,” says Torres.

The doctor does not doubt that there are detection kits in Venezuela, but he believes that on the negative side is that there are not many diagnostic centers prepared, along with “the difficulties of the public health sector, hospital capacity, ability to provide services.”

The Venezuelan government has implemented surveillance at airports, a measure that has not proven effective and in many countries does not apply because the symptoms may go unnoticed during the incubation period.

Maduro said last week that “there are many analyses in the world that show that the coronavirus could be a strain created for the biological war against China (…) and against the peoples of the world.” Venezuela, he said, “fortunately” has a plan to deal with “this attack.”

The official Cuban press has also speculated on this hypothesis, although the partners are not the only subscribers to conspiracy theories. The US government began by minimizing the virus last January, stating that it was a common cold. Donald Trump, who said Friday that Covid-19 was a “hoax” of the Democrats to win the elections, had to change his tone the next day, after the first death in the US from the virus, and he announced new measures and restrictions.

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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.

’14ymedio’ Launches a New Mobile Version

The mobile version is still in a testing phase, so users may have difficulty accessing some content. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 2 March 2020 — A few months after reaching its first six years, the newspaper 14ymedio is releasing a new version to access our content from mobile phones and tablets. The newly opened interface seeks to provide users with a more pleasant experience, easier access to our content and a greater ability to share our articles on social networks.

Some of the novelties offered by this version include such things as the side menu from which the different sections are accessed, the transparent management of cookies, the option to share any content from the cover to a wide variety of social networks, instant messaging services, emails and browsers.

The ability to navigate between one article to another without having to return to the front page every time, a more attractive visualization of the images, a new menu at the bottom of each page with options for sharing content, together with a better presentation of the content related to the topic that has been previously published on our portal, guarantee a more complete approach to our reporting archive. continue reading

With all this, this newspaper confirms that it is still working on innovation and technological development, as well as being very attentive to offering a fast and pleasant experience for users, both in substance and in form.

This renovation is also aimed at readers who visit us through their cell phones, who represent almost 60% of our daily traffic, so that they can interact more effectively with our site and enhance their ability to spread our work on social networks and other internet services. Each internet user can thus become a promoter of our journalistic work.

The mobile version is still in a testing phase, so it is possible that users may have difficulty accessing some content, such as the comments area. We are sorry for the inconvenience, we promise to solve these problems as soon as possible and we invite you to give your opinion in the comment space of the web version.

Our media is still subject to censorship imposed by the Cuban authorities on national servers. However, the use of VPN services and anonymous proxies allows you to bypass this barrier.

The new mobile version, which is not an application for Android, iOS or other operating systems, is a qualitative leap in access to 14ymedio, which will be incorporating additional improvements in the coming weeks. Users should not take any additional action to navigate this version, which is automatically loaded when accessing from cell phones or tablets. We hope you like it.

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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.

Only in Cuba is the Sale of Used Cars News

Independent and foreign press gathered at the site. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 25 February 25, 2020 — At first light you could see the tired yawning faces of the people who had come to form a queue. The start of the sale of used cars for foreign currency has attracted more curious people than purchasers to the shop on 20th Street, between 1st and 3rd, in the Playa district of Havana.

The first person in the line, waiting for them to call the next customers, commented,  “I thought I had come early, but at 5 am there were more than ten people, who, I imagine, turned up last night”. The person behind him was sure that “the best deals will go in the first days, and that’s why people are impatient.”

The wide lot where the cars are parked has a reception area with AC, where there is a list with the prices of each vehicle. What doesn’t appear is the year, or the mileage, or kilometrage, of the car. “If you want to know those details, you have to stand in line and go through the process”, says an employee, through a gap in the door. continue reading

In the air conditioned reception is a list of the vehicles’ prices. (14ymedio)

The independent and foreign press have also come. Lights, cameras … and cars everywhere. Some mock the excessive coverage. “This wouldn’t be news anywhere else but Cuba”, laughs a  passer-by taking his kid to school.

In order to get in, you have to show a credit card charged with real convertible currency. Someone asks if it is also necessary to have a minimum amount on the card, and this leads to some confusion and some consultation. A few minutes later, a man confirms that “If you really want to buy something, you obviously have to have money, but for the assistants, just having some plastic is enough”.

There is an automobile-expertise competition among the onlookers, who observe from far away, and then up close. “None of those cars look more than ten years old; the problem is knowing what their mileage is”, says one of the supposed experts. Another one adds, “And it would be difficult to know because you can clock the mileage and leave it at zero”.

Nearly all the cars on show are grey. Some are small, and some are more like pick up trucks or minivans.

Nearly all the cars are grey. There are small ones, and ones which are more like pick-ups or minivans. Some are covered  in dust, and none of them have licence plates.

Some point to the cheapest models, going for about $34,000, and say they will probably will go quickest, while others consider that it is “better to pay more and get a stronger car”. Nearly everyone in the line are men, although there are some women accompanied by their husbands, and a woman shouting about the trinkets she is selling.

“When they advertised it, I thought it would be for people who import directly”, says a young man who, he makes clear, has come “just to look”. His brother, who lives in Miami, has had a car for five years and wanted to send it, but he says that “there’s no way to get it here.”

Vehicle imports are controlled by state businesses, in particular, the Cimex Corporation, a commercial arm of the military. “That’s why the prices are like that, because they control the whole situation”, is the opinion of one of the customers, summing up the conversation about the advantages and disadvantages of each car.

Most of the people waiting there seem to belong to what most people call “nouveau riche”, or “flashy”. They show off their social status in their clothes, the kind of shoes they wear, they way they show off their knowledge of cars, and, make it clear they do have a credit card with thousands of dollars deposited, in a country in which the average monthly salary is no more that $50.

Halfway through the morning, not one buyer has left with his car. The process of inspection, testing and delivery is long and tedious. “You have to check it out, right down to the spark plugs, because when you leave there’s no way to complain about anything” says a man who boasts about being an auto mechanic, and who is accompanying a friend interested in Peugeots.

Although Chinese Geely cars are cheaper, some people reject them because of their bad reputation, since they have been distributed for years at subsidised prices to the military, and Party bureaucrats and leaders, as well as the police and members of State Security.

Carlos, a young man who has been in the line since about four in the morning, explains it perfectly. “I think I’m gonna go for a Kia for $40,000; although a Geely goes for $5,000 less, it’s a car that gives you a headache to get it fixed, and also my neighbours would think I was with the state security”, he says ironically.

Translated by GH

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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.

Havana Will Charge Fines of up to 3,000 Pesos for Littering in the Public Right-of-Way

Cuban authorities insist they now have new trucks in better condition to pick up the garbage.(14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 29 February 2020 — Over the weekend the inhabitants of the capital have learned about the existence of the “popular movement for a more beautiful, clean and healthy Havana.” The initiative, which goes into effect on March 1, has been presented as coming “from the community,” but it has emerged from the offices of the provincial government and the support of its corresponding “factors”: that is the Party, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Federation of Cuban Women and the Association of the Veterans of the Cuban Revolution.

The declared inspiration on which the movement is based has been the alert launched by the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel, last December, when, in front of the deputies of the National Assembly, he asked the following question: What good are the works undertaken to celebrate Havana’s 500th anniversary, if the hygiene of the city disappears again among mountains of garbage?

Rhetoric aside, the truth is that Havana has earned the reputation of being the dirtiest and most smelly city in the whole country and the formula by which it is intended to sanitize it, or better yet to discipline it, will not be, as might be supposed, appealing to the love of citizens for their capital, but imposing a severe inspection system backed by fines 30 to 60 times higher than those applied until February 29 of this year. continue reading

For example, the fines for throwing papers or garbage on public roads outside the trash cans will be 50 to 300 pesos instead of five pesos.

Whoever throws away household garbage in the containers at times other the new established schedule from 6 pm to 10 pm risks fines of up to 1,500 pesos. Anyone placing debris outside the points defined by the Popular Councils will be fined 3,000 pesos (well over than 3 months average wages). Those who do not request permission to carry out works that affect the sidewalks or public roads and do not return everything to its original state will be forced to pay a fine of up to 2,500 pesos.

Among the group of new measures is also the obligation of each state or social entity to take charge “of the sanitation and permanent beautification of its establishments, including its perimeter environment.”

Reinier Arias, deputy director general of the Directorate of Community Services, explained to the official press that the reason why the level of fines had been increased was because “they were very low,” which led to indifference to the hygiene measures of the city.

The official stressed that there are now new trucks, including “three donations from Japan, Austria and China, with more than 200 pieces of equipment at a value exceeding $ 30 million,” which, according to him, allows a better condition of response. In addition, this activity is being granted special access to fuel, which allows collecting and transporting the 23,800 cubic meters of waste generated daily by the more than two million inhabitants of Havana, plus a “floating population” every day of around 500,000 people.

The neighborhood assemblies where these new measures were announced were conducive to people’s raising old problems related to garbage dumpsters that nobody deals with eliminating: streets with “historic” potholes; broken pipe mains that flood the streets with filth; a shortage of resources to repair the houses; and a whole rosary of calamities that, as defined by a neighbor of the Buena Vista neighborhood in the municipality of Playa, would need “another type of popular movement to make people’s lives more dignified.”

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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.

Bernie Sanders, Cuba and Super Tuesday

In recent days, the issue of Cuba has broken into the United States presidential campaign with unusual force. (Livenewsnow)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, René Gómez Manzano, Havana, 29 February 2020 — In recent days, the issue of Cuba has burst with unusual force (and not entirely deserved) into the US presidential campaign. Especially among the many leaders of the Democratic Party who are struggling to win the nomination in opposition to the Government of Donald Trump.

The trigger for that issue — which does not have to have a primary importance in that political debate but which has acquired such relevance — were statements made by the septagenarian Senator Bernie Sanders — a self-proclaimed “socialist” — who, for now, is leading in the polls for the nomination of the “blue” party.

In an interview with an important national television network, the Senator from the state of Vermont ratified his previous statements, favorably assessing certain facets of Fidel Castro’s performance. Specifically, he spoke about the literacy campaign carried out by the late Cuban dictator and declared it a positive. continue reading

These statements admit several objections. The first is the that formulated correctly by the blogger Yoani Sánchez: Is it possible to applaud that hundreds of thousands of citizens are taught to read and, at the same time, to ignore that the Castro regime, for those same literates and millions of other Cubans, for ideological reasons, prohibits access to books that this regime considers “undesirable”?

But we can also ask ourselves: is it permissible to point out a positive aspect of the public performance of a dictator while silencing the essentially negative balance of his Government? To give an example: can we find it good — say — that someone praises Adolph Hitler for having built the highways or having significantly reduced unemployment?

If it were a colloquium of specialists talking about the construction of public roads or a convention dedicated to employment policies, perhaps it could be tolerated that the performance of the Nazi leader in these areas be cited, without entering into an analysis — or even a mention  of other facets of the dire acts of that macabre character.

But it is inadmissible for a politician to act in the same way. Whoever devotes himself to the public trust is obliged, by virtue of his own profession, to take into account all the implications that anything he does or says may have on the different sectors of the electorate.

Should we assume then that Mr. Sanders is a public man with little aptitude? The he praised Fidel Castro out of ignorance? That is not the case. He, with the remarkable support he has managed to gain among the sectors of the extreme left of his party, has demonstrated his extraordinary political ability.

The problem is that Mr. Bernie has no empathy in courting those extremist groups of Democrats. It is a human conglomerate whose little hearts, after sixty years of an anti-democratic regime and economic involution in Cuba, and despite the arrival at the American coast of a couple of million fugitives from Castroism, continues to beat in unison with the ringleaders in Havana.

This should not surprise us, because in the sect of the “socialists” the many sins committed by those who uphold these doctrines are easily forgiven. And regardless of whether the measures taken by their governments have produced tens of millions of deaths (as in the cases of “little father” Stalin and “great helmsman” Mao), or “only” millions, as in the case of Kim of North Korea, Pol Pot or Mengistu … aren’t they all co-religionists! Then it’s about simple venial sins!

In the case of the American leftists with respect to Castro, the matter is complicated a little, due to the extreme anti-Yankeeism maintained by the man. It is an orientation not only demonstrated by decades of political decisions, but also confessed in the well-known letter that, before his rise to power, the founder of the Cuban dynasty addressed to his confidant Celia Sánchez, telling her, “When this war ends, a much longer and greater war will begin for me: the war I am going to wage against [the Americans].  I realize that is going to be my true destiny.”

But all these are minor inconveniences for the Vermont senator. This, in order to win the sympathies of the extremists of his party, does no less to seek to make an enemy of the Cuban exiles (most of whom are citizens of the United States and vote in that country). I suppose Mr. Sanders made a very simple calculation: You are not going to vote for me anyway!

In the meantime, I believe that President Trump and his friends have every reason in the world to pray that the ineffable Bernie continues to win party primaries and caucuses and that he ultimately achieves the Democratic nomination. Everything seems to indicate that, in such a case, the current tenant of the White House would continue to live there for another four years.

As altogether different thing is what the traditional sectors of the blue party think, dreaming that their nominee will be a more moderate leader, capable of obtaining, in the presidential election of November, the support of the political center.

We will have to see how the voting turns out next Tuesday, when the voters of numerous states, including some as important as California and Texas, will pronounce themselves.  It’s not for nothing that it is called “Super Tuesday.”

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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.

The Reason for Your Trip Doesn’t Matter, the Problem is Who You Are

“We will not allow any counterrevoltionary to go to Santiago de Cuba,” they told the reporter and religious activist. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Ricardo Fernández, Camagüey, February 21, 2020 — You pack your bags, full of plans and dreams, but you discover with anger that freedom of movement in Cuba is conditioned on the way in which you think and speak. It doesn’t matter how many times it happens or where you were going, it is always frustrating when the authorities arbitrarily tell you that you cannot travel.

On February 17, a captain of the Department of State Security (DSE) informed me that, again, I couldn’t travel. This time I wasn’t at José Martí International Airport, nor was I heading abroad. I had been invited to the church of pastor Alaín Toledano Valiente, in Santiago de Cuba. It was a purely religious event, but the reason of your trip doesn’t matter, the problem is who you are, or that’s what the DSE official whose pseudonym I can’t even remember said.

“We will not allow any counterrevolutionary to go to Santiago de Cuba,” he said emphatically before ordering two police agents to put me in patrol car number 424 which brought me to the Third Police Unit of Montecarlo in Camaguey. There they searched my belongings for filming equipment that could have betrayed that the purpose of my visit was journalistic. They found nothing, but the sentence against me didn’t change. continue reading

Being someone who thinks and acts according to his ideas, whenever they don’t agree with their own, it seems, they deprive us of all the rights that citizenship and the Constitution grant us. It is not the first time that they arbitrarily spoiled my plans. Nor is it the first time that they left me with no explanation about what happened. Once again I had to make conjectures, look for some logical reason that would abate the ire I was feeling.

Putting two and two together, it occurred to me that it is possible that the Government is trying to control the situation in the city, where a few days ago a group of residents confronted the Police, who were trying to prevent the lynching of an alleged rapist of an eight-year-old girl. The obvious question is: What do I have to do with what happened in Santiago? Am I a real risk in face of a possible social explosion, despite being openly pacifist?

Speaking about the Cuban reality without sugarcoating has put me on the same level as terrorists and drug traffickers, which is how I was treated by the State Security captain during the two and a half hours that my detention lasted. So that it would be on the record, the agent wrote an “official warning” that of course I refused to sign. The text says: “If he is detected in the Eastern provinces he will have committed a crime of disobedience.” And adds: “That is three years in prison.” Three years in prison for trying to visit the church of a friend in my own country.

As I was leaving the police station the same official passed by me on the typical Suzuki motorcycle and, as if I were an old friend, said to me: “If you want I can take you, public transportation is bad.” “Are you going to Santiago?” I responded in the same ironic tone.

Apparently he didn’t like my response, because he accelerated and disappeared in the distance while I was calling my wife, who thought I was on my way to Santiago, to tell her that the trip had been short…and in a patrol car.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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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.

Police Surround Palace of Justice in Santiago de Cuba for Trial Against Jose Daniel Ferrer

Ferrer, 49, spent almost eight years in prison after his arrest, in 2003, as part of the 75 dissidents who were victims of the Black Spring. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, February 26, 2020 — The trial against José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), began this Wednesday morning in the city of Santiago de Cuba , without having been previously announced in the official press, which has launched a massive smear campaign against the opposition figure in recent months.

Ferrer, 49,  one of the Cuban dissidents with the greatest international renown at, has been imprisoned since October for an alleged attack on another man, a charge that his relatives deny while insisting that it is a crime “prefabricated” by the Government. The prosecution is asking for nine years in prison for the Unpacu leader, who spent almost eight years in prison after his arrest, in 2003, as part of the 75 dissidents who were victims of the Black Spring.

This Wednesday the telephones of several Unpacu coordinators as well as that of Nelva Ortega, Ferrer’s wife, are “out of coverage,” as 14ymedio was able to confirm. continue reading

Since Monday afternoon, activists from the opposition organization have denounced the Police and State Security siege on their headquarters in Santiago de Cuba and the arrest of their coordinator in Havana, Zaqueo Baéz.

The activist Joanna Columbié, who lives in Miami, denounced in the morning hours the detention of her brother Dariem Columbié, who is coordinator of the movement Somos+ (We Are More). According to her, the young man was arrested in the area around the Palace of Justice when he was trying to attend Ferrer’s trial.

At the time of his arrest, Joanna was communicating with her brother and published a screenshot of the conversation in which her brother said that the Palace of Justice was surrounded by Security and political police agence to prevent access.

The opposition leader had asked his family, during a visit to him in prison on February 14, to begin a campaign with the hashtag #YoSoyElQueAcusa (I am the one who accuses).

“It is José Daniel who accuses the Castro dictatorship of crimes against humanity, of violating his rights and liberties, as well as those of all Cubans, of raiding and looting his home on repeated occasions,” explained his sister, Ana Belkis Ferrer.

In the operations they have employed “even firearms,” she says on social media, where she also denounces “the terrifying acts of repudiation against him, his family, and other members of Unpacu, attempted murder on three occasions, threats, slander, savage beatings, defamation campaigns, physical and psychological torture, depriving him of his liberty and putting his life at risk.”

In October in an interview with 14ymedio, Nelva Ortega explained that the habeas corpus she presented to obtain information on Ferrer’s situation was rejected by authorities.

Along with José Daniel Ferrer, the activists Fernando González Vaillant, Roilán Zárraga Ferrer, and José Pupo Chaveco, members of Unpacu, were accused of damages, deprivation of liberty, and assault.

“I have few expectations that José Daniel Ferrer will have a fair trial,” the European Union’s vice president responsible for Latin America, Dita Charanzová, told the Spanish newspaper ABC.

“Since they arbitrarily arrested him, there have been all sorts of irregularities in the process, in addition to the abuse and torture that José Daniel was subjected to. Thus, the European Parliament will be closely following the case and will react accordingly,” added Charanzová, who is also the representative of the Czech Republic in the European Parliament.

Hours before the trial the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, urged in a letter to his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez, to “immediately” release the dissident José Daniel Ferrer, leader of Unpacu.

Groups like Amnesty International and institutions like the Organization of American States have also asked for his release on several occasions.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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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.

Maria Werlau Calls for End to Cuban Dominion Over Venezuela

María Werlau wants to put this material “at the disposal of analysts and governments.”

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio), Jorge Ignacio Pérez, Miami, February 26, 2020 — The Cuban-American researcher María Werlau had to fit together the pieces “like a puzzle” for her new book, in which she tackles in a comprehensive manner what she defines as the “asymmetric occupation” of Venezuela by Cuba, which, as she tells Efe, is “worse” than she imagined when she started.

“There are a few books and a lot of journalistic material, so I had to assemble everything. I don’t believe that there have been serious academic works of the kind that it is necessary to bring to this matter,” she said just before presenting this Wednesday in Miami María Werlau calls for end of Cuban dominion over Venezuela.

“There was a lot of loose and scattered material on different angles of the Cuban intervention, but there hadn’t been anything comprehensive on what was happening in Venezuela,” says Werlau, who arrived to the United States as a political refugee at eight months old. continue reading

“It was like a puzzle. On the way I realized that it was worse than what I had imagined,” she emphasized. Werlau, who is also an independent consultant, wants to put this material “at the disposal of analysts and governments.”

The volume, with almost 300 pages and 11 chapters, is published by the Free Society Project and is available in English and Spanish, although the additional chapter, The insurrectionary offensive of 2019: a change of tactics already tried, is only available in Spanish.

Cuba’s Intervention in Venezuela: A Strategic Occupation with Global Implications has around 1,600 bibliographic citations, more than 800 sources on the subject, and of those, more than 30 primary sources.

The volume goes back to the time of Venezuela’s constitutional government of Rómulo Betancourt (1959-1964), whom Fidel Castro immediately visited to propose “the same thing that he proposed to (Hugo) Chávez,” the “radical alliance” between the two countries, which remains in place despite the deaths of its architects.

“Fidel arrives in Venezuela (in 1959) 15 days after entering Havana (…). He arrives with the entire top brass of the rebel army and meets with Rómulo Betancourt and proposes to him the same thing he proposed to (Hugo) Chávez,” says the executive director of the NGO Free Society Project, better known as Cuba Archive.

According to Werlau, Castro was obsessed with Venezuela because of its geopolitical situation, as the doorway to the Caribbean, as well as its oil wealth.

The book, which according to the author “could have been the genesis of the Castro-Chávez relationship,” has a much broader content.

“It explains how, although Cuba is much smaller, poorer, and under-developed, it achieved the dominant role with a methodology derived from the totalitarian nature of its system,” as is read in the notes of the presentation.

Among the oral sources that Werlau consulted are retired generals in Venezuela and abroad, as well as experts in computer science.

One of those is Anthony Daquin, specialist in computer security systems, who spoke to Werlau about the fiber optic underwater cable that connects the two countries.

When Werlau says that to eradicate Cuban dominion over Venezuela “it’s necessary to cut the cable and start from zero,” it’s not a metaphor.

“In Cuba they said that (the cable) didn’t work, but I was impressed with what had been achieved,” she says.

“Cuba takes control of all the identity information of Venezuelans, manages communications, social media. The program to monitor this is called Estela [Wake]. Cuba has access to all of the identity of Venezuelans; I won’t even talk to you about the electoral register,” says the author.

“You don’t need a military force or weapons in the street to take a country,” explains Werlau on her concept of “assymetric occupation.”

But the author goes further and goes deep into the “social engineering” employed by Castroism, in the chapter Santeria, a sophisticated invasion. “Cuba had 20 more years to prepare its urban scenes, since Venezuelan money entered into the equation,” she says.

For this researcher, the lives of Castro and Chávez have a certain parallelism from both having received amnesty when in prison.

“Cuba sends a contingent of forces to help in the election campaigns of Chávez, who said he wasn’t a socialist, lying, because that was part of the plan,” she affirms.

“When Chávez went to Cuba in 1994 it was already arranged. Castro had proposed to him this role as his dauphin in taking the continent,” says the author.

“Fidel is the one who brought him to Havana and, although they have lied about this, there is a source who confirms that Fidel sent him to get him,” adds Werlau, who worked for three years in Venezuela with Chase Manhattan Bank.

For the author, “the socialism of the 21st century, as they orchestrated it in Venezuela, has important structural faults, because it requires a lot of time and money to break up democratic institutions from the inside.”

“The methodology works, the concern is what is going to happen without the quantity of Venezuela’s money at its disposition. That’s why they created the Pueblo Group and launch this new form of insurgency, which they have done best in Chile,” indicates Werlau.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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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.

‘Tips’ From Cuban State Security for a ’14ymedio’ Reporter

Luz Escobar is “regulated” and must remain in her house when State Security believes there is an important even in Cuba. (El Estornudo)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 27 February 2020 — Citations from Cuba’s Ministry of Interior always leave many questions. What will it be for now? What do they want from me? What do I do when I face them? What to answer, what not to answer? Yes, because there are accusations it is better not to respond to, not to offend, such as when they insist that we independent journalists work “for four pesos,” not like members of State Security who do so for the love of their country.

This time there were two officers, but only one spoke while the other pointed to his schedule. I have never felt obliged to describe one of these individuals before but this time it is very necessary. I look into his eyes when he speaks and he holds his gaze, he is thin, of medium height and has a face like thousands. He dresses correctly, well ironed shirt, polished shoes and wears a commitment ring on his ring finger.

I see conviction in everything he expresses and note, in every word he says, his hours of study and preparation. He smiles when he feels it necessary, he seems sincere — or so he wants to be perceived. continue reading

For almost two hours I listened in silence to his opinions about the journalistic work of the media that he called “alternative,” along with his recommendations on what is the best way to do journalism in today’s Cuba. He says that I prepare well for these interrogations because “I always have the same attitude.” He does a bit of theater and tries to imitate me: “I don’t know what’s wrong with the work I do, I think it’s very necessary,” he said, putting on a high-pitched feminine voice.

However, after the friendliest start they went on to show their arsenal. The weapons they have against us, the independent journalists who work in the field, were put on the table, all shown one by one, sharpened there, in front of my face. He spoke first of Decree Law 370, then about a regulation “related to behavior on public roads,” and, finally, of the ‘usurpation of legal capacity’*, “because you are not a journalist because of the many courses you have passed,” he told me.

The official, who identified himself as Jorge, once again questioned my presence at the march of the LGBTI community last May 11 in Central Park, “the impact” of the publications I post to on the networks, some of the articles I write for 14ymedio and even my daring to “violate a security cordon” when the Spanish royals visited Havana.

He also explained to me that it is not correct to make audio recordings or take images of the cordons they establish to prevent me from leaving my house when there is “an important date” so that I cannot “influence,” and so that the activities and celebrations they organize can be carried out in peace “for the enjoyment of the people.”

That I must think of my two daughters “who have a future ahead of them” and also of my father.

In a flash he reiterated an old proposal: the “ideal” would be for me to ask permission every time I want to go out to practice journalism; my life would become a paradise in which I would not lack anything and I would have a lot of tranquility.

The real objective of the conversation was that: let’s reach an agreement so your daughters and your father will be safe. They assure me that I don’t have to give up my principles, as if my freedom were negotiable.

In 14ymedio topics are discussed, discussed, taken to the editorial board. Nobody dictates an agenda as this officer asserts without blinking. He was very critical of the newspaper’s editorial line because he says it responds to the interests of a “change of government” in Cuba.

When I get home, my daughters are waiting for me, hungry. I look at them without saying anything and I wonder if what I do is good or bad for them. So they can sleep peacefully, I don’t tell them anything about that conversation. I don’t want to disturb them with the evil that is on the other side.

*Translator’s note: “Usurpation of legal capacity” is the term used by the Cuban government to define the criminal act of practicing a profession one is not officially licensed to practice.

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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.