14ymedio

"Cubans Are the Central Nervous System of the [Venezuelan] Regime"

Elliott Abrams admits that the military option is not completely ruled out, although it is not preferred by the US. (@USAenEspanol)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 July 2019 — Elliott Abrams, a special US envoy for Venezuela, has estimated 25,000 Cubans reside in the country who provide information to the Nicolás Maduro regime, as detailed in an interview with the Spanish newspaper ABC. The ambassador places about 3,000 the Island’s collaborators in Caracas engaged in intelligence work, spying on the military and civilians, or teaching how to torture. The remainder, doctors or teachers, “can also be spies and informers.”

“To understand [Cuba’s] influence, it is enough to remember that Maduro’s bodyguards are Cubans. As I see it, Cubans are the central nervous system of the regime,” Abrams said, also suggesting the possibility that the attempted coup d’etat on April 30 was discovered by Cuban spies and frustrated by that.

Elliott believes that the survival of both regimes is very connected, mainly by oil. “We must now put pressure on the few remaining undemocratic countries [in Latin America], Cuba and Venezuela among them. In the case of Venezuela, I think it is also clear that, given its economic crisis, it is not a country that can continue offering subsidies to Cuba, because it is giving the Island between 50,000 and 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day. That, we estimate, amounts to $75 million a month, which is not a small amount of money,” he said.

The New York politician also analyzes the relevance of the Russian role in the survival of the Chavista regime. The support of that power is basic, he argues, among other reasons because of the power of its veto in the UN Security Council.

Although Elliott points out that China also joins with Russia in blocking condemnations in the international organization, his intuition tells him that it would stop doing so if it were not for going along with Russia.

The Rosneft oil company is another practical reason why the support remains seamless. The Venezuelan government owes the Russian company more than 8 billion dollars and has asked it to help it sell its oil after the US applied sanctions to PDVSA, the state-owned oil company. Thus, Elliott believes, Venezuela endures despite the difficulties.

In spite of everything, the American believes that the sanctions are effective and a way to go. In the interview, Elliott speaks about individual penalties, such as those applied to four senior officers, recently, for the death of Captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo.

“If the sanctioned person is accustomed to coming to Miami, if he has an apartment or savings here, something more frequent than it seems, that ends. I can say that we have been approached by several people of the regime very concerned about the sanctions and asking for them to be lifted, especially when they affect their family, because such sanctions can be extended to the family of the affected, and there are those who have their children in American universities. So we are convinced that these sanctions have a real and concrete impact,” he said.

Elliott also spoke of the possible withdrawal of these sanctions if the punished collaborate, as has been the case with General Manuel Cristopher Figuera, against whom they were lifted after he aligned himself with the head of Parliament, Juan Guaidó, and started to collaborate with the US Government. “His should be an example for others. The same thing we have done with him we can do with others,” he says.

The ambassador had explained that the United States is trying for a transition in Venezuela without resorting to force, although it does not expressly reject it. Elliott says that the ideal, according to Washington, is for Maduro to leave power and the different parties to negotiate a transitional government that will take the country to new elections.

He admits, in this, certain divergences with the European Union, since Brussels believes in a supervised election and Washington considers that this panorama is impossible with all the powers controlled by Chavismo.

In this regard, he believes that the statements made recently by the acting Spanish Foreign Minister and future head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell about the US Government are not positive. The Spanish chancellor said in May that Washington behaves in relation to Venezuela “as the cowboy of the west,” when in this situation “it is not for anyone to draw their guns” but to find “a peaceful, negotiated and democratic solution.”

Despite this, he does consider the position of the Government of Spain positive. “We agree on the result we want. We both want a true democracy through free elections to stop the terrible violations of human rights. The difference is in the transition period.”

Also the report made by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, is a source of satisfaction for Elliott, who confesses that the US government is very impressed with its strength. However, he also believes she missed an important task, as she could have requested to visit prisons and did not do so.

Finally, and although he emphasizes that the military route is the last option for his Government, he admits that it is not ruled out. “No one could have told George H. W. Bush in the 1988 elections that he would end up invading Panama! So we will see what the future brings us, for now, suffice it to say that we have the ability to use military pressure.”

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Puerto Rico and the Crisis Underneath the Surface

Protesters in front of the seat of Government known as La Fortaleza, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (EFE/Thais Llorca)

14ymedio, Carlos A. Montaner, Miami | 28 July 2019 — It was an unusual spectacle. Popular demonstrations forced the resignation of Ricardo Rosselló, governor of Puerto Rico. It was the first time that something like this had happened since 1898, when the United States snatched sovereignty of the Island from Spain in what became known as the Spanish-American or Spanish-Cuban-American War.

However, the central nucleus of the conflict remains intact. Apparently, the reasons for this episode have to do with the corruption of the government and the disclosure of a vulgar chat in which Rosselló and some twenty buddies and officials make offensive comments about political adversaries, or major artists, like Ricky Martin, but that’s not the whole truth.

That’s the surface. Underneath, like a ghost of the 19th century, lies the problem of status: independence, autonomy, or full statehood. Faced with the glaring insensitivity and stupidity of Rosselló and his courtiers, those in favor of independence or autonomy, the “populares” went out to the streets. They were right to be indignant, but the almost 900 pages of chat were anecdotal. They turned out to be a magnificent alibi. The hidden key of the protest was status. continue reading

I know the Island very well. I lived there from 1966 to 1970. I taught in a private university and our son was born there. It’s a beautiful and very dear place. It’s true that more than half a century has passed, but nothing has changed in the political order since 1898, except the proportions of the three trends.

Half a century ago the supporters of independence were 5% of the electoral register. Supporters of autonomy (or “free staters”) were, more or less, 60%, and those who wished to transform the Island into state number 51 of the American Union were at somewhere around 35%.

Today it seems that support for independence continues to be at 5% of voters, while the rest of the population is divided in similar proportions between supporters of autonomy and statehood. Sometimes the “populares” and sometimes the “staters” win. Fifty years ago only the autonomists would have won.

Wilfredo Braschi, a magnificent writer, extremely intelligent, friend of Luis Muñoz Marín, caudillo of autonomy, warned me of this with a certain melancholy: “The trend is unstoppable. The number of supporters of statehood will be more and more.”

The definitive blow against supporters of Puerto Rican independence was dealt by the United States Congress. In 1917, it granted American citizenship to all Puerto Ricans born or yet to be born on the Island. That allowed them to settle in “continental territory” without limits. Today there are more than 5 million in the United States and barely 3.3 million in Puerto Rico. (Florida is the state with the greatest number of Puerto Ricans: more than a million.)

The stability of the Island, democracy, republican institutions, American citizenship, which very few Puerto Ricans are prepared to renounce, individual freedoms, and, ultimately, the links with the United States, mean that Puerto Ricans have a per capita of forty thousand dollars annually, placing them at the head of Latin America, although they are at the tail of the United States.

Simultaneously, there is no extreme poverty, nor children that go hungry, lack schooling or medical attention. There is even the paradox that life expectancy in Puerto Rico (some 81 years) is higher than that of the United States. The same thing happens in post-secondary education: 47.1% of Puerto Ricans participate in it. Although it’s true that the average of the United States is 47.6%, Puerto Ricans surpass 20 of the 50 states in the Union.

None of these objective facts negates the immense problems of Puerto Rican society: drug use, violence related to that scourge, the enormous external debt, or the proportionally gigantic size of its public sector, but, as they say on the Island, nothing that doesn’t allow them to adequately deal with those conflicts.

What will happen, ultimately, from the resignation of Rosselló? Nothing. Everything will continue the same until, in many years, the number of staters clearly overtakes the autonomists and they decidedly ask for incorporation into the United States. That is the observable trend. Wilfredo Braschi, with melancholy, warned me about it.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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’The 26th’ of Cuban President Diaz-Canel

Cuban PresidentMiguel Díaz-Canel before 10,000 Granmenses gathered in the Plaza de la Patria of Bayamo this July 26. (@PresidenciaCuba)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 July 2019 — The commemoration of the 66th anniversary of the assault on the Moncada Barracks, on July 26th, was the confirmation that Miguel Díaz-Canel is, definitely, the one chosen to remain in command of the country as a stand in for the historical generation.

The president himself implied in his first words, before 10,000 Granmenses gathered in the Plaza de la Patria of Bayamo. “I was wondering how and in whose name I am going to talk to you today, taking into account that in these acts, by tradition, two speeches are always delivered, that of the province where the celebration is held and that of the protagonists of the story.”

He recalled that the central words of all the previous commemorations “have always been the job of Fidel, Raúl, Ramiro Valdés and Machado Ventura.” And he added that it seemed an important detail “that the protagonists of the story, alive, lucid, active in their political leadership” have entrusted him to pronounce the central words of that act. continue reading

As has become usual in the revolutionary liturgy of recent years, there were songs with patriotic pretensions, poems, “improvisations” of peasant decimists (poets) and speeches by an excited little pioneer and an exalted young student. Federico Hernández, member of the Central Committee and first secretary of the Communist Party in the province, made the usual summary of partial successes and deficiencies to be resolved, while summoning those present to resist the aggressions of the empire and to continue in the construction of socialism.

In his speech, Díaz-Canel made the obligatory allusions to history by citing words of Fidel Castro and resuscitatin Ñico López, one of the assailants of the Moncada Barracks later killed after the landing of Granma, “Raúl’s great friend, who occupies a place of honor in his office where there is a photo of the boy with the big black glasses. ”

The president reiterated that the Revolution, which today needs to fight a battle for Defense and the Economy and has to defend itself from the enemy, “requires at the same time that we strengthen in our people punctuality, civicism, the essence of solidarity, social discipline and the sense of public service.”

To draw a portrait of the situation that the country was experiencing in the times before the Moncada assault, he appealed to “a study that the Helms-Burton law causes us to dust off,” carried out by the Catholic University Foundation in 1956 which discusses the need for agrarian reform in the country.

Díaz-Canel, to refute the arguments of those who today are demanding the return of property taken from them without compensation, emphasized the difference between the confiscations carried out against “the embezzlers of the Batista dictatorship” and the nationalizations, “a right that the international community recognizes for all sovereign nations,” although he omitted the detail of the properties seized from thousands of Cuban individuals who were not a part of the Batista dictatorship.

The phrase “No, we understand each other,” taken from a quote by Antonio Maceo during the Baraguá Protest, was repeated rhetorically to refer to the dispute with the United States Government and supposed reconciliation proposals that imply “abandoning friends.”

The leader estimated the economic damage caused to the country by the economic restrictions imposed by the United States on Cuba from March 2018 to April 2019 to be 4.343 billion dollars, although he warned that this data does not include the losses caused by the latest measures of the Donald Trump administration “that limit travel licenses, prohibit cruise ships from docking and reinforce financial restrictions.” He attributed the shortages and lack of spare parts to these phenomena.

Referring to internal affairs and the challenges to be focused on, he mentioned “first of all the economic and military invulnerability of the country, the legal system, the adequate response to whatever internal obstacle exists, be it bureaucratism, insensitivity or corruption that cannot be accepted in socialism.”

Díaz-Canel also referred to the recent increase in salaries that has sparked so much controversy among economists. “Given the old dilemma of raising wages now or waiting for productive results to support these elevations we decided to raise them, not one but several times the value of what was being paid,” he said.

He added: “But to sustain these and all possible social benefit measures, it is necessary to produce more and improve the quality of services. New measures proposed by the people must be approved in the coming weeks and months.”

He did not forget to express solidarity with the Government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela or to condemn those who denounce his excesses. He announced that he will attend the meetings of the Sao Paulo Forum to carry the messages of the Revolution and “strengthen the integration of leftist forces and their mobilization against the imperial offensive that has proposed to break us, divide us and confront us.”

Finally, the three octogenarians who participated as spectators in the act, Raúl Castro, Ramiro Valdés and Machado Ventura went up to stage the final photo of arms raised in victory. At that same moment, the death of Cardinal Jaime Ortega was announced in Havana and, in Washington, new economic sanctions against Cuba were announced.

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Jaime Ortega, Cardinal of the Thaw, Dies in Havana

Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega delivers a sermon on Friday, April 6, 2012 at the Cathedral of Havana. (EFE / Alejandro Ernesto)

Luz Escobar and Mario J. Penton, Havana/Miami, 26 July 2019– Cardinal Jaime Ortega (1936-2019), a key figure in the secret talks that led to the reestablishment of relations between the United States and Cuba, died at age 82 on 26 July in Havana, after a long illness, according to ecclesiastical sources.

“Jaime Ortega was a figure of great weight during the last decades, both in the life of the Cuban Church and in the life of our people. A controversial figure, no doubt, but one whose intention was always to serve Cuba and the Church,” said Father José Conrado Rodríguez, pastor of the church of San Francisco de Paula.

Although on many occasions he did not agree with the Ortega line, Father Conrado confessed that he always “respected” the figure of his teacher, for “his love for Cuba” and his “desire to do good.” continue reading

“Jaime always looked for the Church to be present in the life of the country. He was attentive to problems that affected the life of the nation, such as emigration,” he added.

“He tried to solve big and serious problems and he did it with the best will, although personally I think he was not so happy about the way he faced them,” added the priest, very critical of the closeness, under Ortega’s leadership, between the Cuban Church and the State.

Jaime Lucas Ortega was born on 18 October 1936 in Jagüey Grande, in Matanzas province. He entered the seminary in 1956 and after four years of studies he was sent to Canada. He returned to Cuba in 1964 to be ordained a priest.

His ministry was interrupted for eight months in 1966 during his confinement in the Military Units of Production Aid (UMAP), forced labor camps established by the communist regime of Fidel Castro, where religious, homosexual and the disaffected were sent. The following year he was appointed pastor of his hometown.

In 1969 Ortega was promoted to the head of the cathedral of Matanzas and nine years later consecrated bishop of Pinar del Río by Pope John Paul II. During these years he also taught at the San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary. In 1981, the Polish Pope appointed him archbishop of Havana, and in 1994 he was named a cardinal, the second Cuban to reach the highest title granted by Rome.

In that year he was one of the main architects of the pastoral letter Love Hopes All Things, which contained strong criticism of the Government, and especially of the dreaded State Security. In those years, the voice of Ortega was one of the most critical in the concert of Cuban bishops, condemning the “violent and tragic” events of the sinking of the tugboat 13 de Marzo.

“His appointment as cardinal was a gift from Pope John Paul II to the Cuban Church. The Pope wanted the Church to break with the silence it had been forced into and leave the temples to evangelize,” said the priest Castor José Álvarez Devesa from Camaguey.

Father Álvarez believes that one of Ortega’s great achievements was the pastoral structure he built in his archdiocese, which are called the ecclesiastical provinces. “He organized vicarages, pastoral councils, linked the faithful with the Church and through his attitude of dialog important things were achieved, such as the pilgrimage of the Virgin of Caridad de Cobre throughout the Island, which has been a blessing,” he said.

According to the priest, the Cuban Church “has had very great challenges” with the introduction of the Marxist system. “Cardinal Jaime chose to return to Cuba and serve his country and his Church,” he added. Álvarez also highlighted Ortega’s role in condemning the death penalty on the Island and the right of Cubans to leave and return to their country.

During the almost 35 years that he was in charge of the Archdiocese of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega restored dozens of temples, established a Diocesan Pastoral Council to make the work of the Church more effective, and established the headquarters of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba.

One of Ortega’s works is Cáritas Havana, created in 1991, which preceded Cáritas Cuba, the largest NGO on the island that distributes medicines, food and other types of aid on a daily basis. Ortega played an important role in the creation of socio-religious publications New Word, in 1992; Lay Space and Love and Life.

As a cardinal, in 2011 Ortega participated in the process of releasing the 75 political prisoners of the Black Spring and in the subsequent banishment to Spain of many of them. He was later criticized for having affirmed, before international media, that there were no political prisoners in Cuba.

The priest was considered the architect of three papal visits to Cuba — John Paul II in 1998, Benedict XVI in 2012 and Francis in 2015 — who officiated massive public masses in spaces previously reserved for power.

In 2010, Ortega inaugurated a new headquarters for the San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary, which was the first new construction by the Catholic Church on the island since 1959. The cardinal also committed his figure to the creation of the Félix Varela Cultural Center, an educational institution that is an alternative to the educational monopoly of the Cuban State.

Instrument in the secret negotiations between Washington and Havana

“I was the letter,” Ortega said about his role in the secret negotiations between the United States and Cuba that allowed the reestablishment of relations between the two countries during the presidency of Barack Obama.

As the cardinal revealed, years after the two neighboring countries ended a break of more than half a century, Pope Francis secretly entrusted him with the delivery of a letter to Raúl Castro and Obama.

“Perhaps the most important part of my mission came when President Raúl Castro asked me to transmit on his part a message to President Obama, of which I would be the bearer when I took the letter of the Holy Father to the president in the White House,” recalled the Cardinal during a speech.

The message commissioned by Raúl Castro was that Obama had not been responsible for the policy towards Cuba, that he was an honest man and that in Havana they knew his intentions to improve relations with the Island.

Obama thanked Castro for his words and sent a verbal message with the cardinal: “It was possible to improve the existing situation,” despite the differences. On 17 December 2014, the date of Pope Francis’s birthday, Cuba and the United States announced the restoration of diplomatic relations.

Both parties recognized the work of the Catholic Church as a mediator, although sectors of exile and opposition in Cuba strongly criticized Ortega because he did not demand an improvement of human rights and freedoms on the Island.

After more than three and a half decades at the head of the Havana archbishopric, Ortega said goodbye in 2016 when Pope Francis accepted his resignation and in his place appointed the Camagueyan Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez.

Recently, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba granted the Cardinal the Monsignor Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Distinction . The bishops of the eleven Cuban dioceses were present at the ceremony.

Church sources reported that Ortega Alamino’s body will be exhibited in the cathedral of Havana for three days starting this afternoon, “according to the Vatican protocol.” They also said that the funeral will be Sunday at 3:00 pm.

Through a tweet from President Miguel Díaz-Canel, the Cuban government offered its condolences for the death of Cardinal Ortega. “His contribution to the strengthening of relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Cuban State is undeniable,” the leader wrote.

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The ‘Apartheid’ of Abel Prieto

The author reproaches Abel Prieto for his July 18th article in ’Granma’. (EFE)

Dear Mr. Prieto, if the intention of your article published on July 18, 2019 in the Granma newspaper was a recommendation for the public to listen to Mr. Fernando Ortiz and to be nurtured by his work — as reflected in your last sentence, although using other words — I am of the opinion that you did not need to insult a figure of the Cuban intelligentsia, whether it pleased him or not, and to attack all Cubans in general by dividing us into types or sects, according to your own definition of “external cubanidad*” and “cubanía*.”

You warn us that there are “rumberos (musicians) and entertainers, who master a spicy repertoire of Cubanisms, enjoy rum, dominoes, good tobacco, strong coffee, laugh at Pepito’s jokes, cry at a bolero and always wear a Virgin of Caridad del Cobre medal around their neck . They are active practitioners of external cubanidad, but they are essentially oblivious to cubanía.” And in addition to this, you previously call them “annexationists.” [people who want Cuba to become part of the United States]

You show us in this way in your article a detailed description of citizens of our country who, apparently, for you do not represent what they have to represent having been born in Cuba. Even if, you warn, and according to my interpretation of the previous quotation extracted from your text, they carry out human activities equal or similar to the rest of those who do exercise “cubanía.” continue reading

It is frightening to think that the fascists disqualified Jews in the twentieth century in the same way, proclaiming publicly and macabrely that even if the Jews were human beings, they were not “equal” to them.

To hide your disrespectful qualifications a little more, you do not dare to call them bastards or anti-Cuban, but disqualify them with a little more elaborate but equally scandalous expletives, concluding, in other words, that there are people who exercise “external cubanidad ” and not “cubanía.“

It is not for pure pleasure that you, mischievously and voluntarily, hide behind the thoughts of other intellectuals mentioned in the text, such as Elías Entralgo or Ortiz himself, in addition to using copious insults against Mr. Cabrera Infante to justify the unscrupulous launch of your own abominable conclusions, cited above.

I wonder why it is that you dare in your article to denigrate us in such a way, all Cubans, for some thinking differently from others. I suspect that certainly in the current international context you would not dare to launch a public statement against Puerto Ricans, stating that some are and others are not, unless you suffer from a severe neurological problem.

Just look at the result of some disrespectful phrases that were not well received by the Puerto Rican citizenry, which, unlike your daring and excessive public letter, were contained in the private messages of their president and provoked a mass protest that ended with his rapid resignation.

I also suspect that your boldness comes from your great feeling of impunity derived from your job and your current position and status, and that, for obvious reasons, this feeling is closely linked to the cowardice of the current Cuban rulers who use sticks to repress any peaceful protest of citizens against any of their untouchable party faithful, which, following the guidelines of Article 4, Paragraph 4 of the new Constitution, pushes and encourages any Cuban to fight by any means against any ‘other’ that opposes an order issued by the Communist Party although such opposition is peaceful, such as carrying a discreet poster on the sidewalk, or writing a press article.

Mr. Prieto, as those who know well the injustices of this life say, the jailer is brave in the world of prisoners.

I hope that your article is of much better benefit to you than the rest, and that, when you reread it, it will never produce the bad taste that it produces and will produce in those of us who will have the miserable bad luck of encountering this shameful page and reading your public segregationist thoughts in the future.

Guamacaro, Canadá, 29 July 2019

*Translator’s note: Taking the definitions from a Cuban government website: “Cubanidad — the quality of being Cuban; Cubanía — the vocation of being Cuban.” An English equivalent might be “Cubanness.” See also: All About Cubanía

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Lavrov Closes Ranks with Havana and "With the Cuban Leaders"

“We’re going to continue supporting the Cuban leaders,” emphasized the diplomat, who met this Wednesday morning with his Cuban counterpart at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters. (@CubaMINREX)

14ymedio, Havana, July 24, 2019 — Russia isn’t waiting time. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s tour through Latin America, which began this Tuesday with his arrival in Havana, sent the clear message that the old ally maintains with the Island a “deep agreement on the international agenda,” said the Minister of Foreign Relations, Bruno Rodríguez, during a press conference this Wednesday.

The minister’s visit happens at a moment of special financial tension for Cuba, and Lavrov has emphasized that Russia will contribute to “making the Cuban economy more sustainable in face of the blows,” alluding to the new restrictions imposed by the Administration of the United States.

Lavrov has also confirmed his backing of the senior leadership of the country, after more than a year of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s presidency. “We are going to continue supporting the Cuban leaders,” emphasized the diplomat, who met this Wednesday morning with his Cuban counterpart at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters. continue reading

During the meeting, Lavrov mentioned the joint economic projects that are in development, which “make progress in a sustainable way in strategic sectors like energy, industry, and transport,” according to a note in the official newspaper Granma. The minister stressed that Russia has in Cuba a “trustworthy and long-standing” partner.

For three decades Moscow supported the Cuban economy via subsidies and sugar purchases for which, on occasion, the Soviets ended up paying seven times above its cost on the world market. Of the 31.7 billion debt that the Island incurred, it only payed 500 million and Russia canceled the rest.

Recently, the economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago detailed that “the Soviet Union gave Cuba, in 30 years from 1960 to 1990, some $65 billion,” but despite that, the Island “didn’t change its structure and its system to be able to grow and finance imports. The money practically vanished.”

Last October Cuba and Russia signed seven agreements for collaboration in areas like the steel industry, sports, and customs services, at the same time opting to strengthen bilateral collaboration, commerce, and investments on the Island.

Railway is one of the sectors where the relationship between both countries has been the most palpable. Russia is carrying out an ambitious renovation project of the Cuban rail network, affected by decades of technical deterioration and lack of investment.

In June the director of the Russian company Sinara Transport Machines (STM), Anton Zubijin, said that projects of that type on the Island add up to 200 million Euros. “We have already covered half of the way, we’re providing 45 locomotives, and we are building together a locomotive repair factory,” he explained.

However, it is the collaboration in the military sphere that has gotten more international attention, especially from the United States. At the end of 2018 it was made known that the Cuban Government will receive a Russian credit of $50 million that will allow it to buy all types of arms and military material from Moscow.

Cuban authorities are seeking to modernize the military industry and armaments through the purchase of Russian tanks and armored vehicles, in addition to ships, spare parts, tools, and accessories.

Caption: Raúl Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, accompanied Lavrov to the inauguration ceremony for the restoration of the Statue of the Republic at the National Capitol. (Angélica Paredes/ Radio Rebelde)

Raúl Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, accompanied Lavrov to the inauguration ceremony for the restoration of the Statue of the Republic at the National Capitol. Russian experts were the ones in charge of the rehabilitation process of this sculpture and are putting gold plating on the dome of the emblematic building.

The restored sculpture is the work of the Italian artist Angelo Zanelli and it is considered the third tallest statue underneath a roof in the world.

Although so far no official reference has been made to the situation in Venezuela, Lavrov’s arrival in Cuba also coincides with the dialogue process between the regime of Nicolás Maduro and representatives of the opposition which is being held in Barbados, on which Russian influence has projected several times.

This Tuesday Lavrov told the press that “the situation in Venezuela is changing for the better,” and he stressed that after the “failed attempts” of provoking a new “color revolution,” “common sense is beginning to prevail.”

“In light of the positive comments of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and of the opposition figures on how the negotiation process is going, I trust that an agreement that satisfies everyone will be able to be reached. That will go, first and foremost, for the benefit of the Venezuelan people,” he emphasized.

Recently Elliott Abrams, special US envoy for Venezuela, warned of the importance of the Russian role in the survival of the Chavist regime. The support of that power is essential, argued the New York political figure, among other reasons because of its veto power in the United Nations Security Council.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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Cuban or Imported, Beer Sets the Beat of the Economy on the Island

In recent months authorities have had to import greater volumes of beer to be able to meet the demand. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, July 22, 2019 — “We don’t have Cristal or Bucanero,” repeats the employee of a state-owned cafe in Havana. On the counter, a can of Heineken and another of Hollandia sum up the offerings of cold drinks, at a price of 1.50 and 1.75 CUC, much higher than the domestic product.

Beer, which three decades ago was almost a luxury or was only consumed on very special occasions like weddings, birthdays, and carnivals, has become a frequent companion to summer on the Island, at private restaurants, the tables of the new rich, and the relaxation of tourists. “There’s nothing better than a lager in this heat,” declares Urbano Rodríguez, a bartender at the private restaurant La Grandiosa, on the beaches in the east of Havana.

“It’s the product that’s sold the most, above soft drinks, cocktails, and bottled water, but also in the past year it’s become the most difficult to get,” confirms the employee, who has worked in the private food industry for 16 years. “A while ago it was easy to stock up on beer but now we have to almost do an espionage operation in the stores to know when they are going to put it out.” continue reading

Rodríguez laments that “there’s very little supply of domestic beers and every time they put it out in a market, they run out quickly.” The customers of the private restaurant where he works “have had to get used to drinking imported beers that are always a little more expensive,” he points out. In La Grandiosa, Cristal and Bucanero are sold at 1.50 CUC, but a can of Heineken surpasses them both.

The price of the beers is determined in the majority of countries by various factors, from the level of the company, taxes on alcohol, availability, the type of beer, which can be industrial or craft, but also the flavor and the tradition of a certain brand. However, on the Island that price is determined by factores like scarcity, shipments, and money of the informal economy.

Only two state-owned places of the twenty visited by this newspaper had domestic beer this weekend. The rest had imported product or totally lacked it. However, a similar trip to 20 private establishments revealed that in all of them there was Cristal or Bucanero, along with imported beers.

At state-owned markets domestic beer has a price of 1 CUC but the private, more exclusive places sell it for double, although in the past year, frequently, they have only been able to get brands from Mexico, Panama, Europe, and a few other far-off places on the planet.

“It’s clear that the tourists want to drink Cuban beers but if there aren’t any, there aren’t, and that’s it,” points out the bartender. “Who comes here to drink Dutch or German beer?” he asks. “They blame private companies for stockpiling boxes and boxes of Cristal or Bucanero when they sell it in stores, but what are we going to do, if we don’t keep up the supply we don’t sell.”

A result of the shortage is that it is more common to find imported beers than domestic brands. (B. Snelson)

Recently, in an article published in the official press in Cienfuegos, self-employed workers were blamed for “stockpiling” domestic beer to later sell it at a higher price. The text reported that the product sold at private businesses costs almost “200% its sale price, perhaps 250% its cost price. For someone who didn’t invest even a drop of sweat in producing it.”

The price of beer in the private sector provoked a bitter controversy around who is responsible for the increase. While the official press points at the entrepreneurs, independent economists blame low production and the State’s attempts to control prices.

The text also blamed sources inside the administrative framework of state-owned stores who notify the private businesses about the sale of domestic beers and make money for themselves by selling them more than the permitted quantities. The product has suffered frequent shortages in recent years, which has obligated the regulation of its retail sale to two cases (of 24 cans or bottles each) per person.

According to the statistical yearbook of 2018, beer production has modestly grown on the Island to reach some 2.6 million hectoliters at the end of 2018, but demand seems to have increased more, especially from the liberalizations that expanded the practice of self employment and the arrival of a greater number of tourists.

“What has also happened is that beer has stopped being a luxury product and become something that Cubans feel that they deserve and that they should have it whenever they want. They’ve realized that it’s not an elite product but rather a proletarian beverage, to drink after work,” points out Erick Núñez, who works as an accountant at several private businesses.

“It’s been a slow process, influenced by the visits of emigrant Cubans who invite their family members on the Island to eat, spend a weekend at the beach, and stay in hotels, where beer is one of the least luxurious and most consumed drinks,” he believes. “What used to seem unattainable came to be something that everyone wants.”

The opinions of the economist Pedro Monreal match up with that hypothesis, and on his blog El Estado he points out that “in the case of beer, the same thing is happening as with almost all products: the demand is relatively divorced from the income that comes out of the pockets of the worker. Part of the explanation is remittances.”

Monreal explains that “there are specialists who place the level of remittances at some $3 billion annually, but it would be enough to assume half of that figure — $1.5 billion — for that income via remittances to surpass all the salaries paid in Cuba (34,262,000,000 Cuban pesos in 2017 [roughly $1.37 billion US]).”

On an international level the average price of a beer is $5.70, according to a study done in 2018 in 48 cities. Havana is far below the world average, far from the $8.00 of Hong Kong and the $7.70 in Zurich. But 1.50 or 2 CUC for a cold one is still high for those who live on their salary on the Island, who must pay an entire day’s wage — or more — to refresh themselves with a single Cristal.

It’s on that point where remittances, money from informal business, and earnings obtained through the private sector come into play. These incomes are what “are bringing up the price of some products, including beer,” believes Erick Núñez. “It’s a status symbol, a marker of economic solvency and everything that involves.”

“It’s happened that way with other products, which started out being the exclusive domain of the few who were able to pay for them and now they have a greater and greater demand,” points out the accountant. “On that list we can put disposable diapers for children, which before were a thing of the elite and now even the most humble person tries to look for some extra money to buy them, and also vegetable oil for cooking.”

“Remittances play a positive role in the Cuban economy,” notes Pedro Monreal, who believes that “the problem is that it’s an ’extra’ demand that the economic model has not been able to take advantage of to generate an equivalent ’extra’ supply,” and he points out the problems of production as the source of the shortage and the rise in prices of the product in the private sector.

A source from Cervecería Bucanero S.A. (CBSA), the most important domestic producer, tells this newspaper that “after the problems with raw materials a few years ago, production has stabilized and the plan is being fulfilled.” The official from the joint enterprise explains that “the shortage is owed to an increase in consumption and bad practices in distribution.”

This matches up with the judgment of the economist Elías Amor, a resident of Spain, who questions the explanation given in official media about the lack of beer in establishments managed by the State. If “they run out in state-owned stores it’s because those responsible for the communist planning are incapable of detecting needs and much less of increasing the supply.”

“Cubans who want to enjoy a cold beer know where they can find it, although they have to pay a higher price,” assures Amor. “Nobody can be punished for it. The owners of the private establishments do what they have to do: provide service, even though the price is higher.”

In the small storage room at La Grandiosa restaurant, this week some cases of Cristal beer alternate with those of the Heineken brand. “In summer we run out more quickly, we almost have to count on double what we normally have in other months,” says Urbano Rodríguez. “Because the beach without beer is hell.” The word of a bartender.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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Gasoline is "Lost" in Havana

Drivers lament that they have to pay for the lease of state-owned taxis whether or not there is gas to drive them. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, July 18, 2019 — Alexander Barroso had traveled around to several service centers in Havana this Wednesday and the most-repeated response was “there is no gasoline.”

“Monday was the last time that I was able to fill the tank at L and 17th and it was sucking up the last bit that remained in the cistern. After that, no matter where I go, it’s ’there’s none, it’s all gone.’ So that’s why I’m in this line,” he tells 14ymedio.

Barroso works as a driver transporting fruit from other provinces to Havana and has come to the gas station on the corner of 25th and G, in El Vedado, via a tip-off from a friend who assured him that it was one of the few places selling fuel to customers. A few hours earlier, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Raúl García, had denied on Cuban television any problem with the fuel supply that would be affecting the energy sector in the wake of the blackouts that the Island had experienced the previous day. continue reading

The official version is a failure at one of the power plants, but the lines at service centers confirm that the lack of petroleum is more than real.

Caption: The line was advancing slowly, but some filled not only their tanks, but also containers to take home. (14ymedio)

The line of taxis, state-owned cars, garbage trucks, private cars, and motorcycles on Wednesday reached from the gas station at which Barroso was waiting to the central Calle 23, some 100 meters.

“The thing is bad but as far as I can see it, it’s going to get a lot worse,” said the driver of a tow truck belonging to the Electric Union of Cuba, positioned in the line. He said that he had been stopped for two days, without being able to work because he hadn’t been able to find petroleum anywhere, and he expressed his lack of hope of being able to fill the tank this week.

The slowness of the line bothered many customers who were complaining about the lack of forward movement. Faced with the fear that the lack of fuel would continue, drivers were filling not only their tanks, but also various receptacles to bring extra gasoline home, despite the fact that selling it in containers is prohibited with the goal, claims the Government, of preventing stockpiling and the diversion of fuel from the state-controlled sector to the private one.

The informal fuel market is widespread in Cuba despite the Government’s efforts to control it by demanding proof of purchase from state and private workers of fuel at service centers. Despite that, many private drivers go to those informal sale networks of gasoline and diesel to cut the costs of keeping their old cars running, which are, as a general rule, gas guzzlers.

“It’s a mess now. Whatever you can grab now, it’s a big fuss. My car has GPS and that’s kilometers traveled against the route sheet, there’s no ’invention’ [i.e. cheating] here,” says the driver of the tow truck after denying the proposal of a botero (taxi driver) who was offering to sell him some of the liters he was allocated by the State through a card.

“I was in a line all morning at a gas station on Fifth Avenue and I didn’t make it,” laments Yantiel, driver of a Peugeot made two decades ago with which he offers trips to the provinces for tourists and local passengers. “It’s disrespectful, because the administrator of the place doesn’t know when gasoline will come again. There’s no information,” he adds.

Some lost hope of being able to fill the their tanks this week. (14ymedio)

The drivers of State taxis that drive the route to and from the airport don’t escape the problem, either. “We have to pay the daily lease, which is rather expensive, whether or not we have gasoline,” complained a driver who didn’t want to give his name. “Whether or not I make money I have to pay 35 CUC daily to the State and for two days I haven’t been able to go out to the street because I have no fuel,” he protests.

For Cubans the lack of fuel rekindles the ghost of the return of the Special Period. The crisis of the 90s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, was not only a time of a lack of food and frequent power cuts, but also of grave effects on mobility. The streets filled with bicycles and at bus stops people would wait for hours to get on a bus.

Despite the global fall of the petroleum flow between Cuba and Venezuela, Caracas is still the main energy provider for the Island, which in 2019 so far has received some 53,500 barrels a day of oil from Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The figure reveals a decrease of 40% if compared with the first half of 2015, according to the company’s data.

On May 10, the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against two companies and two oil companies that, it said, had delivered oil from Venezuela to Cuba since the end of 2018 until March of 2019. PDVSA also reduced its exports to the Island so far this year, according to internal commercial numbers that the Reuters agency had access to, and despite the fact that in May a leak of documents revealed that the delivery in that month had quadrupled that of April.

Just this week, a report published by the newspaper Clarín stated that Maduro’s Government is using pirated boats to continue the delivery of petroleum to Cuba and thus elude Washington’s sanctions. Still, according to that source, PDVSA was sending some 60,000 barrels daily to the Island, against the 100,000 that it was sending before the US measures.

In his recent speech in front of Parliament, Miguel Díaz-Canel assured that there has been a deficit in importation of fuel, which has obligated Cuba to “establish measures of internal restriction for its consumption, avoiding as much as possible effects on the population and on the main productions and services of the economy.”

“I’ll have to put away the car again because I don’t have the nerves to wait in these lines in this heat,” concluded a woman before leaving the line on Calle 25 and G. “This is taking too long. In this time I already would have reached where I’m going on foot.”

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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Cuban Leinier Dominguez Wins in Dortmund and Enters the Top Ten of the World Rankings

Leinier Domínguez’s return to classical chess, after two years of inactivity, could not have gone better. (@STLChessClub)

14ymedio, Havana, July 22, 2019 – Cuban Grand Master Leinier Domínguez was crowned champion Sunday at the Sparkassen Chess-Meeting of Dortmund, in Germany. His performance in this European event led him to rise the number ten position in the world rankings.

He greeted his followers this morning on his Facebook account and said he was “very happy to have won such a strong and prestigious event in the world of chess”

“Without a doubt [it’s] one of the best results of my career,” he added. Dominguez pointed out that the victory was not his alone and thanked his family and his wife for being the pillars of his life. “Now I will take a break and soon I will be competing again in St Louis Rapid/Blitz from August 8 to 15,” the chess player announced. continue reading

After dividing the center with the black pieces against the Polish Radoslaw Wojtaszek, the “Idol of Güines”, who now plays for the United States, finished the tournament with 4.5 out of 7 possible points. At the end of the competition he accumulated two wins, five draws and not a single defeat, as reported by ChessBase.

In this 47th edition of the event in Dortmund, eight chess players played in a round robin competition, with a time limit of 140 minutes for the first forty moves.

The Cuban was ranked second among the players at the tournamanent, surpassed only by the Russian Nepomniachtchi, who was defending his title but in the end took fifth place, with four points.

As a result of his victory this Sunday, Dominguez added three points to his ELO chess ranking that placed him in the top ten of the live chess ratings.

Other players who participated in the chess tournament were the Azerian Teimour Radjabov, Radoslaw Wojtaszek from Poland and the Hungarian Richard Rapport.

Since returning to chess, Dominguez has participated in three classic game tournaments, where he has won nine times, with 17 draws and only one defeat in 27 games, ten of those against chess players exceeding 2,700 ELO ranking points.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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The Two Faces of Paseo del Prado

For sixty-six convertible pesos, a “day pass” will provide access to the hotel pool and spa at the Manzana Kempinski. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, 17 July 2019 — The pool’s water jets create a relaxed atmosphere while on the other side of the glass the city swelters under a relentless sun, rendered benign by the Manzana Kempimski’s air conditioning system. Down below, two men use a hose to fill a rooftop tank, empty after two weeks with no water supply. The revolution that promised to end inequality has, sixty years later, instead made it blatant on one particular street.

The Paseo del Prado is not just an avenue of bronze lions, glamorous Chanel fashion shows and a backdrop for provincial tourists’ obligatory snapshots. It is also where the starkest contrasts of today’s Cuba are most evident. With at least two luxury hotels in operation and another about to open, it is a reflection of an incongruous Island.

Yusi, who prefers to remain anonymous, is all too aware of its contradictions. She lives in a working class area near Virtudes Street in a two-story building of small apartments where multiple generations are piled one atop the other. She was born there forty-one years ago and, though she has “moved heaven and earth to leave the country,” she still lives in the same place where her mother and grandmother were born. continue reading

Last week a friend from overseas invited Yusi to spend a day at the spa in the Manzana Kempinski, a luxury hotel that opened two years ago, which neighborhood residents call “the spaceship.” Located in the former Manzana de Gómez, a 19th century shopping arcade, the hotel caters to a discerning clientele looking for lots of comfort but little reality, classic cocktails and soft sheets.

“When she told me she was inviting me to spend a day there, I felt like telling her I could live for a whole month for the cost for a day pass.” says Yusi. A few years ago the young woman was sentenced to several months in a reeducation camp for engaging in prostitution with foreign tourists. She later became certified as a cultural promoter and spent a year working for the state.

“I didn’t realize I would be working with tourists again but this time I give walking tours and provide them with company,” she says. On that July day she was the only Cuban in the warm waters of Kempinski’s pool, with the scent of vanilla permeating the air. Yusi takes deep breaths to see if she can “take some of that aroma back to the hovel” where she lives.

Yusi is not terribly surprised by the contrast between her lodgings and the luxurious spa. Her adolescence coincided with the advent of tourism, the dollarization of the economy and foreign investment, and she has experienced the pluses and minuses of the transformation. Unlike her mother, who for years refused to set foot in a shopping mall because she believed it was “a place for gusanos“* with hard currency, she knows that she lives in a country where political slogans are one thing and reality is another.

Her building has not had water for two weeks. Less than a hundred or so yards from the luxurious hotel, her mother carries several jugs of water to bathe her bedridden grandmother and to clean the dishes piled in the sink. “My neighbors would go crazy if they saw me like this. They’d have a heart attack because, in my building, you have to save the bath water to clean the house,” she adds.

Old Havana and the areas closest to the hotel have been plagued by poor water supply for decades, a situation that has not improved even as the Paseo del Prado and the historic city center have gradually become the golden mile of Havana tourism. “This has actually aggravated the problem because now there is more demand,” says Yusi.

Shelves filled with neatly folded towels at the hotel’s pool reminds Yusi of the pile of dirty clothes on the edge of the cot where she sleeps. “When I leave here, the spell is broken. Or rather, the bubble bursts,” she notes ironically as she orders a mozzarella pizza and a tropical fruit cocktail. “I feel like I am in another world, that I am not in Havana.”

Residents living near the Manzana Kempinski Hotel face serious water shortages. (14ymedio)

Seated in the shade on one of the wide benches a few yards away, 79-year-old Pablo is waiting for a miracle. “The soup kitchen at Holy Angel Church, where I have lunch several times a week, is closed because they don’t have water,” he laments. “A lot of elderly people here have been left hanging. Without the extra help, everything becomes very difficult.”

Pablo lives near the majestic Prado. “I was born in this neighborhood but there are things here I don’t recognize,” he says, pointing to the facade of the Grand Hotel Packard from which freshly watered green plants hang. Upstairs, on an intermediate floor, we can see sun bathers and a couple of tourists leaning on the railing with beers in hand. “It lacks for nothing,” he says, annoyed.

When Pablo was young, political slogans emphasized equality and social justice for all. In those decades, capitalism was blamed for some people being rich and others poor, for the disparities in purchasing power. He worked hard, thinking that the neighborhood where he grew up would get better for the people who had stayed, for those who did not leave during the Mariel boatlift. Now retired, he sees inequality wherever he looks.

Employees clean the windows of the wide entry to the hotel. They wear work clothes, and use long brushes and buckets of soapy water. Paul’s eyes remain fixed on the workers. “With that much of water, or just a little more, you could make lunch for the old folks at Holy Angel,” he figures. But it is not that easy. “The water for tourists is different. “It does not come from the same place nor does it taste the same,” he jokes bitterly.

Down the street and near the Malecón seawall the SO/Paseo del Prado Hotel is almost finished. It stands out like a newcomer in front of Morro Castle. There is a visible swirl of activity as workers add the final touches. It is schedule to open in September and its five-star rating is bound attract tourists who do not worry about expenses or hesitate to reach into their wallets.

This week work is being done to exterior, trucks arrive with deliveries for the large building and finishing touches as being made to the sidewalks. Among them are fire hydrants, which now stand out in the July sun. A few yards away is another Cuba, where a sign in a small government office warns, “No restrooms and no water.”

“We are operating at reduced capacity because we have problems with the water supply and the employees are only working half days,” says an administrator, who has brought a plastic water bottle from home. It still has an ice cube in it.

*Translator’s note: Literally, “worms.” A derogatory term coined by Fidel Castro to refer to Cubans who fled the island after the revolution.

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Reporter Ricardo Fernandez Released After Nine Days

On Friday morning, Fernández had been transferred from the El Vivac de Calabazar detention center, south of Havana, to a police station in the city of Camagüey. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 July 2019 — The independent journalist and 14ymedio collaborator Ricardo Fernández Izaguirre was released this Sunday after nine days in detention. The police issued a warning letter regarding his “illegal” stay* in Havana, which the reporter refused to sign, he told 14ymedio

In conversation with this newspaper, minutes after being released, Fernández said that after being freed he had passed through the house of his colleague Henry Constantin, director of the La Hora de Cuba publication, with which he also collaborates. “I’m going to run to my house to see my daughter, I’m crazy to see her,” he added.

The reporter believes that the warning letter that the police issued to him is “arbitrary” since he was not “even 24 hours” in the capital. Upon release he was given an official summons for tomorrow, Monday, at 9:00 am.

On Friday morning, Fernández had been transferred from the El Vivac de Calabazar detention center, south of Havana, to a police station in the city of Camagüey, where he resides.

The reporter was arrested last Friday in Havana when he left the headquarters of the Ladies in White Movement to go to the national bus terminal. Fernandez arranged with activist Berta Soler to make a phone call to confirm that he had arrived safely at the terminal, but never called.

The independent journalist also collaborates with the Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) organization.

“Violations of freedom of religion or belief have increased in Cuba in the last six months, and Ricardo has dedicated himself to traveling throughout the country, often with great personal sacrifice, sleeping in bus stations and skipping meals, to document these cases and offer solidarity to the victims. We ask the authorities to release him immediately,” said Anna Lee Stangl, head of Defense of Religious Freedom at CSW.

Last Tuesday, The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) condemned the journalist’s arrest by Cuban State Security, while demanding his immediate release.

When he was released Fernández, he was given an official summons for tomorrow, Monday, at 9:00 am. (14ymedio)

In a letter sent to the Interior Minister of Cuba, Vice Admiral Julio César Gandarilla Bermejo, the IAPA demanded the release of Fernández, detained since July 12. They also requested that the reason for his detention be reported.

In the correspondence signed by the president of the IAPA, María Elvira Domínguez, from El País, Colombia and the president of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Roberto Rock, from La Silla Rota, Mexico, it was stated that “keep a a person detained without due process, without a court order and keeping their family and colleagues uninformed and in a state of distress, constitutes a severe violation of civil rights, human rights and, in this case, freedom of the press and the free exercise of the profession.”

*Translator’s note: Residence in Havana is restricted and Cubans from elsewhere must have formal permission to live there.

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Cuban Government Blames Gas Shortage on Increase in Vehicles

A line of cars waiting to refuel at a gas station in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 20 July 2019 — After days of complaints on social networks and long lines at gas stations, this Friday Tomás Pérez Álvarez, the marketing director of the state oil company, Cupet, said in Havana on the television news that one of the causes of the deficit of gasoline is the “large number of vehicles circulating” in the country.

The shortage, which has caused lines hundreds of yards long in several gas stations in the Cuban capital, has affected gasoline D-90 and B-94, known as “regular” and “special”, said the official. The sale of the first will be restored tomorrow Saturday “in the afternoon,” he said, while the offer of special gasoline “should be resolved on Monday or in the early hours of Tuesday.”

“In the case of B-90, we are at this moment, as part of the logistics that has been structured to respond to this situation, bringing tanks of support from other provinces,” he added. The official did not make any reference to problems with the importation of crude, nor, to any, technical difficulties in the four refineries of the country.

“Consumption is 20% above previous stages, even 10% more than the previous summer”, added Pérez, who blames the increase on the fact that “the country has made an extraordinary effort, especially with regards to taxis, and all this results in a greater consumption of these two types of gasoline.”

As of May, there are 24 minibus routes in the capital with a capacity of 12 passengers, using Russian made vehicles. In January, 450 of these vehicles entered the country, and with them the authorities seek to alleviate the serious problems of public transport.

However, the greater presence of these vehicles in the streets of Havana has also coincided with a decrease in the number of cars operating in the private service of fixed-route shared taxis, known as almendrones*, due to a package of new regulations that came into force in December 2018 and that has caused dismay among self-employed drivers providing this service.

This Thursday, 14ymedio reported long queues in the service centers of Havana. Just two days earlier, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Raúl García, had denied on Cuban television any problem with the supply of fuel to the energy sector as a cause of the blackouts that the island has experienced in the last week.

The long line for gasoline ave 23 and 24. #somoscontinuidaddicen #micubasufre pic.twitter.com/CksyhyfBo2– Tocororo (@ Tocororo11) July 18, 2019 [Note, this appears to be a video of several blocks of parked cars, but in fact it is a line for a gas station]

The situation has caused a flood of complaints and photos on social networks, especially on Facebook and Twitter. Users demand an explanation and link the shortage of gasoline with food shortages and power outages. “The crisis is seen everywhere, they can not cover the sun with a finger,” writes a young man who relates his odyssey trying to get fuel and his tour of “five gas stations without being able to fill the tank.”

The problems with the supply of fuel have also limited the fumigation work in Havana municipalities where the presence of the dengue virus has been detected. In the area of La Timba and Nuevo Vedado the fumigations planned for Thursday and Friday could not be carried out because “the fuel did not arrive for the backpacks [fumigation equipment],” said a source at the April 19 Polyclinic, who preferred anonymity.

“The last fuel we received had to use to fumigate the houses of the patients that had already been confirmed with dengue, but since Tuesday we have not been able to continue the task,” an official who works in the antivectorial campaign against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, transmitter of the viral disease, commented to this newspaper.

“We hope that next week new supply will arrive because that is what we have been told by the Ministry of Public Health, but right now we are at a standstill, we are only doing focal inspections to detect where there are outbreaks of the mosquito,” he adds.

*Translator’s note: The vehicles used in this type of service are largely classic American cars; the nickname “almendrones” is a reference to the ’almond-shape’ of the vehicles.

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The Generation of the Heirs

The young people who were born since the 70s can lead a change in Cuba in the coming years. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 19 July 2019 — No study on the behavior and scope of a generation can be circumscribed schematically to the data that is identified with the date of birth. Although age is one of the factors to be taken into account, it will always be possible to find, in a human group, people who identify more with generations previous to, or later than, their own.

The events that occur in an era, the ways of life and the imprint of the influential personalities tend to be markers of greater intensity to define belonging to a given generation.

The so-called historical generation of the Cuban Revolution was mainly nurtured by people born between 1910 and 1940, so that in 2020 the youngest of these will be octogenarians and in 2030 they will definitely be characters of the past. continue reading

Behind this group came another (following the demographic norm of framing a generation as a period of 30 years), that entered the world between 1940 and 1970. They are those who lived the most important part of their youth and adulthood starring in or witnessing the events most notable in recent history.

In a vertiginous summary of these decisive events, we should mention the literacy campaign, the battles of Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs), the missile crisis, the Escambray civil war, the death of Ernesto Guevara, the sugar harvest of the 70s, the military campaigns in Africa, the first socialist Constitution, the exodus of the Mariel boatlift, the defeat in Granada, the execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa and the collapse of the socialist camp.

These are the years dominated by atheism, homophobia and political intolerance, and a time when the support of families depended exclusively on a salary provided by the State; when to obtain a home it had to be built by the microbrigade system; and to acquire appliances it was essential to accumulate labor and social merits; while the rationed-subsidized market “covered” most of the needs.

This generation, which was formed listening to the speeches of Fidel Castro and waiting for him and only him to make the decisions, was the object of a massive indoctrination campaign that started at the beginning with the Revolutionary and Prolonged Instruction Schools with the introduction of Marxism-Leninism as a compulsory subject in all university degrees. They were convinced that they were living through the transition period between capitalism and socialism, that the communist future was already in sight in the Soviet Union and that the United States was humanity’s main enemy.

Those who were children were integrated into the Pioneers, while teenagers were initiators of the Association of Young Rebels, which became the Union of Young Communists. They were instilled with the idea that they had a debt to the previous generation that they could only pay with obedience and absolute devotion to the unpostponable tasks of the Revolution, that would anticipate the bright future.

Many of them joined the Cuba Communist Party (PCC) displaying their credentials of having participated in these revolutionary tasks, striving to be exemplary workers and combative defenders of the process in the face of any ideological deviation; but also, in many cases, hiding their religious beliefs or their sexual preferences and removing from their biographies everything that would distance them from that favored letter of introduction: having a humble origin.

This generation, the immediate heir of the one that had achieved the revolutionary triumph, also had the task of obtaining professional training that would allow them to occupy various political, military and administrative positions that could not be filled by the old combatants, many of whom were semi-illiterate.

At present the members of this offspring constitute the majority of the current Central Committee of the PCC, of the Councils of State and of Ministers and of the Parliament and occupy the full spectrum of the academic environment and the control of state enterprises. Their main responsibility has been to maintain the docile unanimity under the watchful eye of a handful of survivors of the so-called historical generation.

It is a domesticated generation (not to say castrated) that knew that the slightest deviation from the official line could result in ostracism, imprisonment or the firing squad, the only alternative being to leave the island forever leaving behind property, families and dreams.

A man who was not eligble to vote for the 1976 Constitution, because he was 65 days short of the required age, was the first and will be the last Cuban president contributed by the generation of the heirs.

Promising to maintain continuity, Miguel Díaz-Canel has served as president of the Councils of State and of Ministers and will be appointed at the end of this year or the beginning of the next one in the new position of President of the Republic where (if he serves a second term) will remain until 2030.

By that date the younger contemporaries of Diaz-Canel will already be preparing their retirement while “the older ones,” born starting in the 1940s, will vegetate in the asylums or rest in the cemeteries.

If events do not take a dramatic turn, whoever replaces Díaz-Canel will be someone born no later than 1970 and before 2000, fulfilling the requirements of the current Constitution. This new breed of Cuban political personalities will also occupy a large part of the ranks of the Parliament, the ministerial portfolios and the seats of the Central Committee of the Party. Maybe that is the generation of change. It will have to draw its own portrait.

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There is No Name for What is Happening in Cuban Baseball

When the fourth and last game in Nicaragua was suspended by rain on Tuesday, the team led by Rey Vicente Anglada had been officially swept.

14ymedio, Ernesto Santana, Havana, 18 July 2019 — At this point, to say that Cuban baseball suffers from an unprecedented crisis doesn’t begin to describe what is happening. The game against Nicaragua, closing the preparation for the Pan American Games in Lima, has surprised even many skeptics.

When the fourth and last game was suspended for rain on Tuesday, the team led by Rey Vicente Anglada had been officially swept away in the most surprising way by a team that, it was supposed, did not even come close in quality, but that won twice (4-1 and 4-3) and tied once.

When that tie occurred, in the first match, Nicaragua had played 23 games without beating a Cuban team and, nevertheless, won the next two games. The visitors only came up with 15 hits in those three games, including a double from César Prieto, the only one, and batted for a fabulously miserable average of 167. continue reading

Previously, since June 14, Cuba had played five series of three matches in the CanAm League, against different squads from Canada and the United States. In total, it won eight games, with two blanks, sweeping the Capitals and the Boulders, and suffering a sweep against the Aigles. The offense averaged a discrete 257.

Those who worried about these results later saw how the American university students beat the Cubans in the traditional annual match-up with a lower batting average (224). They lost four of five games and hit just three doubles and a home run, scoring 11 runs in 45 innings. The pitching, without surprises, appeared very vulnerable in this tour of North America, throwing balls of 85 miles and less.

Although the CanAm League certainly does not have a remarkable quality, its pitchers showed the Cubans, in general, a speed and a variety of pitches that they are not used to facing. But in North Carolina, facing the students, they were overwhelmed by an overwhelming efficiency.

Among the young Americans, some 19 or 20 years old, 15 were about to sign professional contracts. In total, these guys exemplify the current revolution of American baseball, especially the students, with a level of competitiveness todaynever before known.

Their pitchers easily reach 95 miles per hour and have a reserve of three or four secondaries, and there is no way to compare them with Cuban pitchers, who also lack a well-thought-out sequence. As a result, our hitters struck out 38 times and pitching gave away 19 bases on balls.

Undoubtedly, it was easy to lose four of five games against a team like that, but neither can it be said that the Cubans won in experience, taking into account what happened shortly after against Nicaragua. The escape of three players — who left the team to play in the United States: Yoelkis Céspedes, Norge Carlos Vera and Orlando Acebey — was not decisive. Fortunately, and for a reason that is still unknown, the United States will not participate in the hemispheric match up, thus saving our national team a serious problem.

The worst of the sweep before the Nicaraguans has less to do, basically, with the lack of a winning pitching staff as with the absence of combativity itself, of the live game and creativity. What was the value of altitude training in Mexico and the months of intensive preparation in different countries, which not a few have criticized since it was announced?

According to the specialized press, the selection that will go to the Pan American Games will be more complete than this one, as it will be reinforced by up to a third of the lineup with players from foreign leagues, but it has already happened in the past that those players, exhausted and without time to recover, have not turned in the expected performance.

Cuba has become accustomed to losing against inconceivable rivals — let’s remember Germany — against strong and weak, against countries with a baseball tradition and without one, with the pitching or the offense of opponents, dues to the lack of timely batting and due to the lack of pitchers with sustained efficiency.

Before the shipwreck in Central America, Yosvani Aragón, leader of the Cuban team, declared: “We can not think of anything other than winning the Pan American Games in Lima and for that we carefully prepared and it ended with blanks in Nicaragua.” What would he say now? Surely he keeps thinking with the same optimism, as do all the nefarious baseball bureaucracy.

But fans believe something very different. They are not blind and they know that there is no name for what is happening in Cuban baseball.

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Cuban President Diaz-Canel Gives the Mules a Reprieve Until Further Notice

The Cuban minister of economy raised the alarm in his speech on Tuesday, when he announced that imports made by natural persons would be regulated. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 4 July 2019 — Cuban State Television’s Roundtable show has needed two days to explain, with Miguel Diaz-Canel and his Economy Minister, Alejandro Gil Fernandez, the salary increase for state sector employees announced last Thursday.

Among the few novelties outlined by the duo responsible for the economic march of the nation was the advancement of a new regulation to reduce “the flight of foreign currency from the country” through the so-called “mules” that buy merchandise abroad to resell in the island.

Gil raised the alarm in his speech on Tuesday on the matter, when he announced imports made by natural persons for the private sector would be regulated, mainly from countries such as the United States, Panama and Mexico. A day later, he added nuance to his words stating that it is not about “prohibiting the current ways” but the State will launch “competitive offers” to counteract the phenomenon. continue reading

‘Mules’ are the main suppliers of clothing, footwear and appliances in the informal Cuban market. Many private businesses dedicated to hairdressing services, massages, repairs of electronic devices and even food preparation are supplied with some of the raw materials they need through the personal luggage of travelers.

Hence, after Gil’s first statements on Tuesday, many feared a cut in the amount and variety of products that can be imported. At the moment, the General Customs of the Republic maintains a strict regulation of personal imports, limiting even the number of copies of the same product that can be brought into the Island.

Regarding the salary increase, Díaz-Canel clarified that, since the measure will begin to go into effect this July, “we are working in an accelerated way” so that the changes also reach the education sector, which is on pause this month for summer vacation.

For the Cuban economist Elías Amor, resident in Spain, there will be time enough to realize the ineffectiveness of these decisions. “It will soon be seen that increasing wages does not benefit the budgeted sector, nor the economy, it is bread for today and hunger for tomorrow,” he criticized in his blog Cubaeconomía .

Amor warns that “the price increases will certainly happen, and will not come from the demand, that is the big mistake, because the salary increase is very limited, and does not support a big boost in spending.”

The economist thinks that the supply will not increase and that “without support for productivity the unit production costs will increase, and this will be transferred to the rest of the economy.”

In addition, he belives that “if you practice regulation measures and price controls, or price caps, the situation will be the same as always, and even worse.”

The Roundtable addressed the new economic measures for two consecutive programs, mainly focusing on the salary increase and tiptoeing around the rest of the actions, still to be finalized in the coming months.

There were allusion to a near term end of the dual currency system — the Cuban peso and the Cuban convertible peso — without specifying a date, and mentions of the possible use of cryptocurrencies caught the attention of many, but the ministers did not delve into these issues.

On Tuesday, Díaz-Canel insisted that the measures taken are not populist and, although he denied categorically that the current moment is similar to the so-called Special Period — a time characterized by a devastating shrinkage of the Cuban economy after the fall of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of its support for Cuba — he did call to resuscitate ideas from that time.

“Also taken into account were all the directives of the Commander in Chief for the Special Period, which were issued at two moments in the 1990s. There are documents that are in the territories, that have to be dusted off, that everyone has to study, because there are things that we did in those moments that gave us a lot of results and then, unfortunately, we dismantled them and we have to return to development at the local level.”

The fear that the recent rise in wages will bring an increase in prices has been growing on the streets of Cuba after the official announcement of a plan of economic measures that will come into force gradually. Diaz-Canel, on the other hand, refused to go to that extreme and asked the population to help avoid inflation: “We are calling [on people] to act and think as a country,” he said.

In the program on Tuesday, the Minister of Finance and Prices, Meisi Bolaños, indicated that actions are already anticipated in the private sector, very focused on food services and transportation. “In this task the institutions responsible for monitoring and reviewing the behavior of prices, both wholesale and retail will participate.”

Previously, the Government has used the imposition of price caps to regulate product prices in agricultural markets and in private shared-taxi services in several municipalities of the country.

An extensive body of inspectors focused on the self-employment sector has been another of the tools to prevent inflation in the last year, but those decisions have not yielded the expected results. The price of the pound of pork has practically doubled in recent months, as has the cost of the average ride on an almendrón — privately-operated shared fixed-route taxi — as well.

Many private merchants responded to the price caps by taking their products to the black market, which has represented a very important source of supply in the lives of Cubans for more than half a century.

On this occasion, voices of concern have also begun to be heard, such as that of economist Pedro Monreal, who posed the question on his Twitter account “supposing prices are ‘frozen’ to prevent the supply and demand gap from manifesting as open inflation in legal markets, how much is the level of inflation on the black market estimated to be?”

Monreal warned that the increase in salary will bring an “increased demand for food in the second half of 2019 (2.550 billion CUP — Cuban pesos)”, which “would represent an increase of 49.3% compared to food sales in the 2nd semester of 2018. In order for such an increase to not be inflationary, a proportional increase in supply is needed.”

The wage increase establishes that minimum monthly salaries will rise from 225 Cuban pesos or CUP (equivalent to 9.3 dollars) to 400 (16.6 dollars). The median salary will rise from 767 Cuban pesos (30.6 dollars) to 1,067 pesos (44.4 dollars) and the maximum will rise to 3,000 pesos (125 dollars).

In the contributions of Diaz-Canel on Tuesday’s Roundtable the role of the eternal enemy and the usual dose of the ‘epic’ was not missing. The president said that Cuba will achieve “prosperity” despite the financial and commercial embargo imposed by the United States and hoped to correct the “internal blockade,” referring to productive inefficiency and excessive bureaucracy, a concept that until recently was only used by government opponents and the most critical voices.

So far, all the measures outlined have been aimed at the state sector, but self-employed workers trust that there will be reforms directed at them. For years they have been clamoring for a reduction in taxes, the legal capacity to import and export independently and a wholesale market with real preferential prices.

Another demand of this sector, which was only authorized on the island in the 90s, precisely during the Special Period, is that licenses be extended to the exercise of qualified professions, which now can only be practiced in state-run companies and institutions.

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