Cuban doctors in the Herminia Farías school, Venezuela (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, April 26, 2009 — A home in Caracas where 20 Cubans lived was broken into on Thursday by six men in hoods who carried knives and blunt weapons. According to the victims, the criminals robbed them of cell phones, televisions, a power generator and $1,300 dollars in cash, the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reported.
Troops from the Bolivarian National Police and the Corps of Scientific, Penal and Forensic Studies went to the home, located in Alta Florida, to begin the investigation.
Members of Cuba’s medical mission in Venezuela have repeatedly complained about being victims of the widespread violence that exists in this South American country. continue reading
In July 2018, eight armed, hooded men attacked a group of prominent Cuban doctors in Venezuela and robbed them of more than $152,000 and 30,000 pesos, according to statements collected by this newspaper.
The thousands of doctors that the Cuban Government maintains in Venezuela are experiencing the political struggles and growing violence without any plans for evacuation.
After Guaidó’s proclamation as President, many health professionals confessed to feeling they would be in the middle of a crossfire if the tension led to civil war.
“The Venezuelan army is expecting an invasion from the United States, and the criminal gangs are rampant,“ a doctor of general medicine in Táchira told 14ymedio.
in addition, they are under suspicion of having been infiltrated by members of the Cuban Armed Forces who support the Chavista government, and some have complained about being used to transmit the regime’s ideology.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The program of the Miracle Mission eye center at the Santa Gertrudis hospital in San Vicente was closed. (Photo/Mauricio Cáceres/ elsalvador.com)
14ymedio, Havana, April 24, 2019 — The Cuban Government decided to withdraw its doctors and other health professionals who were working in El Salvador, after the Medical Profession Oversight Board (JVPM) notified the Attorney General of the Republic of an alleged illegal practice of the profession by Cubans in the Central American country.
The Island’s Ministry of Public Health decided to withdraw 19 doctors, technicians, and nurses who were part of the Miracle Mission in El Salvador and who provided services at the National Eye Center (CON) at the Santa Gertrudis hospital in San Vicente, according to the Minister of Health of that Central American country, Violeta Menjívar, of the outgoing cabinet.
The winner of the Salvadoran elections this past February was Nayib Bukele, a 37-year-old businessman from the advertising sector, who will take office on the first of June. Until then the office will be held by the current president, Sánchez Cerén, an ex-guerrilla of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and a traditional ally of the Plaza of the Revolution of Havana. continue reading
Menjívar expressed this Wednesday her dissent because the Oversight Board was “criminalizing” the Cuban doctors by demanding the “originals” of their graduate diplomas instead of copies, and for that reason the Cuban Government withdrew them from the mission. Additionally, she described the action of the JVPM as a discrediting campaign against Cubans.
On the team of specialists who returned to Cuba were ophthalmologists, optometrists, retinologists, nurses, a clinical lab technician, biomedical professionals, a chemist, and a pharmacist. They all left El Salvador last week under orders of the Cuban Government.
The Minister of El Salvador requested that the JVPM not ask for the Cubans’ original diplomas. “Don’t be finicky,” she said, to which she added, “not a single professional is fake, a legal analysis must be done.”
Despite that request the JVPM insists that the original diplomas of the Cubans be shown in order for them to be authorized, because they believe that the Cuban professionals cannot present only copies because they are not part of The Hague agreement.
The president-elect, Nayib Bukele, said on Twitter that “starting in June the Miracle Mission will be re-established and increased.”
“When I was mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán I saw how hundreds of older adults benefited, many of whom no longer had any hope of seeing,” added the leader, who emphasized that his government will place a special emphasis on hiring Salvadoran doctors and asked his compatriots “not to politicize good things.”
Cuba has been present in El Salvador with the Miracle Mission since 2015, thanks to the Specific agreement for the Implementation of an eye center in the Santa Gertrudis hospital of San Vicente, signed by the Ministries of Health of El Salvador and Cuba.
Last week the doctor Milton Brizuela, president of the Salvadoran Medical College, affirmed that the Miracle Mission “is an eminently political project of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) governments, created with electoral ends and with the aim of helping their Cuban allies.”
The official version for the reasons for the withdrawal of the Cuban medical mission from El Salvador has still not been publicized, but it is happening in a similar setting to what occurred with the doctors who participated in the Mais Medicos program in Brazil.
At the end of 2018 the Island’s Government withdrew thousands of doctors from that South American country after Jair Bolsonaro, at that time president-elect, described those professionals as “slaves” of a “dictatorship.” He had also conditioned the continuity of the program on the fulfillment of threec onditions: a test of the qualifications of the more than 8,500 Cuban doctors in the country; that they be able to receive their whole salary rather than most of it going to the Cuban government; and the demand that they would all have the freedom to bring their family members with them.
Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
USB sticks have become so common that they have become part of the merchandise of the street vendors in Cuba. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, 25 April 2019 — If a decade ago, when the first USB memory sticks began to circulate in Cuba, someone had insisted that a few years later they would share space with scrubbing sponges, instant glue, and disposable razors on the blankets of street vendors, they would have received a loud burst of incredulous laughter. Now, the devices, also called pendrives or flash memories, have become so common that they have become part of the merchandise of the street vendors in Cuba.
This storage device is not only everywhere, but its capacity to save files surpasses by many times that of the first USBs that barely held a few megabytes. “I have memories of 16 and 32 gigabytes,” explains an elderly man who sells batteries and aluminum scouring pads, among other products, outside the Central Train Station in Havana. Although the retiree does not even have a mobile phone, much less a computer, he says that “these are the good kind, the ones that don’t break.”
“For 15 CUC you can have the biggest and for 8 the one with the smallest capacity,” says the informal vendor to an interested party who tries to get a discount. “No, I can’t lower it by even a peso because that is what they are worth everywhere, you aren’t going to find them cheaper,” he adds. To convince the indecisive customer he assures him that “with this in your pocket you won’t ever have to watch Cuban television again because anyone can copy series and movies for you.” With the same one, he turns to another customer and tells her of the advantages of the teflon rolls he has on sale for plumbing jobs.
In the late afternoon, the man has managed to sell a few USB sticks. With his blanket placed on the sidewalk he is a small but vital link in the long process of digitalization that Cuban society is experiencing.
Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
A billboard with the text “Party, people, government, state, one single will” celebrates the 35th anniversary of the 1976 Constitution with a message similar to the current one for the new Constitution, also a socialist one. (EFE / File)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 20 April 2019 — As of April 10th the new Constitution is an accomplished fact. Although some equate it with the statutes of a party, compare it with prison regulations or identify it as “an old woman with some rouge,” it is already mandatory for everyone.
Regardless of the irritation provoked by Article 4, which supports the irreversibility of the system, known as Article 5, which establishes the dictatorship of the only party allowed, there are some articles that can be described as positive, provided that end of being followed to the letter of the law.
For example, Article 10 serves to remind state officials that they are obliged to “respect, respond and answer to the people” and, in almost any case, one can appeal to Article 41 which states that the Cuban State “recognizes and guarantees each person the enjoyment and the inalienable, imprescriptible, indivisible, universal and interdependent exercise of human rights.” continue reading
Even if a Cuban is publicly recognized as an absolute opponent of the regime and has broadcast to the four winds his rejection of the new Constitution, he has the right to rely on its provisions, even if he does not believe in it and does so only to demonstrate the falsity of its postulates.
If a television program such as Cuba’s Reasons shoots down the reputation of a political opponent, activist or independent journalist, they could call on existence of Article 41 that explicitly states: “All people have the right to have their personal and family privacy respected, their own image and voice, their honor and personal identity.”
When the police break into a house without showing the occupant a search warrant and seize the computers, cameras, telephones and documents, the victim of the assault will have the right to demand that the government follow Articles 49 and 50 that consecrate the inviolability of the domicile and its contents and, in addition, may invoke Article 59, which states that “the confiscation of property is applied only as a sanction ordered by a competent authority, in the processes and by the procedures determined by law.”
The same can be applied to by all those who suffer arbitrary detentions, including beatings, because they will be protected by Article 51, which prohibits people from “being subjected to enforced disappearance, torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” They will also be covered by Article 96, which grants them the right, “to establish a habeas corpus proceeding before a competent court.”
And when, in front of the immigration window of an airport, a uniformed person says “you can not travel because you are ’regulated’,” or when a citizen is deported from the capital to his province of origin, in both cases he can turn to Article 52, which with all clarity states that “people are free to enter, stay, transit and leave the national territory, change their address or residence, without further limitations than those established by law.”
If a Cuban citizen is involved in a judicial process, he must know that Article 94 in the current Constitution allows him to enjoy a “due process” where he can have legal assistance from the beginning.
It should be noted that, although what is related to judicial matters is clearly expressed in the Constitution, it is likely that it will be necessary to wait until October 2020 for its effective application, since it will be on that date that the Governing Council of the People’s Supreme Court will present Parliament the draft Law of the People’s Courts and the rest of the proposed amendments to the Law on Criminal Procedure, among others.
There are a lot of corners to explore on this issue, such as the constitutional recognition of certain rights, including enjoying adequate housing, accessing personal data in public records, or being compensated when one has been harmed by state officials.
The Constitution of the Republic could become a new “battlefield” especially for Cubans to demand their citizens rights, permanently trampled by those who should have the obligation to defend them.
Double standards or pragmatism? Someday the country may have a constitutional text conceived by democratically elected assembly members. Meanwhile, this is what there is.
The double standard was put into practice by those who rule the country today by imposing the dictatorship of a single party that establishes an irrevocable system and at the same time promises that all human rights will be respected.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
Picota Street, in San Isidro. The water can cost up to 50 CUC for each water truck in these circumstances. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 10 April 2019 — On Merced Street in Old Havana a cloud of dust rises that floods the entire block every time debris is thrown off the roof of a house under construction. All the neighbors have their doors and the windows closed, very few show themselves to the block. A lady who sells sweets in one of the side passages of a building looks up and says, “And all this without a drop of water.”
The neighbors affirm that in Merced “almost no water has arrived for three months” but that the worst has been ten days with a complete absence of water. That’s why Laura has gone to the house of a friend who lives in Calle Picota and has a small cistern that receives a trickle of water, “by gravity,” between 4:00 in the afternoon and 10:00 at night. “That’s why I come to bathe here; as of January water hasn’t come to my house in the normal way.”
On his block, he explains, the neighborhood delegate “is playing a role now” to ’resolve’ a water truck but only “because people pressured him” after a week no water. The supply cycle through this alternative route is only once a week, insufficient for the needs of a home. “When people protest they react, when we haven’t had a water truck for five days, the service is not constant,” complains Laura. continue reading
Eduardo, a resident from San Isidro who looks out the door of Laura’s friend’s house with two empty buckets, complains. “Those who have money can pay for the water trucks, the poor have to wait for it to happen whenever it is, now it comes once a week,” he says.
Laura’s friend’s house is like a small oasis inside the San Isidro neighborhood, one of the neighborhoods by the crisis of the water supply. “The whole world comes by here, my cistern is small and what I have is what arrives by gravity, but it is something, we help those who do not have a drop,” says the good Samaritan as she cleans beans on a table full of junk.
Neighbors loaded with empty containers approach for water in San Isidro, in Old Havana. (14ymedio)
Eduardo tells it like a story from a book that, on Egido Street, “people launched themselves into the street” about two weeks ago. “They closed the block with children and everything, putting out mattresses and posters and then the police and six trucks appeared. You ask yourself, is this what we have to do, go out into the street, to resolve things, is this how the problem is solved.” On every corner, he adds, there is the company from Aguas de La Habana (Havana Water) with a brigade “digging with picks and shovels without a solution coming.”
In the 658 Egido Street building there is still talk of the protest a fortnight ago. Since that day the water truck has come every two days to fill the cistern.
At the entrance of the building, a group of girls talk about the reasons that led them to take to the streets to demand water from the authorities. “The problem is money; when you fill all the tanks you want, it can cost between 20 and 40 CUC, but right now, as it is, it can cost up to 50 [each water truck] and nobody here has a single peso, that’s why what we did what we did that day and it worked for us,” says the youngest of them all.
“The problem with water is very serious. I’ve seen people going nuts when the truck comes. It looks like we’re going back to the same time as before, that there was nothing and everyone was fighting over a bucket of water,” says another of the girls at the foot of the stairs.
Several residents of Merced Street explained to 14ymedio that the crisis began with the works for the 500th anniversary of La Villa de San Cristóbal (Havana). According to the official press it is “a large-scale project” that aims to improve water supply to more than 9,000 inhabitants. It began in March, just the month when supply problems reached their worst in the seven people’s councils of Old Havana.
The technical director of the Havana Water Company, Esther García, told the official press that this area of the city receives water with low pressure, with an intermittent and bad service and that for this reason the execution of the project was approved.
“On television it’s one thing and the reality is very different, there’s talk about building a new pipeline and that will be the solution, but here we only see scarcity,” says Mirna Flores, a resident of Merced Street.
The official data shows there are 8,600 people who currently receive water from tankers in that area while the new pipeline is finished. Brigades from the Havana Water Company, forces of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources and the Ministry of Construction are involved in the task with the promise of concluding it by September of this year.
While the commitment becomes reality before the eyes of all, the neighbors of Old Havana are still waiting for the arrival of a water truck and carrying buckets of water. The president of the Méndez building Council of Neighbors in the San Isidro neighborhood, assures this newspaper that there are cases of “elderly people over 90 years old who live alone” and can not go down to carry water, and “sick people.” They are more vulnerable to these crises. “Here the solution is would be that once again one opens the tap and the water comes out, as it should be.”
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
John Bolton, presidential adviser to the president of the United States, Donald Trump, speaks during a press conference in Miami, Florida. (EFE)
14ymedio, Carlos A. Montaner, Miami, 21 April 2019 — Cuba is behind the Venezuelan horror. The island learned from the Soviets the art of controlling a society, even though 80% of people oppose the imposed system. It is enough for 0.5% of the population to be affiliated with counterintelligence, to achieve the submission of the whole.
People obey out of fear, not out of love, much less for ideological reasons. In Cuba and in Venezuela, as in the whole field of 21st Century Socialism, in which only Bolivia and Nicaragua remain, there is barely a handful of brainless people who create Marxist-Leninist slogans.
But that’s not the problem. After all, it is not the first time that a small island has controlled a much larger, more populated and richer nation. That is the history of the United Kingdom and India. The problem is what the colony dedicates itself to, beyond being exploited by the implacable Cuban metropolis. continue reading
The Venezuelan military leadership, led by Nicolás Maduro, the puppet chosen by Havana, is primarily engaged in drug trafficking. From that murky business they get billions of dollars. But the Venezuelan commitments to crime do not end there. They lend support to Islamist terrorists, to Iran and to anyone who claims to be against the West. It is the way they of dignifying their criminal activities. They cover them with an ideological “anti-imperialist” mantle on the left.
That’s what John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Elliott Abrams and the Cuban-Americans Marcos Rubio and Mauricio Claver-Carone think. There has never been a unit of opinion in Washington so consolidated. Everyone knows what is going on in Venezuela and they do not ignore the importance of Cuba as the power behind the throne.
The problem is how to deal with that danger. They have even asked Raúl Castro to abandon his Venezuelan prey. It seems that was the message that Prince Charles delivered on his amazing trip to Cuba disguised as a tourist with his sweet Camila hanging on his arm. This is what Abrams transmits to his interlocutors in Cuba and Venezuela.
But it is useless. Cuba is ready to fight until the last Venezuelan. First, because they need it from a material point of view. The system imposed on Cubans — the “Military Capitalism of the State” — is absolutely unproductive and requires joining another nation to sustain and maintain them. And, second, because for 60 years it has worked for them in controlling power and they know that their adversaries change or get tired. Everything rests on staying firm in the same position.
Given these facts, John Bolton, Security Advisor Donald Trump, on April 17, in Miami, revealed the measures that the US will adopt against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, the three nations that today constitute “the axis of evil.”
As is well-known, the United States has opted for economic sanctions included in the Helms-Burton Act passed during the Clinton administration. That law, promulgated by the US Congress and the Senate, goes on to say that any country that does business with Cuba, in transactions involving US properties confiscated by the communist revolution, could face reprisals and lawsuits before US courts.
It also limits remittances and visits by Cuban-American migrants, a measure similar to that taken during the George W. Bush (son) government. In addition, boats that have previously touched Cuban soil cannot land in the United States for six months. This measure has already caused terror among some shipowners and the paralysis in Venezuelan waters of the Greek tanker, the Despina Adrianna, originally destined for Cuba.
Actually, these are reasonable tactical measures to maintain a semi-hostility, but they do not necessarily lead to the end of the dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela. If the intention is to liquidate those governments, enemies of the United States, the development of a strategy, subject to a timetable, is necessary to achieve those goals before the 2020 elections, when the tables could turn.
To achieve those goals, it is important to align all the essential factors, and that can only be done by the United States if it is serious when it states that it “reserves all the cards.” No major international actor (Canada, the Lima Group, the European Union, NATO) would deny Washington its support to eliminate outlawed states dedicated to drug trafficking and antidemocratic conspiracies, and would surely collaborate in the effort.
On the contrary, if Washington chooses to limit itself to showing its teeth and being a “paper tiger,” as Humberto Belli, the Nicaraguan essayist, fears and writes, it does not make sense to mortify Cuban society with more hardships. In that case, the United States must return to the strategy of containment: vigilance, propaganda and precise denunciations against the transgressors of the laws. Naturally, the Caribbean pistol would continue to threaten everyone’s heads, as has happened over six decades.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
The ‘80s were also years of experiments and official programs marked by the voluntarism of Fidel Castro. Headline: “Now We Are Going to Build Socialism!” (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 22 April 2019 — That day I did not want to watch national television but rather some documentary on the ‘Weekly Packet’, but when I turned on the screen there was Ramiro Valdés, speaking before the National Assembly about the “diversion of resources,” the official euphemism used to talk about stealing from the State, and how “ethical values” had deteriorated in Cuban society with the arrival of the Special Period. In his tone and choice of words there was a nostalgia for the 80s, for that “golden” decade before the economic crisis.
I perceive a similar recollection in many Cubans over 40, who consider that time as the best we have experienced in the last 60 years of socialism on the island. The longing leads them to see everything that happened in that decade through rose-colored glasses. With a highly selective memory they remember markets full of products, bread and eggs for sale freely without having to go through the rationed market, an average salary being enough to feed a family, and public transport operating with numerous routes and sufficient vehicles.
They forget the shadows of those years and only emphasize the lights. Their melancholy over the lass of those times ignores the control the Plaza of the Revolution exercised over every aspect of our individual lives. Those were the years when we could shop only in state stores, watch only the television controlled by the Communist Party, and travel outside the country only on official missions. Every pair of pants, shoes or shirt that we wore had been acquired through the ration card controlling industrial products, as had been any furniture in our homes not inherited from parents or grandparents.
The repressive structure functioned like clockwork and the ‘80s had started with acts of repudiation around the Peruvian Embassy, crowded with 10,000 Cubans wishing to leave the country who had been granted diplomatic protection there. With every worker in the country tied to the state sector, the coercion mechanisms to achieve social docility were highly effective. The so-called ‘verifications’ – consisting of a neighborhood inquiry and investigation of the behavior of anyone who wanted to ascend the career ladder, get a voucher to buy a refrigerator, or win a scholarship to study abroad in socialist countries – were fully greased and seemed omnipresent.
Making contact with a foreigner was considered a crime and having correspondence with relatives who had emigrated a probable stain in one’s file. The prevailing atheism placed a mask on those who professed some religious belief and in the ritual “tell me about your life” – indispensable to enter a job or achieve a promotion – you had to confess if you had a religious belief and if you practiced it.
People were much more afraid to issue a critical opinion than they are now, the dissident groups were reduced to their minimum expression and, between ‘schools in the countryside’ where teenagers were sent for their high school years, and the pioneer camps for younger children, the children of that time received a complete brainwashing and ideological indoctrination.
All writers who wanted to see their works published had to jump through the hoop of official censorship or see their writings languish in a drawer, musicians could only record their music in official studies, painters exhibited their works only in government managed galleries, and taxi drivers drove only vehicles with the blue state license plate.
Although totalitarianism was in its moment of splendor as far as control of society, the economic situation was not the result of the efficiency or productivity of the country, but rather of the “pipeline” of subsidies that arrived from the Soviet Union. The Kremlin was sustaining a bubble of false prosperity, a bubble that burst as soon as the USSR itself fell apart and the old comrades exchanged the hammer and sickle for a market economy.
The ‘80s should not be remembered for the cans of condensed milk that abounded on the shelves, nor for the markets where it was possible to buy juices from Bulgaria at very cheap prices or canned fruits from some member country of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CAME/ or Comecon in English), much less for the stacks of intensely colored magazines with bombastic titles promoting a failed model.
Looking at the ‘80s, we must evoke them in their proper measure: the decade in which the cage was more effective, in which Fidel Castro had enough birdseed at his disposal to make us silently accept the bars.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 21 April 2019 — Luis Enrique Valdés has inhabited an obsessive spiral for four months. The reason is his efforts is to achieve a facsimile edition of La Edad de Oro (The Golden Age), written by José Martí; a version so perfectly identical to the original that readers will feel transported 130 years back in time when the four notebooks of this monthly magazine aimed at children were published.
This week he responded, via email, to some questions from14ymedio where he details the obstacles, joys and expectations that the project has generated.
14ymedio: Almost every Cuban believes he knows ‘The Golden Age’ by heart. What novelty will this new edition offer over previous ones?
Luis Enrique Valdés:The Golden Age – just to say that it is a title given by A Dacosta Gómez, its first editor – appeared as a magazine. It was a “monthly publication of recreation and instruction dedicated to the children of America,” written entirely by José Martí, which only had four numbers: those corresponding to the months of July to October 1889. This 2019, so they are 130 years old. However, we have known it in the form of a book all this time. continue reading
In these 130 years it has seen the light in the original format only once. This is the Cuban edition in four issues, published in the year of its centenary. That edition, which to be fair I must say is very good, is almost impossible to find, it is very similar to the first and in its spirit we have been inspired, although starting now, for ours, the original numbers of 1889.
At that time it was stapled to a half-page white cardboard stamped with words from Luis Toledo Sande thanking the Office of Historical Affairs of the Council of State, as well as with the credits of that impression, that made the object itself not identical to the Martiana edition. There is something in it that was not in the 1889 edition.
We want this edition to be, for the first time in history, identical in everyway to what came from the hands of José Martí. This means that each issue will be an independent booklet with the exact appearance that José Martí gave to the magazine in 1889, without any additions or deletions in each one of them. We want them to be millimetrically equal to those in New York. That is why a fifth notebook will accompany the collection, as a presentation and study, so as not to touch the facsimiles with so much as a comma and it will include Marti’s correspondence about La Edad de Oro, as well as articles and announcements in publications of the period, unknown until now, and several subsequent essays among which is a very long one by Herminio Almendros.
14ymedio: What changes or vicissitudes did the book go through every time it was published until now?
Luis Enrique Valdés:In the letter known as Marti’s literary testament, written to Gonzalo de Quesada in Montecristi, on April 1, 1895, on the eve of his definitive return to Cuba to begin the struggle, he entrusted him with: “La Edad de Oro, or whatever part of it would suffer reprinting.” Martí’s request was fulfilled ten years after his death. Thus La Edad de Oro was published as a book in Rome in 1905. In Cuba it did not happen until 1932, when Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring published it, forty-three years after its appearance.
The first edition already had misprints, most likely associated with the work of copyists or printers. Most of them were inherited in successive editions. However, most of the current editions are perfectly corrected.
14ymedio: How was the process to get the original version available to the editors of this project?
Luis Enrique Valdés:Itbegan with a worldwide search against the clock. I knew that the magazine had been distributed in five countries: the United States, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and Spain. We should not think that this distribution was massive. Absolutely. Martí spent a lot of work to find friends to help him distribute it. In Mexico, no. There was his “brother” Manuel Mercado, to whom he sent no less than 500 copies of the first issue.
In Cuba it came in through Guantanamo. There is still a sign on the site where the magazines were received. So the first thing I did was to consider that in the Public Library of New York there could be copies of 1889. But it was not like that.
I thought then that Dr. Eduardo Lolo, who has a critical edition of La Edad de Oro, could give me a tip about the whereabouts of some collection outside of Cuba. His response could not have been more discouraging: the only surviving collection was the one that Martí had placed in the hands of Quesada, which is currently on the island. That a man who had studied it so deeply told me this filled me with discouragement. However, his research is from the ‘90s. At that time the Internet wasn’t as extensive s it is now. I grabbed onto that to think that maybe there was an accessible collection somewhere in the world that Lolo did not know about.
‘The Golden Age’ is an immense source of values. More than one person would be surprised to see it again and realize that it is a text of enormous appeal. (Courtesy)
It was not in the national libraries of any of the aforementioned countries, so I started looking into the libraries of others. Then National Library of France said they had them. Zoé Valdés helped me a lot in communication with them and yes, they supposedly had them. I received a notice with the clarification that, unfortunately, there was a cataloging error.
They had “a facsimile edition of 1989” that is not in the public domain and I had to ask the editors for permission. It was the edition I spoke of before; With all logic they had confused it with the original ones since to catalog the magazine they did not need to open it, as all the information – editor, author, year, month, number, city – everything appears on the cover. After thirty years and the high degree of conservation that documents can have in dry and cold countries, it was normal that they would confuse the 1989 one, which had aged very badly, with the one from 130 years ago.
It occurred to me to call my good friend María José Rucio who is the Head of the Manuscripts and Incunabula Department of the National Library of Spain. The first thing she told me was something I already knew: they did not have it. But she was immediately willing to lend a hand, giving me hope because librarians understand each other very well.
A few days later, in which I continued to delve into whatever library was going through my mind, she called me to tell me that a certain library in Madrid – that of the Agency for International Development Cooperation – which I had not yet looked at because I was focused on older libraries – claimed to have them. I called the AECID immediately.
A very kind gentleman who was already aware of my inquiries helped me. He looked at his catalog and assured me, firmly, that he had the originals. I was invited to spend the weekend in the Madrid house of my friend Thais Pujols, and I raced from Valladolid to arrive just before the library closed. It was a Friday.
I emerged from the mouth of the Moncloa Metro Station with an overwhelming emotion. I was running, crying, with Alberto Maceo on the phone. In just three minutes I was going to be before them at last. I arrived. I was helped by a being full of light: Rodrigo Sorando. He had bad news for me: his colleagues believed that it was a facsimile. I only had to see the backs to realize that, probably, they were not the ones I was looking for. And on opening them came the confirmation of the disaster: the same mistake as the French.
Rodrigo probably noticed that I was about to cry. My lips and hands trembled. I did not have the slightest hope of finding them, but he told me about a tool that could do in half a second what I had been doing for half a month on my own: search in all the libraries of the world at the same time. “You have it in Paris.” And I, no, no, which is the same as here, and then the light came, but a still dim light: “They’re in a Miami library!”
That weekend I could not contact them, but the next week the great news came: they were there!
Several Spanish institutions that by absolute discretion I do not mention, were willing to establish a library exchange to obtain high quality copies that I needed. That type of reproductions can reach a very high price, so an exchange like the one we were proposing, and the free gift later, smoothed the road a lot.
However, from Florida they did not hesitate in their generosity: they would freely give the copies with the characteristics that we needed, even if they were immense, without the need of the intervention of the Spanish institutions, with the only condition that this be confirmed in the special number of the edition. That’s how it will be and there you will be able to know, with details, who these people are who are so charitable and such excellent professionals.
In the middle of all this process, I managed to join my purposes with a person who is one of its fundamental pillars: Carlos Martín Aires. Besides being one of my greatest friends, he is also one of the best editors I know. His experience in editorial work is immense and his absolute dedication to work will ensure, with all certainty, La Edad de Oro remains exactly as we dream it.
14ymedio: Any anecdotes about what happened in recent months and what is there anything you can say now that the project has started?
Luis Enrique Valdés:I think the most beautiful anecdote is in the genesis of this idea. My friend Alberto Maceo, a brother to me, insisted on inviting me to spend the end of the year with him and his family in Flensburg, the city where he lives in northern Germany. What we couldn’t get out of our heads is that, to the joy of being together on holidays, we were going to add the emergence of such a beautiful idea and the best legacy of that trip. Alberto and Petra, his love, prepared the room usually occupied by their children for me. They have a bookshelf full of books there and, of course, I went to browse.
Among them are several editions of La Edad de Oro. All of them very unattractive. And as a throwaway comment I said: “What bad editorial luck has had La Edad de Oro!” Making a beautiful book is the result of a series of successful decisions. That magazine was conceived by Martí with immense good taste. Both the form and its contents were meditated and measured by him with exquisite manners that those later editions have sacrificed.
CAPTION: With these pieces is built, as it can, a possible Cuba on this side. In this Cuba, as it is logical, this temple of our childhood that the Martian magazine is. (Courtesy)
So Alberto, knowing that the edition of books is a weakness for me, snapped at me: “Well, make one that looks beautiful to you.” In the year that began the day after that conversation in Flensburg, this year, La Edad de Oro turns 130. So when Alberto told me that I was completely clear. And as soon as I set foot in Spain, I set out to find the originals, the only way to make a responsible facsimile edition. As I have called, all this time, the copies of that first edition of New York: “The originals.”
14ymedio: They have launched a fundraising campaign to get the five notebooks published. How is the initiative going so far?
Luis Enrique Valdés:As of now we’ve collected 30% of the total. We are still a long way from achieving it, but there’s still time. We can’t say we’ve got the wind in our sails, or that it is soporifically slow. There are days when it slows down more and I feel immense discouragement, others advance a little and hope returns.
If four hundred Cubans, or non-Cubans who are kind enough to contribute, join in this noble purpose, providing the minimum that the rewards indicate, we will achieve it. It doesn’t seem to be too much. It would be really sad that La Edad de Oro does not have this special edition with its 130 years because 400 Cubans have not agreed on it, after everything that this magazine and “the man of the Golden Age ” have given us as a legacy.
14ymedio: What a José Martí who lived so many years in exile returns in an edition also promoted by emigrants. More than coincidence?
Luis Enrique Valdés:I think that more than coincidence it is something natural. Those of us who carry on our shoulders the weight of not living in our Homeland, as he brought it, we are always aware of the memory of the Island. One leaves there with fragments on their backs.
This experience has led me to speak with hundreds of Cubans from exile I’ve directly asked to collaborate. Most tell me that, in their crammed suitcase, they left with their copy of La Edad de Oro. And those who did not, tell me that if there is something they remember with pain it is to have left it there. With those pieces one is built, as far as one can, a possible Cuba on this side. In that Cuba, as it is logical, this magazine created by José Martí is a temple of our childhood.
14ymedio: In times of ebooks, video games and mobile applications, what is the attraction for Cuban children to look at this magazine again?
Luis Enrique Valdés:As we have said, La Edad de Oro is an immense source of values. More than one person would be surprised to return to it to realize that it is a text of enormous appeal. It is true that today’s children are very enthralled by new technologies and this, properly channeled, is not bad. However, the charms that the printed book has always had, its touch, its smell, and this time the knowledge that what you have in your hands has the exact appearance of what Martí created for them, cannot be substituted with anything.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
Police facing student demonstrators during the Franco dictatorship in Spain in 1968. (Courtesy)
14ymedio, Rosa Pascual, Madrid, 13 April 2019 — Unlike in Cuba, the images of police officers beating unarmed students in Spain are gray. And called by the color of the uniform, the “Grays” were the members of the body responsible for order in Franco’s Spain. And the photographs from that era, the last years of the 1960s, are also gray, with their caption, “Running from the Grays,” imprinted in the vocabulary of generations of Spaniards in the present and the future.
The anti-Franco student movement swelled in those years in the Spanish universities and the Grays came, usually on horseback, to break up with blows of their truncheons those crowds of wayward young who rose against the regime. For this reason, one of the main achievements of democracy in Spain was the recovery of university autonomy, enshrined as a fundamental right in Article 27 of the 1978 Constitution.
University autonomy is at the very origin of the institution. In the eleventh century, the Emperor Federico Barbarroja granted shelter and protection to the University of Bologna (the first in history) against the Government. Since then, it has been considered one of the most powerful mechanisms with which to protect Higher Education from political fluctuations and external interference, endowing the institution with its own governing and administrative bodies that protect its independence and freedom. continue reading
The context in which this concept must be placed is that of an institution that is constituted from its beginnings as a center of ideas, where intellectual restlessness, critical thinking and the exchange of opinions are part of its nature and favor an environment more prone to the questioning of authority as a given.
It is, therefore, natural that university autonomy is intrinsic to democracy. Or, in other words, incompatible with the dictatorship.
One of the most controversial aspects of university autonomy, even in consolidated democracies, is the inviolability of the campus. This implies the assumption that the Police Forces and State Security Forces can not enter the campus unless expressly authorized by the highest authority, the rector.
During the Transition to Democracy in Spain, the pitched battles between Franco’s police and the student movements were very recent. It counted for something that some of the politicians who sat in the first Courts of democracy had been colleagues or teachers of Enrique Ruano, an iconic student leftist who died in strange circumstances (they claimed he fell out of a window) during an arrest for distributing labor union leaflets.
The newly born Spanish democracy struggled for decades to keep the police as remote as possible from the universities. The protests inside the campuses, which in the worst case involved some graffiti or vandalism, were allowed to wind down or resolved or by negotiation between the student bodies and the rector. The security guards seldom dealt with demonstrations or disorder and, in no case, did they carry firearms.
On a few occasions the police have intervened on a Spanish campus in democracy. A judgment of the Supreme Court of 2003 guarantees that the entry of agents into the premises does not in itself violate the right to university autonomy and affirms that the institution lacks independence with regards to citizen security or the right to assembly or demonstration.
However, rarely has there been a political, academic or police authority that wants to be the one who allows the riot police to dissolve a protest with blows, which would involve to their name in the slightest shadow of the memory of the Franco regime’s police. This presence not only implies the inability to resolve conflicts in a dialogued manner, but it also violates some of the fundamental pillars of democracy and the fundamental rights of citizens.
The image of an agent of the National Revolutionary Police pointing a gun at an unarmed Congolese student, no matter how enraged the protest, should be intolerable in a country that, although we know it is not a democracy, does claim to defend the rights human beings in every international forum.
With a new democratic Constitution, which will not be the same as yesterdays, the photos of police hitting students in Cuba will continue to be in color, but very likely they will go down in history.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
African students banded together on social media under the heading “I Won’t Go Home without My Diploma”
14ymedio, Havana, April 12, 2019 — Congolese students who staged a protest this week in Havana have apologized to Cuba in a statement posted on Facebook on Thursday. The declaration comes a few days after a major clampdown on the protesters by the island’s police and military.
The African students joined together on the social network under the heading “Je Ne Rentre Pas Sans Mon Diplome” (I Won’t Go Home without My Diploma). In the post they explained that they do not hold Cuban authorities responsible for the non-payment of their stipends. Instead, the Congolese students blame their own government for the twenty-seven month delay in payment.
“We wholeheartedly extend to the Cuban people our sincere apologies for the inconveniences and misunderstandings caused by comments and photos published on this page,” wrote the students, who were part of a peaceful protest at the Salvador Allende School of Medicine in Altahabana. continue reading
The statement, which was immediately picked up by the island’s official press, explains that the students’ motivation in calling the strike was not to criticize Cuba. The sole intention, they explained, was to “draw attention and stir the conscience of Congolese authorities.”
The students denounced their country for abandoning them “without the sligtest remorse” to the care of the Cubans. They added, “During last twenty-seven dark months we could only count on the support of Cuba and, in some cases, our families.”
Missing, however, was any mention of the repeated criticisms some of them had made about the medical school’s bad food and poor living conditions.
Cubadebate, an official online media outlet that published the Congolese students’ letter, took the opportunity to attack what it considered to be a “political manipulation” of the issue.
Though initially there was no reporting on the student protest in front of the embassy of the Democratic Republic of Congo in Havana, the news site claimed the incident on the university campus last Monday was twisted to “damage the image of the Revolution.”
“It is difficult for us to watch our words being taken out of their initial and true context by some people to serve selfish and defamatory ambitions against the Cuban people,” the students wrote in their letter.
Videos were posted that same Monday afternoon showing uniformed officers from the National Revolutionary Police as well as from other special units barging into the medical school to restore order. In a brief statement explaining what happened, the Ministry of Public Health said it would not tolerate such “lack of discipline.”
In their letter on Thursday the Congolese students noted they were seeking to “restore the truth and dispel any misunderstanding.” They added, “We say to the enemies of Cuba who distort our words, ’We are never going to be the weapon you use to destroy this beautiful country.’”
They went on to say, “Since our arrival on the island Cuban authorities, whenever possible, have put at our disposal whatever they had… We are not the the enemies of the Cuban people. On the contrary. We are and always will be their most faithful allies.” They added, “Just as we have risen up to defend our rights, so will we, whenever necessary, do the same to defend the honor and reputation of the Cuban people.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
Mercedes Caballero with red handkerchief is part of the brigade March 13 that works in the reconstruction of the Otero area. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 18 April 2019 — Sitting at the entrance of his house, Yanisley Valdés blocks the sun on his face with his hand and does likewise and the swirls of dust that rise with the winds of Lent. Since the tornado of January 27 devastated his home, his days are reduced to a succession of negotiations that do not lead to anything. His roof is still waiting for demolition and his room is filled with the materials it has taken him months to obtain.
One of the reasons why the repairs in Luyanó incomprehensibly go on forever is the lack of materials, which seem to be lost at some point in the chain, according to one of the workers who is rebuilding the Otero site, in front of Valdés’ house. continue reading
“If you lack a nail, you have to stop. Right now we don’t have the electrical boxes to install, we do not have nails for the formwork, the other day it happened, the same as now, the supplies did not come. Finally we got what we needed five o’clock in the afternoon, almost when we were leaving, and we left at almost ten o’clock that night. That’s not right, I do not understand why those things happen, because onm paper there is everything. There is money for the materials, which in turn are in the warehouse, but here they are not arriving on time,” he explains.
Yanisley Valdés sat at the door of her house on Reyes y Mangos street in Luyanó. (14ymedio)
There, despite the shortcomings, the picture is different than in the home of Valdés. There are dozens of workers from the March 13th brigade who work from morning to night. Juan Antonio, one of the workers, says that he hopes that “by February or March of next year” all the works in the Otero neighborhood will be finished and together they can celebrate “the happiness of delivering everything new and with quality.”
The residents are happy with their work, although, again, the sticking point is the tools. “They arrived here the first week after the tornado and the truth is that they have tremendous willingness to work,” one of the residents tells this newspaper while serving lunch to the workers.
“Here the problem is that there is a lack of materials and that is why it doesn’t go any further, they are stopped right now because supplies have not come in. I stay at my son’s house, I come every morning to help and I stay until late. The buses are wearing me out, but this is my home and I want it fixed soon,” says Mercedes Caballero, one of those affected by the tornado, tells 14ymedio. She has not missed a single step of what it takes to build a new roof on your home.
Mercedes Caballero at the entrance of her house next to one of the workers. (14ymedio)
Yanisley Valdés, on the other hand, has so far barely been able to buy a water tank, rebar, stone and cement. To prevent the roof from coming down, the interior of the house has been propped up, but the brigade that has to demolish the roof still doesn’t come. In her case, the slowness of the bureaucracy has been the first obstacle she has had to face. And it continues.
Four days after the tornado, Valdés went to the office to start the procedures and recover her house, but she had to wait two months for a technician to measure the house and obtain the document for the purchase of the materials.
The waiting did not end there. “I was told the site, very close to here, but there was no truck and they sent me to Alma’s site, which is very far away. Thursday I went because they told me there was concrete, but when I got there, I had to sign in first. I was ready but the person responsible for carrying it out was not in. I got up on Friday, I arrived at about five in the morning, and there were so many people in front of me, I got number 49.”
So that day she didn’t achieve her goal either. The authorities at the supply site told her not to wait, because in one day they only dispatch five people. Valdés has taken five days to get some of the materials, but others that she needs are still missing. She paid for everything in cash, without credits or subsidies, although she did get the reduction of 50% authorized by the Government to deal with the construction crisis derived from the tornado.
Otero under construction. (14ymedio)
“Here I am, still waiting for the demolition, they told me they were going to send a brigade to demolish the second floor that is falling in, but ’you have to wait, now there is no brigade’, ’they are all working, you have to wait’. That’s the only thing they can say every time. I’m going to protest,” he complains.
While she spends his days here and there, she lives in the house of her ex-husband and father of the youngest of her two children. “That’s in Lawton, every day I have to get up at six in the morning to take my kids to school, then sit here, and in the end I lose the whole day.”
In addition, Valdés complains that she is not treated well when she goes to the offices or has received confusing information. “At one point, they told me that for the houses with property there is no brigade available, but another told me that there is and that I have to wait.”
Some materials that Yanisley Valdés has not been able to keep in his house are in the middle of the street like those sacks of stone. (14ymedio)
However, what angers her the most is that she has not been given a shelter while the situation of her house is resolved. “The lack of respect is very great, I am a woman with two children, they have not offered me shelter, I can not cook here, I have everything in sacks, I can not even walk,” he says.
“All the work that I’m going through and it turns out that I also have to come and hear lies. Diaz-Canel said clearly on television that everyone will have their situation resolved and that women with children are a priority, the question is when and how will it be. They have not explained to me, I’m going to wear out my shoes from so much going from one office to another, there’s a big mess, they work as they please.”
According to the latest official figures, released in March, of 7,923 homes affected, 2,480 have been totally resolved. The President of the Government of Havana, Reynaldo García Zapata, affirmed that all resources for reconstruction are assured and that 90% of the victims have already purchased the resources they need. But those who don’t appear in the statistics still see the open sky from their homes.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
A Rapid Response Group stars in an act of repudiation against the Ladies in White. (Cubasindical)
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, 14 April 2019 — In several Cuban universities, professors and directors are being required to ratify their membership in the Rapid Response Brigades (BRR), para-police groups destined to confront popular protests. Teachers must sign a document with the commitment to join these groups, according to testimonies and documents collected by 14ymedio.
“At the end of February they circulated a page where each teacher had to put their name, position and phone number, in addition to adding their signature as a commitment to be part of the Rapid Response Brigades,” a young professor at the University of Pinar del Rio who preferred anonymity told this newspaper. “Everyone in my department, we all signed,” adds the teacher who works in the computer area.
Since its inception in the early 90s, the Rapid Response Brigades were conceived as a vigilante organization that controlled outbreaks of popular dissent. The Cuban authorities wanted to avoid the image of uniformed people repressing the people and founded these bodies of “brown shirts” as the first ring to neutralize the protests. continue reading
The BRRs have had a particult participation in acts of repudiation against opponents and activists, especially against the Ladies in White movement. But their consecration arrived in August 1994, when together with the police and armed with sticks they faced those who took to the streets in the popular revolt known as El Maleconazo which was the preamble to the so-called Crisis de los Balseros (Rafters Crisis).
“I was surprised because I had not heard about these brigades for years, but I think that now it is something more formal, that they will never call us to do anything,” says the professor from Pinar del Río. “A colleague of mine was on leave in those days and they called her to come and sign because they said it was very important and that the country is going through difficult times in which there are new threats.”
The form, to which 14ymedio had access, details that the commitment is carried out at the request of the rector of the “Hermanos Saíz Montes de Oca” University of Pinar del Río (UPR), the doctor of educational sciences, Yorki Major Hernández. Graduated initially with an English Degree, Major Hernández was promoted from teaching and administrative positions to reach his current position.
Registration form to belong to the Rapid Response Brigades at the University of Pinar del Río. (14ymedio)
This newspaper contacted by telephone several of the professors that appear in the commitment document, but none of them wanted to make statements about their affiliation with the Rapid Response Brigades. Nor did they deny the authenticity of the return or the process of reactivation of these shock troops. “I have every right to belong to whatever I want,” said one of them before hanging up the phone in the middle of the conversation.
“The Rapid Response Brigades have never ceased to exist in Artemisa,” says Niurka, 42, who lives in the municipality of Candelaria. “Last year, when Defense Day was held in this area, many workers from the state sector were mobilized and contingency exercises were carried out in case of massive protests, the members of the Rapid Response Brigades were summoned.”
“In order to expand knowledge and learn to face special situations,” was now the call for these practices was reflected the local press. “It was nothing secret, it came out in the newspaper, but of course it caught our attention to talk about something that many thought had ended that it was a Special Period,” adds Niurka.
In the training, Niurka recalls that they insisted that the people themselves had to “defend the Revolution” and they were taught some techniques to “keep [the protesters] silent, avoid their shouting counterrevolutionary slogans and even how to immobilize” elements disaffected to the process. They also emphasized “being careful not to present an image of physical violence to people who are recording with mobile phones.”
Unlike the decade of the 90s, when communications on the island were very precarious, Cubans are now making more and more intense use of mobile phones and social networks. In recent months there have been viral images of protests against Miguel Díaz-Canel’s caravan in a neighborhood affected by a tornado in Havana and numerous images of violent arrests of activists.
A report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, dated October 1996, described the BRR as groups that “the Cuban government throws into the streets with weapons and clubs to beat its opponents.”
The BRRs have not been deactivated since they were created almost 30 years ago but have languished in the last decade. Now, with the increase in social unrest due to the rise in food shortages, the deterioration of public services and the rising cost of living, the authorities seem worried about a possible social explosion and are dusting off these vigilante groups.
Teachers of the “Marta Abreu” Central University of Las Villas and of the Havana José Antonio Echeverría Technological University, also confirmed to this newspaper that a similar form has circulated in recent weeks among professors, administrators and directors of these centers of higher education. So far there is no confirmation that the commitment has also been extended to the students.
The reactivation of the BRRs revives the memory of many who were part of these groups or were victims of their acts of repudiation.
Roberto, 68, who emigrated to Miami remembers that day very well. “I worked in a warehouse on Zanja Street in Centro Habana when they told us there was a provocation near the Ameijeiras Hospital and that we had to go out and confront it,” he recalls now, using a pseudonym. “They gave us construction workers’ helmets and rods, but on the way I lost the group on purpose because I knew I was not going to be able to hit anyone.”
Now, working with a contractor repairing homes in Florida, Roberto says he could not fulfill his duty as a member of the BRRs in part because his eldest son “had left that early morning for the Regla Ferry because the rumor had spread that they were going to leave for the United States.” Just thinking that “among those who were going to take hits was my son, paralyzed me.”
Finally the young man managed to get out on a raft, be picked up by the US Coast Guard and settle in Miami. A decade later, he managed to get his parents out of the island. However, Roberto rarely tells his story because he fears that they will point him out in public as a member of the BRR, a past membership that could cost him his residence in the US.
Recently, the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FDHC), based in Miami, launched the Cuban Repressors initiative, to “identify, investigate and collect information on the military (MININT / MINFAR) or paramilitaries (Rapid Response Brigades)” that exercised “violent political repression against the citizens” and now live in the United States.
“I signed up not to lose my job but I never hurt a fly,” says Roberto. “Although I do remember co-workers who enjoyed coming out with the od to break their heads, but most of them do not want to remember that now, and many even live here in the United States and they show themselves to be tremendous anti-Castro people.”
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
John Bolton, National Security Advisor to US president Donald Trump spoke at the press conference in Miami. (EFE)
14ymedio, Havana, 17 April 2019 — The United States government announced restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba on Wednesday, as detailed by national security adviser John Bolton in a speech at the Biltmore Hotel in Miami.
Bolton noted that remittances to Cuba will be limited to “1,000 dollars per person per quarter” and that the US Treasury Department will also reduce “non-family travel” to the island, or, in other words, “veiled tourism.”
Likewise, it announced that five Cuban military companies, including Aerogaviota, will be added to the list of entities that with which “direct financial transactions are prohibited” due to their links with Cuban military personnel and services. continue reading
The Secretary of State of the United States, Mike Pompeo, announced this Wednesday in a press conference that on May 2 Titles III and IV of the Helms-Burton law will go into effect, provisions that have been frozen since its approval in 1996, due to opposition from the European bloc.
Washington has warned that no company, whether American or European, will be exempt from its new policy towards Cuba, which allows suits to be brought before US over courts properties expropriated by the Revolution.
“There will be no exceptions,” Assistant Secretary of the State for Latin America and the Caribbean, Kimberly Breier, told a news conference.
“The Cuban regime has exported its oppression to Venezuela for years, and the Cuban military, intelligence and security services keep Maduro in power, which undermines the stability of countries in the Western Hemisphere and represents a direct threat to the national security of the United States,” said Pompeo.
Participating in the announcement this afternoon in Miami were members of the 2506 Assault Brigade, composed of a group of anti-Castro fighters of the so-called “historical exile”, veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, as well as new members representing the “hardest” wing of the opposition to the Cuban Government from the United States.
The Secretary of State said that with this measure, “after more than 22 years, Americans will have the opportunity for justice.”
The Cuban government has reacted immediately by rejecting the predictable measure in a tweet from Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.
“I strongly reject the announcement by the Secretary of State Pompeo of activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which is an attack on International Law and the sovereignty of Cuba and third States. Aggressive escalation of the US against Cuba will fail. As at Girón [the Bay of Pigs], we will win,” the Minister of Foreign Affairs wrote, adding hashtags to “Cuba” and the “US”.
This policy change will open the door to lawsuits in the US against companies from all over the world, including Spanish hotel chains such as Meliá, Barceló and Iberostar; as well as the Canadian company Sherritt, dedicated to the mining sector and one of the main foreign investors in the Island.
“Sadly, Cuba’s biggest export these days is not cigars, nor is it rum, it’s oppression,” said Pompeo.
That decision promises to inflame tensions with the European Union, whose High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, warned this month in a letter to Pompeo that the bloc could sue the United States before the World Trade Organization (WTO) if Washington implemented that measure.
The EU already sued the United States before the WTO two decades ago, when the Helms-Burton Act was passed, but it suspended that procedure once the White House agreed to freeze those sections of the Act.
As of yesterday, the European Union warned that it will take the measures that are within its reach to defend its companies, although it waited until the news was official to be more specific.
In a study published in 1996, the US State Department estimated that the activation of Title III would allow between 75,000 and 200,000 lawsuits to be brought before US courts.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
Cuban doctors Landy Rodríguez Hernández and Assel Herrera Correa, with their wives. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Mario J. Penton, Miami, 13 April 2019 — The 10 elders from the community of Mandera, in northeastern Kenya, who left for Somalia to negotiate the release of two Cuban doctors kidnapped on Friday morning revealed that the doctors are alive in the neighboring country.
The Kenyan authorities made the decision to evacuate the Cuban doctors who were in the counties of Garissa and Wajir. Wajir’s governor, Abdi Mahamid, said they were ordered to evacuate the two Cuban doctors to Nairobi following a national security warning, Kenyan media reportedon-line.
Cuban doctors Landy Rodríguez Hernández and Assel Herrera Correa were escorted to their work at the Hospital de Mandera when their transport was ambushed by two Toyota Probox cars. The attackers killed one of the bodyguards, while the other fled, and they kidnapped the health professionals. continue reading
The doctors were quickly transferred to neighboring Somalia, where Al Shabab, a terrorist group linked to al Qaeda, is fighting to topple the central government and establish Islamic law. The doctors performed surgeries and cared for the local population, including in the neighboring countries of Ethiopia and Somalia.
Kenya had difficulties sending national doctors due to the dangerousness of the area, where there are frequent attacks by Al Shabaab to pressure the Kenyan government to withdraw its troops from Somalia. In January, the terrorist group organized a major attack on a hotel complex in Nairobi in which 26 people died.
This has been the second kidnapping of foreigners in five months by the extremist group Al Shabab. Last November, the Italian aid worker Silvia Costanza Romano, 23, was kidnapped by armed men in the town of Chakama, near the tourist town of Malindi (east). To date, her whereabouts are unknown despite army searches.
The Government of Kenya has deployed its elite troops to search for Cubans, so far with no results. The governor of Mandera, Ali Roba, condemned the attack and asked the elders to initiate talks with their counterparts in Bulahawa and to ensure that the doctors are returned to Kenya, reported The Star.
“We call on the security agencies to do whatever is necessary to save the lives of our Cuban doctors and to bring them back from captivity. I sent my condolences to the family of the deceased officer,” he said.
According to the digital site Mwakilishi, Kenya pays 4,000 per month for each doctor, a higher figure than paid to their local counterparts. Generally, the Cuban government keeps 75% of the doctors’ salary. The export of health services is the main source of income of the Island, according to official figures, with an annual income of close to 10 billion dollars.
The Ministry of Public Health said in a brief official note published on Friday afternoon that it was keeping in touch with the Kenyan authorities and had created a “governmental working group” to follow up on this “sensitive issue.”
National Assembly Deputy Mariela Castro Espín, daughter of former president Raul Castro, said on Twitter that the kidnapping of doctors was “another hoax of imperialism.”
“The Islamic State responds to them, but they got into a swamp by kidnapping the Cuban doctors,” said Castro, a leader of the government’s National Center for Sex Education.
Assel Herrera Correa is a native of Puerto Padre, in the province of Las Tunas. He graduated as Integral General Practitioner he has participated in “missions” of the Cuban Government in Botswana, Brazil and Venezuela. In Cuba, he has a 17-year-old daughter, Sheyla Herrera, who attacked officials of the Ministry of Public Health in an interview with Radio and TV Martí.
“I do not know anything yet, we do not know anything,” she said, adding that no Public Health official has informed the family about her father’s condition, or what measures will be taken to return him home safely.
Landy Rodríguez Hernández is a surgeon by profession, born in Placetas, province of Villa Clara, in the center of the country. In Cuba he worked in the General Hospital of Remedios. According to the information on his social networks, he is married and has a five-year-old daughter.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
In his speech in the National Assembly, General Raul Castro stood up for Nicolás Maduro and described international pressure on the Venezuelan government as “unconventional methods of warfare.” (@AsambleaCuba)
14ymedio, Havana, 10 April 2019 — The proclamation, this Wednesday, of the new Constitution of the Republic of Cuba was accompanied by the bad news that the ex-president Raúl Castro was commissioned to announce in a speech before the National Assembly. He warned that the country faces “additional difficulties and that the situation could worsen in the coming months.”
The day began with a symbolic act, where Castro was not present, in the Camagüey town of Guaimaro, where on April 10, 150 years ago, the country’s first Constitution was approved.
Later, in the Palace of Conventions in Havana, the parliamentarians began the act of promulgating the constitutional text that the ex-governor defined as a “child of its time,” which “guarantees the continuity of the Revolution” and “safeguards, as fundamental pillars, the unity of all Cubans and the independence and sovereignty of the country. “ continue reading
Given the criticism the constitutional text has provoked, Castro said that “as expected, the historical enemies of the Revolution have sought to question the legitimacy of this comprehensive constitutional exercise,” and he noted that among those who voted No in the referendum there were those who rejected only some issues of the Constitution.
With regards to the worsening of the economic situation, the 87-year-old general clarified that “it is not a question of returning to the phase of the Special Period of the decade of the 90s… Today is another scenario in terms of the diversification of the economy, but we must always prepare for the worst variant.”
“Faced with the turbulent scenario that has been formed,” he said, “we have defined as an unavoidable priority the preparation of the country for defense and the development of the national economy,” he said. He gave as an example the measures adopted “in the interest of strengthening the capacity and combative disposition of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the entire defensive system of the country, under the strategic conception of the war of the whole people.”
In his speech, the general stood up for Nicolás Maduro and described international pressure on the Venezuelan government as “unconventional methods of warfare.” He recalled that last year he had warned that “the siege of the empire is tightening around Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.”
The new Constitution has 229 articles, 2 special provisions, 13 transitory and 2 final. The text was updated with several of the economic reforms of recent years in an attempt to get closer to the reality of the Island, in a way that recognizes private property and applauds foreign investment.
However, the new Constitution does not leave open any possibility for a change in the country’s political model and consecrates the supremacy of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) over other organs of powers, in addition to ratifying, in its preamble, communism as the ultimate goal.
With its publication, today, in the Official Gazette, the Constitution enters into force. However, the adoption of a new electoral law is pending, which will be presented in Parliament in July during the next ordinary session.
Then, the Parliament will have three months to elect its president, vice president and secretary, the other members of the Council of State and the President and First Vice President of the Republic.
The new Constitution, which limits the office of President of the Republic to two terms, creates the figures of a prime minister and also of provincial governors.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
14ymedio, Havana, April 26, 2009 — A home in Caracas where 20 Cubans lived was broken into on Thursday by six men in hoods who carried knives and blunt weapons. According to the victims, the criminals robbed them of cell phones, televisions, a power generator and $1,300 dollars in cash, the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reported.
