The Cuban Government’s Surveys Are a State Secret

When a pollster goes to a house in Cuba, the citizen assumes that it is someone trusted by the government and is reluctant to give their opinion. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 22 February 2019 — As a sociological research tool, surveys have enormous utility in testing the state of opinion of the population in relation to different issues.

The credibility of a survey depends on several factors, including the selection of the sample, the veracity of the respondents and, of course, the honesty of the interviewers who are not supposed to demonstrate what answers they prefer but rather collect the data to learn the truth.

In a country like Cuba, where opinions that different from the official thinking are often penalized, it is difficult for respondents to say what they really think, especially if what they are being asked about is related to political issues. continue reading

When a pollster shows up at a house, tablet in hand, to ask a citizen whether or not they plan to approve the new Constitution in the February 24 referendum, it is likely that, before answering, they will look in all directions to check if they are being filmed. It’s not paranoia, it’s pure self-preservation.

The respondent presumes, quite rightly, that if the woman or man, young or old, has authorization to ask questions on the street, it is because she or he is a person trusted by the Government, which automatically makes him or her an informant for the political police. Can we trust the answers?

When an organization independent of the State, inside or outside of Cuba, tries to carry out a survey with this type of questions, it cannot count on the services of “the comrades of the CDR [Committee for the Defense of the Revolution].” They are obliged to ask opposition activists or independent civil society to carry out the survey.

These citizens, however elevated their sense of responsibility and above all, however high their honesty, will go to their environment, to the people they deal with. Can you trust that the answers they collect are from a representative sample of the population?

With these reservations, we should look at two recent surveys on voters’ opinions regarding the constitutional referendum on February 24.

One, carried out by the Study Group on Social Dynamics of the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), found that 33.5% of Cubans intend to reject the new Constitution. This disagreement is broken down by 19.2% with the intention of supporting NO (19.2%), 9.2% who will leave the ballot blank and 5.1% who will annul* their ballot.

The other survey, also carried about by a non-government organization, Cubadata, believes that 42.4% of the voters will vote YES, 41.6% will go to the polls to mark NO and 16% will opt to abstain.

Most likely, the government has its own surveys, conducted with much more resources. Unfortunately, they are not public.

There is talk about at least two surveys conducted by the authorities. The Union of Young Communists conducted one in Havana high schools, where students are 16 or older and eligible to vote. According to testimonies collected by 14ymedio from representative students, most of the respondents expressed their outright indifference to the referendum and, at the insistence of the pollsters, said they were not decided.

The other survey was conducted by the People’s Opinion Department belonging to the Central Committee of the Party. Their results are considered a  “State secret” and only the recommendations have emerged in the form of “directions” to the media.

What seems indisputable is that if the party-government had overwhelming YES results in a survey on the referendum, it would have been published a while ago. Clearly scruples would not be an impediment.

The countdown can now be expressed in hours. There are many signs that the rulers are nervous, because they are used to winning with majorities close to 100%. Today they know that they will not be able to get the support of 97.7% of the electorate that they supposedly received in the referendum of February 15, 1976.

For revolutionary triumphalism, a YES vote of 70% or less would be a humiliation. In contrast, for opponents, who barely got 1% (plus 1.3% blank and annulled ballots) 43 years ago, a 30% NO vote would be a great victory after an overwhelming campaign by the Government in favor of YES.

*Translator’s note: Annuling the ballot can be accomplished by writing something on it or crossing out everything, but not checking any of the boxes.

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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.

Cubanos ‘Go Home’

A mural in Havana celebrating Hugo Chavez. “The best friend” it reads.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Joaquín Villalobos, 21 February 2019 — In July of 1968 I finished my baccalaureate in a Catholic school with a professor who was a soldier for the dictator Francisco Franco. The students had to go to receive Lyndon Johnson, president of the United States, who visited the country. It was the first time I heard “Yankee go home” screamed by some college students. The Vietnam War was at its height, the Cuban Revolution was only nine years old, the military ruled my country and almost the entire continent with American support . Those who fought against colonialism demanded non-intervention and the self-determination of the peoples.

Half a century later everything changed, right-wing dictators were finished, communist utopias collapsed, elections defeated the armed struggle and now, seeing what is happening in Venezuela and Nicaragua, the evil seems to have changed its ideological side.

As of the year 2000, governments in Latin America fell in Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil and Guatemala. They collapsed with moderate civic pressure, little international pressure, without prisoners, without exiles and with little violence; the most serious were 50 deaths in Bolivia. continue reading

In all these cases the institutions played a role in the crisis, even in Honduras the military coup was ordered by Congress, and ultimatey elections allowed the preservation of democracy. The judgment on the fairness or unfairness of these events is a broad debate, but compared to what happened in the twentieth century, objectively it seemed that, with imperfections, we were in another civic age.

The cases of Venezuela and Nicaragua have broken the rules of the game established in 2000, when the Democratic Charter was signed in Lima. Maduro and Ortega have accumulated more than 700 deaths, 800 political prisoners, thousands of exiles and engaged in the systematic use of torture. Venezuelan refugees total in the millions and Nicaraguan refugees are also on the rise. Both have brutally repressed the largest and longest-running civic protests in Latin American history and both are resisting isolation and international sanctions unprecedented on our continent.

The international community and the Venezuelans themselves have been making forecasts based on the premises established in 2000, and believe that at some point Maduro and Ortega will negotiate their exits. However, if this is correct, they should have collapsed. Why hasn’t this happened? The answer is that the obstacle is not in Venezuela or Nicaragua, but in Cuba.

Colonialism basically consists of political, military and cultural control, a puppet government and an extractive economy. The British dominated India for almost a century with the few thousand Englishmen sent to a country of some 300 million inhabitants and more than three million square kilometers.

Fidel Castro, through the instrument of Chavez, managed to conquer Venezuela. He defined the government model; aligned the country ideologically with 21st Century Socialism; reorganized, trained and defined the doctrine of the Armed Forces; assumed control of the intelligence and security services; sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers, teachers and doctors to consolidate his political dominance; established the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of America (ALBA) for the geopolitical defense of his colony; chose Maduro as the puppet successor to Chavez and established an extractive economy that allowed him to obtain some 100,000 barrels of oil a day to sustain his regime.

In the last 15 years Cuba has received more than 35 billion dollars. At present, Maduro delivers 80% of the oil destined for cooperation to Cuba and 15% to Nicaragua. Any need of the Cuban regime has priority over the humanitarian emergency suffered by Venezuelans.

In Venezuela, life is played by the revolutionary leftist religion that has Cuba as its Vatican. The transition from Cuba to democracy and the market economy is a huge change for Latin America, comparable to what the fall of the Berlin Wall meant for Europe. When the collapse of the Soviet Union was clearly inescapable, the aspiration of its aging leaders was to die in bed, as Fidel Castro did in Cuba. The political, economic, ideological and above all personal interests of thousands of Cuban leaders and bureaucrats are the main obstacle in this crisis. This explains Ortega’s and Maduro’s ferocious resistance and elevated willingness to kill and torture.

The Cuban regime has opted for Venezuela and Nicaragua to be destroyed in a futile containment strategy to avoid its own inevitable end. Cuba has been resisting a transition for twenty years while its citizens suffer from hunger and misery. There is no visible emigration like the Venezuelan one because it is an island, but the most brutal massacre of Castroism is the more than one hundred thousand Cubans devoured by sharks while trying to cross the Strait of Florida since the Castros took power.

Cuba, the country that considered itself a leader in the fight against colonialism, ended up becoming a colonizer. Its leaders are dragging the entire left off a moral cliff that could leave a long conservative hegemony. Saving the useless and irredeemable failed Cuban model now means defending killings, torture and enormous corruption.

It does not make sense to defend Maduro from a hypothetical intervention of the United States when Venezuela is a country intervened in by Cuba. Whether the “left” likes it or not, in Venezuela there is a national liberation struggle and the dilemma is not to choose between Nicolás Maduro or Donald Trump, but between dictatorship or democracy. Faced with this reality, not aligning with democracy is to align with the dictatorship.

It is impossible to predict whether or not there may be a military intervention in Venezuela. The United States will make its own calculations in the face of Maduro’s absurd resistance. The automatic reaction to reject a intervention is understandable, but beyond the desires, the main thing is to pragmatically consider what could happen if it occurs.

In Venezuela there was never a real revolution, Chavismo did not cohere over revolutionary mysticism, but rather over clientelism and monetary ambition. Venezuela can not become a Vietnam, nor can there be a civil war. Venezuelans have persistently rejected violence, from Chávez, who surrendered twice, to the opposition, which for 18 years has resisted taking up arms.

Given the extreme unpopularity of Maduro, the deep division in the Armed Forces and some decorative militias that the military does not dare to arm permanently, the most likely scenario facing an intervention would be Panama in 1989 or Serbia in 1999, but with technology 20 years more advanced. In Panama, thousands of new rifles destined for militiamen who never existed were left abandoned. In Venezuela, they have been talking for years about a rifle factory that surely never existed because someone stole the money.

In conclusion, an intervention would be forceful, quick, successful and widely celebrated by millions of Venezuelans and Latin Americans. To say this is not to support a military solution, but to foresee a political reality. Therefore, if we want to avoid intervention and resolve the crisis politically, the right thing is not to confront Trump, but to demand that Cuba takes its hands off Venezuela.

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Editor’s note:   Joaquín Villalobos was a Salvadoran guerrilla and is a consultant for the resolution of international conflicts. This article has  been published  by the newspaper El País  and we reproduce it with the authorization of the author.

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.

February 24, the Cry of the Ballot Boxes

The defeat of Yes could be the fruit of the sum of gestures, of those who vote No, those who abstain, and those who annul or leave their ballot blank. (Susana González/DPA/México)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, February 21, 2019 — February 24, 1895 is remembered in Cuban history as the Cry of Baire and marks the moment in which the second War of Independence against Spain began. The insurrection broke out in at least 30 other places on the island, but in the village of Baire, in the east of the country, it set itself in the collective imagination and ending up marking the identity of the event.

History — or legend — says that on that day 124 years ago, an order for an uprising signed by José Martí traveled in a cigar sent to Juan Gualberto Gómez. Underneath the successive plant layers went the message that detonated the last military conflict of that century on the island.

This February 24 no order has arrived from anywhere to produce a cry. Like in Fuenteovejuna, the work of Lope de Vega, the initiative to reject the text of the new Constitution has arisen from the heart of the people. Nobody has the right to claim authorship of the peaceful uprising that might occur at the polling places. continue reading

For the first time in 60 years we Cubans will have, for around half a day this Sunday, the opportunity to shake the foundations of the dictatorship.

It’s fewer than 12 hours during which we must agree. It’s not necessary to join a party or to put oneself underneath a suspicious umbrella. It’s not even necessary to endorse with a signature. It is an ephemeral, voluntary act, which can be public if one opts for abstention, or anonymous if one chooses to vote No, but can also be a defiant and decisive act of which we can feel proud.

Before seven in the morning and after six in the evening each person can go on about their preferred slogans, whether it be demanding the freedom of political prisoners, that the government ratify the treaties on human rights, that the wholesale market be opened, that marriage equality be legalized or prohibited; that taxes be lowered and salaries raised. But, in the time that the referendum will last, the struggle to achieve each one of these different aims goes through whatever is achieved at the ballot boxes.

During those magical twelve hours anyone who wishes “to do something” should support the initiatives of staying home or of writing the two crossed strokes of an X, to demonstrate their will as a voter to not accept either the irrevocability of the system or the primacy of the only party.

If the National Electoral Commission fulfills what is established in Article 137 of the current Constitution, the new Constitution will only be considered ratified if more than half of the registry of voters votes Yes in the referendum. So the defeat of Yes could be the fruit of the sum of gestures, of those who vote No, those who abstain, and those who annul or leave their ballots blank.

What is going to happen this February 24 will not have a geographic location, it will be the Cry of the Ballot Boxes: a magnificent libertarian chorus, the acceptance of a civic challenge, bloodless, peaceful, and civilized.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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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.

Number of Unpacu Activists on Hunger Strike Rises to 111

The strikers are concentrated in three spots in Santiago de Cuba. Some are in the Antonio Maceo suburb, others in Vista Hermosa, and the rest in the principal headquarters of Altamira. (Unpacu)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, February 20, 2019 — The leader of the opposition group Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), José Daniel Ferrer, reported this Wednesday that 111 members of that organization are now on hunger strike. The action, begun on February 11, is aimed at “calling attention” to the repression of the government against activists promoting the No vote to the new constitution that will be submitted to referendum on February 24.

 We are now 111 activists on hunger strike. #HungerStrikeVsRepression

– José Daniel Ferrer (@jdanielferrer) February 20, 2019

Since that same February 11, Unpacu’s headquarters in Santiago de Cuba has been surrounded by police, who control the passing of residents and visitors. As the Unpacu activist Jorge Cervantes explained to 14ymedio, those participating are “covert forces from State Security dressed as civilians, motorized police and patrol cars, and paddy wagons from the special forces.” He also said that the neighbors “are really upset” because the officials are blocking access to 9th Street in the Altamira neighborhood “to anyone who they suspect of being an Unpacu activist.” continue reading

The first to begin the hunger strike was Ferrer himself, a few hours after the exhaustive search of two of Unpacu’s headquarters and eight homes of that organization’s activists. The police action was condemned by the United States embassy in Havana and the Organization of American States (OAS).

The strikers are concentrated in three spots in Santiago de Cuba. Some are in the Antonio Maceo suburb, others in Vista Hermosa, and the rest in the principal headquarters of Altamira.

The number of strikers grows daily and their names and photos with a No painted on their shirts are updated via social media with the hashtag #HuelgaHambreVsRepresion (Hunger Strike Vs. Repression).

On Monday Ferrer broadcast live via Facebook from Céspedes park in the capital of Santiago province, but he was immediately violently arrested by several police officers. “Of course my voice fails me, I’ve had seven days without eating, only water,” said the opposition figure during the broadcast. Additionally, he explained on his Twitter account that he had escaped from the police blockade that they have at the headquarters “to continue with the #YoVotoNo [I’m voting no] campaign.”

According to the young leader of Unpacu, Carlos Amel Oliva, the hunger strike will conclude at midnight on February 24, hours after the closing of polling places. “So we will not be able to go vote, but we are calling on Cubans to vote No and many of our activists will go to vote No that day, and will also be there as observers.”

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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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.

Official Press Sees Electoral Advantages in the Tornado

The head of the information department of Solvisión, Yaneysi Nolazco, requests “taking advantage of the response the state has given to the disasters caused by the tornado.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio biggerMario J. Pentón/14ymedio, Miami/Havana, February 20, 2019 — The official press on the island has received guidance to take advantage of the tragedy of the tornado that, at the end of January, devastated Havana, in order to advance propaganda for the Yes vote in the February 24 referendum on the new constitution.

This newspaper has had access to an internal communication from the Solvisión telecenter, in Guantánamo, which gives instructions on coverage of this upcoming Sunday’s vote.

In that email, the head of Solvisión’s information department, Yaneysi Nolazco, requests “taking advantage of the response the state has given to the disasters caused by the tornado to claim that only a socialist state is capable of acting in that manner, [of] mobilizing workers […] raising awareness of young people, children, and women to offer its efforts in solidarity.” continue reading

The government has been heavily criticized for the response it gave to the tornado, which left seven dead and thousands of victims. Authorities have sold food and construction materials to the victims, which has triggered protests, some of which have spread to social media.

Nolazco asks Solvisión’s journalists to avoid the presence of electoral propaganda at the polling places, because calling for a Yes vote “isn’t the job of electoral authorities.” In the case that there are banners of this type, journalists should focus the camera “in another direction.”

The head of information asks the journalists to show the leaders “lining up to vote.”

“Right there take their statements, while interacting with residents, in some cases going forward with them inside the polling place and we’ll show everything that is happening,” she specifies.

Official journalists should interview young people and “demonstrate” that the new generations are “participating” in the referendum “not only as voters.”

Cuban authorities have promised “jail cells” to independent observers and promoters of No, who in an unprecedented and rudimentary campaign have used social media to champion their position against the ratification of the constitution approved by parliament.

In exchange for the recognition of the little private property and of foreign investment, the new constitutional text leaves intact the control of the Communist Party, postpones the decision on marriage equality, and guarantees the monopoly of the state over communication media, healthcare, and education, while at the same time affirming that “Cuba will never return to capitalism.”

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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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.

Free Letters

The emblematic sign of the Habana Libre hotel has lost several letters in recent days. (Facebook / 14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 19 February 2019 — The Habana Libre Hotel, an emblem of the Cuban capital and the entire Island, has been converted, lately, into a symbol of the times that are coming. Little by little, the sign with the name of the celebrated lodging place has been losing letters, a deterioration that has not escaped the popular humor, intent on reading a code in the phrase that is left: “”bana Libre,” “na Libre,” “a Libre” have been some of the final variations suffered by the icononic blue lettering.

“Now we just need the “a” to drop off so that Cuba can be libre (free) again,” joked a passer-by who stood for several minutes looking up, waiting to witness the moment when “freedom comes,” at least on the roof of the hotel that was managed by the American company Hilton before the Revolution and from where Fidel Castro ruled the country during the first months of 1959, and later, in 1960, the hotel was seized and nationalized.

In 2018, the hotel celebrated six decades. With 27 stories and an initial investment of 28 million dollars, the building has gone through moments of light and shadow, years of glamor and others of frank deterioration. But few Havanans remember an image like the current one, with its sign falling apart.

The allegory seems appropriate a few days before the constitutional referendum that has filled society with questions and officialdom with fears. The 500th anniversary of the city’s founding will be celebrated in 2019, and that has also contributed to the interpretation of that progressive spelling as a sign of the changes that Cubans are asking for.

Whether it is laziness or the result of some strong winds, the Habana Libre has once again starred in the photos and selfies of those who expect the uncomfortable letter “a” to fall, leaving only the word “free” on top of one of the most famous buildings in the Cuban capital.

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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.

And If Venezuela Succeeds?

Miguel Díaz-Canel, Nicolas Maduro and Raúl Castro in 2017, at the close of the XV Political Council of ALBA in Havana. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 20 February 2019 — Coincidence or destiny, this is a defining week for Cuba and Venezuela. February 23 will be the key date for the humanitarian aid accumulated on the border with Colombia to reach Venezuelans and, a few hours later, Cubans will face, for the first time in decades, a ballot with the option of No.

That both events are occurring almost in unison complicates the scenario for both the Miraflores Palace and the Plaza of the Revolution. The sealed block that has been formed in the last two decades could be about to crack on one of its sides, but the other – irredeemably – will be touched by whatever happens. Both countries are “sewn to the same star,” in the words of the Chilean poet, Vicente Huidobro.

Raúl Castro knows that Nicolás Maduro is condemned. With a long experience of breathing energy into and sustaining guerrilla movements, leftist parties and presidents with whom it shares an ideology, Havana is an expert in detecting when the end has come. Its intelligence network, woven into the South American country, has also helped, in recent months, to complete the portrait of the death throes. continue reading

Juan Guaidó’s majority in international support, the deep economic crisis that Venezuelans are experiencing, and the disrepute that overflows the ruling cupola are precipitating Maduro’s fall. His administration becomes more indefensible every day, in step with what is learned about repressive excesses and the volume of looting it has perpetrated against one of the richest countries of Latin America.

The big question is what will Havana do when that end is closer and the so-called Bolivarian Revolution is left with barely a pulse or a breath.

For the time being, Castro is betting on closing ranks with Maduro and warning in international forums of a possible “foreign invasion of Venezuela,” while, behind closed doors, he revives the political rallies in support of Caracas, the massive signing of a commitment of solidarity with the Chavistas, and an intense media campaign in all the keys of the Cold War. Will he go from saying to doing and turn these gestures into military support?

To answer this question, we have to take into account the internal situation on the Island. The Cuban regime is experiencing a moment of extreme fragility. The “historical generation” that controlled the country for more than half a century has, for years, been filling the empty niches in the mausoleums, and can barely captain a strategy from the conference tables. The economy is touching bottom and in the streets the scenes of huge lines to buy basic products have returned, while the young people are ideologically apathetic.

The Constitution conceived by Raul Castro as the obligatory road map that his heirs must follow has not managed to arouse massive sympathy and campaigns to vote no or to abstain, at the expense of the results, have permeated society. Since he was hand-picked for the presidency, Miguel Diáz-Canel has had to deal with growing popular discontent, which was seen in a video that went viral on social networks when his caravan raced away while dozens of victims of the tornado in Havana’s Regla neighborhood screamed reproaches.

The country seems to be coming apart on all sides and the arrival of the internet on cellphones last December, despite the high prices and the unstable service, contributes to the sensation that throats and eyes have sprung up on every corner, reporting and denouncing what officialdom hid from view. This, along with the growing belligerence from Washington, makes the short-term future of Castroism quite uncertain.

In these circumstances, embarking on military support for Maduro would be a death sentence for Castroism, and the regime knows it. The authorities are aware that a good part of public opinion will applaud a reprisal against Havana if it dares to send armed troops to Venezuela. As a cunning survivor of endless diplomatic and political strife, Raul Castro has realized that this time it’s serious. Very serious.

Thus, he is likely to support his disciple until the moment comes to abandon him or to rescue him and bring him to Havana to live a long exile on this island that will become his home, a refuge, a prison. We cannot rule out that he will “choose to die” in the contest to give a “heroic closure” to the Bolivarian Revolution and to place the photo of another martyr in the pantheon of the Latin American left. As soon as it is clear that the Venezuelan wet nurse is offering more losses than benefits, the Plaza of the Revolution will depart, but not before shouting to the four winds “the struggle continues.”

If Venezuela manages to recover the path towards democracy and Guaidó calls for elections that Chavismo will not have the remotest chance of winning, that wave of changes will also reach Cuba’s coasts. Castroism’s diplomatic solitude will become more acute in the region, the few resources that continue to arrive from Caracas will end up on the lapels of the generals, and the senior officials of the Communist Party will be left with the shameful insignia of a defeat.

Diaz-Canel will be pushed to undertake deeper economic and political reforms in the absence of a patron and the resurgence of daily problems; the opposition will have a scenario more conducive to winning new battles with each flexibilization that is made from above or with each frustration that springs from below, while Cuba’s young people will have a close referent to inspire them and a Venezuelan mirror to see themselves through.

If Venezuela succeeds, we Cubans will be closer to also achieving it.

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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.

Victims Without Rights

Isbet Acosta Valle had been in Havana for three years when the tornado destroyed the home where she was living. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, February 19, 2019 — There are those who lost everything or almost everything in the tornado, but there are also those who can’t even legally prove that the winds on that January 27 took everything they had. Before that night, Isbet Acosta Valle lived with her daughter in a borrowed apartment but her identity card didn’t say “Havana.” She is one of the many “illegals” who live in the city, who can’t ask for help to rebuild their homes.

Born in Las Tunas, Acosta arrived in the capital with the dream of making it there. A friend offered her a modest house and told her: “Stay for however long you can.” Three years had passed by the time the storm destroyed everything and flew off with her dreams.

“I can’t make claims because my name isn’t on the papers,” she tells 14ymedio. “Unfortunately the house was made of wood and the roof of fiber cement. It was in really bad condition but at least it was something, now I’m left on the street with my seven-year-old daughter.” continue reading

In the first 19 days, no authority came by the improvised warehouse in which they were sheltering. (14ymedio)

According to data on internal migration gathered in the 2012 census, the province where the most people live who were born in another province is Havana, with 462,677 (41.6% of the emigrants).

In 1997, authorities toughened the law on the settlement of inhabitants originally from other regions of Cuba in the capital. The regulations have led thousands of them to live in illegality or settle the matter via irregular methods, like paying a landlord who adds them as a resident in a home or marrying for convenience.

Frequently the police carry out raids and check the place of residency on identity cards. If it doesn’t match a Havana address, the person can be deported to their original province. Many of them live without access to the rationed market, higher education, and jobs in the state-controlled sector. Havana natives sometimes refer to them, derogatorily, as “Palestinians.”

Isbet Acosta has become familiar with all those vagaries in the past few years, and now her conditions have worsened. She stayed in an old warehouse of interprovincial buses in the days after the tornado along with other families who have been left without a roof, but living together is complicated and privacy is null.

In the first 19 days, no authority came by the place. “We’re trying to find a solution for our housing because here we don’t have the proper conditions and there are small children, pregnant women. The state needs to give us an answer, I don’t care if it’s land to build on or materials to repair what’s here.”

In the warehouse where they spent the first days there was neither water nor electricity. (14ymedio)

The government has agreed to subsidize the price of construction materials by 50% for families who suffered total or partial collapses of their homes. However, an indispensable requisite to access these subsidized prices is being able to demonstrate ownership of the affected house, something that Acosta has never had.

To regularize her status in Havana she must first have her own home or the consent of the owner. The owner must register her at a private address, but the process includes procedures in several offices, verification of whether the house has sufficient square feet to accommodate another person, and numerous documents. In some neighborhoods an additional authorization is needed because they are considered “frozen zones.”

Without those formalities, Acosta cannot have a Havana address on her identity card, and without that requisite she remains on the margin, as well, of the possibility to request a bank loan or ask for some social help given her economic precariousness.

Despite her condition, every day the young woman appears at the Processing Office on Pedro Perna street in Luyanó, set up after the tornado, but they answer her that her case “is complicated” and “she has to wait.” At night, she sleeps between three moldy and chipped walls of the old warehouse, where she keeps her belongings in a strict order, as if she wanted to stop the chaos at least in the small space around her bed.

It wasn’t until last Friday that local authorities came with a concrete proposal for the victims sleeping in the place, the majority of them illegal. “They came early and told us to gather all our belongings because we were going that very day to a shelter in Boyeros and that’s what we did.” Everything that they had they put in small cases and they even gave away some things that they couldn’t carry.

“It was a total humiliation, we were waiting all day for the bus to come get us and nothing happened, at night another official came to tell us that we were no longer leaving for the shelter and that we had to wait.” The woman laments that they just have to “keep waiting” after the passing of the tornado.

On Friday night Acosta was desperate. She had given away her mattress because she didn’t have transportation to take it with her and she didn’t have anywhere to sleep. Saturday passed in the same way until on Sunday they were finally moved to the shelter. “We don’t have anywhere to go and for two weeks the state didn’t worry about whether we ate, whether we were alive, nothing,” she says.

As she recalls, there were days in which people came by bringing water, clothing, or food of their own initiative. “The water that some people have brought us as a donation is what we were using to clean ourselves the days when there was no water from the sink. With my daughter I had to live asking favors from neighbors to bathe her with lukewarm water because we didn’t even have electricity.”

The desperation of not having an answer has already passed, now she and her daughter are situated in a shelter that, although it doesn’t have all the conditions of the home that she lost, at least has the minimum necessary to spend the days. But Acosta is still an illegal and she fears that her situation will surface when she begins to complete some legal procedures and they will return her to Las Tunas.

Her dilemma is whether to make herself noticed and make claims to get a roof, or to keep quiet to avoid detection of the irregular status of her residency in Havana. To be or not to be, that is her quandary.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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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.

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Challenges Trump to Demonstrate That Cuba Has Troops in Venezuela

Bruno Rodriguez dismissed as a “clumsy and crude statement” the speech that the US president, Donald Trump, delivered Monday in Miami. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 19 February 2019 — Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, challenged US President Donald Trump on Tuesday to demonstrate that the island has troops in Venezuela. Rodriguez insisted that the United States “manufactured” a “humanitarian pretext” to invade Venezuela and refrained from answering the question of what would happen in case of an armed intervention in the Caribbean country.

“The accusation by the US president that Cuba has a private army in Venezuela is infamous, and I urge him to present evidence, and our government rejects that slander in the strongest and most categorical terms,” said Rodríguez Parrilla, who said that the more than 20,000 Cuban professionals in Venezuela are civilians.

According to the foreign minister, 94% of Cubans in Venezuela are “healthcare workers” although he also acknowledged that others provide services in educational areas and other economic spheres. continue reading

Rodriguez Parrilla added that the “Cuban aid workers” in Venezuela already participated in the referendum for the approval of the constitutional reform “in a massive way” and “despite the circumstances” they live normally in that country.

“I firmly reject President Trump’s attempted intimidation of those who, in a sovereign manner, decided to build and defend socialism,” added Rodriguez Parrilla. One day earlier the president of the United States said at the International University of Florida that the “days are numbered” for socialism in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

The Cuban foreign minister again denounced that the United States plans a military invasion in Venezuela for which military transport flights are ongoing in the Caribbean. To the question of what Cuba would do in the face of a military intervention in Venezuela, Rodríguez Parrilla shied away from answering a “hypothetical question.”

“The government of the Republic of Cuba has consistently denounced that the US government is preparing a military aggression against Venezuela with humanitarian pretexts,” he said. According to the foreign minister, the United States continues to transport troops “with complete ignorance” of the governments of some countries in the area.

The high official claimed to have evidence of US military movements that presage an imminent invasion. “Cuba calls on the international community to support peace and against military intervention in Venezuela,” he said.

Rodríguez Parrilla responded to Trump’s speech in Miami accusing the United States of having a “corrupt” political system, where elections “are won by manipulating people.” The foreign minister also touched on, in a long “anti-imperialist” speech, the situation of unions, the African-American community, the poor and migrants in the United States.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry also responded that the country is prepared for an eventual enforcement of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act. “We have a program, with a predictable plan for the economy until 2030. The Cuban economy has a strong international anchor,” argued the foreign minister.

Rodriguez Parrilla said that the application of the section of the Helms-Burton Law that would allow suits against international companies that “traffic” with properties expropriated by the Cuban government in the early 1960s will have “strong resistance” from the countries that have investments in the island.

“I know of a strong opposition from many member states of the European Union and other industrialized nations, I know of substantial diplomatic exchanges and I am convinced that these nations will defend not only the sovereignty of their states but also their national interests,” said Rodriguez Parrilla.

Rodriguez dismissed as “a clumsy and crude statement” the speech that the US president, Donald Trump, delivered Monday in Miami, where the Republican proclaimed the death of socialism in America and said that Cuba controls Venezuela.

“How many times have US characters announced the end of socialism?” asked the Cuban minister, who criticized Trump’s “amoral government” and his “polarization of society” through “hatred and division.”

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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.

Authorities Promise Jail Cells for Those Promoting a No Vote

Zelandia de la Caridad Pérez and Juan Moreno were detained in the municipality of Bauta when they were trying to carry out a campaign for No. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, February 18, 2019 — “The next time they will end up in a jail cell,” the Ministry of the Interior official warned two activists who had just given a workshop on voting observation this past Saturday in Bauta (Artemisa).

The electoral process does not need “independent observers because the Revolution has its own observers,” added the official.

The message was clear in the form of a threat that Zelandia de la Caridad Pérez, national coordinator of the Cuban Commission on Voting Protection (COCUDE), and Juan Moreno, executive secretary of the organization Candidates for Change, received. continue reading

That is the trend of the campaign undertaken by authorities to silence those attempting to carry out a campaign for No and, with barely a week left before the vote, seems to be intensifying.

Arrests, threats, and raids on homes are some of the strategies employed against those promoting a position that differs from the Yes backed by the government and for which an intense campaign has also unfolded in national media, schools, and public transportation.

This Sunday, in Santiago de Cuba, the opposition figure José Daniel Ferrer was detained while he was promoting voting against the constitution in the central Céspedes park. The leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba is on a hunger strike along with more than 70 members of his organization who have been uniting in protest over the raid that they experienced in eight of their homes last Monday.

During the police search, Ferrer was also arrested, and two police officials, who were identified as Dayron and Quiñones Zapata, explained to the ex-prisoner of the Black Spring that the raids and the seizure of numerous work resources were motivated exclusively by the campaign that Unpacu is carrying out to encourage the No vote in the referendum.

Adriano Castañeda Meneses, municipal vice-coordinator of the United Antitotalitarian Forum (FANTU) in the city of Sancti Spíritus, has also just had a similar experience. His house was raided this Sunday by the police in order to, allegedly, search for propaganda from the Write Down No campaign that the opposition organization is promoting. The initiative explains in 16 points the reasons to reject the new constitutional text on February 24.

The pressures have led the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), headquartered in Madrid, to once again reject, this Sunday, “the wave of arbitrary arrests, raids on homes of human rights activists, and confiscations from activists who have publicly demonstrated their reservations and questioning of the new constitution.” The organization specifically highlights what happened last week at the Unpacu headquarters and denounces that, among the items being confiscated in the searches are “all the tools and resources of work,” in that particular case, for example, “623 registers of observers from civil society for the referendum.”

The OCDH also laments in its communique that “during seven weeks of campaigning for the referendum, not one article recommending No or abstention has been published in the official press,” which “violates international standards for voting material.”

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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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.

Thieves of Memories

Kata Mojena (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 18 February 2019 – A practice frequently repeated in the raids carried out by Cuban State Security against the homes of activists, opponents and independent journalist is, precisely, the seizure of personal photos and videos. They take away that unique image of a grandmother that sat on a shelf, the snapshot of a grandson’s birthday, and the film of the baby’s first steps in the living room of the house. As if they wanted, by snatching the memories of the past, to leave the person without emotional support and sentimental roots.

I recall a few years ago talking to a Lady in White who most regretted, among the personal items she lost during a police search of her home in March 2003, the loss of the photos of her wedding. That dawn of the Black Spring, when her husband was arrested, she lost the only images she had of that very special moment when they exchanged rings, cut the cake and kissed in front of the camera. They never returned them to her, although those photos had nothing to do with the accusation leveled by the prosecutor against her husband, who spent more than seven years in prison. continue reading

Now, I read this text by Kata Mojena*, and confirm that last Monday’s raids against several homes of Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) activists have repeated this same model of repression, the same absurd confiscations of private effects, of family memories and of images that have no value to the police, but are of incalculable importance to a human being. The strategy continues to be the same: take from the person what makes them a person; reduce them to the present; eliminate all those emotional elements that complete them; snatch the testimony of what they can no longer take as a lived experience. In short, take ownership of their history.

Luckily there are now social networks to denounce this immediately and we do not have to wait long years for the world to find out, so the reactions rejecting these activities are heard and the public scorn falls on these “memory thieves” who – from the so many outrages they have committed in the past – have ended up deeply panicked about their own future.

*From Kata Mojena on Facebook: Seeing the photos I have uploaded these last years, has made me feel melancholy because they are the only ones that remain after the assault I suffered. Of course I am not going to forget the disaster they left in my house nor all the information I lost which I had worked on for years, and I will remember with sadness this event every time I want to see videos of my children as babies or my wedding and can’t because they no longer exist. I still have no answer for my older son when he says to me, Mamá those aren’t police they are thieves in disguise, nor for my youngest son when he asks me to put on his favorite cartoons. It pains me greatly that my little sister, 16, remembers with shame how they stripped her naked and searched her like a criminal. But this is true: they did not manage to take my dignity, my decision to fight, my need to live in freedom. They cannot take these because they live in my mind and heart.

Therefore, I join the hunger strike in protest against so much barbarity and the impossibility of campaigning for a No [vote] on that shameful constitution. I had already started it on the first day but my husband explained that they needed me to be strong for other tasks. Now I have finished them. So we are 71 #enhuelgadehambreVsRepresion (on hunger strike vs Repression).

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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 Government Needs More Than Four Million Yes Votes

DIIE officials can calculate that the illegal operation of omitting the names of travelers will go unpunished, among other reasons because the eliminated will not be on the island to demand their presence on the list. (Heriberto González)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, February 15, 2019 — The referendum on February 24 is not a formality, it is a requisite for the new Constitution of the Republic, approved by parliament on December 22, to come into force. And the rules of this popular consultation do not protect the government from a possible surprise.

Unlike other electoral processes in which district representatives or members of parliament are chosen, the will of the electorate is not determined in referendums exclusively counting valid votes. According to what is established by article 137 of the constitution, still in force, reforming the constitution requires “the ratification by favorable vote of the majority of citizens with the right to vote,” or what is equal to more than 50% of those registered in the electoral register.

So the Yes option could only triumph if it exceeds the combined number of those who opt for No, blank ballots, annulments, or abstentions. For example, if on the register there were eight million voters with the right to vote (there were 8,639,989 voters authorized in the March 2018 parliamentary elections), they would need four million plus one for Yes for the approval of the new constitution and its entrance into force. continue reading

The campaign #YoVotoNo (I’m Voting No), initiated in the middle of last year, has managed to surpass any other that has been carried out from the environment of the opposition. No banging on pots and pans (cacerolazo, in Spanish), request to strike, call to march or to not participate in activities promoted by the government has found an echo as massive as the invitation to mark a civilized little cross in the square that indicates that the voter does not wish to ratify this new constitution.

For the first time, the opposition, or even better, “the oppositions,” have a single and agreed-upon candidate. It has as its name a monosyllable of two letters: No. Evangelicals who believe that the new constitutional text opens the doors to marriage equality are going to vote for that “candidate.” Along with them, paradoxically, those who identify with the LGBTI community, and believe that an opportunity has been wasted postponing for two years the possibility of legalizing marriage between persons of the same sex, will do the same.

People aspiring to start a business, those who are not happy with the acceptance of private property and see in the new text more limitations than openings, will vote No. Believers unhappy with the absence of a true freedom of religion that allows a more widespread evangelization will do the same. Those who aspire to one day live outside the country and have the right to double nationality: No. Those who want a union to demand their rights or to associate freely to share customs and ways of living: No.

Obviously those who have had the clarity to realize that it is unacceptable to institutionalize the dictatorship of a party that intends to keep being the one and only one and impose an irrevocable system will vote No.

For more worldly motives it would be necessary to add those who have spent years waiting for the housing issue to be solved, those whose salary isn’t enough, those who are daily driven to despair waiting for the bus to come to take them to work. The thousands of Average Joes who have by now lost their patience.

Those voters mean many votes and could be rounded to 20% of the hypothetical figure of eight million. Or what is equal to 1,600,000 citizens.

In parallel, and for similar motives to those who will vote No in the referendum, there is a considerable number of Cubans who will opt to not visit the polls, whether out of indifference or because they think that their simple presence in what they consider to be a farce only serves to legitimize the process. Of course, only those who are enrolled in the electoral register can be considered as abstentionists. That group could amount to another 20% of the electorate.

Recently Alina Balseiro, president of the National voting Commission (CEN), confirmed that Cubans who are temporarily out of the country for personal reasons will not be able to exercise their right to vote in the 1,051 polling places that will be set up abroad for the use of those who are fulfilling an official mission of the government. However, she affirmed that these citizens could vote in their country on February 24 because if less than 24 months have passed since their leaving the country, all their rights remain intact.

It is difficult to calculate the number of people with the right to vote (over 16 years old) who left the island between February 25, 2017 and February 23, 2019, and who have not yet returned. Since their names must appear on the voting register, they will swell the number of abstentions. They could be around 2% of the electoral register.

It’s necessary to warn that this figure is easy to cover up, because the responsible body for the voting register is precisely the Office of Identification, Immigration, and Alien Status (DIIE) of the Ministry of the Interior, which has a thorough control over the entries and exits of the country. The DIIE officials can calculate that the illegal operation of omitting the names of travelers will remain unpunished, among other reasons because those eliminated will not be on the island to demand their presence on the list.

To facilitate these exclusions they rely on the argument that any voter who does not appear on the registry, having a right to it, can be added in an almost immediate manner by showing their identity card at the appropriate polling place.

Finally there are the undecided who leave the ballot blank, and the nonconformists who wait for the opportunity to send a message to power by writing an anti-government slogan on the ballot or by drawing something like an obscenity. If added up they reach 800,000, a worrying balance opposite the positive vote could be produced, one that could only be hidden by resorting to a crude fraudulent operation.

Although the champions of No would not win independently, those who propose abstention, annulers, and undecideds could celebrate together the defeat, unimaginable for many, of Yes.

It goes without saying that the government has a wide margin to manipulate the results. However, they could not get rid of the fact that they remain in power supported by a minority.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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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.

"There’s No Cement"

Some bulk sales places for construction materials, such as La Timba, are closed to the public and are only serving victims of the tornado. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 11 February 2019 — The winds of the tornado that affected Havana just 15 days ago have not only left thousands of damaged homes and hundreds of families that lost everything, but have also deepened the shortage of building materials in the retail network, where cement, bathroom fixtures and slabs are all unavailable.

“We had planned to renovate the kitchen and got the money to buy everything we need,” Osmel Rodríguez tells 14ymedio. Rodríguez, 58, lives in the Havana municipality of Cerro, an area that suffered no significant damage from the tornado. “Now we have to hold off on the work because there is no cement,” he laments.

In the hard currency stores a sack of type P350 cement, used to set roof tiles and kitchen counters, costs about 6 CUC. Despite the price, which is the equivalent of a week’s salary for an average professional, the demand for this product is still very high in a country where 40% of the housing stock is in fair or poor condition. continue reading

“Last week we ran out of cement and they have not resupplied,” explains an employee in the area that sells heavy hardware in the centrally located Plaza de Carlos III in Havana. “We still do not know when we will have it again, because they are prioritizing the bulk sales places in the areas most affected by the tornado,” he says.

“We also have problems with bathroom fixtures, plastic tanks for storing water, floor slabs and tiles for bathrooms,” he adds. “The problem with cement started before the tornado, because for two years the supply has been very unstable and when the product comes in the quantities are low, but in this last week it has simply disappeared.”

The same scene is repeated in the most important hardware stores throughout the Cuban capital.

Since the passage of the tornado on January 27, the State is guaranteeing a 50% subsidy on the cost of construction materials for people with homes damaged by the disaster in the neighborhoods of Luyanó, Regla, Guanabacoa and Santos Suárez, and 70% of the amount of water deposits, according to Lourdes Rodríguez, general director of Institutional Care, of the Ministry of Finance and Prices.

But the volume of damage far exceeds the pace at which the country can produce or import many of these materials. The latest official figures put 3,513 properties damaged by the tornado, although the number grows every day as families sign onto the damage registry that is being prepared in several offices open for the occasion.

The tanks to store water among the product most in demand after the tornado. (14ymedia)

The national cement industry has been operating at half speed for decades, after the fall of the socialist camp and the end of the Soviet subsidies in the early 1990s. In 2016, only slightly more than 1.4 million tons of gray cement were produced, a figure that is far from the 5.2 million reached that same year in the Dominican Republic, according to a report by the Association of Producers.

“They gave me a subsidy to buy sand, steel bars, cement and a water tank,” says Moraima, who owns a house that lost part of its roof and the wall of the facade in La Colonia, a neighborhood in the municipality of Regla on Havana Bay. “We went to the bulk sales place and they have the materials, but all the workers told me to rush to buy them and move them to my house because there is instability in the supply.”

“Now the problem will be to watch over all this,” says Moraima. “Because the need is great and having all these materials outside the house will be a headache.” In the block where this Regla resident lives, the neighbors take turns to guard the blocks, the piles of cement and the metal windows that have been arriving for the reconstruction.

“We are praying that it does not rain because if it does much of this material can be lost and they have already clarified that there will be no second round in the deliveries; whatever is lost or damaged has no replenishment subsidy,” she explains.

In the vicinity of the ironworks on Reina Street at the corner of Lealtad, informal vendors whisper their merchandise. One of them, wearing a cap that says “100% Cuban” explains the list of products on offer. “Sinks, adjustable showers, vinyl paint, sand, gravel and cement.” But the price of a bag of the P350 cement that could previously be bought for between 6 and 8 CUC on the black market is now around 10.

“I can not lower the price,” he responds to a customer who tries to bargain.” There’s no cement and right now moving a bag is a tremendous danger,” he says. It is common that after the damages caused by the passage of hurricanes and tropical storms, the Police reinforce controls on the informal sale of construction materials.

“They are searching the trucks and even the pedicabs they see with bags that could be cement, sand and gravel,” the informal vendor tells this newspaper. “They have already fined two friends of mine who are also engaged in this business and confiscated all their merchandise.” Most of these “thick” materials sold in illegal networks come from the bulk sales centers.

The merchants buy them wholesale in these places, and then repackage them and resell them at retail taking a good slice. “But now things have gotten bad at the bulk sales places and they are only selling to people who come with the papers showing they were affected by the tornado,” he says.

List of materials “subsidized” by 50% by the State for sale to people with homes affected by the tornado. (14ymedio)

“We are closed to the public and we are only taking care of the victims,” the employee of the bulk sales outlet located in La Timba neighborhood, a few meters from the Plaza of the Revolution and far from the areas where the tornado passed, repeated in tone that brooked no argument on Friday. His statement set off expressions of dissatisfaction among customers who came to stock materials for their domestic renovations.

“And now those of us who are already building, what we are to do?” protests a young man who had come to buy some sand and cement. “My work is paralyzed, the contracted bricklayers and all the work of months without being able to finish because I am lacking some sacks of cement.” An informal vendor approaches, speaks to him in a low voice and, after a few minutes of conversation, they both leave in a small tricycle towards a nearby house.

In 2017, a network for the resale of building materials in Pinar del Río was uncovered and seven people were convicted of the crimes of hoarding and illegal sale of cement and steel bars, among other products. Three of them received one year prison sentences and four spent 10 months in prison.

“This business has its risks, especially when there is an emergency,” says a cement and steel vendor.” It is the moment when we profit the most but also when it is most dangerous to do it.”

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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.

Justin Trudeau’s Hornet’s Nest*

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, in the Palace of the Revolution with Raul Castro during his visit to Cuba. (EFE / Enrique de la Osa)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Antonio Tang Baez, Montreal, 13 February 2019 — When the acoustic attacks suffered by American and Canadian diplomats in Havana were made public, Washington evacuated most of its diplomatic personnel. Ottawa, on the other hand, withdrew only — and even that reluctantly — those affected and understated the suffering and damage to diplomats and their families.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs even continued to send relatives and children, regardless of the damage to health, while those already affected back in Canada were not provided with the medical attention they required.

The Cuban Ministry of the Interior was the first to launch the theory that the noise was the sounds of crickets, which reappeared later in an obscure study published in the United States. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) agents sent to Cuba accepted that theory and said they had not found anything abnormal. continue reading

The disaster came a few days ago with a lawsuit against the Government of Ottawa by some of the affected diplomats, who demanded compensation from the state of 28 million Canadian dollars. The prime minister said that his country is seriously examining the situation.

“There is no doubt that the impact on the health of diplomats in Cuba has been visible and real,” said Trudeau. “We continue to collaborate with local authorities and with the RCMP to determine the source of these sounds and the problems they are facing.”

The only thing lacking for a total collapse in relations between Canada and Cuba is for a Canadian tourist to suffer a headache because of a cricket, and the entire Canadian tourist industry centered on Cuba will collapse.

Trudeau acted irresponsibly by not withdrawing diplomatic personnel in time, as did the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when it sent back whole families, including children, to Havana, with full knowledge and proof that unexplained situations were occurring that were affecting the health of the diplomats.

It seemed like a well-deserved vacation for Josefina Vidal, the brand new Cuban ambassador in Ottawa, a friendly country and the largest source of tourists to the island, with a welcoming prime minister. But everything fell apart. Trudeau can not justify the attacks against his diplomats in Havana, the RCMP has shown its inability to prevent further attacks or to recommend an evacuation of personnel, and, incidentally, has left the prime minister in a ridiculous situation.

Translator’s note: The original title of this article in Spanish is: “La olla de grillos de Justin Trudeau.” Olla de grillos — literally “pot of crickets” — is a Cuban expression that can be translated as “madhouse,” “pandemonium,” or, in this case, “hornet’s nest,” which keeps the idea but simply changes the insect.

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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 Venezuelan Panorama Seen From Cuba

“It is possible that the end of Venezuelan tyranny will affect Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba,” says Carlos Alberto Montaner. Miguel Diaz-Cael and Nicolas Maduro. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 17 February 2019 — The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (that is, Raúl Castro) is very concerned. It has published in Granma, the Party’s newspaper, a Declaration of the Revolutionary Government with the objective of “stopping the imperialist military adventure against Venezuela.” [Link to Spanish text.]

Cuban political operatives based in Venezuela know (and they have told Havana) that Nicolás Maduro is liquidated with no recourse. They have no way of saving him. Juan Guaidó had the backing of 87% of Venezuelans, but, according to the polls, in the last days he increased that by more than 3 points. He now has the backing of 90.08% compared to 3.75% who are satisfied with Maduro.

On the other hand, 51 of the largest and most accredited democracies on the planet recognize Guaidó. He is also the legitimate ruler according to the country’s Constitution, while the National Assembly, the country’s only internationally accepted official institution, has made him “interim president.” continue reading

The hypothesis that everyone assumes (including the Cuban regime) is that on February 23, or before, when they bring humanitarian aid to Venezuelans, the minimum support Maduro has will fall apart.

At that point, the Cuban dictatorship will be able to give its colony the order to use violence, but the United States, Brazil, Colombia and other Latin American free nations will enter into combat with the Venezuelan democrats and will quickly prevent victory for Maduro’s coup plotters. This would put an end to the infrastructure of the FARC, the ELN and the Islamists.

A US squadron that includes an aircraft carrier is already sailing near Venezuela, while in Cartagena (Colombia) dozens of warships and several submarines are anchored. After all, it is essential to put an end to the exodus of Venezuelans to Colombia and Brazil, and that will not be achieved as long as Maduro continues to hijack power and hyperinflation destroys the country’s economy.

Raúl Castro does not know what to do. Useless resistance seems a bloody idiocy, but the whirlwind may swallow him, as happened to Cuba in Granada in 1983. The Russians can not give Maduro real protection. They will be limited to rhetorical declarations that will be used by the comrades of all countries to recruit naive or disorganized pacifists waving the ghost of a world war.

There will be no such a conflict. The tacit agreement between Moscow and Washington is that “the Russians” act in Ukraine or the Caucasus and “the Americans” in their immediate area of influence, that is, in Venezuela and Latin America. The only thing the Chinese are interested in is collecting the 65 billion dollars they advanced to the useless Maduro and ensuring their continued supply of raw materials. If they succeed with Guaidó, excellent. For buying and selliing, anyone will do.

Raúl Castro’s and Miguel Díaz-Canel’s troubles don’t end there. On February 24, Cuba will adopt a new Constitution through a referendum scheduled for that day. The electoral consultation has already been totally delegitimized by Transparencia Electoral, an institution led by the Argentine political scientist Leandro Querido, and by the internal opposition, including — among others — Rosa María Payá, José Daniel Ferrer and Guillermo Toledo.

All of them, despite having no access to the media, have asked Cubans to vote NO on a Constitution that consecrates the single party and has legal padlocks that make it impossible to change this absurd regime. The Castroist apparatus, on the other hand, by means of a triple system of constant polls, has managed to learn that a substantial share of Cubans are willing to vote NO, and the response has been brutal: carrot and stick.

How have they managed to outwit the propaganda gate-keepers of the regime? Because of something that Yoani Sánchez said at one time: because the digital revolution is almost impossible to stop, even in Cuba. A simple “smart” phone is enough to penetrate with a thousand messages, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the rest of the tools that serve to silence the propaganda of totalitarian regimes. And a simple mistake is enough for the walls to fall and the liberating “springs” to emerge without anyone knowing how and without anyone knowing when.

It is possible that the end of Venezuelan tyranny will affect Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba. These are the remnants of Socialism of the 21st Century. Will Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel immolate themselves defending the lost cause of Nicolás Maduro? The last paragraph of the analysis-warning published in Granma ensures that they will do so. I thought them smarter.

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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.