There is a notable decrease in the influx of people since the playground was closed. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 24 April 2019 — Where once the hustle and bustle of children’s voices resounded at all hours of the day, silence now reigns. Most entertainment devices for the little ones have disappeared and those that are installed are covered with tarps or disconnected.
“The park was closed because the neighbors of the building next door were very upset by the noise,” one of the clerks in the arts-and-crafts shops told 14ymedio.
The place where there used to be an old state parking lot for vehicles, is now converted into an area to where the self-employed can rent spaces. Outskirts of each restaurant or cafe elegant young men show the menus where they announce “excellent dishes.” As for the playground, “That closed because it bothered a neighbor who convinced the whole building to protest,” says one of the waiters. continue reading
For the residents the question was not in dispute. Their health was affected due to “sound pollution,” and this was reflected in many of their demands to the Ministry of Public Health and the Provincial Government of the capital. The pressure they brought to bear, with complaint letters detailing the problems, caught the attention of the authorities, who agreed to close the playground.
According to the Facebook page Vecinos de La Rampa (Neighbors of La Rampa) there are several, not just one, residents whose complaints about the noise led them to close the park. One of them is Dr. Alina Arcos, who works in the Emergency Department of a hospital and lamented that she could hardly rest when she arrived home after more than nine hours of work.
“For three years, the residents of the community to which I belong have sent letters, complaints and denunciations to any organization, institution or official that might have any role in this, and except for a temporary solution, the rest have been useless. The businesses that operate there violate the commitments made by the Government and the Party with the community before its opening, multiple existing rules are openly breached and this puts our health at risk,” said Arcos in a post for the month of March.
Facade of the building without posters. (14ymedio)
After several complaints in different instances made over more than three years and on social networks, the neighbors decided to show their discontent by hanging fabrics from their balconies, which they have now removed. “On this Boulevard, profits matters more than the welfare of the community, enough is enough!” Said one, and, “This Boulevard violates our right to live in peace,” said another.
“We all worked together and our efforts won. My parents, who lived tormented by the situation, now feel relieved,” a young man who lives in the building told 14ymedio an Thursday afternoon.
It is not the first time that the neighbors managed to close the park with their demands. The authorities had already ordered the closure of the park on a previous occasion, although the owners decided to ignore it and reopened it despite not having the required permits .
“We neighbors just discovered that the Boulevard does not have — hear this — has not and never has had a health license for the use that it has been put to,” denounced another of the neighbors in the neighborhood Facebook group.
On April 13, just before the school break, the park closed. “Days before there was a meeting here with more than 20 neighbors in which the president of the Municipality of Plaza de la Revolución participated,” says another neighbor who plays with her grandson in the inner courtyard of the building located on N Street between 23rd and 25th.
Before getting the facilities closed, Dr. Arcos pointed suspiciously at “corruption,” “abuse of power” and “influence peddling” as the causes that could explain the State’s delay in this case when it comes to protecting citizens.
This week one of the vice-presidents of the Plaza Municipal Assembly of the Power, Pedro Pablo Herrera, was dismissed from his position. Although the reasons are unknown, two sources claim that Herrera participated in at least one of the Assemblies that was held with the residents of Boulevard D’25 to try to solve the noise problem.
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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 actor Luis Silva, who incarnates the character of “Pánfilo,” denounces censorship in a program where bread in the form of a crocodile was shown. (Luis Silva/Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 2 May 2019 — The popular actor, Luis Silva, known for his comedic character, Pánfilo, reported this Wednesday that one of the episodes he had recorded in January for the program Vivir del Cuento (Living by One’s Wits) wasn’t put on the air because of a joke about bread in the form of a crocodile.
“Because of bread in the form of a crocodile, this episode wasn’t released on Monday. You can’t mention a crocodile, a hutia, or an ostrich. Worst of all, this episode had been recorded in January,” the actor wrote on social media.
The censorship is related to a declaration made by a comandante of the Revolution, Guillermo García Frías, on the program Mesa Redonda (Round Table). The military nonagenarian, in charge of the National Enterprise for the Protection of Flora and Fauna, said that the meat of the hutia, a type of large rat found in the fields of Cuba, has more protein than “all the meats” and a “high quality” skin. continue reading
García also praised the ostrich and said it produced more meat than a cow. After his declarations, the words “crocodile”, “hutia” and “ostrich” trended on social media, where a multitude of memes and jokes about these animals circulated.
However, Luis Silva didn’t mean it as a joke and said the bread that appeared on Vivir del Cuento was a gift from the people of Triunvirato, a small town in Matanzas Province. “I decided to show it on the program as an expression of gratitude to the town. Draw your own conclusions. Friends of Triunvirato; I tried.” added the comic.
After publishing his first post, the actor qualified the situation and added that “the episode will be shown, surely. But with that scene cut.”
Comments weren’t long in coming. “What a shame that a comedian can’t mention it, and a high official of the country robs a comedian’s work and makes himself a national laughingstock,” said one user identified as Claudio Cabrera. For Idalia Quintana, “We Cubans are the only ones on planet earth who laugh at our misfortunes.”
Another “internaut” thought it ironic that the icon of Matanzas’ baseball team is a crocodile and suggested that they “change the name to a lizard.”
In comedy programs on Cuban television, jokes about the bureaucracy, the absurdities of the socialist state enterprise and intolerant ideologues are frequently included, but jokes against the Communist Party or the revolutionary leaders are still taboo.
Vivir del Cuento is one of the few programs that has survived on Cuban television with a critical script that focuses on everyday difficulties, the hardships experienced by retired people and the problems in buying food.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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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.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was arrested on Thursday, the day the Biennial began. (14y middle)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 12 April 2019 — On Thursday, April 11, while in the halls of the National Museum of Fine Arts the Mexican artist Gabriel Orozcowas preparing an exhibition, and on the terrace of the Spanish Embassy the duo Clandestina finished mounting its installations, the independent artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was arrested in Damas Street when he carried out one of the actions he had planned for the XIII Biennial of Havana.
The most important artistic event in Cuba started with wide coverage in the official and foreign press. The media announced new features such as the multiplication of stages of the Havana-based event, which this year is also happening in Pinar del Río, Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Camagüey, and the motto of the Biennial — “The Construction of the Possible” — and the participation of more than 300 creators from 52 nations.
But none of them spoke of the flip side of the event. The arrest of Otero Alcántara came during a performance with which he was trying to pay tribute to Daniel Llorente, known as ’The Flag Man’ since he was arrested in 2017 while ’crashing’ the May Day parade waving an American flag. According to Eliezer Llorente, his son went missing more than two days ago. continue reading
The writer Abu Duyanah Tamayo, who witnessed the arrest, told this newspaper that when he arrived at the artist’s street, in the neighborhood of San Isidro, “they were putting him and two other boys in the patrol car.” According to his testimony, the boys were running toward their homes “because the police came screaming” but the officers entered the houses, took them out and took them away.
“They took the phone from Luis Manuel, and they tried to take ours from us when we arrived , but in the end we resisted and they didn’t.”
“The Biennial is a whole energy that gets into every corners and I am an artist and the Biennial is mine too,” Otero Alcántara had told 14ymedio before his arrest, when he had not yet specified a date or place for the action.
“I have three projects, and one of them is a tribute to the man of the flag, a race that will be called Daniel Llorente and in which every Cuban of and age can participate. It will be a 66 meter race, the distance Llorente ran in the Plaza of the Revolution on May 1st. Everyone who runs has to do it with an American flag and a Cuban flag, the first three will have their prize and their medal,” he explained.
The artist, who days before suffered another detention to warn him of the consequences if he went ahead with the performance, says he senses fear in the Government “This is a symbolic regime that has never been able to solve anything on a practical level, everything is hope, the illusion and the symbolism, “he said.
Installation of the clandestine duo in the Embassy of Spain. (14ymedio)
Otero Alcántara’s actions are part of the “Se USA” project. “The other work I’m going to do is a walkway outside my house, on the street, and with models that will be people from the neighborhood.” I will make a fashion show with 10 designs that I chose among the more than 80 that Chanel had when she did hers in the Prado, combining those Chanel designs with garments that Cubans wear a lot, in shorts, lycra, shirts, t-shirts, handkerchiefs, with the imagery of the American flag.”
As an artist, he is interested in talking about “that ultra-pathetic nationalism and patriotism” that power builds “to dominate, control and tell you that you are a traitor,” if you do not do things as they planned. “Why can’t Daniel Llorente go out with the flag if he wants. Why to you wantto make me an enemy, I feel like an enemy but I have to assume it because you impose it on me?” he protests.
This edition of the Biennial should have been celebrated in 2018, but its organizers postponed it because of the damage caused by the passage of Hurricane Irma. This decision gave rise to a group of independent artists, among whom, as a visible face, was Otero Alcántara, who took the initiative to organize the #00Bienal last year, an alternative call that was demonized and repressed by the Government and cultural authorities.
Hall of the Universal Art building of the Museum of Fine Arts with the pieces of the artist Gabriel Orozco. (14ymedio)
Since 1984 the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, together with the National Council of Plastic Arts and the Ministry of Culture, among other institutions, have been responsible for organizing the Havana Biennial.
The galleries of the Alicia Alonso Gran Teatro de La Habana, the Havana Collage, the Ensemble Workshop, the National Museum of Fine Arts and independent studios such as Del Castillo Art Studio or El Apartamento will remain open until May 12 as part of the exhibition.
In the last decade, with the birth of alternative spaces, activities that take place in independently managed galleries have also been added to the event and are included as part of the collateral actions. Provided they abstain from any criticisms of the Government, they will be allowed to exist.
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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.
We might think that the little ones are not much affected by the incessant ideological programming, because childhood innocence is stronger than all that absurd talk. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Ernesto Santana, Havana, May 2 2019 — There are many images of Cuba from the last 60 years that are shocking even for those who have grown up in it and should have already gotten used to it. But it is not easy to get used to those images that have something unnatural about them. One of the worst is that of primary school children who participate in acts of repudiation or in its light variant, the multitudinous political parades.
Or in a simulation of those types of marches in which the students, led by the principal and the teachers, leave the school for the street as a unit — carrying posters, disguised as workers and chanting slogans — they go around the block and they go back to school.
If one asks a ten-year-old what the Constitution is, or what the Helms-Burton Act is, what socialism or empire are, she almost most certainly has no idea or just repeats some explanatory phrase that has been instilled in her, and then continues to play without the slightest concern. continue reading
We might think that the little ones are not much affected by the incessant ideological programming, because childhood innocence is stronger than all that absurd talk. But when they grow up, the effects of long training can be seen: the double standard, learned helplessness, the Stockholm syndrome, all those Cuban ills of the last half century.
Although they don’t end up being the androids that the master plan intended them to be, at least many of them, automatons of absolute obedience, they do turn out to be fakers, who privately curse the government and then, to avoid standing out, march in the parade in the Plaza of the Revolution on May 1st.
As their teachers did in the past when they were children, the children follow their teachers without knowing the real significance of the empty words. But it doesn’t matter any more: they are words only food for being spoken, but not for being assumed. The children repeat, as their educators do, Fidel Castro’s concept of revolution as a series of confusing terms with no connection to reality.
Just words whose significance we find in no dictionary. Nobody knows what it means exactly to want to say, “change everything that should be changed,” “revolution is never lying,” or “I am Fidel.” And not even the teachers who are repeating it can rationally explain the school slogan, “Pioneers for communism, we will be like Che!”
Because you do not have to think about the meaning of any slogan. Just repeat it or carry it written on a poster. “I am Fidel” means, let’s face the contradiction, that Fidel Castro is God and therefore I can never be like him. But religious dogmas are not reasonable.
If there is a crisis of values, it does not matter. What can not be manifested is an ideological crisis. Thus, in the face of moral misery, the Government intends that the family share with the school the role of training and developing the students, even though what families and schools share most specifically is a serious lack of civility.
And yet, parents can not teach the child anything that contradicts the dogmas of the Castroite Church. In fact, instruction by the State is mandatory and parents can not educate their children at home. In Guantánamo province, a few days ago, two pastors were sentenced to prison for practicing homeschooling and acting against “the correct formation” of their children.
The Cuban educational system is not designed to train free and independent citizens, but to manufacture docile individuals. Teachers may be missing, classrooms may be very damaged and parents will have to help out the school in many aspects, but what can never fail is the revolutionary catechism and the cult of the immortal Commander in Chief.
Even when the student goes to university, and even when he graduates and practices teaching, he must continue to obey and avoid any independent attitude. The student Karla Pérez was a member of the opposition movement Somos+, and the and the teacher Dalila Rodríguez was not engaged in activism but she was the daughter of a defender religious rights, Leonardo Rodríguez Alonso and a friend of the pastor Mario Félix Lleonar.
Many years ago the writer Slawomir Mrozek published, in Communist Poland, the story “The Elephant,” about a teacher who, after explaining in detail what that animal was like, took his students to the zoo to see one face to face.
But the people in charge of the zoo — to save money and taking into account that the heavy animal moved very litte — decided to buy an inflatable one. When the students came to see a “real elephant,” suddenly the wind blew and carried the big animal across the sky as if it were a balloon. The trauma they experienced changed those children’s lives
The elementary students who performed that mockery of a march for May Day would not have been so disappointed. They already know very well that what they say and make them say in school has very little to do with reality.
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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 truly surprising thing about this modest little hostel is the strange display hanging from its balcony. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 19 April 2019 — As Cuba sinks into a new period of crisis, the absurdity of existing in parallel planes has been imposed as the norm in the daily lives of its inhabitants. Submerged in the desperate search for subsistence, a growing number of Cubans choose to ignore other signs of reality that reveal alarmingly the alienation that attacks us at a spiritual level from public spaces without the majority being aware of it.
This kind of social blindness prevents perceiving the flagrant rupture between the official discourse and the social practice, as well as the divorce between the real life of ordinary people and the performance of the earthly paradise offered to foreign tourists – that privileged Pleiad of occasional visitors that later leave, pleased to find so much charm in the midst of general decadence – in a Cuba of props that looks less and less like itself and its inhabitants.
In this idyllic representation made for the foreign guest, certain successful private hostels play an important role, which – contrary to the semi-deserted hotels of mixed state capital and foreign investors – usually keep their rooms full throughout the year. continue reading
In this idyllic representation made for the foreign guest, certain successful private hostels that usually keep their rooms full throughout the year play an important role
The historic center of Old Havana stands out among all the areas of tourist interest, not only for its architectural values, its old buildings, its old churches and stone palaces and its colonial squares, but also for the emergence of many small private investment spaces – lodging, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, sale of handicrafts, art galleries, among others – that began to proliferate everywhere in recent years in that compact and unique urban geography.
The interior of a hostel is a world apart that hides from prying eyes what is not within the reach of ordinary Cubans: comfort, quietude, the warm friendship of the owners, the abundance of a good breakfast, the cordiality of the employees.
Needless to say, every successful host is, or at least appears to be, “politically correct” according to the official canons: revolutionary, socialist, Fidel-fanatic and integrated into the system, which allows him to take certain rare liberties. This seems to be the case of the Colonial Casa Tali Hostel, located at 406 Lamparilla Street, a few steps from the Church of Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje and the square of the same name, in the inner area of Old Havana.
The house in question is not really a colonial building, but a typical construction of the first third of the twentieth century, although it exhibits colonial elements, with arches, columns, high ceilings, balcony with wrought iron railing on the façade, and French louvered window-doors, an architectural style quite common in any of the oldest areas of the city.
The Colonial Casa Tali Hostel is located at 406 Lamparilla Street, a few steps from the Church of Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje and the square of the same name. (14ymedio)
However, what is really surprising in this modest inn is the strange display hanging from its balcony: at one end the multicolored gay flag, at the other, the Cuban flag, and between each one of them, cloth banners written in English, one of they with a big sign that says: “Free Assange”, while the other one – which is even more enigmatic and inexplicable – sends the following message: “Lee Harvey Oswald where are you now? The world needs you more than before.”
For an American it would be unthinkable to place a petition to Lee Harvey Oswald on his facade
For any foreigner, both posters can be proof of the freedom of expression that Cubans enjoy. In fact, for an American it would be unthinkable to appeal to Lee Harvey Oswald on his facade.
But the citizens of Cuba know that, in this country, publicly and freely displaying a poster with political content, and written in Spanish constitutes in itself a very touchy problem for any artist or sign painter, and it is at least suspicious for a private entrepreneur to allow a similar audacity.
Furthermore, asking for freedom for the famous Australian hacker is to go one step ahead of what the official press monopoly has ventured to express; but to openly invoke the memory of Lee Harvey Oswald, presumed guilty of the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, the then U.S. President, as subject of “the world needs more than before,” is not only an act of inadmissible insolence, but also a gross incitement to violence that contradicts, head-on, the overhyped will for peace speech of the Cuban Government.
Isn’t the owner of this business clearly suggesting that a new assassin is needed to shoot dead the U.S. president? What scruples do the Cuban authorities employ to condemn the alleged assassination attempts of their ally, the usurper Nicolás Maduro, and at the same time allow the display of this type of message? Are there good murders and bad murders?
Perhaps we will never know exactly if this is a case of naive political snobbery motivated by the excess enthusiasm of the owner of the hostel or a not very subtle propaganda the authorities have consented to. The truth is that most of the Havana inhabitants who move about under that balcony may not pay too much attention to the banners, or do not understand the message, written in English.
It is also more than likely that many of them don’t know who Lee Harvey Oswald was, or that they have only heard in passing in the official media the name of the arrogant hacker who has published so many secrets affecting the American Government.
This may be the case, so the hostel propaganda is tolerated or allowed precisely because both messages contain a deep anti-American sentiment
But that may be the case, and the hostel’s propaganda is tolerated or allowed precisely because both messages contain deep anti-American sentiments, the quintessence of the Castro regime.
It would be very different if another entrepreneur were encouraged to place on his balcony, even if written in Mandarin Chinese, a petition to free the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, arbitrarily kidnapped by the political police to prevent him from carrying out a performance within the framework of the Havana Bienial, where the American flag was used as motive.
We would also have to see what would happen to private hostel operators or any anonymous citizens if they placed posters in their balconies demanding freedom for Dr. Eduardo Cardet or for all the Cuban political prisoners. These banners would, without a doubt, unleash all the repression demons. And if someone questioned it, here’s the challenge: try to do it and you’ll see who and how establishes the limits to freedom of expression in Cuba.
Translated by Norma Whiting
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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.
During the ’70s and ’80s the ’microbrigades’ movement, used to build multi-family buildings, spread in Cuba. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 30 April 2019 — Two weeks ago Cuba’s Council of Ministers issued an agreement that makes the transfer of property more flexible for those who occupied “houses, rooms, habitations, accessory units and premises without legal status or without observing the formalities in their construction.”
It is assumed that this measure, long-awaited, benefits thousands of families throughout the country, not with a new home but with a new status for what they had already acquired.
This agreement does not open the door to the construction of new real estate but only regularizes the property of those who were leasing or “illegally” occupying their domicile. However, the new regulations will expand the official statistics of registered houses, which currently amount to 3,824,861 throughout the country, of which almost 40% are considered to be in just fair or poor condition. continue reading
With the enactment of this agreement in the Official Gazette, the size of the “housing problem” will hardly change, and it remains the oldest, most widespread social concern with the greatest impact on the Cuban population. In the last 60 years attempts at a solution have only had positive repercussions in the short term and in most cases they have been experiments where improvisation and voluntarism have prevented lasting results.
The first step taken by the Government in this sector occurred as early as February 17, 1959. That day, 24 hours after taking office as Prime Minister, Fidel Castro abolished the National Lottery and created in its place the National Institute of Savings and Housing (INAV), whose primary function would be to build houses with the money that would be obtained from the purchase of the new “Revolutionary Lottery” tickets.
Less than three weeks later Law 135 imposed a drastic reduction in the housing rents. At that time, the State did not have any presence in the real estate business since the first stone of the novel method, created by INAV, had not yet been laid. Thus, those affected were the private owners who, although they represented a minority compared to the number of beneficiaries, were all of those who, up until that time, had invested in the construction of houses and apartments.
On October 14, 1960, seeing the financial resources of the lottery did not advance the construction of housing at the desired rate, the Comandante en Jefe, obsessed with fulfilling his promise to resolve the matter as soon as possible and at whatever price, signed the Law of Urban Reform, towhich in its final disposition iwas granted “force and constitutional hierarchy.”
The new law eliminated the right of a private individual to profit from the rental of houses and transferred to the state all the properties that were dedicated to that business. After proclaiming in his first article that “every family has the right to decent housing,” it was specified that the State would enforce that right in three stages.
In the first stage, the price of the houses would be amortized with what the family paid for rent in five years. In the second, the “immediate future stage,” the State “with the resources coming from this Law” would build houses in a massive way and cede them in permanent lease arrangements through monthly payments that would not exceed 10% of the family income. In the third “future stage instruments,” the State would build houses with its own resources and “cede them in a permanent and gratuitous lease to each family.”
A rectification of these daydreams, which entered into force on July 1, 1985, extended the term of the payments to be made to 20 years and ruled that the price to be paid would be calculated, as of that date, based on the square meters of the building.
In the 25 years between the Urban Reform and its rectification, the most popular experiment that was put into practice was the plan of the microbrigades. Cubans under 30 only know of this concept through hearsay, because the once heroic microbrigades practically disappeared after 1990.
The movement was founded on February 17, 1971 in the Alamar district located east of the capital. It was based on the idea that workers would build their own homes. To this end, the State assigned land, supplied materials and placed a small number of specialists who trained those who would end up as bricklayers, electricians or plumbers.
At the conclusion of the work, the apartments were distributed among workers from the work center that had provided the microbrigadistas, with the determinations of who would get a home based on labor and social provided and a consideration of those who were really in need. Throughout the country one can find these projects where the buildings of five floors abound and from time to time more advanced models built using different technologies with 12, 14, 18 and 24 floors.
The reasons for the disappearance of this initiative have never been convincingly explained, but among the reasons may be how expensive it was for workplaces to continue paying the full salary of the micro-brigade workers who remained permanently mobilized in the construction, Monday through Saturday, ten hours a day for three to five years. On the other hand, the productivity of these improvised builders was low and the quality of the completed projects left much to be desired.
Another very important argument is that, until July 1985, those who received a house in this way and had participated in the micro (as the microbrigade was commonly called) paid only a monthly payment equivalent to 10% of their salary. If someone earned, for example 200 pesos, he paid 20 each month, which multiplied by the 240 months in 20 years, resulted in the price of his apartment totalling 4,800 Cuban pesos. This amount was extremely far from what the apartment had cost the State, and thus the investment made was irrecoverable in economic terms.
In the meantime, new housing assignments were made taking possession of the apartments left behind by those who had decided to emigrate permanently. The immigration law that remained in effect until the end of 2012 provided for the confiscation of the properties of those who left the country.
The most important emigration waves were those in 1965 by the port of Camarioca, the one of 1980 through the Port of Mariel and the massive exodus of the rafters in 1994. As a result of these and other exits from the country, the problem was “resolved” for tens of thousands of families, almost all selected for “their proven political loyalty.”
After General Raul Castro became president of the country, two decisions were taken that had a strong impact: the authorization for the sale of houses (2011) and the new Migratory Law (2013), which abolished the concept of “definitive exit” by which the property of the emigrants was confiscated. Consequently, those who decided to leave were able to sell their houses to defray the expenses of their emigration.
When unleashing a wave of transactions for the sale of homes between individuals, the State realized that the prices that were declared legally, for the purposes of paying the required tax, were those that appeared written on the properties. But everyone knew that an apartment that registered a legal price of 4,800 Cuban pesos (approx. $200 US) was actually selling at 30,000 convertible pesos, or approximately 150 times more.
To avoid the effects of this veiled fraud, the Government decided to change, by decree, the prices of the homes that were to be sold and also assigned to each a “reference value” that multiplied the new figure by five, six or seven.
This reference value is used to calculate the sales tax. For example, that apartment which in 1985 was valued at 4,800 Cuban pesos today may have an official price of 39,000 pesos, but the reference value ends up being 234,000 pesos. Consequently, when the owner decides to sell it, he must contribute to the Treasury a tax of 4%, the equivalent of 9,360 pesos, almost double the idyllic price that the hard-working micro-brigadista paid off in 20 years, for the tax alone.
Now, the new measures will facilitate the acquisition of a property title for those who live in a state lease property and those who have not been able to legalize the possession of a house. However, the boldest thing that remains to be done to begin to give a definitive solution to the housing problem will not be to make paperwork more flexible, but to allow construction cooperatives to become companies with sufficient legal capacity to acquire materials, hire qualified personnel and open an authentic real estate market.
The State could continue to build for those who do not have the capacity to pay for the homes that go on the market. At least for those who receive poverty level wages. But at least it has already been recognized that a house can not be worth 4,800 pesos, as had been established by that hypocritical utopia.
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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.
Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo López at La Carlota military base this morning
14ymedio, Caracas, 30 April 2019 — Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López has been released by military deserters after receiving a presidential pardon, according to what his father told the Spanish radio station Cadena SER. Shortly afterwards, Juan Guaidó appeared with the leader of Venezuela’s Voluntad Popular ( Popular Will) Movement at La Carlota air base in Caracas to ask the military to rise up against Maduro in what he has called “Operación Libertad” (Operation Freedom).
“People of Venezuela our struggle is framed in the Constitution, in nonviolence,” said the interim president in a video that has been broadcast live on Twitter.
Guaidó has asked public employees and the military to join him. “I invite you to activate Operation Libertad in all the streets of Venezuela, as president in charge of Venezuela, I call all the soldiers, the entire military family to join us in the fight, not violent,” the politician adds.
According to the Spanish newspaper ABC , seven military detachments have been taken over by allies of Guaidó. continue reading
The Venezuelan government has already reacted by saying that it has the situation under control. Venezuela’s communication minister, Jorge Rodríguez, said that he is “confronting and deactivating” a plan for a coup.
“We inform the people of Venezuela that we are currently confronting and deactivating a small group of traitor military personnel who positioned themselves in the Altamira Area to promote a coup d’état against the Constitution and the peace of the Republic,” the minister said.
Within the framework of our constitution. For the final end of the usurpation. [See video here]
Leopold López, leader of the Voluntad Popular Movement, has been under house arrest since July 2017. Before that, López was in Ramo Verde prison since February 18, 2014 when he voluntarily turned himself in to the police after an arrest warrant was issued against him for the events that took place in a demonstration called six days earlier by, among others, him.
In September 2015, he was sentenced to almost 14 years in prison for the crimes of public incitement, conspiracy (association to commit a crime), property damage and arson for the events that occurred during the demonstration on February 12.
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Raul Castro, dressed in military uniform, greeted the participants of the march from the rostrum but did not make any public address. (EFE)
14ymedio, Havana, 1 May 2019 — Unlike what happens in the rest of the world, the thousands of Cubans who marched this May Day did not ask for wage increases and better working conditions.
And, unlike in previous years, there was no speech from any of the authorities present; neither president Miguel Díaz-Canel nor the general secretary of the Communist Party, Raúl Castro, spoke.
The only “authority” who “spoke” was the late head of state, Fidel Castro, whose recorded voice could be heard as far as Sport City, over a mile away, thanks to the new sound amplification system. continue reading
Under the motto Unity, Commitment and Victory, the participants waved placards in favor of the Government and carried posters with the faces of Fidel and Raúl Castro, along with Díaz-Canel. Those who did speak repeated, with emphasis, the word “continuity,” which over the last year has been the motto of the mandate of the 59-year-old engineer who assumed the presidency in April 2018.
May 1st, Workers’ Day, is a holiday throughout the Island, with most of the shops closed and state workplaces silent. The official deployment calling everyone to parade in the most important squares of each province occurs this year amid a worsening economic crisis on the island, one that is especially obvious in the poor supply of food and drugs.
Many residents of Havana, where transportation problems have worsened in recent months, lamented the cancellation of bus routes, which stopped running the night before, as the buses were reserved by the authorities to bring participants to the parade.
Contrary to what was expected, the ruling party did not take advantage of May 1st to make clear its support for Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, whose stay in power is threatened by an uprising led by the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó.
Instead, the marchers carried some burlesque Donald Trump cartoons and messages of support for Maduro, along with several Venezuelan flags linked to the Cuban banner.
The official pronouncements and the slogans have focused on internal politics and on demonstrating the support of Cuban workers for the Government.
Raul Castro, dressed in a military uniform, greeted the participants of the march from the rostrum but did not make any public address, in an act that was characterized by the lack of a major speech, thus breaking with tradition. Not even Ulises Guillarte de Nacimiento, general secretary of the Cuban Workers Center (CTC), the only union allowed in the country, took the floor.
Meanwhile, Television broadcasters made several allusions to “imperialism” a day after US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions “of the highest order” against the island if Havana does not withdraw its military and intelligence forces from Venezuela.
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Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo López in La Carlota with military deserters from the Maduro regime.
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 30 April 2019 — The Americas awoke today with all eyes on Venezuela, an attention that extends to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and that keeps governments, citizens, exiles from that South American country, journalists and analysts in suspense. The world pulses today in Caracas, after months of tension and years in which the oil producing nation has been sliding down the slope of economic collapse, political authoritarianism and social deterioration.
The release of Leopoldo López and the call of Juan Guaidó to put an end to the “usurpation” have brought the Venezuelan situation to a turning point. In the next few hours the first steps could be taken towards a call for free elections or, to the contrary, a repressive blow – of unprecedented proportions – could be launched from the regime of Nicolás Maduro against those who demand his departure from power.
Beyond predictions or forecasts, the main actors of this political drama have reached a point of no return. The principal protagonist is a Venezuelan people weary of the inefficiency of the system, galloping corruption, inflation and the lack of basic products. A population that has seen its quality of life collapse and that has had to say goodbye, every week, to friends and family members as they emigrate to escape the crisis. continue reading
Also in the “cast” of this tragedy is starring young Guaidó, a man who has made a meteoric ascent in recent months, supported by the international community and by a good part of Venezuelans who have found, in the President of the National Assembly, hope for change. Now, accompanied by his mentor Leopoldo López, the passionate engineer is at the center of danger and of dreams. He could see out this day strengthened and borne on high, but his chances of arrest or assassination are also very high.
On the other side of the conflict, there is the Chavista leadership that tries to protect a regime that has allowed it to roam at ease throughout the country, lining its pockets. Ministers, officials and senior military officers who are supported by Havana, which has provided them with intelligence agents and advisors on the matters on which the Cuban political police are experts: the submission of a society and the surveillance of each individual. In the early hours of the morning, Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel was already on Twitter supporting Maduro and he is expected, throughout the day, to raise the tone of the official rhetoric against the Venezuelan opposition.
Both a tragedy and a peaceful exit are on the table. Each role in the conflict could bring influence to bear during the course of the day, but it is in the Miraflores Palace in Caracas and in the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana where the cruelty or peace of of this Tuesday will be decided. To that scenario we must add Washington, attentive to every detail and knowledgeable about everything that is at stake in Venezuela today.
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This text was originally published in the Deutsche Welle for Latin America.
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 Inter-American Press Association, during its most recent meeting, revealed that freedom of expression and of the independent press are becoming “criminal behavior” according to the Cuban Constitution.
14ymedio, Havana, 27 April 2019 — In recent hours journalist Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces and activist Hugo Damian Prieto were set free. The reporter had been arrested last Monday when he tried to cover the trial of two evangelical pastors while the dissident was sentenced in December of 2018 for the supposed crime of “pre-criminal dangerousness.”
The liberation of Prieto, leader of the Orlando Zapata Civic Action Front (FACOZT), happened this Friday night. The dissident was freed from the prison known as the Toledo II Unit in Valle Grande municipality La Pisa, Havana, where he was transferred after the December trial in which he was sentenced to one year of deprivation of liberty.
“They gave me a letter of freedom that says suspension of security measure,” explained Prieto to this daily. “The two agents from State Security who gave me the document searched me in prison and took me to a house for an interrogation.” The officials threatened the activist with surrounding his house so that he will take no opposing action during the May 1 Workers’ Day. continue reading
Prieto complains of the bad conditions in the jail where “there is no transportation for prisoners if they have an emergency, everything is full of bed bugs and poor sanitation,” he says. The dissident spent a good part of his incarceration in a makeshift medical post in the dining room, given the precarious state of his health, especially due to his cardiac problems.
“In the last month they did not give me the medications needed for my heart ailments and previously I had missed some,” he says. In spite of the hard months he endured, Prieto reaffirms his decision to continue his civic activism and his street actions.
For his part, journalist Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces, a contributor to CubaNet who was detained at the beginning of the week by agents of the political police in Guantanamo, was set free this Saturday.
Before leaving prison the reporter received a citation to appear next Tuesday in the provincial Military Tribunal where he must be informed about the supposed crimes of “contempt” and “attempt” of which he was accused when he was arrested.
During the almost five days that the arrest of Quinones lasted he did not have access to water for personal hygiene.
The journalist was arrested in the afternoon last Monday at the entrance to the Guantanamo Municipal Tribunal when he tried to cover the trial that took place there against Ramon Rigal and Ayda Exposito, an evangelical couple sentenced to prison for refusing to send their children to school in order to have the opportunity to home-school them.
Before being arrested Quinones Haces managed to make a phone call to his wife, Ana Rosa Castro, from the police patrol car and tell her that he had been beaten, especially in the face, as she was able to prove after she visited him Tuesday at the National Revolutionary Police (PRN) station where he was detained.
According to Castro, Quinones Haces had trouble hearing from his right ear, swelling of his mouth, lacerations to his tongue, a fracture of his right thumb, and extreme difficulty swallowing solid foods,” she detailed in a note to the Pro-Freedom of the Press Association (APLP).
After the detention, several politicians from the United States such as Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio and Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Kimberly Breier, demanded that the Cuban government immediately release Quinones.
The Inter-American Press Association (SIP), during its most recent meeting in Cartagena de Indias, presented a report in which it complained that freedom of expression and of the independent press are becoming “criminal behavior” according to the Cuban constitution. The SIP adds that Article 149 of the Penal Code maintains the crime of “usurpation of legal capacity” [i.e. practicing a profession without a license] which is used to punish independent journalists.
Translated by Mary Lou Keel.
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Police surround the outskirts of the Embassy of Congo in Havana (14ymedio)
14ymedio, April 27, 2019 — Dozens of Congolese students who are studying medicine in Cuba find themselves being detained and guarded in a place close to the international airport in Havana, waiting to be repatriated to their country, according to several students who managed to remain in the Salvador Allende Faculty of Medicine in the Cuban capital.
”They took them in a bus on April 18, and at first we thought it was for a meeting where they were going to explain things, but they never came back,” one of the students who remained on the university campus said, under condition of anonymity. “They’re not letting them speak with anybody, but we’ve learned that they are holding them in a well-guarded place to send them back to the Congo.”
“They carried out a raid at the Faculty of Medicine and put them on a bus,” the neighbors confirm. “All of us in the neighborhood thought that finally the situation was going to be managed because later we saw only a few buses return,” they add. continue reading
This newspaper can’t confirm if repatriation of the students has begun, but several sources said that they are awaiting “a response from the Congolese.”
Last Monday, an opposition group in this African country, in a comminication, had denounced the fact that the students were called to the Embassy of Congo in Miramar under the pretext that they were going to receive part of their overdue stipends. “Actually, the Cuban and Congolese authorities laid a trap for them,” the opponents explain.
“Shortly after they arrived, the students were separated into groups, and more than 200 were forced, by Congolese and Cuban agents, to get on the bus, supervised, and then were taken to an unknown stop. Other students waited more than 6 hours for their friends, without success. The telephones of the detainees had been out of service this whole time,” explains the text.
New images have come to light of the violent repression against students from Congo by the Cuban police. The student interns were protesting because of the delay of two years for their stipends and the poor conditions in which they are living on the island. Images here
— Mario J. Pentón (@marijose_cuba) April 9, 2019
The detention was also confirmed on the Facebook page, “I’m not returning without my diploma,” created by Congolese students to demand back-payment of 27 months of their stipends. On this platform, the students clarify that the protests that began at the end of March aren’t the work of a leader manipulated by “dark forces” as claimed by the Congolese Government.
The group of medical alumni also said that they presented legal remedies in agreement with Cuban law, and they launched a petition to the authorities on the island to allow release and academic reinstatement of the detainees.
After this happened, the Chancellor of Congo, Jean-Claude Gakosso, went to Havana, where he met with Miguel Díaz-Canel and presented him with a letter from the Congolese President, Dennis Sassou Ngueso. However, the official press only mentioned the visit as an opportunity to strengthen commercial and political ties.
Junior Bokaka, a Congolese student of epidemiology, who has been featured as one of the protest’s spokesmen, said on Facebook that the complaint about the stipends for the Congolese students has “nothing to do with the Cuban Government.”
Bokaka took advantage of the opportunity to point out that, contrary to what some press media have said, he is a simple student who reported the situation on his Facebook account, but he doesn’t consider himself a leader of the demonstrations nor a student representative.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Some of the “escorts” for foreign prisoners once worked as prostitutes on the streets but others declare themselves “mothers of families” in need of an additional entrance. (Jan A.)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 April 2019 — While she waits, she retouches her lips, fixes her hair and asks another woman who is waiting next to her if this is the first time she’s come. On the outskirts of La Condesa, a prison for foreigners 50 kilometers from Havana, several women arrive for the matrimonial visit. Most are wives of inmates but there are also some like Margarita, who offer sex for money to prisoners who are far from their country.
Margarita has been preparing weeks for the Pavilion as the room where prisoners receive their partners is popularly known. “I bring a mosquito net to put on top of the bed and have some privacy because you never know if someone is looking through a gap, plus wet wipes for hygiene, food and coffee,” she tells 14ymedio. “This client has been good to me because I’ve been with him for three years and he gives me 50 CUC (roughly $50 US, or two month’s wages) each visit.”
The woman, who prefers to hide her real name, visits an English prisoner serving time for drug trafficking. “I look for prisoners who have long sentences because they last longer and because in the end a relationship is established almost as if it were a husband,” she explains. “I’ve been lucky, all the times I’ve done this because I’ve connected with serious and non-violent men.”
The current Regulation of the Penitentiary System, updated in December 2016, establishes the frequency with which an inmate can enjoy the Conjugal Pavilion in a rigorously stratified penal regime with different degrees of severity, which also takes into account if the inmate is “primary, recidivist or multi-recidivist.”
In the best case the prisoner can enjoy the Pavilion at least every 30 days, and in the worst every four months. In an explanatory note, the Regulation specifies that the duration of the visit is three hours, regardless of the inmate’s status, “with the right to eat during the same,” but sometimes “the guards take the long view and you can stay up to 12 hours,” says Margarita.
The woman, 46, is married and her husband knows that she makes a living visiting foreign prisoners. At first he did not take it very well and displayed some scenes of jealousy when she returned from visits to the prison, but then realized “the person who puts food on the table is elyuma*,” he says categorically. Now, when the payment comes to Margarita through some English friends, the husband leaves the house while the transaction is going on.
The prison benefit of matrimonial visits has existed in Cuba since 1938 when the Social Defense Code came into force, where compulsory work and study in prison and the Conjugal Pavilion was incorporated as a way to alleviate the consequences of the prolonged confinement the prisoners suffer.
In the case of foreign prisoners whose partners are unable to travel to the Island, they are often allowed a partner who charges for it. The way to find these lady companions is quite varied, but it is usually done through the trust and recommendation of a woman who is already visiting another inmate.
Many of the women who dedicate themselves to this work have worked as prostitutes in the streets. They are jineteras who, due to the passage of time or the harassment of the police, have decided to look for a “safer” sector in which to continue making a living. Others begin in the prison with the exchange of caresses for money and declare themselves “mothers of families” in need of an additional entrance.
Margarita saw a prison for the first time when she went to visit her brother in Canaleta prison in the province of Ciego de Ávila. One of the inmates told her directly: “If you come with me to the pavilion I’ll make things better for you.” She did not understand the meaning of the proposal until ten years ago when a friend told her that there was an Italian who could give her $50 if she saw him in the Conjugal Pavilion.
“The man was not bad looking and paid half in advance,” explains Margarita. Each month he sent the money and everything ended four years later when the Italian, who was serving a ten-year sentence, met another woman who was younger and charged less. “Luckily I found this Englishman that I have now with whom I am doing very well. He is affectionate and in a few years he will be released and maybe he can help me get my son out of the country,” she adds.
Some decide to change prisoners because they do not like the one they have chosen or because another offers a higher price. According to the unwritten rules, in order to change the name of the person participating in the Conjugal Pavilion, the prisoner must allow at least six months to pass between one visitor and the other, in addition to giving a good justification to the prison authorities. But like everything in Cuban prisons, it depends on what the guards decide.
The Penitentiary Regulation does not consider the Pavilion as an inalienable right, rather it is subject to the conduct of the inmates, the severity of their incarceration and the time served. Among the sanctions contemplated for certain violations of the discipline, the suspension of this benefit is included.
Yolanda is what is called “a woman of character” which is why she firmly refused to serve as a police informant when they took her to an office to propose that she collaborate. “They ’put their feet’ on all the women, especially those who have been previously signed up as prostitutes. If the prisoner left any loose ends in the investigation, the guards do anything to get information, but with me they can’t count on that.”
According to Yolanda, in order for a foreigner to receive a visit to the Conjugal Pavilion, all of the women’s information must be presented to the warden of the prison. “Then they call you in and ask you a million questions, do not even think about mentioning money!” she clarifies to all those who start new in the business. In her case, she also brings food and medicine to the inmate she “attends.”
The detail of the food introduces an additional line of work. As has been frequently reported, in Cuban prisons people go hungry. When a foreigner imprisoned in the Island manages to establish a stable link to enjoy the Pavilion, it is usually extended in parallel to the visit program where the jaba is included, that is, a bag full of food.
As these visits to bring food alternate with the Pavilion and have a frequency regulated under the same patterns, the inmate satisfies several appetites through the same person, the gastronomic, the sexual and in many cases the emotional.
Yusimín cohabits with her Cuban husband but is legally married to a Canadian who could be her grandfather. She agreed to talk about the subject but without the presence of her partner. “He knows that I am married to a foreign prisoner and when the days come when it is my turn to visit the Pavilion he becomes jealous. When I return he spends days without even touching me, but then he gets over it.”
The Canadian, is serving his sentence in a prison in La Condesa, a building that was originally conceived as one of those “schools in the countryside” where teenagers were sent to be trained as communism’s “New Man.” The rooms dedicated to the Pavilion “are not bad” according to Yusimín’s opinion. “It’s a room with everything, mattress springs, fans, closed with a single door and you have to open two bars before entering.”
What her Cuban partner does not know is that Yusimín’s plan is to go with the Canadian when he finishes serving his sentence. “This yuma has worked out terrifically for me and his family gives me many things to give him and also things for me,” she says. The condemned man has two years left in Cuba and the young woman has already shown him the photos of her young daughter with whom she intends to emigrate.
She has passed on the data of another prisoner to a cousin who has just turned 30 and already has two police warnings for being a jinetera. “If she is still in the streets, they will put her in a reeducation farm and I have already told her that the safest place for her right now is to work in a prison,” she explains, but she does not know if the cousin will pass the controls to be able to dedicate herself to ” this business.” It is the great paradox: getting a job in prison so as not to fall prey to the law.
*Translator’s note: “Yuma” is a term similar to ’yankee’ or ’gringo’ but with a more positive connotation.
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Rigal and Expósito refuse to send their children to public school managed entirely by the State, because they believe that it is tainted by intense ideological propaganda. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 23 April 2019 — The evangelical pastors Ramón Rigal and Ayda Expósito were sentenced, on Monday in Guantánamo, to two years and 18 months in prison, respectively, for not wanting to send their children to public school.
In the midst of a strong police operation both were sentenced for the crime of “acts contrary to the normal development of the child.” In addition, Rigal was convicted of “illicit association and instigation to commit a crime,” according to the daughter of both, Ruth Rigal Expósito, 13 years old.
The pastors were arrested last Tuesday when plainclothes officers showed up at their home and conducted a search in which they confiscated a computer and numerous school supplies. continue reading
The closest relatives and friends, including the daughter, were not allowed to attend the trial and the authorities detained the lawyer and independent journalist Roberto Jesus Quiñones Haces when he tried to cover the trial against Rigal and Expósito.
In the next 72 hours, the sentence will be made final and the pastors must go to prison while their defense lawyer appeals the decision of the court, said family sources.
In 2017 Rigal and Expósito Rigal were convicted for not sending their children to school; at that time they were 7 and 11 years of age . The pastor was sentenced to one year of correctional work without internment while his wife had to spend a year in house arrest.
The London NGO Christian Solidarity Worldwide showed concern about the case and said in a statement that the conviction violated the right of parents to give their children an education according to their principles.
Rigal and Expósito refuse to submit their children to public education managed entirely by the State, because they believe that it is tainted by intense ideological propaganda and because in state classrooms atheism is promoted.
In 2017 Hebron College, a Christian institution based in Guatemala, began to advise them to teach the classes at home with compact discs, printed material and some sessions through the internet.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) condemned “the manipulated legal process” against the two evangelical pastors for only seeking “for their children an educational model different from the one forced by the totalitarian State on the island: to educate them at home.”
The independent organization based in Madrid defends “the natural right of parents to choose the type of education they want for their children” and ensures that in the state classrooms “children are trained under a personality cult of Fidel and Raúl Castro, and the training plans include political subjects and even military training.”
“We condemn the judicial farce, the severity of the sentence and demand their immediate release,” concludes the document signed by Alejandro González Raga, executive director of the OCDH.
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The hospital maintains that it has taken measures to resolve the situation.
14ymedio, Havana, April 26, 2019 — The information that had been circulating for several days on social media was true: they had found, last Saturday, a body in a cistern of the Iván Portuondo hospital in San Antonio de los Baños (Artemisa). The official press has confirmed it this Thursday in an article published on the Facebook page of the local newspaper El Artemiseño, which speaks of an “unpleasant incident” and calls for “ill-intentioned rumors” to be avoided.
“According to the doctor Alden Peláez, provincial director of Public Health, upon finishing work in the cisterns, which has a quandrant system that makes them difficult to inspect, a body was detected, on April 20, inside one of these,” explained El Artemiseño, which clarified that the deceased “is not a patient of the hospital.”
“In San Antonio they aren’t talking about anything else,” Rosenda Calvo, a resident of the area near the hospital, tells 14ymedio via telephone. “It was the patients themselves and their families who put so much pressure on them with their complaints of the poor state of the water that they ended up making workers inspect what was happening.” continue reading
“The water coming out of the sinks didn’t only have a bad odor, but it was also murky and, for several days, the patients’ visitors had had to bring the sick people even water to bathe,” confirms Calvo, who had a family member hospitalized. “They thought that maybe it was a matter of a turkey vulture or a dog, but never a person.”
This newspaper attempted to communicate on several occasions with the hospital, the local Police office, and local media to confirm the information, but only received evasive answers and on several occasions the people who answered hung up.
However, the publication this Thursday of the news in El Artemiseño is an unusual gesture in the official press, little given to reporting incidents that occur inside hospitals, schools, or prisons.
The Ministry of the Interior is in charge of the investigation and, according to the publication, took measures like the “halting” of the water supply in the hospital and the use of barrels and tanks of certified water for the hospital to continue functioning.
“Other measures taken were the monitoring of residual chlorine three times a day in different parts of the network and microbiological surveillance of the water on equal numbers of consecutive days,” added Peláez.
According to the director, the contaminated cistern and the tanks that it supplies will not be in service until “the pressure washer and the hydrology team carry out the cleaning, disinfection, and certification.”
According to Martinoticias, which interviewed a resident, the deceased was named Villo Mantilla and was a former employee of the hospital. According to her, the body had been in the water tank for at least 15 days.
“I don’t know how he fell in the water, which is potable water for the consumption of the patients, the sick, the doctors,” said Rolando Yuset Pérez Morera, another resident of San Antonio de los Baños.
“Inside the cistern they found trash, a wheelchair, a great amount of filth,” added Pérez Morera.
The official press added in its statement that it will provide a “follow-up” to this “lamentable incident” in order to not give space to comments “that undermine the sensitive Cuban health system.”
Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera
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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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14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 24 April 2019 — Where once the hustle and bustle of children’s voices resounded at all hours of the day, silence now reigns. Most entertainment devices for the little ones have disappeared and those that are installed are covered with tarps or disconnected.
