The citizen response to help the victims of the tornado is a source of hope about the nature and organizational capacity of Cuban civil society. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 5 February 2019 – In recent days we have seen moving signs of solidarity with the victims of the tornado that hit Havana. Drivers who offer their taxis, free of charge, to carry donations, paladares – private restaurants – who deliver food to those who lost everything, artists who bring water to the most affected areas, and emigrants who call for campaigns to collect products to send to the Island. Often the protagonists in this aid are people who, themselves, have very little or almost nothing.
The emergence of this citizen response, spontaneous and disinterested, inspires hopes about the nature and organizational capacity of Cuban civil society. And surprise about its efficiency and the volume of products collected despite the fact that these initiatives have not been able to rely on mass media for coordination, and in many cases have had to fight against the misunderstandings of the local authorities and the attempt of the Plaza of the Revolution to monopolize the distribution of donations. continue reading
And excitement, too, that after three decades of not permitting free association and only authorizing the existence of government organizations, there still remains, in the Island, the attitude and commitment to organize a campaign for humanitarian donations, autonomously and effectively. Many of the self-employed deserve special mention as they have offered – after so many years of suffering under the suspicion of those who say they only want to enrich themselves to live “above the people” – a lesson in dedication and selflessness at this time.
The displays of solidarity have come from the hands of restaurants like D’ La Abuela, who put into practice an effective system so that anyone could pay for a meal on-line to be delivered to the most damaged neighborhoods in Luyanó, Regla, Santo Suarez and Guanabacoa. Similarly, from musicians who have arranged concerts privately to raise money. And even from the attitude of independent reporters who not only related the testimonies of the victims, but also helped to document their particulars so that aid could reach them directly.
All of them are the heroes of recent days, especially because they have not received a salary for doing what they have done, they were not called by those “up above” to clear debris or give a hug and the work they performed was not a part of their ordinary jobs. They did it because they wanted to help and because they felt that each individual matters when it comes to civil society. Like a gigantic anthill, the smallest gestures and the simplest resources help to raise and maintain the common edifice of a citizenry.
A big hand to all of them.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
Cuban bishops criticized “the absolute character of Marxist-Leninist ideology” in the constitution. (COCC)
14ymedio, Havana, February 4, 2019 — Cuban bishops published a message this Sunday in which they criticize the new constitution, considering it to “exclude the effective exercise of the right to plurality of thought.” The constitution, which will be submitted to referendum on February 24, only recognizes “a single ideology,” the text points out.
The members of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba (COCC) warn that in the preamble to the constitution it is said that “only in socialism and in communism does the human being achieve his full dignity.” A phrase which, they believe, excludes “other visions about man, society, and the universe that do not assume Marxist-Leninist ideology.” continue reading
The prelates recall that José Martí defined a constitution as “a living and practical law that cannot be built with ideological elements” and call for plurality to be “safeguarded” in the constitution that will replace the current one, in force since 1976.
The message of the Catholic prelates praises the fact that to Article 15, which states that “the Cuban state is secular,” has been written so that it respects “the right of each person to believe, live, and express the values that correspond to his faith.” However, they point out that that definition contradicts the preamble where “the absolute character of Marxist-Leninist ideology” is emphasized.
“The freedom to practice one’s religion is not the simple freedom to have religious beliefs but the freedom of each person to live according to their faith and to express it publicly, having as a limit the respect for the other,” the bishops note. For which, the Church must have access to education, and be able to “build buildings” and “acquire and own goods suitable for its activity.”
One of the first actions taken by the revolutionary government after the arrival to power of Fidel Castro, in January of 1959, was the expropriation of the institutions that were administrated by different religious orders. Well-known on the island among them were the schools of the Brothers of La Salle and those run by the Marist brothers.
For six decades, the state has maintained total control of primary, secondary, and university education, and officially Catholic schools and universities are not permitted. Cubans can only take courses for computer science, theology, graphic design, English, or business administration run by the island’s parishes.
After Pope John Paul II’s visit to the island in January of 1998, authorities changed the constitution to change Cuba from an atheist state to a secular one, a gesture that opened the door to a greater religious liberty, after long years of atheistic intolerance, persecution, and punishment for the faithful.
In the section of the message dedicated to marriage and the family, the bishops appreciate that the definition of “marriage as a union between two persons” has been eliminated, which the draft version of the constitution put forward in Article 68, but signal that in the current Articles 81 and 82 “the path is opened so that in the future the union of two persons of the same sex is recognized as marriage with all its prerogatives.”
“We lament that there has not been substantial change regarding marriage and the family,” they add and also criticize that the new constitution does not recognize that “the family has an original and irreplaceable function in the education of children” which includes the power “to choose the type of education” that they will receive.
To conclude, the prelates deal with the economic aspects detailed in the consitutional text and praise that the recognition of private property has been included, but they suggest that the reference “in relation to foreign investment must be extended to [give the right to invest in the country to] the Cuban citizen.”
The bishops exhort that “each citizen, with a responsible vote from his conscience, contribute to the building of a society in which all Cubans feel respected in our rights.” This exercise must be aimed at guaranteeing “a dignified and prosperous life with the participation of all without exception.”
This is the second message from the bishops about the constitution in fewer than four months. In the previous one, dated October 2018, they passed over several criticisms of the constitutional text that was still being drawn up. On that occasion the prelates emphasized that the constitution “must reflect the characteristics of society,” since it determines the life of citizens, their future, coexistence, and their “participation in the making of decisions” of the country.
Translated by: Sheilagh Carey
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Pedro Sánchez appeared on live television at 10 o’clock in the morning to announce the recognition of Juan Guaidó as acting president of Venezuela. (Captura)
14ymedio / EFE, Madrid, 4 February 2019 — The Spanish government has announced that it officially recognizes the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as acting president of Venezuela, as explained by the president of Spain in an institutional statement made without taking questions and broadcast live on the major television networks.
Pedro Sánchez explained that the scope of this recognition is clear, “the calling of elections in the shortest time possible: democratic, free and without exclusions.” The decision was made after the passing of the eight-day deadline given to Nicolás Maduro to hold elections without him having taken the requested steps. “Venezuela must be the owner of its own destiny,” he said. continue reading
Sánchez explained in his brief appearance of about seven minutes that Spain believes in defending multilateralism to solve conflicts and that is why it has led the common position of the European Union. Likewise, the Spanish Prime Minister added that the next step he will take will be to promote within the EU and the United Nations the delivery of humanitarian aid. “The Venezuelan people themselves are suffering the consequences,” he said.
I recognize @jguaido as acting president of Venezuela, with a clear scope: the call for free, democratic presidential elections, with guarantees and without exclusions. I will not take a step back. For freedom, democracy and harmony in #Venezuela
Pedro Sanchez addressed the “many colonies of Spaniards” residing in Venezuela and the companies based in the country and stressed that he knows that they share with Venezuelans the desire to have a full democracy “which means that there are no political prisoners and that there are elections, free, transparent and with all the guarantees.”
“Venezuela is a beloved brother country and can count on Spain. We are and we will be by its side”, he said in closing.
The statement came minutes after France also recognized Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela.
“We consider today that the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, whose legitimacy is perfectly recognized, is authorized to call presidential elections,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, in an interview with the public broadcaster France Inter.
“It seems clear to everyone, including the Europeans, that we must get out of this crisis with an election that is completely legitimate” for the head of state, since Venezuela is a country with a presidential government, argued the head of French diplomacy.
He explained that there will be consultations today between France and its European partners to form a contact group with those who wish “to accompany the transition, not to be neutral.”
To the question of whether recognizing Guaidó as president is interference, Le Drian denied it, since Guaidó asked for help. In addition, he argued that “it is an attempt on our part to resolve the Venezuelan crisis calmly and avoid confrontations and violence,” as well as the intervention of the military.
He stressed that Venezuela is a “dead” country in which “there are many refugees, there is oppression, there is horrible inflation, the people are on the street, they want change and we believe that we must avoid” the risk of “civil war and confrontations.”
He also noted that the election of Maduro in May of last year “was very questionable,” unlike that of the National Assembly, which resulted in Guaidó’s mandate.
Shortly thereafter, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, made the decision public through Twitter.
Venezuelans have the right to express themselves freely and democratically. France recognizes @jguaido as “acting president” to implement an electoral process. We support the contact group, created with the EU, in this period of transition. https://t.co/7cgpdgz7TN
United Kingdom, Austria, Sweden, Latvia and Denmark were other countries that today joined in the decision of Spain and France.
The British Foreign Minister, Jeremy Hunt, revealed the decision on Twitter, after confirming that the current president, Nicolás Maduro, “has not called elections within eight days as we established.”
Hunt wished that the recognition of Guaidó will bring closer “to putting an end to the humanitarian crisis.”
Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria
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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.
It’s a matter of going to the most affected areas to bring help to those who have lost the roof from their house and spent days sleeping in the elements. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, February 2, 2019 — In the living room of the singer Haydée Milanés a group of artists and independent journalists sorts the donations sent by friends and neighbors. Clothing, towels, sheets, toys, shoes, candles, as well as powdered milk, cans of meat, cookies, bread, and bottled water.
They have been mobilized via social media to return to the streets of the areas of Havana most affected by last Sunday’s tornado. The previous days they went to Luyanó. Now it’s time to help the people of Regla.
Among the artists one notes some well-known faces, like the musicians Jorgito Kamankola and Athanai or the film director Carlos Lechuga. At the stroke of one a caravan of eight cars filled with clothing and food goes out. continue reading
When they arrive in Regla the police block their access. The problem is resolved with a visit to the authorities by the local People’s Power, which designates a “representative of the government” to accompany the caravan.
It’s a matter of going to the most affected areas to bring help to those who have lost the roof from their house and spent days sleeping in the elements, like the residents of Calzada Vieja. They haven’t had electricity since the tornado went through that area last Sunday.
On that street utility linemen were working, assuring that “they were almost” finished. “We’re not from Havana but we’ve come to help fix this disaster,” says one of them as he accepts a bottle of water to relieve his thirst.
The “representative of the government” looks for the president of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) to see who are the most affected on those streets. She comes back with some addresses and begins to pass out the gathered articles. But very soon everyone realizes that, except for two little houses that were in very bad condition, all the homes on the street have a roof and aren’t very damaged.
Some people approach the cars asking for candles and water but the government representative yells at them: “Nobody can come here, we will go house by house.”
One of the volunteers from the caravan approaches the residents to ask where they can find houses with small children and houses without a roof. The young woman delivers water, milk, bread, candles, and cans of meat to those families.
Feelings run high and the residents begin to scream their dissent. “It’s always the same and here everybody needs help, the president of the CDR has a lot of nerve, they always send help for the same houses every time that someone comes with donations.”
Faced with that situation the representative of the government orders the caravan to withdraw and assures that she will guide the group to a new place called La Ciruela. It’s difficult to enter that area because the police have blocked off many streets.
In La Ciruela the same scene is repeated as in Calzada Vieja. There are hardly any houses without roofs, the poverty and bad living are the same as always, increased by lack of electricity. The president of the CDR also appears here, reporting on two critical cases. A young mother who lives in a house that has lost its roof and an older couple whose house half fell down. They leave them water, food, and some clothing.
“Thank you very much for coming here, my girl, I don’t like to ask for anything or make a fuss,” says Lourdes Alfonso Villegas, who lives on Gerardo Granda street in a house that has lost half its roof.
Again the group establishes that the most in need are not here. The caravan leaves the representative of the government and heads for Luyanó, which the artists know well because they passed out help in that area on two occasions this week.
In Luyanó everything is easier. Walking street by street, visiting house by house, they leave everything they have left. It’s already nighttime when they finish the deliveries. Before leaving, they take a photo at the foot of a church that has lost its belltower.
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.
Maduro was sworn into his position with strong internal and external opposition, which does not recognize his mandate. (EFE / Cristian Hernandez)
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 3 February 2019 — The Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro is sinking. What will Cuba do? According to a recent poll, 83.7% of Venezuelans urgently want this obese and muddle-headed man to leave. They prefer the engineer Juan Guaidó. Maduro is backed by only 4.6%. The rest did not respond or did not know.
Guaidó has the clear backing of society, the support of more than 50 democratic countries and of the most accredited international organizations: the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the European Parliament, the Lima Group. Maduro, on the other hand, has only the backing of Iran — another pariah — along with Russia, China, Turkey, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador and the folderol of Colombian narco-guerrillas camped in Venezuela: the FARC and the ELN.
I repeat: What will Cuba do? The Cuban political operatives agree with this analysis, but it only appears in the (not so) secret papers they send almost daily to Havana in a diplomatic bag. They do not trust phones nor the Internet nor encrypted messages. continue reading
Meanwhile, Rogelio Polanco, the Cuban ambassador to Venezuela, asks the Chavistas to resist. He just did so at the inauguration of the “José Martí-Fidel Castro” university chair at Venezuela’s Simón Rodríguez National Experimental University, in Petare.
Cuba, he said, has been able to withstand the siege of the United States for decades. Venezuela can achieve the same results if it digs trenches and puts knees to the ground. The order is to resist. Cuba, heroically, is willing to fight to the last Venezuelan.
Polanco knows that what he says is not true, but he has not been placed in that position to tell the truth, but to try to save Venezuela’s aid and subsidies to the Island. That is his mission.
He is a journalist linked to Cuban Intelligence turned diplomat, and not a professor of ethics. You only have to look to see the discomfort in the mismatch between what he really believes and what he is forced to say. Polanco is not unaware that the level of chaos and disorder in Venezuela is much greater than in Cuba.
Maduro, like almost the entire structure of Cuban power, seems like an idiot but is forced to smile. Annual inflation is several million percent. The shortages are total. The lack of medicine borders on the criminal. The murder rate is very high. One is more likely to die violently in Caracas than in the Kabul of the Afghans. And added to this is the decision of the United States to bury Maduro’s dictatorship before its dismantling and the uncontrolled exodus of Venezuelans affects the entire region even more.
The Cuban dictatorship, since the death of Kennedy, has been allowed by Washington. First because of its protection by the USSR, then due to the general conviction that it was doomed to disappear and it was not worth taking the risk to try to liquidate it.
I have heard that many times in the United States. Faced with the uncertainty of a resounding defeat, the idea prevailed of doing nothing for fear of an overflowing exodus and the tremendous cost of rebuilding a country subjected to decades of communist neglect. Why kill a mosquito with cannon fire if it will die in the short term?
Clinton even granted twenty thousand visas a year to Castro to placate him. It was the escape valve. There was no hurry. In the end, there was the secret aspiration to let it pass to another administration to have to deal with the inevitable end of Castroism.
This attitude has nothing to do with the actively hostile behavior of Donald Trump’s government, determined to tighten the financial screws on the Maduro dictatorship until it suffocates.
The United States is the financial master of the planet. It has 22% of world GDP while 80% of commercial transactions made in dollars travel through the American banking system. That would allow Trump, for example, to prohibit the sending of remittances to Cuba and treat as enemies the countries that break the embargo. In 60 days the enormous poverty of Cuba would become an absolute misery that would affect the Cuban ruling class and explode the pressure cooker.
I return to the original question: What will Cuba do? The symptoms are that, while it demands that Venezuelans resist, it will be secretly repatriating its troops and advisors, while erasing the compromising hard disks.
The Cuban government is absolutely unproductive, but the essential feature of Raúl Castro is his prudence. Fidel would have acted in a much more crazy way, like when he asked the USSR to use its missiles to”preventively” destroy the United States, but fortunately for all Cubans Fidel is buried, they say, in the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia in Santiago de Cuba.
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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 faithful filled up the temple last Sunday during the first Mass celebrated in the church. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Bertha K. Guillén / Marcelo Hernández, Sandino/Havana, 1 February 2019 — Juan Ramos is 67 years old and does not like to talk about his childhood. Yet, this week his face lit up when he remembered his mother. “If she could have seen this”, he said with reddened eyes. In the town of Sandino, Pinar del Río province — where his whole family was relocated to by force from the Escambray Mountains — the first Catholic church built in Cuba since 1959 has just been inaugurated.
At the junction of the main street and a dirt road, where more horse-drawn carriages pass than motor vehicles, stands the parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The building, with a 200-person capacity, stands out in the town, with its impeccable, recently painted yellow façade. Around the church one can only see buildings made of concrete — resembling cages – that accommodate hundreds of families that are still labeled “problematic.”
“This was a town without soul and full of memories,” Juan assured 14ymedio, while he brushed off a piece of invisible fluff from his shirt. His hands are gnarled from his work sowing tobacco, the most important product in this region where he ended up at only 12 years old. Juan has spent a great part of his life longing for El Pedrero, a town in the province of Sancti Spíritus where he spent his childhood. continue reading
The facade of the new church in the Sacred Heart of Jesus parish in the town of Sandino. (14ymedio)
“Over there I had roosters, a mule with which I wandered through the mountain and, in the backyard of my house, a small cemetery with all of the dogs that my family had owned”, he remembers now. “We used to go to town on Sundays to attend Mass and, from time to time, a priest would visit us. But one day the militiamen arrived and the only thing we could only carry with us was the very clothes we had on”, he says.
To prevent peasants and farmers in the area from supplying food and assistance to the “uprising” of the Escambray, a group of rebels that hoped to overthrow Fidel Castro in the beginning of the 1960s, the revolutionary government ordered for the residents of those mountains in the center of the island to be removed indiscriminately. Juan and his family among those expelled in 1964 and were taken to captive towns, or communities in which one could hardly leave or enter.
According to personal details revealed in publications of the Cuban exile community, it is estimated that a total of 21 towns were erected in this way, surrounded by wired fences and permanent guards at the entrance. Residents could neither get out nor receive visitors, and all of the correspondence was inspected.
“We were escorted by armed militiamen the whole trip and when we got here my parents were very sad because it was an ugly place, real ugly”, Juan notes. “Homes resembling matchboxes were starting to be built, all very close to one another. You could not go out into the open fields and there was no church”.
Among the things his family could safeguard during their forced relocation was a wooden cross that Juan’s mother wore on a necklace. “That was our very own church for decades. Every night we would take it out and would light a candle for it”, he describes. “We had to be careful when doing it because this town was full of informants”. His brother managed to get out when the mass exodus took place from the port of Mariel in 1980 but Juan stayed.
Last Sunday, Juan was one of the many parishioners that filled the church in Sandino during the Mass. The temple was erected thanks, in part, to funds donated by worshippers of the Church of San Lorenzo in Tampa, Florida, itself built by the Cuban exile community which contributed 95,000 dollars to the building’s construction.
The construction of two more churches has been authorized, following the normalization of relations between the Vatican and the Government of Cuba in recent decades.
“We feel so much happiness that it is impossible to describe. Just as the bishop said, a church for a Christian is like a hospital for the sickly,” recounted Rosa Martínez, one of the residents who attended the ceremony. “The tears were pouring from my eyes when I saw my church gathered in that long awaited temple”, she said, interrupting herself with a sigh.
“In all of the years that I have lived here I have never seen so many people gathered together”, Martínez commented. She lived through times when “everyone suspected each other and were afraid to talk about these things”.
People from all over the Western part of the country came for the opening ceremony despite the bad weather. The celebration was charged with emotive moments and some volunteers even transmitted the event live through the internet to their relatives outside of Cuba.
“The Mexican women of the congregation of the Little Sisters have done very important work in this community”, says Idania, an octogenarian who took flowers to the Virgin of Charity’s altar located in the new church. She prefers to not talk of the past, and a wince of pain appears when asked if the church belongs to the residents that were relocated from the Escambray. Rather, she prefers to concentrate “on the present, on the now”.
Translated by: Claudia Cruz Leo
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
14ymedio, Havana, 1 February 2019 — Residents of the municipality of Regla, in Havana, have rebuked the entourage of Miguel Diaz-Canel to the cries of “Shameless!” and “Liars!” The residents of one of the areas most affected by the tornado last Sunday have criticized the performance of the Cuban leader and have accused him of doing “propaganda, nothing more.”
In a short video shared on social media the crowd can be seen shouting at the presidential entourage, surrounded by a strong security operation, consisting of several Mercedes-Benz vehicles. The agents who guarded the procession hurried their steps in view of the complaints and shouts of dissent and quickly left the location. continue reading
Díaz-Canel’s government has been harshly criticized for selling food and construction materials to victims of the tornado. The meteorological phenomenon with winds in excess 180 miles per hour lashed the capital leaving 4 dead and several dozen injured.
The ruler has visited places affected by the tornado and boasted on Twitter of the unity of the people around “their leaders.”
This Thursday Zenaida Romeu, director of the prestigious Camerata Romeu, one of the most respected institutions of Cuban culture, reported on her Facebook account that she had been expelled by the Regla Police when she and 18 of her musicians tried to bring aid to the victims.
“It can’t be real that so many people are impeding and stopping a gesture of solidarity that is human, altruistic, beautiful, beneficial, a spontaneous characteristic of the best of the human being.” Instead, they urged us to leave and treated us as dangerous criminals. It is shameful,” Romeu wrote.
Díaz-Canel has denied Cuban exiles the possibility of establishing a humanitarian aid channel for the victims and the authorities have demanded that donations be made through an account managed by the Government.
Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria
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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 rejects dialogue and does not close the door on military aid, although he claims he will try to avoid it. (EFE)
14ymedio, Caracas / Bucharest, 1 February 2019 — The head of Parliament and self-proclaimed president in charge of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, told Mexico and Uruguay this Friday that he will not attend a dialogue that seeks to keep “violators of human rights in power” and reiterated that he is only interested in a negotiation that results in the end of the “usurpation” by Nicolás Maduro.
“We want to express with certainty and firmness that the democratic forces, the legitimate institutions, much less the people of Venezuela, are unwilling to participate in conversations and negotiations whose purpose is to keep human rights violators in power through deception,” he said in a letter published on Twitter. continue reading
We affirm to the governments of Mexico and Uruguay our position of restoring the constitutional order in Venezuela. We have a clear route:
1. Cessation of usurpation 2. Transitional government 3. Free elections
In the letter addressed to the presidents of Mexico and Uruguay, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Tabaré Vázquez, respectively, Guaidó affirms that he will only be interested in a negotiation “when it is the one that agrees definitely to the terms of cessation of the usurpation.”
A negotiation that, he adds, “allows the effective transfer of power to legitimate representatives of the Venezuelan people to initiate a process of transition that culminates with the holding of free elections, in which the participation of all democratic forces is allowed in a fair and transparent manner.”
He also criticized the neutrality of the representatives of the two countries, pointing out that in this moment that Venezuela is going through being “neutral is to be on the side of a regime that has condemned hundreds of thousands of human beings to poverty, hunger, exile and even death.”
Guaidó invited Mexico and Uruguay, which, this Friday, will bring a proposal for dialogue to the UN to promote a solution to the Venezuelan crisis, to reflect and join as “collaborators” to the demand of “restoring the Constitutional order to initiate a transitional government that leads” to a process of free elections.
He stressed that anything else that distances itself from this negotiating framework will only aggravate the crisis.
Earlier today Guaidó stated on the American network CNN, responding to a question about whether he would be open to receiving US military aid, that such a step would not be desirable, but avoided rejecting that option outright.
“Here in Venezuela we are doing everything possible to put the pressure on, so that we do not have to get to a scenario that nobody wants to have,” Guaidó told CNN.
In Europe, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Josep Borrell, warned that the countries of the European Union (EU) maintain an “absolutely overriding” position of rejection of foreign military intervention in Venezuela in the face of the political crisis that the country is experiencing.
“It is very clear, after my intervention in the Cortes (Spanish legislature) and the statements we have made at all times, that Spain will not support and would be opposed to a foreign military intervention,” Borrell told reporters after participating in an informal meeting of European Union foreign ministers.
“I believe this is the absolutely overriding position in the Council” of the EU, he stressed.
At their meeting, the ministers addressed the situation in Venezuela, although they did not reach consensus for recognizing the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as interim president, mainly because of the non-acceptance by Greece and Italy.
Borrell said he did not know about Guaidó’s statement about possible military intervention: “I do not know about it, I’m not going to judge it, Mr. Guaidó has his opinions, what I’m telling you is the Spanish position.”
The minister explained that he spoke by telephone on Thursday with the American national security adviser, who “has contacted several countries,” and with whom he discussed the situation in Venezuela.
“You have to be very careful with these issues of military interventions,” he said.
With regards to EU States that do not support recognizing Guaidó, Borrell said that “there are some countries, two countries, which base their reluctance not on the National Assembly taking the lead in the call for elections,” but on the “conditions” under which the president of the Assembly is acting.
Italy has been blunt in rejecting the recognition of Guaidó because “he has not been chosen by the people.”
“Change is decided by Venezuelan citizens, we are on the side of democracy and therefore we have to create all the motives to favor new elections,” Di Maio said when commenting on the abstention of the members of parliament from the parties that make up the Italian government, Liga Y M5S, in the voting of the European Parliament.
Asked if the United States had asked Spain to break all dialogue with Maduro, he said he does not know, although he acknowledged that Washington has asked several countries “to proceed to recognition (of Guaidó) days ago.”
Borrell insisted that Spain “is not abiding by guidelines” from the United States and that the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, “set a deadline” (of 8 days for elections to be held in Venezuela), an ultimatum that “will be maintained,” a position that “many other countries have joined.”
Asked if the United States is upset that the EU is going to push for a contact group to support free elections in Venezuela, Borrell said that “there are many countries that do not look kindly at the EU creating this support group.”
Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria
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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.
IMO has become, in the last three years, the preferred app for Cuban families to keep in touch with relatives who have emigrated. (Flickr /CC)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar / Mario J. Pentón, Havana / Miami, 15 January 2019 — A recent update of the popular IMO messaging and calling application has left thousands of Cubans on both sides of the Florida Strait without communications. After the update the contacts with the American prefix disappears, inviting the user to open a link to install the application again.
“The problem with IMO coincided with the Nauta Hogar network and the Wi-Fi network throughout the country going offline, and last night I called [the state phone company] Etecsa to ask what was happening and they told me there were problems with the application,” an app user from Cienfuegos who connects through Nauta Hogar said by telephone. continue reading
IMO surpasses in popularity other videoconferencing applications, due to its stability, the ability to operate despite poor quality connections and its free services. Initially, it was used exclusively in Wi-Fi zones, but with the arrival of the internet to mobile phones, users have also started to use it on the 3G networks.
“The app is unavailable throughout the country but it has nothing to do with Etecsa,” clarified a customer service operator who identified herself as Yaneisy.
“We have been receiving calls reporting problems with IMO but we can’t do anything about it because it’s not under our control,” she said.
IMO did not immediately respond to a request for comment made by this newspaper, but in several technology forums users from other countries complained that they could not call any number in the United States through the tool.
Other instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram are not reporting problems from the Island for calls or videoconferences, other than those derived from low connection speeds that, in some cases, cause crashes and delays in the arrival of the image and sound.
Luis Castro, a computer scientist who has a repair workshop for computers and cell phones in Havana, recommended that users “use safer alternatives such as WhatsApp, Telegram or Messenger.”
“By consuming less data, IMO is cheaper for the user’s pocket, but that’s also why the quality of the image and sound is worse, not to mention security,” he explained.
A telephone call through Etecsa’s regular service costs 1.10 CUC (Cuban convertible peso roughly equal to the US dollar) per minute to the Americas and 1.20 CUC to the rest of the world, while an Internet browsing card costs 1 CUC per hour.
Cuba allowed navigation through mobile data with 3G technology in Mid-December. The telecommunications monopoly offers several data packages between 7 and 30 CUC. You can also pay through your telephone bill at a rate of 0.10 CUC per Megabyte.
IMO in the last three years has not only become the preferred app for Cuban families to keep in touch with relatives who have emigrated, but has also played an important role for activism on the Island, where it is used frequently to broadcast calls for assembly and to organize meetings.
Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria
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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.
Artists and independent journalists have gone to the areas most affected by Sunday’s tornado in Havana to provide support to the victims. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 30 January 2019 — Artists and independent journalists have gone to the areas most affected by Sunday’s tornado in Havana to provide support to the victims. Arriving in several groups at the esplanade of the Church of San Juan, they went into the surrounding streets to deliver clothing and shoes, canned meat, bread, crackers, pasta and blankets they managed to collect in the preceding hours.
The singer Haydée Milanés, pianist Roberto Carlos Rodríguez Cucurucho, actor Carlos Manuel Paiffer, director Alejandro Gutiérrez, journalist Michel Hernández and the musician Athanai were some of the individuals who went to Luyanó and distributed what they could along Mango, Remedios and San Luis streets. continue reading
As they explained, their intention was to come together and bring some essential products they collected from family and friends. In addition, they recorded a video in the streets to ask others to join this initiative. At these times, they affirm, it is important to use the power they have as public figures to bring people together .
The artists Yomil and El Dany, Alex Duval, and Divan also came to the Luyanó area, and appeared on Mango Street with two pick-up trucks which they used to distribute soft drinks, yogurts, juices and sanitary paper to the crowd that surrounded them. The arrival of this group of artists created much confusion among the neighbors and initially many thought they were representatives of the Government. “I’m running to see if it’s Diaz-Canel, I’m going to tell him that no one has come here to take an interest in us,” said a neighbor before she took off up the hill.
“We are all here supporting the cause for those affected and we are happy to have the opportunity to help the people, who are so badly in need at the moment,” said Yomil, a reggaeton singer, as he handed out groceries to the neighbors. The artist came with part of his production team that helped organize the line.
An hour later several neighbors in the area told this newspaper that a group from State Security did not let the artists finish distributing the aid and expelled them from the area.
Several independent media reporters helped to remove debris from houses to the street, including Rafa Escalona, of AmPm magazine. Photographer May Reguera, a contributor to the magazine Garbos, was also seen carrying aid in a small box for the most affected neighbors.
The Pazillo bar and the tattoo studio La Marca have tacked on their own initiatives for providing relief for the victims through a donation corresponding to their receipts for a day. Some restaurants like D`La Abuela have proposed to bringing, for free, food with a 30% discount for adults and free of charge for children.
El Destino restaurant announced that it is in talks with the provincial government to ascertain information on the location of the victims with the intention of getting them canned liquids and toiletries. “Any contribution is very much needed for these people,” they said.
The Government, for its part, has announced the arrival of material resources to the most affected areas. “Six new locations for sale of construction materials have been set up and it is anticipated that 800 roof modules (fiber cement) and 800 window units will be available,” they reported. Authorities have counted up to 1,286 damaged homes, plus 123 total and 625 partial collapses. They have placed more than a thousand water tanks for the population, replacing the 873 that were damaged.
The Minister of Public Health has updated the number of injured. Of the 195 initial admissions, 74 patients remain hospitalized, 12 in serious and two in extremely serious condition. The death toll remains at four in the official data.
The Council of Ministers, which assessed the damage, indicated 140,000 people were without electricity as of Wednesday morning, a problem that, according to the authorities, will be resolved in the next 48 hours.
Some 5,300 customers have had telephone service restored, but there are still 10,800 customers without it.
According to the authorities, the distribution of potatoes in Havana will begin on Friday, starting with the affected areas.
On Twitter, Miguel Diaz-Canel has acknowledged the solidarity of the Cuban people but has specified that the planned economy and the socialist government “will always have reserves so that no one is left homeless.”
For the moment, however, the ruling party has not commented on the donations that Cuban emigrants are collecting in several countries, especially in the United States, Mexico and Spain. The organizers of the collection efforts fear that the General Customs Office of the Republic will not relax its strict import regulations to let the products into the Island.
On previous occasions, the Plaza of the Revolution has preferred to appeal for the help of other ideologically aligned governments, such as Venezuela, Bolivia or Russia, but has rejected aid from international organizations and exiles.
The damage left by the tornado last Sunday has occurred at a time of extreme fragility of the Cuban economy. The country has a chronic lack of liquidity for buying abroad, has accumulated debts and has deepening shortages of basic products within its borders.
Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, January 31, 2019 — Through the wide esplanade of the Church of Jesus of the Mountain the residents of Mango street go to look for food. There was Fefa, who went out this Tuesday at noon along with two friends with plates in hand. They spoke under the sun, which was burning strongly, shaking the plates from side to side, the food intact without spilling.
“Are you a journalist? Good, listen to this. Nobody has come here, half of my house completely fell down, I’m sleeping in the elements, without mattresses. Now I came to the church so they could give me food because I don’t even have anything to give to my daughter. It’s a lack of respect that nobody from the government has come here, and all of us are mothers,” she says while walking down the hill that leads to her street and making a gesture with her hand for the journalist to follow her. continue reading
Mango street is long and steep and since Sunday it has been filled with debris and fallen posts. Fefa walks quickly as she yells at everyone in the reach of her voice: “Come, you have to see how Mango street is. Nobody comes down here, the government has to be here in the town, with us and not in a helicopter. Here nobody has seen how the 10 of October [municipality] is. If it weren’t for the church we would die of hunger. Ah! If it’s for other countries, right away they send help, but not for us.”
A stone fell from the roof and broke Fefa’s washing machine.
“We want a roof and mattress,” repeats Fefa insistently. Entering through the door of her house, she shows a sideboard where there is some bread covered with ants. “They haven’t sent anything, barely a bread with green ham and a Tanrico drink. Look where we are sleeping, look at the mattresses, none of them is any good now, they’re soaked. I’m a daycare teacher, revolutionary, but do you believe that this is just? Not the president of the council, not the president of the government, nobody has come. Look at the mattress of my mother, an old lady of 81 who even fought in the Sierra, and look where she is sleeping.”
She wants to show the rest of her house but from the back a voice yells: “Wait, I’m bathing, I’m bathing.” In the last room of the house, with walls but without a roof, a woman who takes water out of a can with a jar, sticks her head out several times to make sure nobody comes back and sees her naked.
Fefa keeps showing the damage to her house, like the refrigerator, which was broken in two. “They asks us for money for the federation [of Cuban women] and the CDR [Committee for the Defense of the Revolution], but to do their duty by the people no. To top it off, when the help arrives they sell it to you, no, that cannot be,” she complains.
On that same block lives Emilia Delgado Mango, an older woman, who lives with her mother and still hadn’t finished building their house “by our own effort” when the tornado came.
Emilia’s room that lost its roof. (14ymedio)
“The first night, after that day, we slept in the kitchen, which is the only one that has a roof, seated on a big easy chair. The only thing I’ve eaten is bread with cold cuts that they brought, nothing more. They didn’t say anything about going to look for lunch, and I can’t go to Reyes park because I don’t have money and I can’t leave the house alone. Hurricanes have names, Irma, Flora…but tornados don’t,” she reflects as she shows the easy chairs that she has managed to salvage and the window she grabbed before it went flying.
In Reyes park there is a point of sale for food where for 11 CUP (Cuban pesos, roughly 45¢ US) you can get a piece of chicken, rice, and yam, but Emilia Delgado doesn’t have a peso and has only eaten a piece of bread in 48 hours. They also sell cookies for 25 pesos and pork.
In the house in front of Emilia’s lives Ada Morejón, a small but robust woman, who wears on her head a white handkerchief and on the left hand the garments of her saints. “I suffer from nerves and I’m on a base of pills since that day. Here we cook with firewood. The gas pipe broke, but nobody comes here, nobody.”
The house is beautiful. The wall of the kitchen is blue and there she has all her orishas, a cross, and a virgin. On top of the refrigerator there is a stick of bread that seems to have been there forever. She grabs her pressure cooker from on top of the sideboard and looks at it: “Since I still have no electricity I don’t know if it still works, same with the refrigerator.”
Ada Morejón took a Librium and was in bed all afternoon until she heard that there was someone to talk to about what was happening.
Esteban’s room. (14ymedio)
On the heights lives Esteban Pavón Romero, but everyone calls him Jaime. “This here was left ruined, when I felt the phenomenon that day I tried to close the door. My mom was cleaning. I grabbed her and hugged her before anything, but a piece of tile fell on her and cut her hands.”
He says that between the moment when he saw his mother hurt and until the “black storm cloud” moved away were dark minutes for him. Afterward he called an ambulance “that arrived very quickly,” he assures. “I can’t complain of the hospital, magnificent. They stitched her fingers, all good. Now, here at the house the rooms were left without a roof, the patio, everything. We were asking ourselves where the posts and tiles from my roof came to land. I sent my mother to Cerro with my sister.”
He says that the same thing has happened to all his neighbors. “Here nobody has come concerned, you are the first person to enter this house. Yesterday a woman from urban reform passed by who, from the sidewalk, asked but kept going straight past, nobody has come here. We ate because all the neighbors got together and last night we made a broth there outside on the street, that’s how we are.”
And he continues: “Nobody has worried about if the children had milk. My nextdoor neighbors have several small children and they have had to sleep here in my house, which at least has a part with a roof.”
Hilda’s room and the Mango thicket. (14ymedio)
Jaime, as everyone calls him, hopes that very soon they begin to give them “at least the tiles to put on the roof” and he would like to be able to pay for them as soon as possible because, he emphasizes, “right now nobody here has a peso.”
Further on is the house of Hilda Buch and her daughter, who is pregnant although practically still a girl. Sunday night mother and daughter had gone to bed very early when, suddenly, the tornado tossed the neighbor’s mango thicket on the roof and they went out running to the other side of the house. “Here nobody has come. We collected the debris alone. My own roof can fall at any moment, the fatal night, really cold here inside, everything is wet. Touch it, either the hard floor or the mattress that is soft but wet. We’re mostly sleeping on the floor, covering ourselves with two towels.”
Buch explains that she cannot wait for a subsidy. “That’s a lot of red tape and delay.” She believes that help needs to arrive right now, because she has nothing to pay with. “My [monthly] salary is barely around 300 pesos [roughly $12 US], but there they are selling food for 11. Here in my house we don’t have even a cent, we can’t go. We ate because a friend brought us something and also the neighbor, who made a broth for everyone. Conditions are really precarious right now, there isn’t even gas to cook.”
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.
The Payret has been closed since 2008 due to “functional deterioration and lack of constructive maintenance.” (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 15 January 2019 — “The Payret will continue to be a cinema for Cubans,” Eusebio Leal told the official cultural website La Jiribilla. Leal, Historian of Havana, wanted to settle the controversy over the fate of the old theater theater by confirming the construction of a hotel in the same block without affecting, according to his statements, the integrity of the theater-cinema.
“With regards to the Payret hotel, which will actually be built on that block, I declare that this will not affect the integrity of the theater-cinema at all, but rather contribute to its restoration and the reopening of it as it has always been, a public service institution,” he said. continue reading
Leal has insisted that the construction of the Manzana Payret tourist complex and the Pasaje hotel, which is part of the works commemorating the 500th anniversary of the city in 2019, will not result in an increase in theater prices.
“The maximum ticket prices will not exceed the value that is paid today for accessing similar facilities such as the Martí Theater and the Nacional de Cuba,” the Historian said in the interview.
“Recently there’s been bad faith, an unwarranted suspicion, about the future of the Payret, that ignores, first of all, the attention this venue received throughout the Revolutionary period, an era during which two very expensive restorations have been undertaken,” protests Leal.
The controversy over the fate of the Payret as a cinema began in early December when the independent newspaper Cubanet published an article warning of the possible consequences of the remodeling of the entire block where the movie theater is located.
For several weeks, writers, artists and representatives of civil society criticized the supposed decision to turn the cinema into a hotel. One of them was the singer Haydée Milanés, who published a post on her Facebook account where she emphatically urged putting a stop to the disappearance of Payret.
Also the playwright Norge Espinosa deplored the situation in his article The Things We Are About to Lose, published by Café Fuerte .
“An intelligent restorer is trained to understand that the new use of a property with heritage value (like the Payret) must also protect its history. It could be restored as a theater and that would at least alleviate the loss of other things around it,” Espinosa wrote.
Weeks later, the statements of the Director of Development of the Ministry of Tourism, José Reinaldo Daniel Alonso, fueled the controversy. The high official gave to understand that the decision depended on Tourism and, by omission, that the people in charge of Culture had little or nothing to say on the matter.
“It will be studied, it will be seen and decided, at the appropriate time, if the cinema stays or not,” he said in an interview in Cubadebate. The official said that there is “a lot of ignorance regarding these projects” pointing to the diverse opinions of concern expressed on social networks.
Built by the Catalan Joaquín Payret, in its moments of splendor the building was known as “the cathedral of Spanish cinema in Cuba.” Currently the cinema has been closed for several years and both its interior and its facade suffer a deterioration that increases daily. The marquee shows rust stains, the walls are blackened by soot and both the interior carpentry and the seating of the building have been destroyed and systematically looted.
In its almost century and a half of existence, the Payret has undergone numerous architectural adaptations and experienced times of clear decline, but since the 1950s it has become one of the most iconic cinemas in Cuba. According to La Jiribilla, during the “revolutionary process” the building benefited from two restorations, one in 1969 and one in 1981, and the article added that the cinema-theater has remained closed since 2008 due to “functional deterioration and lack of constructive maintenance.”
The building is located just a few meters from the Kempinski Manzana Hotel. The numerous and frequent investments in luxury hotels contrast with the little concern for the abandoned cinemas of Havana, not to mention the critical situation in the housing sector and the scarce investment in residential buildings where thousands of people survive among the ruins caused by decades without being able to undertake a minimum restoration. Often these buildings suffer partial or total collapses leaving entire families homeless and some of these cave-ins have even resulted in the loss of human life.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
14ymedio, Emilio Alberto Pérez Anchía, Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Recently I read in some outlet, that you, in your capacity as representative of the PP to the government, have presented a non-legislative motion (NLM) urging the Spanish government to take a stance before the exploitation of Cuban doctors in the More Doctors program in Brazil.
This NLM urges Madrid to assess (and I quote) “giving political asylum and facilities for entry into the labor market in Spain to the Cuban health professionals who flee from those abusive conditions.”
It praises the training of my Cuban colleagues when it mentions: “It is an immigration that requires humanitarian support and is of very high quality since Cuban doctors are known in many of the world’s countries for their extraordinary expertise, their vocation, and their hard work in extreme situations,” to which I add “in any situation.” continue reading
It also denounces that “all the doctors from the country (Cuba) know that they are prohibited from returning for eight years if they do not return to Cuba after the mission,” which is a reality and it pleases me that it is recognized by the Popular Party, and I dare to add that the Cuban government also doesn’t let the family of that doctor, a “traitor/deserter of the homeland,” leave Cuba for a family reunification in that eight-year period.
I am one of those Cuban doctors, not from the aforementioned More Doctors program in Brazil, but indeed one who emigrated, and I was separated from my family for six and a half long years. When I managed to arrive in Spain, in the last years of the PP’s government presided by Mr. Aznar, I had no other choice but to settle for an authorization as a general doctor and not as a general surgeon, which is my speciality, despite a royal decree having been authorized which was intended to authorize various non-EU specialists, but it never materialized.
It is because I feel myself referred to and even honored by the current concern of the PP, with which I identify for ideological reasons, that I earnestly ask that this letter be given to the highest authorities of the Party with the aim that it analyze the following proposal, and I would complete the request that it makes to the government:
1. – That it include all the Cuban doctors who have emigrated in search of new horizons of liberty and a more dignified life for our families, not only those who have gone to Brazil with the More Doctors program.
2. – That the years working in Cuba by these doctors to achieve a decent retirement be taken into account, at the same standard as any Spanish citizen.
3. – That any medical specialty obtained in Cuba be valued and recognized after being demonstrated and accredited with the required official documentation, as is done with other Latin American countries.
Thank you for your time, you cannot imagine how much I appreciate a receptive ear. I await your response by this means or, if you wish, in person, it will be an honor for me.
Email: epantxia47@hotmail.com
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 government march yesterday, for the birth of José Martí. (MiguelDiazCanelB)
14ymedio, Henry Constantin, Camagüey, 29 January 2019 — I did not believe it, I could not believe that they were capable of such selfishness. Our unelected government began its annual torch march in Havana, one day after the tornado had passed.
It is not a march to pick up debris, nor to bring help to people who lost their belongings in the tornado (although they tried to apologize by promising that they will do it, not today, but the next day); it is not a march of solidarity and compassion with the Cubans who today are sleeping in anguish: it is a march of insensitive politicking. And it is not for José Martí, don’t try to deceive us, he would never have prioritized his birthday nor the cult to himself or any deceased caudillo (Fidel Castro) over the tribulations of his people. continue reading
The march serves to remind us that in Cuba politicking is still the priority of the higher-up officials, to the point that they prefer to maintain an expensive parade (how many official vehicles are currently burning the people’s fuel? how many security agents needed to protect the well-known, how much electricity used so there is light and sound for the choreography?, how many press teams are active to cover a ritual that, in the end, doesn’t even touch the edge of the heart of almost anyone in Cuba?).
A few kilometers from the march there are dozens, hundreds of families having a terrible time, without electricity, with injured relatives or destroyed property, surrounded by debris and shortages, and half of those with torches and the wasted resources would have helped them quite a bit. If not to recover their lost belongings, at least to have faith yes, which is the essential thing that people need to make it to the next day.
I admit that yesterday I had to keep quiet. Diaz-Canel immediately appeared in the affected areas, I do not know if it was heartfelt or because it is stipulated by his job responsibilities, God knows. But the image of a leader in pain seeing the suffering of his people did not last long.
Now he is posing among the scenes of the march, by obedience or insensibility, or maybe both; the unelected president with his also unelected boss, and the two freshly-bathed, recently having dined, with their unaffected homes, their happy families and their quiet smiles, because they lost nothing. It is true that, in the end, they do not owe anything to those people the tornado affected: none voted for them for president or anything else.
Let’s see if the people who are suffering find out about it, that Cubans are not worth much to those who are on top — and if they are worth it, it is not when they are in trouble, but when they march obediently — and hopefully they will make it clear in the circus-like referendum of February 24, with anything but the false Yes vote that many plan to mark on the ballot with the same inertia with which they marched today [on Monday] for Martí and the other one (Fidel), then go marching the following day for a visa or to cross a frontier.
If the tornado does not make those still in charge prioritize Cubans in their agenda, at least it will help us to give back to them the lack of importance they give us. Because at the end of a day of pain in so many Cuban homes, what the authorities have done in Havana is not a march. It’s a stain, and one that is not easy to erase.
Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria
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Note from 14ymedio: This text was originally published in La Hora de Cuba. We reproduce it here with the permission 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.
Mauren Barriga and Leonardo Muñoz, and the Spaniard Gonzalo Domínguez, detained in Caracas. (EFE)
14ymedio / EFE, Brussels / Caracas | January 31, 2019 – The European Parliament will vote this Thursday on a resolution recognizing Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela after noting that Maduro “has publicly rejected the possibility of holding new presidential elections” following the European Union’s (EU) request.
Sources from the popular and socialist parties in the European Parliament, the two major parties, confirmed to EFE that they will vote in favor of this resolution, thus giving it sufficient support to pass among the parliamentarians.
“The European Parliament recognizes Juan Guaidó as the legitimate interim president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela according to the Constitution of Venezuela (…) and expresses its absolute support for his road map,” the Parliament said in a resolution that will be voted on Thursday to which EFE obtained access today. continue reading
The resolution drawn up is also enjoined by the parties of conservatives and reformers (ECR) and the liberal group (ALDE), although liberal sources suggest that some members of parliament from this group may not join.
The text also urges the head of European diplomacy, Federica Mogherini, and the EU member states to recognize Guaidó “until new and free, transparent and credible presidential elections can be held to restore democracy.”
The resolution condemns the violence and repression in Venezuela and rejects “any proposal or attempt that may involve the use of violence to resolve the crisis.”
Likewise, it also reiterates that the National Assembly is “the only legitimate democratic organism in Venezuela” and stresses that its powers “must be restored and respected,” including “the safety of its members.”
The resolution urges Mogherini to “contact the countries of the region and other key actors to create a contact group that can mediate to reach agreement to request presidential elections based on an agreed timetable, equal conditions for all actors, transparency and international observers
Meanwhile, in Venezuela, an EFE team of reporters has disappeared in Caracas after being arrested by the authorities ant, according to the president of the agency, Fernando Garea, find themselves the offices of Sebin (Venezuelan intelligence services). It concerns Colombian photographer Leonardo Muñoz, the Spanish Gonzalo Domínguez Loeda and the Colombian Maurén Barriga Vargas.
The three are part of a team that traveled from Bogotá, Colombia to cover the crisis in Venezuela.
According to EFE journalists in Caracas, members of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin) came tonight to the Agency’s offices, where they arrested Barriga and Dominguez and said that Muñoz had been detained by the Military Counterintelligence Directorate (DGCIM by it spanish acronym).
The Sebin agents ordered Dominguez and Barriga to accompany them to the hotel where they were staying in the Venezuelan capital in order to, according to the agents, collect their belongings, and took them away under arrest for questioning.
The director of EFE in Caracas, Nélida Fernández, along with a lawyer followed Domínguez and Barriga to the Sebin offices to try to clear up the situation with the Venezuelan authorities and obtain their release as soon as possible.
The EFE team traveled to Caracas on January 17 to help cover the Venezuelan crisis and upon arrival at the Maiquetía airport they identified themselves as journalists, upon which the intelligence, immigration and customs authorities allowed them to enter without restrictions after subjecting them to several security background checks of nearly three hours.
However, when photographer Muñoz was heading this morning to cover demonstrations against the Nicolás Maduro regime in the Caracas neighborhood of Petare, contact was lost with him and the driver who accompanied him, the Venezuelan José Salas.
For that reason, the Government of Colombia requested on Wednesday the “immediate release” of Leonardo Muñoz, whose whereabouts until recently were unknown.
The “Government of Colombia rejects the arrest in Venezuela of the Colombian national Leonardo Muñoz, photographer of the EFE Agency and demands his immediate release. We demand respect for the life of our countryman,” said Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo on Twitter.
When they traveled to Caracas, the three EFE journalists had plane tickets to return to Bogotá on February 7.
Fernando Garea, in an interview with Spanish Television, has expressed concern that the time difference resulted in no news in the last hours about the situation concerning the reporters and has assured that the intention of the Venezuelan regime is to prevent witnesses from seeing what is happening
Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 5 February 2019 – In recent days we have seen moving signs of solidarity with the victims of the tornado that hit Havana. Drivers who offer their taxis, free of charge, to carry donations, paladares – private restaurants – who deliver food to those who lost everything, artists who bring water to the most affected areas, and emigrants who call for campaigns to collect products to send to the Island. Often the protagonists in this aid are people who, themselves, have very little or almost nothing.
