Endlessly laughing and screaming, spreading their contagious joy at being young, teenagers revel in a day of joy on the beaches of eastern Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 5 April 2018 — Oblivious to any programs oriented toward recreation or culture conceived by official institutions, these young Cubans born at the beginning of the 21st century chose the beaches of eastern Havana’s coastline to make their own fun. As shown in this image, they danced for hours to the rhythm of reggaeton, laughing and shouting, their rejoicing at being teenagers completely contagious.
Their hips radiated a defiant sensuality, as if to say, “What’s it to me?!” It showed in the rhythmic shrug of their shoulders, in the desire with which they seemed to want to devour the present, and in the absolute certainty with which their thoughts of the future did not extend beyond the next minute. Their gestures and smiles aroused envy in more than one quiet swimmer.
In their midst, as an accomplice to their enormous joy, a portable speaker blasted the catchiest songs, and those with the jubilantly nastiest words, from this moment in time of that well-known urban music genre.
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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 makeshift raft in which 12 Cubans recently sailed from Punta Alegre to the Florida Keys. (US Border Patrol)
14ymedio, Havana, 3 April 2018 — Twelve Cuban rafters from Punta Alegre arrived at Florida’s Lower Matacumbe Key on Tuesday, becoming the first migrants to arrive in the Keys from the island so far this year, according to the digital media site FlKeysNews.
The ten men and two women who traveled in a makeshift boat made land at around 1:00 am local time, according to Adam Hoffner, an agent of the US border patrol.
The spokesman for the Monroe County Police Department added that the twelve people on board were “in good health.” continue reading
The coastal town from which the rafters left about seven days ago, located in the north of the island, is the same place where last March another group of 16 rafters reported to 14ymedio that their raft had been purposely sunk by Cuban border guards as they attempted to navigate to the United States.
Cubans arriving in the United States by raft has not been completely ended, despite then president Barack Obama’s decision, in January of 2017, to put an end to the wet foot/dry foot policy, which allowed Cubans who reache US soil to stay in the country and become legal immigrants after one year.
Some 58 Cuban immigrants have tried to enter the US illegally by sea since October 1, which contrasts with the same period last year when 1,934 Cubans were detained by the US authorities while doing the same thing.
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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.
Young people have a hard time getting a computer or a mobile phone in a country with a totally distorted economy, where the monthly salary barely exceeds the equivalent of $30. (EFE)
14ymedio, Havana, 1 April 2018 — ‘FactorUV’ does not like his name spoken and prefers the pseudonym for which he is known in Cuban digital networks. He is 21 and has been glued to a computer screen since he was a child, although he lives in a country with one of the lowest Internet connectivity rates on the planet.
FactorUV’s generation are digital natives, but they face many difficulties in getting a computer or a cellphone in a country with a completely distorted economy, where the average monthly salary barely exceeds 30 dollars. continue reading
“Fortunately as a child I liked putting things together and taking them apart, so I assembled my first computer,” he recalls now. “At the beginning it was harder to get the pieces, but right now buying a hard drive, a memory, a processor or a cellphone is easier than buying a sofa,” he says ironically.
At the end of 2017 there were 4.5 million mobile lines in Cuba, a country with a little over 11 million inhabitants. Although the island continues to be at the bottom of the list in terms of cellphone access, the progress has been significant in recent years and has had a clear impact on daily life.
Internet access has been one of the demands most repeated in recent years by activists, opponents and citizens in general. Despite the limited advances in information and communication technologies, Cubans today are increasingly informed and aware of what is happening inside and outside their borders.
However, this slow transformation coexists with censorship, high prices and a lack of transparency on the part of state institutions.
In FactorUV’s family, the digital divide is evident. His grandmother, a retired woman who worked for decades in a ministry and still belongs to the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), refuses to even touch a cellphone. “She does not understand everything that can be done with these devices,” says the young computer expert.
FactorUV’s parents spent some years in China on an official mission and “that’s where they realized that you have to use technology,” explains the young man, who also says it makes their lives easier. The family has also allowed him access to devices that many Cubans of his age can only dream of.
Despite the material limitations, barter, exchanges and loans between friends are helping the digital experience reach many others. “When I’m going to connect in some Wi-Fi zone, we almost always go in a group and the one that doesn’t have money to buy a recharge uses a bit of someone else’s time.”
In 2015, the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (Etecsa), a state monopoly, installed the first Wi-Fi connection zones, a few dozen throughout the Island. There are currently a little more, half with wireless connection.
The rates, very high at the beginning, have been reduced little by little. An hour costs 1 CUC (1 dollar) but it is still expensive for those who live only on their salary. These limitations have strengthened an informal market where accounts or browsing time are shared.
Etecsa offers a speed of 1 Mbps (megabits per second), but in practice it remains, at most, around 125 KB/s (kilobytes of data per second) or even less when there is congestion in wireless zones, something that happens very often.
For gamers like Ramón Gómez, who is called Pocholo, the speed of connection to the web is often “frustrating.” Games “are blocked or do not run well and playing online is a headache,” he explains.
Through tools such as Connectify, which allow sharing the same connection, digital entrepreneurs who have appeared in plazas and parks sell browsing hours at half the Etecsa price. (EFE)
Through tools such as Connectify, which allow sharing the same connection, digital entrepreneurs who have appeared in plazas and parks sell browsing hours at half the Etecsa price, an offer closer to the pockets of many Cubans.
Despite all its failures, ranging from power outages to the difficulties of opening the user portal, the wireless connection has become an indispensable tool for the emerging private sector, which consists of only half a million people.
From rental houses advertised on tourist websites to popular classified sites like revolico.com, digital businesses have boosted creativity and expanded economic opportunities for many Cubans.
Young graduates of the University of Computer Science (UCI), who sell their services as programmers of mobile applications, or prostitutes who offer their favors to tourists through Tinder, all of them use the internet to promote their services.
The most visited sites continue to be social networks, chatrooms and dating sites. The information sites about visas and scholarships are also among the priorities for domestic Internet users.
“In the wifi zones, sitting on the ground in a park or on the sidewalk at the edge of the street while the cars pass and make noise or it starts to rain, you can’t have a complete experience as an Internet user,” laments Pocholo. “You also have to be careful with the technology because the thieves know that in the wifi areas, especially at night, it is easy to snatch a tablet or a phone.”
His dream is to be able to connect from his own home, but he must wait to fulfill it because the Havana municipality where he lives is not yet included among the first areas where this service has started, so common in the rest of the world.
Nauta Hogar (Home): step by step
In the first months of 2017 the first tests began on installing domestic internet service in 17 districts of the municipality of Old Havana, in the historic center of the capital. The initiative has been extended very slowly to other provinces and is intended exclusively for residents who have a fixed telephone line.
Etecsa modified the initial rate and connection speed. Initially, the user paid 15 CUC (15 dollars) for browsing with a bandwidth of 256 Kbps; now that same rate buys 1 Mbps. The prices are still well above the economic reach of the average wage earner, which explains why only 11,000 people have contracted for Nauta Hogar.
An annual index of world development in information and communication technologies places the Island in 166th place out of 176 countries in terms of access to the web. Cuba continues to be one of the countries with the lowest internet penetration rates in the world and until last year connection from the home was a privilege enjoyed only by high officials, and professionals such as doctors, lawyers and journalists.
However, official figures say that Cuba registered more than 4.5 million Internet users in 2016, which means 403 connected users per 1,000 inhabitants. Most of them connected from the Wi-Fi zones installed starting in 2015 or from the internet rooms managed by Etecsa with terminals belonging to the company.
These figures are questioned by experts, who say Raúl Castro’s government includes in these data users who connect to intranet services, national email and other sites hosted on local servers, such as the Infomed medical information site, available for workers in the sector without having to access the web.
Connected yes, but not free
Amnesty International’s most recent report, referring to 2017, says that in Cuba there are “undue restrictions” on access to the internet and cites at least 41 blocked websites, all critical of the Government of Havana. Among them are the digital newspaper 14ymedio and other websites such as Cubanet, Martinoticias and, recently, El Estornudo.
Censorship also refers to the filtering of words that circulate through national email (Nauta) and text-only messages (SMS).
A report published in 14ymedio reveals that messages containing words like “democracy” and “dictatorship,” or the names of the main opposition leaders of the island never reach their destination, despite the fact that the state communications monopoly charges the fee as if they had been delivered.
Censorship also refers to the filtering of words that circulate through national email (Nauta) and text-only messages (SMS). (14ymedio)
Self-censorship also affects how Cubans use the networks. For example, in the wireless networks of games or forums that have become very popular in the neighborhoods since the arrival of devices such as the NanoStation or Mikrotik (sold on the black market), virtual communities such as SNet have emerged, which has more than 50,000 users in Havana and extends to other provinces of the country.
These communities prohibit political, religious and pornography issues so as not to endanger a network that, without being expressly allowed, at least passes under the radar of the toughest censorship.
The blogs written from within the Island, which emerged starting in 2006, were mainly managed by citizens independent of institutions, activists and opponents. Over time, as has happened with social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, the government has placed its own bloggers in these spaces to defend the official discourse and, also, to denigrate and defame its opponents.
Currently, several of the founders of the “alternative” blogosphere have become media managers or political activists. Also, many of them have been exiled due to pressure and repression.
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Editor’s Note: Venecuba is a space created by journalist Andrés Cañizalez to share information and analysis on the presence and influence of Cuba in Venezuela.
The alliance of Venecuba with 14ymedio and the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional has supported the writing of this report.
Rudy Cabrera’s work creating audiovisuals has been particularly outstanding, according to Cubanet. (Cubanet)
14ymedio, Havana, 4 April 2018 — Independent reporter Rudy Cabrera, a contributor to Cubanet, was released on Tuesday afternoon after a 48-hour arrest. “They told me that this arrest was just the ‘kiss of the tiger’,” the journalist told 14ymedio. He also said that he was subject to “different levels of threats” during his imprisonment.
Cabrera’s arrest came after a search of his home, last Sunday, by State Security and the National Revolutionary Police (PNR). They seized several external hard drives, a laptop, a desktop computer, a printer and other personal items. continue reading
That morning, two “patrol cars, four motorcycles and a civilian car,” arrived at Cabrera’s house to conduct the search, along with a photographer, five State Security agents and several police officers. “They had a search warrant to look for computer equipment and story boards,” he told this newspaper.
About three hours after the search of the house began, the reporter was taken to the police station in the municipality of Cerro. “The first day I did not eat anything because I did not have an appetite,” he says.
Cabrera was questioned several times at the station and State Security officials repeatedly threatened to send him to jail but also alluded to his professional training with phrases such as: “You are an educated person.”
An agent of the political police, who identified himself as Camilo, insists that the search of the house and the detention were only “the kiss of the tiger.” The officer suggested that they had found “something very irregular” in the house that could be legally “complicating” for Cabrera.
Another member of State Security warned the reporter that he should not cross the “red line” and told him that his work as a journalist had placed him “under the spotlight” of the authorities’ attention, threats that Cabrera believes are intended to intimidate him and to stop him from continuing with his work.
Rudy Cabrera work has been especially outstanding in the preparation of audiovisual reports for Cubanet, with on the street interviews and reports about the use of technology, housing problems and the work of groups opposed to the Government.
“I was allowed to leave the station after my mother paid the 3,000 Cuban peso fine they levied on me,” he explains. “According to the document, the fine was for illegal economic activity and now I have to consult with a lawyer, because everything has been very arbitrary,” he says.
Before leaving the police station, the reporter signed the official record with the list of the belongings seized in the search, which have not yet been returned.
The Cuban penal code sets a penalty of deprivation of liberty for from three months to one year, or a fine of 100 to 300 CUP, for the criminal offense of “without the corresponding license or despite the existence of an express legal or regulatory prohibition, working, for profit, to produce, transform or sell merchandise, or provide any service.”
Pressures against independent journalists have intensified in recent months and, along with arbitrary arrests, State Security has increased the number of searches in their homes and the confiscation of their tools of the trade.
At the beginning of this year the Freedom House organization gave Cuba a very low score of 14 points on a scale of 0 to 100 in rating freedom on the island. The report, which analyzes the situation of political rights and civil freedoms in the world, cataloged the country as “not free” with regards to freedom of the press and the internet.
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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 first hours of the 17th edition of the Young Filmmakers Exhibition took place this Tuesday in an almost empty theater at the Chaplin cinema, in Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 4 April 2018 — The first hours of the 17th edition of the Young Filmmakers Exhibition took place this Tuesday in an almost empty theater of the Chaplin cinema, in Havana. The event began in the midst of the scandal over the the exclusion of the film I Want to Make a Movie, from director Yimit Ramírez, an incident that continues to generate conflicting opinions among officials and filmmakers.
The Exhibition was inaugurated with the screening of The Two Princes, a short film inspired by the homonymous poem by José Martí. The choice of the film was interpreted by the audience as a response to Ramírez’s film, which the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) criticized for including “disrespectful” dialogue about the national hero. continue reading
The afternoon and evening session on this first day was enlivened a little more with the welcome offered by the organizing committee to the young filmmakers at their new headquarters on 23rd Street. Two exhibitions, Hair of the Wolf, by the artist collective Chambelon Network, and Vero de perro, by Manuel Almenares, completed the day’s program.
Also presented on the opening day was the feature film not part of the competition, The Wolves of the East, filmed in Japan and directed by Carlos Machado Quintela, known for his film The Work of the Century (2015)about the failed Cienfuegos Nuclear City project.
However, the main protagonists of the day were the absentee I Want to Make a Movie and its director, who were at the focus of the conversations among exhibition attendees, especially because, hours earlier, the Presidency of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) issued a harsh statement against the film.
UNEAC’s statement adds to an avalanche of articles and comments published in the official press and on the websites of institutions that criticized the words of a character in the film, who refers to José Martí with the terms “mojón” and “maricón” (turd and faggot). UNEAC believes that the exclusion of the film from the program is an incident that has been “magnified” by the “anti-Cuban press.”
“We share the indignation of youth who follow Martí in the face of this attempt to tarnish the memory of the Apostle,” said the Presidency of the pro-government association. The statement, however, did not mention the public solidarity shown by much of the film industry with Ramírez.
“To those who seek to undermine the founding values of the Cuban nation, we say: Don’t involve José Martí!” UNEAC said in its statement, in a tone that many filmmakers and film critics have considered threatening.
On Tuesday night, the Exhibition continued with the screening of the documentary short films Movies and Memory by Jorge Luis Sánchez and Notes on the Shore by Luis Alejandro Yero. In addition, the fiction short film Rocaman, by Marcos Díaz, and the animated Decomposition, by Jarol Cuellar, were screened.
Like last year, the Exhibition suffers from a shortage of works in the animation section, with just three this year. In addition to the films in the competition, the event also includes a Bonus section for non-competition pieces, known as the Moving Ideas space, along with the usual conferences and the pitching of movie themes in the Making Cinema section.
Among the most anticipated is the screening of Alejandro Alonso Estrella’s documentary, The Project, which presents the concept: “A filmmaker is forbidden to film an old school converted into housing. Years later, he decides to remake the Project.”
Also in the documentary category, the filmmaker Marcel Beltrán competed with the work The Music of the Spheres, inspired by a family history.
Despite the censorship applied to his latest film, Yimit Ramírez is represented with a short film from 2017, Eternal Glory, which tells the story of Julián, an “outstanding worker” worthy of an award he has always wanted, but “at the moment he is nominated, his mind is filled with great conflicts.”
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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.
Women line up at a pharmacy in Cuba for menstrual supplies. (Video Screen Capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 29 March 2018 — The production of sanitary pads is paralyzed due to lack of raw materials and will only be resumed in May, according to Emma Hernández Ibarra, general director of the National Hygienic-Sanitary Materials Company, Mathisa, speaking to Cuba’s official press.
“The company suffered a delay in the arrival of the raw material that is used for the production of sanitary pads, and the purchase of cellulose, and for this reason production is paralyzed,” explained the official on the newscast on Wednesday. continue reading
“At this moment, this raw material is already on its way [to Cuba] and we have an estimated date of arrival of April 30 and in May we will began our production with a strategy of gradual recovery,” added Hernández.
According to the official, the aim is to “increase the production schedule” so that the monthly supply received by women of childbearing age can be met through the rationed market at the country’s pharmacies.
“It may be that during the month they will receive some pads and another part of their ration as cotton depending on the availability of that product in the logistics chain,” she said.
According to statements made by Hernández herself to the official press in 2017, this problem affected the production of pads in the three factories devoted to them at that time.
“Of the ten raw materials needed for sanitary pads (popularly known as ‘intimates’), eight are imported from countries such as Spain, Italy and China, and only the packaging material is obtained in the domestic market,” said the official.
In a report published in this newspaper in March, women’s opinions about this product were surveyed. Many complain about the poor quality of the product and that the 10 pads allowed for each monthly menstrual cycle are not enough, in addition to frequent shortages of even that number.
Outside the gynecological and obstetric hospital Gonzalez Coro a doctor explained to 14ymedio that “on average a woman uses three to four sanitary pads” on a day of menstruation, and a menstrual cycle lasts between five and seven days.
Given the shortage of the product, consumers shop in the hard currency markets for pads, and look for friends to bring tampons into the country, along with the lesser known silicone cup.
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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 document highlights the case of the former Prisoner of the Black Spring, Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, who claimed to have been “brutally assaulted” and fined by the police when he tried to prevent the arrest of his mother last month. (Twitter / @ivanlibre)
14ymedio, Havana, 3 April 2018 — During the month of March in Cuba, there were 319 arbitrary arrests against activists, a figure “slightly lower than the one recorded” in February, which was 347, according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN). The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), on the other hand, reported a higher figure for March, 340, with 202 women and 138 men.
The CCDHRN also denounced 33 cases of harassment and “outrages” against dissidents, in addition to nine physical aggressions “executed or instigated by the powerful secret political police or their agents,” according to a report published on Monday. continue reading
The document highlights the case of the former Prisoner of the Black Spring, Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, who claimed to have been “brutally assaulted” and fined by the police when he tried to prevent the arrest of his mother, the activist and Lady in White Asunción Carrillo, on 25 March.
Throughout the month, “systematic weekly arrests continued” against the women who make up this human rights movement and the arrests were carried out “under inhumane and degrading conditions.”
The CCDHRN also reported on the “arbitrary ban on travel abroad by opponents who tried to respond to invitations from various international NGOs,” a repressive practice that has become common over the last year against members of independent civil society groups.
“The number of political prisoners remains above a hundred,” says the Commission, which will soon publish the Partial List of Prisoners for Political Reasons in Cuba, as it does every year.
“The new political prisoners, imprisoned during the month of March were: Aracelis Fernández, Martha Sánchez, Freddy Martín Fraga and Edel Peralta Rus,” reports the CCDHRN.
During 2017, the Government of Raúl Castro carried out at least 5,155 “politically motivated arrests,” according to the year-end report drafted by the organization.
That figure was the lowest since 2011, when the CCDHRN reported 4,123 arrests for political reasons, and also falls far short of the reports of 2016, a year in which 9,940 arrests were recorded.
According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, the Ladies in White continue to be the center of the attacks by the Government, which every week “represses them when they try to participate in Sunday Mass and in other activities.”
The organization, based in Madrid, also denounced the travel restrictions suffered by opponents from within the island but especially highlighted the prohibitions on entry against foreigners, giving as an example what happened during the ceremony held to deliver the Oswaldo Payá Freedom and Life Award.
On that occasion, at the beginning of March, the authorities refused to allow the entry into Cuba of the former presidents of Bolivia and Colombia, Jorge Fernando Quiroga Ramírez and Andrés Pastrana Arango, and the Chilean deputy Jaime Bellolio. Miguel Calisto, a Chilean parliamentarian, was allowed to enter the island but was arrested and deported once he arrived at his hotel.
These actions show, according to the entity, “the intolerance of the Government in relation to the free exercise of universal rights.”
In addition, the Observatory foresees a similar climate in the coming days, coinciding with the transfer of power from Raúl Castro to his successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel.
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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, 4 April 2018 — Two more activists were victims of restrictive measures that prevented them from leaving Cuba on Wednesday. They are the playwright Adonis Milan and the musician Gorki Águila, both of whom have been invited to attend the Forum of Civil Society and Social Actors that will be held in Lima, Peru, on the 10th and 11th of this month, an event parallel to the 8th Summit of the Americas also being held in Peru.
Milan, a member of Cuba Decides, was not allowed to not board the plane that would have taken him to Argentina. The immigration authorities cancelled his boarding pass and acknowledged that he was “regulated” by Cuban State Security Counterintelligence, he told 14ymedio. continue reading
The playwright, who has recently been expelled from the Hermanos Saíz Association and who suffers the permanent harassment from the political police, was intending to travel to Buenos Aires as a guest of the “cultural exchange of the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL).”
At the conclusion of that meeting, the activist had planned to travel from Argentina to Peru, without going through Havana, to attend this month’s events parallel to the 8th Summit of the Americas, as a guest of CADAL and the Center for Journalism and Technology Networks of Peru.
This morning, musician Gorki Águila, a member and leader of the punk rock band Porno para Ricardo, was also prevented from traveling, in his case to Miami. Once in the American city he also intended to travel to Peru to attend the Summit.
Theindependent civil society activists suspect that it is a strategy of the Government to prevent the arrival of the opponents in Lima.
“The government wants to avoid the meeting up of forces that occurred in Panama [in 2015] and therefore will not let any of the guests traveling to the Lima Summit leave the country,” the musician said, referring to the attacks against independent activists by of members of the official delegation that occurred that year.
In recent days, the vice president of the National Union of Jurists of Cuba, Yamila González Ferrer, said she would not share any space “with mercenary elements and organizations,” in reference to dissidents who have been accused of responding to the interests of “the empire.”
In the last year, State Security has increased the pressure against activists and dissidents, preventing them from traveling abroad. In most cases the refusal of the right to travel is not permanent, but arbitrary and circumstantial, which makes it difficult to report to international organizations. This strategy is in addition to the arrests, confiscations of personal belongings, the raids of homes and the imposition of legal charges.
In January 2013, Migration and Travel Reforms came into effect that eliminated the “exit permit” previously required for travel abroad. In the first ten months after the approval of the new measures, Cubans made more than 250,000 trips abroad, a record number compared with previous years.
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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.
Signing of the Healthcare Agreement between Cuba and Kenya last year in Geneva with Minister Roberto Morales Ojeda on the Cuban side. (Minrex)
14ymedio, Mario Pentón, Miami, 4 April 2018 — The decision of the Government of Kenya to accelerate the hiring of 100 Cuban doctors has been badly received by the local Healthcare sector union, in a statement that denounces the situation of some 1,200 unemployed Kenyan doctors.
“This is not fair. [The government needs] to take advantage of these resources to update our medical skills, offer better working conditions, pay better salaries and then adjust the law that guides the provision of services [doctors]. [If this were done] we would not need imported doctors,” read a comment posted on the official Facebook page of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. continue reading
The Union of Physicians, Pharmacists and Dentists of Kenya (KMPDU), which brings together public employees in these sectors, made clear its disagreement with the measure. “Kenya has trained doctors who are now unemployed and have been waiting for their deployment since May 2017,” the organization tweeted, in response to the official announcement about the hiring of Cuban healthcare workers.
Since then, the KMPDU has promoted a campaign to give jobs to Kenyan doctors and posted a survey on Twitter what garnered 2,364 votes, with 78% supporting the solution of recruiting Kenyan doctors before turning to Cubans.
Samuel Oroko, president of the KMPDU, told local media that his country has more than 1,200 unemployed doctors and that there are only 4,300 doctors working in the public health system serving a population of more than 49 million Kenyans. According to statistics from the World Health Organization there is one doctor for every 5,000 inhabitants, considered very inadequate despite being Kenya’s being one of the best-equipped countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Oroko, however, believes that Cuban doctors are not the solution to the crisis in the healthcare system.
“There are no medicines and the laboratories do not work, so if they (Cubans) come, they will not be able to work,” said Oroko, who also asks where the money will come from to pay foreign doctors. According to official data, almost a quarter of Kenya’s healthcare expenses are paid by international organizations and private donors.
“Our advice is, and always has been, that Kenya improve its infrastructure and working conditions. Only then will we be able to attract and retain enough local specialists,” the head of the KMPDU told 14ymedio.
14ymedio was able to verify that the first doctors Cuba plans to send to Kenya are already receiving training in Havana. “The doctors who will provide their collaboration in Kenya are being trained at the Central Medical Cooperation Unit,” said a Cuban official on condition of anonymity. The doctors receive classes in English, local culture and the Kenyan public health system. The Cuban doctors still do not know what their salaries will be.
The first time that the Kenyan Government negotiated with Havana to send a group of doctors, it faced a one-hundred-day strike in its national health sector. Some 5,000 doctors stopped working because the Government failed to follow through on salary increases ranging from 150% to 200%, as it had previously agreed to do.
The strike ended with doctors receiving between 560 and 700 dollars a month in premiums, retroactive to January 2017. Cuban doctors were scheduled to travel to Kenya in October but at the last minute Nairobi suspended the contract due to pressure from the national healthcare sector, which opposed the bringing in of professionals from Cuba.
The monthly salary of a doctor in Kenya is at least a thousand dollars and can reach up to $5,000 in the private sector. In contrast, the average salary of Cuban doctors is about $60 US per month.
The president of Kenya made an official trip to Cuba last March where he was received by President Raúl Castro. The State visit focused on relaunching bilateral relations and negotiating the sending of doctors, sports technicians and biotechnological products.
Raúl Castro and the Kenyan President during his official visit to Cuba in March. (Minrex)
“I think I could summarize [the visit to Cuba] this way: I have seen the future and it works,” Kangumu County Governor Anyang ’Nyong’o, who accompanied the Kenyan president on his trip to the island, told African media.
“They have very good primary health care, they have excellent referral facilities, and I think that for us, who want to implement universal health care coverage, this is the place we should go and learn from,” he added.
The governor explained that the agreement seeks to bring two Cuban specialists to each of the counties of the African nation. The Kenyan Health Minister, Sicily Kariuki, said the agreement would last two years and asked that the discussion about bringing in Cuban doctors “not be politicized.”
14ymedio tried to communicate with Kenya’s Ministry of Health to learn the details of the contract for Cuban doctors (as of now unpublished) but did not get a response from the authorities.
Cuba promised the Kenyans vaccines against cattle ticks and technical support in the training of that nation’s boxing team. The cooperation planned with the Island is a part of the Big Four initiative with which President Kenyatta seeks “food security, affordable housing, industry and healthcare accessible to all.”
Havana bases a large part of its economy on the export of services, mainly health services, which provide the country an annual income of 11.5 billion dollars, according to official data not confirmed by independent means. The Cuban Government keeps more than half of the payment made for each doctor hired by foreign States or institutions.
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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.
A woman in Havana showing Cuban convertible pesos and Cuban pesos. (Cubanet)
EFE via 14ymedio, Havana, 30 March 2018 — Cuba’s Central Bank, on Thursday, tried to calm the “false” rumors that one of the two currencies circulating in the country will be immediately withdrawn in the process of monetary reunification, which has led to a rush on banks and currency exchanges.
“This event is based on the false information that in the next few days the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) will be removed from circulation as part of the monetary unification process,” said a statement from the Central Bank, read tonight on the government channel’s primetime evening news.
Monetary unification is one of the primary pending reforms in Cuba, where two currencies currently circulate: the Cuban peso (CUP), in which state salaries are paid, and the Cuban convertible peso (CUC), the hard currency, with its value tied one-to-one with the US dollar and equivalent to 24 CUP, according to official exchange rates. continue reading
The persistent rumors about the imminent unification of the two currencies, reflecting the Cuban government’s plan to eliminate the CUC which it began working on in 2013, has caused hundreds of Cubans to go to banks and currency exchanges in recent weeks to get rid of Cuban convertible pesos and exchange them for Cuban pesos (also known as “national money”), dollars or euros.
The official statement insists that “the CUC will continue in circulation until such time as its withdrawal is decided on as a part of the monetary unification process, an event that will be officially announced.”
“The date for the beginning of the process of monetary unification has not been set,” stresses the agency, which also insists on the permanence of the current rate of exchange.
Finally, the Central Bank noted that during the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba there was “once again, the decision to guarantee deposits in bank accounts in foreign currencies, CUC and CUP, as well as the cash held by the population.”
Last December, during his most recent speech before the National Assembly, President Raúl Castro urged that the unification process be completed and described the elimination of the double currency as “the most important process” that needed to happen to advance his reforms.
“No one can calculate the high cost that the persistence of duality has meant for the state sector, which favors the unfair inverted pyramid: where there is greater responsibility, there is lower remuneration,” Castro said in his remarks.
He also warned that the situation promotes the migration of skilled workers to the non-state sector, which pays higher salaries and pays them in CUC.
Although the CUC is officially quoted at a value of 24 CUP, several official exchange rates coexist in the accounts of State enterprises in Cuba, which, according to some analysts, generates strong distortions that make it impossible to caculate the real state of the Centralized Cuban economy.
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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 resident on the first line of Guanabo beach see how the sea is getting closer to their homes. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 2 April 2018 — The perimeter wall has a concrete reinforcement every two yards. “Even with this we can’t stop the sea,” says Elsa, a retiree who lives 50 yards from the coast, in La Conchita, east of Havana. “Here the fight is hard, either the waves destroy us or [Samuel] Rodiles destroys us,” she laments, referring to the president of the Institute of Physical Planning (IPF).
The town of Guanabo is the scene of a silent war being fought between three sides: the sea, the government and residents. At night, waves splash the windows of the buildings on the beachfront. At dawn a trail of debris represents the structures that failed to resist. continue reading
Every day that a front gate doesn’t end up under water or receive a demolition order is a victory for the residents of this tourist area, who fear both the advance of the tide and the IPF, led by General Samuel Rodiles Planas, a man of the old guard to whom Raúl Castro has entrusted the task of bringing order to the country’s urban and housing chaos.
Since Rodiles took office in 2012, he has waged a tough battle against homes located very close to the sea under the slogan of “restoring legality in the coastal zone.” On the beaches of eastern Havana new constructions, extensions or the remodeling of houses that are less than 200 feet from the edge of the sea are forbidden.
The denunciations and the inspectors have become a nightmare for those who live in that strip of coastline, with white sands, which begins in El Mégano, passing through the more elitist Santa María del Mar, the familiar Boca Ciega or the deteriorated Guanabo, until you reach the farthest Jibacoa.
The restrictions imposed by Rodiles seriously affect those residing in the area who make a living from renting rooms to domestic and international tourists. “They give us loans to buy construction materials, but then they do not give us permission to improve our homes,” explains Jorge Marrero, who holds a “self-employment” license allowing him to rent two rooms.
“What many residents are doing is remodeling in secret, little by little and without much notice, so the inspectors won’t show up,” he says. The landlord maintains that “there is an interest in moving all Cubans who live close to the water, to put those areas under state ownership,” he says.
In some ruins, like this state building, the damages caused by the proximity of the waters, join forces with neglect and vandalism. (14ymedio)
Cuba could lose over a thousand square miles of land and several thousand homes by the year 2050 due to the rise in sea level, which is expected to total over 10 inches by that time, according to statements to the official press by the director of the National Agency of Environment, Tomás Escobar.
This situation “will increase the vulnerability of coastal settlements, reduce forest and crop areas, and the quality and availability of water,” the specialist points out. Among the most affected areas are the north coast areas of the provinces of Matanzas, Havana, Mayabeque and Artemisa.
In Guanabo, east of the capital, Elsa has hired a team of masons who on Tuesday will reinforce the wall that separates her house from the sand, where the sargasso is piling up. “There are days that I’ve woken up with people sleeping in the doorway because they think this is a public part of the beach,” she says.
In 2017 the Council of Ministers approved a State Plan to confront climate change. The Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, Elba Rosa Pérez Montoya, warned that climate change “will aggravate environmental problems, becoming a determining factor in sustainable development.” But the package of official measures also has a dark side.
“They show up and tear down everything that is close to the coastline, it doesn’t matter if it is contained within a property,” Elsa says, complaining about the performance of the IPF. “When I was born the beach was much farther away and it is not our fault that now it’s in the patio,” she reflects. But every year, the waters have continued to enter the settlement at a speed difficult to ignore.
The IPF relocates people to other areas, but the task is complex because it is estimated that in the country there are more than 35,000 people in vulnerable conditions and more than 11,000 homes affected by the rise of the water.
In La Conchita, several residents who live with their doorways right on the beach have been pressured to move “inland,” a vendor of guava cakes in the area, who preferred anonymity, tells this newspaper. “They want to put us in buildings that look like matchboxes, but we were born and grew up with the sea in front of us.”
The areas of the streets closest to the sea are almost entirely covered with sand. (14ymedio)
The home of the small merchant shows serious effects on “the foundations and the walls closest to the water, but nobody in my family wants to move,” he says. “We are going to stay to pressure them and make them offer us something better, also near the sea.”
According to scientific studies, the climate of the island is warmer every year. In the last 17 years the country has suffered nine intense hurricanes and it is estimated that the sea level has risen rapidly. It doesn’t take a scientist to realize: “The water is coming into the living room of the house,” explains Rogelio, owner of a house that he rents tourists in the area of Boca Ciega.
“Years ago we lost the wooden bridge that joined Boca Ciega with Santa María because the sea destroyed it, but no state work brigade has come to repair it,” he complains. Rogelio believes that “the great disinterest in fixing the place is because they want to get us out and make all this the property of the State.” He believes that “they are going to give this to foreign firms to build hotels, as they did in Varadero.”
For many residents in the lower areas of this coast, there is “a coincidence between what the Government wants and what the sea wants: to get us out of here,” says Rogelio, who sees in the official neglect when it comes to repairing infrastructure like streets and sewers, a way to “push people to leave.”
The avenues of Guanabo are full of gaps at the corners, where there once was a sewer system, but the streets that run into the sea have been lost under the sand and the supply of brackish water is unstable.
The options for neighbors who choose to relocate are uncertain. “There are people who had mansions near the sea and now they’re suggesting that they live inland in buildings without many amenities,” says the retiree.
Some prefer to stay and resist. “Nothing can be made with iron because the saltpeter causes it to fail and damage everything around it,” says Geondys, a 28-year-old bricklayer who works on several of the houses in the area. “This, more than masonry is just makeup, because these houses have to be refurbished every month to be maintained.”
Some of the remains of houses or sidewalks have been integrated into the landscape of Guanabo, which the vacationers take advantage of to sunbathe or put their belongings safely above the water. (14ymedio)
Geondys’ specialties are the perimeter walls, the external showers for customers to clean the san off before entering the house and the installation of moderately hermetic windows that stop mosquitoes, saltpeter and the invasion of strangers that in the summer months become more reckless with the houses that are closer to the sea.
“I make a living from this, so what for many is a problem for me is a way to support my family,” says Geondys. “The sea puts food on our table.”
Others, like the owners of the restaurant Le Mare try to take advantage of the waves that get closer and closer. “Customers like to eat on our deck because it’s like they’re on a pier over the sea,” an employee told 14ymedio, from the premises with several tables facing the immense blue. “Hold onto your napkins,” he warns each diner to prevent them being blown away by an onslaught of the sea breeze.
A small fence separates Le Mare from the sand where three catamarans offer trips in the area to those who want to mix a lobster with maritime pastimes, or a beer with some adrenaline on the tide. The boats are private and charge around 5 CUC for a short ride. “The proximity of the water to the houses benefits us, because this way the clients are closer,” says one of the pilots.
The man, who defines himself as “catamaran champion and expert on the Havana coastline,” recalls a time when the terrace of Le Mare was not an arm’s length away. “There was a time when we were out of this, now we live surrounded by water.”
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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 customer must go pick up their products in the store within 48 hours after the ‘online’ purchase ‘online.’ (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 3 April 2018 — Thirty years behind the rest of the world, online shopping will arrive in Cuba this summer. The service will be available only to customers with magnetic cards in national currency, also known as Cuban pesos (CUP), and products must be picked-up in person, according to a note in the official press on Monday.
“In the first phase, it will only be available at the 5th and 42nd Shopping Center in Havana,” the note says, which also details that the new service is a part of the “computerization process of the country” in order to “make some things more accessible and fast for people.” Predictably, the service will be extended later to “at least one store in each province.” continue reading
For years Cubans have dreamed of being able to use e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Ebay or Alibaba, but all this has been delayed by the lack of internet connectivity in the country, the problems associated with obtaining a debit or credit card of any kind linked to a bank account, and the very poor quality of the postal service which preclude its involvement in package delivery.
The first operations of this kind in the country will be carried out by the Caribbean Chain of Stores, formerly called Hard Currency Collection Stores (TRD), which are managed by the Armed Forces and have retail locations throughout the Island.
The payment gateway through which the products will be purchased is managed by the state-owned Defense Information Technologies Company (Xedit).
“Some time ago we had been working with Xedit in the development of the payment gateway, which currently only works internally while we are evaluating its performance, but which as of the summer should be available for the use of the population. When you have connectivity, you can make your purchases at any time from your home, workplace or other places,” explained Martha Mulet Fernandez, sales specialist for the sales department of Caribbean Chain Stores.
The website to make purchases is already available at http://5tay42.xetid.cu according to the organizers, but a test carried out by 14ymedio showed a privacy error message and the site’s homepage was never displayed.
The online store will start working for the purchase of products this summer, but the official press release did not specify the date.
New users must register, choose the products they want to buy, enter their card data into the payment gateway and confirm the purchase. The invoice and proof of the transaction are sent via email.
Initially the store will only offer food, beverages and liquors, but “depending on the demand the remainder of the chain’s 14 families of products will gradually be added,” says Mulet Fernandez.
The customer must pick-up their products in the store within 48 hours after the onlinepurchase, although the official does not rule out that “in the second phase we do want to deliver the purchases to each person at home, and in this way provide a more complete and higher quality service.”
In 1984, the world’s first electronic commerce operation was carried out. It was made by Jane Snowball, 72, who from her home in Gateshead, United Kingdom, ordered through the remote control of her TV, enabled as a computer terminal, a list of groceries from a nearby market.
In the middle of last year Cuban authorities launched Transfermóvil, an application for smartphoneswith the Android operating system to make payments from mobile phones, especially for electricity and telephone bills. The tool has been criticized for its slowness in registering new users due to organizational problems between the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (Etecsa) and state banking entities.
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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 six Antonov-158 aircraft that were purchased in 2012 are all on the ground due to lack of spare parts. (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Havana, March 29, 2018 — The Cuban airline Cubana de Aviación has suspended domestic flights “until further notice” due to lack of aircraft to cover its scheduled flights, as an information employee at Havana Airport’s Terminal 1 confirmed to 14ymedio on Wednesday.
“There are no planes,” said the worker, citing the reason for the suspension of all flights by the island’s main airline. Seats on the canceled flights were purchased by local residents using the national currency although “other airlines, such as Cubatur, are still providing service to tourists.” continue reading
Tickets purchased using the national currency are subsidized by the state with the requirement that a ticket be purchased up to three months in advance at the offices of the company located in the provincial capitals or in the main domestic destinations. Tickets on Cubatur can be purchased in Cuban pesos (CUP) when that airline has available seats.
The cancellations, which have not yet been reported in the national media or on the company’s website, is causing uncertainty among travelers who had tickets to fly on Cubana de Aviación in the coming weeks.
“The phones are ringing constantly because a lot of people found out through the internet and we are getting a lot of complaints. But we guarantee we are doing everything possible so that no customer is stranded,” says the company employee.
Authorities from the state-run company have devised a solution for transporting passengers that apparently involves “a bus, train or available space on another airline’s plane,” added the airport worker.
“I have a ticket for April 8 and, so far, I have not received any notice from Cubana de Aviación about a change in transport that I will have to use,” explains Ángel Collazo, a passenger who frequently makes the trip between Camagüey and Havana.
Although the airline does not often cancel all its domestic flights, partial cancellations are routine. “The last time I made this trip, I had to wait 12 hours at the airport until they transferred us to a bus,” Collazo recalls. “In all that time, they only gave us a small sandwich and a soda,” he says.
For several months, complaints have been growing about Cubana de Aviación operations due to ongoing delays and canceled flights. In 2016, more than 50% of the flights between Holguín and Havana were delayed according to reports from the Holguín press.
Company directors have stated that “technical problems with the aircraft” are the main causes of delays and suspended flights. When flights are cancelled, passengers are rerouted to buses and other means of transport.
In 2012 Cuba bought six Russian/Ukrainian-made Antonov-158 aircraft to modernize its national fleet. But a company employee who has requested anonymity told 14ymedio that the aircraft have presented successive “difficulties and problems in acquiring the spare parts.”
“The first problems occurred because the An-158 was purchased from Ukraine but the agreement for spare parts was signed with Russia. Shortly thereafter, the problem between the two countries began and that’s where we stand,” the source added. “Now everything is on hold.”
In 2017 a lease contract with the South African company Solenta Aviation was signed, adding two ATR 72-500 aircraft to the fleet. The aircraft were incorporated into domestic routes such as Baracoa, Holguín and Varadero, but tickets can only be purchased in hard currency.
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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 screening of ‘The death of Stalin’ was initially suspended in Russia. (Still)
14ymedio, Daniel Delisau, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 31 March 2018 — “I never thought it would be you,” says Svetlana’s character to the actor Steve Buscemi, who plays Nikita Khrushchev in The Death of Stalin. At the end of the film, the daughter of the late dictator realizes that, after the struggle for power unleashed by the death of the man who ruled the Soviet Union between 1924 and 1953, Khrushchev had won.
Eight years after the premiere of In the Loop, until now his only feature film, the director and screenwriter Armando Iannucci has returned to the big screen with a film that remains true to his characteristic humor, as he satirizes the intricacies and intrigues of the political game. continue reading
In approaching such a dark historical period, both in the history of Russia and for all of humanity, it is almost instinctive to want to find a moral lesson in The Death of Stalin, beyond the humor. But Iannucci’s objective seems to be the same as that captured in his debut: to convey that in the intricacies of politics, which sometimes border on the absurd, winners and losers always emerge among its participants.
In spite of the obvious and well-documented events, there is little reliable information about Stalin’s death and how the principal and decisive political decisions were made in the days following his passing. Luckily the secrecy inherent in political life in the Soviet Union lends itself to artistic creativity, since it cannot be said that the film is based on real events, but on hypothetical facts that have freed it from the straitjacket of historical rigor.
At other moments, on the other hand, the film needs only to sip from reality to unwind the absurd. In the face of a need to find doctors to treat the apparent stroke that ended up killing Stalin, the film shows his main collaborators wondering which doctors they might call, given than 37 of the best had recently been imprisoned precisely because they were accused of wanting to poison the dictator.
In real life, the sinister Lavrenti Beria, one of Stalin’s closest collaborators and head of the NKVD (the body responsible for political repression and the murder of thousands of people), began to put an end to the well-known Doctors’ Plot and other repressive labors just one day after Stalin’s death. Overnight the Soviet Union’s primary torturer became its first reformer and liberator in an attempt to launder his image.
This dichotomy is captured in the film and finally ends up making us realize that the work of Iannucci could well have been called The Death of Beria, because while Khrushchev ends up victorious in the struggle for power, the head of the NKVD ends up being condemned to death by his closest Party comrades, who were not much better than him but who feared and hated him in equal measure.
“This is how people die when their stories don’t add up,” Khrushchev lectures Stalin’s daughter in front of Beria’s cremated remains. Unlike Stalin and other dictators before and after him, who in real life knew how to play their role as tyrants until the end, Beria wanted to change his role in the script of life when it was too late.
Khrushchev emerges victorious from the struggle for power, and the NKVD’s chief, Lavrenti Beria, ends up condemned to death by his closest comrades in the Party. (Still)
The sarcasm inherent in British humor, one of the main characteristics of which is the most subtle personal undermining, flows very well in political comedies such as In the Loop or The Death of Stalin, where the suspicion, paranoia and hatreds of the main characters — almost all of them politicians — form the central nucleus through which the action takes place.
“Coco Chanel messed with your head?” an annoyed Marshal Zhukov asks Georgi Malenkov, who is presented as a weak character with a ridiculous hairstyle, and who became Stalin’s successor for nearly two years after the dictator’s death, until he was deposed by Khrushchev.
There is, however, an ambiguity in this comedy around the use of Anglo-Saxon black humor. As a screenwriter, Iannucci is aware that humor has no limits, but its use in The Death of Stalin raises doubts about its intentionality.
Despite being a comedy, there are plenty of unpleasant scenes for the viewer, including executions, arbitrary arrests and torture carried out against the Soviet population for political reasons. Listening to the ingenious dialogues of several characters in the basement of the Lubyanka building — the headquarters of the NKVD — while in the background the gunshots of summary executions are heard, it is difficult to discern whether Iannucci’s goal is simply to exploit black humor as much as possible or to create feelings of disappointment in the audience, who know they are laughing at some macabre and fictional scenes but who also know that in an underlying sense what they are seeing and hearing is shockingly real.
Coincidentally, leaving humor aside, the projection of The Death of Stalin in Russia last January has managed to say more about the country’s current political situation than it does of the period led by the long-dead Soviet dictator. Fruit of an authoritarian tic, the Ministry of Culture at first suspended the projection of the film for being an insult to the history of the USSR and to Soviet citizens, but it was finally exhibited, at least in one Moscow cinema and to packed audiences, possibly because Russian law prevented its prohibition.
“Do not worry, nobody is going to be killed tonight, I promise,” says the director of Radio Moscow to the bewildered audience at a concert that had only been broadcast live, but that by order of Stalin had to be repeated so that it could be recorded and a copy sent to him.
Nobody comes to a bad end in that scene. Nor has the Russian authorities’ objection to the public screening of the film gone beyond the anecdotal. But reality and fiction are here to show us a country whose society is not yet able to demonstrate its patriotism — questionable but legitimate — if it is not centered on an authoritarian leader.
In the past it was Stalin and the rest of the Soviet leaders; today it is Vladimir Putin, who has been ruling for 18 years and can now remain in power for another six years, after his victory in the recent elections. It remains to be seen if the struggles between his successors that will take place after his departure may be the source for the script of another movie.
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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.
‘El Lobo’ still does not know if he will be reinstated if his suspension is cancelled. (Guerrillero)
14ymedio, Ernesto Santana, 29 March 2018 — On March 20, the captain of Pinar del Rio’s baseball team, Donal Duarte Hernandez — El Lobo (the Wolf), as he is called — was sanctioned by the Baseball Commission of his province to a year’s suspension and forbidden to play on any other team. The provincial commissioner was also sanctioned for having reported the measure, but leaving Duarte free to play with the team that called him.
Fans are speculating on the true causes of this sanction. The official statement said that the reason was the player’s absence from the Provincial Series. However, it did not sound convincing, because that absence was not complete, and especially because El Lobo is one of the most respected and admired athletes in his province, a genuine captain who, in any case, did not deserve such severity. continue reading
Now, in an interview with the newspaper Guerrillero, Duarte stokes the doubts, as he described the measure as “quite unfair.” Given that he is 35, the seventeen National Series he has played in, and his history, the sanction seems excessive. Some specialists believe that, for veterans, it is too much to participate in a Provincial series and train for four months and then play another three at the National level.
“They have sanctioned me knowing that it was not because of a ‘provincial’ problem. It’s not my fault alone that Pinar del Río did not do well in the second round, because the team is not Donal Duarte,” said El Lobo, insisting that the director, Pedro Luis Lazo, had told him that he “had to play in the provincial.” However, several personal problems forced him to be absent.
It is well known that Duarte and Lazo were teammates for years and good friends. That fraternal relationship between director and captain seemed very propitious to the team’s success. In the last season, Duarte turned down a contract to play abroad to lead the team and support the rookie mentor Lazo.
To the question of whether that friendship has been damaged the interviewee replied: “I always wanted it because I have never hurt anyone, I have stopped being with my family to do good for others, I never interfered with his decisions about the team. I offered my opinions and my beliefs, that’s why we never had problems.”
But would the player rejoin if the penalty is suspended? Duarte says that does not depend on him, because that would be a situation that he would have to take up with his family. “It’s not as if tomorrow they lift my sanction and we just forget everything that has happened,” he clarifies. Although he thanks those who have defended him and expressed their disagreement with the measure.
The takeaway from the interview is that Duarte has filed a judicial appeal and his lawyer has a paper signed by director Lazo and by the provincial commissioner who “exempted him from playing.” Therefore, the captain says, the final result will tell who is right.
Translated by Jim
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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, 5 April 2018 — Oblivious to any programs oriented toward recreation or culture conceived by official institutions, these young Cubans born at the beginning of the 21st century chose the beaches of eastern Havana’s coastline to make their own fun. As shown in this image, they danced for hours to the rhythm of reggaeton, laughing and shouting, their rejoicing at being teenagers completely contagious.
