Roberto Santana Capdesuñer, independent candidate from Holguín. (Courtesy)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 September 2017 — Located between two bays, the Holguin municipality of Antilla is among the smallest of Cuba. In District 3, young Roberto Miguel Santana Capdesuñer aspired to be a delegate at the Nominating Candidates Assembly, but a mixture of chance and likely bad intention prevented it.
Santana, 27, has been collaborating for two years with the platform #Otro18 (Another 2018) and has become coordinator of the initiative in the provinces of Granma and Holguín. In order to make a living, he obtained a license as a food seller, but the inspectors pursued him with the fines until they made his “life impossible.”
He then got a job at a state-run restaurant where he kept the accounts. However, they soon dismissed him on the grounds that he was not reliable because he was not revolutionary. Fed up with feeling segregated for not sharing the ideology of power, he decided to throw himself into activism. continue reading
Santana talks about the situation of his town with the same pain that he would recount his personal sufferings. “Our main problems are housing, food and lack of medications. In our pharmacy there is a list of 120 drugs which are missing,” he says.
The port of Antilla, which previously gave life to the place, is no longer operating and there is only one tobacco factory and a corn mill.
Like most Cubans linked to the political opposition, Santana has been the subject of police citations, arbitrary arrests, searches of the house where he lives, confiscation of his belongings, interrogations and, above all, a systematic campaign to discredit him.
Along with the risks, his attitude has also placed him in a leadership position among his neighbors. “Many people come to tell me their problems because they see in me an alternative, something different and that fills me with satisfaction,” he tells this newspaper. “There are more people who put their trust in me than those who see me as an enemy.”
In the current electoral process, the Nominating Assembly of his area was scheduled for September 7, but was suspended without fixing a new date due to Hurricane Irma. After a few days, the nomination process began again throughout the municipality, with the exception of District 3 where the activist resides.
Santana recalls that on Monday, September 18, he was advised that they could see his daughter at the pediatric hospital in Holguín. That same night he went there with his little four-year-old Lauren, and she was immediately admitted, he says.
The haste to hospitalize her came as a surprise to Santana, who on other occasions found that “there is a long wait for that.” At seven o’clock the next day he received an urgent call to inform him that the people in charge of calling the meeting were telling the voters that the Assembly would be held in an hour.
Trapped in the provincial capital, two hours from his village, the aspiring delegate saw his candidacy dissolve. The neighbors who were in a position to propose him thought that his absence was a sign that he had given up standing for election. The work he had done for more than two years and waiting for that moment came to nothing.
He later learned that no citation to come to the meeting was delivered to his mother-in-law’s house where he lives with his wife. “At that time there was no transport between Holguín and Antilla and even if I had had a car of my own it would have taken two hours to get there,” Santana laments.
Of the 200 voters in the district only 70 participated in the Assembly, according to what several residents told 14ymedio. An irregularity that contradicts the electoral rules, which require that “the massive presence of the voters of the area be verified beforehand,” before the meeting begins.
“They took advantage of the fact that I was facing a family problem to call the meeting just one hour ahead of time,” claims the activist. In his mind, the idea that State Security was behind such haste took shape. “It was unethical, a real trick,” he said.
Contingency and arbitrariness conspired against Santana that night to prevent his being chosen as a different delegate. “Not like others who want to serve as puppets to the government, sheltered behind the wall of the Communist Party, but as a counterpart in favor of the people of the neighborhood,” comments the frustrated candidate.
For the moment and under the current Electoral Law, the young activist will have to wait at least two and a half more years to try again.
’Love Letters to Stalin’, by Juan Mayorga, is being performed at the Argos Theater in Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 25 September 2017 — When leaving the Argos Theater after the performance of Love Letters to Stalin, a good part of the audience needs to shake their heads. Like someone waking from a nightmare, there will be those who, for long minutes, fear that the monsters from the dream might appear around the next corner.
The play, with the original text by Spaniard Juan Mayorga, brings to the stage the drama experienced by the writer Mikhail Bulgakov (born Kiev, 1891) given his tense relationship with the Soviet Government. The author of novels such as The White Guard became known on the Island thanks to his book The Master and Margarita (1926), which could only be published 26 years after his death.
The piece, directed by Abel González Melo, tackles the thorny issue of the interaction between intellectuals and power, a bond that is stretched thin when rulers exercise strict censorship and the freedom of the artist is mired in the marshes of politics. continue reading
Although complacent art, which sings praises to tyrants, rarely survives the fall of dictatorships, the script suggests that the irreverent pay a high personal and editorial cost to transcend the sterilizing whims of power. In the words of the protagonist in LoveLetters to Stalin: “An artist who is silent is not a real artist … How can I write songs to a country that for me is like a prison?”
In the small theater on Ayestaran Street the audience watches the scenes in which Bulgakov writes letters to the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) denouncing that performances of the play The Purple Island have been prohibited. The writer also complains that the play The Days of the Turbins was barred and that Zoe’s Apartment was removed from the listings.
“I do not have the courage to live in a country where I can neither represent nor publish my works. I am writing to you so that you will return to me my freedom as a writer or expel me from the Soviet Union with my wife,” he cries in his letter.
According to Bulgakov’s biographers, Stalin responded to this letter in 1930 with a telephone call. In the scene in which the sound of the ringing phone is heard, the actor Alberto Corona – who represents the writer – jumps for joy and embraces his wife, played by Liliana Lam. Full of glee he shouts: “Comrade Stalin has called me!”
Desperation leads Bulgakov to the delirium of imagining, standing in his living room, the unmistakable figure of the dictator, who is given life by the actor Pancho Garcia, winner of the 2012 National Theater Award. (14ymedio)
However, the communication remains unfinished due to technical problems at the moment when Stalin was about to schedule a personal encounter with the artist. From that moment, the novelist and playwright does nothing more than write new missives and stay home waiting for the phone to ring again. “All I have written is a child’s play if I compare it with a letter to Stalin,” he says.
Desperation leads Bulgakov to the delirium of imagining that he sees, standing in the middle of his living room, the unmistakable figure of the dictator, brought to life by the actor Pancho Garcia, winner of the 2012 National Theater Award.
The specter of Stalin that dialogues with the writer is not only that iron man who orders the death of his fellow combatants, but also the magnanimous chief who feels “surrounded by the incompetent” and who wishes to sit down and converse with an uncomfortable intellectual to hear his views about the future of the country.
A Stalin who, at the same time, shows his darker side. A rogue who “has almost driven our friend Zamiatin crazy, and has succeeded in getting Maiakosvki to commit suicide,” says Bulgakov. The innocent idealization of that Stalin also represents the writer’s last hope of becoming accepted without having to give up himself.
The need to prove that he is not on the side of enemies, his love of the country where his writing is nourished, and growing unease because his work is pushed aside, weave the fall of the Russian writer. A descent into the abyss of ostracism, from which only a pact with the censor could save him.
“I suspect that in Cuba in 2017, some of his phrases and situations will be heard and observed as they have not been anywhere else,” said the author, Juan Mayorga. Comparisons between that USSR and a Cuba where, for years, critical authors were penalized with an exclusion from the catalogs of published books, a ban on travel and the execution of their reputations.
The staging of Love Letters to Stalin in a theater in Havana reopens the debate on the consequences of decades of censorship and control over cultural production and over the island’s intellectuals. From Fidel Castro’s Words to the Intellectuals, to the arrest of graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado, all the stories of exclusion or submission of an artist parade in the minds of the spectators.
Thus, Bulgakov becomes at times Virgilio Piñera, Heberto Padilla and Maria Elena Cruz Varela. For moments he also longed to be closer to the authorities and enjoy the status of a novelist pampered by institutions, in the style of Manuel Cofiño, Miguel Barnet or Abel Prieto. Only to finally discover in his own experience that authoritarians do not seek writers but propagandists; they prefer slogans over literature.
When the powerful hurricane Irma touched land, there were about 50,000 tourists on the island, according to calculations by the Ministry of Tourism. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar and Zunilda Mata, Havana/Varadero, 21 September 2017 — “This is what’s left of the gardens of the Blue Lagoon,” says an employee while looking at a cellphone photo of fallen palm trees and tangled vegetation. The bus in which he is traveling is responsible for distributing staff to the hotels in Varadero, Cuba’s main resort, which is trying to recover after Hurricane Irma.
The Hicacos peninsula, where the famous beach is located, is wrapped up in a recovery effort operating at different speeds. A land of contrasts, alternating luxurious resorts, mansions and fragile private houses with gabled roofs, the main tourist center of the Island is binding up its wounds on the eve of the high season. continue reading
On Tuesday, the streets were clear of the logs and debris left by the storm, but inside the hotels the damages range from light to serious. However, Varadero again has that air of a “tourist nation” – one with no flag or local flavor – that can be found anywhere on the planet where there is sun and sand.
“This beach feeds a lot of people,” Rigoberto told 14ymedio; he is an artisan by profession licensed to sell seed and pearl necklaces in the town’s most important artisan fair. “On the days we couldn’t sell, people were crazy because they lost a lot of money,” he says.
On a small table Rigoberto sets out ceramic ashtrays, carved wooden images of sensual women, and tiny clay turtles. “The worst has been for the homeowners who have suffered damages but who don’t have the resources available to the hotel managers and the state,” he says.
After days of anguish, an urgency to close the wounds has overtaken the residents and the resort employees. “We’ll all be ruined if the tourists decide to go to Cancun,” Rigoberto explains. The Mexican beach is Cuba’s main rival at a time when the Greater and Lesser Antilles have been battered by several hurricanes.
Three young men speaking Russian pass near Rigoberto wearing wrist-bands confirming their “all-inclusive” status at the resort. “Those are the first who have returned,” says the artisan. “They don’t care that much that the hotels aren’t a hundred percent ready, because what they are looking for is sun,” he opines.
Irma hit Cuba just before the high season, in a year when the authorities expected to reach the longed-for figure of five million tourists. When the powerful hurricane hit land, there were about 50,000 travelers in the entire island according to the calculations of the Ministry of Tourism.
After the weather disaster the official information has talked of devastation to describe the situation in the keys area. But at the same time a recovery in record time seems destined to appease the fears of travelers.
Wednesday’s primetime news warned of “an international campaign against Cuban tourism” that “is attempting to magnify the damages.” Tourism Minister, Manuel Marrero assured that “there is no hotel that has suffered structural problems.”
However, complaints about substandard services are being felt and reported at hotel reception desks and in internet travelers’ forums. At the Royalton Hotel Hicacos about 40 guests are trying to make their vacation holiday not end in nightmare, but the conditions are not the best.
Joseph and his wife did not want to cancel the reservation they made six months ago to visit Varadero and “get a rest from so much work,” they tell this newspaper. Coming from Germany, they followed the course of the hurricane, fearing that the agency would postpone the trip or send them to another part of Cuba.
“We were scared to arrive but outside of some broken glassware in the hotel we found no major damage to the infrastructure,” says the German, although he acknowledges that the food is not good because he came looking for local flavors and even the butter is imported.
“The employees are very nervous and the hot water service still isn’t working very well.” Among the problems most lamented by the guests is that “there is no peppermint for the mojitos” and “there are few fruits at breakfast despite being in the tropics.”
For Andrés, a Colombian who spent his honeymoon in Cuba during and after Irma’s passage, the most difficult thing to deal with was what he calls “the fall in quality.” Staying at the Varadero Meliá hotel he lamented that the menu was bad. “Although they say they have two buffet restaurants, it’s not true,” he complains, and notes that the water sports services are not yet working again.
“We had to pay for the extra nights we stayed at the hotel because our flight was canceled and they didn’t give us any rebates even though the pools aren’t open and they didn’t change the sheets for more than three days,” he protests. Now, he hopes to make a claim to demand a refund of some of the money he spent.
At the moment, the management of the hotel has sent him a message stating its “total willingness to favor you with the best conditions if you return to the Varadero Meliá.”
Some hotels in the area are still closed, such as the Meliá chain’s Varadero Paradisus, which suffered severe damages. An employee of the Cubatur agency explained via telephone to this newspaper that the area known as Family Concierge was “devastated” and there were also damages to the main building and to the restaurant that was built near the beach.
Some hotels in the area are still closed like the Meliá chain’s Varadero Paradisus, which suffered severe damages. (Courtesy)
A spokesman for the Mallorcan chain, which owns a total of 27 hotels on the island, 11 of them in the keys, told the Spanish media that their accommodations in the famous resort have suffered minor damages and are re-establishing their services. In addition, he specified that the closure of the Varadero Paradisus is because of improvements being made before the high season arrives.
The head of the sales department of the Sol Palmeras hotel proudly said that on Wednesday about 200 tourists were staying at their facility. “Given how the area was left, we have recovered quickly,” he emphasized.
Dana, an employee of the exclusive Royalton Hicacos, acknowledges that conditions are still not optimal. The main damages are in “the buffet service restaurant and beach gazebo, still closed,” after Irma.
Despite this, private and government-controlled hotel authorities have not decreed any special reduction in room costs, according to a Cubanacan travel agency specialist.
Only during the hurricane itself “tourists who came here and booked directly at the hotel reception received a 40% discount,” says Dana. This rebate was offered only to clients who arrived at the accommodation relocated from the keys of the north of the Island, who were compensated for the fact that their new accommodation had no electricity.
To avoid distress, many are choosing another destination within the island where the hurricane did less damage. The largest beneficiaries are the town of Viñales, the María la Gorda beach, also in the west, and the city of Trinidad in the south.
“There is a lot of demand for the hotels in the historical center of Havana as well,” says an employee who offers tour packages in the Cubatur office in the Habana Libre Hotel. “What is totally closed is accommodation in the northern keys,” she explains to a Cuban client.
National tourism has been increasing since 2008, when Raúl Castro’s government allowed Cubans living on the island to go to the country’s hotels, from which they had been banned for decade. In 2014, about 1.2 million nationals stayed in these facilities and spent 147.3 million Cuban convertible pesos (roughly the same in US dollars), according to official data.
The trend has continued to increase and “most of the packages sold here are intended for Cubans,” says the Cubatur employee. She notes, however, that “right now international tourism is being prioritized, for those who made reservations weeks ago.”
Rebeca Monzó, who lives in Havana’s Nuevo Vedado neighborhood and rents a room through Airbnb, has not suffered serious damage to her business. So far she has not had reservation cancellations and is waiting for a new customer who is arriving this week.
During the hurricane she hosted two Spaniards “who fled from the province of Sancti Spíritus” when the first winds began to blow. Her guests “experienced the hurricane from another perspective,” says Monzó.
“They helped us to store water, lined up to buy bread and experienced their days in Havana as a great adventure.” The hostess acknowledges that they survived “thanks to the pasta we had because in those days there was nothing to eat.” Her home was five days without water and electricity.
Shortages are one of the most negative side effects left by the hurricane.
In Varadero, the extensive informal market network that nourishes a good part of the area’s private businesses is also trying to recover. “In this area it was very easy to buy shrimp and lobster,” says Rigoberto, while taking some canvases painted with coconut motifs and reddish sunsets out of boxes.
“The hurricane has been a serious blow to the seafood vendors because apart from cutting off several access roads and leaving a lot of people without refrigeration, there is now more police control in the area,” he says.
The sale of these raw products is forbidden to private individuals and is strictly punished by the authorities, as is the black market in cheese and milk, also prominent in the area.
At the corners of the main street, parallel to the beach, are uniformed police officers and some state brigades cleaning the area. “Until all this goes away we have to stay quiet,” recommends the artisan. “Irma has stirred everything up and it will take time until the waters find their level,” says a Spaniard.
Even if Castro were to leave for Esmeralda, Punta Alegre, or Corralillo today, he could not escape the doubt that his visit was more fruit of the pressures than of his own desires. (EFE)
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 25 September 2017 — Most active politicians like to have their photos taken while greeting children, talking to factory workers, or visiting a disaster area. These images, seen on countless occasions, do not translate into better government performance, or even real concern, but at least they are consistent with a formal and public ritual.
More than two weeks ago, Hurricane Irma devastated countless towns in central Cuba, affected communities near the north coast and left the coastal areas of the city of Havana under water. Since then, Raúl Castro has not been to any of the affected sites and has not been seen near the houses that lost their roofs, the sidewalks filled with the furniture drying in the sun or the places sheltering some who have no homes to return to. continue reading
In the first days of his absence, speculations focused on the octogenarian’s health and a possible indisposition making him unable to travel to the most affected areas. However, Castro had enough physical energy to go and receive Nicolás Maduro at the airport. He has chosen to take a photo with the Venezuelan president rather than with the population battered by the meteoric winds.
The feelings left by this distancing are contradictory. His most ardent supporters speculate that he does not want to add expenses to the national budget with a visit more symbolic than effective. Others say he is letting younger officials take his place before the cameras so that they can gain visibility before 24 February of next year, when he will step down from the presidency of the country.
His critics, however, speak of the weariness that has gripped the General after a sequence of defeats, among them not being able to end the island’s dual currency system, or to reduce corruption, or to offer Cuban workers dignified wages that can become their primary source of economic support, or to attract foreign investment. Exhaustion has taken over the leader of the Communist Party a few months before he leaves power.
Now it is too late for the photo next to the victims. Even if Castro were to leave for Esmeralda, Punta Alegre, or Corralillo today, he could not escape the doubt that his visit was more the fruit of pressures than of his own desires. A snapshot next to an old woman whose house is nothing more than the foundation would seem to be a resounding act of gimmicky populism, but the lack of that image makes him look as distant and indifferent.
If he goes where Irma left a trail of pain he loses; if he stays in his palace he also loses.
An art installation on the Malecon during the 12th Havana Biennial (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 25 September 2019 – The Promotion Division of Cuba’s National Council of the Arts and the Wifredo Lam Center for Contemporary Art announced that the 13th Havana Biennial, scheduled to be held next year, will be postponed until 2019.
A press release on the Council’s website it explains that due “the extremely serious damages caused by Hurricane Irma on the country’s system of cultural institutions,” they have “rescheduled several events” planned for the country.
The announcement does not give an exact date for the more important visual arts event in the country, although it says that “detailed information” is forthcoming.
The last edition of the Biennial was held between May and June of 2015, under the theme “Between The Idea And The Experience,” focused on a search for an artistic perspective beyond the museums and galleries.
Participating in the last Biennial were more than 120 guest artists, individuals and collectives who took advantage of their own spaces to install their works. The exhibition also included group projects conceived as an “artistic quarry” because they offered space for recently graduated young artists.
Over its 30 years, the Biennial has passed through different moments, some marked by artistic effervescence and others by apathy, affected by the economic crisis and the censorship of uncomfortable artists.
In its most recent edition the artist Tania Bruguera, who did not have an official invitation, presented a session of more than 100 hours of consecutive reading, analysis and discussion of Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” at the independent International Institute of Artivism, which took the name of the famous German philosopher.
Two officials from State Security visited Bruguera to dissuade her from continuing her artistic action and blocking several activists from being able to access the site where she performed the reading.
A group of neighbors puts their belongings out in the sun after the storm. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 23 September 2017 – Hope is fading these days in Havana’s San Lázaro Street due to the closing of the Malecón, after the damages left by Hurricane Irma. The lives of the residents along the coastline are stalled, waiting for humanitarian aid that has never arrived.
The San Leopoldo neighborhood and the areas from Maceo Park to the mouth of the Almendares River are the most affected. Two weeks after Hurricane Irma the residents are still trying to salvage their furniture and belongings damaged by the sea which flooded the area.
Mattresses have taken possession of the sidewalks, and some sofas and armchairs that show the watermarks from the floodwaters are musty with the small of salt and dampness. The most affected cling to the idea of rescuing everything they can, because they fear aid will be delayed or doled out in dribs and drabs. continue reading
“Ours is the only working TV on the block,” says Georgina, a resident of Perseverance Street. Every night when the primetime news comes on, dozens of neighbors gather around the screen. “People come to find out when they’re going to start distributing things.”
Reports in the official media show the arrival in the country of numerous donations from Panama, Venezuela, China, Bolivia, Colombia, Suriname or Japan. However, “not even a tablespoon of rice has reached this neighborhood,” laments Georgina.
A few yards from Belascoaín Street, a kiosk installed by the State for the sale of prepared food only offers a watery stew that few deign to buy. (14ymedio)
Expectations grew among those most affected on hearing of the arrival of a Dominican Navy ship last Monday, with 90 tons of construction materials such as wood, doors, aluminum window frames, nails, metal roofing, wire, in addition to mattresses and portable generators.
“People thought they were going to start distributing all of that right away,” a young man explains to 14ymedio, as he helps his father move some sacks of cement to raise a more than three-foot high wall and stairs at the entrance of his home, which faces the sea. “We had one but it fell short,” he explains.
The Government allocated part of the national budget to finance 50% of the price of construction materials that will be sold to victims with total or partial damage to their properties.
Although Irma seriously damaged the electrical wiring, took part of the kitchen tiles, removed the toilet bowl and contaminated the water tank, the young Habanero considers that “the most urgent need is food because there isn’t any.”
Mattresses have taken up permanent residence on the sidewalks, as people wait for them to dry. (14ymedio)
A few yards from Belascoaín Street, a kiosk installed by the State for the sale of prepared food only offers a watery stew that few deign to buy. So far no free rations have been distributed in the area and potable water is also on sale in containers of various types.
The World Food Program (WFP) has allocated 1,606 tonnes of food and $5.7 million to cover the food needs of 664,000 people in affected areas for four months, but only one ration has been delivered to Centro Habana.
A resolution passed Tuesday said that the delivery of “products received as a donation (internal or external)” will be made “at no cost.” However, along with free distribution, victims are also demanding greater speed along with controls to avoid the ‘diversion’ (i.e. stealing) of resources.
“Food is the main thing because many people are left without money,” explains Heriberto, a retiree who lives on a second floor in San Lázaro Street. “I had no direct affects in my apartment but the refrigerator is empty and I have nothing to put in my mouth.”
Nearby, the broad portal of the Immaculate Church has just been repaired after the floods, with hinges and everything. Humanitarian aid for the most affected residents has been collected through a side entrance for days. The donations arrive in small quantities but they provide some relief.
Weeks before Yusniel Pupo Carralero was detained, members of the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, retired officers of the Armed Forces and militants of the Communist Party tried to discredit his candidacy. (Courtesy)
14ymedio, Havana, 20 September 2017 — The independent candidate Yusniel Pupo Carralero denounced on Wednesday that he had been detained by State Security to prevent him from participating in the People’s Power Nominating Assembly for his district in the municipality of San Juan y Martinez in Pinar del Río.
Once communications were restored in his town after Hurricane Irma, the 34-year-old activist explained by phone to 14ymedio that two officers with the rank of captain, known as Orestes Ayala and Juan Perez, intercepted him while he was walking from his house to the area outside La Estrella bodega, where he was planning to go to the meeting, last Wednesday at 8 PM.
“I was kidnapped in a green car with a private plates,” he says. The vehicle “circled for about two hours and after that time I was released about 8 miles from town, on the road to Punta de Carta,” he says. continue reading
A few months ago, Pupo Carralero was motivated by the #Otro18 (Another 2018) campaign for independent candidates to represent their communities. In the event that he was elected as a delegate, he proposed to “act in the interests of the people and to try to find solutions.”
Even before aspiring to that position, many in his district nicknamed him Delegate because when there is a problem the neighbors come to him. “They know that I am the counterpart of the Delegate [of People’s Power], that I am always on him, demanding that he perform,” he says.
In the weeks prior to his detention, the activist learned that Captain Ayala met with several members of the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, retired officers of the Armed Forces and members of the Communist Party of the Celia Sánchez neighborhood to discredit his candidacy.
The participants in that meeting with the State Security were warned that Pupo Carralero, a tobacco grower, has also been the president of the peasant committee of the Independent and Democratic Cuba opposition organization for five years.
The same situation has been experienced by other independent candidates, who in a recent declaration denounced “the discrediting campaigns” coming from the authorities that aim to prevent them from becoming nominated as delegates in the municipal elections.
In the Assembly, while Pupo Carralero was being held by State Security, a resident named Rodolfo Pérez Mena “started talking to other voters to encourage them” to propose him as a candidate, but the police sector chief, Lieutenant Brito, “intimidated him by telling him to shut up,” he told this newspaper.
Since that incident several residents have avoided greeting the activist when they see him on the street. “Even my family feels afraid,” he reflects. “Sometimes life becomes a little complicated in the neighborhood in the face of so much harassment, but we have to keep fighting.”
Manuel Cuesta Morúa, the main promoter of the #Otro18 platform, believes that events of this nature are “complete violations of the Electoral Law.” The government “seems determined to prevent citizens, polls and ballots from being the ones who choose the representatives,” he denounces to 14ymedio.
Cuesta Morúa warned that “in all cases where the government tries to prevent the presentation of independent candidates, the result will be the establishment of municipal assemblies tainted by lack of legitimacy.”
The case against Karina Galvez, of the Center for Coexistence Studies, began on 11 January when she was detained for a week at the Technical Directorate of Criminal Investigation of Pinar del Río. (Screen Capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 21 September 2017 — Economist Karina Gálvez was sentenced Thursday by the Municipal Court of the city of Pinar del Rio to three years of deprivation of liberty and the confiscation of her home for the crime of tax evasion, a member of the Center for Coexistence Studies CEC) confirmed 14ymedio. A court decision that ensures that it does not surprise him and that he was waiting.
“Although after the trial, which was clearly won by the defense lawyers, we had hoped that the penalty would decrease somewhat with respect to the prosecutor’s request,” explains the economist. continue reading
Ultimately, “the court accepted the requests for sanctions proposed by the prosecution,” the CEC said in a statement. This does not mean, however, that the economist must go to prison, since the sentence contemplates that the sentence of deprivation of freedom can be replaced by three years of house arrest.
The trial against Gálvez began on 11 January when she was detained for a week at the province’s Technical Department of Criminal Investigation and her house was sealed.
The property is now at the disposition of the Municipal Housing Department, subordinate to the Council of the Administration of the Municipality of Pinar del Río.
The court ruling says that the conviction seeks to “make the defendant understand” the seriousness of the crime and also “serve to education the people in general.”
In addition, Gálvez has been banned from exercising the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in electoral processes, as well as lost “the right to hold management positions in the organs corresponding to the political-administrative activity of the State.”
She is also prohibited “from being issued a passport and leaving from the national territory until the penalties imposed have been completed,” says the document that the court sent to her on Thursday through her defense lawyer.
The sentence states that this type of punishment is applied individually and in “its type and extent” is for the purpose of “repressing, re-educating and preventing the commission of new offenses.”
As of this Thursday Gálvez has ten days to appeal. After that time the sentence will be signed against her and she must wait for the appointment with an implementation judge.
“I still have not decided if I’m going to appeal, I’m thinking about it,” says the economist. “The person who presided over my trial is the president of the Provincial Court, so I would have to appeal to a judge who is subordinate to him,” and that “would be a formality.”
Gálvez has denounced, in recent months, an escalation of pressure by the authorities, which includes numerous interrogations in the provincial Immigration and Aliens Department, where they inquired about the motivations of her trips off the island.
The CEC organizes training courses for citizens and civil society and, in a recent public statement, its members assured that they will not leave Cuba or the Church and that they will continue to “work for the country.”
An old woman sitting in front of her home waits for the electricity to return in Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 17 September 2017 — In the middle of the hurricane I received a mysterious photo of Fidel Castro. At the top it said: “Fidel resurrected.” Below the portrait the mystery was clarified: “His name is Irma.” The Commander was reincarnated as a ferocious hurricane.
The joke has a serious basis Juan Manuel Cao, one of America TeVe’s leading journalists, explained it to me. Communism and hurricanes have many things in common. They leave society that suffers them without electricity, without food, without medicines, without clothes, without gasoline. The drinking water becomes an elusive trickle that fades with skill of Houdini. They are magicians. Everything disappears. Socialism is like this.
But both catastrophes differ in one key detail: hurricanes last only a few days and people look forward to the end of the water and the wind. Communism, on the other hand, lasts an eternity and, little by little, hopes of seeing the end vanish. We Cubans have been suffering for 58 years. Venezuelans, although they have not yet reached the sea of happiness, as announced by Hugo Chávez, began the journey almost 20 years ago. They are already close to the goal. May God take them confessed. continue reading
The Cuban Human Rights Foundation, chaired by Tony Costa, in a bulletin written by the historian Juan Antonio Blanco, adds a forceful denunciation in response to statements by dictator Raul Castro. The general explained that almost all the resources available to Cuba in the last quarter of 2017 will be used to rebuild the hotel infrastructure destroyed by Hurricane Irma.
The companies, almost all foreign, co-directed by Cuban generals, will have priority. If a street or a building has to be fixed, a power line or telephone has to be fixed, it will not be the Cubans, but the foreigners. It has always been like this. It is the government, without consulting the citizens, who will decide how it will spend the resources generated by the work of Cubans.
When these catastrophes occur, the cruel absurdity of the systems in which the government, owner of all property, of all resources, and of all decision-making mechanisms, chooses the certain bad luck of its subjects.
In societies in which private property prevails, citizens protect their assets through insurance, and if they do not have it, they acquire loans to repair their homes or estates. They do not expect the State to solve their most urgent needs because they know, as Ronald Reagan used to say, that there is no more dangerous creature than the one who tells us: “I am a representative of the government and I have come to solve your problems.”
In Cuba there are thousands of victims of hurricanes that happened six, seven or ten years ago, and who continue to live in temporary shelters that are falling apart. Often the aid that comes from abroad is then sold in dollars in special stores.
I remember a shocking revelation made me by Jaime Ortega, very upset, who was then bishop and soon cardinal, in the nineties, at my house in Madrid: when Germany, already reunited, tried to give thousands of tons of powdered milk, to be distributed by the Catholic charity Caritas, and their diplomats in Havana learned that the government sold these coveted gifts, the indignant representative of the Cuban government, a deputy foreign trade minister named Raul Taladrid, on the instructions of Fidel Castro, uttered a tremendous sentence that should pass to the universal history of infamy: “Cuban children will drink water with ashes before milk distributed by the Church.”
Now it was Irma’s turn. Little by little the country will erode sharply, from hurricane to hurricane, from storm to storm, until it becomes an incomprehensible ruin, as long as the current system continues. I am not surprised by the bitter joke. Fidel reincarnated in “Irma.” Tomorrow it will be as “Manuel” or “Carmen.” Until Cuba is a fuzzy memory, or until this chastened society can get rid of the heavy chain and take the long road to national reconstruction away from the socialist utopia.
There is growing demand for a moratorium on import tariffs for food, clothing, footwear and household appliances. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 19 September 2017 – Planning what to bring and filling their suitcases with their purchases abroad is the obsession of any Cuban who returns to the island. After Hurricane Irma, the victims and self-employed are waiting for the General Customs of the Republic (AGR) to relax customs fees so they can bring articles and merchandise into the country.
More than a week after the hurricane touched down on Cuban territory, there is growing demand for a moratorium on import duties on food, clothing, footwear and appliances. The AGR has not yet issued any official information that points to or rejects an immediate change in its regulations.
This Monday seemed like a normal day at José Martí International Airport’s Terminal 3, but travelers and their companions demanded more strongly than at other times the right to expand the amount of luggage that each passenger can bring. continue reading
“In my town, Yaguajay, there are people who have lost everything,” Raiza Rojas, 43, told this newspaper. “Getting here was an odyssey, but the return of my brother who was visiting Miami is vital for my family,” she says. His relatives, sitting on the stairs connecting the ground floor with the first floor, waited anxiously.
“My kids were left only with the shoes they had on, and in my house the washing machine and the refrigerator were ruined,” Rojas explains. Her dream is that “the Government will allow it all to be brought in from outside, because here the stores are experiencing extreme shortages and the products are very expensive.”
The list of gifts that the Rojas family hopes to receive includes “tomato paste in tubes that do not need refrigeration, detergent, soap, candles, cumin powder and reading glasses” that were lost during the storm. “We are also hoping for painkillers, aspirins and some heartburn pills because the pharmacies are bare.”
Any traveler can bring up to 22 pounds of duty-free medicines, but must pack them separately and keep them in their original containers. “That’s nothing, because in my family there are four seniors and two are chronic patients who need many medicines,” adds Rojas.
The woman hopes that in the short term “people can bring medicines, food and also cars that are needed right now to rebuild this country.”
However, customs controls continued to be governed by the standards implemented in mid-2014.
“I have two suitcases, one for food and another because I brought a drill,” a Cuban recently arrived from Cancun, where he spent the weekend shopping, told 14ymedio. “I thought that after the hurricane I would not have problems with tools and food but I was wrong,” he adds.
The traveler had to pay customs fees equal to the cost of the drill in convertible currency because it was his second import this year. “I explained to the official that this drill is for domestic use, to fix some windows that the winds of the cyclone loosened, but I still had to pay 50 CUC,” laments the man.
“It cost me more to bring it into the country than to buy it in Mexico,” he complains. “With these prices people are discouraged and in the end the loser is the country because the families have less to face the inclement weather with,” he says.
A few yards from the waiting room of the main terminal in Havana, the parcel agencies also continue to be governed by the rules in force for three years.
In the customer service office of the Aerovaradero company at the airport, an employee who identifies himself as Yasser responds bluntly: “Everything is consistent with the Official Gazette and [we have not] received any document that expands the volume of cargo that can come in unaccompanied nor its costs in customs,” he says.
The worker confirms that in the last hours he has registered numerous calls from customers interested in being recipients of personal donations from abroad to relieve the damages that the hurricane left them. However, “the General Customs of the Republic is the only one authorized to make changes” in the rates and quantities that can be received, Yasser says.
Even Pedro Acosta, owner of the Docilla Ceci private restaurant at the Havana Deportivo Casino, has gotten comments from people calling for “expanding the coverage to bring things,” he tells this newspaper. However he believes that the authorities “are not going to do it and if they take any such action it would be only temporarily because of the situation left by Hurricane Irma.”
Acosta says he feels pessimistic and has the impression that “the tendency is to close it down more and more and for people bring things from abroad individually.” In his opinion, among the reasons for strangling the “mules” is the official intention to “not benefit the private sector,” he says. The mules include people who bring things into the country just for the price of their own ticket, along with others who charge by the pound and make a business of it.
Were he able to import with more freedom, this private businessman would prioritize “refrigeration articles that are very expensive here and are not of good quality,” he says. He would also like to import products such as different types of meat, condiments and other items that he can barely find in the stores.
At the end of August, Customs categorically denied a rumor about the possible implementation of more restrictive provisions for the clearance of travelers’ luggage. The state agency called the spread of this false news “erroneous and malicious.”
“Cuban Customs will always inform in advance, by all means available to us, any changes we may impose,” said the official statement.
Now, many count the hours waiting for another announcement, but this time “to open, not to close,” said Pedro Acosta.
Sacks stacked with charcoal made from the invasive marabou weed. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar and Zunilda Mata, Havana, 18 September 2017 — Black smoke from charcoal rises from an improvised fire in Dinora’s yard, which is close to the area most affected by Hurricane Irma in Caibarién, in the province of Villa Clara. In addition to half her house being on the ground, her new problem now is to cook without electricity or gas, in a place where local producers have increased the prices of this fuel, after energy shortages in the region caused by the hurricane.
Two years ago, Dinora’s family was among the province’s 4,902 families who were able to buy an induction cooker, a lidded casserole, a jug, a frying pan and coffee pot for 500 Cuban pesos (CUP) on credit, which the state bank is assured of being repaid through deductions from wages and pensions.
“There has been no electricity for more than a week and I had to go back to cooking with charcoal,” she says via telephone. continue reading
The charcoal, made mainly from marabou, is managed primarily by state companies that pay the local producers – who have self-employment licenses that allow them to produce it – and then mostly export it. A small part of the production is left in the hands of the carboneros, for their own use and for private sales with prices governed by supply and demand. “While before Irma a sack of charcoal cost 25 CUP in Caibarién, now that same amount is now worth twelve times more.”
“A sack of charcoal can’t be found for less than 300 CUP,” Dinora explains to 14ymedio. “My monthly pension isn’t even that much, so when I run out of this, I do not know what I’m going to do,” says the retiree, adding that she plans to use the fallen branches and logs that Irma left in her yard to be able to boil water and prepare food.
The so-called Energy Revolution, promoted by the late Fidel Castro at the beginning of the 21st century, replaced the distribution of kerosene and alcohol in the rationed market, which had been used for cooking in rural areas, with electrical appliances, such as hot plates and electric water heaters. Consequently, the installation of gas conduits was shut down and citizens came to rely on these new devices, useless in cases when the electricity fails.
Now, after Irma’s damage to the power grid, smoke from charcoal fires fills hundreds of houses and yards in the central area, in the absence of any other cooking fuel. It is not a question of choice but of necessity. The less fortunate do not even have a few coals to ignite and must settle for eating cookies or canned food.
The residents in this coastal town are impatient at the slowness of the restoration of basic services, as they continue with the access roads cut off, electrical poles on the ground and more than 4,000 homes totally or partially collapsed. “It seems as if they have forgotten us,” Dinora complains.
Independent journalist Pedro Manuel González shares this feeling of abandonment and regrets that in the first days after the storm the brigades of linemen and trash collectors were transferred to the tourist areas. “Caibarién is forgotten and has no priority in the national emergency,” he said.
Caibarién after the passage of Hurricane Irma. (Pedry Roxana)
Just 72 hours after Hurricane Irma, the 14-mile causeway that connects the tourist area of Cayo Coco with the nearby province of Ciego de Avila was repaired. A priority that has bothered many residents in Caibarién.
Francisco Carralero, a resident of the Van Troi neighborhood, is annoyed by that priority and complains that in Caibarién “everything is going very slowly.” He treasures a tank that he managed to buy last June when the province began the sale of liquefied gas. He rented the cylinder for 400 CUP and refilled it for another 110. “Thanks to that, it has been possible to pour a little coffee in this block,” he says.
“Now a full tank can’t be had for less than 1,000 CUP and no one can even find one,” explains Carralero. “He who has gas is a privileged one, because most of the residents of this neighborhood have not been able to light their stoves for more than a week.”
“Heat” and “chill” are two verbs difficult to conjugate these days in the area. In the informal market blocks of ice taken from the state lobster company are sold at about 300 CUP each. “He who has money gets cold water and he who doesn’t has to deal with it,” adds Carralero.
The losses are not only in infrastructure but also in food and resources.
“Everything I had in the refrigerator was spoiled because I didn’t have time to consume it,” explains the Villaclareño. In his area only some buildings have recovered electrical service and, he protests, they still have not received “any type of free food supply.”
The town’s pizzeria sells a serving of spaghetti for 5 CUP, the same price they charged before the arrival of the hurricane. Several distribution points in the city offer beans, rice and pork loin at 12 CUP, but the distribution of food at no cost is limited to those who were sheltered in state centers.
The dream of many neighbors is that there will be aid promised by the World Food Program (WFP), which will allocate US $5.7 million to “supplement the food needs of 664,000 people” in Cuba, according to remarks from Executive Director David Beasley during a recent visit to the island.
“We are in a critical situation and we have to start distributing food and water as soon as possible because people here are at their limit, many have been left with nothing,” explains Carralero, who fears that “the bureaucracy will delay the aid that is urgently needed right now.”
“This is a disaster zone and needs humanitarian assistance as soon as possible,” he explains. “If the situation continues, we will have to start dismantling the few pieces of furniture we have left to be able to cook,” he warns.
Some 180,000 cubic yards of trash have been collected in Havana including trees, roofs, debris, poles and electricity and communications cables. (14ymedio)
14ymedio (with agency information), Havana, 15 September 201 — Raúl Castro still has not visited any of the many areas affected by Hurricane Irma this past weekend and remains entrenched in the Palace of the Revolution, where on Wednesday night he led a meeting of the highest level officials to evaluate the damages caused by the hurricane, according to a report in the official press on Friday.
“The blow was very strong and spread throughout most of the country, but with the hard work that is being done, we will once again move forward,” Castro said, according to an article that filled the entire cover pages of both the Granma and Juventud Rebelde newspapers
The country entered a recession in 2016 for the first time in almost a quarter of a century and although in the first half of this year it experienced a slight recovery, the passage of the hurricane set the stage for a strong setback for the island’s exhausted economy. continue reading
Raúl Castro also “recognized the arduous work deployed in each of the places affected by the devastating meteorological event,” and said that he “has worked very hard” and asked that Cubans learn from experience to “be prepared.”
The president noted that the “intense” hurricane season in the Caribbean, “a clear product of climate change,” does not end until November 30.
The state press stressed that, “the army general called to continue working without rest, to face the problems with serenity and to keep the people informed by all possible means on the situation that the country faces.”
In addition, the president added, “there is a need to deal with problems with intelligence” taken from the “best experiences” applied after the passage of other hurricanes such as Sandy (2012), which battered Santiago de Cuba, or Matthew (2016) which caused serious damage when crossing the eastern end of the island.
These are the first communications from the Cuban president aired since last Monday, when he sent a written message to the population in which he appealed to the “spirit of resistance and victory of the Cubans” and recognized the “severe damages” caused by Irma.
Meanwhile, the government continues to assess the damage caused by the storm, which has left roughly two million cubic yards of solid waste in the streets of Havana, where 180,000 cubic yards were collected on Thursday, including trees, roofs, debris, poles and electricity and communications cables.
The cleaning of the capital is being carried out by the 19,240 workers of the state-owned communal services company, with 731 trucks and 12 cranes, supported by brigades from the Armed Forces, the Navy, inmates and voluntary state workers, according to Juventud Rebelde.
The Ministry of Education also reported the blow suffered by several universities. Those in the center of the country — Martha Abreu, of Villa Clara; José Martí, of Sancti Spíritus; Máximo Gómez Báez of Ciego de Avila and Ignacio Agramonte of Camagüey — will receive resources to repair damages according to the level of deterioration, said Minister José Saborido.
In the case of the University of Camagüey, the minister said that the greatest damage is located in the loss of about 10,000 feet of waterproofing which, for the moment, leaves exposed about 800 beds in student residences.
During a tour of its facilities, the head of Higher Education in Cuba said that the center “did not experience major impacts on equipment,” but there were some broken windows in dorms, classrooms and laboratories, as well as the loss of zinc tiles in the gym at the site of the Manuel Piti Fajardo Physical Culture facility.
Saborido set the reopening of the university for next Monday, when the current school year will be gradually restarted, as the necessary conditions are restored.
The impact caused severe, unquantified effects, including more than 1,700 elementary, secondary and pre-university schools affected by the rains and the strong winds that came with the hurricane.
The Minister of Education, Ena Elsa Velázquez, told the official media that the most damaged schools are in Havana, Matanzas and Villa Clara; while the greatest damage was recorded in Ciego de Ávila and Camagüey, and the main damages are in roofs, doors, broken windows, and contaminated water tanks.
Velázquez explained that the school year will be progressively resumed in the country, as the hygiene conditions and the availability of safe water stabilize, and in schools with serious damages students will be relocated to other facilities or family homes to continue classes.
The country has 10,698 educational centers and of them 510 were destined for people evacuated during the passage of the hurricane. Many schools that were converted to shelters for victims still remain occupied, so, according to the minister, alternative places need to be found to teach classes.
In Havana, the areas most damaged by the hurricane were Centro Habana, Habana Vieja, Vedado and Playa, where the sea penetrated nearly 1,000 feet inland and the hurricane winds caused total and partial collapses of houses. More than 4,400 homes in the city were affected prior to Wednesday, when another 21 total collapses were added to the 157 already reported, along with 9 partial collapses and 82 additional damaged roofs.
According to the official information, Havana’s electrical network was restored by Thursday to 86% of its coverage, although some areas of the city have been without service since last Saturday, including Playa and Plaza de la Revolución. The authorities insisted that by yesterday, Thursday, electricity would be restored throughout the capital.
The water supply was also brought on line and at the moment the four main water supply services to the population of Havana, with a coverage of 90%, are stable and working. However, some 14,600 people are still supplied by tanker trucks.
The supply of fuel is also normalized in the city, where more than 265,000 gallons have been distributed to service stations, the official report said.
Across the island, the hurricane knocked down some 2,400 communications poles, and thousands of others supporting the power lines, many taken down by fallen trees.
Irma, which touched down first on Cuba’s northwest keys as a category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, left 10 dead on the Island, mostly due to house collapses.
Residents of Animas Street seek relief from the intense heat sitting on the sidewalk, because of the lack of electricity (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Nora Gamez, Mimi Whitefield, Mario Penton, Miami, 17 September 2017 – Concerned that the Cuban government does not usually accept donations from the United States, the Cuban-American community is looking for alternatives to help their families on the island, which has been devastated by the passage of Hurricane Irma.
According to a preliminary evaluation by the United Nations, 3.1 million people have no running water. Although the government has offered no estimates, thousands are without homes, destroyed by the fury of the winds or the floods. In the capital alone around 4,200 homes were damaged and in the province of Camaguey, where the eye of the hurricane passed over, 7,900 homes were damaged. According to the official press, some 26,000 people are still in shelters. Some have returned to their villages, despite their houses being in ruins.
Idanis Martín, 34, has lived for the past two years in West Kendall in Florida but the rest of her family resides on Goicuría Street in Caibarién, in Villa Clara, one of the places hardest hit by the hurricane which touched down in Cuba as a category 5. continue reading
“Everything there was destroyed. My family says there’s not a bush left standing in the village,” she told 14ymedio by phone. “The little [food] they had spoiled,” because of lack of electricity. “They told me that the last box of chickens sent to them rotted when there were more than half left,” she added.
Still recovering from Irma’s passage over south Florida, this Tuesday she sent her family ground beef, a box of chicken and pork cutlets that she bought online at Supermarket 23 for some 130 dollars.
Although their digital site doesn’t say so, Supermarket23 is probably one of the multiple Cuban government sites that, from Canada, allow people to buy products and foods very hard to get in the shortage-plagued markets of the island, although at higher prices.
“They deliver it right to the door of the house. It takes between a week and 15 days and is very useful because they don’t have to go to the hard currency stores,” explains Martin, who works in Miami in an agency that provides services to the elderly.
“Those of us who have a little more have to help those who have nothing,” he says.
“Other Cubans in Miami are going to the package agencies to help their families on the island, but the process is slow due to the damage to ports and airports on both sides of the Florida Straits.
Yudelkis Barcelo, manager of Envíos y Más Express, an agency that sends packages to Cuba with a location in Miami, said there still hasn’t been an appreciable increase in the number of packages to the island after Irma and that the restoration of the flow of goods between the two countries “will take time.”
“We don’t have the infrastructure ready. The airport and the ports are now recovering from the hurricane. It’s still going to take a little time to get back to normal,” she said.
Reopening the airports on the island will facilitate the shipment of food and other humanitarian supplies. The government has received donations from other countries, among them Venezuela, Vietnam and Panama. Jose Marti International Airport reopened Tuesday, but Santa Clara airport, which suffered severe damages, will not be open for flights until the end of October, said American Airlines spokesperson Marta Pantin.
Several organizations in the United States are campaigning to raise funds and provisions with the idea of helping Cubans. But without government approval, US organizations will not be able to ship large quantities of food. It is time to find creative solutions.
After Irma left Cuba for Florida, the Cuban American National Foundation got in touch with civil society groups it works with in Matanzas, east of Havana.
“We said we were going to send them money and they said: ‘We need food,'” said Pepe Hernández, president of the Foundation.
So the Foundation plans to work with package agencies or employ so-called “mules” to deliver essential items. Some mules charge only the ticket price to and from the island for carrying 100 pounds of merchandise; others charge between four and six dollars a pound, Hernandez said.
Hernandez explains that the Foundation is also evaluating other ways to help the inhabitants of the island. One of the initiatives is to cover the costs of those who want to send money through Western Union to Cuba. With the help of civil society organizations, they also plan to come to the aid of people in need, not necessarily linked to opponents.
“Civil society groups plan to go to affected areas and identify families in need,” he said. “They will take their names, numbers and addresses, and then we will send each family $100 through Western Union,” which has 450 offices throughout Cuba.
The Foundation also seeks to push for an assistance program that provides funding to Cubans who need to make repairs to their homes. The program, which provides up to $1,200 in assistance, has made it possible to repair 60 homes so far.
“Now we hope to intensify this program and we hope there will be more donations,” Hernandez said. “So far, the Government has not given us any problems with this program.”
But this is not always the case when it comes to sending aid from the United States, especially if it comes from the Miami community. When Hurricane Matthew struck Guantanamo Province, in the east of the country, the Catholic Church was not authorized to receive planes on the Island with food donations from the Archdiocese of Miami or from Catholic Relief Services based in Baltimore.
The Archbishop of Miami, Thomas Wenski, said he was finally able to make a cash donation to the bishop of the Diocese of Guantanamo but without a wholesale market on the island and with supply problems in the network of supermarkets controlled by the state, he had to buy the necessary products abroad.
Other initiatives to raise money and send it to Cuba, such as the one promoted by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights based in Madrid, rely on the Catholic Church for the distribution of aid on the island, the only institution, beyond the state, with an independent infrastructure to do so. Different agencies of the UN have a presence in Cuba but they must coordinate the delivery of donations with the state.
The Archdiocese of Miami is accepting financial donations through Catholic Charities and other entities to help the residents of the Florida Keys and Caribbean Islands whipped by Irma’s fury, including Cuba.
“We have food and water available but we cannot send them until they tell us they need them and the ports and airports are open to receive them,” said Mary Ross Agosta, Director of Communications for the archdiocese.
Wenski said he planned to go to Cuba for the inauguration of the new bishop of Ciego de Ávila on 30 September, and hoped to better understand the needs of Cubans and “see how we can help them.”
Although many in Florida are still recovering from the damage caused by the hurricane, Wenski acknowledged that he had seen “a lot of generosity. There is a great spirit of solidarity. We are all breathing with relief in Miami because we avoided the worst of Irma and that can inspire generosity. ”
“We will see if it changes this time and Cuba is willing to accept donations,” Wenski said.
CubaOne Foundation, based in Miami, and Give2Cuba, based in Seattle, have taken another path. Working together, both are seeking volunteers to raise money through the Crowdrise platform and bring provisions to help the victims on the island, especially in the provinces of Ciego de Avila, Sancti Spíritus and Santa Clara, most affected by the hurricane.
CubaOne has organized several trips of young Cuban-Americans to know the Island and Give2Cuba took humanitarian aid to Baracoa, very affected by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Giancarlo Sopo, co-founder of CubaOne and president of its board, explained that the trip, authorized by the United States Department of the Treasury under the category of people to people, would take place in October. But before that, CubaOne has joined the 3:05 Cafecito campaign to collect food, medicine and other supplies and send them to Cuba through Cáritas.
“Our community is concerned about the Cuban people,” said Sopo, “and we will do everything possible to support them during this difficult time.”
To donate to the victims of Hurricane Irma in Cuba:
Aimara Peña, a spiritual activist who will stand as a candidate for the elections. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana 16 September 2017 — Aimara Peña was a little over 16 when she enrolled in a degree to qualify as a primary school teacher, but in the last semester of the course she was expelled from the Pedagogical University of Sancti Spiritus for her incipient political activism.
Now, the young woman seeks to represent her constituency as a delegate to the People’s Power. To achieve this, she will have to be proposed at one of the nomination meetings for candidates in the Las Pozas community, where she lives with her husband and two children, aged four and nine.
Peña has extensive experience in the reporting of human rights violations, the exercise of citizen journalism and work as an independent librarian. Works that have allowed her to know the exigencies of her neighbors. continue reading
Six kilometers from the provincial capital, Las Pozas, with 2,000 in habitants, has bus service only until six in the afternoon and lacks private carriers to alleviate the situation. The activist intends to seek a solution to this problem if she is elected.
Aimara Peña joined the Network of Electoral Facilitators whose main purpose is to ensure that citizens – ones with the will to represent the true interests of the population – occupy positions in these basic structures of People’s Power.
“The idea of being a delegate always appealed to me,” explains the young woman who, at just 27, decided to run “to show that the work we do as activists is completely legal.”
With her attitude she also wants to motivate those people whom she energized to participate in the electoral process. “They are afraid and some are also undecided, so I wanted to set the example.”
The spiritual activist is dedicated “to listening to everything citizens have to say.” She believes that “at present the functions of the delegates are very limited despite being public figures in direct contact with the population and the only one that Cubans elect [directly].”
Peña is convinced that his main duty “is to help make the role of the district delegate a truly important one.” Until now the authorities use it as a channel to transmit information to the people but the delegate must work to “demand from the government what the people want,” she explains. “We have to start reversing that equation.”
Peña knows what she is facing. Although she has not received direct threats so far, not even an “unofficial visit,” she has received signals that the Party and Government organs are trying to deal with her candidacy by spreading negative rumors about her.
Something that does not kill her dream: “I think I have all the qualifications to present myself, and at least until now they have respected that, I hope that during the assembly, which still has no fixed date, things continue as before.”
In the Nominating Assembly, voters will have vote by an open show of hands and the fear of reprisals can have a negative effect.
“To some extent, many people close to me feel a little fear, because this is a decision that also involves the family, but my parents and my husband support me, they have been a pillar to strengthen me,” says the enthusiastic young woman.
If, in addition to being proposed, she manages to get the majority of hands to raise for her in that assembly, the name of Peña will appear on a ballot. Her photo and biographical data will be displayed in the same electoral district where a ballot box will collect the sentiment of the 754 voters of Pozas’s District 23.
“A lot of people will be afraid to raise their hands in my favor in the assembly, but once that barrier is overcome, the chances will be greater with the secret ballot.” She doesn’t doubt that if her name reaches the secret ballot in the next round her neighbors will vote for her. “All this, what I have been working for so long, will bear fruit,” she said.
Line to buy unrationed bread after the passage of Hurricane Irma through Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 14 September 2017 — The passage of the devastating Hurricane Irma along the northern coast of Cuba and the subsequent recovery process have underscored the strength of a powerful state and the fragility of a deprived citizenry.
In each of the 14 provinces affected, from Guantanamo to Artemisa, substantial resources were mobilized almost immediately to restore power and communication networks, to reopen blocked roads and to collect solid waste. Following the order issued from the highest governmental body, priorities were established to restore the accommodation capacity of affected tourist centers and to make hospitals and schools fully operational.
Inside the thousands of houses hit by the fury of the winds or flooded by the penetrations of the sea, the drama unfolds at a different speed. In each of them, insignificant in appearance, are the possessions treasured by a housewife in her kitchen, clothing, mattresses, old furniture inherited from ancestors, appliances, and a long list of personal belongings, acquired through unimaginable sacrifice; everything that was once irreplaceable, has suddenly become unrecoverable. continue reading
The almighty state presents itself as generous with what it considers essential, so it “advanced” the monthly quota for the rationed market and sells food “at reasonable prices” in the most vulnerable areas. But speaking in legal terms, the state “does not know” what the citizens obtain through the intricate roads of the black market, nor is it aware of the backpack sent by a relative in Miami, shoes bought in the hard currency market, the television delivered by a mule who traveled from Panama or the computer sold by a neighbor before leaving the country.
Many losses cannot even be declared because of the fear of becoming a confessed recipient of goods acquired by illegal means.
Another aspect that emphasizes the fragility of those affected is the huge difference between the real cost and the legal price of the properties. What the buyer paid for a house or car can be 2000% higher than the value officially recorded for it, so that when quantifying the total damage or destruction, the true damage caused to the victim is never reflected.
In a nation of the dispossessed, the resilience of individuals and families affected by natural disasters depends on what the all-owning state assigns to everyone under the rules of distribution imposed by egalitarianism.
Those who, by one means or another, have achieved economic empowerment do not have a guarantee that assures them prompt reparations for the damages. This emerging middle class, which rose after Raul Castro’s timid reforms, is marked by the concept of self-sufficiency, which means that everyone must face the risks of entrepreneurship as best they can by themselves.
It will soon be reported that the hotels in the keys are even better than they were before Irma passed through, that air-conditioned buses filled with foreigners are already circulating along the causeways, and that all the airports are in service. What will never be known is how many snack bars, repair shops, restaurants and privately rented homes have disappeared.
The power of the state should not rest on the fragility of its citizens.
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 September 2017 — Located between two bays, the Holguin municipality of Antilla is among the smallest of Cuba. In District 3, young Roberto Miguel Santana Capdesuñer aspired to be a delegate at the Nominating Candidates Assembly, but a mixture of chance and likely bad intention prevented it.
