14ymedio

A Trampoline in Central Havana / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 20 January 2015 – Havana is home to more than two million people, but has very few recreation centers for children and they are located on mostly on the outskirts of the city. In districts like Central Havana, parks, vacant lots and even the streets themselves become areas where young children play ball, fly kites and play incredible games with their tops. Children look for places to entertain themselves in the most densely populated municipality in the whole country.

On Carlos III Street, right at the corner with Marques Gonzalez and where more than a decade ago a tenement collapsed, they have placed a trampoline. It is rare to pass by this corner and not see a line of children and tends waiting to try the experience of jumping into the air. Some even try acrobatics, like the young man in the photo.

Jovellanos, a Cuban Town That Lives on Nostalgia / 14ymedio, Pedro Acosta

The old Gravi toothpaste factory is today Jovel, belonging to the joint venture company Suchel.

14ymedio, Pedro Acosta, Jovellanos, Cuba, 19 January 2015 – “People here live in the former Gravi factory that is now called Jovel,” says the driver of a bicitaxi (bike-taxi) during a tour of Jovellanos. The industry that made the town famous for its excellent toothpaste now belongs to the joint venture company Suchel, with products of little personality and worse flavor.

The lost glory days of its flagship factory is only one of the many problems of this village in Matanza province, crossed by the highway and the main rail line. If six decades ago the area had a growing economy, today its inhabitants remember past glories and imagine what could have been.

All the city’s transportation is by horse-drawn carts or bicycles. “To leave the village, there are private trucks, but at night its difficult to catch one,” says the driver of an old jeep that travels the route to Matanzas.

The place is no longer a destination of workers and has become a source of workers for the tourist areas of Varadero. “Here there isn’t much to do, so people leave and the young are the first to go,” says Ramon, born in Jovellanos 56 years ago. On Thursday he was having lunch at a private restaurant in the village with some relatives from Miami. With the suggestive name of Kitsch, decorated with baroque furniture and lamps, the restaurant is one of the few that exists in the small town. Young people complain that there is no disco and they have to settle for a depressing cabaret on the outskirts of town, much frequented by flies and drunks. continue reading

Joachim, 79, says he didn’t leave Jovellanos because he always believed that “things would get better. When I realized, it was too late for me to get out.” He worked in one of the two sugar mills that, during the harvest season, “never stopped grinding,” he says with enthusiasm. Now, “the two are closed and useless, pure junk lying in the field,” he laments.

On the streets of the small town many houses have signs saying “For Sale.” For a little more than 12,000 Cuban convertible pesos (roughly $12,000 US), Alina is offering the house where she was born and that was built by her grandfather. It has five bedrooms and a large terrace. “I don’t want to stay here, because I have to give my children a future,” she says. Her plan is to rent for a few months in the capital and ultimately to emigrate to the United States with the money.

Like anywhere else in Cuba, in this town private timbiriches — tiny “mom-and-pop” kiosks – have beat out the State snack bars. Vendors of costume jewelry and useful odds-and-ends furtively offer their merchandise in the doorways of the main street. “We once had three hardware stores, four general stores, two furniture stores and a printer, but that was a long time ago,” remembers Joaquin.

Renamed Jovellanos in 1870, due to the efforts of a mayor originally from Asturias, the town was initially known as Bemba. In the middle of the last century it had a library, two movie theaters, one of which also served as a live theater. Now there is only one still functioning, while the other is just a building with boarded up doors and a faded façade.

The local Communist Party headquarters is located in a beautiful building, which once housed the Association of Small Settlers of the territory. “They criticized the old landlords so much and look at how they’ve destroyed the earth,” comments Joaquin, who remembers when the region “boasted” of its farms with fruits and important crops of vegetables and grains.

In 1959 they had planned to build a jam factory in vacant lot in front of the rice mill and electric plant, “but the Comandante (Fidel Castro) arrived and ordered it to stop,” people comment satirically.

Just over half a century ago a plant was erected to assemble engines with Bulgarian technology, but it no longer functions. A modern smelter was also installed, but a short time after its launch it had to be disassembled.

A resident of Jovellano who was involved in that work and later emigrated to Havana said, “the investors in the foundry had not taken into account the electricity required for this work and when the foundry started running the whole village was left in the dark.”

The soft drink factory that was the pride of the region doesn’t exist any more, nor does the rope factory, nor the coffee roaster, nor the beef slaughterhouse, nor the cement block factory nor the dairies. All the conversations with residents older than 60 invariably end up in a review of these past glories.

Some of the younger people say they remember the taste of Gravi toothpate, “the queen of toothpaste,” but at their age it’s unlikely. In Jovellanos, those who don’t want to accept the fate of its people take refuge in the past to escape the present.

2,850 pesos for one night in Varadero / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar

Cubatur travel agency office in the basement of the Havana Libre Hotel. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 19 January 2016 – The noise of the rain mixed with the sounds of the clerk complaining because the cash envelopes were overflowing because they can’t cope with “so many Cuban pesos.” The scene is repeating itself lately at the Cubatur tourist office in the Habana Libre Hotel, with the authorization to allow payment in Cuban pesos for package tours focused on the Cuban market.

The measure has not yet been extended to all places in the capital offering accommodation and trips to different destinations in the country, but in several provinces it has been in effect since the beginning of 2016. In Havana, in addition to being able to pay with both currencies – the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) and the Cuban peso (CUP), also known as “national money” – in the so-called “Hard Currency Collection Stores” (TRDs), you can now rent a room in a hotel or pay for an “all-inclusive” excursion. continue reading

Over the last eight years – before that Cubans were not allowed in tourist hotels and resorts – customers were forced to change their Cuban pesos into convertible pesos to make tourist reservations, a procedure which lengthened the process and generated unnecessary inconvenience.

The new flexibility, however, makes even more evident the imbalance between the wages paid to Cubans and the prices they have to pay to vacation in their own country.

On Saturday a couple was inquiring at the Cubatur office in the Habana Libre Hotel about prices in national money for trips to the tourist beaches of Cuba. At the Iberostar Varadero hotel, 2,850 Cuban pesos was the cost for one night, all inclusive, “although you will have to arrange your own transportation,” the clerk told them.

For 2,550 Cuban pesos the stunned lovers could afford a night at the Melia Sol Palmera, also in Varadero. The price amounts to little more than 100 CUC [roughly $100 U.S.], but expressing that figure in the same currency in which wages are paid leaves many with a bitter taste.

“That’s my salary for five months,” the young man told this newspaper. “Only when you see it in the same currency do you realize that the prices here are crazy,” he said. Nevertheless he pulled the money out of his wallet and 10 and 20 CUP notes, to the annoyance of the clerk because she didn’t have any place to store so much “old money” and complained about it.

Since March 2008, when Cubans have been allowed to stay in the country’s hotels, domestic tourism has experienced sustained growth and now Cubans are the second largest number of visitors to Varadero, exceeded only by Canadians.

The sale in national money of different tours and accommodation is also carried out in the Cubatur offices in Camaguey and Santa Lucia, according to Jorge Alvarez, director of the agency there, who spoke to the local press.

So far the measure has been well received, as it avoids unnecessary inconvenience. Alvarez added that the travel provider Havanatur also recently expanded its options available in national money.

In 2014, 1,208,123 Cubans stayed at hotels in the country, according to the National Tourism Report, Selected indicators, January-December 2014, published by the National Bureau of Statistics and Information. The document also details that these national customers spent more than 147 million CUC in tourist facilities.

Thermometers Again Available in Cuba, But Only on the Ration Book / 14ymedio

Thermometers are again available in some pharmacies in Havana, but to purchase one you have to submit your ration book. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 15 January 2016 – After disappearing for months, this January thermometers have returned to some pharmacies in Havana, although they can only be purchased through the ration book.

In 2015, about 60 medications included in the “basic health core” where unavailable in Cuban hospitals and pharmacies, mainly those used in the treatment of cancer. Also missing were over-the-counter products such as adhesive tape, elastic bandages and Baind-Aids.

Cuba Will Attend Caribbean Security Conference For First Time / 14ymedio

John Kelly, head of the US Southern Command

14ymedio (with information from agencies), Havana, 13 January 2016 – Cuba will participate for the first time in the Conference on Security of Caribbean Nations to be held from January 27 in Jamaica, announced Gen. John Kelly, head of the United States Southern Command, who interpreted the gesture as one more in the policy of rapprochement between the two nations.

“We have normalized diplomatic relations and, regardless of what we think about our respective political systems, we have extremely common challenges,” Kelly said in an interview.

The United States organized this three-day event, which will address issues affecting cooperation in the fight against trafficking in drugs, arms and migrants.

The event will take place in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica’s, and attendees are expected to include military leaders and security officials from 16 Caribbean countries, plus the United States, Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Cuba has not specified who it will send.

Cuban Communist Party Implemented Only a Fraction of Reforms From Sixth Party Congress / 14ymedio

President Raul Castro at the inauguration of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba.

14ymedio, Havana, 15 January 2016 — Five years after approval, at the Sixth Party Congress, of the Political, Social and Economic Policy Guidelines of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), the Party just admitted that it has only implemented 21% of the planned reforms.

At a plenary session this week of the PCC’s Central Committee, which was not previously announced, PCC leaders evaluated the results of the “updating of the socialist model,” enacted in 2011. They recognized that some of the measures implemented in the last five years “still have had no real impact on the family budget.” continue reading

Between congresses, the highest body of the PCC also analyzed several documents during the session, presided over by Raul Castro. The “2030 Economic and Social Development Program” was presented, which contains the “proposed vision of the nation” for the next fifteen years and defines the axes, objectives and strategic sectors that will shape the direction of the country.

According to the Party-run Granma newspaper, the development program is aimed at solving the structural problems of the economy, “starting with government policies with a comprehensive and sustainable focus that respond to a strategic and consensual vision of the medium and long term.”

Many analysts suggest that the updates of the economic and social model seem to have peaked after modest openings in the economy to private initiative and the easing the rules for foreign investment, as well as allowing Cubans to travel abroad and to buy and sell homes.

The 7^th Congress will be held this April in a very difficult regional context for Cuba, as a result of the landslide victory of the opposition in legislative elections in Venezuela. There is now the risk of a cut in the enormous oil subsidies that South American country sends to the island, in the name of political solidarity. On the other hand, this meeting will be the first for Cuban communists after the reestablishment of relations with the United States.

Land Leases, a “Half-ownership” / 14ymedio, Juan Carlos Fernandez

Juan José Muñoz, 83-year-old who leases land, in the doorway of his home. (14ymedio / Juan Carlos Fernandez)

14ymedio, Juan Carlos Fernandez, Pinar del Rio, 14 January 2016 – The earth and the man who works it end up resembling each other. The skin becomes rough and dark like freshly plowed earth, and the face is lined with furrows where seeds could be planted. So it is with Juan José Muñoz, who at 83 has merged with the land that he recovered a few years ago, through a usufruct lease arrangement, long after they took it from him decades ago.

The old man with lively eyes can be found at kilometer 8 on the La Ceniza road, near the city of Pinar del Rio. He is one of the 2,596 farmers who, since 2012, have received lands under the usufruct form of leasing, with a total of roughly 36,000 acres now managed by private farmers. continue reading

“Planting tabacco soothes my soul, I learned it from my father as far back as I can remember, and I like it,” says Muñoz. Despire his advanced age, he still has the energy not only for cultivating, but also for cutting firewood, cooking and even making the odd joke when someone passes by his humble home.

“I was born here and I grew up working with my father, my uncles and two brothers, in the same place,” he says. However, at the end of the seventies State Planning decided to use his to grow citrus. “They forbade us to plant tobacco,” he says with regret, but affirms, “They couldn’t take it all from me and they left me 2.5 acres.”

Losing what had been the center of life as he knew it, Muñoz working in the citrus plant located in the road to La Coloma, but, he says, “I wasn’t born to spend eight hours in a factory, so I asked to be released and went back to the fields.” On his only remaining land he raised chickens, pigs and even grew a little tobacco. “They couldn’t prevent me because it was my land,” he says, with a wild glint in his eyes.

“It was a long time until they again allowed the widespread cultivation of tobacco, because the citrus never paid off; after that they approved the usufruct arrangements and I asked for the 12 acres we had always planted with tobacco,” and, he stressed, indicating the land around his house, “all of this we’d had forever, since I was tiny.”

With the adoption in 2008 of Decree Law 259, replaced by Decree Law 300 in 2012, the government of Raul Castro permitted “the delivery in usufruct [leasing] the benefits of state property to natural or legal persons.” Those interested could, from that time, request a maximum of 33 acres for a period of up to ten years, renewable for additional ten-year periods.

That’s how Muñoz as an old man returned to working the fields that had been his family’s. Now, he plants rice, corn, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and fruits, especially for his own consumption. “Life is hard, and the land does not produce like before,” he says, while straining a little coffee on his wood stove.

Electricity has not officially come to the house of Muñoz or the 15 other farmers who live nearby. An illegal line provides them the service, but not without setbacks. “That has brought me problems, inspectors have come to threaten us with fines.” The low voltage only allows turning on “one light bulb,” and so he hasn’t bought a refrigerator or television, “because it would just go to waste.”

This year the drought has taken its toll on the octogenarian’s fields. “All the seedlings the Fructuoso Rodriguez Agricultural Production Cooperative gave me have gone to waste. Now the land is bare, completely bare” and he has to “buy seedlings privately,” he explains.

The problems he experiences are shared by most of his neighbors. The land leasing arrangement has not worked in the region as expected and by the end of 2015 the local press reported that it 3,504 individuals in Pinar del Rio who had taken advantage of this arrangement had lost their land. According to the official version, irregularities were found, such as “the abandonment of an area for more than six months and not dedicating the land to the purposes for which it was granted.

Muñoz sees the situation very differently. Although he has been able to continue to work his piece of land, he says that most of the time he cannot get fertilizer, the tractors are broken and there is no fuel. “This year the seeds didn’t sprout,” and he complains that he can’t rely on crop insurance against natural disasters. “Three years ago my tobacco harvest was diseased, and I applied for the insurance but I am still waiting.”

Across the province 116,000 acres remain available to be leased, especially in the districts of Sandino, Mantua, Consolacion del Sur and Los Palacios. However the land is difficult to farm and infested with the invasive and very hard to get rid of marabou weed, so even the boldest decline to apply for it.

Despite the few advantages that the stubborn farmer has been found in leasing his land, he says he appreciates “tranquility” of labor in the tobacco fields. This calm, however, could be about to end. “They came to me and told me that this year if I don’t fulfill my plan they’re going to cancel the contract.” It would be the second time they took away his land.

Cuba farmer working land with oxen — Cuba farmer working the land with oxen

United States Opens The Door To Telecommunications Services With Cuba / 14ymedio

US telecommunications company AT & T. (Flickr)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 January 2016 – “By removing Cuba from the Exclusion list, the Commission opens the door for U.S. telecom carriers to provide facilities-based telephone and Internet service to Cuba without separate approval from the Commission,” the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported Friday, through a statement posted on its web page.

With this measure, United States providers will not need special authorization to offer services to the island or to build installations on Cuban territory. The document clarifies that the decision will take effect immediately upon its publication. continue reading

Since 1996, Washington has included Cuba on a telecommunications exclusion list which required operators interested in offering services to the island to present a special request. Authorization was a joint process with the State Department.

“Removing Cuba from the Exclusion List benefits the public interest as it will likely alleviate administrative and cost burdens on both the applicant and the Commission, and will promote competition on the U.S.-Cuba route,” said the official statement.

The news has just begun circulating within the island, but comes at a time of widespread discontent with the management of the State Telecommunication Company of Cuba SA (ETECSA). Customers of the telephone monopoly complain about the high prices of services which are charged in Cuban convertible pesos rather than Cuban pesos, and the unreliability of services.

In the last trimester, ETECSA’s email service, Nauta, has suffered two interruptions lasting several days each, which has raised the volume of complaints against the operator. Many look hopefully to the arrival on the island of a competing company that would force the state monopoly to reduce rates and improve service.

Last November the U.S. mobile company Sprint reached a direct roaming agreement with Cuba, the first of its kind in the new relations between the island and Washington, since the beginning of the thaw in December 2014. However, the agreement has not yet been put into practice.

The Unfinished Cold War / Carlos Alberto Montaner

Mikhail Gorbachev, and Ronald Reagan (DC)

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, 16 January 2016 — Again, thousands of Cubans are preparing to enter the United States. The first have already arrived. It is an old and exhausted story. They have come in massive numbers since 1959, when the Castro brothers’ communist dictatorship began. This time they are coming via Costa Rica.

Since 1966, Cubans have received preferential treatment from United States immigration authorities. They call it the “Cuban Adjustment Act. It is one of the multiple exceptions in the complex US legislation on migration. continue reading

There are others. For example, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is awarded to thousands of undocumented immigrants living in the United States. A dozen nationalities benefit from this measure, conceived to protect certain people from the horrors of violence or natural disasters in their countries of origin.

But there are essential differences between TPS and the Cuban Adjustment Act. The temporary protection must be periodically renewed and depends on the will of a fickle Congress. The law that affects Cuban, on the other hand, leads to obtaining official residence after one year, and citizenship after five years.

Actually, it is a double stupidity that TPS does not lead to residency and eventual citizenship. The provisional nature and lack of progressive integration into U.S. society cruelly harms immigrants and turns the “American dream” into an unnecessary nightmare, tinged by the ominous persecution of “La Migra,” the immigration authorities.

The other piece of this nonsense is the self-inflicted damage to the United States. What is best for this country, and for everyone, is working citizens who comply with the laws, create wealth, pay taxes and become a part of the mix in the legendary American “melting pot,” as happens with the vast majority of Cubans.

Cuban exceptionalism began with the rules of the Cold War. It was a predictable American response when Castro and a small group of communists, convinced of the superiority of Marxist-Leninist ideas, the benefits of the USSR, and the perfidy of the United States and its market economy, decided to create a communist dictatorship on the island.

Moscow, which knew how to organize satellites, because they had done it cruelly and efficiently in Eastern Europe after the end of the Second World War, immediately offered its unconditional support. Without delay, Soviet advisors arrived discretely on the island with the primary objective of crushing the Cuban democratic opposition and creating counterintelligence networks. Their next step would be to fill the island with nuclear missiles.

Khrushchev said, “Now the United States will know what it means to live with a dagger pointed at its neck a few miles off its coast.” It was his retaliation in response to harassment from NATO.

The United States reacted. In mid-March 1960, President Eisenhower signed a secret order authorizing covert operations to liquidate the Russian satellite installed in Cuba.

It was too late. A week earlier the Spanish-Russian general Francisco Ciutat had arrived on the island. Fidel received him and called him “Angelito” – little angel. Soon there were 40,000 Soviet soldiers and advisors. The Cold War was at its peak in the Caribbean.

Thirty years later, the European satellites broke with the USSR and the Eastern Bloc disappeared, including the Soviet Union itself. The United States’ strategy of containment had worked. The U.S. had won the Cold War.

But not everything. In Cuba and North Korea they dug trenches. Fidel Castro, extremely angry at that “traitor” Gorbachev, proclaimed, as his brother Raul applauded, “I will sink the island into the sea before abandoning Marxism-Leninism,” assuring that Cuba would remain as a communist bulwark to light the day when the planet would recover the revolutionary lucidity.

Fidel, a die-hard Stalinist, with the backing of Lula da Silva in Brazil, was given the task of collecting the rubble of communism and building with it the Sao Paulo Forum, a kind on Third International with room for all the “anti-imperialist fighters,” from FARC’s narco-guerrillas to Islamic terrorists.

Until Hugo Chavez appeared on the horizon, haloed by ignorance and irresponsibility, and loaded with petrodollars. Fidel seduced and recruited him, first to exploit him, and later to fight against economic freedom and against Washington, to the glory of the world’s poor.

Together, de pipí cogido, as the Columbians say so gracefully, in an indomitable Havana-Caracas axis, they would triumph where the USSR had crumbled, an objective and strategy that no one has denied or dismissed. Felipe Perez Roque, then Cuba’s Foreign Minister, announced it in Caracas at the end of 2005. Hasta la victoria siempre, Comandantes.

From this spirit of the Cold War – all that some backward countries could deliver – arose the dreadful fantasy of “21^st Century Socialism” and the anti-U.S. circuit of ALBA, set against the FTAA promoted by the United States.

It is not true, then, as Obama assumes, that the Cold War is over. At least in Latin America Castro, Maduro, Ortega, Evo and to a lesser extent Correa are keeping it alive, with the lateral support of Dilma Rousseff and Kirchnerism, the latter happily removed from power by Mauricio Macro.

It is inconceivable that Washington ignores this unfortunate reality or continues to think that this is a “nuisance rather than a danger.” Burying one’s head in the sand has never been a smart way to confront problems.

Price Control Experiment Starts In Cuba’s Artemisa Province / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 16 January 2016 – A price control experiment began at the start of this year in Cuba’s Artemisa province, with the sale of agricultural products “at maximum fixed prices” in 13 new markets and bodegas. The amounts of merchandise are regulated by the Provincial Administrative Council, according to Teresa Martinez Mendaro, its chief.

Under the euphemism “variable pricing” the official press announced the start of this pilot project in a market in every municipality in the province, with two such markets in Bauta, San Antonio and Artemisa. Although the points of sale belong to the Basic Unit of Commerce, they are now supplied by agricultural enterprises through Acopio, Cuba’s State Procurement and Distribution Agency. continue reading

This week the stands at the designated establishments offered taro, sweet potatos and carrots at a price not to exceed one Cuban peso per pound (CUP, about 4¢ US), a price below that in the markets operating according to supply and demand. Peppers and tomatoes have a regulated price not to exceed 5 CUP per pound, while elsewhere these foods can reach prices of 10 CUP and 25 CUP respectively.

Some of new markets opened their doors in the first week of January, as was the case with the La Vizcaina market in Alquizar. Residents of the area expressed relief, this Friday, at the low prices for food and vegetables, but were also cautious about the measure.

“The idea is good, but I worry that the quality of the products will fall greatly with these prices,” said Gabriela, a young woman who lives near the Alquizar market. A market employee didn’t hide his reservations, “We get little merchandise and we run out early,” he commented to this newspaper.

The measure has not been welcomed by private and street vendors. For the 1,167 self-employed fruit and vegetable cart sellers of the province, these new markets represent fierce competition.

“It will be a question of waiting for them to fall out of favor,” predicts William walking his cart through nearby streets hawking bananas and other fruits. The man added, “The state can not maintain something like that because there is not enough production.”

The controlled prices are officially called “variable,” as they vary according to the season of the year, production costs, harvest volume and the value of the inputs used by the farmers.

The provincial authorities plan to strengthen the inspector corp to monitor the prices established in these markets.

The experiment began a few days after the last meeting of the National Assembly, where the issue of food prices was prominent in numerous discussions. In response to a complaint from several deputies, Raul Castro said that measures would be taken to bring prices in line with wages. The announcement put producers and intermediaries an alert.

In Venezuela Chavismo-Fidelismo Failed, Not 21st Century Socialism / 14ymedio, Pedro Campos

Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez together in 2002 (EFE)

14ymedio, Pedro Campos, Havana, 15 January 2016 – Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was the result of a political and economic crisis of capitalism, driven by opportunists and embezzlers. His first speech about 21^st Century Socialism sustained by a model of economic development beyond oil, in a participative and progressive democracy with production through self-management and cooperatives, was very encouraging for Venezuelans and for the people of the region.

However, during Hugo Chavez’s government, these project cores were abandoned, intensifying the actions of the paternalistic state, the growth of the bureaucracy, movements, leftist institutions and mobilizations, cronyism and corruption, along with medical and education missions, organized by Cuban professionals in order to finance, with the Venezuelan oil received in exchange, the obsolete monopolistic capitalism of the Cuban state, in crisis since the fall of the USSR and the “socialist camp.” continue reading

With the oil boom, the ability to purchase from abroad all kinds of food and supplies to counter private national capitalism and to use these riches to promote regional solidarity with the political processes of Venezuela and Cuba, “under siege from imperialism,” was concentrated in the actions of Chavez and his government.

The abundant money coming from Venezuela’s oil and the tightening of ties with Havana led the Chavista leadership to believe it could forget the economic and social foundations of the 21^st Century Socialism it was promulgating. Chavez kept talking about 21^st Century Socialism, but assumed the bureaucratic and interventionist practices of Fidelismo.

The ability to expand the “new socialist model” with the support of the then powerful Venezuelan economy, based on rising oil prices, was designed by the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) founded in response to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the United States based alliance to create a free trade area in the Americas that would support the economic development and integration of the continent.

The fear of imperialism from the powerful north, fomented especially since the Triumph of the Revolution in Cuba in 1959, the traditional influence of Western Europe in the Caribbean and in much of South America, and a regional lack of self-esteem prevented the idea of a continental trade integration taking shape. And ALBA, initiated by Fidel Castro and Chavez, was the catalyst for the rejection.

The Bolivarian Alliance could have been a project of revolutionary integration if it had considered involvement from below, from the social and economic bases of the countries involved, unification of the currency, free movement of people and capital, and the expansion of ideas to finance the development of a solidarity economy led by equal exchanges, on the basis of cooperatives and self-management. The issue, with all its implications, was addressed in February 2007 in “Some Tactical and Strategic Issues of the Bolivarian Integration” (Kaosenlared.net).

That opportunity was lost, as the original Chavista project was lost, because state development and relations between states prevailed, and “socialism from above” prevailed over real socialism from below.

Heinz Dieterich, the leading international promoter of the ideas of 21^st Century Socialism who initially advised Chavez, on January 4 told the newspaper El Nacional:

“I was disappointed when my friend Hugo Chavez did not impose, for many reasons, this combination of possible Latin American developmentalism and the scientific-political paradigm of 21^st Century Socialism, which would have put Venezuela in the vanguard of the global society. However, he only used the term 21^st Century Socialism, not the respective institutions. Therefore, no sane person can say that there is 21^st Century Socialism in the country. What failed in Venezuela was a poorly executed Latin American developmentalism. My disappointment, however, was continental. I spoke to almost all the progressive presidents of Latin America and the Caribbean and none of them had a serious intention to transcend the capitalist system with a new civilization.”

The death of Chavez left Chavismo without its leader’s charisma and without having developed the original program. Chavismo fell into irreversible crisis and the pro-Cuban policies of President Nicolas Maduro ended up sinking it. The situation created in Venezuela with the triumphant arrival of the opposition in the National Assembly can be considered the failure of Chavismo influenced by Fidelismo; but not the failure of 21^st Century Socialism, which never managed to develop, not even during the life of Chavez himself.

With the failure of Chavismo-Fidelismo in Venezuela, ALBA, which never developed the 21^st Century Socialism alternative, could also quickly succumb as a political alliance. The states that benefited from this project will soon begin to suffer its effects because of their own inability to develop an integration from below, which would have meant the consistent application of 21^st Century Socialism, ideas abandoned by Chavez and rejected by Fidel Castro.

The governments of Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia took part in some of the original ideas of 21^st Century Socialism and were careful not to embark on the previous statism of Chavismo, essentially maintaining their traditional capitalist development projects, with a State deliverer in the social-democrat style. So they would be less affected by this situation.

What happened in Venezuela was not the failure of 21^st Century Socialism, but rather of a development model of state monopoly capitalism, inspired by the obsolete neo-Stalinist Cuban experience, which also failed. It was Chavismo-Fidelismo that failed there.

Fighting Dog / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 14 January 2016 — Trained to kill his adversary, this dog has received intense training from birth designed to make him into an effective killing machine. What looks like a treadmill or other device, is just a machine built to strengthen his muscles and obsessions.

Dog fighting is a growing phenomenon in Cuban society, which lacks an animal protection law and where economic problems and bring out all kinds of businesses.

Melia Hotels In Seeks Staff For Its Cuban Hotels In Spain / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 12 January 2016 – The Cuban division of Melia Hotels International opened a recruitment process in Spain this Tuesday, that will run until 5 February. The Spanish company is looking for some twenty professionals in cuisine and hospitality for its facilities in Cuba.

Candidates with at least two years experience can apply for the positions through the website Turijobs.com, or participate in recruitment days being arranged in Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Madrid and Malaga.

The company is looking for food and beverage managers, executive chefs, sous chefs, pastry chefs and room managers, and will cover the cost of flights from Spain to Cuba and offer free full service housing, according to the listings on the web.

Salaries are not specified, but they are guaranteeing “a competitive salary commensurate to the position” and are offering “real opportunities for professional development and promotion.”

Somos+ (We Are More) Holds Convention Despite Police Operation / 14ymedio

A police patrol at the corner by Eliecer Avila’s to prevent the arrival of guests. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 January 2016 – The Somos+ (We Are More) opposition movement held its national convention Thursday, despite the arrest of several participants and a strong police operation around its site in Havana. The home of Eliecer Avila, leader of the organization, was surrounded by several police patrols at dawn, and only those who entered the home several hours or days earlier were able to attend.

Despite the obstacles, Somos+ issued a statement announcing,”We are holding the convention!” The activists were referring to a meeting held on 14 January to decide on the program ahead of time. The speeches, lectures and presentations were digitized to be able to project them in case their protagonists were not able to arrive at the site.

Groups of government sympathizers, dressed in plain clothes, threateningly warned off any curious person who wanted to take pictures around the site, or access the house on Esperanza Street in the Cerro district, where the event took place. continue reading

According to Pedro Acosta, who was prevented from reaching Avila’s house, the police deployment included several patrol cars and motorcycles. “I was surprised by this display of police force, because I hadn’t noticed any abnormal situation in the neighborhood.” A motorcycle with a sidecar stopped next to Acosta to ask for his identify card. When he said he wasn’t carrying it, the police ordered him, “Get in, citizen!” In the vehicle, they drove along several streets in Havana and let him out on 26^th Avenue. “And this?” Acosta asked them, continuing his story, “They started up and the one driving addressed me for the first time telling me that next time I wouldn’t forget my ID card.”

At seven in the evening the siege on Avila’s house continues, according to what he himself told Acosta by phone.

The police also intercepted Angel Santiesteban and prevented him from reaching the house, said Avila.

In the text released this Thursday, the leadership of Somos+ explains that they tried to rent a space for their most important annual meeting. However, those in charge of the locales – both state and private – were intimidated by State Security and so would not rent to them.

Several members of the movement who live outside the capital were threatened and, in several cases, arrested to prevent them from traveling to Havana. Among these was Johana Columbie, who lives in Camaguey and who, with police stationed outside her house, sent a letter to the convention ensuring them that the recent events, rather than frightening her, had given her “strength to continue.”

Other activists such as Alexey Games and Franky Rojas received police summonses received this morning, while the movement coordinator in the province of Las Tunas, Pedro Escalona, was arrested and released just a few hours ago.

Eliecer Avila and Manuel Diaz Mons, general coordinator of Somos+ were arbitrarily detained and warned not to hold the convention.

On its digital page, the movement thanked Amnesty International – in particular Louise Tillotson, investigator for Cuba and the Caribbean – for having contacted their members and for showing concern in the face of the latest developments.

The convention had as its central theme “how to live with the internet in Cuba so as not to have to emigrate, not to have to jump into the sea, or cross so many borders, without having the power within Cuba to run businesses, labor cooperatives, produce resources,” according to Avila.

Cuban Migrants Embark From Mexico On The Last Leg Of Their Odyssey To The US / 14ymedio, EFE

The Mexican National Institute of Immigration receives Cuban migrants on arrival in Tapachula. (INM)

14ymedio/EFE, Tapachula (Mexico), 14 January 2016 — The first 180 Cuban migrants covered by an agreement to help them reach the United States, set off on the final stage of their odyssey after entering Mexican territory from Guatemala this Wednesday.

The 139 men and 41 women reached the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas aboard four buses, guarded by the National Civil Police and the Guatemalan Office of Human Rights.

The Human Rights Ombudsman in the municipality of Coatepeque, Jose Maldonado, said that “the accompaniment and verification for twelve hours” through Guatemalan territory was carried out in the framework of a pilot program following the agreement with Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico to help Cubans on their way to the US. continue reading

The migrants were received on the premises of the National Institute of Migration (INM) located in Ciudad Hidalgo, a few yards from the border. In these offices, staff conducted the process by which the Cubans received a pass allowing them to travel through Mexico for 20 days by which time they should have made it to the United States. The measure is covered in Article 42 of the Immigration Law that permits foreigners to be authorized to enter the country for “humanitarian reasons.”

Also participating in the process were personnel from the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH), the Red Cross and several non-government organizations that defend migrants.

On their arrival at the federal facility at the Rodolfo Robles border crossing at Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas, the travelers expressed their goal of reaching the United States to reunite with their families, as in the case of Olanis Diaz, a native of Havana, who will see her father in Miami, Florida, after a hard journey.

The Mexican press, which is covering the journey of the Cubans, printed several testimonies from the migrants who expressed their gratefulness to the country.

“What we want is to be on our way as soon as possible. We don’t want to stay in Mexico, not because we don’t like it, but because in Miami part of my family is waiting for me, my sister, my nephew, whom I haven’t seen for a long time,” one migrant told the newspaper Milenio.

The newspaper also reflected the desperation suffered by the Cubans when they saw their path cut off in Costa Rica last November, when the migration crisis began. “I tell my compatriots left behind, don’t forget your dreams, and keep going,” said one of the newcomers to North America.

Images released by the Mexican Ministry of the Interior of the moment when Cubans arriving from Costa Rica via El Salvador and Guatemala are helped by the National Migration Institute in Chiapas. (INM / screenshot)

“We are grateful to the town of La Cruz and the Government of Costa Rica; thanks to them this dream has become possible,” another of the migrants, a young man of 27 who hopes to join his mother in Miami, told the Mexican newspaper El Universal.

After the two hours required by the immigration process, Cubans left the offices and boarded four other buses, contracted for by the INM to take them the 27 miles from Ciudad Hidalgo to Tapachula, where they can buy plane or bus tickets to continue their journey to the north.

After being stranded for two months on Costa Rica’s border with Nicaragua amid a diplomatic dispute between the countries, the Cubans considered it “an achievement to arrive at Mexico’s southern border.”

Although they still do not know the steps they will have to take to continue their journey, they expect the rest of the journey to be organized by themselves and, on reaching the United States, expect benefits under the Cuban Adjustment Act.

Leonel Chirino, a 30-year-old baseball player, who arrived on the first bus, sent a message of “peace” to the more than 7,000 if their compatriots who are still in Costa Rica, from where the first group left Tuesday night by air to El Salvador, and from there by land through Guatemala and then Mexico.

I assure you “that you will all be able to leave, everything is well planned, everything is well coordinated, we are first in line for visa and we are all going to reach the United States.”

The journey from Costa Rica to Mexican territory was coordinated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The Costa Rican Foreign Minister congratulated El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico for the flexibility they showed and added that they will continue working “very hard on behalf of all Cuban migrants who remain in the country.”

“Our opinion, which will have to be taken into account by other countries, is that this process has met all expectations. People have arrived safely, healthy, happy and on time. Everything has gone very well and we hope that the region will say the same,” he said at a news conference.

This coming 18 January a technical meeting is scheduled in Guatemala which will be attended by representatives of Central American governments, to assess the first transfer of migrants.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: