14ymedio

A Letter Addressed to President Diaz-Canel Demands ‘Freedom Without Banishment’ for Cuba’s Political Prisoners

Several uniformed personnel during a repressive operation of the Cuban regime in the demonstrations of July 11, 2021. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 July 2023 – — More than 300 opponents, activists and family members have called for “freedom without banishment” for Cuban political prisoners in a letter addressed to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. With the subject “Voices for the freedom of our Cuban political prisoners” and dated July 3, 2023, the letter insists that “economic, civil and political freedoms” are not recognized in the country and that “regulations are created that legalize the violation and punishment of citizens’ rights and duties.”

“The past has been controlled, manipulated and erased; the present is controlled and distorted, and the future has an uncertain design where human rights are not essential in a democratic culture,” the document adds. For the signatories, among whom are more than 40 relatives of political prisoners, the government doesn’t allow “every person to express their ideas freely and to be respected in their entirety in any circumstance, without fear of being persecuted, mistreated or condemned for their opinions.”

The text voices complaints to the Communist Party, the Parliament and the Prosecutor’s Office about the conditions in which they keep the opponent José Daniel Ferrer García, confined in a prison in Santiago de Cuba “under constant physical, verbal and psychological aggression.” It also holds the authorities responsible for the “hundreds of men, many of them over 60 years old and even women who are mothers of minor children and others who are adolescents and young people, all of them confined under unjust sentences”

The signatories point out that in Cuban prisons “the human rights of those inmates are violated, including those with any disability, and that because they are political prisoners, mistreatment, beatings and the punishment of isolation cells are applied to them more sternly.” In addition, there is “a lack of attention to the health” of the prisoners and “a lack of medicines for the control of their diseases and the precarious diet to which they are subjected.” continue reading

“Ignoring this situation is cruel and inhuman,” the statement insists before concluding with a call to all Cubans to “visualize the situation of people imprisoned for their ideas, who have been sentenced to long years in prison.” “Let’s remember that the popular demonstration of July 11, 2021 was a reaction of the people and angry youth who loudly demanded Freedom, Freedom, Freedom.”

This Tuesday, Nelva Ortega, wife of José Daniel Ferrer and one of the signatories of the letter, was unable to talk with her husband — the leader of the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU) — in the Mar Verde prison, where they had scheduled a conjugal visit. According to the dissident’s sister, Ana Belkis Ferrer, the authorities only allowed the woman to glimpse her husband, after taking her down the corridor that leads to his isolation cell.

Ferrer’s sister reported that the opponent, imprisoned since August 2021, remains in “cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions” and constantly suffers “physical and psychological tortures.”

Ferrer continues to refuse, according to his relatives, to wear the uniform of an ordinary prisoner and does not accept any negotiation about his exile. In addition, he persists in condemning any relief of US sanctions on the Island and expresses his support for Ukraine in the face of the invasion of Russia.

They also recalled the deplorable state of health of the prisoner, who does not receive medical attention despite “strong pain in his hands, arms, legs, back, head and teeth.” The medicines, arbitrarily administered by his jailers, the family reports, have to be delivered from outside the prison.

After numerous requests to obtain proof of Ferrer’s life, the authorities agreed to have his family visit him on June 22, after three months without being able to see him. His wife and his two children found that the leader of the UNPACU is in a terrible state of health, half-naked and confined in the isolation cell.

“It is totally confirmed that my brother is being murdered in the slowest, most perverse and cruel way that can exist, and in the midst of such a difficult and worrying situation, he sends his message of gratitude to all supportive people, friends, brothers of struggle and ideas, media, institutions and justice-loving governments,” his sister said. “He states that he does not lose hope of getting out of such a hell alive, but that if he does not succeed, remember that he was always willing to give his life for the freedom of his people”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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For the First Time in History, Three Cubans Will Be in the Major League Home Run Derby

Randy Arozarena, Luis Robert Jr. and Adolis García are the Cubans in the the Major League Home Run Derby. (Collage/Instagram)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 July 2023 — Cuban baseball players continue to make history in the Major Leagues. Athletes Randy Arozarena, Luis Robert Jr. and Adolis García will compete in the Home Run Derby that will be held on July 10 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. It’s the “first time” that three athletes born on the Island will participate in this event, which began in 1985, journalist Francys Romero reported on his social networks.

This year, outfielder Randy Arozarena, a naturalized Mexican who plays for the Tampa Bay Rays, will show why he is a key player on the American team. In the first half of the 2023 season, he achieved 16 home runs.

This home run contest is joined by Luis Robert Jr., hired for $50 million by the Chicago White Sox in 2020, who has connected 25 home runs in the current season. His personal best is surpassed by Shohei Ohtani in the American League.

At first, Robert Jr. had no interest in participating in the Derby, he told MLB magazine, stating that “he was not a born homer and did not know if his game could be successful in the event.”

The Texas Rangers baseball player, Adolis García, was enthusiastic about his participation in the Home Run Derby. He was placed in fourth position and said he was prepared for a first-round confrontation with none other than his friend Randy Arozarena (fifth pre-qualified). continue reading

The Home Run Derby will be held one day before the Star Game, where Nolan Arenado will participate. This athlete, the son of Cubans, ruled out participating in representation of the Island in an international tournament. “My father is from Guantánamo,” he told MLB. “Although I don’t speak the language, I am proud of my heritage. Cubans are strong people.”

Upon learning that with the elimination of the repatriation rule for Cubans residing abroad it could be the opening to integrate some selection within the Island, he ruled out that possibility. “I’ll have to talk to my parents and my family about it and see what they say. But from now on, I assume that they would say no until things change there (in Cuba),” he replied to Pelota Cuban journalist Yordan Carmona.

Arenado has won ten gold gloves, six platinum gloves, five silver batters and has been selected for the All-Star Game eight times.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Spanish Melia Opens a Luxury Hotel in the Building of the Extinct Petroleum Union in Havana

The hotel, one block from the Plaza de la Catedral, occupies number 113 of Empedrado Street, where the National Bank was located for more than 60 years. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 6 July 2023 — A room costs between 295 and 383 euros a night this month at the new INNSiDE Habana Catedral hotel, inaugurated last Saturday by the Spanish group Meliá in Old Havana. If the traveler prefers the “Townhouse Suite,” with 560 square feet, king size bed and view of the bay, the price goes up to the stratosphere: 1,825 euros per night.

The prices of the restaurant, according to 14ymedio, follow the same trend. The dishes range from the 700 pesos for a “vegan salad in the style of the chef” to the 2,600 for a beef fillet with potatoes and red wine sauce, through a ceviche at 1,300 pesos, a honeyed rice with seafood at 1,800 or a fish at 2,000 pesos. As for desserts, you can order a brownie or French toast for 450 pesos, or fruit salad for 400 pesos.

On the menu, which has the prices in Cuban pesos (CUP) and in foreign currency, they apply an exchange rate of 120 pesos for freely convertible currency (MLC).

This Thursday, the place was empty. “Four employees for a single customer,” said a young woman from Havana who told about the experience of having a coffee. “There is not even a fly there, and they look at you as if you were an extraterrestrial.”

She paid 264 pesos for the coffee. “A small amount of coffee, I kept it simple,” she says. It was not enough for a bottle of water, which costs, small, 264 pesos, and large, more than 300. “Fortunately they put a glass of water next to the coffee. It was the size for a three-year-old boy, but better than nothing.” continue reading

As happens in establishments of this type in the capital, the INNSiDE Habana Catedral does not accept cash, and customers must pay by card. To accept payments, there is have an electronic reader for CUP and another for MLC.

The hotel, one block from the Plaza de la Catedral, occupies number 113 of Empedrado Street, where an office building was located for more than 60 years.

The emblematic and modern building was erected in the early 1950s, not without controversy, as the chronicles of the time testify, on the site of an 18th-century colonial house that had to be demolished. “Instead, and completely out of place in that area, there will be a seven-story ultra Miami skyscraper,” reads the newspaper library of the Diario de la Marina. The property, intended for office use, ultimately had five floors, some of them belonging to the extinct Petroleum Union.

Before being reopened by Meliá, it had been under construction for almost seven years. On its website, the hotel says that it was “conceived to give the most curious travelers an impressive urban experience,” and they invite the foreigner who can afford it: “You will find infinite peace in our pool with unparalleled views of the lighthouse and the sea. Are you ready for the adventure?”

Although luxury hotels are still being opened on the Island, the tourism data do not justify it. The sector, the country’s third largest source of foreign exchange – behind the sale of medical services and remittances – has not managed to recover even half of the international visits recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the latest official figures, between January and August of this year, Cuba received 1,390,000 tourists, barely 44.5% of the total registered in the same period of 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Third of Those Enrolled in Mais Medicos De Brasil Come From Bolivia, Paraguay and Cuba

In the last call of the program, 58% of the slightly more than 34,000 registered were nationals trained in Brazil. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Sao Paulo, July 5, 2023 — Some 36% of those enrolled in the Mais Medicos (More Doctors) program, one of the hallmarks of the Brazilian Government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, are professionals trained in Bolivia, Paraguay and Cuba, according to data sent by the Ministry of Health to EFE. In the last call of the program, 58% of the just over 34,000 enrolled were nationals trained in Brazil, with priority in access, while the rest, 42%, were foreigners or Brazilians educated outside the country.

Of those trained outside, 14% of the total number of registrants (4,846 professionals) trained in Bolivia; 13% (4,294), in Paraguay; and 9.5% (3,235), in Cuba, followed by Argentina and Venezuela, with much lower numbers.

Lula’s Government, aware of the criticisms made of the program in the past, has tried to increase the representation of Brazilians with a variety of incentives, such as salary supplements and educational opportunities.

The high percentage of doctors trained abroad has been one of the most controversial points of the program since it was launched in 2013 during Dilma Rousseff’s mandate (2011-2016) to solve the deficit of health personnel in remote regions such as the Amazon.

According to the current law, approved by Congress at the end of June, doctors who practice abroad and sign up for the program can work in Brazil without having to undergo a knowledge test for the first four years. continue reading

The Federal Council of Medicine, which regulates the profession, said in June about those trained outside that it is “against their right to exercise the profession in the country without first proving their preparation.”

In addition, the Brazilian right has denounced for years that part of the salary paid to Cuban doctors, who until 2018 formed a majority of those enrolled in the program, was diverted to the Government of the Island.

In fact, former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) threatened to expel them, which led the Cuban government to end its official participation in the program and caused vast areas of the country to be left without medical attention.

Many Cuban doctors, however, decided to stay in Brazil, even without being able to dedicate themselves to the profession, and now they have the possibility of signing up for the program again.

The number of people enrolled in the latest edition of Más Médicos has broken records, according to the Government, and is well above the open vacancies, almost 6,000, a sixth of them destined for the Amazon region.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With the Murder of Saray Moya in Ciego De Ávila, Cuba Registers 48 Femicides This Year

Saray Moya Moreno died at the hands of her partner on Monday, according to several independent observatories. (Facebook/María Caridad Grau)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, July 6, 2023 — The independent feminist platform Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba (YSTCC)[I Do Believe You] documented this Wednesday a new sexist murder that occurred in the town of Chambas, in the province of Ciego de Ávila. With the death of Saray Moya Moreno, this Monday, at the hands of her partner, the number of femicides registered on the Island so far this year rises to 48.

The activists sent their condolences “to the affected families and especially to the sons and daughters” of the murdered woman. “In the faces of delinquency and impunity, we urge family members and children of legal age to pressure and demand justice from the corresponding institutions,” they stressed, in a message disseminated on social networks.

In addition, they ask for “citizen collaboration” to verify two other alleged femicides that occurred in the province of Santiago de Cuba. This group points out that since 2019, when it began to count sexist crimes on the Island, they have counted 166 that have been verified.

YSTCC and the Observatorio de Género de Alas Tensas (OGAT) [Tense Wings Gender Observatory] also confirmed on Wednesday another sexist crime, the twelfth recorded last June, the month with the most deaths of women at the hands of their partners or ex-partners so far this year. continue reading

According to the statements that her relatives offered to CubaNet, on June 19, the young Yunisleve Fernández reported at the Torrientes Police Station, in the Matancero municipality of Jagüey Grande, that her aggressor had brutally beaten her. Upon learning that Fernández had gone to the authorities, her ex-partner, who is not named by the media but apparently lived under the same roof as the victim, threatened to kill her. Four days later, on June 23, Fernández was murdered with a knife in front of her four-year-old son and her mother.

The Island exceeds, in just six months, the total number of feminicides verified throughout 2022 (36), according to the records of the activists and collated by 14ymedio, in the absence of official public statistics.

These groups insist on their calls to the authorities of the Island to declare a “state of emergency for gender violence,” and regret that the Cuban Government has not taken measures in this regard.

The work of independent feminists and their dissemination in the unofficial media has contributed to putting the focus on the cases of sexist murders and disappearances of Cubans in recent years.

YSTCC has highlighted that “nothing would have been possible without all those people who share content, verify data and are support networks for survivors.”

These groups, which have social networks and victim help phones, advocate for a comprehensive law against sexist violence and the implementation of protocols to prevent these events, as well as the creation of shelters and rescue systems for women in danger and their children.

Last April, President Miguel Díaz-Canel assured that there would be “zero tolerance” for this type of violence. In June, the official Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) created the Cuba Observatory on Gender Equality, which includes statistics on “women who have been victims of intentional homicide as a result of gender violence in the last 12 months.”

The Supreme People’s Court of the Island reported in mid-May that in 2022 there were 18 convictions for sexist murders, all with penalties of more than 25 years in prison. It did not give more details, and it is still not known to which cases those sentences correspond.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In Cuba People Go Hungry but Communist Experiments Continue

Cuban farmers have been hit hard by lack of inputs, fuel shortages and drought. (Flickr / Kuhnmi)

Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 6 July 2023 — The steps that Cuban communist leaders say they are taking to “strengthen local food systems in all municipalities of the country” can give much worse results. This blog has previously warned that transferring production, which should be attended to at the national level, to the territories is a loss of efficiency, because resources are not used properly. If the authorities persist in the effort, let them be warned. This is not the way to achieve sovereignty or food and nutritional security.

The effort to transform local food systems has been one of the latest ideas of communist leaders for a little more than a year, as part of the actions to deal with the serious economic situation in which the economy finds itself, because of the Ordering Task.* The leaders’ slogan is that “there should be no patio, plot or piece of land unplanted.” But the State continues to maintain thousands of idle acres, which do not produce and do not become profitable. Behind this initiative is Prime Minister Marrero, who will end up reaping one more failure in his long political career.

It seems unbelievable that the communist leaders believe that there are strategies to strengthen local food systems in all the municipalities of the country. Apparently no one has explained to them what economic geography is and the remarkable disparity that exists between some areas and others for a productive dedication to agricultural tasks. That disparity favors the specialization and the search for economies of scale to produce at minimum unit costs.

Therefore, in Cuba before 1959, there was one head of beef cattle per inhabitant on the plains of Camagüey and the best sweet potato obtained in the fields near the capital. No one would think of raising cattle in the latter area or planting sweet potato on the Camagüey plains. The Spaniards had already realized these circumstances since colonial times. If it is now intended that the same thing will occur in each municipality and province, not even those commissions created to implement the measures will be successful. continue reading

Why have the communists come to these measures to take advantage of local systems? According to Marrero, because of the “financial restrictions faced by the country, the impacts of climate change, the global food crisis and the origin of food in imports.” And once again the question is, what do local systems have to do with these problems that belong to the agenda of governments? Isn’t there a covert intention of the regime to transfer its problems and responsibilities to others? Is there no one in local and provincial governments who doesn’t realize the trap they are setting for them? Well, it doesn’t seem so. And so, if no one or nothing says otherwise, this transfer of power will soon take place and will create first and second class Cubans at the same time.

The point is that with these measures it will not be possible to reduce the importations of food and, at the same time, increase the sources of national production. Quite the contrary. The dependence of imports on the financial resources that can be obtained once again poses the problem of the payment of debts, which the communists never talk about. But in reality, if Cuba does not have access to the international financial markets it is because it does not comply with payment of its debts, and, logically, no one wants to lend. So tell me what this has to do with local and provincial governments.

In addition, what no one understands is that 2 billion dollars are allocated to food imports, and at the same time, national productions of rice, beans, corn and pork continue to have low yields, very low production levels and very high financial costs. Something happens in the structure of the land that prevents Cuban agriculture from prospering.

Going to the 7,000 communities of the country to produce food, reaching the popular councils, constituencies, self-consumption, patios and plots, offers an idea of the current desperation of the leaders to produce food. A flight forward that will end up disrupting the productive structure, more or less the same thing that happened with the harvest of the 10 million. The leaders want everyone who has land to have to produce. Although they recognize that the level of self-sufficiency is insufficient for the demand, the official slogan is maintained: “We must sow and achieve compliance with what was designed in each municipality.”

Accompanied by this plan, the leaders want to perfect the process of contracting agricultural productions and at the same time, enhance the so-called urban, suburban and family agriculture program, with an agro-ecological approach based on the reserves and potential of each locality.

The actions proposed for this are hilarious, to classify them in some way. The communists propose “the transformation of urban farms, the use of the agricultural areas available in labor centers, the promotion of a popular productive movement, the consolidation of structures for obtaining organic fertilizers and bio-products, and the commercialization of productive surpluses, freely and directly, by families.” Except for the latter, which is conditioned by low yields, the other measures are absurd.

The regime insists that “we have to continue planting, because yields are limited due to objective conditions of the soils, substrates and irrigation systems.” However, no one assumes any responsibility for the idle lands that belong to the State and that cannot be obtained because of the obstruction of the local leaders who are responsible for applying the legal rules that have been published for this purpose.

And so, entertaining themselves with this nonsense, the population still does not find in the shops the food that it needs or must pay very high prices for the few items that are obtained in the informal markets. No matter how urgent Marrero says it is to apply these reforms, the truth is that a year has passed since the measures were implemented, and the results are even worse than before.

Once again, we warn that food sovereignty will not be achieved through this initiative to consolidate local food systems and even less so with the approach of the Law that is oriented to the elements of sustainability and resilience, when the priority should be yields and production. Communism, as an economic ideology, has no remedy.

*The Ordering Task is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency, which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘Traitors’ to the Regime, the Two Cubans Who Fled in a Hang Glider Get Asylum in the United States

López and Hernández left Tarará in an ultralight delta wing, of the Trike type, with registration number CU-U 1619, which was used for the recreation of tourists. (Twitter/Florida Keys Sheriff)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 July 6, 2023 — The United States granted political asylum to the two Cubans who landed at the Florida keys in a motored hang glider last March. David López Alfonso and Ismael Hernández Chirino will have to stay up to ten more days in the Krome migrant prison in Miami, waiting for the judge who granted them international protection to issue the order in writing.

According to Univision journalist Daniel Benítez, the pilots “won their cases,” and although there is a possibility that the US Prosecutor’s Office will challenge the sentence, it is likely that it will not make any appeal.

This newspaper had access to several testimonies offered to the asylum court by legal experts, including those of lawyer Siro del Castillo, who presented a contextualization of the case of López and Hernández before the court. The director of the Cubalex legal aid NGO, Laritza Diversent, also collaborated with the defense team, led by lawyer Wilfredo Allen.

In his testimony, Del Castillo reminded the court that the Cuban government would have no mercy on both pilots and that the regime’s press had launched a campaign to demand their return. López and Hernández left Tarará, in the municipality of Habana del Este, in an ultralight delta wing, of the Trike type, with registration number CU-U 1619, which was used for the recreation of foreign tourists.

The Cuba Aviation Club — an entity, said the lawyer, led by former spy René González, “who at the time traveled to the United States with a plane that was stolen from Cuba” – argued that the action of the pilots was a “desertion,” and it asked for “the corresponding sanctions for the seriousness of the case and the return of the stolen equipment.” continue reading

Del Castillo stressed that both the Aviation Club and the Civil Institute of Aeronautics – which regulates Cuban airspace – are institutions that respond directly to the Government of the Island. To demonstrate this, he quotes González himself when he says that the Club “recognizes the political orientation of the Cuban State and its Constitution.”

There is, therefore, a relationship of “dependence” between the regime and the aeronautical institutions, according to the expert, which has led them to sign statements, for example, of support for the invasion of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. This link, Del Castillo suggests, discredits the authority of the Aviation Club in terms of moral claims such as the one it intends in the case of López and Hernández.

Finally, and quoting the former spy again, Del Castillo argues the danger in which both pilots will find themselves if they return to a country where they are considered political “enemies”: “It is very difficult to make a revolution without having to guillotine someone. The important thing is that the guillotine is not the main instrument. Every revolution generates a counterrevolution and has to defend itself,” González said publicly in 2018, according to the lawyer.

Cuban pilots, Del Castillo concluded, will not have an opportunity for a fair defense in Cuba, where they have already been described as “traitors” by the highest authorities, and the Constitution of the Republic itself calls for “the most severe sanctions.” Both the fact that they stole a state air vehicle, and their relationship with the tourist sphere are, the lawyer considers, aggravating for their case and could lead to “major prison terms.”

Both pilots were part, during their Active Military Service, of the Cuban border guard corps, managing vehicles similar to the delta wing with which they escaped the country. “It is not surprising that the Cuban authorities, to give more weight to the accusation of ’traitors’ with a claim of a maximum penalty against López and Hernández, who are accused of having passed to the authorities of the United States, information about the air patrol system on the coasts of Cuba, would allow the government prosecutor’s office on the Island to accuse both of disclosure of secrets concerning the security of the State,” says the lawyer.

The judge was convinced, among other arguments, with the assertion that the action of López and Hernández “was motivated solely and exclusively by their desire to live in freedom,” as “hundreds of Cubans” have done in recent decades, “using boats and even planes owned by the Government.”

The latter was the case of Rubén Martínez Machado, a Cuban who managed to escape in a Russian-made Antonov plane on October 21 and land at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, located in the middle of the Everglades. The 29-year-old was a pilot of the Cuban Air Services Company, belonging to the Cuban Aviation Corporation, and he left the Island through Sancti Spíritus.

Customs agents interrogated the pilot as soon as he landed, and he was immediately put in the custody of the authorities. Martínez is currently free after a judge granted him political asylum.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: Pirates of Yesterday and Today

On the day of the assault, Pérez de Angulo was governor and defended Havana with 65 foot soldiers and 16 on horseback. (Public domain)

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 4 July 2023 – Laws that restrict business to an absurd extent usually generate corruption and all manner of roguery. Following the Conquest and colonisation of the Americas, the maritime powers established a commercial system that created an exclusive relationship between the metropolises and their colonies. Trading with foreigners carried the penalty of a jail sentence, excommunication and confiscation of assets. This measure affected the colonies most of all but it also promoted smuggling and filled the seas with plunderers.

It all started with a few French vessels laying siege to the fleets which arrived in the Canary Islands. Later, these sailors got hold of the Spanish navigation charts and approached the waters of the Caribbean. England, France and Holland saw such substantial gains in these sorts of ventures that they began to invest their own funds in the business. It was the heyday of the black flags with the skulls and crossbones.

As opposed to ordinary pirates, these pirates relied on permission from some country or other to attack and rob from their rivals. When two kingdoms were at war, the offender had to be treated as an enemy soldier, with all the guarantees that implied. In times of peace it was assumed that these pirates had to respect the truce, although the soul of a pirate will nonetheless grant himself a blank cheque to never take this sort of thing seriously.

The buccaneers, for their part, were a kind of pirate of terra firma. The term búcan was the Tainos word for the technique of smoking meat. Many Europeans learnt how to use these skills; they dedicated themselves to smuggling and adopted the name of buccaneers. In Cuba they were mostly to be found in areas like Camagüey and Las Tunas. continue reading

The fledgling Cuban population were victims of pirate assaults on a number of occasions. It’s known that Havana was reduced to ashes in 1538. And in the same year, outside the port of Santiago, the Sevillian captain Diego Pérez battled a French pirate for four days. By day they attacked mercilessly with canon fire. And by night they sent messengers bearing gifts, like good Christian gentlemen, until the French lifted anchor and bid them adieu.

But the most famous attack took place on the tenth of July 1555, led by Jacque de Sores. Ten years earlier, San Cristobal de La Habana was defended by a single canon of 47 hundredweight which they nicknamed “the savage”, evidence of which had been accompanied by exaggeration and ostentation from an early stage. Later the place was “fortified” until it had three canons. At the time of the attack, the governor was Pérez de Angulo, who defended Havana with 65 foot soldiers and 16 others on horseback.

As soon as the French pirate – follower of the famous Pegleg – returned to dry land, Angulo ran terrified to the yucayeque of Guanabacoa. However, the governor, Don Juan de Lobera, stood his ground the best could, defending from the old Fort.

But there wasn’t a great deal of courage in this resistance. Some of his men suggested he surrender, telling him that he could die if he wanted to but he wasn’t going to sacrifice all the others. Sores himself asked who was the madman that was trying to defend Havana with four crossbows. One of his artillerymen even went to negotiate with the pirates, speaking to them in German so that Juan wouldn’t understand a word.

Finally, the pirate conquered the place, although he didn’t find the riches he was hoping for, apart from an emerald ring and a silver dinner service. The Frenchman took hostages and demanded 30 thousand pesos in ransom…as well as some cassava bread loaves! He spared the brave defender’s life and promised not to molest the women.

Angulo, in a final attempt to save his honour, gathered an army together at Matanzas… no exaggeration. There were 95 Spanish, some 200 Africans and around 80 indigenous men. The element of surprise was a key factor, but the indigenous men, who were used to attacking with ferocious noise, alerted the French with their shouting and it was a disaster. The pirate swords repelled the attempt and Havana continued to be under French rule for a few more days.

As a counter-offer, three thousand pesos ransom was offered. However, the inhabitants only managed to get together one third of the amount. Sores, outraged in the face of such destitution (or miserliness), set fire to everything that could be burnt. Angulo was sent to Spain and was tried for cowardice and lack of foresight. He was the last of the civilian governors.

Today, centuries later, buccaneering still survives. And in Cuba many have permission to practice it, which, technically… turns them into pirates?

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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While Healthy and Cheap Food is Absent, Parranda Beer Arrives in Cuba in Half-Liter and a Liter-and-a-Half Bottles

A shipment of Parranda was already for sale this Thursday in the Havana market on 3rd and 70th. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, July 6, 2023 — Cubans who wanted to buy Parranda beer – created by an agreement between the Dutch company Bavaria and the state-owned Cuba Ron – have only been able to do so in the 3rd and 70th market in Havana and paying in freely convertible currency (MLC). The debut of the drink, packaged in a plastic bottle that already arouses ridicule and suspicion, was announced with great fanfare on its official Facebook page .

As this newspaper was able to verify, the customers who went to the store purchased a half-liter bottle of Parranda for a price of 1.20 MLC, while to purchase the liter and a half container the price was 2.95 MLC.

“It tastes like Cristal,” announced one of the vendors at 3rd and 70th, while responding to the customers’ dislike for the plastic container with a recommendation: “After drinking the beer, you can use it to store water.”

The brand also seems willing to be ecologically correct, since it proposed a “recycling policy” from its launch. Next to the promotional text of the label, whose motto is “United for beer,” written in honeyed advertising language and with a QR code, which reads: “Scan to find out how to get your deposit back.” The reward?: 0.10 MLC for each bottle. continue reading

The brewery, which began with a strong publicity campaign, has managed to get figures of Cuban culture related to the regime such as Alexánder Abreu, Mónica Mesa and former volleyball player Alain Roca – who presented a video of a visit to the factory – to promote the product.

Parranda’s presentation took place at the Havana International Fair (Fihav), held in November 2022. Those who knew about the next release of a light beer made on the island, with an alcohol level of 4.8 – less than the well-known Cristal (4.9) and Bucanero (5.4%) – and bottled in plastic, predicted that the brand would not be very successful. In addition, it was pointed out that a container with these characteristics would not support either conservation or the quality of the drink.

The beer – whose name is intended to evoke “the tradition of the popular festivals that are celebrated in the Cuban municipality of Remedios,” according to its promotion – had already been announced in August 2021, without the name being known at the time. The financing of the product will be the responsibility of Cuba and the Netherlands, with a mixed capital system.

De Parranda intends to manufacture a million hectoliters per year. “We have top quality technology from the product itself, to the fermentation and filter tanks, as well as the equipment with high quality standards,” its managers informed Cubadebate after the presentation.

However, the dependence on imported raw materials to manufacture Parranda’s plastic containers and the difficulty in repairing, in the precarious economic conditions in which the Island lives, the foreseeable breaks in the “modern technologies” that the factory boasts of, do not seem to augur a very festive future for the new national beer.

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Venezuela Raised Its Fuel Exports to Cuba by Almost 30 Percent in June

A tanker truck unloads fuel at the Tángana service center in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, July 6, 2023 — Fuel shipments from Venezuela to Cuba continue to increase. In June, according to the monthly report of the Reuters agency, they increased by almost 30%: from 58,000 barrels per day (bpd) in May to 75,000 bpd.

The main destination for Venezuelan oil, whose exports surpassed 700,000 bpd last month (an 8% increase from the previous month), was China, followed by Iran. On the other hand, exports to the United States through Chevron fell slightly, to about 134,000 bpd, from 150,000 bpd in May.

In total, 37 shipments left Venezuelan ports in June with 715,933 bpd of crude and refined products and 294,000 metric tons of petroleum derivatives, details Reuters.

As documented by the British news agency, the increase in fuel exports is due to the restart of a key processing unit, a “crude upgrader” operated by PDVSA and the Russian state company Roszarubezhneft, which converts extra-heavy crude into exportable grades and which was returned to service in mid-June six months after being damaged by fire. continue reading

Along with the Venezuelan oil, after the oil supply agreement with Russia, the Island began to receive oil from that country. Thus, the SCF Prime ship, with the Liberian flag and an approximate capacity of 530,000 barrels, arrived this Tuesday in Havana Bay from the port of Tuapse.

Through the maritime monitoring web pages, this newspaper followed the trajectory of the oil tanker from its departure from Tuapse, on June 3, until it reached the Cuban coast a month later, on July 4. The ship then disappeared from the radar and does not appear on the lists of ships anchored in any Cuban port.

However, the photographs captured this Tuesday by 14ymedio confirmed that the tanker is anchored in front of the capital’s refinery, although it is unknown if it will travel to other port terminals in the country.

The arrival of SCF Prime had also been announced by the academic and specialist from the University of Texas (USA) Jorge Piñón. A report on the movement of oil tankers traveling to the island – with both Cuban and foreign flags – offered by Piñón to this newspaper, indicated that fuel traffic through the island continues to increase.

Meanwhile, on June 17, the Mexican journalist Gerardo Aburto accused President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of “giving crude oil to the oppressive government of Cuba.”

An invoice, published by Aburto himself, shows how the state monopoly Pemex sold to Gasolineras del Bienestar — a government program to support state institutions and private initiative in Mexico — 350,000 barrels of Istmo oil (a variant of crude used to make gasoline), diesel, jet fuel and kerosene) to send them to the island. The document also includes the name of the Delsa tanker and the entity to which the fuel is delivered: Unión Cuba Petróleo (Cupet).

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Portuguese Government Wants To Reinforce Public Health With 300 Doctors From Cuba

The export of professional services, mainly doctors and teachers, is Cuba’s main source of income. (@MINSAPCuba)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, July 5, 2023 — The Portuguese government plans to strengthen the country’s public health system by hiring 300 Cuban doctors, who have already started the necessary procedures, the Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Notícias reported on Wednesday .

According to this medium, the Ministry of Health intends to remedy the shortcomings of the National Health Service (SNS) by hiring three hundred doctors from Cuba, who would work in Portugal for three years.

In addition, the Government, chaired by the socialist António Costa, has already initiated the procedures so that these professionals can be incorporated as soon as possible into the public system, taking into account the various steps that foreigners must go through outside the territory of the European Community before being considered fit.

To receive authorization to practice, doctors arriving from third countries must undergo several tests, not only in medicine, but also in Portuguese, for example.

It is not the first time that Portugal has resorted to Cuban healthcare workers; in 2009 it welcomed 44 to reinforce the public network in the regions of Ribatejo (center), Alentejo and Algarve (south).

When asked by EFE, sources from the Ministry of Health limited themselves to pointing out that the hiring of foreign health professionals is “complementary and transitory” to nationals and its objective is “to contribute to the adequate provision of human resources and response capacity” of the SNS. continue reading

In this sense, “joint work is underway between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education.”

According to the data provided, in 2022 the Portuguese public system had 1,270 foreign doctors. Local media reported that the total number of foreign professionals registered with the College of Physicians amounted to 4,503. The news comes on a day in which Portuguese doctors began a two-day strike to demand wage and labor improvements.

Local media reported that the total number of foreign professionals registered with the College of Physicians numbered 4,503.

If an agreement is not reached with the Ministry of Health, the National Federation of Physicians (FNAM), which called for the stoppage, does not rule out another one at the beginning of August. This strike could coincide with World Youth Day, in which Lisbon is expected to welcome one million faithful Catholics from the 1st to the 6th of next month.

Health is one of the sectors that has been the source of the most complaints in the last year, marked by a crisis in emergencies, especially in maternity and obstetrics, due to the lack of resources.

The medical brigades are one of the main sources of foreign currency for the Government of Havana, and have been denounced as forced labor by international organizations such as Human Rights Watch or Prisoners Defenders. The United States also has Cuba on the list of countries that fail to comply with international human rights standards.

They are in addition to the main strategies of the Cuban Government to maintain its presence with its allied countries, such as Mexico , Italy, Qatar, Brazil, Venezuela ND Nicaragua. Some of the most recent data, collected in the statistical yearbooks published by the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei), dates from 2021, when 4,349 million dollars were collected for the export of health services abroad .

In contrast, on the island, health services are deteriorating, not only due to a lack of health professionals, but also due to the shortage of basic medicines, which the government in Havana attributes to financing problems and the international supply of raw materials. On the other hand, infrastructure modernization investments are focused on tourist complexes, intended to activate the compromised economy, while complaints about the precarious conditions in hospitals in Cuba are increasingly frequent on social networks.

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Cuban Team’s Goalkeeper and Doctor Take Advantage of Soccer’s Gold Cup to Stay in the US

After the game in which Cuba lost 2-4 against Canada, goalkeeper Sandy Sanchez withdrew from the Cuban team. (Hit)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 July 2023 — Cuban goalkeeper Sandy Sandocan Sánchez played for the last time with the Island’s colors on Tuesday, when his team lost 2-4 against Canada. After the game, held at the Shell Energy Stadium in Texas, USA, he “escaped.” A few hours earlier, the doctor of the Cuban soccer team, Alexis Martínez, also left the delegation.

After Cuba’s failure in the Gold Cup, Sánchez defected after playing until the 61st minute ,”to establish himself” in the US, said Alexander Ramírez, a contributor to Play-Off Magazine. Days before, his companions had also ’”escaped” Roberney Caballero, Denilson Milanés, Neisser Sandó and Jassael Herrera .

The escape of Sánchez and his colleagues from the national team “represents a record of exits in Gold Cup events,” commented sports journalist Francys Romero. They exceed the four that were registered in the 2015 and 2019 editions. With Sandocan “there are 35 Cuban athlete dropouts in 2023.”

As for the team doctor, Alexis Martínez, his departure was reported by the contributor to Cuban Pelota magazine, Yordano Carmona, who recalled that the previous team doctor had also left the team after receiving his visa to the US.

The official media outlet Jit acknowledged that after the three defeats in the Gold Cup, “disappointment” prevailed at not being able to qualify. Goalkeeper Raiko, brother of baseball player Randy Arozarena, mentioned that Sandy Sánchez’s lineup was to “give him play.”

In the 2022 edition of the Gold Cup, the athletes Rey Ángel Martínez, 20, and Alberto Delgado, 22, abandoned the Cuban soccer team.

In 2005, during a stay in Seattle, soccer players Yaykel Pérez and Maykel Galindo separated from the group. Pérez’s physical qualities led him to be signed by the Chivas USA team, being recognized as the first Cuban to play with a team with Mexican roots.

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Families Search for and Capture the Water Lost on the Streets of the Cuban Capital

Sitting on the porch, a couple of young people try to fill some buckets in in front of their building located on Malecón avenue. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 6 July 2023 — Every neighborhood has its secrets, its particular signs and marks. The place where the lowest tap is located is one of those pieces of information that can save a meal, a bath, and even a life. It is in that faucet, sometimes at ground level, where the water arrives first and leaves last. Sometimes it is inside the stairs of a house, other times in the corridor of a tenement and many times, in an old hydrant it runs out of.

In the midst of the profound water supply crisis that Havana is experiencing, where more than 200,000 people are affected by the lack of the precious liquid, knowing the closest point where you can go to fill at least one jug, late at night, or the day when water is finally pumped, is vital knowledge. As in those wide and hot savannas where the animals try to reach the only lake that allows them to cool off and drink, in the Cuban capital a pipe that releases a trickle, when the others are dry, is anyone’s wet dream.

Sitting on the porch this Tuesday afternoon, a couple of young people were trying to fill some buckets outside the ground floor of their building located on Malecón avenue. A pipe, which was once under the sidewalk but has now emerged due to soil erosion and the desperation of the residents, released a small stream. It was all the water that had arrived in days at one of the many tenements overlooking the sea on that street that acts as a border and breakwater.

With patience, for long minutes and hours, the men filled bottles, containers, the jug that they would later place in the refrigerator to quench the thirst of their large family. Right there, too, they took the opportunity to take a bath in front of the gaze of passers-by. No one flinched or was shocked. Finding water in Havana is a meritorious task. Anyone who knows where the lowest faucet in their neighborhood is located has a better chance of rinsing their mouths, washing a baby or making lemonade.

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Almost 1,500 Cuban Minors Crossed Honduras in Transit to the United States in the First Half of the Year

From January 1 of this year to June 25, there has been an irregular flow of 128,133 migrants, of whom 9,366 were nationals of the Island. (Twitter-Hunduras National Police)

EFE/14ymedio, Tegucigalpa/Havana, 5 July 2023 — More than 24,000 migrant minors in transit to the United States crossed Honduras in the first half of 2023, 181% more compared to the 8,555 who entered in the same period of 2022, according to data consulted this Wednesday by EFE.

Between January and June, about 24,030 irregular minors entered Honduras, of which 14,127 were boys and 9,903 girls, according to a report by the Honduran National Institute of Migration (INM).

Of the total migrant minors who entered the country 39.1% (9,410) were Venezuelans, the nationality that predominates in the migratory wave to the United States.

The second largest nationality of minors who entered Honduras were Ecuadorians, 5,147, followed by Cubans (1,481), Brazilians (1,082) and Chileans (1,036).

Of the total number of girls and boys intercepted in Honduras, 39.6% or 9,527 were age 10 or younger, and 14,503 (60.4%) were 11 or older, the INM explained.

In 2022, Honduras intercepted about 37,469 migrant minors, mostly from Cuba and Venezuela, according to official statistics. continue reading

In recent years, the Central American country has become a transit point for migrants who cross Central America in order to reach the United States.

According to the INM, from January 1 of this year to June 25, an irregular flow of 128,133 migrants has been recorded, of whom 9,366 were nationals of the Island.

Cubans have complained that during their time in Honduras they face the collection of fines by immigration authorities and extortion by the police, who demand 20 dollars at the checkpoints, says Rigoberto, a layman with the Jesús Está Vivo evangelization center of the Immaculate Conception church in Danlí, Honduras.

Many of the migrants who pass through this nation enter through “blind spots” known to the “coyotes,” human traffickers who do not always take them to the border with Guatemala, according to authorities and human rights organizations.

According to Doctors without Borders (MSF), the majority of migrants arrive in Honduras “with multiple medical and humanitarian needs.”

The migrants, according to their accounts, are victims of assaults, rapes, kidnappings and other risky situations during their trip.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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An Oil Tanker With 530,000 Barrels From Russia Arrived in Havana

The photographs captured this Tuesday by 14ymedio confirm that the tanker is anchored in front of the capital city’s refinery. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 July 5, 2023 — The oil tanker SCF Prime, with a Liberian flag and an approximate capacity of 530,000 barrels, arrived this Tuesday in the bay of Havana from the Russian port of Tuapse. It is the first tanker to arrive on the Island after the oil supply agreement between Russia and Cuba and, although it was scheduled to unload in Matanzas on July 2, it ended up arriving in the capital.

Through the maritime monitoring websites, this newspaper followed the trajectory of the ship from its departure from Tuapse, on June 3, until it reached the Cuban coast a month later, on July 4. The ship disappeared from radar and does not appear on the lists of ships anchored in any Cuban port.

However, the photographs captured this Tuesday by 14ymedio confirm that the tanker is anchored in front of the capital city’s refinery, although it is unknown if it will travel to other port terminals in the country.

The arrival of the SCF Prime had also been announced by the academic and specialist of the University of Texas, Jorge Piñón. A report on the movement of oil tankers traveling to the Island – with both a Cuban and a foreign flag – offered by Piñón to this newspaper, pointed out that the trafic of fuel to the Island continues to increase.

On Tuesday, the Caribbean Alliance tankers, with the Panamanian flag, anchored in Mariel, were also detected by Vesselfinder: in Cienfuegos are the Gloria C – which operates with a Cuban flag – and the Ocean Integrity, also with the flag of Panama. Meanwhile, in Matanzas, the arrival of the Nicos I.V. and the Vilma, a Cuban tanker that sailed from Havana this Tuesday, the same day that the SCF Prime arrived, is expected. continue reading

Countries allied with Cuba continue to send oil to the Island. On June 17, Mexican journalist Gerardo Aburto accused President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of “giving crude oil to the oppressive government of Cuba.” An invoice, published by Aburto himself, shows how the state monopoly Pemex sold to Gasolineras del Bienestar – a government program to support state institutions and private initiative in Mexico – 350,000 barrels of Isthmus oil (a variant of crude oil used to manufacture gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and kerosene) to be sent to the Island. The document also includes the name of the tanker Delsa and the entity to whom the fuel is delivered: Unión Cuba Petróleo (Cupet).

No other official body, such as Customs or other departments of Pemex, was notified of the transaction through the due documentation. The journalist estimates that the value of the load can be set between 18 and 20 million dollars.

The ship that transported the cargo was the Delsa, one of the six Cuban-flagged oil tankers – along with the Vilma, Alicia, Sandino, Pastorita and Gloria C – which usually transports crude oil from the Venezuelan port of José to the terminals of the Island.

Piñón explained to 14ymedio that the Vilma – which also disappears from radar as soon as it approaches the Cuban coast – arrived in Cienfuegos on June 1 with 390,000 barrels of crude oil from José; the same amount was transported by the Delsa, also from José, to the port of Antilla, on the 30th.

For its part, the Sandino sailed from José with 440,000 barrels to the bay of Nipe, in Holguín, where it arrived on May 5. The Alicia brought to Havana 290,000 barrels from José on May 16 and another 295,000 from the Venezuelan terminal, Amuay, on the 28th.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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