14ymedio

Cuba Eliminates the Controversial Repatriation Requirement for Athletes Residing Abroad

With the elimination of the repatriation requirement for athletes on the Island, baseball player Yasmany Tomás, “The Tank,” will be able to play with the Industriales team. (Facebook/Yasmaní Tomás)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 June 2023 — Among the controversy over the desertions, this Thursday Cuba’s National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder) announced the elimination of the repatriation requirement for Cuban athletes residing abroad. The demand was an impediment for those who decided to emigrate to another country and wanted to participate in an event organized on the Island.

The official media Jit recognized that this requirement had been the generator of the greatest debates in baseball. It was indicated that it will be up to the different national commissions to update the regulations of their competitions, and this decision takes effect immediately.

The most recent case is that of Yasmany Tomás, “The Tank,” who had expressed his interest in returning to Cuba and playing with the Industriales team, but the repatriation requirement prevented him from doing so.

This player, who played four seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks and also joined the Mexican team of Los Mochis, was informed that with the elimination of the controversial measure, he will be able to play with the Industriales in the playoffs.

“Havana has just informed Tomás’ family that he is authorized to play in the 2023 playoffs,” Por La Goma posted on Facebook.

The repatriation process, which was authorized in 2013, has been used by emigrants who want to buy a home on the Island, reside in the country after retirement or regain access to certain social services, but it also implies that the person can be “regulated” with a ban on going abroad, tax obligations and legal duties. continue reading

On the other hand, Denilson Milanés, one of the four soccer players who left the Cuban soccer team in Miami, was accused of “treason” by his father Adilson Milanés, who under the auspices of Inder, works in Costa Rica as a coach of beach and court volleyball.

Adilson Milanés said he was “betrayed” by the escape of his son Denilson along with three other soccer players in Miami (USA). (Facebook/Adilsón Milanés)

“My son betrayed me and his grandmother,” said this native of Cienfuegos on his social networks. “Please Denilson, come back,” he asked. Adilson’s words, along with his studies at the Camilo Cienfuegos Military School, generated controversy and seemed to emanate from officialdom, from a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Since his desertion, Denilson Milanés has not offered any comments. In the face of Internet attacks, he clarified that his reaction had to do with politics. “In my post I said that I was betrayed,” he emphasizes. “You don’t know why. They want to politicize everything.”

So far, there are 33 dropouts of Cuban athletes in 2023. The figure does not surprise Raiko Arozarena, the brother of the naturalized Mexican baseball player Randy, who arrived in Mexico on a raft in June 2015. “It’s something we see as common,” the athlete said in an interview for the media covering the Gold Cup. “It has happened with several sports teams, that players arrive in foreign countries and stay,” he said.

Raiko Arozarena said that in the morning they trained, and at breakfast they began to tell people. “We saw that the boys were missing, that they stayed” at the place of practice. “When we had to travel to Houston, we noticed that Roberney Caballero, Denilson Milanés, Neisser Sandó and Jassael Herrera were not there.”

This Wednesday it was also confirmed that the former baseball player and director of the Island’s team, Roger Machado, arrived in the United States a month ago. The journalist Yordano Carmona specified that his arrival took place through humanitarian parole. “With the shortage in Cuba right now, they are even left without the dictatorship’s figureheads. Indeed, Roger Machado has been in West Palm Beach for more than a month through humanitarian parole. How great you are USA!”

Machado, the reporter said, is remembered for celebrating the Communist Party and the “90th birthday of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The United States and Mexico Discuss a Refugee Program That Could Benefit Cubans

The United States could benefit Cubans and other migrants with a shelter program. (EFE)

14ymedio, Mexico City, 2 July 2023 — The United States might extend the legal avenues for migration to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. The plan, according to Reuters, will allow people who meet the requirements to obtain refugee status to do so through the U.S. “refugee resettlement” program that is only available to applicants from abroad.

Unlike those migrants who apply for asylum after arriving in the United States under the condition of “refugees,” with this variant people receive authorization to enter the country, obtain work immediately and receive benefits such as housing and employment aid. Another benefit is that they can apply for permanent residence within a year, which offers more stability than other options.

Four officials confirmed that the governments of the United States and Mexico are discussing the plan. This program will be available to those migrants who prove that they suffer “persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership of a certain social group or political opinion.”

In April, the Biden government said it intended to admit 40,000 refugees between 2023 and 2024. As of May 31, about 3,400 had arrived, which shows that the pace would have to accelerate a lot to reach the goal. continue reading

In order to be eligible for the program, people have to prove that they were in Mexico before June 6. A source from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who remained anonymous, confirmed to 14ymedio that there have been several meetings between the two governments on the migration issue, but specified that “so far no agreement has been reached.”

Since January, the US government of Joe Biden implemented the humanitarian parole program. Despite the flood of applications and the difficulties in getting an appointment, as of May, 29,000 Cubans have benefited. The figure was given by Blas Nuñez-Neto, Acting Undersecretary of Border Policy and Immigration of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, who also announced that there will soon be new provisions for the family reunification process.

In Mexico, the official of the foreign ministry pointed out that applications for refuge increased by almost 30% in the first quarter of 2023, to a record 37,606, according to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance. In the figures published in May, there are 4,215 natives from the Island who have joined this program.

The coordinator of the Jesuit and Refugee Service, Karen Martínez, established that Chiapas is the southern state of Mexico with the highest reception of refugee applications, pointing out that in Tapachula there are about 26,000 foreigners this year and, of that number, 40% are refugees.

Chery Agnes, a migrant from Haiti, joined this day of peaceful mobilization against discrimination. This woman was a soccer player in her country, and her dream is to continue playing this sport where she is given an opportunity.

“I like everything, I’m a soccer player and I work with my body because I’m a model,” she told EFE. “I am a lesbian and am a very peaceful person, and I am here to show that we have rights,” she added.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Competing Pizzerias on Havana’s Obispo Street

The sweaty waiters at Via Venetto impatiently check their watches, smoking and chatting, hesitantly fearful of the swarming flies. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, June 29, 2023 — No one shows any interest in having lunch at Via Venetto, whose interior is pitch black and flies buzz around the pizzas on display. The restaurant is located on Obispo Street in a downtown area with constant foot traffic that should make it an ideal spot for any food service establishment. The shabby appearance of this formerly state-run operation — it was rented out long ago to private individuals — stands in contrast to the liveliness of its completely privately owned competitor just across the street, which always has a line outside.

Free of Via Venetto’s lineage, the rival pizzeria is bursting with energy. Though also under private management, it is unburdened by any ties to the state. Though tiny and nameless, the place is well-stocked and its prices are reasonable, making it possible to have a good meal here.

A young waiter dispatches customers’ orders with lighting speed. Meanwhile, across the street, the waiters at Via Venetto impatiently check their watches as they stand outside, smoking and chatting, hesitantly fearful of the swarming flies who have come to devour their pizzas.

“They’re like the soles of flip-flops,” observes one of its few customers, eloquently comparing their pizza’s tough dough and scanty cheese with rubber footwear. They are certainly cheaper, he concedes, but anyone who eats there knows what why kind of pizza he is getting: flavorless and low-quality.

A few steps away, the young woman at the modest storefront offers several types of cheese, ham, soft drinks and pizza, which are handed while still warm to customers, who prefer to eat standing up rather than seated in one of Via Venetto’s mortuary-red upholstered chairs. “It’s no secret”, notes another passing observer, frightened just by the sight of the place. “Every private individual who partners with the state ends up like the crab: walking away backwards!”

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Carlos Alberto Montaner, the Cuban Who Taught Us to Debate

The writer and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner has died after being diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease. (Archive)

14ymedio, Havana, Yoani Sánchez, 30 June 2023 — I had read him in those ‘plain-paper covered’ books that passed from hand to hand in Cuba in the 1990s. Later, on our Island where censorship was practiced in all its forms, several videocassettes with some of his participations in foreign television programs slipped through. He had a way of speaking and arguing so different from the leaders who were yelling at us from the tribunes that there was no way to take your eyes off the screen. Cultured, calm, smooth and with prodigious verbal ability, Carlos Alberto Montaner practiced an exercise that had been lost in national political life: debate with respect and arguments.

It was not for nothing that Fidel Castro hated him so much. Compared to the man of letters, versatile, disciplined, and who listened attentively to his interlocutor, our tropical caudillo seemed more hysterical, coarse, and authoritarian. In a hypothetical oral duel between the two, it was easy to determine who would most convince the audience, most move the audience and wield the most reliable data. The fear of meeting Montaner at some international event and coming out worse from an exchange of phrases must have tormented the dictator for decades, who always wanted to be a writer and only managed to become a crazy orator without any poetic flight.

The official discourse presented the exile, who escaped from the island in 1961, as the “black beast” of Castroism, the public enemy one of the nation and coined that he was a violent terrorist because he could not be defeated in the field of words. They ensured that several generations of Cubans did not read his texts at school and, even so, they did not manage to prevent people from knowing him in the country where he had been born in that distant 1943.

The official speech presented the exile, who escaped from the Island in 1961, as the “black beast” of Castroism, the public enemy of the nation

When I opened my Generación Y blog, in April 2007, one of the first attacks I received from the spokesmen for the regime was that of an supposed training that Montaner had given me in Spain, to return to the island and start publishing a blog. At that time, I was afraid and indignant that they lied with such impunity, but today it only makes me laugh and proud to see that, although I didn’t even know that man from Havana with his elegant bearing and tall stature at that time, with that campaign of firing squads against my reputation, they were actually linking my name to his forever. continue reading

With the passing of the years and a long fight to recover the right to travel outside my country, I finally met the author of the Secret Report on the Cuban Revolution. I was surprised by the tone of his voice when we shared a debate table in Madrid, the affability of his character, the immediate affection that he professed to every Cuban who approached him, the willingness to help his compatriots and the absolute lack of rancor in his attitude . That was not, at all, the man that Cuban State Security had painted with a very broad brush.

Later I met his family, he gave me several of his books and we continued talking about Cuba, his great obsession. The day Fidel Castro died, in November 2016, he was the first person my husband and I called from Havana to break the news. I saw him clarify more than once that the time had passed for him to dedicate himself to politics or integrate a government, although I also witnessed many people who approached him and said: “You have to be the next president of Cuba.”

Whenever we saw each other, he asked me about the young people on the Island, he expressed his hopes that the new generations would not have been able to completely eradicate the desire for freedom.

He had, like few relevant figures, the good sense to feel and act accordingly. Whenever we saw each other, he asked me about the young people on the Island, he expressed his hopes that the new generations had not been able to completely eradicate the desire for freedom. He was right. On July 11, 2021, we dialed his number again to confirm that he had not been wrong. Although with his death on June 29 in Madrid he was not able to see the end of the regime, he did experience the hope of those popular protests, the largest and most extensive in the entire history of our country.

His recent farewell column showed part of his greatness: it was a tour of his desires, anxieties, and expectations. While his archenemy had died consumed by anger and publishing insane reflections, Montaner left magnified: lucid, respected by the intellectual community and with the humility of one who knows that a lifetime is finite but every second counts. This Thursday he left with the peace of mind of having contributed with all his talent and energy to his land, to that Island to which he could not physically return but to which he returned, time and time again, through the writing.

Have a good trip, friend, the Cuba of the future will be more like your dreams than the current nightmare.

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Cuba Has Lost Carlos Alberto Montaner

Carlos Alberto Montaner would have been the best president of the Republic of Cuba at any moment when there might have been a transition to democracy. (Photo capture from YouTube)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 30 June 2023–“What qualifier should I use to win the title of top toady?” I asked Carlos Alberto Montaner one day. “Illustrious,” he replied, and we could not stop laughing.

I met him in 1996 during my first trip to Spain. I called the number for the Playor editorial offices and a secretary transferred me to him. “I am a Cuban journalist passing through Madrid, and I would like to speak with you,” I said by way of introduction. Following a brief pause he replied, “I’ll expect you here tomorrow afternoon.”

Being that Montaner was in the top tier of “enemies of the Revolution,” I assumed that before entering his office, located near the Puerta del Sol square, his bodyguards would search me and that certainly there would be cameras monitoring my visit. But such was not the case. Montaner himself opened the door and invited me into his office. “Do you work for Granma?” he asked, and when I told him that I was an outcast from official journalism, he made the first joke that started the bond of humor we shared: “Then I’ll notify the Marines and the CIA that they can call off the operation.”

At the conclusion of that first encounter, he invited me to have a coffee at a nearby kiosk, where he confessed to me that this act — which he would repeat every day — was his therapy against nostalgia for Cuba. continue reading

I have read all of his books and most of the articles he published throughout his long career. Every time we would meet in Miami or Madrid he would ask me specific questions about Cuban issues, of which he was always deeply informed. For many, including myself, he would have been the best president of the Republic at any moment there might have been a transition to democracy. Once, when he was in his seventies, he said that he he was already too old to aspire to such political responsibilities. In May of this year, already having lived to 80, and suffering from a cruel disease, he retired from the mission of writing columns.

Today I have learned that he will never be in Havana celebrating with friends the end of the dictatorship. If I get to witness that outcome, I promise to raise a glass to him — for his ideas, for his courage, and for his brilliant intelligence.

Goodbye, my illustrious friend.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

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Carlos Alberto Montaner Dies in Madrid Without Having Fulfilled His Dream of Seeing a Free Cuba

Writer and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner has died after being diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease. (Archivo)

14ymedio, Madrid, 30 June 30, 2023 — The writer and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner died this Thursday at his home in Madrid, where he lived since October 2022, “peacefully and accompanied by his loved ones after facing a neurodegenerative disease,” according to a statement issued by his family.

In the statement, his wife Linda, his children Gina and Carlos and their granddaughters Paola, Gabriela and Claudia express their gratitude “to the Spanish public health professionals, to the Right to Die with Dignity Association and to all the relatives and friends who showed so much affection to him in the final stretch of a prolific life marked by the defense of individual freedoms.”

Carlos Alberto Montaner was diagnosed in the Madrid public hospital Gregorio Marañón, as he himself said in his last farewell column, of Progressive Supranuclear Paralysis (PSP), a rare disease of the Parkinson’s family that has no cure and whose origin is unknown.

In May, the author made the decision to publish a text in which he reviewed his life, dedicated to the vindication of democracy and political pluralism by writing, the best thing he knew how to do and that, in fact, he did in the pages of some of the best newspapers in America and Europe.

Carlos Alberto Montaner supported the birth of 14ymedio by signing its manifesto of support, and for this newspaper it has been an honor to have his signature on a regular basis. He departs, however, without achieving his dream of seeing a free Cuba. continue reading

His farewell will be an intimate and private act, according to the family, which closes with a phrase from Montaner himself, published in his memoir, Sin ir más lejos [Without going any further]. “The time has come to recapitulate. We have to pack our bags. Disappearing is an ungrateful activity that is only justified because it is the only irrefutable proof that we have lived.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Jose Angel Buesa, the Cuban Poet Ignored by Castrismo

José Ángel Buesa published numerous poems, which today fill Cubans with pride, both on and outside the island. (Verbum)

14ymedio, Jorge Hernández Fonseca, Miami, 26 June 2023 – It is estimated that there are more than three million Cubans (and descendants of Cubans) in exile. One of them was, in his day, José Ángel Buesa. Very early in the Cuban communist revolution, a romantic poet disaffected with the emerging dictatorship was one intellectual too many for a regime which required unconditional support, and a man with Buesa’s integrity could not, in any way, give that. His romanticism collided head on with the firing squads and the Acts of Repudiation of this violent era and he had to exile himself.

The poet passed through the motherland, Spain, and then tried to establish himself in the Canary Islands, from where destiny took him back to a place nearer to home – El Salvador. From there, even closer again, he settled in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic where he became a university professor and published numerous poems which today fill Cubans with pride, both on and outside the island. Reading Buesa’s work was forbidden in Cuba for generations. His romanticism was deemed “not good for a people that had to hate the enemy”.

Nevertheless, we have heard from the island recently that there is now a growing affection for the poet. The need for dollars, that the dictatorship suffered from as a consequence of their uselessness and inefficiency, has brought about the publication of Buesa’s poems in high quality print, for sale in Freely Convertible Currency (MLC) – that is, to tourists; but, as the prohibition has been lifted, hearing them even on official radio Cubans are going crazy for his poems – Cubans that didn’t even know that they had a poet of such calibre, born in Cruces but forced into exile as a persona non grata.

We Cuban exiles are no strangers to the critical polemic aimed at the romantic poets. Whatever the personal circumstances of each person, that controversy doesn’t imply censorship of any poetic tendencies, because there is room for everyone, as demonstrated on the island, which censured Buesa over many decades, wanting to tip the scales against him and favouring materialism in literature, and now this Buesomania explodes in their hands simply because of the tenderness of his poems and their depth in singing about love.

José Ángel Buesa deserves a seat of honour at the table of contemporary intellectuals but the Cuban dictatorship isn’t going to grant it because his poetry is the very negation of the philosophical and social policy that they have implanted in a totalitarian manner. Because of this, it is the duty of all good Cubans in exile, in whatever profession, to pay the homage deserved to Buesa, so that he may finally rest in peace in his grave in Miami.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso.

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‘The Private Company is of the Revolution’, the Cuban Government Tells tothe United States

“Companies that work with independence and creativity promote economic and social development on the Island,” said the U.S. Embassy in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 29 June 29, 2023 — The private company, anathema in Cuba for more than 60 years, has become, from one day to the next, a lifeline of the regime and a new reason for friction with Washington.

In some unusual statements, this Thursday, Johana Tablada, he Cuban Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Director General for the United States, boasted that the private sector “emerges and develops under the policies of the Cuban Revolution, discussed and approved by the citizenry.”

The official’s Facebook post – collected by the Prensa Latina agency – alluded, without saying it specifically, to a tweet two days ago from the U.S. Embassy in Havana, which promoted on its networks an extensive report on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Cuba, published last week by The Miami Herald.

The link was accompanied by the message: “There is a significant growth of the private sector in Cuba! The private sector is on its way to buying more than a billion dollars in goods by the end of 2023. Companies that work with independence and creativity promote economic and social development on the Island.”

On the same subject this Thursday, WLRN, from South Florida, dedicates a chronicle to the incipient Cuban businesspeople, saying that Cuban capitalism is becoming a reality. Cuban capitalists hope that U.S. aid will be real. According to the author, “Cuba’s communist economy is sinking, but its capitalist entrepreneurs are growing, and the United States wants to associate with them before Russia does.”

Faced with this, Tablada lashed out against the United States for “illegal coercive measures of an intensified blockade that hinder income, banking transactions, trade and investments and that torture the Cuban population,” and for “the financial siege and persecution for fraudulent inclusion of Cuba on the terrorist list.” continue reading

Those journalistic notes, however, not only took the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by surprise but also part of the exile, which sees the proliferation of new private companies on the Island as a “fraud,” as Rosa María Payá harshly expressed.

For her part, businesswoman and activist Saily González responded with a long thread to the “various inaccuracies” and “some fallacies” which, in her opinion, the Herald report incurred. “A country in transition? Where to? Towards an economic model similar to the Russian oligarchy, I suppose,” she tweeted, echoing one of the phrases of the report and alluding to the growing fear of an opening of the Cuban economy to the Russian one, given the latest agreements between Havana and Moscow.

Inside the Island, as this newspaper has noted, the distrust of these new businesses comes from the high prices and the fear that they will be managed by people close to the regime.

Interviewed in this regard by the Herald, Catholic activist Dagoberto Valdés, founder of the magazine Convivencia, stated that although he understands that “the economic actors closest to the circle of power” may be those who arrive at the “caramel” in a “piñata effect,” he says that it is “mathematically impossible” that the almost 8,000 private businesses “are directed by relatives of government officials.”

Reinaldo Escobar, editor-in-chief of 14ymedio, also referred to a “piñata” in the gathering of Radio Martí, Las Noticias como Son, saying that the private company has been “kidnapped” by those who rule, “in a very easy way: as they have all the power, they are those who tell someone yes and someone no, who allow thing and not another.” However, he said that it was “a conquest of the people who are critical of the Government” and a demand “that did not come from above, but from below.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Endless Ordeal of Retirees in Matanzas, Cuba, to Collect their Pensions

Those affected are elderly people, many of them already with health problems. (Girón)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 May 2023 — The lack of workers is once again in the news on the Island. On this occasion, the protagonist is the shortage of professionals in the Post Offices, causing serious problems in the collection of pensions, according to the Matanzas newspaper Girón on Tuesday. The official media initially attributes the chaos to an employee who has been sick long-term and whom it has been impossible to replace permanently, but the branch director hints that the problem is not isolated.

“There is a shortage of workers, that is why we, the managers, are moving to make the corresponding payments. The solution depends on who we can hire”, says Ismary Hernández, director of the Post Office Unit in the Versalles neighborhood, in the city of Matanzas, to which the office of the old Medical Center belongs. The more than 200 retirees attached to this headquarters denounce that they have not been able to collect in a timely manner for months, as have the 130 people who receive social assistance at the same location.

Those affected are elderly people, many of them already with health problems, and who bitterly lament the difficulties it means for them to stand in line for days. Because the worst thing, they agree, is when the money runs out and the office closes, leaving them unpaid.

“There is a shortage of workers, that is why we, the managers, are moving to make the corresponding payments. The solution depends on who we can hire”

“It’s been happening for months,” says an 89-year-old retiree interviewed by the outlet. They show up at 10 or 11 in the morning. It’s not right to keep old people, including me, waiting here for so many hours. Yesterday at one in the afternoon they said the money had run out. We had to leave and come back today to stand in line again, when the compañera arrived at 11:30 to make the payments,” he says. continue reading

All the testimonies coincide in pointing out the negligence and bad manners with which the workers, when they are there, treat the pensioners. “It’s illogical for all in this town to come here at six-odd in the morning to stand in line, and it’s already 11:30 and no one shows up, not even to give us an explanation. Is it that, when someone retires, he no longer deserves consideration, doesn’t have value?” laments a retiree who worked for 49 years during his life.

“I have never gone through so much work to get paid as I do now. We are here without having breakfast, without eating anything”, protests another who, at 76, feels relieved for not being among the oldest and tells that an 89-year-old friend had to be helped by her children when she collapsed while waiting in line.

“They calmly tell you: ‘We ran out of money’, another says “I’m leaving.” Those who are working go home, and often the little old people don’t even have enough for a soda. “It’s a lack of respect to us” protests another one.

Having managers there has allowed things to go better this month, although everyone knows that it is not the solution. “This month was better, everyone was paid on time and the payment was quite fast”, says Hernández. “What happens is, and this has been explained to the clients on another occasion, that she, as an employee, has other responsibilities. Within these functions, she has been interspersing the payment to the assisted-retirees,” Bárbaro Ortega Araujo told Girón Ediesky, deputy director of the Post Office in Matanzas.

The service requires, he adds, some training, but not only that, you have to be selective because of the large amounts of money that are handled

Yaneysi Remón Suárez, the company’s Director of Operations, maintains that she has requested personnel from the Ministry of Labor, but “so far no one has appeared.” The service requires, she adds, some training and, not only that, you have to be selective because of the large amounts of money they handle. “In greater quantity as a result of the Ordering Task and these salary increases. The institution manages millions of pesos,” she argues.

“Correos moves even more money than a bank on a given day,” she adds, but the salaries that are offered are not very attractive. The official states that a postman currently earns 2,600 pesos. “Anyone in another entity – such as a bank, Etecsa, new economic players – earns much more than a postman, who spends eight hours in the sun, pedaling and offering the service,” she explains.

As if that were not enough, there are no tires for bicycles, which makes traveling to deliver the mail impossible.

There are no short-term solutions either, acknowledge the managers. The official who has been multiplying her duties for three months must help with the payments, and although they affirm that “the negotiations do not stop” and that they are trying to increase salaries, one of the most advanced proposals is to mobilize those in the military service.

“When the borders were closed and the large avalanche of packages from international parcels ceased and people opted for shipments by sea, the Ministry of the Armed Forces helped us. We made a contract with them, with young men who were serving in the Military Service. We are calling for that too to resume,” Ortega Araujo states.

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The Hemispheric Front Criticizes the Pope for Receiving Cuban President Diaz-Canel and Treating Him With ‘Obvious Affection’

Pope Francis with Miguel Díaz-Canel, during his meeting in the Vatican. (Twitter/Cuban Foreign Ministry)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 27 June 2023 — The Hemispheric Front for Freedom (FHL), composed of parliamentarians, academics, political leaders and human rights defenders from several Latin American countries, criticized Pope Francis for receiving the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, last week and for treating him with “an obvious affection that offends” the victims.

“It pains us as Catholics and Christians that you receive the criminal (Díaz-Canel) and other representatives of the Castro dictatorship while the Vatican ignores the true representatives of Cuban civil society,” the FHL said on Tuesday in a letter sent to the Pope.

The group says in the letter that it does not intend to question papal decisions but reminds the pontiff that the Cuban president “is charged with crimes against humanity” and that “his victims cannot be ignored, much less by you.”

“With what merit have you received the current dictator of Cuba?” asks the FHL, after saying that the reception of the Cuban leader “has painful and very questionable implications.” continue reading

Díaz-Canel was received on June 20 by Pope Francis, at the first audience held in the Vatican between the two. They talked for 40 minutes, according to Vatican sources.

After the meeting, the Cuban president met in the Secretariat of State with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and issues such as the request for the release of prisoners were discussed.

For the FHL, an organization committed to “promoting the values of freedom in the region and in the world,” the concession of the meeting “should have been conditioned, publicly and at the very least, on the release of Cuban political prisoners.”

It said in the letter that Díaz-Canel “unleashed a fierce repression that included shootings and beatings against the people who took to the streets, peacefully, to demand freedom” on July 11, 2021.

The Cuban government, it added, “does not respect women or children. Over 1,400 people were imprisoned, and 784 were sentenced to between 5 and 25 years in prison, including minors.”

The FHL reminded the Pope that “half a century of efforts, at the highest levels, have not produced an iota of moderation or tolerance in the communist regime, not even mercy for the innocent.”

The letter ends, signed by Dragos Dolanescu and Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, president and secretary general of the FHL, by saying that the Cuban regime will not change its attitude because “its ideology is based on hatred of everyone who does not think like them.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cuban Minister of the Army Is the First Foreign Visitor in Moscow After the Wagner Group’s Mutiny

Wearing in a full-dress uniform, reminiscent of the Soviet era and currently worn by the Russian military, López Miera was received this Tuesday with all protocol. (Moskvichmag)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 June 2023 — The parsimony of Havana in the face of the armed rebellion of the Wagner mercenary group against Vladimir Putin does not seem to have embittered the Island’s alliance with the Kremlin: the Cuban Minister of the Armed Forces, Álvaro López Miera, is the first senior foreign official to visit Russia after last Saturday’s tension, with the aim of discussing the realization of “a series of joint projects in the technical-military field.”

Wearing a full-dress uniform, reminiscent of the Soviet era and currently worn by the Russian military, López Miera was received this Tuesday, with all protocol, by the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, at the headquarters of his ministry. The Cuban press has not yet said a word about the general’s visit to Moscow.

According to the Russian agency Sputnik, Shoigu proposed to his counterpart “to address in detail all existing and promising cooperation projects in the military field.” The minister assured that there was “a wide variety of issues” in which Russia could support Cuba, including “technical” aid to the Island’s Army.

He praised Cuba as “an important partner” that demonstrated “a complete understanding of the reasons” that led Putin to invade Ukraine, although he did not allude to the cautious silence that, during all the tension with the Wagner troops, the Havana regime maintained. The bilateral dialogue, Shoiguu summarized, is in the best of states, and they “are taking measures” to “protect their cooperation” against international sanctions.

“Russia is willing to provide assistance to Cuba,” the soldier promised López Miera, although both Sputnik and other media that reported the visit avoided defining the exact content of that “strategic” aid. continue reading

On June 13, Putin decorated Lopez Miera with the Order of Friendship, for his “important contribution” to the “strengthening of military and technical-military cooperation between the two countries,” Prensa Latina reported.

Born in 1943 and minister of the Armed Forces since 2021, López Miera was part of Cuba’s military interventions in Angola and Ethiopia. He is one of the senior Cuban officials sanctioned by the U.S. Government “for his involvement in human rights violations.”

The resignation of Shoigu and Valeri Gueràsimov, head of the Russian General Staff, was one of the demands initially defended by the Wagner group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who blamed both soldiers for the “chaos” that the battlefront had become in Ukraine. After the mercenaries advanced in the direction of Moscow and took – without resistance – the city of Rostov, Prigozhin stopped the march on the pretext of avoiding the “spilling of blood.” The president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, mediated between the Kremlin and Prigozhin, who ended up stopping the uprising 24 hours after starting it.

Later, when everything was over, Miguel Díaz-Canel issued a tweet expressing his “total conviction” for Russia’s ability to maintain “unity and constitutional order.” The Cuban ruler added: “I express the solidarity of the people and government of Cuba to the esteemed President Putin and the brotherly people of the Russian Federation, in the face of attempts to provoke an armed rebellion in the nation.”

The Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, limited himself to sharing Díaz-Canel’s message while the official press was slow to publish the news of the rebellion, in total agreement with the version of state media such as Russia Today.

Other Russian allies in the region, such as Venezuela and Nicaragua, quickly spoke out in support of the Kremlin. Nicolás Maduro sent an “arm of solidarity and support” to Putin during an event with the military, while Daniel Ortega said that his government will be “always aware” of what happens with Russia and with the “brother president, comrade and comrade Vladimir Putin.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Dying in Cuba is No Longer Free

The “basic” coffins that the Cuban State will continue to cover in Sancti Spíritus. (Escambray)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 June 2023 — Funeral services that have been largely free in Cuba since the 1959 Revolution are beginning to be charged, and others that were already charged will increase in price.

In Sancti Spíritus, according to an article published on Tuesday in Escambray, “the structure of Comunales [community services]” is reordered, the agency dedicated so far to these tasks, and a unit of obituary services has been created to “improve the funeral homes and chapels of the province.”

The provincial newspaper offers an interview with the new director of that unit, Yoel Aquiles Martínez, who explains with the usual official jargon, “We have already begun with the monetary reimbursement for the payment of certain activities associated with deaths” due to “the need to free the State from some expenses and to increase the efficiency of certain services.”

So far, the article continues, it has charged for the cremation of corpses and the transfer of the deceased to other provinces, but from now on the transfer of the deceased from one municipality to another within the same province will also be paid, as well as the “vigil at home.” continue reading

In this case, “the funeral home provides the services related to the wake, and the family would pay on the basis of the approved price rate.” It is a variant, says Escambray, which “is already applied in the capital of the country” but in Sancti Spíritus “is in the process of approval.”

They will continue at no cost “the delivery of a coffin, the transfer from the house or the hospital to the funeral home or chapel with the provision of the funeral car, the fuel for that activity and the arrangement of the corpse, and within these benefits, those that are related to the wake in the premises enabled as such,” clarifies the newspaper, “but if the family wants another type of service, such as carrying out the burial in another place, outside the municipality or province, then they would be charged for that.”

From the Escambray’s interview, it appears that the State will offer citizens who can afford them “extra” services, such as amphorae for ashes, “other types of coffins of a better design” or “fine flowers.”

“Our purpose is that the obituary services are gradually self-financing, and with that income we can improve those that remain free of charge, including the constructive improvements of the funeral homes and chapels, as well as the technical status of the cars, something that has been worked on, but, due to the degree of deterioration they presented and the long time of usage, it has been impossible to carry out this activity efficiently,” the official acknowledges.

Yoel Aquiles Martínez also says that they have just received two hearses “of Chinese origin,” valued at 1,800,000 pesos each, “and another delivery of this type of transport to the province is expected.”

Faced with the question, which reflects the discomfort of the population due to the frequent delay of the funeral cars, the manager excuses himself by saying that they have “up to two hours to carry out the transfers, but the car can’t arrive until the legal documentation procedure is completed.”

“This is a province with a high degree of population aging,” he continues, “and the number of deaths has increased, to the point that, in recent times, with an average of 200 and more deaths a month, today we are above 400, and usually 50 percent of these happen between Friday and Sunday, which makes the obituary activity in the territory more complex.”

The announcement comes at a time when funeral services have hit rock bottom. The funeral homes have been deteriorating and lack sufficient staff for cleaning. Many times they have a single glass to use during the wake to see the face of the deceased in the coffin, so families must wait for other mourners to finish using it to get one.

The traditional cup of coffee, inherent in Cuban wakes, has also disappeared due to the lack of the product in state funeral homes. Flower wreaths sold to relatives have more tree leaves than flowers and have been smaller and more expensive every year. The amphorae for ashes are crude and fragile.

However, the worst criticisms fall on the coffins or “boxes of the dead,” as they are popularly called. Made of flimsy wood, these coffins lost the metal trim years ago, and the slats have been replaced by strips of wood and cardboard. As a result, it is common to hear that the body of the deceased falls out in the middle of the funeral or during the transfer to the cemetery.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Four Cuban Soccer Players Escape in Miami After the Defeat in the Gold Cup Against Guatemala

Cuba debuted with a defeat against Guatemala by 1-0. (Jit)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 June 2023 — Footballers Roberney Caballero, Denilson Milanés, Neisser Sandó and Jassael Herrera left the Cuban national team after the 1-0 defeat in the Gold Cup against Guatemala. According to journalist Francys Romero, the escape took place in Miami before the team traveled to Houston, where it will face the Guadalupe national team next Saturday.

He pointed out that this brings the total to 33 desertions by Cuban athletes in 2023. “According to soccer agents, they have the potential to play professionally.”

The strategy announced by the Cuban Football Federation to prevent these escapes didn’t work. The Cuban sports authorities take away the passports of the athletes before they travel, and their use of cell phones in the hotel is controlled.

Last January, the president of the state Football Association of Cuba (AFC), Oliet Rodríguez, announced the formation of a register of Cuban soccer players in an automated system governed by the International Amateur Football Federation (FIFA).

“This new initiative would limit the access of Cuban players to other countries illegally, either in national teams or in clubs,” the federation representative warned. Caballero, Milanés, Herrera and Sandó cared little about complying with the regulations. continue reading

The pro-government media Jit limited itself to analyzing the defeat of the Cuban team. “The emotional blow was overwhelming,” it acknowledged. “The defeat (by Guatemala) was inevitable as the minutes passed, and the Caribbean team tried more with pride than with order, an insufficient effort given the circumstances,” it said.

According to figures offered by Play-Off Magazine, the Gold Cup has been the springboard for the escape of 19 soccer players from the Island. In the 2022 edition, Rey Ángel Martínez, 20, and Alberto Delgado, 22, broke off their relationships with Cuban sport.

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 appear on the Chivas USA team, being recognized as the first Cuban in the military in a squad with Mexican roots. He also excelled with the Los Angeles Blues of the United Soccer League.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Clean Up Needed at La Candonga de Santa Clara, Cuba, After a Fire Destroyed Several Kiosks

Between seven and ten kiosks were destroyed by the fire, according to the first report. (Yunier Javier Sifonte Diaz)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 June 2023 — A fire devastated the commercial area of Santa Clara known as La Candonga on Wednesday. The fire destroyed between seven and ten sales kiosks, according to the first official report, and the cause of the fire is being investigated.

The event became known a few hours after the death of seven people in Havana in a fire caused by the explosion of two electric motorcycles. In the Santa Clara incident, however, there were no injuries, but the losses are valued at millions of pesos for the self-employed who sell in the kiosks.

They were, precisely, the first to arrive to try to contain the fire and prevent its spread. Subsequently, the firefighters, the president of the municipal government, some cadres of the Communist Party and authorities of the territory arrived.

The people of Santa Clara reacted to the news, released by the official journalist Yunier Javier Sifonte Díaz on his Facebook page, with regret for the losses of the merchants and a place where “one can find everything or almost everything he needs.” There was widespread relief that the event left no injuries or deaths. continue reading

“The situation is very difficult, but that place has no conditions for anything, it looks like a shop in a favela,” one user highlighted. Another agreed with his opinion and denounced the potential insecurity of the area. “It’s time for them to make La Candonga a place for selling, but with kiosks made by the State, with electrical and health safety, all done aesthetically.”

Another commentator pointed out that the unfortunate event provided an opportunity to renovate the space “in areas with the same conditions, for example, the underutilized Los Pilongos.”

La Candonga Las Flores is located in front of the Arnaldo Milián Castro hospital in Santa Clara. In that commercial space, hundreds of self-employed are grouped with the tacit consent of the authorities, although the activity is not legal, since its sellers offer products imported through mules.

The authorities have on numerous occasions accused the candongueros of inflating prices, selling in high quantities and originally in CUC [Cuban convertible currency pegged to the US dollar and no longer in use]. During the pandemic, the place was closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which led to a successful displacement to social networks.

The trade group on Telegram exceeds 4,000 members, and that of Facebook has more than 11,400 followers, although one of the rules, to avoid having problems with the authorities, is the prohibition of publishing messages of a political nature or that go “against morality.” Those who incur such prohibitions are eliminated immediately.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Police Ask Drivers To Pay ‘Due Attention’ To Reduce Road Deaths by 25 Percent

Cuban authorities say that 90% of accidents are due to distractions. (Radio Rebelde)

14ymedio, Madrid, 28 June 2023 — As of June 1st 290 people had lost their lives in traffic accidents in Cuba. This is 12 fewer than last year in the same period, but there is no loophole for complacency. In the same period of time, 412 Spaniards died for the same reason in a country that is five times the population of the Island.

“There is still a lack of perception in the population of the risks that can lead to a traffic accident,” said Roberto Rodríguez Fernández, head of the Specialized Traffic Body of the General Directorate of the Police, who this time quantified the accidents that could be avoided.

According to the information disseminated in the official press, the colonel offered the accident data by tiptoeing around the authorities. Just a day before, the Minister of Transport himself, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, placed the roads that present “an unfavorable technical state” at 40%, but Rodríguez Fernández preferred to quantify citizen responsibility.

“We lack signs; the technical states of the road and vehicles are not adequate, but if you drive with caution and pay due attention, we could avoid 35% of traffic accidents, 25% of the deceased and 28% of the injured in the country,” said the colonel.

Rodríguez offered the data for the first five months of the year at a press conference. There were 3,620 traffic accidents and 2,807 people were injured, which means 448 accidents and 198 fewer injuries. “As long as a human being loses his life or is injured, we have to be dissatisfied with what has been done,” he said. continue reading

Next, he attributed to the “human factor” the cause of 90% of accidents, of which up to 75% are due to distractions. “When we talk about not attending to the control of the vehicle, we refer to any act or maneuver that prevents the correct concentration in driving. Reading a document, answering a call or sending messages,” he said.

Twenty-nine percent of accidents occurred due to “violations of the road,” which include skipping the signals and invading the opposite lane. Nineteen percent of the deaths and 29% of the injuries occurred for this reason, and, in addition, in 82% of the accidents due to this cause, at least one person died.

Rodríguez also referred to the accidents that occurred due to speeding, and although he did not give a percentage – now exceeding 100% – he said that they have decreased, but that the average number of deaths in these cases is one person for every seven accidents. Although speeding accidents decreased during the period, the number of deaths from this cause has increased.

Six out of ten accidents on the Island leave fatalities, the colonel said, especially in one of the most fatal cases: the crash of vehicles. Disregard of pedestrians also has a high mortality rate. For every five of these, one person dies, usually the pedestrian.

As for the ages, the most affected are in the range from 21 to 35, while the majority of deaths belong to the 46 to 55. The most dangerous time slot is the one that takes place between 3 and 6 in the afternoon, with a regular increase on weekends.

“Seventy percent of accidents in the country occur in urban areas. Among these, 81% are in residential areas,” added the official, who warned that the only provinces in which the three indicators (accidents, deaths and injuries) increased were Pinar del Río and, above all, Villa Clara.

The data indicate that almost two Cubans die a day on the roads. The most serious accident that occurred this June (a month not counted in the data offered on Tuesday) occurred in Puerto Escondido, between Mayabeque and Matanzas. A tanker truck and a passenger truck collided near the Bacunayagua bridge, leaving four dead and eight injured. Among the fatalities was a ten-year-old girl, Nayeis González Villamil, who could not overcome the serious injuries with which she was admitted to the Elíseo Noel Caamaño pediatric hospital, in Matanzas and died 48 hours later.

Cuba’s aging motor fleet and the shortage of public transport is one of the causes for many private vehicles to adapt for collective passenger transport without safety conditions, favoring accidents with fatal results.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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