14ymedio – Page 135 – Translating Cuba

Cuba, the Antithesis of Food Sovereignty

Dried peas from Portugal, pasta from Turkey and rice from Guyana distributed in the ’module’ in Havana stores. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 February 2022 — Among the terms most misused by the Cuban regime is “food sovereignty.” The official press repeats it over and over, as though it were an incantation, as though simply saying were enough to magically make domestic production a reality and eliminate the need for imports.

It is always spoken as something just out of reach, in a future that never arrives: “Cuba moves forward in implementing the National Food Sovereignty and Nutritional Education Plan… Despite all adversity, Cuba strives for its food sovereignty… Food sovereignty and nutrition, one of the keys to Cuba’s economic and social strategy.” There is even a law, decreed last May, guaranteeing it.

The “module” also includes canned sardines from Venezuela. (14ymedio)

The results of these efforts are on full display in Havana’s government-run stores in the form of so-called modules: rice from Guyana, pasta from Turkey, dried peas from Portugal, canned sardines from Venezuela and — perhaps most embarrassing of all considering it used to be Cuba’s most iconic product, sugar from Brazil.

These days, sugar as well as salt are are in short supply on the island, adding to popular discontent. Few people here believe that all these plans intended to benefit local producers, urban gardens or the local market amount to anything more than fairy tales. It takes more than two words to grow stuff.

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D Frente Urges Cubans to Advocate on Social Media for Abstaining From the Elections on March 26

“The only remote way for a candidate not to be elected is for people in that location to agree to vote for another candidate and that isn’t going to happen,” says Yunior García Aguilera. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 14 February 2023 — D Frente [D Front], an opposition group, born from an agreement among distinct organizations, is urging Cubans to abstain from the next elections for delegates to the National Assembly of the People’s Power on March 26th. In a statement issued on Tuesday, they invite citizens to participate in a campaign they are calling “Your abstention is your voice,” which consists of sharing on social media “one reason” for which they will abstain from participating in the election.

For D Frente, data from the last two elections, the referendum on the Family Code and the municipal elections in September and November 2022, respectively, in which abstentions reached record numbers, provided evidence of a “pretty clear trend” in the current political system: the “accelerated loss” of representative capacity. “It does not represent their own followers, because these cannot select from among a plurality of their supposed representatives, and they do not collectively represent society because it cannot freely select from among alternatives truly present in the country,” they state.

For this reason, they say that on March 26, 2023 “this new reality” will be verified: the divorce of “the official representative model” and “the real country.”

“When, of the 8 million voters, 3 million cannot find channels for representation, the problem lies with the system,” states the group, which highlights that the 470 delegates that will be selected on that day do so as a result of a proposal of “organizations registered in the State’s organigram.”

D Frente says that the electoral process, which began on January 30th, began by “violating the election law at least twice,” by “failing to publish the voter census and with a full-fledged electoral campaign.”

This, they continue, is an indication of “two deep realities”: on the one hand, emigration, which is assumed to be 3% of the Island’s electorate though the government “avoids exposing and verifying” that, and on the other hand, the obligation the regime has to “fight, through every possible public media outlet, for the participation at the polls of every single Cuban voter,” given the “progressive rupture of the so-called revolutionary consensus.” continue reading

Faced with these data, the organization demands with urgency “a new political contract for Cuba that will express its new plural, social and generational dynamic.”

For that, they propose that the “strategic roadmap” pass through “a constitutional reform that would institutionalize popular sovereignty as a cornerstone principle that would establish the rule of law without ideologies and where the Communist Party would no longer be the sole party,” as a first step toward “democratic, free, multi-party, just and inclusive” elections.

In addition to participating in the “Your abstention is your voice” campaign, D Frente suggests that Cubans request a certification of their voter status from the Electoral Council in each municipality, one step, they explain, “that is legally necessary for those who have supported or would like to support with their signature the diverse legislative and constitutional initiatives promoted by organizations that make up our group.”

In Madrid, exiled playwright Yunior García Aguilera, a member of D Frente, speaking for himself, told 14ymedio that establishing abstention is the right thing to do and that the campaign for a rejection vote must double down, but warned that the regime has thousands of ways to ensure those 470 delegates will ultimately be elected.”

For example, in contrast to the municipal elections, “now anyone could vote in any polling location,” which “could lend itself to them inflating the numbers and they could present results that are better than the previous elections.” This is how, in some municipalities, they aim to achieve 90% or 95% participation.

The artist and opponent does not believe that level will be reached, but he does believe they “can surpass the last estimate, from the municipal elections.” In any case, he says, it won’t make a difference, given that delegates only need 50% plus one vote to be elected.

“The only remote way for a candidate not to be elected is for people in that location to agree to vote for another candidate and that isn’t going to happen,” he says, but insists in the symbolic value of the abstention. “If we exceed the number from previous elections it would be a resounding response to the regime, although it will not change the results at all.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Miguel Diaz-Canel, the Most Faithful Servant

Miguel Díaz-Canel and his Russian counterpart, Vladímir Putin, in front of the statue of Fidel Castro unveiled in November in Moscow (EFE/EPA/Sergei Savostyanov)

14ymedio, Pedro Corvo, Miami, 13 February 2022 — In the late 1990s, times when spy Ana Belén Montes successfully insisted that Castroism was not dangerous for the United States — an assertion that resonated with some US officials who have always looked on the island dictatorship with fondness — a considerable number of Cubans rejected that assertion, arguing that the aggressive nature of the regime did not allow it to overlook any opportunity that would allow it to affect US interests.

However, everything seemed to indicate that after Fidel Castro’s death, the imperialist influence of the project he sponsored would lose momentum. This because, during Raúl Castro’s term of office, there was a notable decrease in Cuba’s participation in the international arena. This a situation that has been slowly changing since the hand-picked dictator, Miguel Díaz-Canel, “received,” at least apparently, “the baton,” as the head of government was identified by the compatriots of the beginning of the last century.

Island totalitarianism has taken at least two particularly intense initiatives. One towards the interior of the country, through which it controls power and the other towards the exterior, in order to gain political clients and associates, who have been particularly useful to it over the years. In addition, the Castro regime has masterfully used its real or supposed successes abroad, making them an essential part of its coliseum or circus with the aim of manipulating the population, aware of the chauvinistic vision that many Cubans suffer from. continue reading

Díaz-Canel’s first trip as head of Cuba’s failed state was to Venezuela, a visit that ensures the mutual dependence of both regimes. The island supplies repressive experience and social control and Caracas continues to provide vital oil. This was shown by an agency report that the Venezuelan government bought approximately 440 million dollars worth of crude oil abroad and shipped it to Cuban ports under very favorable payment conditions.

There is no doubt: it is increasingly easy to conclude that the ties between these countries are a kind of parody of the relations between Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, both autocrats of the same ilk.

It must be acknowledged that the hand-picked President is adapting to the times and, contrary to what his predecessors did, he travels with his wife, Lis Cuesta, who, it seems, enjoys the advantages of being the “First Combatant” as they say in our beloved Venezuela.

To this difference with the Castro brothers we must add a similarity, and that is that the despot travels with a bodyguard who, moreover, is his stepson, a situation that shows that nepotism is a constant in that old dictatorship.

The island’s press, always loyal to the boss, has highlighted Díaz-Canel’s numerous trips abroad since he was appointed dictator, describing him as “tireless president,” a title not as distinguished as those granted to Fidel Castro.

The international exposure of this most faithful servant, a label deserved because he took other distinguished vassals out of the game, such as Carlos Lage, Roberto Robaina and Felipe Pérez Roque, among others, has been constant, if we bear in mind that in his first eight months in office he made 11 trips abroad. He demonstrated on one of them, to Jamaica, that he is as much a liar as the Castro brothers, because he brazenly said that Cuba was “perfecting socialism” and building a “prosperous and sustainable” nation, while in his appearance at the United Nations he spoke cynically about his commitment to fight chronic hunger, a constant in his government, as in that of his benefactors.

One of his most recent trips was to Algeria, Russia, Turkey and China, countries he visited in search of vital aid for his regime, while reiterating to Colonel Vladimir Putin his unrestricted support for the invasion of Ukraine, a support that Kiev should evaluate, if it is true that “the friend of my enemy is my enemy”.

Díaz-Canel is irredeemably faithful to the Castroist route of being an ally of countries hostile to the United States, as evidenced by the Iranian Foreign Minister’s visit to the Cuban capital and Pyongyang’s vaunted and invincible friendship with Havana.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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Some 325,000 Cubans Left the Country, and Only 95,000 Were Born on the Island

Cuban authorities estimate that if families find caregivers for their children from a very young age, there will be more women in the labor market. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 14 February 2023 — Cuba once again breaks its own record and achieves, in 2022, the lowest historical number of births in relative terms with 95,000, some 4,000 less than in 2021, the year in which 99,096 Cubans came into the world. The data became known this Monday through state television, which covered a meeting headed by the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, and which has been echoed by the country’s main media without revealing that number.

The official state newspaper Granma alludes to the “data shared at the meeting by Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, deputy chief of the National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI),” without providing them, although it anticipates what the public already intuits, that “they are related to a decrease in the working age population and the economically active population, the increase in urbanization, despite the decrease in the urban population, and the average number of persons per household.”

ONEI was to have carried out Cuba’s population census in 2022, which, as in most countries, is conducted every ten years. Although it was initially scheduled to be carried out in September, Diego Enrique González Galbán, director of the Center for Population and Development Studies, confirmed in June that it was postponed due to lack of the necessary conditions and nothing more has been heard.

On that occasion, the official stated that the authorities were in possession of “consistent population figures every year, with a breakdown by sex and age, and openings at the national, provincial and municipal levels, as well as urban and rural areas.” According to these data, in March 2022, the Island had a population of 11,105,814, although the figure is flawed, since the hundreds of thousands of people who have emigrated in recent years have not been subtracted. According to the Migratory Law, Cubans lose their residency if they remain more than 24 months outside the Island, but by virtue of an exception created during the pandemic for those who could not return, currently the term is automatically extended. continue reading

The forecast, made years ago by the authorities, was that the population would decrease by more than 203,111 people by 2025, although the worsening of living conditions has accelerated — in the absence of figures — the demographic collapse. According to those calculations, already overtaken, about 26% of the population will soon be over 60 years old and those over 80, the age of life expectancy on the island, is expected to increase significantly.

Although the data on the country’s complicated demographic evolution are not yet available to the public, it has emerged from the committee’s meeting that the budget allocated to meet the needs of this growing population group will have to be increased. The budget is 869,670,000 pesos higher than last year’s and amounts to 2,113,000,000 pesos.

Among the priority issues to which the money will be allocated are dental and hearing prostheses, care for infertile couples and the modernization of equipment in assisted reproduction centers. In addition, there are also resources for the construction and maintenance of children’s circles, homes for the elderly and mothers, as well as homes for grandparents and for women with three or more children.

The situation, in particular, of the children’s daycare centers is worrying, since to date only 47% of the applications for places for the 2022-2023 school year have been granted, and 29,061 of the 53,447 applications submitted are still pending.

María de los Ángeles Gallo Sánchez, director of Early Childhood of the Ministry of Education, said that options are being sought to expand capacities, among them classrooms in primary schools and children’s houses, a modality that, according to the official, has not been “embraced” in the country, since there are only 67 on the Island with 2,187 places, with several provinces — which ones she did not specify — that lack them completely.

Marrero pointed out that the Ministry of Education has the most childcare centers, despite the call to other entities to support them with places in the children’s circles. “Everybody has to know the needs of their workers and look for solutions within the framework of this year,” urged the prime minister, who pointed out that just anyone cannot afford to pay for the child care services offered by self-employed workers.

“This is productive, because that mother eliminates one worry, goes to work and is more efficient, there is more family harmony, this is demographic dynamics,” said the leader.

The meeting also saw the presentation of a “Geriatrics and Gerontology Evaluation Kit” for medical centers containing a glucometer, digital blood pressure monitor and an oximeter, among other diagnostic and control tools, all of which are manufactured in Chile.

“This is a tremendous idea, a dream of what we want to have in all places, this is a basic module of what any center of attention to the population should have, because it is not only for the sick, it is also for studying the population, early diagnosis and follow-up,” said José Ángel Portal Mirada, Minister of Public Health, about these products commonly used in pharmacies and clinics outside Cuba.

According to the official press, the meeting was attended by Antonio Aja Díaz, director of the Center for Demographic Studies of the University of Havana, who “called attention to the need to ’make the information systematically provided on demographic dynamics our own, not only to know it, but also to master and control what each policy contributes to change that reality’.” In spite of this, the government has not made these indicators known to the population.

“Demographic issues are going to be solved in the medium and long term, and that is something important, we cannot be discouraged,” added the official with striking optimism in the midst of the largest exodus that has taken place on the island in the last 60 years.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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How to Enthrone Democracy and the Market in Cuba in Just 365 Days

How long the regime lasts will depend on the ability of the opposition to exert pressure, and on the willingness of the thousands of reformists who still exist in the government to change. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Madrid, 12 February 2023 — In Cuba there will be elections in March for the National Assembly of the People’s Power (ANPP). These are potentially the most important elections the system provides. Ricardo Alarcón, former President of Parliament, realized this and Raúl Castro dismissed him and did not allow him to run again. “You don’t play with power” is the motto of the Castro brothers, and Alarcón was going for power head first.

They will run, and will be elected with 99% of the votes, Raúl Castro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, Manuel Marrero, Elián González, and the current president of the ANPP, Esteban El Gori Lazo, as Fidel himself used to call him to humiliate him for being black and heavy-set. This caused him much laughter, which the extraordinary poet Raúl Rivero heard directly, before he confronted the regime of “the dead and flowers” (Silvio Rodríguez said in Ojalá, a song written by the troubadour to hurt the dictator, although disguised as loving care).

Up to 605 “fathers and mothers of the homeland” will be elected on that day. My advice, requested by no one, is to enjoy the occasion. It may be the last. The July 11, 2021 date is not only a precedent, it is a path. That day, thousands of people yelled “freedom” and sang Patria y Vida*, which immediately became the second anthem of Cuba. More than a thousand of them have been accused before tribunals and are serving unjust sentences.

The number of recently arrived exiles in the last year is more than 300,000 people. There are plenty of children and family members of generals, ministers and former ministers, of delegates and former delegates. That includes only the U.S. because in that country they collect and preserve data better than most of the world.

More than two decades ago, I received dissident Gustavo Arcos Bergnes (GAB) the name of an active general who commanded troops. A short time later, he told me he could be trusted to initiate a transition in Cuba. GAB was Fidel’s party colleague, an attacker of the Moncada barracks, where he was shot in the spine and was almost paralyzed. After the triumph of the Revolution he was the Cuban ambassador to Belgium.

GAB was a serious man. So much so, that he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for criticizing his former boss. Once in jail, and later out of jail, he met with Ricardo Bofill, with Martha Frayde, with his brother Sebastián Arcos Bergnes, a mid-level leader of the Revolution, and with his son, also named Sebastián, to place the opposition under the cloak of human rights and prevent another bloody revolutionary cycle. Later came Elizardo Sánchez and Juan Manuel Cao, not even 20 years old, whose verses were “taken” as if they were bombs, very witty verses against the Commandant. Today he is renowned novelist and Channel 41 reporter.

At that time I believed the regime did not have much time left, but Fidel pulled Hugo Chavez from his sleeve, and as he had previously with Lula da Silva, and as he supported the Sao Paolo Forum, he was able to weather the storm by renting out professionals. Fidel and Hugo Chavez no longer exist, and the Sao Paolo Forum is under the constant scrutiny of the Brazilian army, thus, the Cuban communist dictatorship’s death sentence has been issued. It died of starvation and incompetence. continue reading

Definitely, it died of what communist regime’s usually die of –t he inability to produce sufficient quantities of goods and services. Much less than what are achieved in an open economy subject to the market and the existence of private property, although at the expense of the attempted equality of results. However, how long it lasts, be it months or years, will depend on the capacity of the opposition to exert pressure, and the will, of the thousands of reformists that exist in the government, to change. We all must listen to them attentively.

In 1990, liberal soviet economists put in motion a plan to transform the USSR in 500 days; Cuba only needs 365 days. The plan promised to revive in that timeframe the subordination of all to the market and, still within the rules of Marxism, it was believed that society would, on its own, discover political freedom. Ultimately, they achieved neither economic nor political freedom. That all ended, despite having the approval of Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev.

In 1990 Grigory Yavlinsky, president of the Yabloko or “Apple” party, and Stanislav Shatalin, bet all the prestige of their doctoral degrees in economics that the formula would work in the USSR, but as soon as Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov tenaciously opposed it, their plan was destroyed. I do not believe that will happen in Cuba. If a clear consensus exists, within and outside power, it is that there is no human way to revive Cuban communism. Which is why, in the last year, 300,000 people have left to all parts of the planet, and among them many members of the nomenklatura and their descendants.

What has been learned about the transitions is that they all have a high level of improvisation and singularity. Anyway, it has been useful to gather the ideas put in place in other countries and other systems:

- Restore hope. Yavlinski and Shatalin’s “unborn” plan serves to frame the reforms within a timeframe. In one year “things” will begin to improve. To a society which has been deceived countless times by crazy plans that don’t work, this is referred to as restoring hope.

- U.S., always the U.S. Little Cuba can become a place where it is possible to do business with her. At the end of the day, it will only be with 11 million people. A free trade agreement will be necessary. One of the reforms that should be made is the dollarization of the economy. The Island’s biggest resource is having as a neighbor, only 90 miles away, 325 million people including the richest and most creative on the planet.

- Between 20% and 30% of the Cuban Americans have roots on the Island. That is a source of extraordinary richness on both shores for potential business.

- For the first time, the U.S. has someone with whom they can speak outside of its territory. Cuban American members of congress should appear on this list of priviledged people. Four or five formermembers of congress as well.

What I mean is that it is not worth making a detailed plan. It is only necessary to create the conditions for it to work and let the imagination do the rest. We continue to wait for someone who can initiate the transition in Cuba. I don’t believe that general who commanded troops who Gustavo Arcos Bergnes spoke of is still alive.

*Translator’s Note: Patria y Vida was the 2021 Latin Grammy Song of the Year; the title translates to “Homeland and Life”–a play on the Cuban government’s old slogan of “Homeland or Death”.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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In Ciego de Avila, Cuba, Only 8 of the 17 Buses Are in Service

For 2023, forecast ridership in Ciego de Ávila has been estimated as 155,681 passengers. (Invader)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 February 2023 — The national transport company of Ciego de Ávila was far from fulfilling its 2022 plans and left at least 84,313 passengers at the curb. Among the reasons is the lack of buses, since of the 17 that the company owns, only eight work and sometimes even they don’t arrive. The inability to get batteries, tires, glass and other spare parts destroyed last year’s data, although determining its size is a confusing undertaking.

In a note published this Tuesday by the province’s official newspaper, Invasor, it is reported in general terms that last year’s plan was to transport “more than 230,000,” riders, although later Inaudis Figuera Ferrer, head of the operations group, indicated that “of 180,912 passengers for 2022, 84,313 were missing when completing the statistics for the year,” which adds up to a projection of 265,225.

In any case, for 2023 the forecast has been streamlined, estimated this year at 155,681 passengers, data that the official newspaper considers “not so pretentious” (sic).

The company not only did not make a profit due to the large number of passengers it left unable to carry, but its losses were relatively high, reaching 504,000 pesos. According to the group’s head of accounting, María Caridad Águila Cuéllar, the increase in the cost of parts and spares is the cause, since a tire costs approximately 7,000 pesos. continue reading

The deficit, however, improves compared to the previous year, when the pandemic paralyzed transportation and the company lost around three million pesos. Compared with the benefits of more than five million five years ago, according to Invasor, the data is catastrophic and, to try to raise the numbers, some measures summarized by Águila Cuéllar were taken, including leasing premises and three buses to the private sector, despite the limited availability of vehicles.

The official added that since June 2022 the interprovincial service has been subsidized at 0.05 cents per kilometer, which increased income – or reduced losses, in this case – by 180,000 pesos per month. In addition, in October the rate rose from 6.96 to 13.96 pesos. Based on these calculations, the company calculates to end the year with profits of 1,149,000 pesos.

The only objective achieved is that of interurban passenger transport, as the projection was 54,070 passengers and the actual number was 101,206, despite the fact that the routes were reduced by four since 2019, when the routes to Niquero, Camagüey, Cienfuegos and Havana disappeared on the schedule at 1:30. Consequently, the number of drivers was also reduced, but the head of Human Resources admits that there should be 24 drivers and 22 are hired.

The article leaves a piece of information that the company considers positive, and that is that there was no shortage of fuel, since it received more than what was required, which was 410 tons. For this year, the energy specialist estimates that 390 tons will be needed.

The data abounds in the provincial transport crisis that the same newspaper Invasor announced three weeks ago. According to the statistics of the Provincial Transport Company of Ciego de Ávila, 7,700,000 passengers traveled, barely a third of the projection (21,937,000). In this case, of the 236 buses owned by the company, only 90 are in good condition.

The critical situation in Ciego de Ávila, a province located in the center of the Island, affects mobility beyond the borders of its territory. Many travelers from other regions of the central west use the buses that arrive from the Ciego de Avila terminals to travel to the Cuban capital or other western municipalities, so the drop in the number of routes that depart from the province affects them by forcing them to resort to private transport.

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A Woman is Murdered by Her Partner in the Middle of the Street in Santiago de Cuba

Pérez’s wake was this Tuesday morning at the central funeral home on Calvario street, in Santiago de Cuba. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 February 2023 — A woman identified as Yurina Yaque Pérez was murdered in the neighborhood of Sueño, Santiago de Cuba, on Monday night. The victim was “cut” on a public street by a man with whom she had a relationship, according to her relatives.

“It was her partner who cut her throat yesterday in the middle of a downpour,” one of the sources told 14ymedio, explaining that the murder had been committed on Avenida de Céspedes, between I and J streets. Approximately between seven and eight o’clock at night, a sudden downpour fell on the city, this newspaper confirmed, and in that area of Sueño there was a blackout at that time.

Pérez’s wake was this Tuesday morning at the central funeral home on Calvario street, in Santiago de Cuba, as confirmed by 14ymedio with workers from the establishment.

With the death of Yurina Yaque Pérez there have been 11 femicides in Cuba so far this year. Just three days ago, Mercedes Vasallo Herrera, 51, was murdered by her husband in the town of Carlos Rojas, in Jovellanos (Matanzas).

Vasallo Herrera, whose body her grandson found under the bed, was killed with a knife and had a serious contusion on her skull, according to the activist Marthadela Tamayo, from the Cuban Women’s Network, reporting on her Facebook profile. continue reading

Independent Cuban human rights observatories such as Yo Sí Te Creo [I Do Believe You] and the Red Femenina [Women’s Network] verified 34 murders of women in 2022, while the figures in the two previous years were 32 and 36, respectively. These groups have called on several occasions for effective mechanisms for the prevention of sexist violence “so as not to reach its extreme manifestation, which is irreparable.”

The most recent official data on gender violence date from a 2016 survey, which revealed that 26.7% of Cuban women between the ages of 15 and 74 claimed to have suffered some type of violence in their partner relationship, during the twelve months prior to the study. Only 3.7% of the assaulted requested institutional help.

Last Friday, when the murders of two women became known, the official press published an extensive article in which, among many other things, it wondered if there really were more victims or if complaints had become a more frequent practice today. The mystery is unjustified, since the Ministry of the Interior is the only body that has strict control of accunting for all violent deaths that occur in the country.

The lack of public data is precisely one of the main demands of the independent groups, as well as the inclusion of femicide as an aggravating circumstance or offense typified in the Penal Code. The Cuban Women’s Network advocates for a new legal body that guarantees care and response to victims, since the Island is the only country in the Western Hemisphere that does not have a comprehensive law against violence against women.

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Patients Can Bring Resin but not Anesthesia, Clarifies a Cuban Dentist

Anesthesia, he warned, is administered directly to the nerve through infiltrative techniques, for which reason only drugs certified by CECMED* are used. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana | 8 February 2023 — Sancti Spíritus hospitals refuse to use the medical supplies provided by the patients themselves if they are not previously approved by the Center for State Control of Quality of Medications (CECMED). Daniel Álvarez Rojas, head of the Stomatology (Oral Medicine) section in the province, admitted that they do not have the necessary resources, but that they cannot be held responsible if the medicine has been acquired on the black market or if it does not have quality certifications.

In an interview with Escambray, Álvarez Rojas confirmed that in Sancti Spíritus, as in the rest of the Island, medical centers have no choice but to work with the medicines that patients bring. In the case of his specialty, he explained, they allow amalgams or resin because “they do not compromise life”, but when it comes to using other supplies of dubious origin, such as anesthesia, the risk increases and the official decision in those cases is not to intervene.

Anesthesia, he warned, is administered directly to the nerve through infiltration techniques, for which reason only drugs certified by CECMED are applied.

The measures to alleviate the shortages in Cuba authorize the duty-free importation of food, toiletries and medicines. However, the newspaper adds, some “have ignored the ‘non-commercial’ warning and forget that certain medications, such as anesthesia, can put a person’s life at risk.” continue reading

“Sometimes, the way of administering this imported type of medicine is also very different from the one we use in Cuba, with different doses”

Escambray acknowledges that “it is understandable” that more and more people from Sancti Spiritus turn to social networks to buy drugs in their “desperate attempt” to put an end to a toothache. The newspaper points out that “it is no longer surprising” to find on the classified portal of Revolico the sale of bottles of dental anesthesia at prices between 500 and 600 pesos, along with other medicines for bronchiolitis, vitamins, and even the antiparasitic metronidazole.

Álvarez Rojas explained that there are few occasions in which the vials carried by the patients can really be used in the treatments, because they lack key information for their use, such as the expiration date and the CECMED certification. “Sometimes, the way of administering this imported medicine is also very different from the one we use in Cuba, with different doses,” he said.

Thus, people who go to the black market to buy an anesthetic bulb are in danger of losing their money, because no dentist will risk applying the drug without the minimum specifications, he warned.

The dentist pointed out that hospitals in the province are facing an anesthesia shortage, which they hope to temporarily overcome with the recent arrival of a batch to Cuba. The drug will be used for dental extractions and other treatments, added the professional, who believes that more imported supplies will be available in 2023. Of supplies available in 2022, he assured that attention to pregnant women, children under 19 years of age, the elderly, and people with disabilities was prioritized.

*Translator’s note: CECMED: Regulatory Authority of Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices of the Republic of Cuba, responsible for promoting and protecting public health.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Cuba Purchased More Chicken from the U.S in 2022 at a Higher Price Than in the Previous Year

Purchases in December included cigarettes, corn flour, caramel corn chips, peas, frozen chicken, as well as beef and pork. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 11 February 2023 — The total value of chicken imported by Cuba from the United States in 2022 was $295 million, a level 5.6% higher than the previous year. The data, provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and analyzed by economist Pedro Monreal, contributes to dismantling the excuse of the embargo, the Cuban government’s favorite excuse to justify its inefficiency.

Cuba is ever more dependent on American chicken, on which the country spent $279.1 million in 2021. The numbers have doubled since 2020 (an increase of 105.9%), during the pandemic, when the regime spent $143.7 million for chicken imports.

Last December alone, a record $33 million was spent to import 26,460 tons of chicken. Monreal warned on his Twitter account that the amount paid in the last month of 2022 is half of what the Island budgeted for January 2019, but for the same amount imported, evidence of a greater hard currency outlays and an increase in the price of that food item.

Thus, the value of a kilogram of chicken imported was $1.26 at the end of December, the equivalent of an 44.8% annual increase compared with a price of $0.87 that same month in 2021. The price of white meat remained relatively high during the second half of 2022, when it reached more than a dollar per kilogram and reached its highest level in October — $1.29, on average.

“The inability to produce chicken is the elephant in the room of the national agricultural policy,” said the economist with regard to the low levels of avian production in Cuba, a food that in the last years has become an essential part of the Cuban family table due to the disappearance of other sources of protein from the market and the high price of pork.

Much different from the official discourse, which insists that Cuba does not depend on the United States, the data confirm a different reality. According to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, purchases of agricultural inputs and food products from the United States reached historic levels — $328.5 million at the end of 2022, which represents an increase of 7.7% from the $304.7 million reported in 2021. continue reading

Imports in December reached $39.3 million, 28.7% higher than the level reported that same month in 2021, by a little more than $28 million, or 178% more than the $14.1 million in December 2020.

Purchases in December included cigarettes, corn flour, caramel corn chips, peas, frozen chicken, as well as beef and pork. Furthermore, there were shipments of beans, coffee, beer, non-alcoholic beverages, and also soap, shampoo, detergent and beauty products.

The Council reported that the import of hygiene products alone totaled $9.22 million, the highest level since 2013, the first year data were recorded since sales to Cuba were authorized in 1992.

Humanitarian donations from the United States also reached record levels of $30.08 million at the end of last year, 171.7% greater than the $11.07 million received in 2021.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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A Wave of Layoffs Shakes Up State-owned Companies in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba

The directors of the state entity have not only significantly cut the workforce but have warned the workers who keep their jobs that now “they will have to work more.” (Facebook/Caribbean Stores)

14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus , 11 February 2023 — A call, the summons to a meeting or the simple phrase “the director wants to see you” make the workers of the province of Sancti Spíritus tremble these days. The state companies in the territory are taking on water and, forced to reduce their workforce due to the drop in income, the number of layoffs only grows.

In the Caribe Store Chain that manages part of the sale of food in the city of Sancti Spiritus, the employees have raised their voices to heaven. The brigades of stevedores that brought in the trucks with merchandise to unload the products in each trade have been deactivated, as confirmed by a company executive.

“Now it’s up to the store workers themselves, storekeepers and the personnel that deals with sales to the public, to unload the merchandise from the trucks, that is, to do the work that the stevedores did before,” the official details. “All this is based on Decree Law 53 of 2021,” he points out.

The regulation, approved by the Council of Ministers, creates greater flexibility in the mechanism to establish the organization of the salary system of the workers of state companies, and gives greater decision-making capacity to local managers. “In principle it sounds good, but what is happening is that they are laying off staff to adjust the numbers, instead of producing more; they are adjusting the accounts by removing people.”

When Decree Law 53 entered into force, many workers felt hopeful that the new legislation would help raise wages, but the reality has been quite different. “It leaves the hands of company directors and administrators free to readjust the workforce at will, they raise the salaries of some, but by leaving others without work,” laments this worker at the Caribe Chain Store in Sancti Spíritus.

Doubts about the application of the regulations were felt from the beginning. Last September, Guillermo Sarmiento Cabanas, director of Labor Organization, and Edith González, head of the Department of Salary Organization of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, had to answer, in the official press, the questions that were already arising about the new Decree. continue reading

The functionaries then assured that “the essence” of the change in legislation was “to transform the company, since to pay more it must obtain better results,” which they synthesized “in the formula more productivity plus efficiency plus salary.” But in reality, the directors of state entities seem to have opted for the easier way: fewer employees equals more money to distribute among those who remain.

At the Base Tiles Business Unit, belonging to the Sancti Spíritus Construction and Assembly Company, a process of eliminating jobs began at the end of last year. “They summoned us to tell us that they cannot continue paying all the salaries and we have to reduce staff,” one of the affected workers told 14ymedio. “But it won’t be easy for those who stay,” he stresses.

The directors of the state entity have not only significantly cut the workforce but have warned the workers who keep their jobs that now “they will have to work more” and take on “up to two responsibilities” in the tile manufacturing line. A measure that has been criticized by the employees who, however, do not find support in the local union.

“You spend your life paying union dues, but when you need the Union to stand up for you, then they do nothing,” laments another worker in the administrative area of this tile industry; one of the workers who was counted among the “interrupted workers,” the euphemism used by the Cuban government for the unemployed.

But not all the dismissed are a response to Decree Law 53; the lack of income and raw materials also raise the number of dismissals. In the asphalt plant in the city of Sancti Spíritus, located in the Chambelón neighborhood, this newspaper reported last January on the paralysis of the industry, equipped with old machinery, the Ukrainian-made DK-117 model, which arrived on the island during the years of Soviet subsidy.

The passing of the years, the deterioration and the shortage of parts took their toll on the plant, but the final blow has been given by the lack of fuel and materials. “Since April of last year, production began to decrease because we did not have materials for the process, although it was only a few days ago, at the beginning of this year, that it was announced that it was going to stop producing,” one of the employees told 14ymedio. After the closure of the factory, that employee has been left without work.

The options for finding a job in a province hit by the economic crisis and unproductiveness are “like finding water in the desert,” the same worker now quips, and reports that he has been “searching and searching for months and nothing appears.”

For most of the unemployed, however, there is at least one thing in which they feel very secure: “I won’t return to the state sector anymore, they use you when they want and throw you away for whatever. Now I’m going to earn a living selling churros or unclogging toilets, but on my own,” says the employee.

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Cuban Opposition Platform D Frente Thanks Cardinal Stella for Asking for ‘Clemency’ for Cuba’s Political Prisoners

Both Pope Francis’s and Cardinal Stella’s attitudes have been one of closeness, and even sympathy, towards the Cuban authorities. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Havana, 11 February 2023 — The opposition platform D Frente [D Front] thanked Pope Francis this Friday for Vatican Special Envoy Cardinal Beniamino Stella’s asking the Cuban government for “an amnesty or some form of clemency” for Cuba’s political prisoners. Stella, whose visit to the island starting on January 23, followed a strategy of non-confrontation with the regime, culminating in some statements to the international press about the need to release those detained after the massive protests of 11J (11 July 2021).

Last December, knowing that the Pope would send Stella to Cuba to commemorate the 25th anniversary of John Paul II’s presence on the island, D Frente had demanded a word from the pontiff about the situation of the incarcerated and the violation of human rights. humans in Cuba. They also called for the mobilization of Francisco’s “good offices” in diplomatic terms to alleviate the country’s economic, social and migratory crisis.

In a statement signed this Friday, D Frente appreciates that the Pope has expressed himself, although through the words of his special envoy. Stella’s request to the Government, they say, is “in tune with the organization’s first work objective”: the freedom of prisoners.

As the text acknowledges, the D Frente platform has been advocating since its creation in September 2022 for a Law on Amnesty and Decriminalization of Dissent, which the platform presented through the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba – one of its member organizations – with the concept of that amnesty is “the best form” of response that could be expected from the Government.

In addition, D Frente points out that, if this legal mechanism is granted – which Cuba does not have, as Cuba’s Minister of Justice, Oscar Silvera, recently warned – it must be done “immediately and without conditions such as exile or the limitation of the rights”. continue reading

The document also defines the NGO’s vision of the future of Cuba as “a country enriched morally, economically, and spiritually,” which will be possible “through the encounter between Cubans, fraternity, freedom, and pluralism that marks our strategy”.

“Attempts to face a painful past, such as dictatorships, are usually historically associated with the debate around their memory, the role of forgetting and forgiveness in transitions and the legitimacy of States when renouncing the retributive justice,” the statement continues.

In addition, D Frente exposes its “reconciliation policy” and calls for a consensus to “replace a single-party dictatorship with a regime of civic liberties, without opening a new period of internal struggles.” In this process, the platform says, the Catholic Church must play an important role as a mediating institution.

The text concludes by demanding “a decriminalization of dissent and the recognition of political pluralism” and insisting on its gratitude to the Vatican, which “echoed” the requests of the platform.

In December 2022, when the Cuban Episcopal Conference announced the visit of Beniamino Stella, Cuban civil society saw an opportunity to expose the country’s situation to an international actor. In fact, in the bishops’ own message, the government was called upon to consider the release of “a good number of those who are in prison” as a gesture of leniency during the end of the year.

D Frente echoed the words of the bishops about the “hunger, loneliness and lack of freedom” that was experienced on the Island and questioned the pontiff with an open letter. Both Francisco’s and Stella’s attitudes have been one of closeness – and even sympathy – towards the Cuban authorities. However, Stella’s statements to the press suggest that he did have a conversation at the highest level about the situation of the prisoners. Miguel Díaz-Canel ’s public response, however, was that he would try to find “a solution to the expectations of both parties.”

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The City of White Stones

Every time I returned to the cemetery of my town I tried, in vain, to guide myself in the labyrinth and find the tombstone of my ancestors. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 12 February 2022 — Somewhere in the town where we were born, turning down a certain aisle and advancing to the third or fourth corridor of the cemetery, the family vault is located. The word pantheon, in most cases, is excessive. It is more like a rectangle of two meters by one, which overlooks a kind of endless beehive. There, in small aluminum boxes or in heavy coffins, our dead rest.

No one suspects how horrifying the sight of an open tomb can be for a child. I, who accompanied the funeral march of my grandparents, cannot get out of my head – not as a trauma, but rather as vertigo of memory – the act of uncovering the vertical passageway, its niches numbered, where the gravediggers dropped the sarcophagi with the help of ropes and pulleys.

It didn’t impress me so much to learn that my grandparents would no longer belong to the world of the living, they would no longer come to lunch, they would not smoke compulsively, they would not take me to a municipal band room or sit me in the barbershop chair, to cut my hair against my will, as did the fact of seeing them hidden, covered and under stone. Of the old, I thought then, only the name, the dates and a mortuary address remain, which I refused to learn and, for this reason, today I would not know how to recognize my family vault.

I suppose that, more than one tomb, I get two or four or sixteen, due to the multiplication of relatives. I don’t know if my brother or my parents know that information, which comes with adulthood, like the keys to the house and the bank account number. My resistance to memorizing these types of figures comes, perhaps, from having forgotten where my ancestors were after they died. In fact, I never even went back to my maternal grandfather’s or great-grandfather’s house. When one leaves his country, the last thing he thinks about is the deceased. continue reading

As a child, my father took me to place flowers for his grandmother. I only remember that the tomb was in the northern sector of the cemetery and that to get there, an unpleasant thing, you had to step on several sepulchers. There he showed me a rectangle covered not by a stone but by earth, whose tombstone he had made himself, as a young man. On a molten cement plate and with the help of a stiletto that served as a chisel, he carved the names of the deceased he knew. I don’t remember if there was any Carbonell or Echevarría, but there were the Beltráns and the Seijos, a strange Galician surname.

Before we left, he offered me some clues — a sepulcher that was a miniature chalet, a mutilated angel, a flag — to locate the grave in the future. Every time I returned to the cemetery of my town I tried, in vain, to guide myself in the labyrinth and find the tombstone of my ancestors. I have chosen to think that it never existed and that my memory is invented, another fiction, material for a novel.

A few weeks ago I leafed through a Cuban newspaper that talked about grave robbers in Matanzas. I thought for a moment of Howard Carter, the Valley of the Kings and the pharaohs, but the photos in the report grounded me. The bandits destroyed the coffins with a very peculiar viciousness, scattered the bones on the ground – like Kubrick’s monkeys – and evicted the works of art and any bronze rings from the pantheon.

The cemetery I went to as a child did not have the value or the history of San Carlos Borromeo, it mattered much less than that of Colón and Santa Ifigenia. But on the gate was a phrase by Tito Livio that my friends and I repeated without understanding, and that reminded whoever passed by that every death was, at the same time, liberation and compensation for wrongs. Or, to correctly translate the word, revenge.

Other cemeteries that were familiar to me had more serene inscriptions – I am the door of peace – or more resigned ones – death is the last reason – but always in the Latin language, perhaps because it is a reassuring and remote language, like death itself. Behind the gate the avenues, chapels and white stones appeared, figures always broken, sculptures of dogs and cats, a miniature ship, busts polished by the rain. Or, in the Hebrew cemeteries – my town had one – pure and incomprehensible text, characters arranged from right to left, the same with the dates.

No sane person is concerned with death or immortality. Any preparation is useless and nothingness must be as thick as in the dream, similar to medical sedation, and hopefully just as painless.

My grandparents. My parents. My favorite writers. The guy who composed the piece we hummed insistently. The desecrators of San Carlos Borromeo. The cats I raised and the ones that ran away. The objects, even. The meditators and the carefree, the loud and the silent, the dictators and the exiles, the bad and the noble. The undertaker. Who reads this text. I. What will we think with the last bar?

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There Are Plenty of Jobs in Cuba But No One Wants to Live Here

The restaurant Nel Paradiso has not been able to hold onto staff since Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega opened the “volcano route.” (Facebook)

14ymedio, Madrid, 9 February 2023 — The European press normally pays little attention to what is happening in Cuba. In recent months, however, the continent’s media outlets have turned their focus to the enormous exodus from the island, which has left business managers unable to find workers. Data published on Thursday in an article by Agence France Presse (AFP) casts light on this catastrophic situation.

Take the case of Havana’s Nel Paradiso restaurant. Of the sixty employees it has hired since November of 2021, only ten remain. “When Nicaragua opened its doors, it was a real blow to us. In one week we went from fifty employees to thirty,” says Annie Zuñiga, the restaurant’s hiring manager. Her experience illustrates an odd paradox: Employment on the island is plentiful but no one wants to live there.

As reported in the AFP article, Zuñiga has been desperate to hold onto employees since the government of Daniel Ortega lifted visa requirements for Cubans, a measure that has unleashed an exodus the magnitude of which has never been seen before.

“We haven’t been able to create a unified, stable team. As soon as we think, ’OK, this is the team,’ one of them comes to me and says, ’This is my last week. Next week I’m leaving.’ It’s a disaster,” she says.

Norberto Vazquez, head waiter at Nel Paradiso and a sommelier instructor, sums up his own experience of having trained more than fifty people, only to see them leave the country. “Some students tell me, ’Professor, all I think about now is how I’m going to leave,’ and that makes me incredibly sad,” he says.

At Park Central, a hotel owned by the state but managed by Iberostar, 30% of employees recently emigrated and their jobs have been filled by students. Similarly, sixty employees at a travel agency headed by Stephane Ferrux, a French national, left in one year.

“When there’s nothing to buy because almost everything is in short supply, when you feel you have no future even if you have financial means, then you flee,” says Ferrux. He points out that many of these emigrants had high salaries, as much as 1,500 dollars a month, forty-five times more than the average Cuban. But it means little if you can find nothing to eat, even at hard currency stores. continue reading

If it is hard to find waiters and tourism workers, the situation is even worse for independent press outlets, as this publication knows all too well. Finding employees — people willing to risk threats, fines and prison sentences — is much more difficult than in any other profession. Many leave, however, not for these reasons but in search of a decent life.

At least a dozen journalists and colleagues at 14ymedio have gone into exile over the last nine incredible years, the most recent being Alejandro Mena Ortiz. After years walking the streets of Havana to report on daily life, including going quasi-undercover to report on the July 11 protests, he ultimately decided to join the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who, in late 2021, left the country, setting out on the “volcano route.”* He expects his family to join him in the next few days in the United States, where he currently lives.

The British news agency Reuters dispatched a team to the village of Isabela de Sagua, for decades the point of departure for many migrant boats. This week it published an article on the exodus. “People here are desperate to leave,” says Carlos Hernandez, a 49-year-old fisherman interviewed for the article.

Hernandez reports that, among local residents, whose village is only 130 miles from the Florida Keys, there is a lot of talk about a Biden administration program that allows Cuban emigrants to enter the U.S. via a sponsor. It provides a safe way out but is not an option for many of those who want to leave.

“Cubans have decided they can’t live here and they get out any way they can,” explains 59-year-old Ana Maria Mederos, who earns a living selling coffee from the doorway of her house. She herself is unable to leave because she is caring for a sick relative.

“Those who can leave under this new program will do so. But there are many others who do not have that option and are still willing to risk doing it by sea, by land, whatever it takes,” she adds.

The problem of finding workers is not limited to the private sector. The state-owned newspaper Trabajadores reported in late 2022 that the Carlos Manuel de Cespedes electrical power plant had forty-five vacant positions due to the exodus. “We are still generating electricity but not without enormous effort,” admits the plant’s labor foreman.

According to data provided by the international press, most Cuban emigrants are between the ages nineteen and forty-nine, and are also highly educated. Universities, laboratories, medical centers… no sector is immune from migration. It is just one new element adding to the impoverishment of an Island in which the population pyramid is on the brink of collapse.

*Translator’s note: An overland journey led by paid “coyotes” through Central America and Mexico to the United States.

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Cuba’s Foreign Ministry Vetoes the Presence of Several Priests at the Event with the Cardinal in the University Great Hall

Cardinal Stella’s visit has not been without controversy between those who approve of his non-confrontation policy and those who would have wanted a more explicit denunciation. (Twitter/Minrex)

14ymedio, Havana, 9 February 2023 — The Havana journalist Adrián Martínez Cádiz was one of those invited by the authorities of the Catholic Church to an event this Wednesday at the University of Havana where Cardinal Beniamino Stella, envoy of Pope Francis, participated. The guest list included laymen, priests and nuns, and had to be approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Martínez, known for his critical stance against the regime, never received endorsement for his participation in the event.

“Today after the meeting I understood why we were not allowed to attend. Miguel Díaz-Canel was there,” Martínez reasoned on Facebook. Along with the journalist, several priests and Catholic communicators also waited in vain for government approval.

The event, held in the Aula Magna [Great Hall] of the University, a place that houses the remains of Félix Varela, a Cuban priest and patriot, was attended by various leaders of the Catholic Church, as well as government authorities, diplomats and university professors. With a speech that commemorated the meeting of Pope John Paul II, 25 years ago, with the “world of culture,” Stella ended his agenda on the Island, whose provinces he had toured since January 23.

“I have to say that I would have liked to hear Cardinal Beniamino Stella give his speech, in that place, in front of those people,” said Martínez, alluding to the words of the former apostolic nuncio about the need for freedom on the island, which he later detailed in statements to the international media.

After Martínez’s complaint, several Havana priests denounced that they had also been prohibited from attending the event at the university. Jorge Luis Pérez Soto, one of the clergy who has offered assistance to the prisoners from the 11 July 2021 protests [11J], and who has demanded their release, commented: “Although the Church counted me among the guests, I was excluded from the list by ’other’ people.” continue reading

The Dominican friar Lester Rafael Zayas Díaz doubted, even, that the ecclesial authorities themselves had included his name among the list of “recommended.” He claimed not to know “who organized this act or its relevance,” and stated that he was not on Stella’s “original agenda.”

“Every year I refuse to enter that marvelous campus when it is intended to celebrate and honor the university as if it had been born in 1959 and where Father Varela has never been mentioned, at least in that event. I am grateful not to have been included by whoever it was. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Those who know me closely know that I would not have gone,” he wrote.

Cardinal Stella’s visit has not been without controversy among those who approve of his policy of non-confrontation with the Cuban government and those who would have wanted a more explicit denunciation of human rights violations on the island. Stella, however, did not offer problematic statements until the last moment, in front of Díaz-Canel and the government authorities.

From his speech, phrases such as “Freedom cannot be subordinated to any calculation of interests or circumstances or to wait for better times to promote it” and “learning about freedom will favor the material, ethical and spiritual growth of the people,” emerged from his speech, which has been reprinted on social networks.

For its part, the official press has made one last attempt to redirect the interpretation of Stella’s words this Wednesday with the publication, in the Communist Party newspaper, of an apology for the rapprochement of the Cuban government with the Vatican.

To the statements about the possibility of an amnesty for the 11J prisoners, the only phrase that Díaz-Canel ambiguously conceded, according to Granma, was that he would try to find “a solution to the expectations of both parties.” Regarding the Episcopal Conference, whose relations with the Government have experienced a notable estrangement, the president was no less hermetic when affirming that “at this moment the bishops thank the Cuban president and government for many gestures they have made in these years, and in present times.”

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Cuba Falls in the Caribbean Series: Causes of an Historic Crisis

EFE (via 14ymedio), Juan Carlos Espinosa, Havana, 9 February 2023 — The Agricultores, Cuba’s card in the Caribbean Series, ended their participation in last place this Wednesday and with the memory of the 20-3 beating against Venezuela, leaving in question the current level of a historic country in this sport.

The plummet of the ninth, led by veteran Carlos Martí, has stunned fans and specialists alike. However, for not a few it was the consummation of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“(The result) was expected, but perhaps not its magnitude. But it was certainly expected. It is the result of many years of bad work,” said journalist Daniel de Malas, CEO of the specialized media outlet Swing Completo, in an interview with EFE.

The Agricultores team was the product of an experiment that the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) launched last year: the Elite League, a winter tournament that brought together the best players from the National Series and merged teams from different provinces.

The championship failed to connect with the fans and the images of empty stadiums were a constant, with the honorable exception of the finals.

Despite being the champion team of a league that, in theory, has a better level than the local tournament, Agricultores only managed one victory in their seven games: 3-1 against Curaçao.

Then they lost 3-1 to the Dominican Republic; 20-3 with Venezuela; 6-5 with Mexico; 5-4 with Colombia; 4-3 with Puerto Rico and 10-4 with Panama. continue reading

The role of the team unleashed introspection among the experts and left a question in the air: what does it say about the level of baseball in Cuba that the winning team of an elite tournament does not find any bandwidth in the Caribbean Series?

To the journalist Alejandro Rodríguez Cuervo, a sports presenter on state television, the Elite League is a good idea but it needs to be reformed.

“The Cuban player only plays with Cubans, and very few (have) experience abroad (…) That (Elite) league needs to be addressed in some way so that it can grow economically, including inserting players from various latitudes who can give it much more quality,” he points out in a telephone interview with EFE.

However, De Malas goes further on this point and insists that there is a fundamental problem – above all, a systemic one – in the organization. “There is a lot of politics. (This) is a political problem, (the FCB) does not have the power to make decisions,” he believes.

Swing Completo’s CEO recalled that, unlike the other leagues in the Caribbean Series, the Cuban one is not 100% professional and depends directly on the Government.

“There have been many years of ostracism, of refusing to open up to the world. The FCB needs to be independent and really professionalize,” he adds.

Rodríguez Cuervo does not entirely agree on this point and defends that Cuban baseball players are professionals – since they receive a salary for their work – although he admits that the Elite should become even more professional with players from abroad.

According to Swing Completo, the island players of the Elite League receive a monthly salary of about 3,500 Cuban pesos (about 28 dollars, at the official exchange rate).

Despite its structural problems, Cuba won the 2015 Caribbean Series. Pinar del Río defeated the Tomateros de Culiacán, one of the most iconic teams in Mexico, in the final.

But for the journalist Francys Romero, author of the reference book The Dream and the Reality. Histories of the Emigration of Cuban Baseball (1960-2018), the title can be explained with a bit of context.

The year 2015, Romero recalls in an interview with EFE, was the “prelude to what began to be a systemic exodus of players.” In that year alone, 200 Cuban baseball players emigrated, according to his records.

“The level of the league dropped completely,” he says. “From 2014 to 2016 the teams (the Cubans in the Caribbean Series) were a dream team compared to the ones now,” he stresses.

Since 2017, an average of 80 to 100 Cuban baseball players have left the island to pursue their dream of playing in the US Major Leagues and earn a much higher salary.

In fact, in 2016 Yuli Gurriel – star of the Houston Astros, MLB champions – deserted along with his brother Lourdes when they were concentrating on a Caribbean Series.

The FCB bet this year is the World Classic, which starts in March. Cuba will have three active players in the MLB for the first time. Although the illusions within the organization are high, De Malas and Romero have doubts that the team can go far in the competition.

“I have my doubts that they can get past the first phase,” says De Malas.

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