14ymedio – Page 216 – Translating Cuba

Customers in Havana Frustrated at the Prices of the New Private Business in Carlos III Plaza

The colorful decoration, the neatness of the tables and Fress’s fully stocked shelves attracted the attention of those who passed by. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 22 April 2022 — A new store that takes payment in Cuban pesos opened its doors this Friday in Carlos III Plaza, in Centro Habana. The private business, named Fress – which until now provided its services through various online shopping sites with home deliveries and payments from abroad – not only offers a variety of food products, but also has cafeteria service. In addition, it has two peculiarities: very high prices and a foreign manager.

Sources from the shopping center confirmed to this newspaper that the state premises were rented to a Spaniard, something unusual in Cuba for an establishment of this type. The manager himself cordially welcomed his first customers this Friday.

Already in the early hours of the morning, a score of people gathered at the doors of Fress. The colorful decoration, the neatness of the tables and the large shelves called the attention of those who passed by.

However, two women waiting to enter commented loudly that the prices were not that attractive. “For example, a can of condensed milk, which is in state stores for 35 pesos, is sold for 250,” said one of them.

As the hours passed, the line began to grow, and the employees of the place had to establish an order of entry.

“Is this on the ration book?” An older man asked him, approaching the line, to which they replied: “No, sir, if it were the normal price, there would be a crowd of people here.” continue reading

Before opening this place, Fress offered its services through several online shopping sites to deliver at home and with payment from abroad. (14ymedio)

Inside, the disappointment was directly proportional to the expectation raised by the opening of Fress, especially considering that almost all the premises in Plaza de Carlos III — since it reopened after months of being closed due to the covid pandemic — accept payment only in freely convertible currency, with the exception of the food market with very long lines.

“The pizza is cold and the drinks are hot, you tell me,” a girl complained, getting up from the table. “And the potatoes and croquettes are hard,” pointed out another young man sitting at a table in the cafeteria area.

Faced with the complaints of a couple of elderly women, who regretted that there was no differential treatment with the vulnerable, the head of the café told them that eating there was “a luxury and not a necessity.”

Many of the curious did not go beyond looking in the windows, from where they could see a box of Pringles potatoes at 350 pesos, Toblerone at 380, a box of 24 cans of soft drinks at 2,640 or a little more than three kilograms of Gouda cheese at 4,000 pesos.

Many of the curious did not go beyond leaning into the windows, from where Fress’s high prices of could be seen. (14ymedio)

“It’s the same prices as resale on the street,” a Havana woman protested before walking past.

The resellers, along with the coleros — people who stand in line for others, for pay — are the key targets of the authorities since the Government authorized the sale of goods for payment in foreign currency, first of food and cleaning products and later, of other essential items, such as clothing or footwear.

Without going any further, in a speech made public only a few days ago but delivered on April 9, President Miguel Díaz-Canel denounced “some phenomena that cause there to be a certain way of distribution through channels that deviate from the concepts of justice that defends our socialist construction.”

On a first visit, it does not seem that social justice is among Fress’s objectives, which does not look very much like ‘socialist construction’ either. After spending more than half an hour in line, a young man who managed to get in came out empty-handed said, “Forget it, this is a reseller store authorized by the dictatorship.”

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Hellish Transportation, Impossible Prices and Little Literature at the Havana Book Fair

“This year things are worse than last time,” observed a woman from Havana while covering herself from the sun with her hand. “There are very few buses.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 21 April 2022 — The line this Thursday to take a bus to the fortress of San Carlos de La Cabaña, the venue for the XXX Havana Book Fair (FILH) until April 30, was long and crowded. The wait for transport was almost an hour, as transit is, once again, experiencing a crisis in Cuba.

“This year things are worse than last time,” observed a woman from Havana as she covered herself from the sun with her hand. “There are very few buses.”

During the wait, the visitors were filling the bags they carried in their hands with food. They would eat upon arrival, in the gardens surrounding the fortification, from where one can see, in the distance and with the sea in between, the advanced construction of the so-called “López-Calleja tower” competing for the first time in more than 63 years with the profile of the emblematic Habana Libre hotel.

At the gates of the fairgrounds, the waiting time multiplied: hundreds of people waited in line for up to two hours. “Fortunately there is something cool,” commented an old man with a snort.

At the gates of the fairgrounds, the waiting time multiplied: hundreds of people waited in line for up to two hours. (14ymedio)

Once inside, visitors milled around and crowded around the counters, but they didn’t buy much. In the first FILH after the launch of the so-called Ordering Task*, complaints about high prices were widespread. Miniature books (ranging from literary classics such as The Little Prince to titles with jokes for adults or self-help) at 650 pesos, glitter at 400 pesos, markers at 1,200 pesos… “Not to mention, even water and soft drinks,” protested a young man who asked about the price of a backpack. continue reading

The featured guest country, Mexico, aroused some expectation, judging by the line of people waiting to enter its pavilion, located in room A. However, people left soon, dissuaded by the more than 400 pesos average cost for the books, almost all of them edited by the state publisher Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Once inside, visitors milled around and crowded around the counters, but they didn’t buy much. (14ymedio)

Among the few Mexican private publishers represented were Planeta, Almadía and Sexto Piso, all of them at small tables covered with a precarious table cover and colored “papel picado” – elaborate paper cuts – typical of the traditional Day of the Dead in Mexico.

It was the books of these publishers that were offered at a more accessible price, which was understood by looking at the publication dates: none was new and there were titles from 2012 and 2013. Unsold inventory.

One of them stood out: Commander. The Venezuela of Hugo Chávez , by Rory Carroll from the Sexto Piso publishing house (2013). It is a report that illustrates the rise of authoritarianism in Venezuela and the failure of the social programs of Bolivarism, something that would surprise the Cuban authorities who allowed it to be offered if they knew. Such a thing is doubtful: the two copies on display were closed, and the public passed by when they saw the face of the deceased president.

Among the few Mexican private publishers represented were Planeta, Almadía and Sexto Piso. (14ymedio)

Outside the fairgrounds of La Cabaña, in the Casa Benito Juárez (known as Casa de México), in Old Havana, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, director of the Mexican state publishing Fund for Economic Culture (FCE), presented Nueve noches con Violeta del Río [Nine nights with Violeta del Rio], by Leonardo Padura.

The Havana author was not present in person but he sent a video message from Madrid, where, he said, he is “for work.” In the message he thanked the FCE for the presentation and expressed his wish that the Fair be successful and bring reading closer to the Cuban public.

Taibo, for his part, highlighted the relationship between the two since they met in the International Association of Police Writers in the 1980s and referred to Padura as a “author critical of the Cuban reality that he lives.”

Attendees in the gardens that surround the fortification, from where one can see, in the distance and with the sea in between, the advanced construction of the so-called “López-Calleja tower.” (14ymedio)

The director of the Fund explained that the new book, which he defined as a “long love story,” will be included in the Vientos del Pueblo collection, a series of books launched by the Mexican state publisher at very low prices (and published at very low quality).

*Translator’s note: Tarea ordenamiento = the [so-called] ‘Ordering Task’ which is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and other measures.

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Prisoners Defenders Submits to the UN a Report on Minors Prosecuted in Cuba for July 11 (11J)

The updated list of minors less than 18 years of age imprisoned in Cuba for 11J grew to include 36. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 18 April 2022 — Prisoners Defenders (PD) stated that in Cuba, there are children even as young as 13 and 15 years old in jail for having participated in the peaceful demonstrations last July 11th (11J). The cases of these 13 minors, which have received less visibility, are included in the NGO’s report published Monday and presented to the United Nations on Friday .

In the report, PD denounces the systematic violation of Children’s Rights on the Island, focusing on two points: on one hand, the arrest of minors less than 18 years old following 11J, a total of 36; and on the other hand, the forced disappearance of thousands of parents and children that result from the internationalist brigades.

Thus, it states that 13-year-old Erik Yoángel Héctor Plaza, is in pretrial detention in the Helpi prison in Matanzas, for the crimes of assault and public disorder. “The accusation is very flimsy,” explained Prisoners Defenders, “and there remains the possibility that, like the majority of accusations we’ve analyzed, it is false.”

Furthermore, the report continues, “in Matanzas, the State Security forces have a record and plenty of evidence that they behaved with extreme aggression against the peaceful protesters, and we also know that there could be some isolated cases, of a response of legitimate self-defense.”

Along with Héctor Plaza, the organization took up the cases of Alexander Morejón Barroso, a 15-year-old resident of La Güinera, who they state was “arrested and taken to the 100 y Adalbó torture and interrogation center”; he is also in pretrial detention accused of public disorder and contempt. So too are Leosvani Jiménez Guzmán (age 15) held at the maximum security prison of Guanajay, Artemisa, and Rubén Alejandro Parra Ricardo (age 15) taken to the juvenile prison in Holguín after being “disappeared” for three months; his mother has only visited him once during this time. continue reading

The remaining 13 cases include young people 16 and 17 years of age, though PD clarified that they have not been able to verify all of the data. Among them are two girls, Katherine Martín Taquechel and Gabriela Zequeira Hernández, both from Havana. The first, the organization denounced, was “repeatedly beaten” in El Guatao prison “despite having epilepsy.” Following a “summary trial” held on July 20, she was sentenced to a year in jail which, upon appeal, was reduced to one year of house arrest.

For its part, before the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child, Havana insisted that they do not have any detainees younger than 16 years, which is considered legal age in the Island’s criminal code. “Currently, 662 inmates between 16 and 18 years of age are held in penitentiaries. Two hundred sixty-four are between 16 and 17 years of age, while the rest have already turned 18,” stated the Government in its response.

The minors arrested in Cuba in the last several years, the regime continues, “are mostly boys between 14 and 15 years of age, mestizos and black,” whose “family situation” is characterized as “incomplete (primarily, absentee fathers); dysfunctional; with failures in the use of educational methods and in controlling the activities of their minor children; as well as the presence of indicators of domestic violence such as arguments, mistreatment and alcohol consumption.”

In any case, with 13 new cases, the updated list of political prisoners younger than 18 years of age exceeds 36. Of those, 22 cases are detailed in the Madrid-based NGO’s report.

In the second point of the complaint, the report offers testimonies of more than 1,000 Cuban professionals who have suffered the so-called “8 year law,” the period during which the regime does not allow anyone who ’deserts’ an international ’mission’ to return to the Island; this implies that there are between “5,000 and 10,000 children” in Cuba forcibly separated from their parents.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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The Cries of Cuban Bread Consumers Reach the Official Press

Some residents consider that the now restricted product could no longer even be called “bread”. (Escambray)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 March 2022 — The excuses of Cuba’s Provincial Food Industry Company (EPIA) about the poor quality of the bread sold through the ration book do not convince even the official press. This Monday, the newspaper Cinco de Septiembre published a long article against what it calls “the prevailing impudence in the production of the valuable food.”

The local newspaper refers to, specifically, an EPIA statement published on Facebook where the state-owned company claimed, while defending itself from criticism received from consumers’ criticism, that what affects the “correct preparation of the final product” is the wheat flour that it gets, which “has weak quality characteristics.”

In spite of the efforts of master bread makers, workers and directors striving for creating a quality product,” EPIA acknowledged that, “The bread that is obtained is coarse, uneven, it crumbles to the touch and has little volume, darkened color, strong musty smell and an acid taste caused by the longer-than usual fermentation time in order to obtain the dough.”

Similarly, they predicted that this situation would continue, “taking into account that the wheat flour in reserve for the coming months has the same characteristics.”

The note in Cinco de Septiembre, entitled El Infortunio del Pan (The Bread Misfortune), a “soap opera reruns” says that such a response from EPIA “stoked the fire,” and states that “around 75% of users” questioned “the arguments presented,” considering them “excuses,” “regrets,” “unjustifiable justifications” and a “script that no one believes any more.” continue reading

“They are fodder wheats from second and third harvests from nations such as France, and occasionally from Argentina and Germany,” the official details

“The wheat we receive today is not ideal but it’s what the country can afford to buy,” Esther Arbolay Escobar, head of the Cienfuegos Cereals Base Business Unit Laboratory, told the provincial newspaper. “They are fodder wheats from the second and third harvests from nations such as France, and occasionally from Argentina and Germany,” the official details, admitting: “They are of terrible quality, with a high percentage of impurities, because they contain seeds from the field, corn, and sometimes they even have a mixture of green peas.”

However, the report continues, the certificates issued by the National State Inspection Office (ONIE) of the Ministry of the Food Industry in Villa Clara, “validate the levels of confidence” of the flour produced in Cienfuegos, and certify that “it is in perfect condition and meets the conditions in terms of smell, color, and other parameters.”

The poor quality of the material is not the only problem with bread, they argue from EPIA in the note. Thus, another official of the company, Jeny Hurtado Alejo, alluded to the fact that “we have not won in workers individual improvement,” that is, that the workers also have more responsibility.

In addition, “the technological conditions of the bakeries” are influencing factors. The director of EPIA, Magaly Torres Abreu, says that “the 48 installed Chinese modules” are deteriorated, and that “the breakages cause some to assume the load of others, but they no longer have the capacity for that.”

Laments abound not only among consumers, but also among bakers, such as Julián Alberto Brunet Abreu, who says that, at the Santa Elena bakery, near the Paquito González Cueto Pediatric Hospital in Cienfuegos, “even the carts to move the bread are in poor condition, and we run the risk of dropping the product when moving it from the oven to the stove.”

According to data from the ONIE in Cienfuegos, during 2022, some 14 bakeries – 11 from EPIA, and three from the Cuban Bread Company, which supplies outside the regulated basket and whose product has a slightly better quality – have been fined, “fundamentally, due to the low weight of the product,” says Cinco de Septiembre, which, they add, “has nothing to do with the quality of the raw materials.”

Translated by Norma Whiting
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Armed Agents Hide in the Undergrowth to Prevent Cubans Crossing the Rio Grande to the US

Armed members of the AIC followed the Coahuila migration plan to precent crossings of the Rio Grande from Acuña to Del Río (Texas). (Facebook/Coahuila State Attorney General’s Office)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 20 April 2022 — The Government of the Mexican state of Coahuila, bordering the United States, this Wednesday integrated elements of the Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC), a body created in 2013 to combat crime, with the Migrant Containment Plan, with which seeks to prevent undocumented immigrants crossing the Rio Grande.

The operation began in the Braulio Fernández park, in Ciudad Acuña, through which dozens of migrants pass daily to Del Río (Texas). “This site is one of the key points,” a rescuer from Grupo Beta tells 14ymedio, which is used by “Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans” to cross to US soil.

“In mid-March, 1,500 migrants arrived in the US in one day. They returned 800. And a wave of foreigners is expected before the end of this month,” estimates the rescuer. “The plan is to stop the groups before they reach the banks of the river.”

The Department of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) registered the arrival of 80,000 Cubans in the US between October 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022. And in Mexico, on April 16 Migration reported the arrest of 15,907 people originating from the Island. “The figures are from this year, in less than four months, about 1,800 of these arrests have been registered in Coahuila,” the source from the Grupo Beta shares. continue reading

The rescuer assures that at all times “the human rights of migrants will be respected and they will only be prevented from crossing the Rio Grande,” but he did not know how to respond to the carrying of weapons, visible in the images posted by the Coahuila Attorney General’s Office.

The Migrant Containment Plan is among the agreements reached on April 14 by the Governor of Coahuila, Miguel Riquelme, with the Texas Republican Governor, Greg Abbott, who at the beginning of the month announced the placement of barbed wire in the lower areas of the river Bravo to contain the migration.

Riquelme, on the other hand, opted for the deployment of 200 agents, including armed municipal and state police officers and members of the AIC, who hide in the undergrowth of the Braulio Fernández park, lying in wait for migrants who manage to evade the patrols located in the streets surrounding the river. As soon as the operation began, six Haitians were arrested and handed over to Immigration.

Minutes after the operation began in Ciudad Acuña, the arrest of six Haitians was reported. (Facebook/Coahuila State Attorney General’s Office)

Close to this area. six days ago, Grupo Beta warned Daniela Anaya, a 26-year-old Cuban with her 7-year-old son Dismel Arce, not to cross the tributary to the United States due to the strength of the current and the danger it represented for them.

And it was here in the Braulio Fernández park where Guillermo Alan Matos was found in shock after losing his wife Alexa Nadine, a Uruguayan national, and his son Ismael. They both drowned.

Wilmer Mantos, who is heading to Piedras Negras, and spent 37 days in the migration center of Acayucan, Veracruz, says that the Government of Mexico “wants to pass us off as criminals, when what we are doing is fleeing from a dictatorship, but they’re going to stop these people.”

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US Confirms It Will Hold Migration Talks With Cuba

Alejandro Mayorkas, United States Secretary of Homeland Security. (EFE/File)

14ymedio, Havana, 20 April 2022 — The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the United States, Alejandro Mayorkas, assured this Wednesday that in tomorrow’s meeting with senior Cuban officials, both countries will “explore” the possibility of reactivating the migratory agreements.

Mayorkas said at a press conference at the end of a visit to Panama, without giving further details, that these agreements were in force for years, but ended up being “discontinued.”

The DHS secretary stressed that this Thursday’s meeting, the first high-level contact between the two governments since President Joe Biden came to power, “is a reflection” of his country’s commitment to the legal and humanitarian channels so that migrants do not have to undertake a “dangerous” journey by sea.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry confirmed the news on Tuesday, advanced by the Reuters agency the day before, of the holding of this round of talks on migration with United States officials, which will take place in Washington. continue reading

The Cuban delegation will be chaired by Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, which brings together various opposition organizations from inside and outside the island, spoke out against the meeting on Tuesday, arguing that “the Castro regime is a regime that violates human rights that has committed and continues to commit crimes against humanity,” and that “these negotiations send a message of weakness and not of support to the Cuban people, at a time when the struggle for freedom is progressively increasing in the country.”

The announcement of the meeting came six days after the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) denounced that the Island Government has not accepted the deportation of Cubans since last October.

The Island is experiencing a new unstoppable migratory bloodletting. At the end of November, the island’s regime agreed with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on a “free visa” for Cubans traveling to Nicaragua, which from that very moment became the springboard for a river of emigrants seeking to reach the United States by a land route.

Until the end of February, and since the beginning of the US fiscal year –which begins on October 1 – more than 46,000 Cubans entered the US , a figure that exceeded the 35,000 of the so-called “Rafter Crisis” of 1994.

Some estimates predict that by September 30, 2022, around 150,000 citizens of the island will have entered the United States, more than the 125,000 who entered this territory by sea during the exodus of the Mariel Boatlift, between April and October 1980.

The number of Cubans detained on the border between the United States and Mexico soared to 16,531 in February, the highest total recorded in a single month, according to data from the United States Customs and Border Protection Office, the British agency recalls.

Several US politicians have not hesitated to hold Havana responsible for the current migratory exodus and some of them, such as Republican Congressman Marco Rubio, have even branded it an “act of war.”

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Defeated by Errol Spence, Cuban Yordenis Ugas Greets His Followers With ‘Patria y Vida’

Yordenis Ugás suffered his fifth setback, with 27 wins, 12 by ’knockout’. (Capture)

EFE (via 14ymedio), 17 April 2022 — The American Errol Spence Jr. gave a class in good boxing this Saturday in Arlington, Texas, by defeating the Cuban Yordenis Ugás by knockout in 10 rounds, in a title unification fight in the welterweight category.

At AT&T Stadium, Spence proposed the fight, and soon damaged the Cuban’s eye and after the sixth round he was superior. At minute 1:44 of the tenth round, the doctor stopped the fight due to the injury to Ugás’ face.

The first two rounds involved few punches; Spence Jr. took advantage on the scorecards by taking the initiative with a jab against an opponent who made good impacts with his punches to the stomach.

Ugás, 35, returned in the third, hit the liver and closed better, but again the American damaged the rival’s right eye with the upper cut and good straight lines, and after the fifth round it began to swell. continue reading

In the sixth, Spence lost his rhythm, confident that the referee was going to call a stop because his protector went to the ground. The Cuban hit him three times, but he lacked predatory instinct and Errol returned with good offense, although the round went to the Cuban.

The doctor let Ugás continue in the eighth, Spence Jr. continued the punishment and in the tenth the doctor stopped the fight.

Spence Jr. extended his string of consecutive professional wins to 28, 22 on the fast track, and his titles from the World Boxing Council and the International Federation, he added that of the World Association, which he snatched from the Cuban today.

“This victory meant a lot to me and my friends, I wanted a rival that would bring out the best in me and Ugás did it; now I want to face Terrence Crawford (champion of the World Boxing Organization), it is the fight that everyone wants,” he said.

Ugás recognized the victory of the American, whom he considered one of the best fighters in the world today and repeated the phrase “Patria y Vida” [Homeland and Life], with which Cuban exiles like him confront the “Homeland or Death” of the Cuban regime, against which the man from Santiago has vigorously protested.

Ugás suffered his fifth setback, with 27 wins, 12 by knockout.

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Cuban Exile Rejects the Meeting Scheduled for Thursday Between the US and Cuba

A group of Cubans seconds before trying to cross the Rio Grande through Piedras Negras, Mexico, on April 5, 2022. (ImpactoVisión Noticias/Facebook/Capture)

14ymedio, Madrid, 19 April 2022 — The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, which brings together several opposition organizations from inside and outside the island, expressed this Tuesday its rejection of the start of talks on the migration crisis between the United States government and the “communist tyranny.”

The assembly recalled that “the Castro regime is a human rights violator that has committed and continues to commit crimes against humanity” and therefore “these negotiations send a message of weakness and not of support to the Cuban people, at a time when the struggle for freedom is progressively growing in the country.”

The group of opposition organizations noted that after the protests in Cuba on July 11, 2021, and the series of trials and mass convictions of the protesters that they have provoked, the exchange between officials from both countries “constitutes a true gift to a dictatorship which should be punished for its oppression of the Cuban people.”

The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance also pointed out that the increase in the arrival of Cubans in the United States “is not at all surprising,” since it is the result of “migratory pressure that the regime has exerted against the American government in recent months,” as an “escape valve” against the “rebelliousness of the Cuban people.” continue reading

“Migration to the United States, particularly under Democratic administrations, has been used so many times by the Castro dictatorship as a political weapon that the maneuver is sadly predictable,” the group said in a statement.

The reaction of the Cuban exile occurs after the meeting between high-level officials from the United States and Cuba was confirmed this Thursday in Washington to discuss the migration crisis. As reported on Monday by Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter, the Cuban delegation will be headed by the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, and is expected to meet with representatives of the US State Department as well as other administrative agencies.

The British agency assures that Washington wants Havana to accept more deportees, something that the Díaz-Canel government stopped doing last October, as reported this April by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE).

“Cubans currently occupy the second largest group arriving at the southwestern border of the United States,” a State Department spokesman told Reuters, saying they have seen “a significant increase in irregular Cuban immigrants to the United States, both by land and by sea”.

At the end of November, the island’s regime agreed with President Daniel Ortega on a “free visa” for Cubans traveling to Nicaragua, which from that very moment became the springboard for a river of emigrants seeking to reach the United States. by land route.

Some estimates predict that by September 30, 2022, around 150,000 citizens of the island will have entered the Unted States, more than the 125,000 who entered this territory by sea during the exodus of the Mariel Boatlift, between April and October 1980. The number of Cubans detained on the border between the United States and Mexico soared to 16,531 in February, the highest total recorded in a single month, according to data from the United States Customs and Border Protection Office, the British agency notes.

Thursday’s meeting will be the first meeting at the highest level since Joe Biden was inaugurated as president last year. Bilateral relations have been marked by the Cuban regime’s repression of the protests on July 11, which caused Washington to establish sanctions against officials and repressors on the island.

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The Leader of Cuba’s Ladies in White Faces Arrest Thirteen Consecutive Sundays

Archive image of Berta Soler, the leader of the Ladies in White women’s opposition movement. (EFE/Giorgio Viera)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 19 April 2022 — The leader of the Ladies in White opposition women’s movement, Berta Soler, was detained for the thirteenth consecutive Sunday after leaving the organization’s headquarters in Havana, dissident activists denounced this Monday.

Soler was accompanied by her husband, also an opponent and former prisoner Ángel Moya; at the time of the arrest both were taken to police units in the Havana municipalities of San Miguel del Padrón and Guanabacoa, respectively, as he explained in his Facebook account.

Moya denounced that both were confined in cells and released this morning after the imposition of fines of 7.50 Cuban pesos (equivalent to less than a dollar) for him and 30 Cuban pesos (1.25 dollars) for Soler.

This is Soler’s second arrest in the last week, according to another complaint by Moya last Wednesday, April 13, in which he reported that on that occasion the arrest occurred when he was trying to move to the province of Matanzas, located 100 kilometers east of Havana.

The opponent said that this other temporary arrest of Soler occurred “under pretext, first, for the alleged crime of public disorder and finally for a debtor of fines.” continue reading

The members of the Ladies in White have been arrested every weekend since they announced last January that, as before the pandemic, they would go out to protest on the streets again, this time for those detained in the July 11th (11J) protests.

The Ladies in White movement was created in 2003 by a group of female relatives of 75 dissidents and independent journalists arrested and sentenced in March of that year to long prison sentences after a wave of repression by the Cuban government known as the Black Spring.

The wives, mothers and other relatives of those prisoners began a series of Sunday marches to call for their release and became a symbol of dissidence.

In 2005, the Ladies in White received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament.

The EU and NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International criticized that wave of arrests, calling them political.

The Cuban authorities, for their part, alleged that they were counterrevolutionaries seeking to attack national sovereignty on orders from the United States.
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‘It Is Not a Crime to Ask for the Freedom of our Children, They Will Not Silence Us’

The young Brusnelvis Cabrera Gutiérrez was sentenced to 15 years for the La Güinera protests. (Collage)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 19 April 2022 — “I told him that he had the soul of an old man because he got up at dawn to go to work on his father’s farm. He liked to be in the fields and take care of the animals.” This is how Migdalia Gutiérrez Padrón remembers her son Brusnelvis Cabrera Gutiérrez, sentenced to 15 years for the La Güinera protests in the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo.

Cabrera calls his mother every two or three days, as allowed in the Combinado del Este prison, the largest on the island, where he has been confined for months. Every time he manages to communicate, he insists on asking about the appeal process that the family began after learning in March of his sentence for the crime of sedition.

“What does the lawyer say? Is there anything new about my case?” asks the 21-year-old on the other end of the line. But still his mother has not been able to give him the joy of a positive response. The days are lengthening and the hope that justice will be done seems to fade. “My son was not even in the demonstration that July 12,” the woman points out.

Gutiérrez remembers every hour of that Monday. “He went around nine in the morning with his wife to a pool in El Globo for a party,” a neighborhood located in the municipality of Boyeros. “He was there with some friends until around five in the afternoon and then he left for his father’s farm,” close to his home. continue reading

“He was there until after eight o’clock at night when he was in charge of looking after the cows. That was his journey that day,” says the mother. “We have four witnesses who confirmed that she was in the pool and also others who confirmed his presence on the farm, but the complaint against my son was based on a photo.”

An image of a young man on a motorcycle who, with the movement of his arm, summoned the protesters, was enough for the People’s Provincial Court of Havana to make the sentence final. Something that Gutiérrez refutes: “the young man in the photo does not have tattoos on his arm and my son has an arm full of tattoos.”

In the ruling issued on March 16, to which 14ymedio had access, the Court dismissed this evidence and alleges that “it was clear that those who testified” in favor of Cabrera “were not credible,” but the only action described by the young man during that day is to “drive a red moped” and with “gestures with his hands and movements with his body” summon people to join the march.

Married, without children yet and with dreams of prospering in farming, Cabrera also raised pigs and helped plant mangoes on land that pays part of its production to a cooperative in the area. Now all those dreams of building a future for his family through the rows and the stables are very distant.

“The prison conditions are terrible and my son feels very bad because the witnesses we brought to the trial were not taken into account,” the mother summarizes. “In the appeal we are not asking for a reduction of years or that they put another crime such as ‘attack’ or ‘disrespect’ but immediate freedom, because he is innocent.”

“He is a boy very well loved in the neighborhood, I have not had any rejection here because he was a person who made himself loved,” recalls Cabrera. “He was 20 years old when he was arrested, but he was still like a child. He liked everything that people of that age like: music and being with his friends.”

The family lives on 2nd Street, in Reparto Rosario, a very humble area. “The demonstration began in an area of wooden houses,” explains the mother. “The son of my neighbor María Luisa Fleitas Bravo was sentenced to 21 years,” she adds. This is the young Rolando Vázquez Fleitas, one of those arrested for the La Güinera protests.

After the demonstrations, the authorities began at full speed a project to remodel and touch up the neighborhood. “They sent for the school and some blocks to be fixed up a bit. The place where the demonstration came from was a garbage dump before and now they have made it a small park,” the woman details.

“As a mother, I hope that he will be released, but I see it as difficult because I look at myself in the mirror of other people who have gone through the same thing and have had to serve their sentences,” admits Gutiérrez.

What she has no doubt about is the attitude that she will take. “They want the mothers of La Güinera to shut up, but we are not going to shut up. State Security visits us and harasses us, but we are going to continue asking for the freedom of our children. That is not a crime,” she concludes.

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Cuba’s Cimex and Caribe Stores Will Distribute the Scarce Goods by Municipality and Ration Book

The line this Tuesday to shop in the Plaza de Carlos III, in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 19 April 2022 — One day after 14ymedio reported the return to the restriction by municipality of residence on the sale in pesos in the Plaza de Carlos III, the official press confirms the measure for the entire capital as of this Thursday 21.

The decision has been made, the Tribuna de La Habana acknowledges this Tuesday, “taking into account the existing situation with the availability of products and with the aim of making sales more viable, achieving greater equity and therefore reducing the crowding of people in the establishments.” That is, because of the shortages and to avoid the long queues.

From now on, warns the local newspaper, “all the products that are sold will be controlled and regulated,” and in the establishments of Cimex and Caribe the “scanning system” for identity cards will be re-established.

The official note details that in the Cuatro Caminos market, only residents of Old Havana and Cerro will be able to buy; in the Plaza de Carlos III, those of Centro Habana and Plaza de la Revolución, and in El Pedregal, those of La Lisa.

It was the Cuatro Caminos shopping center that was the scene, on April 7, of a line that reached a length of almost 20 blocks, and, two weeks before, the area was heavily guarded by the security forces, coinciding with a blackout of the internet that the State telecommunications company Etecsa attributed to an “energy failure.” continue reading

The return of this regulation, which was in force to prevent the spread of covid-19 and was repealed at the beginning of November, could be fatal for the Havana municipalities farthest from the center. The disproportion of the number of stores in Plaza de la Revolución, Centro Habana or Old Havana, for example, is enormous compared to the numbers in Arroyo Naranjo, La Lisa or Alamar.

“The other time they did this, it brought a lot of need,” confirms a Luyanó neighbor to this newspaper. “In the two little shops that are in my neighborhood, everyone had to buy one way or another and you had to spend three or four days in a line.” During that time, this woman chose not to leave her house and to order the week’s groceries from her son, who lives in Centro Habana and went to Luyanó on foot, because, due to the pandemic, transportation was also restricted.

Another woman from Havana asked: “When all of Key West has to go to the Carlos III market on the day assigned to them to shop, imagine if they are going to be able to buy a quarter of [what they need]. Many people are not even going to go.”

“They don’t do anything that works,” protested a boy in the line at Carlos III this Tuesday. “Every time they do something, it’s not looking forward, but looking back, like crabs.”

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‘Chained Hands and Feet,’ Activist Sayli Navarro Enters Prison for 11 July Protests

The opponent Sayli Navarro, before entering the court for her appeal trial, this Monday. (Twitter/@RosaMariaPaya)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 April 2022 — The Lady in White Sayli Navarro Álvarez entered prison this Monday, after losing the trial on appeal of the sentence received last March for public disorder, attack and contempt, for participating in the peaceful demonstrations of July 11th (11J). Her father, Félix Navarro, in provisional prison since last July, also had his sentence ratified.

The father was sentenced to nine years in prison and the daughter to eight, in a trial held in January in Jovellanos, Matanzas.

As Rosa María Payá, promoter of Cuba Decide, assured in a tweet, Sayli Navarro was taken to jail “chained hand and foot” directly from the court and she was unable to say goodbye to her mother. Her father was returned to his cell in the Agüica maximum severity prison, in Matanzas.

Hours earlier, Payá had published a photo of the Lady in White, with whom she was speaking as she arrived at court, adding that it might be “the last photo of Sayli Navarro.” continue reading

The arrest of the father and daughter, on July 12, occurred in a violent manner at the police unit in Perico, Matanzas, when they went to find out about the situation of other activists arrested for joining the protests the day before, which multiplied in dozens of other cities throughout the Island.

Last August, Félix Navarro, who, unlike his daughter, had to await trial in jail, began a hunger strike which he ended at the end of September in protest at his unfair imprisonment.

At that time, his daughter denounced that he was in a “very delicate” state of health and that for that reason, after 25 days, he abandoned it.

Navarro, 68, was one of the political prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003, when 75 opponents and independent journalists received long prison sentences. In 2011, as a result of various negotiations between the governments of Spain and Cuba and with the mediation of the Catholic Church, they were released and sent into exile, but Navarro was one of the twelve former prisoners who decided to stay in Cuba.

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Political Prisoners Inspire Cuban Boxer Yordenis Ugas in the Ring

Yordenis Ugás has adhered to the motto Patria y Vida and demands freedom for political prisoners. (Twitter)

14ymedio, Havana, 16 April 2022 — The fight that has been described as “the most important of his career,” has been dedicated by the Cuban boxer Yordenis Ugás to the political prisoners of the Island, as published on his social networks.

“My fight, as always, is representing our island, Cuba, but especially to all those who want and wish for change. To all the political prisoners, to all the prisoners of 7/11. To all of us who suffered exile for thinking differently and because a person can’t live in our country. Thank you. Patria y vida,” wrote the current professional boxing world champion on Instagram.

The boxer competes this Saturday against the unified world champion, the American Errol Spence Jr., at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Dallas, Texas. Both athletes will seek to unify the welterweight titles of the Association and the World Boxing Council, as well as the International Boxing Federation.

Ugás, along with his words on social networks, added a video where a compatriot wishes him luck in the competition, and the boxer turns to greet him. “Thanks to each person who is coming to this stadium to support me, especially my Cubans, who are few but for me they are worth thousands,” he wrote. continue reading

Yordenis Ugás is a Cuban boxer who, in addition to hooks and rings, also knows very well the drama that thousands of his compatriots experience daily when they leave the Island.

In March 2010, he left his country on a boat, with the goal of reaching the United States, but before that he made a stopover in Isla Mujeres, opposite Cancun, Mexico.

At the age of 24, he left his mother, Milagros, and the rest of his family in Santiago de Cuba. His future was in the power of his fists, though just one year out of training he knew it wouldn’t be easy.

In September 2020, he was crowned the welterweight world boxing champion and in August 2021, Ugás defeated Manny Pacquiao in the ring; Pacquiao had tried to recover the title that the Cuban had won a year earlier.

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Cuban Musician José Luis Cortés ‘El Tosco’ Dies at 70

The flutist, composer and musical director, José Luis Cortés, was born in Villa Clara on October 5, 1951. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 April 2022 — Cuban musician José Luis Cortés El Tosco died this Monday in Havana at the age of 70, sources close to the artist informed 14ymedio, confirming that the director of NG La Banda had been having health problems for a few months.

Although the cause of death has not been revealed, the sources affirm that “he had heart problems.”

The flutist, composer and musical director was born in Villa Clara on October 5, 1951. In his long artistic career he played with the Los Van Van orchestra, of which he was the founder, and the Irakere orchestra, conducted by Chucho Valdés, where he composed works that became popular.

In 1988, together with other musicians, he decided to found the Nueva Generación NG La Banda orchestra, which he directed until his death. Among the group’s best-known songs, performed by vocalists such as Issac Delgado and Tony Calá, are La bruja, Échale Limón y NG La Banda, La que manda. continue reading

On several occasions, El Tosco was involved in numerous controversies. One of them was involved statements about the Buena Vista Social Club group, which he called a “damn lie.”

He also quoted Manolín El Médico de la Salsa to say that “Miami is the graveyard of Cuban musicians… Issac Delgado himself, when things were bad, had to turn back to Havana,” Cortés argued in an interview, pointing out that Delgado had emigrated to the United States several decades ago and later returned to make musical collaborations in the Island

The musician was denounced in 2019 by the singer Dianelys Alfonso Cartaya, known as La Diosa , for alleged domestic violence, revealing alleged abuse towards her person by El Tosco at the time they worked together in NG La Banda. Alfonso, according to her reports weeks later, managed to file a lawsuit against Cortés.

The official newspaper Granma , when reporting the death of El Tosco, recalled that the artist received the National Music Award in 2017 and “is considered one of the creators of the new school of flutists of our popular music and precursor of timba.”

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Miami Hosts an Exhibition by Imprisoned Cuban Artist Otero Alcantara

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement (Photo: EFE/Yander Zamora)

EFE/14ymedio, Miami/Havana 17 April 2022 — An exhibition dedicated to the work of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, one of the leaders of the San Isidro Movement, who has been imprisoned in Cuba since last July, will open this week in Miami with the help of various institutions.

“Alcantara, Artist imprisoned in Cuba,” shows the works that the artist’s partner, art curator Claudia Genlui Hidalgo, took out of Cuba last November and brought to Miami.

Otero Alcántara was arrested on July 11, the day that the biggest protests ever broke out against the government and in favor of change in Cuba since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959. Otero is being held in a prison in Guanajay.

The exhibition, which will open its doors to the public from April 22 at The ArtSpace gallery, has been curated by Claudia Genlui Hidalgo and supported by the Bacardí Family Foundation, El Espacio 23 — owned by Cuban-born businessman Jorge Pérez — and I’ve Been Framed.

“His life has become a great performance, an exercise in constant resistance,” says Genlui about Otero Alcántara. continue reading

The art curator reported through social networks that last Saturday Otero Alcántara’s relatives visited him in prison and found him “in better spirits,” but “in poor health.”

The Cuban artist continues to have vision problems while the authorities have refused his demand to provide him with specialized medical care, Genlui Hidalgo denounced on Facebook.

Otero Alcántara’s health has deteriorated as a result of several hunger strikes, before and during his imprisonment.

In early April, his relatives reported that Otero Alcántara could be suffering from a severe eye disease after the partial paralysis he suffered during his last hunger strike.

“Everything that happens to Luis is the responsibility of the Cuban government, which is determined to isolate and torture him,” Genlui stressed.

At the beginning of April, the Cuban Prosecutor’s Office informed, after months of waiting, of the sentence request that they will make to the court that that will try Maykel ’Osorbo’ Castillo and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara: ten years for the first and seven for the second.

The information was released by the Osorbo Facebook account; he has been imprisoned since May 18, 2021.

Both artists share the same case, in which they are accused of aggravated contempt, public disorder and instigation to commit a crime for going out on the street, in front of the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement in Old Havana to sing Patria y Vida among the neighbors, on April 4, 2021. Alcántara also has been accused of outrage against national symbols for his work of art titled Drapeau.

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