14ymedio – Page 258 – Translating Cuba

Cuba: 15N Begins With an Act of Repudiation in Front of Saily Gonzalez’s House

Act of repudiation in front of the home of Saily Gonzalez. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 15 November 2021 – Dawn had barely broken this 15th November in Cuba, the date set for the opposition’s Civic March for Change, when Saily González, a member of the Archipiélago platform — the conveners of the march — faced an act of repudiation already organized at front of the door of her home in Santa Clara.

“Fifty henchmen at the service of the Cuban dictatorship at the door of my house from 5:30 am. I am still firm and with the intention of going out to demonstrate at 3:00 pm,” denounced the activist and former owner of the private Amarillo B&B.

A few hours later, González published a new video in which she is seen hanging out some white sheets at her house while receiving shouts, insults and boos from those who are still stationed in front of the house.

The journalist Mónica Baró has highlighted that along with the people gathered in front of González’s house, the flags of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) can be seen. “This means that the aggressors are in this way identifying themselves as members,” says the reporter, who now resides in Madrid, who then adds that the FMC receives funding from different international agencies of cooperation from countries that promote themselves as human rights defenders, and it also has the backing of agencies of the United Nations.

If these agencies do not speak out immediately, says Baró, “there is no room for doubt: they are participating in the violence.”

From El Vedado, in Havana, Carolina Barrero reports that about 100 people gathered at the ground floor of her building around eight in the morning. “They cut off the internet but I have my cellphone playing Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life] on the balcony,” the curator and art historian continue reading

tells this newspaper, adding that, after shouting slogans, singing the national anthem and playing Silvio Rodríguez songs at full volume, the group went inside the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (Icap). Still in front of her house are “agent Mario” and “agent Darío… They talked about the embargo, about the mercenaries, the same old story,” she says.

Yahima Díaz Barrabes, from Consolación del Sur in Pinar del Río, was barely able to take her son to school. “It was his first day of the year and it was important that he go,” she explains to 14ymedio. “The state security officer who ‘attends’ me made it clear that I couldn’t do anything else, that I couldn’t go anywhere else because I have limited movement.” Díaz also has an “operation” of about 30 people in the vicinity of her home. “Some in front of my house, others on the side, in the background, so they are scattered, this deployment of security is something impressive, as if one were a criminal,” she laments.

This newspaper testifies to surveillance in all corners of Centro Habana, along San Lázaro, Galiano and Boulevard San Rafael, by both uniformed and plainclothes agents

In a first tour, this newspaper testifies to surveillance in all corners of Centro Habana, along San Lázaro, Galiano and Boulevard San Rafael, both by uniformed men and by plainclothes agents. In Galiano, the authorities installed platforms, presumably to offer performances. San Rafael cannot be accessed without showing an identity card. Also striking is the presence of officers guarding the lines in front of shops this Monday.

Santiago also woke up to at least a couple of police officers on every corner, according to 14ymedio’s correspondent in the eastern capital. On Avenida de las Américas, one of the main arteries of the city, in front of each bus stop there are a couple of agents. In the main intersections of the city there are also patrol cars and caballitos, police officers on motorcycles.

There are also Black Berets in Ferreiro Park and Garzón Avenue and, in addition, plainclothes agents in the main parks of the city that do not go unnoticed, since they are ‘in uniform’ on this day with a red T-shirt, a symbol from officialdom in opposition to the white clothes that the opposition has identified with the protests.

White flowers, also a symbol of the Civic March, were on sale as normal in state establishments, and also on an itinerant basis by women who offered them in plastic buckets.

For this Monday, demonstrations are expected to be called in several Cuban provinces starting at 3:00 in the afternoon, although the Government has already warned that the marches are prohibited and has threatened to arrest those who try to join, in addition to mobilizing its followers to try to defuse the protest.

At the request Josep Borrel, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the diplomats of the European Union will be reporting what is happening today in Cuba and the United Nations is also monitoring the situation. The United States has warned of more sanctions on the Havana regime if it does not allow protesters to march and represses them with violence, although these measures are not expected to work as a deterrent to the government.
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We Want for Cuba the Same as for Europe

The same wall of communism, which one day enclosed half of Europe behind a curtain of repression and misery, still stands tall in front of the Cubans. (DC)

14ymedio, José Ramón Bauzá, Brussels, 14 November 2021 — When November begins in Europe, it brings with it the first days of cold, a prelude to a winter that is already looming; but it also brings to the Old Continent the memory of a past that still chills the souls of Europeans.

This week was loaded with symbolism here. We remember the Night of Broken Glass, in which the Nazis unleashed their anti-Semitic and genocidal terror in Europe; and on Armistice Day, at 11am on the 11th of the 11th month, we honor the youth lost in the collective suicide that was the First World War. Along with the memory of horror, we were also able to celebrate the hope brought by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of decades of communist oppression and division among Europeans.

What we remember this week in Europe as a black chapter in our history is today a very alive and omnipresent reality in Cuba. Why do we close our eyes to her?

The same wall of communism, which one day closed off half of Europe behind a curtain of repression and misery, still stands imposing in front of Cubans, separating families, drowning dreams and hiding the horizon of a future that is denied to the youth of Cuba. continue reading

But, like the Berlin wall thirty years ago, the wall of Castroism already shows the cracks that time and the failure of an obsolete model have opened: loopholes through which, as in 1989, the torrential will of a people determined to recover its future will seep down.

The flow of brave Cubans who took to the streets on the now historic July 11 broke the first defense of the regime, fear. That spirit of dignity, which flowed free for a few hours, is the force that now inspires the Civic March on the 15th of November.

Will Europe continue to be blind to Cubans’ desire for change?

The European Parliament has never turned its face from what is happening on the Island. Time and again, the voice of this House representing 440 million Europeans has been clear and constant in its rejection of the regime. And, for the first time this September, the condemnation of the crimes of Castroism transcended political divisions to add deputies from the left, who broke ranks with their Spanish partners and their uncritical support for the regime.

But before this democratic majority, expressed so many times by the European Parliament, the High Representative José Borrell and some countries continue to resist listening to the voice of the citizens, held back by the ideological sectarianism that prevails in the Spanish Government.

In a show of cynicism that is now impossible to hide, the European Union follows the dictates of Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish socialists, treating the Castro dictatorship with a softness that contrasts, to our shame, with the harshness that Brussels shows towards other countries before abuses that pale compared to those committed daily by the Cuban regime.

What millions of Europeans feel at the passivity of our leaders is not only shame, it is also dismay. How can Europe — which suffered in its own flesh the terror of communism — close its eyes to the same oppression that a brother nation suffers today? How has the hand that Brussels extended to the regime improved the lives of Cubans? Where are the sanctions demanded by an overwhelming majority in the European Parliament?

The European Union must urgently change course, and give its unconditional help to those who can build the future of a democratic Cuba: the youth, the fearless opponents — such as my dear friend José Daniel Ferrer — and the incombustible civil society that on the 11th of July took to the streets en masse to give the regime a lesson in courage and decency.

In this endeavor, those of us who believe in the right of Cubans to live in democracy and freedom are fighting daily, and more Europeans are added every day to the numbers of us who do not understand how we tolerate in Cuba a system whose liquidation in Europe we celebrate every year.

The cold passes, the walls collapse, dictatorships fall. And just as we Europeans shook off the yoke of communist oppression from half a continent three decades ago, the courage and determination of Cubans can return, this November, democracy and hope to a people that waited long enough.

In that fight, your friends in Europe will always be by your side.

Editor’s Note: José Ramón Bauzá is a MEP for the Spanish Citizens party and a member of the Foreign Commission of the European Parliament.

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Cuban Political Police Multiply Arrests of Activists Before 15 November (15N)

Members of the rapid response brigades, most of them dressed in red T-shirts. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 November 2021 — A few hours before the Civic March for Change, called for this Monday in Cuba by the Archipiélago group, State Security intensifies its siege against activists, independent journalists and ordinary citizens. Daniela Rojo, mother of two young children, moderator of the platform in networks from Guanabacoa, Havana, and who was previously detained for almost a month for participating in the protests of July 11, is missing.

As reported by Archipiélago in its networks, “after several people showed up at the Guanabacoa police station asking for Daniela, we can affirm that she is officially disappeared.” Right there, the group asserted: “We hold the Cuban regime responsible for the life of Daniela Rojo.”

In Cienfuegos, the platform also denounced the “kidnapping” by the Ministry of the Interior of Carlos Ernesto Díaz González, when “he was going to buy cigarettes in his neighborhood.”

Three agents, Archipiélago denounces, later appeared at the home of the activist, who runs a private restaurant, and asked his wife, Adianes Delgado Hernández, to “appear at the Technical Investigations Department (popularly known as ’Everybody Sings’) located in Pueblo Grifo, to being toothpaste, toothbrush, among other belongings, to her husband.”

By way of explanation, the platform continues, the agents told Delgado that the reason for the arrest was “that Carlos had posted signs at the Hospital.” She told them that this was a false accusation and they replied that “they were investigating it.” Archipiélago denounces that they have 72 hours to do so and that this prevents Díaz from participating in the November 15 demonstration, and demands “the cessation of these harassment actions” against citizens “who are only exercising their universally recognized right to demonstrate and continue reading

express themselves freely.”

Also detained, in his case for the second time this month, was the opposition figure Guillermo Coco Fariñas, winner of the European Parliament Sakharov Prize in 2010; he was also detained in Santa Clara, and is awaiting trial.

Alicia Hernández, Fariñas’ mother, told Efe by phone that he was detained on Friday and this Saturday he was admitted to the Arnaldo Milián provincial hospital, where they would carry out several medical check-ups and where “later” a prosecutor would come to process him.

“We do not know what the cause is, only that they will process him,” she said, commenting that her son, the general coordinator of the United Antitotalitarian Front (Fantu) ,has undergone medical treatment for several days for a bacterium that is lodged in his kidney.

From Las Tunas, the writers Ana Rosa Díaz Naranjo and Rafael Vilches denounced on networks that this Saturday their house was under siege, with people beating on it from the early hours. “All day they have been harassing us so that Ana would leave the house and they would be able to kidnap her,” Vilches tells the camera, who claims to have realized that at that moment they were breaking down a wall of the house, connected to the house of a neighbor, in order to enter and detain them.

The rebellious rapper Omar Mena El Analista, who had been arrested on Friday in Santa Clara, reported in a live broadcast how he was threatened by the political police. “You [those who disagree] are not the majority,” he says that they told him during his arrest, “but the moment you are the majority, we will take care to kill you.” How? he continues, “cutting your throats, shooting you, with those same words.”

For her part, Luz Escobar, a reporter for 14ymedio, was summoned on Friday by the Ministry of the Interior in the Havana Office for Minors, and reported the presence this Saturday of a State Security agent on the ground floor of her building to keep her from going out into the street.

While the threats from the political police increased in tone, in the streets of Havana the authorities raised the volume of the “festivities,” during which the Buena Fe group performed with a concert.

But in the face of pressure from officialdom, the signs of support for the Civic March are also multiplying. From Miami, the singer Leoni Torres , in the middle of a performance, sent a message of encouragement to the Archipiélago platform, referring to its members, especially Yunior García Aguilera, as “the new heroes of Cuba.” “I don’t know if what we all hope will happen on November 15 will happen, but if not on November 15, it will be the 16th; if not, it will be the 17th; if not, it will be in December; if not, it will be in January; but at some point it’s going to have to happen,” Torres said into the microphone amidst the applause from the audience and the shouts of “Libertad!” (Freedom).

A unique and exciting tribute is that of the musician Roberto Carcassés, who was recorded this Saturday, traveling through the streets of Havana, making the route that Yunior García Aguilera had announced that he would continue “alone” this Sunday and humming a song entitled No hay quien me pare (There is no one to stop me). “Without fear of saying what you think, the street belongs to all Cubans, stop being silly and give me your hand, go for a walk, this is your place, this is your land and your country, no one can tell you how you have to live,” say the lyrics of the song at the beginning, signed by the jazz pianist and singer Etian Brebaje Man. “The crying and suffering is over, my city lights up right away,” the lyrics continue at another point. “Hey, the abuse is over, because Cubans are in the street.”

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Cuba: A Violent Crowd Surrounds Yunior Garcia’s House and Threatens the Foreign Press

Yunior Garcia in his house in Havana this Sunday. Sign in the window: “My house is blockaded.” EFE

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 14 November 2021 — The playwright Yunior García Aguilera could not carry out his plan to walk dressed in white with a rose in his hand at 3 o’clock in the afternoon down 23rd Street in El Vedado to the Malecón in Havana.

Police and State Security agents and members of the Rapid Response Brigades prevented him from setting foot on the street, tried to completely cover his window by displaying Cuban flags and kept the international press who had approached his house as far away as they could, expelling them violently from the start.

More than an hour after the scheduled time for García Aguilera’s walk, it is unknown what his personal situation is due to the communication cuts maintained by the Government, but it is a fact that the activist could not carry out his solo march.

“This outside the house is very violent, they have attacked the press, they were simply parked with their car and a mob was on them,” Dayana Prieto, Garcia’s wife, reported to 14ymedio this morning. “Since the early hours of the morning they have been gathering in the school that is across from the house and on the ground floor of the building,” she added.

“Right now they have just expelled some journalists who arrived in a car, they carried out an act of repudiation, they refused to leave, they began to yell ‘get out’, to push the car until finally they made them leave, they are already in a violent mode,” said the playwright in an audio shared with the Archipiélago platform.

“Nobody here in the house now has mobile service of any kind,” Garcia’s wife explained a few minutes later to 14ymedio. “At front of the door of our apartment there are many people and everything is surrounded by siege, I can see it through the blinds. There are full buses, many cars, I think there is continue reading

a group on the corner that seems to be from the press because of their credentials but without cameras, I don’t know if they have been forbidden to use them.”
García had also denounced the siege in a Facebook transmission: “Today my house was under siege, the entire building is surrounded by State Security agents dressed in civilian clothes posing as ’the people’, as they usually do, that does not surprise any Cuban. There are cars on every corner and groups even in my building in the stairwell.”

“They know that I was going to do a solo march carrying a white rose down 23 Avenue from Parque Quijote to the Malecón, that does not violate any right, on the contrary, it is my human and constitutional right to walk as a free citizen carrying only a white rose, but apparently they are not even willing to allow that,” he lamented.

“When the time is right I will leave my house despite the fact that there is a mob surrounding it, despite the fact that we have already seen the violence against these accredited journalists.” García believes that “in recent years we have seen how this violence grows and how this hateful language grows, how this discrimination grows and how this ideological apartheid grows.”

To define the prevailing model on the island, the activist remarked that “it is not even the rule of law nor is it a republic nor is it anything, it is a tyranny,” and he asked that at three in the afternoon Cubans applaud. “A clap for us, for the people of Cuba, we have spent too much time applauding others, applauding leaders, applauding figures with power. It is time to applaud that desire for freedom and this joy that we have.”

With regards to the expulsion of the foreign correspondents that both saw from the apartment window, the activist of the Archipiélago platform details that it was “with shouts and blows (…) that they were repudiated, they they expelled them, they refused to leave because they have every right, but they even tried to push the car to get it off the block and finally they made them leave with shouts, threats.”

“We are living very ugly days in Cuba, unfortunately we are going back to the worst times; to the times that Cuban artists know very well … that grey five-year period, those acts of terrible repudiation between some Cubans and others,” García commented in reference to to the years between 1971 and 1975 when censorship was extended to the island’s cultural policy.

“Some young people are allowed, for example, to demonstrate in Central Park because they are favorable to what they call revolution, because it stopped being so a long time ago and it has removed all its masks because it has been shown that it is a very conservative dictatorship, they are allowed to demonstrate, to block the statue of the national hero who is the hero of all Cubans, which was not the private property of anyone, and we are not,” allowed to get near it, he denounced.

On Saturday night, a group that identifies itself as “Los Pañuelos Rojos” [the red scarves] held a “sit-in” in Central Park, right in front of the statue of José Martí. Elízabeth Rodríguez, one of the coordinators of this project, stressed to Radio Reloj the marked “anti-imperialist character” of the initiative, which, as she specified, will last 48 hours.

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Regime Change in Cuba

In fact, it is Cubans who want to change the regime that prevails on the island. It is not the United States. The United States cares little about the fate of its neighbors. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 14 November 2021 — Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla was used by Raúl Castro to try to “scare” the young creators of “Archipiélago” and the San Isidro Movement. Bruno summoned the diplomats based in Cuba and said that the excesses announced for November 15 wouldn’t be tolerated. Why? Very simple and very sinister: because the United States is behind these efforts to “change the island’s regime.” It is behind these efforts with its dirty money and with the evil CIA, that doesn’t miss an opportunity to harm the country.

When Raúl considered whom to assign the presidency of Cuba, he hesitated to use the engineer Miguel Díaz-Canel. At one point, he believed that the presidency would be better defended by Bruno Rodríguez, but he chose to trust the criteria of José Ramón Machado Ventura, his official “headhunter.” Both are sorry for the selection, but they believed it would be enough to place a Prime Minister in President Díaz-Canel’s environment, as if he were a magical babysitter. For that purpose, they used the architect Manuel Marrero Cruz, although they had to restore the position, eliminated since 1976. (At the time, Marrero offended the doctors in the midst of the pandemic, which seemed unjustifiable to Raúl Castro, but preferred to reprimand him in private, something that Díaz-Canel chose to disclose.)

Perhaps it is impossible to have a president and a prime minister unrelated to the origins of the Revolution. For that reason, republics were established, organized around absolutely neutral laws and institutions that change destination with each generation that comes to power. In the United States, it is said that the Democratic Party was created by Thomas Jefferson, but this “founding father” had in mind a slave society of small plantation owners, as it was logical to think in those years (he was president from 1801 to 1809.)

The error is in believing the tale of Marxism-Leninism and in supposing that, once the Revolution was made, the design of the perfect state and permanent goals were found. That is simply not true. As the song by Cuban singer-songwriter Carlos Varela says, “William Tell/ your son grew up/ and he wants to shoot the arrow.” Young Cubans don’t see themselves as the continuators of any revolution. They want to shoot their own arrows. The leader of the San Isidro Movement, the plastic artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, and the playwright Yunior García Aguilera, born in the eighties, don’t feel the slightest adherence to the legacy of Fidel, Raúl or Che Guevara.

If revolution is sudden change, then the most revolutionary country in the world is the United States, at least since continue reading

the 20th century. Here is where the most important technological and scientific discoveries on the world emerge, but also the most transcendent literary experiences, the singer-songwriters, from ragtime to rap, along with blues, rock, country, gospel and even “niuyorquina” salsa, that combines Cuban guarachas, Puerto Rican music, and Dominican bachatas and merengues.

There is no possibility of communicating to young people the “anti-Yankee” emotions of some generations that made the revolution. For them the blockade is a pretext to oppress them. They know that Paquito D’Rivera, Chucho Valdés and Arturo Sandoval had to take their music business elsewhere, as Celia Cruz, Olga Guillot and Fernando Albuerne had done before, just to mention a few artists among the thousands who have gone into exile, because in Cuba the foolishness and the dictatorship met in an extraordinary expression that Paquito D’Rivera once had to hear, “The saxophone is a counterrevolutionary instrument.”

In fact, it is Cubans who want to change the regime that rules the island. It is not the United States. The United States cares little for the fate of its neighbors. Cubans don’t want to take to the hills or get involved in gunfights to change the regime. They wish to do so peacefully, through regular open consultations in good faith. I don’t know the opinion of the Cuban rulers. But if I were in their shoes, I would think very carefully about it.
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European Union Diplomats Will Observe from the Ground the March in Cuba on 15N (15 November)

The High Representative for Foreign Policy has requested all European diplomats inform him from the ground what occurs on 15N. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, November 12, 2021–Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez’s harangue last Wednesday before the diplomatic corps has fallen on deaf ears in the European Union. Diplomats from EU member states will cover the Civic March for Change on November 15th and should inform the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, of the events, as reported by Spanish daily El Mundo.

According to sources of the Madrid-based newspaper, the European Parliament’s delegation for Central America and Cuba Relations wrote a letter asking Borrell to have EU diplomats observe, from the ground, the events next Monday, protected by the Vienna Convention.

The European chancellor, following conversations with the responsible Members of the European Parliament — Javier Nart (Independent), Tilly Metz (Greens) and Jens Gieske (DemoChristian) — has approved it and asked representatives to monitor the events and convey what may happen.

One of the demands of Archipiélago is precisely this, international protection and, in particular, European protection. In a letter addressed to the international community on November 8th and translated to English and French that same day, the group noted that the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement with the European Union signed in 2016 recognizes civil society as cooperation actors. continue reading

“Under the protection of the mentioned Cooperation Agreement, as Cuban civil society actors, we address citizens of member states of the European Union to invite them to be aware of the streets this coming November 15th.”

In addition, according to El Mundo, some diplomats will participate in the marches as observers, though they did not reveal any of their names and only mentioned Ángel Martín Peccis among those who will not do so.

The organizers of the march have also received additional support, this time from the United Nations. The office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, on Thursday assured that it will conduct “remote monitoring” of what occurs Monday.

Of course, the support of the U.S. was a given, as it has on numerous occasions made declarations with regard to 15N. Yesterday, during the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), Secretary Anthony Blinken, requested that each country in the continent sent a clear message that everyone has “the right to assemble peacefully and express their opinions.”

Blinken reminded them that there continue to be many detained following the massive protests which occurred in July and that several people have been tried for crimes which carry sentences of dozens of years. “Including a 26 year old woman named Yolanda Cruz who faces an eight-year prison sentence for filming a protest,” he highlighted.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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‘We’re Prepared to Confront Any Action’ Warns Cuban President Diaz Canel Ahead of 15N (15 November)

Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez during his appearance this Friday. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, November 12, 2021–During a televised broadcast on Friday, announced only hours before, Miguel Díaz-Canel broached topics such as tourism and the pandemic, although the Civic March for Change scheduled for November 15th was the topic which generated the most interest during his long address in which he repeated on various occasions, the phrase “in peace” to define the current situation on the Island.

Upon learning of his appearance, speculations abounded: easing or tightening, said the betting pools, but Díaz-Canel opted to follow the official script. “We’re a Revolution that won’t survive the error of letting down our guard,” he underscored. “We’re a society closed to pressure,” although he did not repeat the questionable “combat order” he launched this past July 11th during the popular protests.

Without alluding to Archipiélago nor to playwright Yunior García Aguilera, principal organizer of the marches this Monday in several cities throughout the country, Díaz-Canel spoke of “an entire media intention, an imperial strategy to try to destroy the revolution,” something which “does not make us lose sleep” because “we’re prepared to defend the revolution.”

However, the greater part of this speech was directed at the difficult months of the pandemic and the possibility of economic recovery with the arrival of visitors upon the reopening of borders this coming Monday. continue reading

“We’ve been facing very hard situations and moments,” Díaz-Canel began saying in a broadcast which, despite having been announced as “live”, was pre-recorded, in which he spoke of “honoring and recognizing” the Cubans who lost their lives to the pandemic. “Cuba deserves a celebration,” the leader added.

“They tried to present us as a failed state,” he warned with regard to the critiques he received for the government’s handling of the worst moments of COVID-19. “We’re making a call to overcome it with our talent,” he underscored with regard to the U.S. embargo, the recurrent justification for the economic crisis the Island is experiencing.

“This is a time to harvest what we’ve sowed,” emphasized the 61-year-old engineer before taking a round of questions from the official press. “We cannot be sanguine,” stated the leader confronting the re-opening of borders although he emphasized that “we’ve controlled the disease.”

The reopening of borders is a topic that has generated mixed opinions. On the one hand, the economy on the Island urgently needs an influx of hard currency which will arrive with visitors; however, the unfortunate experience of the previous opening of flights at the end of last year and its negative epidemiological impact raises many suspicions.

“We are predicting that there will be an immediate increase in tourism but not an immediate recovery,” he recognized. “They will find a country at peace,” underscored Díaz-Canel in relation to travelers which, as of the middle of this month, will increase their presence in Cuban streets.

“Our economy will be recovering…in the midst of all these circumstances we’ve approved new economic actors. The approval of new ways of operating, both state and non-state, are flowing at a good pace…I’d say that framework sooner rather than later will result in a change in the services offered and goods available to our population.”

He maintained his optimism in that as of November 15th the flight sequence “will surpass 50.” In the remainder of the year, he estimated, “the number of tourists received will be almost 50% of those who have visited this year.”

And he did not fail to mention the repeated argument: “What we’ve faced has had an additional rigorous element, the cruel, criminal policy of Yankee imperialism against Cuba, which tried to take advantage of the moment where uncertainties also existed to tighten the screws of the blockade, to defame, to slander,” he repeated.

Regardless, in contrast to the speech he made on July 11th, a few hours after the first protests in which Díaz-Canel called on communists to take to the streets, on this occasion he avoided this type of call, although the reports point to increased repression against potential protesters in the last few days.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Harassment, Citations and Distractions Are Being Used to Prevent November 15 Protest March

In spite of announcements that festivities in commemoration of the 502nd anniversary of the founding of Havana would begin on Monday, event stages, pop-up markets and concerts were already operating on Friday. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan D. Rodriguez and Natalia L. Moya, Havana, November 12, 2021 — Luz Escobar, a reporter for this publication, received a summons on Friday from the Ministry of the Interior to appear at the Office for Minors in Havana at 2:00 PM on Friday. “They’re summoning me there so it doesn’t look like State Security is behind it,” she explains.

She is not the only one being harassed by Cuba’s political police in the days leading up to the Civic March for Change, a country-wide demonstration organized by the dissident group Archipiélago. Yadiris Luis Fuentes, a journalist with ADN Cuba, was also summoned on the same day as was chef Raul Hernandez Gonzalez Bazuk, owner the restaurant Grados, who has made statements in support of the march on social media.

Henry Constantin, director of La Hora de Cuba, reported from Camaguey that he received a citation from Etecsa, the national telecommunications company, and was fined 3,000 pesos for posts he had made on Facebook. The journalist indicated that, among them were comments critical of Decree 35 — a law that has also been criticized by the United Nations, which believe it could be used to curtail freedom of expression — and in support of demonstrations on November 15.

Activists Victor Ruiz and Omar Mena were arrested in Santa Clara, according to the Mena’s wife, along with Leidy Laura Hernandez, and taken to a police station. “They’ve just been arbitrarily arrested so I’m asking all my friends to go there and and express their concern,” Mena’s wife continue reading

wrote on social media.

“The Briones Montoto sector chief just left my house,” Alexeys Blanco stated. “He told me to go with him but I refused.” Blanco, who is a member of Archipiélago group in Pinar del Rio, fears reprisals.

There are many others like them, and not just opponents, journalists and members of independent organizations. These days ordinary citizens are being subjected to repeated harassment by State Security, which is desperately trying to prevent them from joining peaceful protests.

Archipiélago says its organizers have been the subjects of at least fifty-four acts of aggression. “Since plans for the Civic March were announced in mid-August, the Cuban regime has systematically harassed activists and members of the Archipiélago group. Since then, with support from its repressive and propaganda apparatus, the harassment and attacks have not ceased,” the group reports on its Facebook page.

“I don’t think there’s been an activist who hasn’t been met at the door with a police summons, a threat, blackmail or a suggestion [from police] to take a trip,” the curator and art historian Carolina Barrero told the Spanish agency EFE. Barrero states that, in her case, police have looked for a way to persuade her not to participate in the planned protest.

A few days after 14ymedio reported on the shortage of buses in the capital, the number of vehicles one could see on Havana’s streets on Friday was staggering. (14ymedio)

Political police have been posted outside her house round-the-clock for two-hundred days to keep Barrero, who is known for her critical stance towards the government, from going outside.

In the case of Luz Escobar, the strategy has been to threaten her by using her family as leverage. “It’s not the first time State Security has tried to involve my daughters in their attempt to stop me from practicing journalism,” says the reporter. Agents have warned her not to get involved in “counter-revolution.” Otherwise, they say, she risks going to jail and not being able to see them for years.

Cubalex, a Cuban legal aid organization based in Miami, says this is part of an intense campaign to dissuade people from participating in the march, which the government has described as illegal.

“Most of the complaints we have received are over police citations and interrogations of people who have publicly stated they will participate in the demonstrations, especially those who signed a public letter of support. These are people who are being systematically harassed,” says Cubalex director Laritza Diversent.

According to Diversent, the most common threat people receive during interrogation is that they will be arrested and put on trial if they go out to protest. “They are also warned not to associate with people linked to the protest organizers or people who have publicly indicated they plan to participate,” she says.

In spite of announcements that festivities in commemoration of the 502nd anniversary of the founding of Havana would begin on Monday, event stages, pop-up markets and concerts were already operating on Friday.

A bread “exhibit” at Trillo Park, where officials set up an event stage and and stalls to sell food and other items on Friday. (14ymedio)

At San Rafael Boulevard, Curita Park and the intersection of G Street and 23rd Avenue — all epicenters of protest on July 11 — event stages were set up with music blaring at full volume. No one was dancing.

“They’re trying to cool down the hot zones,” said one passerby, who was taking in the scene on San Rafael, where prices were astronomical. For example, a few disposable razors were selling for 60 pesos while the triple-blade razors were going for 150. “No one is commemorating or celebrating anything,” claimed one area resident. “And no one is buying the few things they’re selling,” he added.

Twenty-third Avenue is being taken over by plainclothes police. Their presence is particularly noticeable at the intersection with J Street, where El Quijote Park is located. Yunior Garcia Aguilera, one of the leaders of Archipelago, announced that he would begin a solitary march from this park on Sunday.

A few days after 14ymedio reported on the shortage of buses in the capital, the number of vehicles one could see on Havana’s streets on Friday was staggering. Absent, however, were the the usual crowds waiting at bus stops. Similarly, the long lines of people waiting to get into retail stores, normally a daily occurrence here, were nowhere to be seen.

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Cuban State Security Announces To Yunior Garcia That He Will Go To The Combinado Del Este Prison

Yunior García Aguilera with a police officer behind him. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 November 2021 — Cuban State Security has warned Yunior García Aguilera that it will not allow him to march alone on Sunday the 14th, as he announced this Thursday that he plans to do. The political police again summoned the playwright this Thursday to threaten him with details of his arrest, including that he will go to the Combinado del Este, the largest prison in Cuba and where the opponent Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is also being held.

García Aguilera was interviewed by telephone by the US channel CNN in Spanish where he made the regime’s position very clear. “Our sentences have already been signed. They even told me which jail I am going to go to, they tell me I’m going to Combinado, they have even told me that they will not allow me to leave that Sunday even in the way I have announced it, alone, carrying a white rose, down a central Havana street,” he said.

This Wednesday, the creator of Archipiélago announced that, in view of the threats, with explicit calls for violence, with which the Government confronts the Civic March of 15N, he chose to make an individual walk along the 23 to the Malecón in Havana and It made it clear that the rest of the citizens could choose whatever way they saw fit to show their support for the demonstration, since creative protests had been made. The announcement generated confusion even among the members and supporters of the Archipiélago group, so García Aguilera wanted to explain his intention in greater detail.

“It is not a question of calling off, eliminating or even limiting the right that each Cuban has to conquer that which has been denied us, but rather of finding solutions that would not put their security at risk,” he argued. continue reading

“As I made clear in the statement, I would never ask Cubans to renounce their rights,” he said. “We support the 15N (15 November), the 16N, the 17N and every day. Cubans have to act as citizens with rights on the 15N and every day. The only thing we have asked is that no Cuban rise up against another and that there be no violence. We have to act responsibly, make a difference, and advocate for our rights resourcefully. “

The playwright affirmed that he does not ask anyone to go out with him, although there are already those who have adhered to his proposal, which has even had Yahima Díaz as a precursor, who imitated the gesture when she was going yesterday to her appointment with State Security and was held for about six hours.

“I don’t know what is going to happen on Sunday. I am not going to hide, I am not going to hide. I am going to act in a transparent way, I am going to stay at home. That day I will go out on my way. Whatever the authorities do, it is their responsibility. They will know the consequences of acting in an extreme way.”

Archipiélago already has the explicit support of the US, the European Union and the UN, which have promised to supervise the march. On this occasion, unlike what happened on July 11, which was a spontaneous movement, the international community is warned and expectant about what is going to happen.

“I believe that at some point we Cubans must take off all our masks, lose those fears that have always been unfounded in us and face power as citizens,” said the playwright.

Yunior García commented once again that the government has only responded with violence and threats to the peaceful movement of 15N. “There are testimonies from police officers that they are preparing them to repress much stronger than on July 11. Photos have appeared on social networks in workplaces with sticks, and sometimes even with nails in the tips, with which they supposedly want to beat to the protesters. We do not want a drop of blood to be spilled,” he asked.

“We are living a dictatorship. It has become clear that there is no democracy, not even that so-called socialist democracy that they proclaim, that there is not even the rule of law and there is not even a Republic. (Miguel) Díaz-Canel himself has publicly said that in Cuba there is no division of powers and it is not just that I who says it, it is that they have demonstrated it,” said the activist, who also appreciated that in more than 100 cities where there is freedom they will accompany the marches.

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Cuban Students are Called to Denounce the ‘Ungrateful’ Who Demand Food

About 60 families, including more than 20 children, live in this three-story building. (Diario de Cuba)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 November 2021 — Residents in the former Latin American Solidarity School of Las Guásimas, Havana, protested this Friday over the poor conditions of the premises and the lack of food. The families, relocated to the building converted into a shelter to house those who had lived in buildings that collapsed in Old Havana and Central Havana, complained with their children about not having milk or food.

“They are very poor people who, in the past, have already starred in some protests and who today placed their children holding hands outside the building complaining that they have no milk or food,” the independent journalist Amarilis Cortina explained to 14ymedio; Cortina lives in Managua, near Las Guásimas.

Some 60 families live in the three-story building, including more than 20 children, and they now inhabit what were previously the classrooms and common areas of the school, located in the Arroyo Naranjo municipality. Poor conditions at the site have sparked similar protests in the past due to problems with the water supply problems and leaks in the roof.

The families share the bathrooms that are for collective use and in the past they have reported hygienic problems that caused illnesses in the children, such as scabies and asthma, due to the dirt in the premises and excess humidity. This Friday’s protest takes place three days before the Civic March, called for November 15 by the Archipelago platform, which has caused nervousness among the forces of order. continue reading

Sources close to the capital’s Government told 14ymedio that several troops were sent to the area as soon as the protest was made public. “Being aware that people took to the streets in Managua, it seems that they anticipate it [in allusion to the Civic March],” was the message that was received at a command post of the Ministry of Public Health.

“They told my dad, who is off work today, to be aware because in the event of a riot, he has to go take care of his workplace,” a young man from Havana tells this newspaper. The state employee was informed a few minutes after the protest that was taking place in Las Guásimas became known.

Several parents with children who study at the Adolfo del Castillo elementary school, in nearby Managua, confirmed that the students are summoned to an act of revolutionary reaffirmation at three in the afternoon today in response to the protest this morning.

“My child came home for lunch and told me that he had to go back to school, although he had been told before that he had the afternoon off,” explains a mother from the area. “No one can be absent because they announced that it is necessary to give ’a forceful answer to the ungrateful and the counterrevolutionaries’, but I am not going to let him go.”

Arroyo Naranjo was one of the municipalities of the capital where the population, on July 11, threw themselves into the streets with great force shouting for freedom and down with the dictatorship. Among the neighborhoods that demonstrated that day is the La Lira cast , as evidenced by several videos posted on social networks. It was in La Güinera that Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, the only deceased recognized by the ruling party so far during those days, was killed by police shots.

The protest on Monday, July 12, in La Güinera, one of the most depressed areas of the capital, was also broadcast in several videos through social networks, despite the fact that the Government kept the internet connection cut off for several days.

Last April, a group of mothers held a protest with which they prevented traffic on a street in the Trébol district, in the Havana municipality of Boyeros. For more than two hours, the protesters complained about the poor conditions of the shelter where they live.

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Former Government Minister Proposes Floating Exchange Rate to Curb Inflation

Several people wait in line at a currency exchange bureau in Havana. (EFE/Archivo)

14ymedio, Havana, November 9, 2021 — The Cuban government’s top priority is controlling inflation. That is what economics minister Alejandro Gil claimed during an interview on Radio Reloj over the weekend. Gil said the solution lay in increasing the amount of goods and services available at businesses that accept payment in Cuban currency.

In a statement released on social media by People’s Saving Bank, former economics minister Joaquin Benavides proposed five concrete steps to reduce inflation. First, he proposes that Cadeca, a chain of state-run currency exchange bureaus, adopt a floating rate of exchange with the dollar. Instead of the current fixed rate of 24 pesos to the dollar, the Cuban currency’s value would fluctuate based on actual demand. This would allow currency exchanges to better compete with the informal market, where the current rate is 70 pesos to the dollar.

Benavides was head of the Central Committee’s economics department from 1977 to 1980, and president of the National Commission on Economic Direction from 1986 to 1991. Among his recommendations are a rapid increase in the approval process for small and medium-sized companies, and allowing these companies to import directly rather than going through a government intermediary, as they are now required to do. continue reading

Benavides argues that the state should prioritize the establishment of wholesale markets for small and medium-sized business cooperatives. Finally, he argues, “It is necessary to begin the process of unloading excess fixed assets and assets from state companies with losses.” In other words, shut down or streamline money-losing operations.

The current economics minister mentioned none of these things during his interview on Radio Reloj. Instead, he pointed the finger at the United States, calling it “the main obstacle to our development.”

“Cuba’s financial liquidity has been severely restricted by foreign exchange earnings,” replied Gil to a question about shortages at state-owned businesses. He cited two reasons: a tightening of the U.S. embargo which, he claimed, is keeping foreign currency, including remittances out of the country, and the covid-19 pandemic, which has all but paralyzed the tourism industry.

Since the interviewer did not ask him about it, the minister did not have to explain where the money is coming from to build a new spate of luxury hotels.

Without referring to currency unification, which took effect at the beginning of this year with the goal of ending the economic crisis plaguing the country, Gil reminded listeners that hard currency stores were intended to be a way of keeping foreign currency reserves from leaving the country. The state-owned stores, known as MLCs for the acronym for freely convertible currency, have been the subject of widespread criticism by that portion of the public which does not have access to U.S. dollars.

Gil said that more than 300 million dollars earned through MLC stores was used to offer consumers more choices at peso-denominated stores. “When we were crafting these measures, we should have allotted more resources to the peso market,” he admits.

Though he describes himself as “ever optimistic,” Gil cautions that the situation will not be resolved in fifteen days or when the country reopens to tourism, as is expected on November 15. “We’ve lost 13% of our GDP, three billion dollars of income,” he notes. In the first half of 2021, Cuba’s economy shrank by around 2%. “We are not going to recover from this just by following five steps,” he admits.

Two weeks ago, economic reform czar Marino Murillo, one of the chief authors of currency unification, acknowledged that the policy has not produced the expected results and has inadvertently led to runaway inflation.

Madrid-based economist Elias Amor Bravo believes much of the blame for the rise in prices is currency unification itself.

In an article published on Monday, he looks at official government statistics on agricultural output between January and September of this year and concludes that inflation will continue to grow. “Without imports to augment the low-level of domestic production due to a shortage of foreign reserves, there will not be any easing of inflationary pressure on the cost of food,” he writes.

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Six Hours in a Police Station for Placing a White Rose on a Bust of Jose Marti

Yahima Díaz was summoned this Thursday for one more “interview” with the Cuban Police. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 November 2021 — Yahima Díaz, a member of the Archipiélago group that convened the Civic March for Change and a resident of Consolación del Sur (Pinar del Río), was detained this Thursday for several hours in a police station for placing a white rose on a bust of José Martí.

The opposition platform has not given more information so far about what happened during her arrest, although she planned to report minutes after communicating her release, just at 7:00 in the evening. The activist confirmed shortly after that she will detail the facts this Friday.

The moderator and psychologist had been one of the signatories of the request for the march in Consolación del Sur, at which point she suffered harassment and intimidation by the authorities. Díaz was summoned to the police station on several occasions, the last time this Wednesday.

Aware of the difficulties in marching on the 15th, Díaz decided to go on foot, dressed in white and carrying a rose to her appointment with the National Revolutionary Police this Thursday, a gesture similar to that announced by Yunior García Aguilera for this coming Sunday the 14th. The activist recorded a video in which it can be seen how she makes the journey, stops along the way and places the flower on the monument to the Cuban hero. Immediately afterwards, a State Security agent removes the flower. continue reading

The images do not have sound due to technical difficulties, but in them it is possible to observe how there is no provocation or alteration of order, nor does Díaz try to seek support from others. However, the authorities boycott the gesture.

The activist went to her “interview” later on her own feet at 9:00 am, at which point Archipiélago lost contact with her. After 5:00 pm, the platform reported her disappearance, although an hour later it was able to confirm that she was already outside the police premises.

“We have just achieved communication with Yahima, he is already on his way home. We will be giving more information about this event in the next few minutes,” the group reported on its Facebook page, although so far it has not been known what happened in the hours in which Díaz was held.

“Episodes like this are the prelude to the violent repression that the Cuban Government is preparing for those who decide to attend the peaceful demonstration called by Archipiélago for November 15,” the platform said in a statement.

The activists are prepared for the probable episodes of repression that may occur since the Government has not stopped issuing messages that warn of the consequences of marching on 15N through all the instruments at their disposal, from Justice and the media of communication to the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).

Archipiélago has insisted on organizing alternative activities to the demonstration in case the march turns dangerous. Among these mechanisms is the wearing of white clothes, applause at a designated time or the television blackout, all of these symbols that allow us to notice the support that the movement has without putting, a priori, the participants at risk.

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University of Havana Plans a ‘Great University Fair’ for the Same Place Yunior Garcia Will March on Sunday

The Cuban playwright acknowledged in an interview with Efe that he is concerned and feels responsible for the possibility that the 15N (15 November) repression exists against the protesters. (Yander Zamora / Efe)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 13 November 2021 — The Faculty of Communication of the University of Havana has summoned its students to gather at the Quijote Park in El Vedado, on Sunday the 14th, precisely the place where the playwright Yunior García Aguilera will begin his journey to the Malecón carrying a white rose, as a way of personal and peaceful protest.

The activities announced on the faculty’s networks are presented as a “Great University Fair” that will begin this Saturday with events in the community of Berroa, in Guanabacoa. The invitation does not make any allusion to the independent Call to March or to García Aguilera.

However, the coincidence of the place and day of the University Fair has not gone unnoticed, a strategy that was used recently when a National Defense day was decreed for exactly the date, November 20th, when the Civic March was initially planned.

“Once again, the university is used as a spearhead for repression,” lamented journalist José Raúl Gallego on his Facebook account. “They organize a ‘great fair’ for the same place where Yunior García had announced days before that he would go out to march alone. There the student who lends himself for this.”

“The Faculty of Communication of the University of Havana, the place where I studied for a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, is happy to be part of this shame,” lamented the former university professor currently residing in Mexico.

For his part, Yunior García Aguilera acknowledged in an interview offered to the Spanish agency Efe that he is concerned and feels responsible for continue reading

the possibility of repression against the protesters next Monday, a reason that does not make him back down in his will to exercise the right to demonstration.

“The multiparty system does not guarantee democracy, but the single party cancels it completely,” says the 39-year-old artist, one of the most visible faces of the Civic March for the Change of November 15, outlawed by the Government.

This Friday, in a television intervention, Miguel Díaz-Canel assured, in reference to this march, that they were “prepared to face any action” against “the revolution.”

When asked about the objective of the demonstration called for November 15, García replied that it is about “shaking a country, making people aware, generating a debate that causes changes.” In his opinion, a good part of the population has pretended not to be interested in political matters to avoid problems but thinks that “now people believe that they can achieve changes and are deciding to participate, especially the younger ones whose only hope was to leave the country.”

“Those who cannot leave or have decided to stay know that they must take charge of their destiny, participate in reality and bring about changes for their benefit. We want that to happen in the most peaceful and civic way possible,” he added.

García Aguilera affirmed that Archipiélago “is not a political party” and that it is “a plural platform.” He explained that they aspire to a “deep, real, transformative” national dialogue that does not exclude anyone, and takes into account the emigration of the exile and its result is expressed at the ballot box and says: “Hopefully we Cubans can decide in a plebiscite which country we want and it is not a question of which side beats another, or one dictatorship is replaced by another, but rather that the citizens will expresses itself in the most civic way possible.”

When this artist is asked about the threat of possible imprisonment as the date of the demonstration approaches, he said:

“If I go to prison, I will renounce the defense because I do not believe in the Cuban judicial system. From the moment they take me to prison my sentence will be written, and it does not matter what I say. Of course, I do not want to go to jail, I don’t know if I can be useful within it. Cuba needs people who work in freedom, not just martyrs or symbols. I don’t believe in that morbid belief that terrible things have to happen to change things.”

At the end of the interview, he defined himself as an artist who “is involved in social and political activism” but does not consider himself a politician. “Although they say that there is no dialogue with dictatorships, I believe in dialogue as a political solution and I am anti embargo (from the United States on Cuba). I cannot morally allow sanctions that make my family go hungry. Even if I stay alone, I’m going to defend my ideas and principles.”

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Cuban Regime Withdraws Press Credentials of Spanish Agency EFE

The provision was adopted a month and a half after the accreditation of Efe’s editorial coordinator in Havana was withdrawn. (Eph)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 13 November 2021 — The Cuban authorities today withdrew the press credentials of the EFE Agency journalists in Cuba, on the eve of the civic march on Monday the 15th to demand a political change on the island, a march the authorities have declared illegal.

Those responsible for the International Press Center urgently summoned the Efe team currently accredited in Havana — three editors/writers, a photographer and a TV camera person — to inform them that their credentials were withdrawn without clarifying whether the measure is temporary or permanent.

The provision was adopted a month and a half after the accreditation of Efe’s editorial coordinator in Havana was withdrawn.

The authorities warned the Efe team that they cannot carry out their journalistic work from now on, and did not clarify the exact reasons that led them to make this decision.

The resolution occurs at a delicate moment in Cuba with a civic march called by the opposition for this coming Monday, in order to demand a political change on the Island. The march has been outlawed by the Government. Tomorrow, Sunday, the country is opening its borders to tourism.

This is the first time that Cuba has withdrawn the credentials of the Efe Agency and we have no evidence that this measure has been adopted on any other occasion with an international news agency on the island.

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Cuba: ‘Some Offer to Walk with a Rose in Hand, and Others are Prepared with Bats and Death Slogans’

Catholic clergy have declared themselves against the violence with which the Government threatens protesters. (Marcos Evora)

14ymedio, Havana, November 12, 2021–In addition to the letter from bishops calling for “the changes necessary” in Cuba and from several priests demanding “respect for those” who would like to join the Civic March for Change scheduled for Monday, more Catholic clergy have declared themselves against the violence with which the Government threatens to respond to the initiative.

The Superior of the Daughters of Charity in Cuba and former president of the Cuban Clerical Conference (Concur), Nadieska Almeida Miguel, on her social media launched an open call where she cries “enough”.

“Since the peaceful march was proposed, planned in advance and with respect, with a clear invitation to freedom of expression, the right of any citizen anywhere in the world,” the nun says in her publication, “we’ve witnessed completely contrary responses, including arbitrary ones: acts of repudiation, threatening phone calls, beatings by police officers, who are supposed to accompany and protect all people, summons as warnings, youth detentions, defamations in state media.”

The nun asks herself: “Is it so difficult to allow a march that in and of itself is legitimate? Isn’t is easier to allow each person to express their feelings? How is it possible that, while some offer to walk with a rose in hand, recalling our beloved José Martí’s poem, others are prepared with rifles, bats and death slogans?”

Thus, she requests, among other things, to stop the violence “of which many are victims” and the “deployment of police everywhere,” as well as avoiding that “these people continue to be submerged in poverty” and “placing the responsibility upon those who do not have it.”

“Enough of trying to make us believe that all is well in our country. Enough of portraying an untrue image of the reality. Enough of ignoring the cries continue reading

of mothers whose children are incarcerated with long sentences for saying with courage: this is not what I want,” states the nun.

Sister Nadieska, who last year published a letter denouncing the “unjust” dollarization of the Island and holding the Government responsible for the shortages of food, she concludes by praying to God she will “see the yearned dream of unity and freedom that is there in the heart of every Cuban.”

For its part, Concur’s Board of Directors also expressed itself in a public message. Thus affirming to join, “with faith and hope, the diverse voices of the Church which have expressed themselves with humility and courage throughout the week” inviting “respect for freedom of expression, avoiding all forms of mistreatment or violence, to generate peace, listening to the dissatisfaction of the most impoverished and vulnerable, to promote the changes which will favor a dignified life, a reduction in social tension, a review of cases and the liberation of the many unjustly detained.”

“The path can never be violence, the only response to coexistence is love,” says the Clerical Conference, which asserts this is the moment “to unite efforts in search of a better future for all Cubans,” and concludes: “Let’s begin clearing paths to achieve the dream, not yet reached, of a Homeland with everyone and for the good of everyone, without any type of exclusion”.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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