14ymedio – Page 267 – Translating Cuba

Cuba’s Meat Markets to Get September’s Chickens in October

Two women buying rationed food items at a neighborhood store in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, October 7, 2021 — “In September they didn’t give us anything. Only eggs and some disgusting ground meat. One tablespoon for two people. Not even my dogs would eat it,” complains Migdalia, a housewife in Central Havana who foresees no end to the ongoing struggles to stock her pantry. Public frustration is growing ever more widespread. Every day sees another announcement of a delay, a substitution or a “failure” that prevents products ranging from chicken and rice to basic supplies such as water and electricity from reaching consumers’ hands.

In September only eggs were available in some Havana neighborhoods. Others got chicken that was supposed to have arrived in August. In some provinces, such as Santiago de Cuba, only bologna and eggs were being sold, though Interior Commerce Minister Betsy Diaz Velazquez claimed meat was being distributed to everyone, though it was a month late.

At the end of September the minister noted that, several months earlier, there had been a steady supply of chicken which could reach the country in seven to ten days.

“Today, though we have the necessary funds and are able to purchase the product, we have had to wait for as much as fifty days or longer for it to get to Cuba. As a result, the public did not receive August’s supply of chicken until September. And in September there will be a similar delay even though the supplier has already been paid,” she claimed.

Something similar is happening with rice. Plans to provide families with additional pounds of rice over the last few months were cancelled, a continue reading

decision that many attribute to the distribution of international rice donations that have been delivered since early August and that contain several kilos of the grain. In some Havana neighborhoods the distribution of the second batch has already begun.

Diaz had said that in October that families would receive the seven pounds of rice to which they are entitled through the ration book, but delivery of the three additional pounds intended for August and September will be postponed because the product is currently unavailable.

Migdalia, who is on a medically prescribed diet, it also frustrated by the shortage of powdered milk. In late September the Ministry of Food Production announced that, because of delayed deliveries of the product, distribution of the product through the ration system had been changed. Currently, powdered milk is not being provided to people on medical diets.

The ministry also noted that on September 25 monthly sales of the product for children seven-years-old and younger had been concluded in Havana.

The only way to get many foods such as milk is to buy them on the black market, where it sells for about 1,000 pesos a kilo. Sellers charge 250 pesos for a 2.5-kilo of packaged chicken while a ten-pound package goes for twice that.

Eggs are another product for which black market prices are sky-high. “When butcher shops get their deliveries, you can find a carton of eggs on the informal market for 350 pesos (fourteen dollars at the official exchange rate). But if you can get it through the ration book, the same amount goes for 400 pesos,” explains Henry, a resident of Havana’s Playa district.

Along with food shortages, there are also continual disruptions in utility services. The Cuban Electrical Union announced on Thursday that power outages on the previous day were due to “a significant increase in demand” and because Unit 6 at the Maximo Gomez power plant had gone out of service. The state-owned company added that it was anticipating electrical service to be impacted during peak hours. It was not an isolated incident. Beginning in June customers were without power throughout much of the summer, unable to turn on even a simple fan during the hot days and nights.

But the island’s water isn’t flowing either. The company, Waters of Havana, announced on Thursday that there would be service interruptions in some areas between 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM due to maintenance and repair work on the pipelines and equipment at Meireles Viejos and machinery at Tower 19.” Boyeros and Tenth of October are the areas to be most affected.

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Havana Residents Make Themselves Heard Through ’14ymedio’

Sewer at the corner of Infanta and San Lázaro, in Havana. (Collage)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 8 October 2021 — A few days after this newspaper echoed the dire state of many streets in Havana, which puts passersby at risk, citizen complaints have achieved something. Aguas de La Habana (Havana Water), responsible for leaving numerous sewer manholes without a lid, has closed the one that was open on the busy corner of Infanta and San Lázaro, just outside the Alma Mater bookstore, according to 14ymedio. “Now we will have a few fewer sprains,” commented a resident from the Plaza municipality, close to the corner.
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In Cuba the Price of Ice Cream Goes Through the Roof

The Monte Freddo ice cream parlor in San Rafael Street, Havana.

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, October 6th, 2021 — The Monte Freddo ice cream parlor this week shows a new price on its notice board. The popular cone with two scoops of ice cream doesn’t cost 50 pesos any longer: now you need 70 pesos to enjoy this high quality ice cream.

Private traders, like this famous ice cream parlor located on San Rafael Street, between Ronda and Mason, in Plaza de la Revolucion, Havana, have been obliged to change their prices to survive the new regulations and anti-covid measures brought in by the government to contain the pandemic.

The prices continue to rise and businesses like Monte Freddo, producing their own ice cream, also don’t escape the problems brought about by the shortage of sugar and unavailability of milk which have also reached exorbitant price levels in the informal market.

Translated by GH

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Date for Civic Marches in Cuba Moved Up to November 15 to Avoid Coinciding with Military Maneuvers

Protesters in Havana on July 11, 2021. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 8 October 2021– As a result of the Cuban Government’s declaring November 20th “National Defense Day,” Archipiélago announced this Friday that it has decided to reschedule for November 15th the march that was originally scheduled for that day.

During an eventful press conference, in which the participants suffered telephone and internet interruptions, Yunior García, the architect of the initiative, managed to say that as soon as they learned of the regime’s announcement to schedule the Moncada Exercise for the 18th, 19th and 20th, the activists felt taken for granted. “We knew we had to respond.”

So, he says, they got together to determine what decision to take. Cancel the march, he assures, “we did not contemplate.” “Since more than a thousand people have joined,” he continues, in Havana, Holguín, Santa Clara, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Cienfuegos, Las Tunas and Pinar del Río, they could not suspend it. Thus, “the first decision was that we had to move ahead.”

This presented another dilemma, reported by another participant, when Yunior García’s communication was cut off: move up the date of the demonstration, maintain it or delay it. After four hours of deliberation, the meeting reached a consensus: the march will be brought forward to November 15th.

Keeping it the same day, Garcia had said, entailed a “great responsibility on their shoulders.” It would be throwing, he asserted, “young people in the middle of an army, something extremely risky.” As a result of the new date announced, this morning the artist himself delivered a new request for the Civic March for Change to the headquarters of the National Assembly.

Although the promoters of Archipiélago did not allude to having considered delaying continue reading

the demonstration to November 27, the anniversary of the spontaneous demonstration of more than 300 artists in front of the Ministry of Culture asking for dialogue and freedom of creation, the suggestion was made by multiple commentators on social networks.

When asked by 14ymedio why they did not choose to reschedule the march for November 27, Leonardo Fernández replied that they chose November 15 “out of necessity,” due to the urgency of expressing discontent through the march.

In addition, that is the day when the Cuban Government plans to fully reopen the country after almost a year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic. “To delay the date was to give in to pressure,” said Fernando Almeyda. Moving it up, on the other hand, seems to them “sensible and firm.”

They also suggested wearing white to the protest, in the peaceful spirit of the demonstration.

Of course, when he rejoined the call, Yunior García vehemently addressed the leftists of the world, “Stop the hypocrisy, a dictatorship is a dictatorship.” We are “in a crisis of three parts, and you have to call things by their names.”

And he also alluded to attempts by the regime and the official media to discredit the group. “Though they call us mercenaries, they know that we are not paid by anyone,” he said. “Let them prove that a foreign government is telling us what to say. They can’t, because they know it’s a lie.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuban Coffee in US Dollars

Cubita, of national production, is sold in foreign currency but it is difficult to find it in Cuban pesos. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 7 October 2021– Long faces in line this Thursday at the entrance of the Plaza Carlos III shopping center to buy coffee. “Cuban coffee in American dollars,” one of the establishment’s customers, called Sorpresas, scoffed aloud. The line burst into laughter at this, but a resigned indignation was palpable.

“It is incredible that we pay in MLC [freely convertible currency] for the coffee that is produced in Cuba,” said a woman. “But nothing, we pay for it and we do nothing,” a young man responded quickly.

Coffee is one of the scarcest products in the national trade networks and in the informal market it can reach a whopping 1,000 pesos for a one-kilo (2.2 pounds) package, or 250 pesos for a 250-gram (approx. 9 ounces) package. Despite the official media announcing a supposed recovery in coffee production in the country since 2020, the improvement has not been noticed in stores that take payment in national currency, where the supply of coffee beans or ground coffee is practically non-existent.

The line joked with resignation about the fact of having to pay for the national product in dollars. (14ymedio)

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In Cuba, Salt – Along with Coffee, Electricity and Face Masks – Is a Problem

Cuban homes get their salt damp and in big plastic bags. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, October 5, 2021 — A product as basic and elemental as salt is has become yet another of problem for the island’s authorities. Not a day has gone by when they have not been called to account, even by the official press, for the lack of some consumer product, be it tobacco, electricity, coffee or masks.

On Tuesday salt became the latest item to be added to the list. It is sold in a form so damp that even the addition of rice to Cuban salt shakers is not enough to separate the grains. On Tuesday Jorge Luis Bell Alvarez, director of Ensal, has had to face the press to provide some justification for the problem. He claimed the only Cuban salt producer with technology capable of producing dry salt is in Guantánamo province. In addition to distributing the product locally, the plant also supplies Havana’s rationed markets. In total, it is responsible for 46% of Cuban saline production.

According to Bell Alvarez, the rest of the island is supplied by salt plants in El Real, Matanzas and Zoa, which produce damp salt. He acknowledges that the product, which is now the only option on the market, “is a problem” but adds that the thirteen provinces which do not get their salt from Guantanamo, which has a drying oven, sometimes do have the “benefit” of being able to get salt.

He says the centrifuges used to spin salt, like the ones used in sugar refineries, are not adequate. To fix the problem, the government is trying to import four new centrifuges and is “thinking about” another investment to continue reading

provide the plant in El Real with a machine used to produce dried milk. For the moment, however, all these ideas only amount to castles in the air.

The Granma article notes appreciatively that, despite the quality issue and problems associated with distribution and sale, production targets for the first half of the year have been met. It notes, however, that over the summer the situation was complicated by fuel shortages, particularly of diesel fuel, and frequent blackouts due to problems at electrical generator facilities.

In August salt production was at 92.7% of what had been expected. Producers must provide 475 tons of salt to fulfill their commitments.

Electricity shortages have also impacted production, which in August was 92.1% of estimates. In September it was at 97%. Supplies of one-kilogram bags of rationed salt, he insists, have not fallen significantly, meeting 99.5% of targets and at a comparable level to the previous month.

Nevertheless, the amount of salt provied in the “basic basket”* is not enough to meet the needs of most families, who use it not only in cooking but also to make their own toiletries, cleaning products and disinfectants due to shortages of manufactured goods.

“I wash my dishes with a mixture of powdered detergent, vinegar, baking soda and salt,” explains a Havana resident who has been unable to buy a dishwasher for months. “You can only buy them in hard currency stores and I can’t afford the ones they sell there so I do my own repairs and use some of the salt I get through the ration book to do that.”

Others use salt to increase sales of roasted peanuts, which remains one of Cuba’s most popular street foods. “Everything has gone up. Peanuts have gone up. The sheets of wrapping paper are through the roof and salt is in short supply. I don’t know how much I’ll have to sell to turn a profit,” worries Humberto, a peanut vendor in the Calzada de Cerro area.

The fine table salt allocated to Cuba’s tourism sector bears little resemblance to the salt Cubans themselves consume. To address this discrepancy, the salt usually imported from abroad was replaced with salt from Guantanamo, the only reasonably comparable alternative. In December 2020, thirty tons of fine table salt and 180 tons of cooking salt were delivered. This time around the figures are forty tons of table salt and 120 tons of cooking salt

Bell Alvarez added that the lack of electricity has meant the loss of 344 hours of work, the equivalent of approximately 3,400 tons of salt.

*Translator’s note: A list of basic consumer goods available to all Cubans at subsidized prices and in limited amounts through the ration book.

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“No One Can Shut Me Up,” Says Professor Who Was Fired for Criticizing Healthcare in Cuba

Merladet, 26, had been teaching History classes for two years at the Silberto Álvarez Aroche vocational pre-university in Granma. (Courtesy)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 6 October 2021 — Julio Merladet, who months ago made several public complaints about the poor state of healthcare in Cuba, was sanctioned this Tuesday at his workplace with the “separation from the Education sector” for three years. This is, de facto, a dismissal.

Diplomas he was awarded on several occasions, such as “outstanding professor” and “exemplary educator” demonstrate it. The latest one is dated last December.

In August of this year, he posted a video on Facebook that went viral in which he said that his daughter and her partner had not received medical attention at the health centers where they went. After testing positive for Covid, the young man was not transferred to an isolation center and ended up infecting his family.

“If I had stopped a few days before at the entrance to my house and had shouted ‘homeland and life‘, police would have arrived faster than the doctors arrived at my home this time,” he said in that video, where he also indicated that he could be fired from his job. continue reading

“He published two live videos in social networks in an uncomplicated and very rude way, he spoke out against hospital institutions and the Government”

So it happened this Tuesday. That day, they warned him he’d be summoned for “voluntary work”, but in reality, it was a form of punishment. He already expected it: the reprisals had started long before, “while I was still a teacher”, he narrates, “after I published the first videos”.

The document that was handed to him was signed by Denis Alberto Moreno Beatón, director of the Budget Unit for Education in Granma province, and states that Merladet “incurred violations of labor discipline.”

“He published two live videos on social networks in an uncomplicated and rude way, he spoke out against hospital institutions and the Government, then he made a publication where he says that he does not regret anything stated in the videos but he does regret the rudeness used in that video,” the text details, which argues that a teacher violates the regulation “when he does not maintain “conduct consistent with the ethical principles of educational policy, permanently performing the educational work that corresponds to him” or performs “serious acts” that are “contrary to morality and the ideological principles of our country”.

“Publicly defaming or disparaging the institutions of the Republic and the heroes and martyrs of the country”, the notification also reads, is a violation of “the utmost gravity”.

If Merladet regrets something, it is the “curse words” used in the first video “I am a peasant and when I am crossed, I close myself off, and at that moment I was upset when I spoke”, he alleges, “but after that, I did not.” In addition, he had already made the decision not to continue teaching, despite the fact that months before he had been offered “to do a direct doctorate, without doing a master’s degree”.

“Why are they asking me to separate from the Education sector for three years? What rules did I violate?”

Many of his colleagues, he says, have also supported him, and “even offered themselves as witnesses if I decide to appeal”, something that he still has not decided to do. “I have seven business days to make the claim but I’m still thinking about it.”

“Why are they asking me to separate from the Education sector for three years? What rule did I violate?” Merladet asks during Tuesday’s transmission on his social networks. As a citizen, he was expressing himself freely, he claimed, “a right that anyone has in any country in the world”. But not in Cuba.

“I’m not going to starve, I know how to work, I know how to fight it,” says Merladet in the video, which indicates he sells cumin on the street.

At the same time, he asks the ‘workers’: “With your salary, can you shop in an MLC store [one that takes foreign currency only]? You can’t, because they don’t pay us in MLC”, he answers. “You have to have family there, in the empire, among the enemy” he says ironically. “If you are an ordinary worker, barefoot, like we are, you can’t go in there, you have to have a ‘gusano* from Miami’ who will send you dollars to be able to shop there.” His teacher’s salary, he indicates, was 4,845 pesos.

In the same publication, Merladet announces that now he is going to “really” get involved in politics: “There is no one to shut me up anymore,” concludes his video. “Homeland and life. Homeland or death is over. What represents us is Homeland and Life.”

*Translator’s note: The term gusano — meaning worm or maggot — is a derogatory first applied by Fidel Castro to ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and those who wanted to leave Cuba.

Translated by Norma Whiting
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The Space and Time of Words

As if something that has not yet happened could overshadow what is already registered as a historical date. As if November 20th was not the continuity of July 11th. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 6 October 2021 — Something that I have never managed to do is pronounce two words at the same time. This “deficiency” has led me to understand how difficult it is to state two ideas simultaneously in a grammatical sentence. In this arduous struggle of half a century, I have also learned that I cannot say everything in a 400-word text.

When I speak, for example, of blackouts, a commentator usually appears who reproaches me for not mentioning food shortages, and if I focus on the absence of products, another appears who is outraged because I have not mentioned the critical housing situation, the disastrous state of the streets or the calamity of public transport. There will be no excuse if I forget the plummeting health services or the crushing indoctrination in schools. But the most unforgivable thing will always be not to cast the blame on the dictatorship.

The most current scolding rails against the intention of promoting the call for the November 20 (20N) march because “it is intended to overshadow what happened on July 11 (11J),” as if something that has not yet happened could overshadow what is already registered as a historical date. As if the 20N was not the continuity of the 11J.

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has not gone out of style because we expose the arbitrary detention of Hamlet Lavastida; denouncing the unjust imprisonment of Maykel Osorbo does not leave behind the systematic repression against the Ladies in White; reporting the attack on continue reading

the Unpacu headquarters in Santiago de Cuba is not a trick to negate the assault on Cubalex; exposing the seizures of the working tools of independent journalists is not done to forget the outrage to which the prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003 were subjected.

If we manage to expose all of the above in a single page, the crime against the March 13 tugboat, the parameterization of the Five GreyYears, the UMAP camps, the forced evictions in the Escambray, the express executions of 1959 will always be conspicuous by their absence.

Trying to say everything every time one speaks or writes, in addition to being boring for the reader, runs the serious risk of not mentioning something or someone. I prove it in this note where I have omitted so many things that should be unforgettable.

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Let’s Lay the Foundations of the New Cuba

Hundreds of Cubans were arrested during the July 11th demonstrations. (EFE)

14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, 2 October 2021 — Since the Cuban people have finally conquered freedom, since true liberation begins in the human spirit, it is time to start laying the foundations of the New Cuba.

Those who still believe that they govern the country, ignorant that no one governs without the consent of the governed, will believe that they have finally managed to put the noose on the people, and that they can deceive them once again as if by magic, making changes here and there so as not to have to change anything.

They do not understand at all what has really happened. Just as they did not believe that July 11^th could happen, they now think that everything will return to its place, that everything will continue as before that date. They don’t see reality or they don’t want to see it, and that can be dangerous. Nobody will deceive the people again, because they have become aware of their rights and, sooner or later, they will come out to demand them. And it will not be like that day, but multiplied by ten. Now it could be the State that is expropriated, as in the 1960’s the leadership did with the population, including independent workers.

The State seized all the wealth of the country by force in the name of all the people. It seized the lands, the factories, the shops, the banks, the hotels and even the most modest means of subsistence of humble workers who made a living through their own efforts, without exploiting anyone. Who got liberated? From that collective looting began the subjugation of all the people, who have lost all their freedoms since then. They were no longer able to express their opinions, associate freely, make their own way in independent economic activities, so they stopped being an entity in order to become a mere screw in the State machinery.

That leadership only succeeded in creating an immense monopoly, though it claimed to have put an end to large Estates and all monopolies

That leadership, though it claimed to have put an end to large Estates and all monopolies, only succeeded in creating an immense monopoly, the largest concentration of wealth that could have been conceived, which later engendered a corrupt bureaucracy, administrations designated by that State which has squandered all the goods that did not belong to it, and has dragged the population to a life of needs and calamities.

Now, only one owner has to be expropriated, the supreme landowner, the only monopoly that has been left standing. Now it is up to the State to be expropriated by those people whom the current constitution itself recognizes as the legitimate owner.

Now that people have the right to expropriate the expropriators and get rid of all those corrupt administrations that control those companies, not one by one, but all at once, urging all the grassroots groups in the centers and companies under the guardianship of that State, and, on their own account, create democratically elected workers’ councils to direct all those means of production instead of that bureaucracy.

Each work nucleus is more productive if it feels that the center belongs to it and that it is going to obtain part of the profits from what it produces, and those councils, should they deem it necessary, will hire the ones who will direct them most efficiently.

The people must declare the State as incompetent, for having entrusted and appointed all those corrupt bureaucrats. They must replace it, due to its lack of ethics and for having systematically violated their rights. Not only rights of free expression and association, but even of life, having ordered the sinking of two ships on two different occasions, the Río Canímar and the 13 de Marzo. Both events led to the deaths of numerous citizens, as well as thousands of executions in summary trials lacking any procedural guarantee.

That Government was never elected, but rather it was handpicked by others who were not chosen by the people either. The Constitution was drawn up by constituents who were also handpicked by the sovereign will of a so-called historical leadership with all-encompassing powers based on the supposed glories of a distant past. Therefore, this Government lacks any legitimacy and must be temporarily supplanted by a civic council of men and women who have earned the admiration and respect of all the people. Not to govern, but to restore the rights and freedoms of the citizenry, to convene a new constituent, and to organize free elections.

There will be those who say that I am delirious, that I am building castles in the air, but a rebellious philosopher of the great American nation, Henry David Thoreau, who influenced great men like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and José Martí, said: “If you build a castle in the air, you haven’t wasted your time. The castle is there. You just need to lay its foundations.”

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Havana’s Coppelia Ice Cream Parlor Opens a ‘Line for Failures’

Telephone reservations at the ‘Cathedral of Ice Cream’ have not prevented the long lines or frustrating wait. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 3 October 2021 — A week ago the Coppelia ice cream parlor in Havana resumed table service but only for customers with a telephone reservation. The new access mechanism to the ’Cathedral of Ice Cream’ has not prevented the long lines or frustrating waits that have been an inseparable part of the place for decades.

“This damn country!” a child was heard saying this Saturday as he waited under the shade of a tree with other kids to enter one of the public service areas. The little boy’s expression provoked laughter and also the mother’s scolding: “Child, do you want me to be imprisoned? Do me a favor and calm down.”

Nine days have passed since the reopening and criticism of the new mechanism is already being heard. Tricks to skip it are also proliferating. Regular customers at the store on the central corner of 23 and L, in Havana’s Vedado district, prefer to take their place in the “line of failures,” the line where those who trust that several of the users with reservations will not show up.

“The guards’ business has already started. This will never change here,” said a man who complained about the parking area for vehicles — under the sun — where they had to wait to enter. “It is clear that it is convenient for them to have this line hidden back here, so that we do not see the ’line breakers’ who pass for a few pesos without calling or waiting.”

There were also those who learned of the requirements to have a reservation only when arriving at the place. Like a lady who was surprised to find out. “They don’t invent anything good, everything is putting the people to work. I’m from San Miguel del Padrón and I don’t have a phone, so if I’m around here and it occurs to me to have an ice cream, should I go home and ask the neighbor can I borrow the phone to make a reservation? “

The woman mentally calculated her possibilities looking at the dozen people who were waiting and gave up on ice cream: “I’m leaving, there are many people here, if nobody fails to reserve then I will only have to line up and sunbathe for fun.”

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Despite Low Production in September, Venezuela Increased Oil Shipments to Cuba

PDVSA and its joint ventures registered a drop in their exports in September, but not to Cuba. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 October 2021 — Venezuela’s oil exports posted their worst level of the year in September, but the country’s shipments to Cuba reached 58,000 barrels per day (bpd), a substantial increase over the 40,000 sent in August.

These deliveries occurred in a month in which the thermoelectric plants have failed on the island, which has caused constant blackouts, some lasting up to nine hours, in Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Holguín and Pinar del Río, which exhausts the patience of the Cubans.

The authorities insist that “the situation will improve,” but the Electricity Union announces power cuts daily, like the one this Tuesday. As explained by the company, due to breakdowns in five units, the Otto Parellada, Máximo Gómez, Diez de Octubre and Antonio Maceo CTE are out of service, and Unit 4 of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes CTE is under maintenance. And so, the blackouts are expected to continue.

In Venezuela there have also been power outages, which the Venezuelan Minister of Electric Power, Néstor Reverol, attributes “sabotage.” According to the former Deputy Minister of Energy, Víctor Poleo, on the contrary, the problem lies in the fact that continue reading

since 2005 “there has been almost no maintenance or investment in the electricity system.”

The mismanagement has resulted in the lack of the products necessary to dilute Venezuela’s heavy oil, which affected its exports and extraction in the Orinoco Belt.

In an effort to try to resolve the crisis, the national oil company PDVSA will use a shipment of Iranian condensate that arrived in the country last week to promote three key projects that seek to increase crude production in the Orinoco Belt and which are being developed in collaboration with the US company Chevron and the China National Petroleum Corporation.

PDVSA and its joint ventures exported 414,000 barrels per day in 19 shipments in September, a 34% decrease compared to the previous month and the lowest average since October 2020.

About two-thirds of the shipments went to Asia, the main destination for Venezuela’s oil, while 77,500 bpd of crude and refined products went to the Middle East.

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Cuban Prosecutors Seek Eight-Year Sentence for Streaming Protests from San Antonio de los Banos on July 11th

Yoan de la Cruz streamed a live feed of protests on July 11th. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, Cuba, October 4, 2021–Cuban prosecutors seek an eight-year prison sentence for Yoan de la Cruz, a young man who on July 11th streamed a live feed of the first protests in San Antonio de los Baños, considered to be the start of the anti-government protests throughout the entire country. The information, the details of which are unknown, was shared by his mother via several activists.

The young man is being held in the Melena del Sur, Mayabeque prison, practically incommunicado and due to COVID-19 restrictions, he is only allowed to call his family by phone, according to his aunt, Odalys Hernández Rizo speaking to 14ymedio.

“They were accusing him of public disorder, but eight years for that is ridiculous,” said Yoan’s aunt, who emphasizes that the three appeals submitted to date have been rejected by the Cuban justice system.

His mother confirmed that, in addition, he is being charged with contempt. “He did not do anything to deserve that many years. All he did was film. Now they accuse him of contempt. He is a good young man. The entire town loves him,” she shared in a message on the social media accounts of various groups: those in favor of the protests on July 11th and those of the city of San Antonio de los Baños.

The request for eight years in prison for those who protested on July 11th is becoming the norm in cases that have yet to be tried. Initially, dozens of protesters who were processed in summary trials this summer received fines and less severe sentences.

Last week, for most of the 16 Cubans who protested in Placetas, the Public Ministry sought a similar number of years behind bars for charges of disorder and contempt. Among them are twin sisters, Lisdany and Lisdiany Rodríguez Isaac, facing 10 years because local prosecutors are charging them with two counts of assault.

To our knowledge, the most severe sanctions are against Robert Pérez Fonseca, accused of two counts of assault and two counts of contempt, in addition to instigating a crime and public disorder. In his case, the prosecutor sought 12 years; his family attributes this to his ripping a photograph of Fidel Castro during the marches in San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque.

The peaceful presence of Yoan de la Cruz has been confirmed by various people on social media. “Yoan de la Cruz, a Cuban from Ariguanabo, but much more; a brave young man who, with a cell phone and a few megabytes, showed the entire world that in San Antonio de los Baños there is a small town full of brave people like him, who have had enough of living imprisoned and took to the streets to shout, ’Freedom!’ Free him already, cowards! They think they are so big to feel that a young man with a phone in hand makes them tremble in the house of cards where they live,” said one of his friends a few days after his detention.

“He didn’t throw stones, he didn’t break glass, he didn’t strike anyone, he didn’t yell down with anyone. Please, release him already. They are making a mother, a grandmother, a family and thousands of friends suffer,” said another of his many colleagues who advocated for his release, which almost three months later, seems less certain.

The list of people detained in Cuba for protesting on July 11th surpassed 1,000 and more than half remain in prison.

Authorities confirmed that all those detained following July 11th are processed according to the country’s legal and penal codes; however, this is completely contradicted by the testimonials of those who have been released and their families as well as Cubalex, a law firm that is following these cases.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuban Writer and Journalist Marta Rojas Dies

Rojas was born in Santiago de Cuba in May 1931. (Twitter / @ LuisMorlote)

14ymedio, Havana, 4 October 2021 — The Cuban writer and journalist Marta Rojas died this Sunday in Havana as a result of a heart attack, according to the Cubadebate portal. Winner of several national awards, author of more than a dozen books, and a staunch defender of the official line of the regime, she was born in Santiago de Cuba in May 1931 and later moved to Havana where she studied Journalism.

Shortly after graduating, when she was 23 years old, she witnessed the assault on the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953, about which she wrote several articles.

Rojas was working for the magazine Bohemia when the revolution led by Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. Later she collaborated with the newspaper Revolución until, in 1965, together with other journalists, she founded the State newspaper Granma. In the official gazette she was Chief of Information, war correspondent in South Vietnam and she also covered several of Fidel Castro’s trips.

Rojas won the José Martí National Journalism Prize in 1997 and the Alejo Carpentier Prize for novels in 2006. She was an associate professor at the Faculty of Social Communication at the University of Havana and published several books such as La Generación de Centenario, Eljudicial del Moncada and El que debe vivir. She also wrote some novels, including El columpio del Rey Spencer and Santa Lujuria..

Alejo Carpentier defined Marta Rojas as an: “Agile and talented writer, with a deep journalistic vocation, shrewd eyes, direct and precise style, the gift of showing many things in a few words.”

On its social networks the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac) lamented the death of the journalist and member of merit of the organization. “Deep pain at the loss of one of our most beloved intellectuals,” wrote Luis Morlote, president of Uneac. “Cuba mourns her departure (…) we will always remember her,” he added.

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Cuban Artist Lavastida Downplays Document Signed Under Pressure in Villa Marista: “They dictated to me what to say.”

Artist Hamlet Lavastida, left, during his interview with writer Carlos Manuel Álvarez. (Capture)]

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 29 September 2021 — This Tuesday, Hamlet Lavastida denounced that during his time in prison in Cuba he was pressured to sign documents which portrayed him as a collaborator of State Security. In an interview with writer and journalist Carlos Manuel Álvarez, conducted from Warsaw, where he flew on Saturday after being released from prison, the artist spoke about the psychological violence to which he was subjected during the three months he was in Villa Marista prison, headquarters of the political police in Havana.

Lavastida explained that the agents always create characters and set up “a theater” to interact with the detainees, and for this reason he also began “to put on a series of dramatizations.”

“I began to make the famous act of repentance and retractions, to write that I never wanted to participate in political life, in any activism group,” he said, and recounted that he was presented with a paper which stated that he collaborated with them. “I remember that officer Darío suggested it to me and basically dictated what I had to say,” Lavastida declared during the interview, which was broadcast live on the Facebook page of the magazine directed by Álvarez, El Estornudo.

The artist decided to go ahead and tell all before State Security uses those signed documents against him. “It doesn’t really affect me much, because my real commitment is to creation, you can use that against a person who wants to have a political career,” opined Lavastida, who stressed that in his life “he had never had anything to do with the Police or with Security” and that everything he experienced was “new” to him. continue reading

Writing those “texts of self-repentance,” he found, was the “slightly more noble” way to get out of jail

Writing those “texts of self-repentance”, he found, was the “slightly more noble” way to get out of jail. “Doing it by denouncing others seemed less honorable to me and self-incrimination, of course, was not going to help me.”

His prison cell in Villa Marista was an “excessively small” place that he shared with four people, he said. “I was trying to walk those six steps, trying to do something with my hands, from the nervousness of not knowing what was going to happen with my case.” The food, he points out, “was not bad but was very scarce”, to the point that some prisoners “counted the spoonfuls” every day.

Regarding the interrogation sessions he experienced in those days, he recalled that they asked him all the time to help the agents “clarify the situation” and that they insisted on the story that he was “sent by the State Department.” The phrases most often repeated to intimidate him were along the lines of: “your mother is going to suffer a lot” or “you get 15 to 20 years for incitement of a crime.”

That was the offense of which he was accused, as reported by State Security to his family after he was transferred to Villa Marista. Lavastida had returned to Cuba from Germany on June 21, after completing his residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien gallery in Berlin. Five days later, after fulfilling the regulatory period of isolation (for potential Covid exposure) in a center arranged by the Government in the Flores neighborhood of the capital, he was arrested.

The accusation was based on a conversation in a private group chat of 27N (27 November) on Telegram, which was filtered and analyzed at the moment by official presenter Humberto López on state television.

The artist is currently in Poland with his girlfriend, the Cuban poet Katherine Bisquet, with whom Carlos Manuel Álvarez announced he will interview this Wednesday.

During the conversation, Lavastida alluded several times to the number assigned to him in prison: 2,239. His life will be marked by it for a long time, said the artist.

Translated by Silvia Suárez
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Cuban Baseball Team Returns Home From Mexico with Half its Players and Without a Medal

In the image the 12 players who returned to Havana this Monday. (Radio Rebelde)

14ymedio, Havana, 4 October 2021 — Baseball player Geisel Cepeda, 23, was the last to leave the Cuban team at the U-23 World Cup in Sonora, Mexico. The athlete abandoned his teammates when they were going to return to the island and did not get on the plane, thus also leaving the contract he had with the Mochis, in Mexico, to seek a contract in the US Major Leagues.

The news, confirmed this Sunday by sports journalist Francys Romero, ends the list of escapes among the members of the youth team, which totals 12, 50% of the 24 who traveled to Mexico to try to win the title.

Just one day earlier, this Saturday, Loidel Chapellí Jr., 19, Yandi Yanes, 23, Bryan Chi, 22, and Miguel Antonio González, 21, had all left the team. The list is completed by the pitchers Yeinel Zayas, Luis Dennys Morales, Uber Mejías, Dariel Fernández, receiver Loidel Rodríguez, outfielder Reinaldo Lazaga and infielder Diasmany Palacios.

Cuba’s official press described the walk-offs of the players as “vile abandonments” and blamed the United States for the desertions due to the rupture, in 2017, of the agreement reached between the Major Leagues and the Cuban Baseball Federation by which the Island promised to “free” the players hired by a team from the neighboring country provided continue reading

they met various conditions of age and years of service, in exchange for the payment of an economic bonus that had to go to the Cuban authorities.

The press has also attributed the escapes to the weakness of the players. “The merchants of baseball players went in search of promising talents and achieved their objective,” taking advantage of “the provisions of the United States Government towards Cuba and its athletes (closed doors) and also the moral and ethical weaknesses of those who left the team.”

The roster had been chosen, according to the coach himself, Eriel Sánchez, by the national baseball authorities from a list preselected by him. The manager had clearly said what was an open secret, that qualities external to sports were valued when choosing the final representatives, and these qualities included patriotism, understood as one might suppose, to mean fidelity to the ’Revolution’.

However, the ideological selection mechanism has not worked, judging by the results.

Cuba’s National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder) has spoken out in this regard and insisted on the same ideas as the official press, ensuring that the players’ departure “confirms the cynicism with which the Trump Administration annulled the agreement,”,which is a” cruel handicap that prevents the natural flow to the circuits of that organization.”

Sportscaster Pavel Otero said on Cuban television that the team faces “one of the most hostile scenarios in the history of our sports movement.”

“Do not doubt that those unscrupulous human traffickers, at the service of the enemies of the Revolution, will continue to insist,” he said.

The Venezuelan team won the tournament this Sunday by beating the host, Mexico, 4-0. Cuba, which lands in Havana this Monday at 5 am, was in 4th position after falling to Colombia.

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