14ymedio – Page 296 – Translating Cuba

Cuba’s Medical Brigade in Kuwait Performs With its Eyes on the Nobel Peace Prize

Just a year ago, around 300 Cuban doctors arrived in Kuwait to reinforce the fight against Covid-19. (Granma)

14ymedio, Madrid, 9 June 2021 — Every medical brigade that returns to Cuba is an opportunity for promotion with a view to the Nobel Peace Prize. This Tuesday the returning brigade was the last contingent that remained in Kuwait, where the Cuban government sent more than 300 healthcare workers in the last year to reinforce the group that was already there, and to help alleviate the ravages of Covid-19.

“Today, upon returning to the homeland with the satisfaction of having fulfilled our duty, we are convinced that they will be willing to carry out the necessary missions in our country and anywhere else in the world,” said Jorge Delgado Bustillo, head of the Central Unit for Medical Cooperation, speaking on behalf of Miguel Díaz-Canel to the 60 health professionals who landed yesterday in Havana from the Persian emirate.

The group consisted of 29 doctors and 31 nurses who, according to the official note, “treated 101,290 patients, at a rate of 280 patients a day, saved 3,130 lives, and performed 435,990 nursing procedures and 112 major surgeries, 12 minimal access surgeries and 69 minor surgeries.” continue reading

In August of last year, the first group of health workers returned to the island, which, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, consisted of 152 aid workers who treated “758 patients infected with the pandemic, and saved 189 of them from death.”

In January, the second group arrived, in this case of 125 professionals, who “treated 33,753 patients with Covid-19, carried out 374,680 nursing procedures, worked in the emergency services, and in intensive therapies and attended 30 patients per day.”

It is unknown how the jump was made from 758 patients in two months to more than 33,000 in six, despite the reduction of 150 in the total number of health workers present in Kuwait, although it is less understood that in June the figure tripled with just 60 doctors, even if the figure was accumulated.

In addition, the number of cases of coronavirus in Kuwait has been 320,257, so if Cubans make reference in their accounting to only patients with Covid-19, they would have dealt with almost half of those infected in the country. However, it is possible that in the global count, where it is not clear whether the patients were afflicted with the coronavirus, others hospitalized for any circumstance have been included.

All three returns of the brigades have been celebrated with the usual epic. “The pure white of the medical gowns distinguished the night veil of the first hours of the date, when the 152 members of the internationalist Henry Reeve contingent descended from the plane to the national soil, to be received as heroes,” said the press release on the August contingent, who did not remain there. “The assistance of Cuban solidarity reversed the pace of death.”

A less literary note was released for the January group, but was signed by the Cuban president himself and entitled Henry Reeve also with his imprint of love in Kuwait.

The Cuban people still do not know how much was paid for that love, although there has been speculation with figures of around 12 million dollars. In Kuwait, a local doctor can earn around $7,000, which can be doubled in cases of high specialization or overtime.

The Cuban government has doctors in several Middle Eastern countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or Qatar. In the latter, several Cuban health workers fled and reported the conditions under which they worked in this mission, similar to the usual ones, including the requirement that they surrender their passports, the impossibility of communicating with citizens of the host country, the obligation to give public support to the Government and participate in its activities and, finally, the fact that the Cuban government keeps between 70% and 90% of money paid by the host country for the healthcare workers’ services, with the remainder paid out in salaries.

Cuba is taking advantage of its doctors to profit from its image during the pandemic. In addition to being one of the few economic assets that remains after the collapse of tourist activity, the obstacles to remittances and the collapse of its ally, Venezuela, the obtaining of the Nobel Peace Prize, which it has been seeking for months, would yield — in addition to the value of the award, just over a million dollars (10 million Swedish crowns) — the prestige that it craves.

Since April 2020, when the health crisis broke out, the campaign to win the Norwegian award for Cuba’s Henry Reeve Brigade has been insistent in its search for support around the world. This same Tuesday, during a debate in the European Parliament on human rights in Cuba, two Members of the European Parliament reviewed the work of the island’s doctors and their great contribution against Covid-19 worldwide.

This international campaign is accompanied by the internal one. Physicians are greeted with pomp at each return, with Kuwait just the most recent example. Just three weeks ago, Dr. Julio Guerra Izquierdo, head of the brigade stationed in Mexico, insisted in his speech that the low mortality rate in that North American country was due in part to Cuban health workers. “With the hard work of our collaborators, it was possible to reduce the fatality at the end, after four months, to 9.7%,” he defended.

A paradigmatic case of this amplification of the work of the Cubans is that of Andorra, where that country’s press did not skimp on its mockery of Cuba’s official propaganda: “If you read the balance sheet for the delegation presented by the the Castro regime media (…) thanks to Cuba and the Cuban health workers, the pandemic, the coronavirus, has not swallowed Andorra and Andorrans. It has been a miracle (…) The figures are such that it is evident that the brigade has saved the Principality from Covid as, in his day, Charlemagne [a medieval emperor decisive in Andorran independence and the European configuration] saved these latitudes from other events,” said an article in the Altaveu newspaper.

In the European principality, the data on cured people was also questioned, which permits putting in quarantine any official figure that is provided. “They have supposedly treated 821 critically ill patients in the Intensive Care Unit of the Nostra Senyora hospital in Meritxell. It is evident and clear that the hospital’s ICU has not treated this number of patients in any way shape or form. The collapse would have been brutal. But in Cuba, it is clear, they will be heroes. They have been decisive in the recovery of more than 700 patients, which are all the people officially recovered so far and of whom Cuban health workers have barely seen 20%,” the article added.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in October, so expect a long summer of lavishly celebrated returns.

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“The Police Have Kidnapped Me in My Home for 60 days,” Denounces Iliana Hernandez

A policeman and a State Security agent guard the surroundings of Iliana Hernández’s house, in Cojímar, Havana. (Capture)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Miami, 7 June 2021 — CiberCuba activist and reporter Iliana Hernández has been besieged for two months at her home by police and State Security agents. Not only do they prevent her from going out, but they also do not allow any of her friends to visit, and they have cut off her mobile data internet service.

In conversation with 14ymedio, Hernández points out that the last time she was able to leave her home was on April 8, but she ended up arrested on Obispo Street in Old Havana along with other activists. “Since the 9^th, I woke up surrounded by surveillance, until today,” she points out.

The journalist assures that in the 60 days that she has been in home detention, she has been “documenting the oppressors… Even at night, when they get close to my home, I record them,” she says. “On Sunday, one of them tried to hide behind a post so as not to appear in the video and in the end, his hiding was useless, because I later caught him around the corner. It is one of the best images I have of this repression.” continue reading

“They brought me to El Cerro in another patrol car and one of the security agents warned me not to go too far,” says Otero Alcántara

This Sunday, artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Art Historian Carolina Barrero tried to visit the reporter and ended up being detained by the officers who were part of the siege. “A block before, we saw a patrol car and we got out of the car we were in,” Otero Alcántara tells this newspaper. “Right there, the policeman told us that we couldn’t go to Iliana’s house and they put us in a patrol car and took us to the Cojímar police station. They brought me to El Cerro in another patrol car and one of the security officers warned me not to go that far.”

For her part, Barrero pointed out that she wanted to go see Hernández “because she has been inside the barricade for many days,” when in reality there isn’t “either a complaint, nor a process, nor a precautionary measure” which will legally prevent her from leaving her home. “I wanted to see her, bring her some things, have a coffee with her, so that she feels accompanied, and Luis Manuel told me that he wanted to go with me because he also wanted to see her,” she says.

Barrero details that the police had her sitting on a bench in the police station for a while, and after some time a patrol went to look for her and left her at her house in Old Havana. “Luckily, no security agent appeared, no one came to ask me anything,” she adds.

In an article denouncing in her social networks the arbitrariness that Hernández has experienced in recent weeks, Barrero pointed out that “the authority” that today is preventing Hernández from leaving her house “is not legitimate” and that “it is discredited for a lack of respect to rights and to the law itself.”

“What I found funniest was that they told me that they were masters of my life and writers of my destiny,” said reporter Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho

Journalist Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho was also arrested this weekend when he tried to visit Iliana. Upon reaching the corner of the reporter’s house, he was put in a patrol car that took him into custody at the Cojímar police station and then he was transferred to Infanta and Manglar, in El Cerro. “They wanted to draw up a warning report for violating a security action but I refused to sign it. They threatened me again by preventing me from going to a training course, confining me at home, inventing a cause to take me to jail,” Cocho complained to this newspaper.

“What I found funniest was that they told me that they were masters of my life and writers of my destiny,” noted the reporter, a contributor to the news portal ADN Cuba.

Iliana Hernández says that State Security would like her to leave Cuba but that they know perfectly well that she is not going to leave Cuba “forever”.

“They know it and that is why they still have me regulated [banned from traveling outside Cuba], they denied me the complaint I made to the Ministry of the Interior, the Supreme Court gave it no place, breaking all the laws because there is no justification for me to be regulated. I am not going to tell them that I want to leave and never return, this is my country and they do not own Cuba. They have kidnapped me but they are not the owners, we are recovering Cuba from the kidnapping,” she declares.

She also stated that right now for her “there is no idea” in her head other than to continue with her activism and her work as a reporter: “My priority is my country’s freedom and they are not going to get me to give up, they can be out there as long as they want, when I need to go out, I’m going to go out.”

On April 24, after two weeks of the police siege, a group of activists who went to visit her ended up being arrested, including Hernández herself who was accompanying them.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Cuba’s New Prepaid Currency Cards for Visitors Cannot Be Purchased with Pesos

Cash withdrawals using pre-paid debit cards will be issued only in Cuban pesos and only through one bank’s ATM network. (Radio Mambí)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 June 2021 — Cuba’s official press has claims that the the state-owned currency exchange company, Cadeca, was planning to sell prepaid cards in convertible foreign currency that could be purchased with Cuban pesos at the official exchange rate of 24 pesos to the U.S. dollar. “Such reports are completely false and an attempt to confuse the public,” Cubadebate stated on Saturday.

“If the Cuban banking system does not have sufficient funds to routinely do this type of transaction at its branches, how will it be able to issue such cards through Cadeca?” asks the online news website.

“If Cadeca could sell dollars for pesos, would it not be much easier do what it did in 2019? If Cadeca had enough dollars at the time to issue a card in exchange for pesos for use in currency stores, wouldn’t it be easier for Cuba to buy merchandise with those same dollars and sell it in stores that accept pesos?” continue reading

“The reality is that a new banking product — prepaid denominated cards for visitors from overseas — is being readied for launch and will be available soon. Some information has already been shared through the banking system’s official networks,” states the article, which received dozens of comments within a few hours, most of them critical.

“Too bad it’s a lie,” one reader writes. “A dollar is already worth 70 pesos and working people — those of us who are not leaving the country — cannot buy anything.” Another commentator complained, “All the city’s most important stores now only take hard currency and the trend is spreading to the suburbs. I’m told they’re geared towards tourists and people with hard currency. I just don’t understand.”

The new pre-paid cards, which will probably only be available to visitors from overseas, will be issued exclusively by the Bank of Credit and Commerce (Bandec) in 200, 500 and 1,000 dollar amounts, though the state-owned company has yet to provide details.

As the article notes, cash withdrawals can only be made in pesos and only through the bank’s ATM network. Withdrawals cannot be exchanged for foreign currency and the bank maintains it is not obliged to return any unused funds. It is not yet known when the cards will go into circulation. On May 20, Cuban airports abruptly stopped selling hard currency without prior warning. The news came via a message on social media posted by Cadeca a few hours before the decision took effect.

The company claimed that the drop in tourism due to the pandemic resulted in a “significant shortage” of hard currency, adding that, though it had been able to operate normally up to that point, the lack of liquidity had reached an unsustainable level.

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The Cuban Baseball Team’s Psychologist Stayed in the United States

Jorge Sile Romero, psychologist for the Cuban Baseball team. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 3 June 2021 — Jorge Sile Figueroa, who served as a psychologist for the Cuba team that participated in the Baseball Pre-Olympic of the Americas held in Florida, left the national delegation, according to the Cuban communicator Francys Romero, a sports expert and resident of Miami.

The specialist escaped from the delegation, which returns to the Island this Thursday after being defeated by the Canadian team and losing the chance to compete in the Tokyo Olympics, but official sources have not yet released the news.

Born in the Cuban capital in 1988, Sile studied Psychology at the University of Havana and worked for the Institute of Sports Medicine. In his Facebook account, several messages of an official tone are still online and his last publication was a text, shared from another wall of that social network, which celebrates an anniversary of the Union of Young Communists. continue reading

The escape of the psychologist adds to the spectacular escape of the 22-year-old player César Prieto, which happened as soon as he arrived at the hotel where the island’s team stayed upon its arrival in Florida. When he got off the bus that transported the players from the airport, Prieto got into a waiting car.

After this desertion, as the Cuban Government calls it, some reports from Miami said that all the players had had their phones confiscated to try to make it difficult for those who might eventually use them to contact agents abroad.

On Monday, however, the loudest and most remarkable incident arrived, when hundreds of supporters, gathered at the Palm Beach stadium to attend the game between Cuba and Venezuela, yelled insults against the government and shouted “Homeland and Life.” In addition, a young woman of Cuban parents jumped onto the field of play during the meeting with a banner showing a handcuffed hand (similar to the now iconic photograph of Maykel Osorbo) and the text “Free Cuba.”

The game stopped for a few minutes while the protester was removed from the field, but the Cuban Baseball Federation did not think that they acted diligently and accused the organization, and therefore the US Government, of not complying. security protocols.

Canada made history last night after beating Cuba 6-5 in the second match of Group B of the pre-Olympic. The Cuban team suffered, in this way, its worst defeat in the competition and will not attend the Tokyo 2020 Games, the first in which it will not participate since those of Barcelona 92, the event in which baseball was introduced as an Olympic sport. A drama in a country where baseball is the national sport.

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‘Killing a Cow is Not News in the Rest of the World,’ But in Cuba, Yes

The cattle ranchers sold the slaughtered meat to the residents of Los Pinos. (Adelante)

14ymedio, Havana, 7 June 2021 — Around 6% of Camagüey’s cattle ranchers will be able to eat their cattle and sell them, according to the calculations of the authorities. The province, historically the one with the greatest potential for the sector, celebrated in style over the weekend the first slaughters and sale of meat of the farmers who have complied with the government requirements that allow their cattle to be disposed of once they meet their commitments to the state.

Rubén Pérez Benítez, one of those farmers, enthusiastically told the local press that it was “a dream come true” that prompts the workers of his family farm to continue striving to have a surplus again next year. “It is a pride for the farmers to be able to slaughter their animal to feed the family. We did not do anything extraordinary, we increased the animals in general and the heifers, we also fulfilled the 38,000 liters of milk that we had under contract and with the beef too,” he explained to Adelante.

In April, the Government announced a package of 63 measures in order to stimulate food production that included, as a key measure for what was expected, the liberalization of the slaughter, consumption and sale of beef, as well as milk. continue reading

In May, the evaluation of the activity of the ranchers began in 2020 to give the authorizations and, according to Adelante , 600 ranchers in Camagüey comply. Taking into account that last year the authorities estimated that some 10,000 families make a living from livestock in the province, only 6% of them are in a position to sell their surpluses. A figure, at least, higher than that of Sancti Spiritus, where those who meet the requirements do not reach 1%.

On Saturday, the first six specimens, belonging to the José Antonio Echeverría Credit and Services Cooperative (CCS), from the Camagüey municipality, and the management of the Triángulo Tres Agricultural Company were slaughtered with great fanfare. At the “event” 3 pounds of beef were sold to each of the 358 homes in Los Pinos and the same amount was donated to 15 vulnerable families.

Pérez Benítez, from the El Sueño farm, said that on his property there are 120 animals, of which 42 are cows and that just as he has achieved this milestone, others can do it if they work. “We still have seven animals to slaughter in the remainder of 2021 and we are going to do it when we want, we only have to make the request and in a week at the most it is done,” he congratulated himself.

The Adelante newspaper also spoke with Julio Cabrera, a farmer and president of the José Antonio Echeverría cooperative, who considered it a “point of pride” that the farmers have contributed 100 pounds of beef with an agreed price of 60 pesos per pound of meat, 20 for veal and 15 for red bone.

“You have to be efficient and have control over the masses to be able to enjoy the benefits of them. We have to change the mentality now. They are revolutionary measures within the Revolution,” he claimed in a redundant boast.

The official newspaper itself admits at the beginning of the article how unusual it is that this information is newsworthy. “That livestock farmers slaughter animals from the herd for consumption or commercialization is not news in the rest of the world; but as we well know, our archipelago is full of incredible, unimaginable, enchanting singularities, and others that are absurd, why not?” the text reads.

The province of Camagüey, due to its expanse and soils, has led the sector throughout history. In 1953 there were 1,103,000 head of cattle, 27.4% of the country’s total. In 2020, however, there were 600,000, a year in which 41,000 animals died, most of them from malnutrition.

The data from last year in the livestock sector were devastating. In the first semester, the province registered the death of 17,000 cows due to malnutrition and a 30% decrease in milk production. To this was added the low birth rate, which resulted in 5,982 fewer head of cattle than the previous year. All this despite the fact that Camagüey with more families involved in a project of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), of the UN, which was approved in 2016 and will last until 2024, at a cost of 50 million dollars.

The project aimed to “promote the sustainable growth of the livestock sector by increasing the production and sale of milk and meat,” as the activity “once flourished in the area” but “has declined since the 1990s due to the lack of investment.”

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Young Man Violently Arrested in Havana Seeks to Denounce His Aggressors

Wong Jiménez said that he was beaten inside the patrol car and at the police station. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 7 June 2021 — The young man Maig Wong Jiménez was violently detained this Saturday while eating ice cream in Havana’s El Vedado, when he was walking in front of Mariana Grajales Park, located on 23rd avenue, between C and D. Wong Jiménez, 23, was intercepted by several uniformed officers who, first, asked for his identification, and then that he accompany them to a police station.

The young man asked why they were taking him to the station and, when he received no response, he refused to accompany the agents. According to the testimony of activist Juan Antonio Madrazo Luna, who witnessed the events, “suddenly the policemen pushed his face to the ground” and handcuffed him.

“He shouted ’help, help, someone help me’. The whole of 23rd Street began to fill with people. Some women yelled at the police not to abuse him and not to beat him,” Madrazo tells 14ymedio. continue reading

“He shouted ’help, help, someone help me’. The whole of 23rd Street began to fill with people,” says Madrazo. (Facebook)

The young man was fined 1,000 pesos and returned home without charges, but insists that he is going to report his arrest because of the violence of which he was a victim. Madrazo had denounced the event on his social networks and had no further news of the young man until this Sunday, when he received his visit accompanied by his family. “They were also looking for a couple who had recently been detained by the officers and who from afar were able to film all the violence with which the police acted,” he says.

The activist insists that Wong Jiménez was beaten inside the patrol car and at the station, according to his testimony. At the time of being intercepted by the police, the attacked man activated his cell phone’s recorder and was able to record in audio everything that he experienced.

Once at the Zapata and C police station, he was transferred to the dungeon, where he was told that he could be accused of contempt and spreading the epidemic. According to the activist, Wong Jiménez’s father and sister came there to seek information and the girl was able to see him. Officers tried to influence the young woman by telling her that if she did not report what happened, they would remove the contempt charge.

At the time of being intercepted by the police, the young man activated the recorder of his cell phone and was able to record everything that happened in audio. (Facebook)

“His idea is to file an accusation before the Military Prosecutor’s Office,” says Madrazo.

In Cuba, complaints following violent police arrests against ordinary citizens seldom make it onto social media.

According to the penal code, the crime of contempt occurs when a person offends “an authority, public official, or his agents or assistants, in the exercise of their functions.” The sanction foreseen for these cases contemplates the deprivation of liberty for three to nine months.

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To Get a Digital TV Box in Cuba You Need a Ration Book and 1,250 Pesos

A line at the store on the corner of 11th and 4th in El Vedado, Havana, to buy the decoder ’boxes’. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 7 June 2021 — The line stretches for several blocks. There are people sitting on the sidewalk curb, others take shelter under the shade of the trees, and many others take to walking from one corner to another to stretch their legs. They joined the line at dawn, everyone has their ration book with them and they hope to buy the decoder boxes for digital television.

Known as “the little boxes,” the devices that allow you to enjoy a broader range of national broadcasts only appear in dribs and drabs in some state stores and for weeks it has been mandatory to present their rationbook to acquire them. Only residents of the same municipality are entitled to buy in these places.

“My sister-in-law called me at five in the morning, just to tell me they lifted the curfew,” a woman tells this newspaper, while waiting about 200 yards from the store that accepts payment in Cuban pesos at 11th and 4th street Havana’s El Vedado neighborhood. “They are worth 1,250 pesos each, but if I add up the number of hours I have been here it will cost me a fortune,” she laments after noon. continue reading

“No, it is not by the ration book but with the ration book”, clarifies an employee of a store of the Trimagen chain, managed by the Cuban military, which in recent months has sold these devices on several occasions. “We need the notebook to write down who has already bought and thus avoid hoarders and resellers,” he explains. “The problem is that there are households that have more than one television, even that there are several families in the same house and they can only buy one,” he acknowledges.

“Many people have been asking how long it takes between buying one box and being able to buy another, but they have not explained that to us yet. At the moment the data of those who have already acquired it is being archived and if anyone has doubts it must go to the provincial government,” clarifies the worker, who details that in the Trimagen store they are selling” the boxes for the municipalities of Cerro and Plaza.”

Digital television began its first steps in Cuba in 2013, but economic problems have slowed its progress. The authorities recently announced that they are preparing 318,000 Chinese standard digital TV decoders.

Until the arrival of these devices on the national scene, the word “box” was used in popular Cuban speech to designate a rectangular cardboard container where food is traditionally served at parties, cafeterias that sell to go, or situations where diners cannot sit in front of the plate.

With use, the expression “get a box” came to mean reaching something you want, taking advantage of a situation (even sexually) or being taken into account in some distribution mechanism. In April 1980, when more than 10,000 Cubans requested asylum at the Peruvian Embassy in Havana to try to escape from the Island, the phrase gained strength.

Squeezed into the embassy’s garden and on the roof of the building, in a short time the overcrowding of these thousands of people also turned into a humanitarian crisis that the ruling party skillfully handled. The distribution of the “boxes” with food became a moment of fights that the government cameras filmed to present those gathered there as criminals. “To get a box, you had to go over the top of others and beat each other with your fists,” one of those refugees would later recall.

Now, to get a box you need long hours in line, a large amount of money in your pocket and a ration book. Instead of food or a piece of birthday cake , you receive the right to be able to watch official television with better quality.

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Tania Bruguera Mocks the Cuban Government’s Censorship at the Geneva Summit

“Cuba,” a country where nothing works except its political police,” says Bruguera. (Rialta)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana,8 June 2021 – On Tuesday, the artist Tania Bruguera managed to participate in the virtual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, after the Cuban government prevented her doing so the day before by cutting off her mobile data service.

During her speech, Bruguera enumerated several recent abuses committed by the “military dictatorship,” including the impunity of the police authorities for the human rights violations for which they have been responsible, including murder.

The artist described the country where she lives as “an island-prison” and denounced: “It is in Cuba where laws are created to keep the rulers protected and in power and not for the people to live in a safer way. Cuba, a country where nothing works except its political police.”

Bruguera has also been the victim of arbitrary detentions, surveillance and lengthy interrogations, actions organized by State Security at the orders of the Government. In recent months, she has also had to spend days, sometimes weeks, with a police cordon around her home that prevents her from going out. continue reading

“Imagine turning on the television and seeing on the National Newscast your private telephone number with your name next to it and your home address with personal data, while a presenter emphasizes that, in effect, that is your number and that is the place where people can find you,” the artist said about the attacks in the official media, as a result of which, she says, hateful messages from people she does not know reach her phone.

The Summit was organized by a coalition of 25 human rights groups, bringing together dissidents and former political figures from around the world. In statements to 14ymedio, the artist said that her participation in this event was important: “It seemed good to me that the experience of the activists in Cuba could be there and could be told.”

Bruguera managed to bypass the censorship of Cuba’s telecommunications monopoly, Etecsa, by sending her speech in an audio message, and she did in both Spanish and English. In it, she noted that this is a country where “independent journalists are persecuted, where citizens’ access to independent media through the internet is blocked, where citizen journalism is penalized to such a degree that if a person publishes a statement on Facebook that is critical of the government, they will be sought out and fined more than their monthly salary.”

In addition, she gave an account of the political prisoners in Cuban prisons who are arbitrarily detained in many cases and publicly defamed by the Government. In these cases, she explained, all are without real legal protection “because their designated lawyer works under direct orders from the Government.”

Bruguera said that “people you know are afraid to let you use the telephone line registered in their name because they know that electronic surveillance is one of the priorities of the Cuban government.” At the same time, she spoke hopefully, because today, she said, Cubans’ complaints “are beginning to be transformed into civic actions.”

She was emphatic: “Today too, while sending this recording, I think about my fellow activists in prison, about the possible consequences of participating in this type of event, about the vulnerability that we feel every day, but there is something that gives me strength because I know it is a collective cry: Homeland and Life.”
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Like Coffee and Rum, Tobacco Disappears from Stores in Cuban Pesos

With the disappearance of tobacco in stores that sell in Cuban pesos, anyone who can’t pay in hard currency has to resort to the black market. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López, Moya, Havana, 3 June 2021 — On the island of cigars and cigar rag (cut tobacco), Cubans find themselves with the dilemma of acquiring packs of cigarettes on the black market or buying them in stores in freely convertible currency (MLC). In state stores and cafeterias, where this product is marketed in pesos, the shortage becomes more acute every day and huge lines get longer.

“I buy cigarettes from people who sell in my neighborhood because they are gone from the stores, but when I went to the Boyeros and Camagüey shopping center, there they were, all brands looking pretty, but in MLC. Tremendous lack of respect”, Jorge, a resident of the Havana neighborhood of Los Pinos, tells us. He adds that he should take advantage of the situation to quit smoking, but that it is quite difficult for him given the daily stress of living in Cuba.

Along with rum and coffee, two of the other symbols of Cubanness, smoking is no longer affordable for the pockets of the ordinary citizen. In addition, tobacco rose in price on January 1, with the start of the so-called ‘Ordering Task’*, but the rise was the least of the problems for some consumers who had seen the product disappear months ago. continue reading

In addition, tobacco rose in price on January 1, with the start of the ‘Ordering Task’, but the rise was the least of the problems

Many smokers have been forced to stop smoking their favorite brands. Those who preferred Hollywood, now have to turn to Rothman, which late last year replaced the former. But soon after, the Rothmans disappeared from the peso sales and can only be found at US$2.20 a pack. Consumers have had to opt for other alternatives, such as the green Popular or the H. Upmann, but now, those are also scarce and are only relatively easily found in sole proprietorship businesses for up to double their usual price.

Added to the dilemma of not finding the desired cigarettes is the complaint of many smokers about the poor quality of the product. The flavors have changed and sometimes the cigarettes come with little filler or scant glue, so the cork or filter separates from the rest. They also arrive with yellowish spots on the paper, a product of humidity, a sign of improper storage and handling.

“You may find either a stem of the tobacco leaf or a piece of plastic just as easily. It happened to me once, I noticed it because of the burnt cable stink, and almost called the fire department, but before I did, I realized that the smell was coming from the cigarette. After I performed the autopsy, I found a two-centimeters long piece of plastic. I still wonder how that ended up in the cigarette,” a Centro Habana barber told 14ymedio.

On the other hand, the few places where they carry the odd brand, especially “strong”, are hotbeds of desperate people trying to get the product at cheaper prices. “First I went to the Sylvain and there was only blue Popular, then I arrived at the Cupet, at Infanta and San Rafael Streets but they were very crowded, it took over 2 hours to get them and quantities were limited to purchases of 5 packs per person, which means that in four or five days I’ll have to wear out my shoes in search of the darn cigarettes again,” says a worker at La Quinta de los Molinos.

The mixed Cuban/Brazilian Company, Cigarrillos S.A., popularly known as Brascuba and founded in 1995, is the one that supplies stores in foreign currency and, although some prices continue to be unchanged, it has increased others.

At the beginning of last year, company executives declared that, in order to guarantee the constant flow of production and so that “there is no impact,” Brascuba had expanded its portfolio of suppliers and the main raw material, tobacco, came “directly from the Virginia project, in Pinar del Río, and that the company’s partners have contributed to its growth and improvement.” However, months later, reality tells a different story.

Faced with such a shortage, some people who are astute and have good memories, have resorted to the homemade manufacture of cigars, the so-called Tupamaros

Faced with such a shortage, some people who are astute and have good memories, have resorted to the homemade manufacture of cigarettes, the so-called tupamaros. They use the artisanal machines to roll, manufacture and produce cigarettes from different raw materials, such as sweepings or surplus that is usually discarded at the factories, or also by creating the filling from chopped tobacco leaves. Almost any paper can be used, as long as it’s a thin sheet, as long as the glue is a mixture of flour and water.

Francisco, a neighbor of the La Corona Tobacco Factory in Old Havana, performs very well in these tasks. He has dusted off his cigarette machines not used since the late 90’s and, after maintenance, he’s gotten down to business. “The situation has become very difficult, especially for us retirees,” he explains.

“Buying food is already complicated, so being able to smoke is so much worse, that’s why I remembered that I had the little machines to make cigarettes, so taking advantage of the shortage, I started production with what I can resolve. This way, I guarantee mine and sell to people from the neighborhood to recoup the investment and earn a bit of change, although sometimes I also trade cigarettes for sugar, chopped meat or whatever they offer me.”

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

Translated by Norma Whiting
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Cuban Regime Loses Ground in the Battle for Control of the Internet

When Etecsa offered the ability to connect from mobile phones, we were already “Internet users without internet.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 5 June 2021 – An uninvited presence hovered over the spacious room where the eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) was held this April. The Internet was an unwanted and feared guest at the three-day event that took place in Havana. The organization, which governs the destiny of eleven million Cubans and which, for decades, has maintained a tight news monopoly on the island, is now challenged by social networks and memes.

“There should be no room for naivety at this point, nor for excessive enthusiasm for new technologies without ensuring computer security,” said Raúl Castro in the central report that he read to the delegates before leaving the post of general secretary of the PCC. His words displayed the concern that had been felt by the entire Castro leadership for months.

The Cuban government has lost the terrain of the internet for not understanding it, for believing that – as is the case with physical streets or university classrooms – fear and punishment are enough to silence dissent. The emergence in late 2018 and the continued resistance of the San Isidro Movement, which exists both online and on the streets, is a tribute to this failure.

The date of birth of the San Isidro Movement is no coincidence. With the arrival of the web browsing service to Cuban mobiles, in December 2018, an avalanche of popular denunciations, questions and ridicule against bureaucrats, officials and party leaders has been unleashed. As if in this nation, long gagged, we had all begun to scream at the same time, in a howl that mixes indignation, boredom and desire for change. continue reading

However, the history of this chorus of despair heard today on social networks began long before the Cuban Telecommunications Company (Etecsa) allowed Cubans to connect from cell phones. More than a decade ago, when the first independent blogs appeared on the island, part of a path was traced from which citizens are now beginning to see the fruits.

It was 2007 when the first personal blogs outside the control of Cuban institutions and ministries began to gain visibility on the networks. Generation Y, the blog that I started in April 2007, was for me “an exercise in cowardice” since it gave me a space to describe what was happening in Cuba in a way that was forbidden to me in my civic actions.

Now those times seem prehistoric, times when to publish we had to go disguised as foreigners to a few Internet cafés in Havana where access to nationals was restricted, while high prices were charged to tourists.

Also long gone the days of “tweeting blindly” on Twitter, a tool that, thanks to the possibility of publishing through text-only messages, allowed a thriving community of activists and reporters to have immediate insight into what was happening in the interior of the country. The independent journalism movement, still trying to recover from the repressive blow of the spring of 2003, found in these new technologies a breath of oxygen to grow.

A vibrant alternative blogosphere then emerged that was immediately placed at the center of official attacks, government propaganda smear campaigns, and repressive police operations. But, the main response from the Plaza of the Revolution was to create a captive and controlled blogosphere, which would serve as a sounding board for its slogans: take to the internet with a hammer and sickle in your hands.

Since then, the skirmishes on one side and the other have been countless, but the balance favors the protesting voices. The Cuban regime chose to censor web pages and to create controlled bubbles with substitutes for Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia. Months of work, with professionals devoted to the programming of these parallel networks – resulted in the understanding that the Internet virus had already irremediably infected Cubans.

Despite the high prices for connecting to the web, which are still prohibitive for many state workers, people were peeking into the great world-wide-web and it was then very difficult to try to shrink it back to a ghetto of applications and digital sites associated with the Government. Unlike in China, where party leaders pushed for the creation of a neutered and guarded network very quickly, on this island it took too long for the olive-green elders to recognize the new enemy that was upon them.

By the time the state telecommunications monopoly Etecsa offered the ability to connect from mobile phones, on the other side here we were already “Internet users without internet” and we knew the potential of a tool that we had conquered with years of demands and creativity.

Then came everything that followed: the first images in more than half a century of a Cuban presidential caravan being booed by a crowd furious about the official delay in helping victims of a tornado in Havana; the acid mocking of a Commander of the historic Sierra Maestra who came up with the proposal that we eat ostriches to alleviate the chronic food crisis; the disconsolate tears of several families from whom the collapse of a balcony – which had been in danger of falling for years – robbed them of three little girls.

To top off all that mess, the new forms of social criticism have thrown themselves fully into the virtual village and use its tools effectively. The San Isidro Movement and its most visible figure, the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, are practically digital natives to whom chatting, posting on YouTube or putting a live broadcast on Facebook are like breathing.

When on November 27, dozens of artists and activists met in front of the Ministry of Culture to demand the end of censorship and greater creative freedoms, mobiles connected to the web were the ideal infrastructure to narrate the protest. At nightfall, in front of the dreaded state agency, cell phone screens illuminated young, restless faces… full of energy.

Accept, however, is a verb that is not in the dictionary of the Cuban regime and since that November it has unleashed a fierce repressive campaign against these artists, mobilized its most intolerant television presenters, and turned the national media into firing squads against the reputation of its critics.

Since that time there has not been a single day of calm for the Cuban regime, which once strutted to control even whispers. A downpour of citizen criticism, even from those who identify with the official ideology, has fallen on them and threatens to continue to rage as new voices are added. To protect themselves from such acid rain they have tried to respond by displaying their slogans on the social networks… but it hardly works.

On the internet, the regime’s soldiers are effortlessly recognized, lack of spontaneity is paid for dearly, and blocking positions are detected with ease. Like an impromptu performer who sneaks into a high-level dance contest, the steps that the government has taken in the fields of propaganda through the Internet are clumsy, without rhythm and even ridiculous.

It is not in its medium and it shows; because its medium is controlled newspapers and censored television. For Castroism, the internet is a terrain where it is forced to operate but one it does not understand well.

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Editor’s Note: This text was originally published on Rest of World.

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Foreign Correspondents in Cuba: The Fascination with the Dictatorship / Miriam Celaya

A conference at the International Press Center in Havana (Photo: CPI / Twitter)

Miriam Celaya, Cubanet, Havana, 2 June 2021 — One of the most effective pillars that has helped to cement the legend of the “good Cuban dictatorship” has been the work of not a few accredited foreign press correspondents in Havana.

It is not something new. Since New York Times journalist Herbert Matthews’ crush on Fidel Castro in 1957, when he interviewed the guerrilla leader in the Sierra Maestra, many reporters have succumbed to the mythology (and mythomania, it should be added) of the Castro revolution.

Perhaps dazzled by the color and heat of the tropics, the cheerful carefreeness of Cubans, the beauty of the beaches, the refreshing taste of mojitos and the comfort of what, more than the work of being a correspondent, turns out to be a perennial state of paid vacations, the truth is that most of these foreign reporters are more interested in not upsetting the Cuban dictatorial power than in honoring the professional commitment to objectively narrate the reality of what is happening on the Island.

It is not surprising, then, that several press media, among the best known and most prestigious at the international level, echo the supposed technological and scientific advances that are produced in Cuba thanks to the high level reached by Cuban specialists in the shadow of the “Revolution,” or that they don’t extend themselves in praise over the imaginary social security and quality of health care enjoyed by the inhabitants of this Island either, and that they even tear their clothes off against the forever-villain: the US government, with its most deadly weapon, the “blockade,” which has prevented us from reaching greater heights in all categories and occupying our rightful place on the world stage. continue reading

The most recent installment of this type of half-truth journalism – all the more harmful because it selects a fragment of reality but show only one of its faces – is a column authored by Mauricio Vicent, published in the Spanish newspaper El País, dated May 31^st, whose sole title (“Cuba and the United States Return to Times of Confrontation”) constitutes an inexplicable slip by such an experienced writer, given that the confrontation between the Cuban authorities and the United States government has not only been a constant, with brief and scant intervals of truce during the last 62 years, but constitutes the backbone of the foreign policy of the Castro dictatorship and its heirs of today, pledged to “continuity.”

To such an extent, it is of capital importance for the Palace of the Revolution to keep the confrontation embers and the “imperialist enemy” burning, because without this it is not possible to conceive the very survival of the dictatorship, as was definitely demonstrated during the thaw period prompted by the Obama Administration, when Cuban authorities hastily backed off from the dangerous effect of openness and détente offered by the powerful northern neighbor.

Mauricio Vicent, correspondent for the Spanish newspaper El País in Cuba (Photo: El País)

The avalanche of unilateral measures by Obama, which made the embargo more flexible with the intention of favoring the nascent sector of entrepreneurs and Cuban society as a whole, was capitalized on by Havana to establish itself in power without taking real steps towards the freedoms and rights of Cuban citizens. This is a reality that Vicent, who has lived in Cuba for over 20 years, should know by heart. However, his article is not only biased, but chooses to openly attack the new US president, Joe Biden, and side with the Cuban regime.

What is Vicent accusing Biden of? First, of having spent five months at the helm of the US government and having lifted “not a single of the 240 measures adopted by Trump to intensify the embargo” as if the Cuban issue had to be a priority for a foreign president, particularly for the American one, and as if the Cuban side did not have to make any internal moves to try to improve the situation in our own country.

But Biden’s bag of sins is bulkier than that. The El País columnist seems to be irritated both by “Washington’s reproaches” for the human rights situation in Cuba and by the fact that the current US Administration has kept Cuba on the black list of governments that sponsor terrorism or are not doing enough in the fight against this scourge.

To support the position of the Cuban side, Vicent cites the fiery reactions of the Cuban Foreign Ministry, with an arsenal of phrases and cumbersome adjectives which he uncritically seems to agree with, to conclude that “every day returns to the fierce rhetoric from the Trump era, and Obama’s normalization is no longer talked about…”

In order not to skimp on quotes, Vicent also makes use of the American academic William Leogrande, who recalls Joe Biden’s support for Obama’s open-minded policy towards Cuba when Biden was his vice president, plus his campaign promise about resuming the dialogue between the two governments, whose stagnation Leogrande attributes to an unresolved debate that would be taking place between the forces in favor of the policy of rapprochement and those who prefer to maintain pressure on the Cuban dictatorship.

So far, it could be said that Vicent’s position is valid: each one with his own political sympathies, only that you would expect more objectivity from him as a journalist. Because, while his article gives voice and place to the Cuban and US authorities – obviously in favor of the former – at the same time, he conveniently avoids including the claims of dissident artists and activists, whom he does mention in the column.

So, when he speaks of the forced transfer of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara to the hospital, where he spent “almost four weeks as an isolated in-patient,” Vicent fails to allege that it was actually a kidnapping and that this isolation included the artist’s abduction, prevented from having any contact with his friends and colleagues from the San Isidro Movement, deprived of his phone and possibly subjected to medical or other practices not authorized by Otero himself. Vicent also avoids mentioning the illegal arrests, house confinements and police harassment of activists and dissidents, or of all the violent events related to the hunger strike and the subsequent kidnapping of Otero.

Prodigal in epithets when it comes to condemning the US government, he seems to suffer a sudden language impoverishment when he refers to the flagrant human rights violations in Cuba, as if the existence of the much-used “US blockade” – which undeniably affects everyone – justifies police repression and lack of rights of Cubans.

It goes without saying that this journalist doesn’t make any critical mention either – I don’t remember his ever having made it – of the internal blockade of the dictatorship toward Cuban nationals, of the discrimination implanted by the government both towards Cubans who have access to hard currency and those who do not, of the new provisions that force Cuban travelers to pay in dollars for their stay in isolation centers and transportation to their places of residence when they return from a trip abroad, among countless other perversions that have nothing to do with the embargo.

But the greatest offense is that this correspondent, like a sounding board for the official discourse, attributes a political handicap to us Cubans, as if we were a herd, incapable of claiming rights on our own. Perhaps because of that colonial mentality that permeates many children of the old metropolis settled comfortably in Cuba, because of that congenital resentment towards the United States or simply because the hierarchs of the regime also have in their hands the power to keep them in Cuba or to allow them to leave, this foreign correspondent joins others in the assumption that all of us who stand up to the dictatorial power are responding to an agenda imposed on us by Washington.

Everyday Cubans and dissidents, those of us who are actually suffering from both the pressures of the embargo and the repression and twists and turns of the dictatorship, don’t even figure as political subjects in Vicent’s imagination. Reduced to a simple uncomfortable reference, he doesn’t recognize in us the capacity nor the right. His reductionist proposal, which only conceives of the Biden Administration and the Cuban dictatorship as debaters in the solution of the Cuban crisis, mimics the same position that Cubans faced at the end of the 1898 war, when they were excluded from agreements between defeated Spain and victorious U.S.

Vicent concludes that the “blockade” and US politics show that Cuba and Cubans are not interested in the US, and this may be true. Though, at this point he failed to say that he does not care about us either – in short, a foreigner whose stay among us depends on the benefits of the regime – or, what is worse, on the elite that has held the dictatorial power in Cuba for more than six decades.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Cadeca to Issue Pre-Paid Cards in Another Step Towards Dollarization in Cuba

Cash withdrawals using pre-paid debit cards will only be in Cuban pesos (CUP) and only through one bank’s ATM network. (Radio Mambí)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 June 2021 — Cuba’s state-run currency exchange company, Cadeca, has announced “a new service”: prepaid cards in dollars to be used exclusively within Cuba to pay for goods and services in the country’s hard-currency retail network. The new operation, which is not yet available, is an effort to take over cash remittance transfers from Western Union, which recently suspended operations in Cuba.

According to an advertisement shared on Facebook by Cadeca vice-president Alejandro Velazquez, the new prepaid cards will be issued exclusively by the Bank of Credit and Commerce (Bandec) in 200, 500 and 1,000 dollar amounts, though the state-owned company has yet to provide details.

As the ad notes, cash withdrawals can only be in Cuban pesos (CUP) and only through the bank’s ATM network. Withdrawals cannot be exchanged for foreign currency and the bank maintains it is not obliged to return any unused funds. It is not yet known when the cards will go into circulation. continue reading

Velasco also does not indicate where the cards will be available, if Cadeca and Bandec will be directly involved in their sale or issue, or if it will be possible to purchase them online from abroad as can now be done with rechargeable telephone debit cards issued of the state telecommunications monopoly Etecsa.

The new service could simplify the purchasing process for those who shop at the country’s hard currency stores, where customers must pay using a pre-paid debit card. Currently, consumers are required to use a card issued by a foreign bank or one obtained by opening a foreign currency account at a Cuban bank, a process that could take weeks.

The Cuban government has set the currency exchange rate at 24 pesos to the dollar — the unofficial rate is at 600 and rising — making it virtually impossible to buy dollars through official channels.

On May 20 Cuban airports abruptly stopped selling hard currency without prior warning. The news came via a message on social media posted by Cadeca a few hours before the decision took effect.

The government is now taking drastic action in an all-out quest to obtain hard currency. One indiction of this is the many neighborhood stores that no longer sell merchandise in pesos and will only accept payment in foreign currency, a dollarization of the Cuban economy that is spreading throughout the country.

The number of these state-run stores is growing by the day. The transition is causing consternation among the buying public, who see the change as a sign of economic instability and monetary discrimination. Nevertheless, authorities remain undeterred in their efforts to obtain foreign reserves at any cost.

As of June 5, Cuban residents who who return home through airports at the country’s two international resort hotspots, Ciego de Ávila and Varadero, will have to pay in hard currency for a mandatory one-week hotel quarantine package. Among the reasons given by health authorities is “the need to reduce costs associated with fighting the pandemic.”

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Cuban Government Organizes an Act of Repudiation Against Tania Bruguera

The Hannah Arendt International Institute of Artivism (Instar) denounced what occurred in a press release published on social networks. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 3 June 2021 — On Thursday afternoon at the headquarters of the Hannah Arendt International Institute of Artivism (Instar), the artist Tania Bruguera received a visit from a group made up of about fifteen people who warned her of the consequences of continuing with her activities and demands. At the head of the collective was a woman who presented the others as “community factors” [i.e. disciplinarians] and told the artist that she has to quit “with the little game” and “the counterrevolution.”

“We have to tell you that it has to end with the ’savage’ horde and the counterrevolution you have here. We are waiting for one of you to come out to face us, but since you don’t have the courage, quit with this here and now,” the woman said excitedly.

“All of you are worms [gusanos], fine,” she continued. “We here in the community are not going to allow, not from you or anyone else, this disaster that you are creating here.” The leader of the group described those present as “revolutionary troops” and maintained that they will not consent to any act of the “counterrevolution” because in this community “there are women and men that can ’make waves’ [be brave],” she added. continue reading

Bruguera told 14ymedio that the group arrived at her house without even knowing what Instar is and believes that what happened was more than an act of repudiation. “It was an alert… something very strange, a threat,” said the artist.

“It is evident that whose who gave them an order didn’t prepare them. It seemed like a rushed and poorly prepared event. What was clear is that there were people willing to strike out and who wanted confrontation. Their objective was to provoke, but in Instar our philosophy is that violence it is eliminated with civic education,” said the artist.

Instar denounced what happened in a statement published on social networks in which it specified that the intention of the group was to speak with Tania Bruguera, but thatat that moment the artist was in a work meeting.

“It is common for neighbors of our headquarters and other Cuban citizens to contact us for matters related to the neighborhood or personal situations. However, this number of people has never come together, they have always identified themselves with their names and the matter to be discussed, and, above all, they have never filmed us from the opposite sidewalk, as happened in this case and is recorded in the attached video,” the note states.

In the recording you can see the visual artist Camila Lobón, one of the coordinators of the space, greet the group through a grating. Lobón asks that they identify themselves as she does not recognize them as neighbors of the neighborhood. “Only then did they say, without further details, they were ’from the community of the Cathedral’, where our institute is located,” the post clarifies. When Lobón realizes that there is a person filming from the sidewalk in front, she also begins to record the second part of the conversation.

“It is obvious that these are acts planned by the Government, they do arise spontaneously or from the conscience of the citizens. The woman who launches the threats initially confuses Aminta D’Cárdenas, one of our coordinators, with Tania. Then she rectifies it can calls her ’ringleader’,” the post says.

According to Instar, none of the residents of the neighborhood participated in this act and greeted the members of the institute “kindly” when they left the headquarters minutes later.

Last week, the presenter Humberto López once again dedicated one of his TV programs to Bruguera, 27 N, and other activists, accusing them of having ties to the government of the United States and receiving financing from that country.

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Otero Alcantara Leaves Havana Hospital After a Month of Forced Confinement

Screen captures of a video that Otero Alcántara made when he left Havana’s Calixto García hospital this Monday. (Collage)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 31 May 2021 — “I am relatively well, from a physical point of view but, emotionally, [I am] worried about all my brothers,” Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara told CubaNet Noticias shortly after leaving Calixto García Hospital. The artist announced that health “tests” will be carried out outside the “control of State Security.”

The chronology of what he has lived through in the last four weeks begins to become clear. After arriving at the hospital on May 2^nd, he spent a week drinking fluids “so I could be aware of what was happening with me at that time” and “to be able to think,” as he arrived at the health center “despondent,” he clarifies.

“A week after I was there, once again I started my hunger and thirst fasting,” he said. About a week after, he called off the strike and stated that for about 15 days he has been eating again, and that he has also hydrated.

He also said that, before issuing opinions on everything that the political police have published about him during his imprisonment, he prefers to see all the videos that they leaked and what they have said about his family: “I want to see everything that is happening, get updated to be able to judge what went on.” continue reading

“A week after being there, once again I started my hunger and thirst fasting”

In relation to one of the videos where he seemed to be very thin and which caused concern among his friends, he insisted that he spent about eight days without eating and drinking water, and “of course, he was emaciated,” he said.

“All my friends have to be on the street. State Security had a meeting with me before leaving, they warned me of a thousand things, but my friends have to be on the street now… We are connected,” said the artist, referring to the phrase that has become his life motto.

Shortly before, a note from the Provincial Health Directorate had reported that the medical team treating him had decided to “have him discharged from the hospital today.” The official note added that “during his hospital stay, his progress has been favorable, with clinical and laboratory parameters that are all within normal ranges.”

In addition, the note specified that for several days he “has been on a free diet, which meets nutritional needs” and that this has allowed for “weight gain and requirements for recovery of his energy.”

Otero Alcántara’s family was putting pressure on health personnel to achieve this goal. The artist had been held in the hospital for 29 days without being able to communicate with his friends and was only seen through manipulated videos, which were released by State Security.

Family sources confirmed to 14ymedio that the health authorities of the hospital had communicated that this Monday they were going to discharge the artist. At first, the family assumed that Otero Alcántara was going to leave the medical center last Friday, however, “that did not happen.”

The artist had been held in the hospital for 29 days without being able to communicate with his friends and was only seen through manipulated videos

Relatives said they went to Calixto García Hospital but they did not discharge him and the doctors reported that they would do so this Monday. In addition, they insisted that the activist would not return to his home on Damas Street, in the San Isidro neighborhood, Old Havana municipality.

“When he gets hold of a phone, Luisito is going to tell everything that happened, he is going to denounce everything and he will continue to be a plantado (an uncooperative prisoner),” Enix Berrio, who is Otero Alcántara’s close friend, told 14ymedio.

Some family members, Berrio assures, are upset with the actions of State Security and the authorities, who “have manipulated” the situation “at will… Initially, personal experience led them to believe that they were going to help Luisito and that we are the bad guys, that we wanted to drag him to hell, but the family verified that the G2 is a string of manipulators and that they are affecting Luisito,” he admonished.

Otero Alcántara went on a hunger and thirst strike on April 25^th to demand that his rights be respected, after a month of police siege to his home. The activist also demanded the return of his artistic works or compensation for those that were destroyed by the political police.

After several days of fasting, in the early morning of May 2^nd, he was taken from his home against his will to the Calixto García Hospital. During his stay at the hospital, he had no communication with his colleagues at the San Isidro Movement (MSI) and very little with his family.

In addition, a police cordon guarded the surroundings of the Havana hospital. Although at the time of his admission the authorities confirmed that he was being admitted due to “referred voluntary starvation,” a few hours later they leaked the results of an analysis that supposedly were his vitals and that described a good state of health, even suggesting that one of the values was high due to high consumption of meat.

The government’s propaganda apparatus has not stopped campaigning to discredit Otero Alcántara, accusing him of receiving instructions and financial support from abroad

During all the time he was held at the Calixto García, the political police published several videos of the artist, possibly filmed without his consent. At all times they alleged that he was in good health, without giving explanations about the reasons for his hospitalization.

The government’s propaganda apparatus has not stopped campaigning to discredit Otero Alcántara, accusing him of receiving instructions and financial support from abroad, while international organizations have expressed concern over the kidnapping of the artist.

Amnesty International declared him a “prisoner of conscience” on May 21^st and urged President Miguel Díaz-Canel to release him “immediately and unconditionally.” They also demanded that he should receive medical care of his choice, periodic visits from his family and friends, not be tortured or suffer any other type of mistreatment, and have access to lawyers of his choice.”

The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FDHC) insisted that it is prosecuting “as violent repressors… those people who are cooperating with State Security in inflicting temporary or irreversible damage to Otero Alcántara at the hospital.” The executive director of the NGO, Juan Antonio Blanco, noted that the Cuban regime has already used “corrupt doctors and nurses in the past to torture using electroshocks, drugs and other practices.”

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Cuba’s ‘Man With the Flag’ Continues to US After Detention in Columbia

“We are in Colombia now and we continue on our way to the United States, I will report as we go,” Llorente told ’14ymedio’. (Courtesy)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 June 2021 — Daniel Llorente Miranda, known as “the man with the flag” since, in 2017, he ran holding the United States banner in the Plaza of the Revolution during the May 1 parade, was released this Sunday in Caracas after spend nine days in detention, along with his son, for having entered Venezuela illegally.

Both were deported this weekend to the border with Colombia. “Everything is fine, we have already left Venezuela, we are in Colombia now and we continue on our way to the United States, I will report as we go,” Llorente told 14ymedio.

According to his account, on May 21 at around six in the afternoon when he arrived with his son at a hotel in Caracas where they planned to spend the night before continuing on their way, they were detained along with other Cubans by members of the Special Actions Forces (Faes).

“We were accompanied by two friends of ours who are also Venezuelan police officers and we had met them on the bus that went from Bolívar state to Caracas. Someone betrayed us, we believe it was the bus driver. It was State Security that one that stopped us at the hotel, then took us to the station.” continue reading

Llorente explains that in the police station they were treated well, “and with respect,” he added. “We were there until Monday the 24th when they transferred us to immigration and they left us there until Sunday the 30th, when we were released.”

The Cuban and his son Eliécer met up in December in Guyana where the opponent had resided since May 2019, when, according to his testimony, he had to leave Cuba due to “pressure” and “threats” from State Security.

The activist spent more than a year in Havana’s Mazorra Psychiatric Hospital. He was transferred to the medical center by the political police after crying out for “freedom for Cuba” while running with the US flag in his hands and the Cuban flag on his short, a few yard from the rostrum where then-President Raúl Castro was seated and in front of the accredited press and foreign guests.

Llorente, born in 1963m graduated in engineering in the former German Democratic Republic, and became popular for his activism after the diplomatic thaw between Havana and Washington.

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