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Archivo Cuba (Cuba Archive) was also able to speak with him, and warned of the opponent’s worrying state of health. “I am ready to leave my body as this mass of prey mass that the Cuban regime can threaten, can hit, can even prevent it from painting a picture, and even prohibit being an artist,” Otero Alcántara told the NGO.

“We want Otero alive and waging the peaceful battle for freedom in Cuba,” said Archivo Cuba, noting that the hunger strikes “have claimed the lives of too many Cubans who tragically feel that this form of radical protest is what remains to them to defend their fundamental rights. “

The organization has asked foreign correspondents in Cuba to “circumvent censorship” and cover this matter with “justice in order to make known to the world the situation of Otero Alcántara and the lack of freedom of expression” on the island.

The San Isidro Movement (MSI) has demanded that the authorities allow access to the home of Otero Alcántara for his relatives and friends to verify his situation. “Since the early hours of the morning his condition is unknown and we need to know what condition he is in,” they denounced this Tuesday.

Sources close to the artist said that all the access points to the house on Calle Damas in Old Havana, where Alcántara is staying while on the hunger and thirst strike, are under surveillance by State Security and the police. The cause of the protest is precisely this, the police cordon that prevents him from moving freely, in addition to the arrests, fines and confiscations that those who try to get to his house have suffered.

In addition to the lifting of the police siege, Otero Alcántara demands the return of the works of art that were seized by State Security agents, a material compensation of $500,000 and that respect for the exercise of artistic freedoms be fully complied with.

On Tuesday, the police took Manuel de La Cruz from his house and held him under arrest at the Cotorro station until after twelve on Wednesday with the excuse of a summons scheduled for one in the afternoon. The young man has been harassed by the authorities since he was arrested and expelled from his workplace after leaving with Otero Alcántara to distribute candy in San Isidro to celebrate a children’s party dressed as the Desparpajo clown.

The artist Alexis Valdés, who lives in Miami, once again expressed solidarity with Otero Alcántara, whose strike, in his opinion, “symbolizes the despair of many people who cannot find a way out.”

“His desperate act is the reflection of a desperate time in my country. And one says to oneself: What a shame! What a sadness for the country. To continue risking the lives of people with talent and heart. Why can’t we have a country of dialogue, of tolerance, of encounter, of differences, acceptable? Why a country of imposition?” Valdés wrote on his Facebook profile.

Other supportive reactions were that of PEN America, which issued a statement condemning the continuous harassment against Otero Alcántara, and the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), whose leader, José Daniel Ferrer, launched a campaign from Santiago de Cuba. For her part, Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White wrote on her social networks: “we stand in solidarity with Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara (…) Luisma, you are not alone,” speaking on behalf of his organization.

The members of the MSI in Miami held a vigil through the Zoom platform to support the demands of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and show their solidarity “towards him, the besieged people and the political prisoners.”

The poet Katherine Bisquet, the reporter for this newspaper Luz Escobar, and the visual artists Camila Lobón and Julio Llopiz-Casal, among others, had State Security surveillance this Tuesday that prevented them from leaving their homes.

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With this offer, 60% of the net present value of the debt that the Island has with CFR would be amortized, approximately four billion in loans and other securities.

The London Club, made up of the Stancroft Trust, Adelante Exotic and CRF funds, has been making offers of various kinds to Cuba since 2018 in order to collect the money owed.

In 2018, relief of an unknown amount was offered, described as an “opportunity to reach an amicable agreement” by Rodrigo Olivares-Caminal, coordinator of the Club.

Raúl Castro, who reversed his brother Fidel’s policy of not paying the debt, said that 2018 would be a “complicated year for the nation’s external finances,” but he was inclined to comply with the agreements made in the previous years with other creditors such as Russia and the Paris Club, which encouraged the British to make offers.

However, the lack of receptivity on the part of the Cuban side led CRF to file a lawsuit for non-compliance in a London court in February 2020. “The CRF board made it clear that the ongoing legal process will not stop unless there is a previously negotiated and satisfactory agreement with the Cuban government,” the company said in a statement.

After 30 years trying to collect the debt, Charters said: “We are losing patience. If [Cuba] wants to regain access to the international financial market, it has to fix this.”

The pandemic and the consequent worsening of the island’s economic situation make it difficult for the Government of Havana to be in a position to accept the offer, but, according to Bloomberg, if it is done, it could send a good signal to other investors and the Biden Administration.

“We urge you not to let this historic moment pass again, we expect a positive response and a commitment from you,” says the CRF letter.

During the time of the thaw with the United States during the Obama Administration, Cuba’s debt, including CRF values, recovered to 36 cents on the dollar as of the end of 2016. Today, however, loans, which are rarely traded, are now trading at about 10 cents one the dollar.

Cuba received significant relief in 2014 with the cancellation of 90% of its debt of 35 billion dollars with the former Soviet Union, of which the Russian Federation was the legate. Havana pledged with Moscow to invest the remaining 3.5 billion in joint projects on the island.

In 2015, the Paris Club and Cuba reached an agreement by which they forgave the Island 8.5 billion of the 11 billion dollars that it had accumulated in debt and interest since 1986 on the condition that Havana pay the remainder with a cap in 2018.

However, the agreed restructuring schedule has been breached as Cuba stopped paying some 85 million dollars in the last year and, although its creditors accepted a moratorium, they are considering imposing sanctions.

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Despite the adverse figures this year and the coronavirus pandemic, which has reduced tourisms to the Island and to most destinations worldwide, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said in a meeting with executives that Tourism will continue to be the locomotive of the Cuban economy.

To try to reactivate the sector, the Cuban government opened two of its tourist destinations to Russian tourists, a decision criticized by citizens. Russia is one of the countries with the lowest vaccination rate against Covid-19 worldwide (not even 5% of its population is vaccinated, according to official figures).

The majority of international travelers who have arrived on the island this year have come from Russia (21,467 visitors), followed by 7,313 Cubans residing abroad and 4,026 Germans, among whom the German parliamentarian Karin Strenz stands out; she died a few weeks ago on a flight originating from the Varadero resort.

To travel to Cuba, tourists must provide printed negative results in the PCR test dated 72 hours before arrival, and once they land on the island, undergo other similar tests.

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Correos de Cuba confirmed that in recent days there have been more than ten such incidents, a situation which it described as “very serious” while also categorizing them as “uncommon and infrequent.”

In an attempt to reassure customers, the company claimed that “unfortunate and isolated incidents such as these will never go unpunished.” The thefts are being investigated by the Interior Ministry, it said, “in order to identify those responsible” and to apply “all disciplinary, administrative and legal measures that are appropriate.”

In December Correos de Cuba said it was the victim of a media campaign orchestrated and financed by the United States against the Cuban government and its institutions.

After accusations appeared on social networks accusing postal workers of taking advantage of their positions by opening packages sent from overseas, the company responded, saying these complaints do not reflect “reality or comment made by the vast majority of customers.”

“To say that those of us who work at Correos de Cuba are thieves, criminals and opportunists is totally unfair and untrue,” it noted.

The company referred to the thirty-two claims it received in 2020 for theft and change of content of some packaged shipments, pointing out that this represented “0.03% of the hundreds of tons and millions of shipments received, processed, transported and delivered, a record number.”

The tone of Thursday’s announcement was quite different, however. Rather than alluding to campaigns directed against it,  the company invited customers who had experienced similar incidents, or who wished to express their opinions, to do so on the postal service’s website or Facebook page, a way to discourage victims from having their complaints aired on independent media.

Last week the government approved a regulation that includes “compensation for the loss, disruption or theft of postal items but only if it can be shown that postal workers are responsible. According to the regulation, shipments from abroad are the responsibility of Correos de Cuba “as soon as they enter the country for delivery or are in transit at any of its postal centers.”

Compensation for damages in such cases is set at 960 pesos for a package sent from abroad, plus 540 pesos per kilo, plus the delivery or pickup fee.

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Last week the government passed a law that provides “compensation for loss, disruption or theft of postal deliveries provided it can be demonstrated that postal workers are responsible for such incidents. According to the new regulation, shipments from overseas are the responsibility of Correos de Cuba “from the time they enter the country for delivery or are in transit at one of its postal facilities.”

Rates of compensation in such cases is set at 960 pesos for a package sent from abroad, plus 540 pesos per kilo, plus the delivery or pickup fee.

In December, Cubadebate published an article defending Correos de Cuba, saying it was the victim of “a media campaign orchestrated and financed by the United States against the Cuban government and its institutions.”

The agency objected to accusations on social media that its workers allegedly benefitted from access to packages that were sent from overseas.

The company responded, saying these complaints do not reflect “the reality or the comments made by the vast majority of customers. To say that those of us who work at Correos de Cuba are thieves, criminals and opportunists is totally unfair and untrue.”

The company referred to the thirty-two claims it received in 2020 for theft and change of content of some packaged shipments, pointing out that this represented “0.03% of the hundreds of tons and millions of shipments received, processed, transported and delivered.”

Another business that has been the object of similar complaints is Aerovaradero, a subsidiary of Cuban Civil Aviation, which specializes in domestic and international cargo transport. Several of its workers were arrested in December for alleged theft and misappropriation of property. According to authorities, the arrests resulted from complaints by passengers and other state-owned companies that had been impacted. Among the items stolen were eight air conditioning splits as well as televisions, computers, minibars, musical equipment and high-performance athletic shoes.

Both Correos de Cuba and Aeroveradero have been the subjects of intense criticism for delays of as long as eight months involving delivery of parcels from overseas. Carlos Jesús Asencio Valerino, head of the postal agency, said the facility that processes packages was operating twelve hours a day and was handling between fourteen to sixteen tons in a single day.

In addition to headaches such as these, there is the 95-peso cost of picking up a package at a post office, or 100 pesos for those who choose home delivery. Customs charges for postal and courier shipments have also shot up, from 10 pesos prior to January 1st to 50 pesos for packages under 1.5 kilograms.

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Verea published the same complaint three times and received many words of support, including several commentators who urged him not to wait for state transportation and to market the honey on his own, but that option is extremely complicated.

Any private beekeeper who has more than 25 hives is not only obliged to join a cooperative, but must deliver most of their honey to the State and keep only that destined for their own domestic consumption. The Provincial Beekeeping Company collects the honey and sends it to CubaExport, which is in charge of exporting it as a monopoly.

With about 3,000 beekeepers throughout the country and some 180,000 hives in operation, 90% of the honey produced in Cuban fields is exported to Europe, mainly to Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, while the rest goes to the national market and the tourism sector.

In the case of Verea, the lack of fuel for the vehicles that carry the honey from the fields is due to the serious economic problems of the Cooperative. With the start of the ’Ordering Task’ — a national economic restructuring — the entity “lost a good part of the state budget it received,” an employee who preferred anonymity explained to 14ymedio.

“The Cooperative is destroyed, many office workers left for their homes because they have not been paid for more than three months,” explains the worker. “There is no money to pay salaries and they also cut most of the fuel allowance we had, so there is no way to move anything.”

“If Yoandy dares to sell that honey on his own, the least that will happen to him is that they will give him a very high fine, but things can get worse. The only thing he can do is wait and report all the instances of what is happening, but that is happening here in Perico to all producers of honey, food and even milk,” he details.

In the informal Cuban market, a 750 milliliter bottle of honey now costs between 80 and 100 pesos, while in state stores a 250 ml container can cost more than 90, but the product is scarce and is currently only available in stores sell in freely convertible currency at a cost of more than three dollars.

In recent months, there has also been an increase in complaints from producers who see their crops being lost in the fields due to lack of transport or the mismanagement of the state-owned company Acopio, an intermediary on many occasions between the farmers and the points of sale.

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Nuria, who lives near the MLC store near the corner of Rancho Boyeros and Camaguey, gave up trying get inside after several weeks. “There’s a criminal gang there — employees whose friends pay them to be let in — and they’re the ones who buy up everything. A normal person who wants to get a slice of meat or some cheese doesn’t stand a chance.”

The sixteen MLC stores in Matanzas are also facing shortages. “Of those, only two in the entire province are well-stocked — the ones in Isla de Cuba and Gondola — but I’ve never managed to get inside either one,” claims Alina Lissette Córdoba, a resident of the Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood. “Sometimes La Sirenita has a good selection but, with the police and the long lines, it’s terrible.”

In addition to searching for food, the task of buying clothes, shoes or a simple pack of cigarettes has become an impossible mission here. “The only way to buy shoes is to go to Varadero, to Plaza América, where every store is an MLC,” adds Córdoba. As for cigarettes, which are only sold for foreign currency, it has become so difficult to find them, says the Matanza resident, “that it’s easier to quit smoking.”

“They said that they were going to take measures that would let you buy what you need in your own district’s peso stores, without having to go very far,” she adds, though this has not happened. Now everyone she knows turns to the black market to make ends meet. “Without that, we’d have starved. Or I’d be dead by now.”

Until recently, La Plaza shopping center in Santiago de Cuba was one of the hard currency stores that had remained relatively well-stocked. However, after spending hours in line without knowing if they would be allowed to enter by day’s end, the only things customers found once they did manage to get inside were empty shelves.

“You have to be strong-willed to be able to wait in line at these stores. By week’s end I had spent many hours waiting to get into La Plaza. By the time I did get in, there was no food to buy. What’s even worse is that they don’t put up a sign to tell people what they do and do not have,” one resident of Santiago de Cuba tells 14ymedio.

“What people are looking for is food but it’s nowhere to be found. You leave feeling like you’ve been cheated twice. First, you’ve had to wait in an olympic-sized line since dawn, then you leave no better off than before because you come away empty-handed.

In the same city another establishment, La Reina, reopened on Tuesday as an MLC store. According to its Facebook page, El Chago – Santiago de Cuba,  people began sleeping outside Monday night after it became known the store would be selling face cream, shampoo and other personal care products. The post, created by an independent journalist, was accompanied by a photo of people waiting outside, sitting on the curb. They appear prepared for “battle,” as the reporter described the hours spent waiting to buy things.

In October the economics minister, Alejandro Gil, blamed the situation on “the tightening of the blockade*, the fuel shortage and the fall-off of tourist revenue from international flights and cruise ships.” He also noted, “We need more hard currency to restock store shelves but there is no hard currency. Even if there is consumer demand, it is very difficult to replenish supplies, so the informal economy is becoming stronger.”

Like many of her fellow citizens, Nuria receives money from her two children abroad through a hard currency account she has at a Cuban bank. As Raúl Castro himself admitted at the Eighth Communist Party Congress, “MLC stores exist to generate hard currency from overseas.”

At the same time they are collecting foreign currency, however, they are also generating deep-seated discontent, not just because social inequality is becoming more entrenched but, as one customer observed, “because it is getting worse.” The man, who waited unsuccessfully for hours outside a store in La Puntilla de Miramar shopping center on Monday, noted, “All I managed to buy were some green peas and a package of flour.”

Translator’s note: Cuban officials routinely refer to the US Embargo as “the blockade.”

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“The combination of Cuba reducing the pace of reforms, the impact of the situation in Venezuela and the US sanctions is reflected in a balance of payments crisis,” Pavel Vidal, a former analyst for the Cuban Central Bank, and now Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali (Colombia), told the news agency. “That forced them to stop paying the foreign debt.”

Investors, Bloomberg continues, were encouraged when Raúl Castro assumed power after his brother Fidel, in 2011, “and advanced in the liquidation of old debts of the government and state companies, some of which date back to the 1970s.”

The agency notes that the Cuban government reached an agreement in 2015 with 14 members of the Paris Club by means of which they cancelled 8.5 billion dollars and left 2.6 billion owing, to be paid in 18 years. Meanwhile, Russia, Cuba’s sponsor before the fall of the Berlin Wall, had already forgiven the country 90% of the amount.

That optimism, the agency explains, caused “a rebound in the trade of old commercial loans, with prices of up to 36 cents on the dollar in 2016, as investors saw the opportunity for profit,” with the return of the island to the world stage. The financial world received another encouraging signal at the end of 2017 when Raúl Castro gave signals of “Cuba’s willingness to fulfill its commitments” to creditors.

However, these commitments did not materialize. Cuba owed $ 17.8 billion in foreign debt until 2017, according to the latest published official statistics, although it almost certainly has increased since then.

“Even if it could start paying off the debt,” says Bloomberg, “the country faces other obstacles, including US sanctions and questions about how to compensate for land and businesses that were expropriated during the Revolution.”

According to Bloomberg, there is “some hope” that the serious situation on the island will push its new political leaders to “intensify their efforts to solve the problem of the debt in default and attract foreign capital.” In this regard, it cites “the painful process of unifying a dual currency system that the country had for decades” and notes Miguel Díaz-Canel’s commitment to “continue with the transformations we need to update our economic and social model.”

Another window, according to Bloomberg, may open with Cuban-developed vaccine candidates against Covid. “If the vaccines are successful, the island could reopen to tourism and potentially export the vaccines,” they indicate, but they reiterate, citing Vidal again: “They have to put their finances in order to attract international investment, because that is what is needed.”

The outlook, therefore, bleak. There are currently no negotiations between the parties, Bloomberg concludes, citing an anonymous source involved in the talks, and John Kavulich, president of the United States-Cuba Economic and Trade Council, declared along the same lines: “Both parties know that Cubans cannot pay anything.”

This is the first Ibero-American Summit which the Cuban president has participated in — although virtually — 2001. The Government of the Island has requested financing from developed countries so that Cuba and other low-income countries can meet the sustainability goals of the 2030 Agenda, according to a report by EFE this Wednesday.

“The problems cannot be solved with their own resources,” Jesús Guerra, director of international relations of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment declared at a press conference. Together with the first deputy minister, José Fidel Santana, he highlighted the efforts made by Cuba in recent years in terms of science and innovation, such as “the creation of four new high-tech state companies,” the “approval of two science-technology park projects” and the “five vaccine candidates” against Covid.

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Both Hernández and her friends were released at night in different parts of the capital, according to what she told 14ymedio. Everyone but her was fined 2,000 pesos “for contempt” and they intend to protest the penalty they consider arbitrary. “There was no contempt on our part, the only ones who attack are them, the repressors,” she denounced.

Hernández says that right now she has a severe pain in her arm, “they grabbed my arm so tightly that I still have tremendous pain,” she explained. When she arrived at the Cojímar unit, Lieutenant Kenia María Morales was waiting for her to allegedly accuse her of contempt, an accusation that however did not materialize.

On the same day, this Friday, activist Oscar Casanella was also arrested. Through a report on Facebook, the opponent denounced that he was traveling with his family in a vehicle when a policeman stopped them at the intersection of Zapata and Paseo streets. The officer reviewed their documents and took them to the Zapata y C Police Station where Casanella spent several hours in detention.

The reporters Héctor Valdés Cocho, Camila Acosta and Luz Escobar were also under surveillance this Friday to prevent them from leaving their homes.

For his part, the artist Amaury Pacheco, a member of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), condemned the police siege ordered by State Security on his social networks. “If, with this tool, I could open a hole in the wall, I would not be here now, digging inside my dirty brain, in search of some deposit … Juan Carlos Flores his poetry accompanies me. Alamar, Havana, Cuba, 2021,” Pacheco wrote.

Similarly, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has been under surveillance for almost a month and for a week he has gone out every afternoon to demand the return of the works that State Security stole in the last raid on the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement. On each occasion he is arrested and released after several hours. In an audio that he shared with his followers, he expressed:

“Here we are still family, demanding my rights, insisting on my demands, which are $500,000 for my works, that the police apparatus stationed on the corners of my house cease, and an apology from the leader of this dictatorship, Miguel Díaz-Canel.”

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“It has nothing to do with the aesthetics of the hotel, but now, who removes it?” asks another neighbor. “It cannot be a coincidence, that was put there near all the posters that have appeared with Patria y Vida. They are not fooling anyone, it is an answer but people are very tired of so much death.”

The architect Alejandra Pino said on Facebook that in that part of the facade there was previously a mural by Cundo Bermúdez that disappeared. The work, placed in 1958, showed an emerald sea on which strange ocher fish floated, but it was later withdrawn when its artist went into exile in the late 1960s.

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Not surprisingly, Cuba’s leaders attribute the the nation’s complex financial situation to the U.S. embargo* and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Miguel Díaz-Canel, who participated in the meeting, also insisted that “the enemy is tireless in its determination to disrupt the relationship between the public and private sectors of this economy.” He added, “We will not surrender the private sector to the enemy.”

The president-designate recognized the contribution of self-employed workers in confronting the pandemic, citing their role in the manufacture and distribution of masks as an example. “When the country had no surgical masks,” he recalled, “many non-state workers — with their own fabric and at almost no charge — made the masks our population needed to combat Covid.”

However, Raúl Castro’s remarks during the first day of the Party Congress, which began on Friday in Havana, were not very flattering. According to Castro, it seems that “the desire for higher income encourages in some the desire for a privatization process that would sweep away the foundations and essential character of the socialist society built over more than six decades.”

The outgoing Communist Party leader added that others hope to “do away with the socialist principle of state monopoly of foreign trade, demanding that private commercial importation be legalized, with the aim of creating a non-state system of foreign trade.”

Castro warned that “these are issues that cannot be left to the naivety of leadership cadres and party members.” He added, “There are limits that we cannot exceed because the consequences would be irreversible. Doing so would lead to strategic errors, the very destruction of socialism and, ultimately, of national sovereignty and independence.”

During Thursday’s meeting, the economics minister, Alejandro Gil Fernández, said that “a trend towards stability and growth is being maintained” as evidenced by the fact that “more than 600,000 people are self-employed and that Cuba now has 396 non-agricultural cooperatives in operation.” He added, “What we are doing is recognizing the contribution of micro, small and medium-sized businesses to the strategy for transforming the country’s production capacity and foreign investment, and for satisfying consumer demand.”

Felipe Ponce Ceballos, director of the Technical, Personal and Home Services in Pinar del Río, was gushing in describing the company as a “local development project offering recovery services” in that city: “I can tell you they are among the best, high-quality and consistent services there are.”

Iván Barreto, director of Cinesoft, a company that produces audiovisual educational material and teaching aids, was equally adamant: “If the nation’s public sector cannot find space in the socialist economy for private business, we aren’t going to see any economic development.” In a reference to Cinesoft, he observed, “Private sector involvement in the world of information technology has created a partnership without which we would not have many of the resources used in Cuban classrooms today”

“Today’s meeting would have been unthinkable on December 4, 2018, a few hours before a series of regulations were to take effect that would have seriously damaged the private sector and the national economy, were unexpectedly suspended,” Oniel Díaz writes on social networks. Díaz, a co-founder of Auge, a consulting firm for entrepreneurs, observes, “Lifting the ban on certain types of employment activities puts us at the cusp of a historic moment.”

The meeting with small business owners the day before the congress was, according to Díaz, “confirmation that there is no going back.” He adds, “It should not be interpreted as being a message only for the general public. It’s also intended for those who would halt, hinder or misapply.”

“The actions being taken are consistent with the governing documents of this country. They may be boring to some and sound like oratory to others but they are not.” He adds, “They speak not only to us but to those who toil in silence and those who oppose the system. Right now, time is the most important variable and the one that will indicate if this is a true expression of political will. When? How? We will measure success by how both of these questions are answered.”

*Translator’s note: Cuban government officials routinely refer to the U.S. embargo as ’the blockade.’

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