14ymedio – Page 316 – Translating Cuba

Cuba: System Reform Won’t Do Much Good

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 19 December 2020 — The Cuban regime wants to make reforms. That’s very good. Cuban society is staggeringly unproductive. They will start with the currency. Good thinking! It is useless to make reforms if the essential element, money, is worth very little. Especially in the vicinity of the United States, where His Majesty the Dollar reigns supreme, despite the fact that since 1971 its value is subjectively and arbitrarily measured. (In that year, Nixon removed the US currency from the gold standard.)

Cuban reformers would do well to look at what is happening just 90 miles from their shores. The exiles, who were prompted to leave by the hideous cry of “we don’t want them, we don’t need them” have prospered enormously. In the USA, with its nuances, things are done as they are carried out in the richest nations on earth.

Let’s talk about the 20%. continue reading

A few are “filthy” rich. They are billionaires. For others it is enough to have a few millions. There are many professionals who are very well off. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers, architects. Almost all have money invested in the stock market, second homes, and works of art. Small businessmen join that group. Some will grow to be great. Others will disappear, but along the way they will have learned a useful lesson that they will use in another endeavor.

The remaining 80% are part of the three middle social groups, plus the poor who struggle to join them––the upper middle group, the middle-middle group, the middle-low group and the extremely poor. Fortunately, social mobility is tremendous in the United States. I am not talking about “classes” because it is a closed concept, which Marxists have appropriated (and we can see the results.)

The extremely poor in the USA are those who have up to $25,000 a year for a family of four. Generally, they are poor people with a car, television, air conditioning, heating, drinking water, electricity, telephones, food stamps, police protection, judicial system, schools, and hospitals for free. They live in government “projects” or small subsidized apartments that, in South Florida at least, are called “Plan 8.”

The 20% and the 80%. That is the “Pareto Principle.” It is not a mandatory law of nature. It is a “principle,” an “observation” that is almost always fulfilled. Vilfredo Pareto was a great mathematician of Italian origin who taught at a Swiss university between the 19th and 20th centuries. He set out to find out the historical disparity between those who have resources and those who lack them. Wherever there is freedom to create wealth there are inventors, entrepreneurs, people who stand out for their desire to succeed.

General Raúl Castro should not find it difficult to understand the phenomenon. His father, Ángel Castro Argiz, who arrived from a Galician village wearing espadrilles, when he died in October 1956, left a capital of eight million dollars (the equivalent today of more than 100 million), several hundred workers, a 30-square kilometers farm, equipped with a movie theater, managed by his daughter Juanita, a school and a post office. Without a doubt, Ángel Castro belonged to the 20%.

Today the “Pareto Principle” has become a formula that is studied in marketing and in almost any activity: 20% of the causes generate 80% of the consequences. That is, 20%––more or less–– of products generates 80% of the sales. And 20% of the sellers support 80% of the sales. And so on.

The problem with Pareto’s observation is that it leads to inequality in income. Those who are part of the 20% receive a huge share of the money that society generates.

This is anathema to communists, determined that the results of all people are approximately the same, because they have not taken into account that human beings are different, have different dreams, and expect different remuneration, sometimes of an emotional character.

This means that it is not a matter of reforming the communist system, but of canceling it, and accepting willingly that some citizens live better than the average. It is not a question of making the three currencies disappear, or that children and adults can have a glass of milk when they want and not when central planning decides. It is about asking Cubans if they want to continue with communism or prefer to carry out their transactions as they are carried out in the thirty most prosperous countries in the world.

That’s the key.

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Young Man with Sign Accused of Acts against State Security

Luis Robles Elizastigui was arrested on December 4 for protesting with a cardboard sign on San Rafael Boulevard in Havana.(Screen Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 December 2020 — The young man who was arrested on December 4 for protesting with a handmade sign on San Rafael Boulevard in Havana has been charged with “acts against state security.” According to Diario de Cuba the charge was filed by First-Lieutenant Roberto Batista, who issued an order for “temporary detention.”

The same news site also identified the young man as 28-year-old Luis Robles Elizastigui, originally from Guantanamo, who is the father of one son. Bystanders rushed to his defense when police tried to arrest him for holding up a cardboard sign that read, “Freedom, no more repression.” The sign also included the hashtag “#FreeDenis,” a reference to the rapper Denis Solis, who was sentenced to eight months in jail for alleged contempt.

A family member who spoke to Diario de Cuba on condition of anonymity said that Robles’ whereabouts were unknown for three days after his arrest but stated that he is now being held at Villa Marista, a prison in Havana. continue reading

En el Boulevard de La Habana. pic.twitter.com/d0HSlUo2id

— Yoani Sánchez 🇨🇺 (@yoanisanchez) December 4, 2020

Videos of Robles protesting in front of a store on the popular pedestrian thoroughfare went viral. In them he can be heard shouting, “Freedom, down with the dictatorship,” to which some bystanders reply, “Down.” In less than a minute several uniformed police arrived and arrested the protester, who began shouting, “Freedom!”

In the video a chorus of voices can be heard shouting the same word as well as, “Thugs. You’re all thugs,” “Let him go,” “Down with the dictatorship” and “Oppressors.”

Several women attacked the police officers while the young man was being arrested. In at least one video they can be seen hitting and struggling with the police for a few seconds.

On the day of his arrest he was fined 1,000 pesos under Decree 272, Article 11 of the Penal Code which, according to attorney Santiago Alpízar, prohibits “creating a public eyesore” with billboards. Authorities have also charged him with “disorderly conduct and contempt.”

In statements to the press the attorney also noted that Robles’ actions do not fit the definition of “other acts against state security,” for which he is also charged.

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Paradise in Cuba Will Cost 50 Pesos Instead of 10

Facade of the Gran Teatro de La Habana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 16 December 2020 — The Alicia Alonso Gran Teatro de La Habana will increase the cost of tickets as of January 1 as part of the process of “economic reordering” and the country’s new salaries*. The institution announced that the first and second balcony will cost 125 pesos for Cubans.

The locations within the hall with the lowest rate will be the ’social gathering’ and ’paradise’ sections, with a price of 50 pesos. Foreigners will be charged a one-time fee of 750 pesos.

In 2016, the cultural complex increased the cost of its tickets and charged 30 pesos for the stalls, 25 for the balconies and 10 for the ’social gathering’ and ’paradise’ sections. continue reading

The theater is the headquarters of the National Ballet of Cuba, a company that with the new salary scale will be one of the dance groups that will receive the highest remuneration among nationals. The director will receive a salary of 6,960 pesos a month ($290 US), the first dancers will receive 5,810 and the choreographers, between 5,560 and 5,060.

The website of the Ministry of Culture reported that the prices of cultural services will be restructured to establish a “rate treatment” in a single currency as established by Resolution 328 of the Ministry of Finance and Prices.

The official provision indicates that “the heads of the agencies, superior business management organizations and other authorized entities, as well as the provincial councils” will increase “current rates in a similar proportion to the average growth of expenses for the provision of services, according their characteristics and classification.”

In this sense, museums, historical sites, local cinemas and theaters, local cultural and sporting shows will increase their current rates up to three times and national theaters up to five, that is, they will increase by 500%.

The resolution maintains the schedule of different prices for some “segments of the population, sectors and institutions, through the application of discounts to children, students, pensioners, activities related to their state function.”

*Translator’s note: As of January 1st, the Cuban Convertible peso will be retired, and the Cuban peso will be valued at 24 to 1 US dollar. Wages will be increased from the current average of the equivalent of $30-$40 US a month, to a minimum wage of 2,100 Cuban pesos ($87.50 US) but prices are expected to triple, across the board.

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Internet in Cuban Homes: A History of Failures

The Etecsa office in Candelaria, where Nauta Hogar is sold. (1ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 17 December 2020 — “They are already going down Tulipán Street, in a few months the whole neighborhood will be connected,” a neighbor told me excitedly three years ago, as he counted the days until the arrival of the Nauta Hogar* service to our building. In the intervening time, the candid dreamer ended up emigrating to the United States and in-home internet connections still has not reached this 14-story apartment block.

Web browsing from Cuban homes has experienced the same fate as many other official campaigns, which generate a lot of initial noise and few effects in the medium and long term. But despite the failure, this December the official press, with great fanfare, has announced, that 4.73 out of every 100 houses on this island already have an internet connection.

The number looks even more insignificant when balancing it against the more than 3,885,000 households reported in the 2012 census, of which 183,000 now have the ability to access the World Wide Web through ADSL technology. The pilot test with 2,000 houses, carried out at the end of 2016 in Old Havana, now seems like a story told by the Cuban Telecommunications Company (Etecsa) to put the gullible to sleep. continue reading

However, it is not only about the baby steps that the installation of the service has taken, but about the constant criticism that has surrounded its operation. Customers complain about drops in speed, the absence of a flat rate, and the high costs of hourly packages. What seemed like the perfect solution for professional work and entrepreneurship has been a source of dissatisfaction.

Not even this pandemic, which has kept us in check for more than nine months and forced millions of Cubans to work from home, has functioned as a spur for the expansion of a type of broadband connectivity that is already common in much of the world, even as it is being overtaken by more powerful and faster infrastructure. In this matter of access to the great World Wide Web, as almost always in everything, we are lagging behind.

Is this slowness the product only of the country’s economic problems and the often-repeated official argument that it is due to the US embargo? These kinds of explanations are not convincing and they sound more and more ridiculous, especially since it is known in many neighborhoods that the cables to offer the service have been installed for years now, and the only thing lacking for the data to run through them is the official will.

This little progress in the number of household connections points in another direction: the growing fear that the Cuban government has of the social and political implications of having a society that is increasingly online. The slowdown at Nauta Hogar seems to be based more on ideological reasons than technological ones, more on repression than on material resources

With access to the internet on mobile phones, the authorities on this island have verified that civic complaint can hardly be contained and the voices of its critics are loudly heard inside and outside national borders, while mockery and derision against officials and leaders grow by the minute.

On cell phones, the customer only has to buy a data package to surf, but at home internet requires a contract, the purchase from the state telecommunications monopoly of an ADSL modem, and family – not individual – use of the service.

*Translator’s note: “Nauta Home,” a service offered by the State (and only legal) telecommunications company in Cuba, ETECSA.

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Sancti Spiritus Returns to Cooking With Firewood Due to the Shortage of Liquefied Gas

The current over-the-counter price of 110 Cuban pesos for an approximate 10 kg. propane gas tank will shoot up to 213 with the new prices. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus | 16 December 2020 — A race against time is taking place in the streets of Sancti Spíritus. Before January 1^st, families want to stock up on products that will increase in price on that date; liquified gas in particular, an alternative for cooking in the face of rising prices of electricity.

These days, as the end of the year festivities approach, families prefer to use liquified gas cylinders for cooking, popularly known as balitas, instead of more expensive appliances or traditional firewood, which is less clean.

Users of liquid propane have been surprised to find that barely a handful of balitas are arriving at the places where they are sold. The shortage has forced customers to stand in 4- to 5-day long lines until a new supply arrives. continue reading

“At the worst moment in the line, the police arrived and disbanded the people in it, then they collected the ID cards and assigned them a number in order to call them in that order, but that did not work out either,” a consumer told 14ymedio on Tuesday, after waiting three days to buy gas.

In order to calm the spirits and reduce the crowds, employees devised a mechanism of phoning customers according to their order inthe line. “The idea was to make people go back to their normal lives and we would let them know when they could come to buy gas,” a local worker told this newspaper.

“But people have no trust and keep coming back to stand on line, they sleep out here and, of course, the police have had to intervene because that permanent presence here is a health hazard and lends itself to all kinds of irregularities: coleros (people who are paid to who stand in line for others), and even fights,” says the employee.

However, customers differ in their opinion. “The places in the lines are being sold on the streets, and if I’m not here watching who comes to buy, I will be left with nothing. The master’s eye fattens the horse and this type of line must be constantly monitored because if it’s not, it will be next July before my family sees the gas.”

“There are days when everyone wants to eat as a family and have a good time, I’m not ready to spend hours and hours in front of the wood stove,” warns Miguelina, a housewife who this Tuesday spent four days in the liquefied gas line. “At least I want to spend the holidays neat and pretty, not with the stink of smoke in my hair.”

This Tuesday, the police broke up the four-day-plus line that had developed in front of this liquefied gas outlet in Sancti Spíritus. (14ymedio)

However, consumers are not only in a hurry due to the proximity of the end of the year holidays and the increase in gas consumption on those dates, but because new prices for the product will also come into effect in 2021. The current over-the-counter price of 110 Cuban pesos for an approximate 10 kg. propane gas tank will shoot up to 213 with the new prices.

“There are things that one likes to cook with firewood, like the end-of-the-year roast pig, but making rice and food like that too is a punishment,” admits Francisco Narváez, a resident of the Toyo neighborhood. “My two children are asthmatic and at home when the wood stove is lit. They have to spend the day outside so that it does not affect them.”

The other option is household appliances for cooking food. Since their massive arrival in Cuban kitchens at the beginning of the century, as part of the “energy revolution” promoted by Fidel Castro, devices such as rice cookers and pressure cookers that use electricity have become very popular; over 68% of households in Cuba use them to prepare their food.

“Either I spend a week in the balita* line or I have a heart attack when the electricity bill arrives in January,” Narváez laments. “There is no salvation.”

Translated by Norma Whiting
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Broken Eggs

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, December 16, 2020 — “When a lady broke two of the eggs I had bought, I almost lost it. I found it difficult to contain myself,” says Luis, a Havana resident who was lucky enough this morning to find thirty eggs for sale in an informal market. But it was a treasure whose value was quickly diminished. He got in line to buy something else but, by the time he was done, only twenty-eight of them were still intact.

“I had gone to the market looking for yucca because I wanted to prepare and freeze some to make sure I would have it for New Year’s,” he said. “I had taken a short cut by avoiding Neptuno and walking along one of the side streets, I heard someone ask, “Hey, kid, what are you looking for?” At the entrance to a ramshackle communal apartment building, a woman who was carrying a child motioned for him to come over.

The woman recited a list of things she had for sale: evaporated milk, potatoes, eggs and shrimp. Other items could be had by walking through a winding corridor with rooms on each side. At the end was a tiny dwelling where he bought the carton of eggs for 300 Cuban pesos (~$12.50 US), the most expensive they have been in a decade. continue reading

Since last year it has been virtually impossible to find eggs on the open market. They are rationed and can only be purchased once a month. Each person is allotted fifteen. The first five go for 1.10 pesos apiece; the rest can be purchased at the subsidized price of 0.15 peso.

“I was happy but I wanted to buy some other things so I got in the line for bread,” recalls the unfortunate shopper. “People started getting nervous and began pushing. One lady almost fell on me and broke two of the eggs. I would have counted to ten to calm myself down but I had count to three-hundred for the 300 pesos I had just spent.”

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Buy Now Because Prices Will Triple in January

Cuban Communist Party official Marino Murillo has indicated that the transition to a single currency “implicitly carries with it a rise in prices because costs will increase and imports will be scarcer.”

14ymedio, Havana, 15 December 2020 — Customers’ eyes scan the wide selection of TV series, films and documentaries that Manuel has available. Manuel is an entrepreneur who sells pirated copies of the most lavish productions in the world. “Buy now because after January everything will cost three times as much.” His pitch is having the desired effect on December sales.

Manuel’s video playlist has everything, including recent Netflix offerings such as Queen’s Gambit, the most recent seasons of The Black List, Selena and Blood of Zeus, and other video releases that, thanks to copy-and-paste technology, Cubans can watch almost as soon as they appear on international streaming platforms.

Manuel works on downtown Havana’s Monte Street, a rundown thoroughfare with balconies on the verge of collapse and hellish traffic. He has been there almost ten years, long enough to see the rise of CDs, DVDs and the growing demand for video and film copying. “I thought I had seen it all but nothing like this December,” he says. continue reading

On Sunday, Marino Murillo, head of the so-called Commission for the Implementation of Communist Party Guidelines, told government media outlets that “prices for goods and services offered by the country’s non-state retailers will rise” due to currency unification, not necessarily because of “speculation and price gouging.”

Cuba’s so-called reform czar noted that the process of transitioning to a single currency, which will begin in January, “implicitly carries with it a rise in prices because [wholesale] costs will increase and imports goods will be scarcer. There is no reason to think this would be any different for private businesspeople.”

“By design, the prices of goods and services in this sector will rise as much as three times but no more because, regardless of costs, tax increases will keep them in line,” he added. This led private sector businesspeople to adopt his “three times” statement almost like a mantra.

“If he says it, then we’ll do it,” says a nougat and candy seller in Havana’s Tulipan Street. “In recent months they’ve raised the price of bread from 25 pesos (CUP)* to 35 pesos but we can’t afford even this small increase. With the rising cost of raw materials it’s possible it will be as much as 75 pesos by the first of the year,” he adds.

Others feel backed into a corner. They know that, although they will be paying triple the current price for basic products and other supplies, if they triple their prices, they will not have any customers. “I rent out this very comfortable room with its own entrance for 25 convertible pesos (CUC) a night (roughly $25). Most of my clients are foreign tourists”, says Dania Pineda, owner of a house with several rooms for rent in Havana’s Vedado district.

“With electricity rates going up along with the costs of basic items like soap, toilet paper and toothpaste that I have to provide customers, how much will I have to charge to make a profit?” she asks. She worries she will not remain competitive.”When I tell a customer that he has to pay the equivalent of $75 a night, he’ll tell me he’s better off staying at a hotel.”

“Today I bought a string of onions for 25 CUC, more than 600 Cuban pesos, but I was lucky because the man who sold them to me said it was a special price for Christmas and that by 2021 they would be much more expensive,” reports Isadora González, a retired teacher who supplements her pension with the help of remitances from two children living overseas.”This reminds me of when I was young in the 1970s, after the “Ten Million Ton Sugar Harvest,” one of Fidel Castro’s most resounding failures.

González recalls the months after the end of the ironically named 1971 campaign, which failed to meet its goal and plunged the country into a deep economic crisis. “Up to that point, if it had been a bad year, people used to say, ’There was nowhere to tie up the goat.’ But with everything in ruins, they called it ’the year of the missing goat.’”

But when you said “goats” back then, two things came to mind: the informants for the so-called political police and the depressed agricultural industry, brought down by centralized control, a shortage of animal feed, climatic fluctuations and the reluctance of producers who had no economic incentive to produce more.

Prices for beachside hotel room deals, restaurant dinners, home delivery and even electronic devices all seem to have an impending expiration date. January 1 will mark the end of an era. On that day anything could happen in terms of prices, though many already predict that people will wake up with “pizza at triple what it costs today.”

Translator’s note: Cuba currently has two currencies: the Cuban peso (CUP), which is not freely convertible, and the convertible peso (CUC), whose value is pegged to the dollar (but which cannot, in fact, be exchanged for foreign currencies). In December it was announced that the CUC will be taken out of circulation on January 1, 2021. The CUP will become the nation’s sole currency, which authorities have indicated will trade at an exchange rate of 24 CUP to the dollar.

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Minimum Wage to Rise to 2,100 Pesos per Month Starting January 1

Workers, both Cubans and resident foreigners, at joint-venture companies owned by overseas corporations and the Cuban government will be paid by their employers in Cuban pesos. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, December 11, 2020 — Among the changes to come with currency unification, the government has established new salary, pension and social benefit levels. Among the most notable is a rise in Cuba’s minimum wage, which will go from 400 Cuban pesos per month, set in 2019, to 2,100 Cuban pesos.

Salaries will be based on a sliding scale for the thirty-two groups into which state sector workers are divided. They will range from 1,910 to 2,100 depending on the hours worked per week (forty and forty-four, respectively).The top salary is set at 9,510 pesos for forty-four hours.

The Official Gazette also establishes additional payments for six groups: those who work under abnormal conditions, night shift and “mixed” workers, holders of postgraduate degrees (440 pesos in the case of masters, 825 pesos for doctorates) and those who have on job title and “hold a position with college-level demands.” continue reading

Others who will receive these benefits are workers in Caimanera, Guantanamo Province, who will get an additional 30% in the form of “economic social interest,” professionals who hold international certifications (685 pesos) and teachers in the health care sector.

However, workers will no longer receive bonus salaries for holding technical positions, working for international organizations or being in charge of business improvement in authorized business entities.

Salaries will be divided into two parts: one fixed according to the previously mentioned scale and another which varies depending on piece-rate payment systems, profit sharing plans and pay-for-performance arrangements, which already apply to construction jobs in tourism and the Mariel Special Development Zone.

Age-related and disability pensions, as well as pensions for certain segments of the Interior Ministry and the Armed Forces, will rise to 1,528 pesos for those now receiving 280 to 300 pesos; 1,733 for those collecting 449 to 500 pesos; and for the highest earners, those now getting more than 501 pesos a month, their pensions will rise to 1,528.

Another notable section is the one dealing with workers, both Cubans and resident foreigners, at public/private joint venture partnerships funded with foreign capital. Salaries will be paid in Cuban pesos by the employer, which will hire and provide personnel.

Labor costs will be split between the company and the employer based on employees’ job responsibilities. Salaries may not be less than those paid for comparable work in the state sector.

The Official Gazette also published certain specific exceptions for employees in sectors such as health, education, culture, media and sports as well as for maritime workers and municipal government personnel.

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Red Carpet for Dollars, Service Entrance for Pesos

When the Plaza de Carlos III in Havana opened on Monday, there was a special entrance for those paying with hard currency. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguea, Havana, 14 December 2020 — When the Plaza de Carlos III shopping mall in downtown Havana opened on Monday, there was a special entrance for customers with foreign currency. They were allowed to enter a home appliance store through the front door. Those who wanted to buy products with Cuban pesos were relegated to the the building’s side door and had to wait in a long line that extended for several blocks.

This weekend the mall opened all its stores after months of being closed to customers with Cuban pesos (CUP) and only a few weeks after at least ten of the stores began operating as so-called MLC stores, which only accept foreign currency. After the reopening, the line of customers extended along several streets perpendicular to the wide avenue for which the shopping mall, referred to ironically as “the palace of consumption,” is named.

They have chicken, gizzards, pasta, soap, deodorant, perfumes, cooking oil, almost everything I was looking for. But it won’t last long so I figured I had better get in line,” said a resident of Central Havana, who was one of the first in line to pay with Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) and surprised that so many CUP stores did not have the same items. continue reading

Customers who want to pay with Cuban pesos (CUP) are relegated to a side entrance and a long line that extends for several blocks. (14ymedio)

The shortage of basic products has forced city residents to fan out over multiple areas in search of basic products. Many place their hopes in big retail centers such as Plaza de Carlos III and Cuatro Caminos, which reopened their doors on Saturday in the midst of a strong police presence meant to discourage large gatherings and fist fights.

“They just told me that as soon as they run out of things for sale in CUC, they won’t be selling those items in that currency. You’ll have to pay for it with foreign currency. Those perfumes, for example, were what they already had in stock when the store reopened this weekend,” said one disillusioned cutomer.

For decades Plaza de Carlos III has been the commerical heart of Central Havana, especially in the neighborhoods of Pueblo Nuevo, Cayo Hueso and Los Sitios. Along with the state-owned stores in these areas, there is an extensive network of individual vendors and privately owned businesses who rely on the large volume of customers passing through the area every day.

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Cuban Police Committed to Supporting Acts of Repudiation Against Artists

Poster painted by Katherine Bisquet and Camila Lobón using makeup. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 15 December 2020 — State Security continues its harassment against activists and artists who were housed at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement. One day after Carlos Manuel Álvarez was arrested when he left his family’s house in Cárdenas, Matanzas, and was interrogated for six hours, Katherine Bisquet denounced the organization of an act of repudiation in front of her house, in Centro Habana.

The writer published through her social networks that microphones and speakers blasting music were placed near her house.

“The hate messages are already beginning. And the furious crowd is arriving!! But there are still people blowing kisses at us,” said Bisquet. “For each mercenary, one village,” the crowd can be heard shouting in a video uploaded to social networks.

“They tore the poster from us and a patrol has just arrived,” they charged. On the bedsheet that served as the poster, a message written in makeup read: “13 days of illegal deprivation of liberty. We have the right to express ourselves freely”

Hours earlier, she and visual artist Camila Ramírez Lobón had hung a white sheet from the roof protesting about the time they were under police surveillance, not allowed to go out. “A patrol just arrived and tore the poster from us,” they complained. On the bedsheet that served as the poster, a message written in makeup read: “13 days of illegal deprivation of liberty. We have the right to express ourselves freely.”

“Every lipstick, every eyeliner, mascara and glitter fill in these letters. And these letters carry our wishes for freedom,” Bisquet said in her post.

For her part, Ramírez Lobón said that during the act one could hear “Moneda Dura, Moncada, Carlos Puebla, Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, Sara González, fragments of recorded speeches by Fidel” and that, from time to time, a neighbor would broadcast Bonifacio Byrne, or shout “the usual: worms, shameless, mercenaries.”

Act of repudiation on the corner in front of Katherine Bisquet’s house. (Facebook)

In the morning, a teenager, Osmel Adrián Rubio Santos, one of the strikers who was stationed in San Isidro last November to demand the release of Denis Solís, was detained when he left his home “to buy bread.” Rubio’s mother denounced him in a live broadcast while her son was put in a police car in handcuffs.

The 14 artists and activists who staged that peaceful protest at the headquarters of the group have been under surveillance and besieged at their homes by State Security and the Police for more than two weeks. Some, like Adrián Rubio or Iliana Hernández, have been the victims of acts of repudiation in their homes.

Hernández, a reporter for the CiberCuba news portal, was arrested this Tuesday when she left her home. According to her, her intention was to go to the Spanish Consulate for an interview. During the arrest, which was broadcast live on Facebook, the officers tried to take her phone from her, but she managed to get it to her mother beforehand.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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The Cuban Bishops Ask for a Dialogue Between Those Who Have ‘Differing Opinions’

The message of the bishops was added to several voices who in recent weeks have criticized from within the Catholic Church the distressing situation that is being lived on the island. (IglesiaCubana)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 December 2020 — On Saturday, Cuba’s Catholic bishops published their traditional Christmas message which, this year, includes calls “for dialogue and negotiation between those who have different opinions,” a few words that arrive in the middle of a strong defamation campaign on the part of the government against its critics.

“As pastors we are looking at a tired and overwhelmed people,” warns eleven bishops and Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez, who signed the text. “Material deficiencies, spiritual fatigue, personal, family and national economic insufficiencies that severely affect life in the present and cast a shadow over the future.”

Some problems that “are weighing on the souls of the vast majority of Cubans. The existing economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequences of natural phenomena cause fears and uncertainties within the population,” they itemized. continue reading

According to the signatories, gathered at the Conference of Bishops of Cuba, these difficulties especially strike “the most disadvantaged: pensioners, the unemployed, single mothers, the sick, prisoners and the elderly living alone and in need.”

“In the midst of this situation, in addition to the proposals for a solution provided by the authorities of the country, so many others have been expressed, the result of the genuine love and commitment of Cubans,” some proposals that “must be heard and attended to,” the priests claim.

The message includes a list of the good news that Cubans need to hear, such as that “the burden of getting food becomes a serene sharing of daily bread as a family” and also “that the announced readjustment of the national economy, far from raising the concerns of many, will help everyone to sustain their family with decent work, with sufficient pay and with the ever-necessary social justice.”

Avoiding “violence, confrontation, insult and dismissiveness, to create an atmosphere of social friendship and universal fraternity” is also part of those good news that the population hopes for, along with “intolerance giving way to a healthy plurality, dialogue and negotiation among those who have different opinions and criteria.”

What the bishops long for is that “Cubans not to have to look outside the country for what we should find within; that we don’t have to wait for them to give us from above what we ourselves should and can build from below.” In addition to “ceasing all blockades, external and internal, and giving way to creative initiative, the liberation of productive forces and laws that promote initiative.”

Only in this way will “everyone feel and be able to be the protagonist of their life project and, in this way, the Nation will move towards comprehensive human development,” consider the signatories of the message. The text concludes with a Christmas message for “all Cubans, wherever they are.”

The message of the bishops comes in addition to several voices who in recent weeks have criticized, from within the Catholic Church ,the plight that is being lived on the island. Last November, the Cuban Conference of Religious (Conferencia Cubana de Religiosos y Religiosas, CONCUR) condemned that it was not right what “is happening with the supposed currency exchange, which has become an almost permanent and threatening shadow.”

CONCUR, which brings together the consecrated nuns and priests of the Catholic Church, thus joined with several priests of the island and the diaspora who in recent weeks have raised their voices to blame the Government for the lack of freedoms and food suffered by the country.

The first was the priest Jorge Luis Pérez Soto, parish priest of San Francisco de Paula, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre, in Havana, who in October claimed in a homily that the Church should get involved in politics.

A few days later, another priest, Laureano Hernández Sasso, lamented the deafness of Cuban leaders. “Why do we have to beg? Why does President Miguel Díaz-Canel speak and speak and never say anything? Or is it that we have to tell our president that we can’t go on like this?” the priest wrote on his Facebook account.

On November 1 st, it was the Camagueyan priest Alberto Reyes, who spoke of the fear toward the regime and the situation that is being lived on the island. “Cuba is a big jail where, if you misbehave, they put you in a smaller one. And as in a prison, at last, we felt controlled,” he denounced in his social networks.

From Miami, he was supported by the rector of Ermita de la Caridad (the National Sanctuary Hermitage of Charity), Fernando Heria, who called on the bishops of Cuba to speak out against the regime, since Cuban priests “are tired of living under two types of dictatorships: ecclesiastical and government.”

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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Cubanize

The author would like to tell Leopoldo López that hopefully Cubans will ‘Venezuelanize’. (EFE / Miguel Gutiérrez)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 14 December 2020 — In the middle of this week, the prominent Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López said, during a press conference in Bogotá: “What we cannot allow is for Venezuelan society to become Cubanized in the sense that it stops dreaming, of having hope.”

My first reaction was to answer Leopoldo that we Cubans have not stopped dreaming nor have we lost hope. Later I amended the claim clarifying that this is true for “not all of us” and I ended up concluding that there are still some Cubans who dream, who have hope, although ultimately, I did not send the message to the Venezuelan opposition figure.

Until now we could feel happy, proud, that somewhere in the world composers are Cubanizing their music; restaurants, their food; bars, their cocktails; dancers, their movements; and any other manifestation of life where the seal of this identity is appreciated (or imagined) to the pride of our incurable nationalism. continue reading

But that Cubanized can be understood as a despicable qualifier is, at the very least, painful; and Leopoldo López is not the culprit for a powerful reason: everyone who heard him understood what he meant. He didn’t have to explain it.

Already in social networks it is common for some Cubans who live in other countries to denigrate the residents of the island by calling them eunuchs, sheep, pushovers, chickens and other expletives alluding to cowardice.

After the massive parades for May 1, these insults are renewed every year. This also happened after the referendum that approved the Constitution of the Republic and it is the case right now when the so many calls for a social uprising are not productive and instead we see a multiplying of the regime’s repudiation rallies against the nonconformists, along with the acts of “revolutionary reaffirmation.”

The meekness with which a good part of the population accepts price increases, stores in which they cannot pay for things with the currency they earn from their work, the information secrecy, the absence of political rights and the restrictions on economic initiatives, can only be explained in two ways: either the regime is doing the right thing and there are no reasons to speak out against it, or fear is winning the battle.

If I wanted to send any message in response to Leopoldo López, it would be to express my optimism with regards to how close Venezuelans seem to be to shaking off their unpresentable president and beginning a process of national healing. Hopefully soon. Hopefully, contaminated by example, Cubans will Venezuelanize.
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An Unrealistic Peso-Dollar Exchange Rate as Cuba Unifies its Currency

The newly announced date for currency unification is perhaps the latest bequest from the Castros. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Valencia, December 11, 2020 — O.K. So now we know. All the official news media outlets made the big announcement: there will be one single currency for the entire economy, the transition* will begin January 1, 2021, and we know what the official peso-to-dollar exchange rate will be. Postponement is not an option, no doubt about it. What’s done is done.

With this decision the fates of Raul Castro and Miguel Diaz-Canel are forever linked. They have set in motion a process that people have talking about since the summer, though the initial decision was announced way back in 2011.

Henceforth, January 1 will be a day for celebrating more than just the “Triumph of the Revolution.” It is clearly the latest unwanted bequest from Fidel to his brother. After today January 1 will commemorate the triumph of the currency unification. But perhaps we will have to first wait and see if it turns out to be a bust or not. continue reading

Diaz-Canel used the first part of his speech to make it abundantly clear this decision was made with the full backing of the State and the Party, which control the fate of every Cuban. Just in case.

In his historic address he cited the support of the Politburo as well as the Communist Party Central Committee as expressed during the VII Party Congress and later in the “Conceptualization of the [Economic] Model,” which established guidelines for monetary policy, exchange rates, taxation, credit, pricing, salaries and miscellaneous personal income.

He also cited Statutory Guideline #40, which describes the process of monetary and currency unification as a decisive step in the country’s financial transition process. As though that were not enough, the” 2020 Economic and Social Strategy” document describes it as a key structural component of the entire Cuban economy.

It seems that, after almost a decade, the process of putting together the necessary legal and statutory framework is finally complete. Making the announcement in this way rather than during an appearance on the Roundtable TV program is an indication that, this time around, the authorities are playing for keeps. It’s the last chance they have to set the economy on the right course.

There is no point in criticizing the decision to move forward with monetary and exchange reform. The time has come to do away with the convertible peso, the CUC — an absurd, fictitious currency created by Fidel Castro — and restore the old Cuban peso to its role as the country’s sole legal tender. The decision makes sense. It points the country in the right direction, towards financial sovereignty, and should have been done years ago.

What the regime will not do, however, is renounce, monitor or analyze any individual economic policy decisions that have caused distortions in the economy and worsened the standard of living for all Cubans.

The first thing to note is that the new exchange rate of twenty-four Cuban pesos to the dollar is not the most appropriate. Nor does it represent a “significant devaluation” as the chairman of the Economic Policy Commission, Marino Murillo, said during a recent Roundtable interview. Murillo lied.

This type of rate is designed specifically for the business sector which, until now, was using a one-to-one exchange rate to the dollar for accounting purposes. But the leap of faith from the CUC to the CUP for consumer purchases is the first indication that this rate of exchange will not last much longer. Soon Cubans will be trading the CUP for the same rate that once applied to the now doomed CUC.

The policy authorities have adopted is an attempt to correct the serious shortcomings of the state-owned business sector. There are doubts, however, that it will benefit Cubans more broadly. The artificial status quo it creates for the CUP will not last very long. We will have to wait and see what the informal markets have to say. They are the ones to determine what the real value of the Cuban peso will be relative to other currencies. Will twenty-four Cuban pesos really be equivalent to one dollar?

The official communiqué now makes it clear that authorities’ commitment is to business and that they are disinterested in using the CUP exchange rate to benefit the population: “The monetary transition also creates conditions so that the business system can react positively by increasing benefits for all its workers and for society.”

The priorities behind this decision are obvious: to provide oxygen to the state-run business sector in hopes it will export more and import less. But it is yet to be seen if the planned devaluation of the currency, which is already steeply discounted, actually takes place. In reality, the collective interests of the Cuban people must once again take a back seat. Correcting the course of this economy with interventionist measures and communist fiscal control is a serious mistake.

Diaz-Canel acknowledges that the monetary transition “is not without risk” and justifies it, as usual, by blaming it on the “blockade” [i.e., the US embargo]. The Cuban economy, he points out, is not having one of its best moments and the current international outlook is not bright. He acknowledges that the threat of inflation is just around the corner and that this new system of monetary exchange will not solve the consumer goods shortages the economy is suffering. He also fails to offer any solution that might raise production levels.

The government communiqué states, “As always, we are open to public comment. Steps have been taken that allow us to make sure no one will be left helpless. People will not be subject to shock therapies in socialist Cuba.” Perhaps this is because the authorities fear the worst or don’t want to acknowledge it. Diaz-Canel must know that helplessness could result from setting the CUP exchange rate at a level that would not benefit, for example, people who rely on remittances from overseas or even foreign visitors at the country’s privately owned restaurants.

The communist leadership acknowledges that the transition “is not a magic bullet that will solve all the problems of the economy.” They are right to show caution because this is likely not the end of the story. In the coming months Cubans will see devaluations in the rate of exchange. A value of twenty-four pesos to one dollar is not realistic or sustainable and cannot be justified from any rational economic standpoint.

With the transition set to take effect, will the significance of January 1 be forever changed. Is this perhaps the bequest of Raúl Castro?

*Translator’s note: Cuban officials have been using the clumsy term tarea ordenamiento, translatable as “statutory task,” to refer to what is more widely known as “monetary unification.” Both terms refer to the consolidation of Cuba’s two currencies into a single currency. For purposes of clarity, these terms have been translated here as “currency unification,” “monetary unification” or simply “transition.”

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Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the blog Cubaeconomía and is reproduced here with permission of the author.

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The Strength of the Voice

The podcast Ventana 14 is celebrating its second birthday.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 13 December 2020 — “Bitter and always necessary,” I repeat every morning from Monday to Friday while stirring a coffee that on occasion is strong, often watery, and other times simply hot water passed through beans already used many times over. It matters little, the sip is just a pretext, but the fuel is the news about the Cuban reality. It’s called “cafecito informativo” and is two years old.

In December of 2018 access to internet services took its first steps on Cuban cellphones. Although it took several months for the connection to stabilize in the neighborhood where I live, the direct broadcasts via Facebook or Periscope were not economically sustainable, given the elevated cost of each kilobyte sent, nor could I enjoy a smooth flow, thanks to the continuous cuts.

And then I returned to my voice, the original one. Only the sound that came out of my mouth would be the protagonist, the other could be recreated: a place, a freshly poured cup of coffee, a close conversation between someone who lives on this island and another who is far away or around the corner. Thus was born the podcast Ventana 14 – 14^th Window – which today is blowing out the candles for its second anniversary. Broadcast on several platforms, the program has opened, for me, a different audience than the one I have through my blog Generation Y, or when I publish in the newspaper 14ymedio.

Although in two years there has been no lack of friends and listeners who have asked me to open a video channel through YouTube or Facebook to comment on the news, I have preferred to remain only in sound for obvious reasons in a country with such little connectivity to the web: I want to reach people who live in the heart of Cuba, either directly through the audio – with about three megabytes – which I send out Monday to Friday, or forwarded as so many users do through Bluetooth or wifi.

My goal is to catch the ear of the farmer in a field in Alquízar, or the self-employed who tries to keep his business open despite so many obstacles in Sancti Spíritus, or the housewife in the Havana neighborhood of Cayo Hueso who is torn between eating the bread she got on the rationbook, or saving it until the next day for her child to take to school for a snack. These are my main audience.

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Price Controls Put an End to Sandwiches, Pizzas and Soft Drinks in Artemisa

Price controls have dragged down profits in a sector hard hit by Covid-19 restrictions.

14ymedio, Bertha K. Guillén, Candalaria, December 10, 2020 — After months-long closures due to the pandemic, private businesses in Artemisa province have a new problem: the imposition of price controls on many of the foods they offer in their cafes. Provincial authorities have ordered price caps on items such as pizzas, sandwiches and peanut nougat.

“In this cafe the only thing we are selling is fruit juice because we can’t afford ham for the sandwiches,” explains Abelardo, a private sector worker who, until the beginning of this year, had a thriving business in San Cristobal, with an expansive menu offering popular takeout boxes.

It was rare for us not to have steak, sautéed pork and chicken cubes, which we served with rice, a green vegetable and a salad,” recalls Abelardo. “We can’t find those products now at the market so now we aren’t selling boxes anymore.” He reworked the menu to deal with the changed circumstances and started offering sandwiches and pizzas instead. But the new items did not last long. continue reading

“The government told us we couldn’t charge more than 10 pesos for the breads that we normally served with omelet, croquettes, ham or steak,” says Abelardo. “Our hands are tied. At that price we can’t turn a profit so it isn’t worth it for us to sell them,” he explains.

Price controls are dragging down profits in a sector that has been hard hit by Covid-19 restrictions. Last May authorities reported that, throughout the country, the number of private sector workers who had let their licenses lapse* had risen in a few weeks from 139,000 to 222,723.

In mid-April 22% of self-employed workers had lost their source of income. One month later the figure had climbed to 35% of private employment license holders in pre-pandemic Cuba. The situation is most serious in small towns where, in addition to new limitations, cafes and restaurants owners must cope with supply shortages.

In the Candelaria neighborhood Tamara manages a private cafe that teeters between being shut down permanently or kept afloat by selling fruit juice until the situation improves. The price of her popular peanut nougat has been capped at 2 CUP while the ingredient costs to make it are at least 6 CUP.

Pizza, another item in high demand, is one of the products subject to price controls. Ham cannot be sold for more than 15 pesos, less the than price cafe owners say they need to charge to recover their investment costs. For example, a sack of flour comes to around 2,200 CUP, a pound of cheese goes for more than 50 and ham costs 65 at farmers markets.

The little capital most of these entrepreneurs have will not cover the cost of raw materials because the months-long closure of their businesses left them with practically no savings. The hope that they could recoup some of their losses led many to reopen as soon as the province began easing the strictest Covid-19 restrictions.

Prices for items such as the so-called frozen [in English] a light ice cream in high demand, have also been capped in Artemisa. It cannot be sold for more than 2 CUP, less than half of the 5 CUP price it normally goes for in privately owned businesses. To discourage business owners from ignoring price controls, authorities have stepped up inspections.

Inspectors not only check to ensure that the businesses are not charging more than is legally allowed, but also to verify that raw materials have been purchased through the network of state-run hard currency stores (MLC), including those that opened last July to sell food and personal hygiene products.

The measure has led to the disappearance of foreign and domestic soft drinks from privately owned cafes, which can only acquire them at stores which price goods exclusively in hard currency. As such, price controls make it impossible fo sell them for a profit.

There is never any rest for the private sector. Though many business owners have made desperate pleas for a rescue package that includes preferential credit, no such economic lifeline has been provided. The government has only offered them jobs in the public sector, postponement of their license fees and the option to temporarily suspend their work permits.

*Translator’s note: Cubans with self-employment licenses pay monthly fees simply to have the license, plus additional taxes on their earnings.

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