14ymedio – Page 323 – Translating Cuba

Cuban Police Seize Seven Tons of Meat Products in an Illegal Mini-industry in Matanzas

The supplier of the business was a driver from the Construction Services Company in Varadero. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havna, 25 December 2020 — A mini-industry that was dedicated to the sale of meat and the production of sausages was dismantled by the police in the municipality of Jovellanos in the province of Matanzas, according to Cuban Television. In the operation, seven tons of meat products were seized.

The supplier of the business was a driver from the Construction Services Company in Varadero who is in provisional prison. The objective of the precautionary measure is to find others involved in the criminal network, the official media reported.

Although no details were given about the owners of the mini-industry or how many people worked there, it was learned that they did not have a license to carry out the activity and they are being prosecuted for the crime of illicit economic activity. continue reading

Those responsible for the business bought some meats at a lower price and then resold them, an official from the Interior Ministry said in the report. They also did this with chicken, a product of which 162 imported boxes were seized.

Among the violations that were detected and that were reported by the criminal investigator in charge of the case, is the theft of electricity for not having a meter installed. The debt with the Electric Company for the electricity they used without paying amounts to more than 700,000 pesos.

The police also seized equipment from the mini-industry and several bags of polyphosphate that were used in the manufacture of the sausages.

For some months now, the official media have been publishing information related to criminal acts in state institutions or that involve the participation of their officials and workers. A new way of reporting robberies to the State itself, which in other times were kept out of the official press.

This Wednesday, the National Television Newscast reported that the Police detained four workers from the Lactea Company in Holguín province for stealing 1,336 kilograms of industrial cheese to sell in the informal market.

At the beginning of the week in the same space it was learned that several Aerovaradero workers were arrested for an alleged crime of theft and misappropriation, in a new episode within the Government’s strategy of showing its “relentless fight against corruption.”

This end of year, meat products are among those with the highest demand, highest prices and the greatest shortage in Cuba. The authorities have tried to alleviate this deficit by selling pork at subsidized prices but the distribution of the limited supply has brought long lines, crowds and fights.

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Cuban Professor Harassed by Political Police Manages to Make His Walk ‘For Freedom’

Physics professor Pedro Albert Sánchez was able to carry out his peaceful walk this Thursday. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 26 December 2020 — Physics professor Pedro Albert Sánchez was able to make his peaceful walk this Thursday “in honor of freedom” from the sculpture dedicated to the Knight of Paris, in Old Havana, to the El Quijote park in El Vedado, after the last Sunday when he was detained for 24 hours after launching the call.

“As I had promised, I made my walk in honor of the freedom of expression of all of us who feel excluded from this regime. Despite not being interrupted while I was walking, I did notice a lot of tension around,” Sánchez commented on his Facebook account.

Internet users responded to Sánchez with words of support and encouragement. “Professor, I hope there will be more walks and that you will do them accompanied by those who identify with your ideas. We have only one life and we deserve to live it with dignity,” said a profile who identified himself as “all Cubans.” continue reading

Other commentators congratulated the professor on the initiative and recommended that he take special care in case of possible reprisals that the Cuban political police may take against him and his family.

“I can even say that someone recorded me, the question would be which side is that person on, whether on the side of freedom or repression,” the professor inquired. “My position before the political police remains the same, I have no accounts to render to injustice and to them as human beings I tell them that the security of the State does not depend on the abuse of power they commit, but on the dignity with which they carry out their work.”

Sánchez also referred to the confiscation of his mobile phone during his arrest: “Those bunglers taking a phone from an old man who wants to tell four truths added to everything they have done for more than 60 years that does not guarantee the security of the State, which guarantees is the absolutization of the power of the elite.”

“My mission is to demonstrate as long as I have the strength that what they are doing is not for the good of the Cuban people, they are guaranteeing the power of an elite that uses the people as hostages. I, like many Cubans, wish to safeguard the true conquests of our people and not the nonsense of the elite.”

The 62-year-old professor was arrested last Sunday for calling for a peaceful walk in Havana demanding freedom of the press and expression. He was not heard from again until the police decided to release him. “They took away his phone, the only thing he has to communicate with and without the chance of having another one. He is already at home, but in solitary confinement,” his former student Ileana Medina said at the time.

Shortly before the arrest, Sánchez, who does not consider himself an opponent, released a video from John Lennon Park in which he called for the unity of people “excluded from socialist society” and asked the president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, “to be responsible for a situation that could turn dangerous.”

In his message, Sánchez demanded the immediate mobilization of “those who understand this, those who want to feel themselves to be civic human beings even though they are apolitical. This is the beginning of a process, but not 40 years from now, when my granddaughter is 15 years old, no, it is for now.”

The teacher had previously released a video from his home in which he said he felt a lot of pressure, but was not afraid; and he demanded the help of the press to spread what he considers “the truth of what is happening,” in addition to calling the State repudiation rallies state terrorism. “If they think they are doing those things for the love of the people, for the love of all society, they are making love to us by force.”

Sánchez, in another video published this Wednesday on this Facebook profile, said that if necessary, on 31 December there would be another walk for freedom on the Island.

The professor’s arrest was one more case among the many arbitrary arrests made by the political police lately. Following the hunger strike organized in November by various artists to demand the release of rapper Denis Solís for the crime of “contempt,” most of these young people are forcibly confined to their homes and immediately detained every time they try to go out.

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Cuban Priest Censures Leaders Who ‘Cling to Outdated Ideas, Already Obsolete’

Father Maikel Gómez said that “the freedom of the children of God”… “can never be coerced, much less conditioned.” (Facebook)

14ymedio, Lorey Saman, Mexico, 26 December 2020 — The voices of Cuban priests have made themselves heard with great force in recent months. This December 24, as Christmas was being celebrated, Deacon Maikel Gómez, from the Parish of San Juan Bosco, in Havana, gave a homily in which he reflected on freedom within the Island.

“Our society today needs the touch of love, a love that unites and not disunites, a love that joins together and not separates,” said the Catholic father.

“We do not have the right to say that our streets are for some or for others, our streets belong to everyone, to all of us who were born here, wherever we are,” said the priest amid a growing official campaign of stigmatization against critics of the system. continue reading

Gomez affirmed that progress could not be made if they continue to “build walls that Christ once demolished for you”… “We need to transform our hearts, we need to transform our thinking, and this will be the only way to transform our society, a society based on Christ, founded on love, understanding and solidarity among all.”

He added that, “Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of the Father,” came to “a Cuba ripped apart, in the midst of sadness and uncertainties, in the midst of poverty and pain, in the midst of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of many,” but also he comes “to guide us with his light in the midst of so much darkness and uncertainty.”

The priest affirmed that the “Word of the Lord” is present “in response to the desperate cry of a people who, like Israel, walk in a desert led by others who do not want to see the light and cling to outdated ideas, now obsolete.”

During the homily, which was shared on social networks by the Center for Coexistence Studies, Gómez said that “the freedom of the children of God” “can never be coerced, much less conditioned.”

In addition, he made reference to the religious censorship that has been experienced on the Island: “His birth [of Jesus] today echoes once again of the need for love that still exists among all, the need for love and love of God, love that at some point they tried to erase from our minds, and that, despite all these years, even when the Church was decimated, threatened and intimidated, that love continued to beat and the fact of our presence here confirms my words.”

Quoting the Cuban philosopher and educator José de la Luz y Caballero, he affirmed that it will be necessary to give up training “purely mechanical and routine men,” and to achieve a legion of thinkers with the necessary capacity for reflection on existential issues, including social problems.

Deacon Maikel Gómez’s reflections come a few days after the Cuban Catholic bishops, in their traditional Christmas message , included a call “for dialogue and negotiation between those who have different opinions and criteria”, amid strong smear campaigns of the Government against its critics.

At the end of November, more than 200 priests, religious and lay people residing in Cuba joined the wave of solidarity with the San Isidro Movement and the activists on hunger strike and signed a letter asking the Government not to let them die. They requested that the event not end in a fatal outcome, “to be consistent with the demands of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which proclaims the dignity of every human being as an absolute value.”

On the other hand, among the religious who have spoken individually about the situation on the island in recent months are Father Alberto Reyes, parish priest of the church of San Jerónimo, in Esmeralda, Camagüey, who posted on his Facebook wall a text in which he lamented the fear and oppression that Cubans suffer; and the priest Jorge Luis Pérez Soto, parish priest of San Francisco de Paula, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre, in Havana, who claimed that “the Church does have to get involved in politics.”

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14ymedio’s Faces of 2020: Reinerio, Repressor

Reinerio appeared before the public for the first time on November 22. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 December 2020 — It took several days to identify him and only his first name is known.

When he appeared before the public for the first time, in a video broadcast on social networks on November 22, it was an individual in a red T-shirt with a homemade white cloth mask who was haranguing some twenty people to get them to shout slogans against anyone who dared to approach Havana’s Central Park, where a spontaneous demonstration had been called in solidarity with the members of the San Isidro Movement (MSI) who were, at that time, on hunger strike and locked up in their headquarters on Damas Street 955, in Old Havana.

“Viva Fidel,” “let the scum go [i.e., leave the country],” “let them go,” were the slogans from the jeering crowd, especially against the journalist Maylin Alonso, a correspondent for the Agence France Presse, whom this individual harassed to the point of almost hitting her, as well as her cameraman, Yamil Lage.

The “man in the red shirt,” we later learned, is called Reinerio and is an official of the Communist Party in Old Havana. According to Cuballama, he is in charge of staffing “the public health office.”

As a result of the demonstrations generated by the MSI, including the protest of hundreds of artists in front of the Ministry of Culture on November 27, acts of repudiation have again proliferated. Both the San Isidro headquarters and some of the artists who were at the meeting with Vice Minister Fernando Rojas have not yet recovered from the harassment by State Security.

See more 14ymedio’s series Faces of 2020

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14ymedio’s Faces of 2020: The Independent Artists of Cuba’s San Isidro Movement

The regime did not calculate the silent support that the San Isidro Movement has among young people and did not believe in the ability to convene and organize social networks. (MSI)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 December 2020 – The San Isidro Movement, born just two years ago, has shaken the political situation in Cuba in the last weeks of 2020 by crossing borders and putting the regime in a bind of incalculable dimensions.

At the end of 2018, a group of independent artists who rejected Decree 349 – a law through which the Government sought to regulate the arts sector by making cultural work outside the state orbit de facto impossible – formed this movement in the Havana neighborhood that gave the movement its name.

The collective took center stage with a protest held in November to demand the release of one of its members, Denis Solís, sentenced to eight months in prison for the alleged crime of contempt. Several members of the group began a hunger and thirst strike, which some were able to maintain for more than a week until the headquarters of the Movement, where they were gathered, was raided by the political police, who detained them for several hours.

In solidarity with them, in addition to that they have found outside of Cuba, a group of at least 200 people demonstrated in Havana in an unusual protest that managed to begin a failed dialogue with the cultural authorities. The harassment of the Movement continues, with arrests, acts of repudiation and accusations of terrorism, but they have lit the fuse of a dream to open a new horizon for the opposition in 2021.

See more 14ymedio’s series Faces of 2020

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Plural and With a Mask: The Face Of Cuba in 2020

The 14 Faces of 2020 according to 14ymedio (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 December 2020 — This has been a year dominated by the pandemic, but the extreme situations that have caused the coronavirus, the confinement and the economic crisis that Cuba is going through have also been a part of the phenomena and figures that have shaped the face of the 12 months now coming to an end. They are the protagonists of a 2020 that is plural and wearing a mask.

In this list are included those groups or individuals who led, promoted or shaped the most important events that took place in Cuba in the artistic and sports scenes, in social activism, science, the news media and even in the official structure. Without them, the course of this year on the Island would have been different.

This could be a list of dozens or hundreds of individuals, but we had to choose and the 14ymedio Newsroom has selected these 14 names to illustrate the key moments of the most difficult year Cubans have experienced in decades.

1. San Isidro Movement

2. Reinerio, Repressor

3. Francisco Durán García, National Director of Epidemiology

4. Pedro Junco, intellectual from Camaguey

5. Javier Larrea Formoso, animal welfare activist

6. Alberto Reyes and Jorge Luis Pérez Soto, the warrior priests

7. Ruhama Fernández, Youtuber

8. Roberto Pantoja, chess player

9. Camila Acosta, freelance journalist

10. Rojas and Rojas, the two faces of Cuba

11. Cimafunk, singer

12. Alejandro Gil, Minister of Economy

13. Manrique Larduet Bicet, gymnast

14. Silverio Portal, opponent

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Pesos Instead of Dollars: A Bad Deal for Cuban Employees of Foreign Firms

Until now employees of foreign firms had the benefit of receiving a portion of their salaries in dollars. (Accor)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 December 2020 — Beginning in January, Cuban workers employed by foreign companies will no longer receive part of their salary in dollars. After currency unification takes effect, they will be paid only in Cuban pesos. Rodrigo Malmierca, Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, made the announcement on Monday during a broadcast on State TV’s Roundtable program while discussing the impact of the monetary transition.

According to Malmierca, the move will be a win for everyone. Workers, he pointed out, will earn more in Cuban currency and foreign firms will spend less of their hard currency while paying workers higher salaries. The question is: How many workers on the island will prefer a lot of Cuban pesos over a fistful of dollars? Heretofore, a salary in hard currency has been of the biggest incentives to work for a foreign company.

“Let’s suppose the worker in question is being paid 500 dollars, with an exchange rate of two to one. Now, maybe it won’t be 500 dollars anymore. It will be Cuban pesos instead. He will have fewer dollars but maybe the worker will get a much more attractive salary. This means that, in terms of labor costs, foreign investors will benefit since employers will be able to pay workers more while spending less foreign currency,” Malmierca explained. continue reading

Companies currently operating outside the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM) use a special exchange rate. The dollar component of an employee’s salary is paid to a state intermediary, that gives the worker two pesos for each dollar. After currency conversion takes effect, the worker will receive twenty-four pesos for each dollar.

In contrast, the conversion rate for workers in the ZEDM is different. For the last six years the rate has been ten pesos for each dollar of an employee’s pay.

Curiously, Malmierca did not mention the so-called hard currency stimulation fund, which will allows a foreign employer to give monthly bonuses in dollars to every employee, an added benefit that for years has been the most attractive component of employee’s income.

In 2014 the payment system was restructured for private/public partnerships in Cuba. Law 118, which governs such partnerships, allows foreign companies to set up “convertible peso stimulation funds,” a situation that might change judging from Almierca’s comments.

“My salary as a chef is valued at 600 dollars a month,” says an employee at a joint-venture hotel in Havana who prefers to remain anonymous. “Until now I was getting 1,200 Cuban pesos through the Cuban employment agency plus about 350 dollars that the Spanish partner gave me as incentive pay.”

Though his salary will exceed 14,000 Cuban pesos, the chef fears that the loss of hard currency income will leave him worse off. “The price of everything will go up and all l’ll have is Cuban pesos, which I won’t be able to use in hard currency stores or exchange for dollars when prices on the black market rise.”

“What will happen is that an investor will now have to pay more because he’ll have to slip someth extra under the table,” he believes. With increases in the cost of living expected on January 1, “foreign businesspeople will have to motivate their employees better because otherwise they’ll plunder the hotels [where they work].”

According to Elías Amor, a Cuban economist based in Spain, it is unlikely that the changes the government has announced will benefit foreign-owned businesses even though they will be paying higher salaries with less hard currency.

“Malmierca should know that salaries do not increase as a result of government decisions but because of increased productivity. Salary-related decisions such as those he has announced do just the opposite,” he asserts. “And changes adopted during a period of economic instability due to the pandemic will not bring about anything good,” he adds, “The primary advantages of being paid by foreign companies is coming to an end.”

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Young Cuban is Put on Trial for Refusing to Serve on Active Military Service

Oscar Kendri Fial Echavarría, 19, will be tried this Tuesday in Santiago de Cuba. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 December 2020 — Oscar Kendri Fial Echavarría, 19, will be tried this Tuesday in Santiago de Cuba, accused of “disobedience” for not enlisting in the Active Military Service (SMA). The young man claims that carrying and using weapons goes against his religious principles as a Christian.

“The sector chief brought a summons to my house. He came in and started talking loudly and saying that if I didn’t show up, he was going to put me in jail. I told him that I couldn’t do military service because of my principles as a Christian,” Fial Echavarría told Youtuber Ruhama Fernández.

The young man, a resident of the Contramaestre municipality in the province of Santiago de Cuba, had his first encounter with the police on December 11 when he was summoned and then detained for almost 24 hours. To be released, his family had to pay a bail of 1,000 Cuban pesos. continue reading

Regarding his arrest, the man from Santiago said that they made him sign a paper without knowing what it said. In addition, he spoke of the harassment and offenses of the head of the sector, whom he denounced to the ombudsman of the Ministry of the Interior. According to his account, the policeman was reprimanded.

“If we must respect all the laws as we do, they must also respect the principles of my son,” said the young man’s father during a video recorded by Youtuber Ruhama Fernández, denouncing that his son has been harassed on several occasions for his decision .

Fial Echavarría was called for the oral hearing of the trial this December 22 at 8:00 am, as recorded in the official summons that the Ministry of the Interior gave him.

Cuba is one of the thirty countries that maintain compulsory military service. Despite being criticized for their harshness, the authorities have not accepted the professionalization of the military on the grounds that there are limited resources to financially stimulate recruitment.

In October, activist Osmel Rubio Santos was detained for several hours by State Security, a few days after he declared himself a conscientious objector and refused to enlist in the Service. Rubió delivered a letter to the Cotorro Military Committee refusing to enlist. In the document, he explained that he was against taking up arms to defend the communist regime, and that he would only use them to “overthrow the Cuban dictatorship.”

To evade the Service, many young people have attempted for years to inflict some damage on themselves as a way to be declared unfit and also avoid sanction by the Military Prosecutor’s Office. However, in December 2019 that mechanism came to an end because the Government ruled that self-harm would be considered a crime of evasion of military service obligations and would be punished by criminal sanctions.

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The Risks of Working With the Wrong Profile

State Security car guarding the home of independent journalist Mónica Baró. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 22 December 2020 — In one of those sporadic arbitrary arrests that I have come to know at the hands of State Security, one of the agents who was driving me began to insult me in an uncontrolled way, emphasizing that everything I did was motivated by the money received from the empire.

As I am in the habit of not discussing politics with the police, I limited myself to thanking them for their insults, because they made it clear to me that they had the wrong profile of me.

I recall that I gave the example of a boxer instructed by his manager that his next opponent is dangerous with jabs, but as soon as he steps into the ring he receives an uppercut to his jaw that knocks him out.

“Did you understand why having the wrong profile of your opponent is dangerous?” I asked, and he stopped insulting me. continue reading

Since the middle of the last century the best police officers in the world began to develop more advanced investigation techniques. Criminal profilers appeared, whose fundamental objective was to understand the behavior and probable characteristics of the unknown perpetrator of a crime and, incidentally, to find the most appropriate way of questioning suspects.

In the omnipresent KGB of the Soviets and the efficient Stasi of the Germans, patterns to control opponents were developed. The Cuban State Security is indebted to those experiences and today the intelligence services of Venezuela learn from the Cubans.

Unlike common criminals, political opponents do not need to be discovered, but the main divergence between an opponent and a common criminal is that political activities that oppose governments only constitute a crime in dictatorial regimes. The case of spies in the service of a foreign power is another thing altogether, and is punished with harsh penalties in most nations.

Here a phenomenon worth studying takes place. To justify the repression of opponents, they try to identify them as, or at least link them to, the activities of an enemy spy, but it happens that the profiles to investigate some are incompatible to work with the others.

Many times, in the middle of an interrogation, opponents wonder if the state security agent they face on the other side of the table is part of the team that makes the lies or if it is only instructed to repeat them, or even trained to believe them. That officer is a professional, or at least he tries to look like one.

If their victim is not a repeat offender, they may say something like “we know you are a patriot, but they are using you and we want to help you.” If he appears on the list of “notorious counterrevolutionaries,” they show him all their contempt, assure him that “we already know everything” and take to launching more or less veiled threats against him and his family, including the presumed possibility that he or one of his relatives has engaged in some common crime.

As they do not want to identify themselves as “the political police,” they mask their repressive work with dissenting ideas under the guise of watching over the independence of the nation. They act as defenders of the attacked homeland occupying the trench that protects sovereignty.

In a good part of the population, born in the last six decades, it is relatively easy to activate the prejudice that anyone who demonstrates against the system only intends to “hand over the nation to the Yankee imperialists,” or “return to the capitalist past so that yesterday’s exploiters can regain their properties.”

As all prejudice needs a minimum base on which to settle, the evidence supports that the United States Government gave support to Brigade 2506 in the landing at the Bay of Pigs and the supply of arms to the rebels in Escambray. It is enough to visit the Museum of the Revolution to see the list of landowners and owners of confiscated companies who returned to Cuba, they or their children, in the invasion of April 1961 “with the sole purpose of recovering their properties.”

The most recurrent obsessions in trying to make the prejudices inculcated by government propaganda coincide with reality are relationships with foreigners and the sources of money.

The most difficult question to answer is whether the state security agent who detains and interrogates a dissatisfied person is unaware that the main objective of his victim is to recover rights, not property. As among the rights to be recovered is that of being able to own property and to be able to proclaim it freely, the agent interprets it as an incriminating evidence of the intentions of the person being interrogated to destroy the conquests of the Revolution.

Perhaps the most important detail that makes the difference between reality and the profile that State Security forms of political opponents, human rights activists and independent journalists seem insignificant, is that when it comes to presenting them to trial accused of terrorism, enemy propaganda, collaborating with the blockade [US embargo] or a fabricated common crime, it is not a requirement to convince the court, because the judges are part of the plot.

It is as if the manager of a knocked out boxer had previously agreed with the referee who, even with the boxer on the canvas and unconscious, raised his hand to signal he is the winner. Yes, the profile is fake. Who cares?

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Several Cuban Airport Workers Arrested for Theft of Goods

Aerovaradero workers who, according to National Television, stole merchandise. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 December 2020 — Several Aerovaradero workers were arrested for an alleged crime of theft and misappropriation, according to Cuban Television, in a new episode within the government’s strategy of showing its “relentless fight against corruption.”

The detainees are part of the ground staff that handles cargo for Aerovaradero, a company specializing in national and international air cargo, and that belongs to the Cuban Civil Aviation Corporation. According to investigations, workers stole household appliances and clothing in collusion with Mercedes-Benz employees.

According to the authorities, the incident emerged from the complaints of the passengers and the affected state companies. The prosecutor in the case explained that those involved in the network marked the loads that were in the dispatch area and mixed them with the loads that they were actually going to declare. continue reading

“Then, taking advantage of the same work flow of the Mercedes-Benz company, which periodically loads its imports, they mixed them to be able to extract them from the airport areas,” he added.

The investigations detected the shortage in the loads and allowed them to recover a part. Among the items stolen were eight air conditioners, televisions, computers, minibars, music equipment and sports shoes for high-performance athletes.

Ariel Matos Fonseca, Aerovaradero’s brigade chief, told state television that they should be more vigilant in their jobs and “more combative towards people who are not doing the right thing.”

With the growing economic crisis, exacerbated by the measures taken by the covid pandemic, thefts of this type have multiplied in recent months. One of the most surprising cases was the operation that discovered, last November in Havana, the theft in a state warehouse of more than 200 tons of rice , hiding it with empty structures behind a facade of real sacks.

A few weeks earlier, in Cienfuegos, the authorities surprised three workers of the Provincial Meat Company stealing 380 kilos of “first-rate” pork, with the alleged objective of reselling it in the informal market.

Other cases occurred, for example, in September, with the theft of two tons of coffee beans in Santiago de Cuba, and in June, with the seizure of an “illegal” shipment of more than 180 bags of onions in Ciego de Ávila.

The dismantling, in September, of a network of exchange office employees and illegal sellers who were engaged in the sale of foreign currency for the acquisition of household appliances was also sounded .

The recurring robberies in Correos de Cuba, denounced by numerous users on social networks, caused the state-owned company to be fed up, which issued a statement a few days ago describing the accusations as “unfair and uncertain.”

Post office workers, says the company, “are, as a rule, honest, humble, hardworking people, dedicated to the work of serving the people and with a high sense of belonging to their organization,” and when events have occurred criminal offenses, “are rigorously investigated, the necessary measures are adopted to prevent their recurrence, disciplinary and administrative measures are applied to those responsible and, when appropriate, they are placed at the disposal of the police and judicial authorities.”

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From January 1 Cuba Will Require Travelers to Have a Negative Covid Test

Immigration control at the José Martí International Airport in Havana. (EFE / Ernesto Mastrascusa / File)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 December 2020 — The Cuban government will require from January 1 to all international travelers a negative PCR test for Covid-19. The Ministry of Health acknowledged that the measure is due to the large number of imported cases detected with the reopening of the airports.

The requirement includes that the test be carried out in “a certified laboratory in the country of origin and carried out within a period of 72 hours before arrival in Cuba,” says the statement, signed by the Minister of Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda.

The health authorities also noted that the Ministry of Health is responsible for “the decision to issue the complementary hygienic epidemiological provisions authorized by the Law for international health control, in prevention of diseases that may harm our country.” continue reading

After keeping the airports closed for more than half a year, the Government decided, last October, to again allow commercial flights. Almost all the provinces of the Island had passed to the so-called “new normal” due to the low level of Covid-19 infection.

Havana was the territory that presented the most complex health situation and did not resume air traffic until November 15. The other provinces, before the reopening of the flights, either did not register positive cases or had a very low percentage of coronavirus infections.

However, with the arrival of international travelers, the situation became complicated throughout the Island. Indigenous cases skyrocketed and official data have set new records day after day.

The authorities have prosecuted travelers for the spread of epidemics. However, the official press has acknowledged that the complex health situation that still persists is due not only to the “indolence” of those who arrive in the country, but also to “violations of the protocols by medical personnel” and “the limited action of the political and mass organizations in the community.”

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Cuba’s Private Sector Phases Out Convertible Pesos before the Government

As early as last Monday, many private businesses on the island were no longer accepting Cuban convertible pesos. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, December 21, 2020 — What had been the most desired legal tender in Cuba for years is no longer wanted. The private sector has slammed the door on the Cuban convertible peso, the CUC, one week before January 1, the date the government has decreed that monetary unification will begin. Its death is being observed with neither grief nor fanfare. The only indication of its demise are the signs in private businesses that read, “We do not accept CUC.”

Although the chavito, as it is commonly known, will continue in circulation for six more months, until June 3, private sector workers prefer to do most of their transactions in Cuban pesos. They fear currency devaluation, long lines outside banks to change money and some last-minute regulation the government might pull out of its hat. “It’s better to be cautious. Everything seems very unsettled so it’s better not to be taken by surprise,” says a bread and cookie vendor near Boyeros Street in Havana’s Plaza district.

“I had already been served and was about to pay with CUC when I was told they couldn’t accept them,” recalls a customer who literally stood with her mouth open in front of the counter of a private ice cream parlor on Cuba Street in Old Havana. “This is really an extreme reaction. They still have several more days to exchange convertible pesos,” lamented the frustrated customer. “They’re just losing money.” continue reading

But the long lines on Monday at banks appear to validate the concerns of private business owners. “I came to exchange 200 CUC for Cuban pesos. I got here at 5:30 in the morning and I still haven’t been able to get inside because they’re having connectivity problems,” complained a private taxi driver who wanted to get bills in small denominations from a bank located on the ground floor of the Transport Ministry.

“After this, I’ll never accept another chavito. I’ll put a sign in the car that tells customers they can only pay with Cuban pesos. I’ll also put some stickers on the windows so they’ll know before they get in that I don’t take CUC,” he adds. “If accepting CUC because they’re still in circulation means I have to get to the bank at dawn every week just to change money, it’s not worth it to me. Let the Central Bank do it.”

The most cautious and best positioned private businesses are already implementing other solutions.”Our menu is in several currencies: Cuban pesos, convertible pesos, dollars and euros. You can pay with any of these four,” says an elegantly dressed employee outside a privately owned restaurant on San Ignacio Street who is trying to convince some tourists to eat there.”You can pay with cash or credit card. We also accept pounds sterling.”

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Cuban Farmers Call on Government to Open Up or Face Social Upheaval

The state cannot continue to be an exploitative monopoly and a parasite feeding off our family remittances. We have reached our limit,” warn farmers in a letter to Cuban authorities. (Flickr/tTnman6)

14ymedio, Havana, December 20, 2020 — In a letter to the island’s authorities, a group of independent Cuban farmers call upon the government to “change course before it is too late” and to unleash the the nation’s productive capacity, which they see as the only way out of the current crisis.

Economic measures included in the pending currency unification will “plunge tens of thousands of pensioners and other vulnerable sectors into poverty,” warn the letter’s signatories, Esteban Ajete with the League of Independent Farmers and Lisandra Orraca, a member of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women.

“Given the current situation, it is abjectly irresponsible to destroy the reputation of farmers and self-employed workers by portraying us as selfish because we have been forced to raise prices due to inflation that the state itself has caused,” the activists complain in a reference to government attacks. Official media outlets have blamed the sector for the recent increase in the costs for goods and services. continue reading

“The ones who have to lower prices are officials at dollar stores who add 200%, 300% and 400% to their import costs,” the letter goes on to read. Recent price increases come on the heels of a rise in electric rates, which take effect in January. “Who are the real parasites here?” the letter’s authors ask.

Ajete and Orraca call upon authorities to “stop their senseless economic war against agricultural producers and private businesspeople.” They believe the solution to the current economic crisis plaguing the island “is not to slander, attack and oppress those who create products, services and employment but to unleash the forces of production at once.”

“The state cannot continue to be an exploitative monopoly and a parasite feeding off our family remittances. We have reached our limit.” The farmers believe the only rational course of action is to “contain famine, prevent the spread of poverty, and rapidly promote large-scale employment” through economic freedom.

Freedoms they would like to see as the ability to “acquire legal ownership of our lands and businesses as well as to produce, set prices, market, export, import and attract investment without state intermediaries and without limits on economic areas under [private] management or the growth of [private] business ventures.”

The letter’s authors cite the “failed system of state control” as one of the causes for predicament in which the country currently finds itself. They believe that, given the opportunity, Cuban farmers and entrepreneurs could “contain and reverse the famine and poverty that are already spreading throughout Cuba.”

“Set aside the arrogance and abuse of power. The options are clear: either the government provides opportunities for widespread prosperity or it doubles down on repression and hunger, which will lead to an explosive and irreversible situation.” At the close of the letter, the activists use a popular phrase whose tone is unmistakeable: “We farmers speak clearly.”

In August the League of Independent Farmers and the Latin American Federation of Rural Women also sent a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet. “We see an oncoming famine that can be avoided,” they wrote. In the letter they also asked for urgent intervention to prevent hunger on the island.

“The cause is not external or due to some natural disaster. The famine that is just over the Cuban horizon is a consequence of a fierce internal blockade of our productive capacity by the national government,” write the signers, who several months ago launched the campaign “Without Farming There Is No Country,” which called upon the government to abolish taxes on agricultural activity and demanded the right to own farmland.

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From the Hard Currency Store to the Cuban Black Market, the New Informal Supply Route

A large part of Cuban society criticizes the opening of stores that only accept hard currency, others have seen their resources grow with these stores. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 20 December 2020 — As he leaves the store, he passes the magnetic card to his sister who is still waiting in line. Not only do they share the form of payment in La Arcada, a foreign exchange business on Havana Boulevard, but they also share the profits from the informal resale of deodorant, detergent and shampoo, the products that are scarce in the network of stores that take national currency.

Until a year ago, Natacha and Nadia — whose names have been changed for this story — were prosperous mules who made the trip between Havana and Panama City several times a month. “But the pandemic arrived, commercial flights were canceled and we had to reinvent ourselves,” Natacha explains to 14ymedio.

At first, when the closure of the airports seemed likely to be a short term thing, they continued to sell the merchandise that they had accumulated from their last trips. Then they began to stand in long lines to buy chicken and other foods that they offered at a higher price to “several willing customers who would to pay anything so as not to spend five hours” in line outside a store, details Nadia. continue reading

But “salvation came in July,” explains this 38-year-old woman from Havana with two young children. “When I was traveling to Panama, I had the good idea of creating a bank account there and I have a Visa debit card that I can use to buy in the foreign currency stores where they sell food and hygiene products.”

The sisters began to prepare for their new business since, through independent media, they learned that the offerings in freely convertible currency (MLC) were going to also extend to food and merchandise in short supply such as soap, laundry detergent and sanitary pads for women.

However, it was Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel’s speech confirming the opening of these foreign exchange businesses that served as the starting shot. “As soon as he finished speaking, I turned off the television and began calling my contacts to tell them that they could give me orders, that I had a dollar card to buy in those places,” Natacha explains.

Since then, their client network has grown and both sisters have developed a method of not exposing themselves too much. “We go to two different stores every week and so we rotate so that we don’t just go to one, lest an employee denounce us and accuse us of being resellers or hoarders,” says Nadia. “We are earning more than when we traveled to Panama.”

The hard currency stores have generated deep unrest among broad sectors. Faced with the avalanche of popular complaints about the social differences that these markets exacerbate, the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, tried to calm the spirits and insisted that the opening of stores in foreign currency for the sale of food and cleaning products was “a decision of social justice and socialism.”

The economy minister, Alejandro Gil, insisted that the opening of foreign currency stores for the sale of food and hygiene products was “a decision of social justice and socialism.” (14ymedio)

“An undersupplied market does not attract foreign currency,” the minister explained then, referring to what many Cubans have classified as the “monetary apartheid” that divides society between those who have dollars to buy products in these shops and those who must make do with the network of stores that take payment in national currency.

But to the same extent that a large part of Cuban society criticizes the opening of these stores in MLC, others have seen their resources grow, serving as a bridge between the merchandise in dollars and the anxious customers who can not find these products in the stores in Cuban or convertible pesos.

“I started out buying only shampoo, but now they tell me right away that they need toilet paper, hair softener, coffee or beer,” explains Humberto, a merchant with a small stall on Galiano street where, according to his license, only can only sell objects linked to Afro-Cuban religions. But a few yards from the table with necklaces and bracelets on display at the door of his house, he has “everything,” he boasts.

Stacked under a ladder Humberto shows customers disposable razors, hair dyes, packages of various brands of coffee, oil, imported tomato sauce, dish soap and large quantities of products for cleaning the home, kitchen and the bathrooms. “Don’t stand in line, I’ll do it for you and if you don’t have a dollar card, I also have that for you,” he says.

Humberto’s magnetic card was sent to him by a brother who lives in Spain. “From his own bank account he took out a debit card that he sent me and the original idea is that he would load onto it the remittance that my mother sends every month and I would take it out at the ATM, but I never imagined that this plastic was going to be the way I was going to earn a living.”

One of the great advantages, according to the informal merchant, is that “in stores they don’t care if your identity card says one name and the card another, so in addition to selling these products I rent the card to trusted people,” he explains. “For every dollar they spend they have to pay me 1.25 CUC and there are days when this card is used up to ten times at the same store.”

Humberto believes that, despite all the controls that govern the operations of the stores that sell in pesos, in the stores in foreign currency everything is “more relaxed.” The reason for a certain laxity is, in his opinion, very evident: “They want dollars and they want them at full speed, so they don’t start looking at where they come from or who has them. The route of those with MLC seems like a road without obstacles.

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Solar Energy is Cheaper but There Are No Panels for Individuals in Cuba

In 2018, it was announced with great fanfare that the Spanish company Assyce Yield Energía SA and the German EFF Solar SA would install solar panels in Cuba to generate 100 megawatt hours of electricity, but it never materialized. (Radio Progreso)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 December 2020 — The increase in the electricity rates, which starts with the monetary unification on January 1, has reminded Cubans recently that a good alternative could be the installation of solar panels, which were promoted so much a few years ago by the Government. The reality is, however, that individuals cannot get a hold of this technology.

The Cuban Electricity Union (UNE) itself has acknowledged this in the State newspaper Granma this Thursday, where it states that “the production of photovoltaic panels has not been guaranteed to make them available to the retail network for sale to the population.”

Despite the fact that the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment has a Solar Energy Research Center, several calls from 14ymedio to this official entity found no official who was able to specify the way in which an individual could acquire solar panels to generate their electricity. continue reading

“We have nothing to do with the sale of these devices, the related company is the Electronic, Automation and Communications Industry Group (Copextel) but so far it has only been able to sell solar water heaters,” clarified an employee of the ministry.

The Rensol brand heaters began to be sold at the end of 2019 to individuals and in national currency at the price of 2,945 Cuban pesos (CUP), in a pilot test that included 7,000 devices. But, the commercialization of this equipment has not continued to expand and currently they can hardly be found in the informal market at a cost that exceeds 600 Cuban convertible pesos (almost five times the original price).

“The Program for the Development of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency conceives the sale of panels to individuals,” clarified the UNE, stating that even “the rules for the implementation of this sale are in force.”

The company regrets that its industry, “due to the economic-financial difficulties” it is going through, cannot take on sales to the population. “Currently, the photovoltaic systems installed in the residential sector are very few and were imported by individuals,” he added.

The UNE, which went to the Granma newspaper to answer “more frequent” questions about the new electricity rates, and also explained the advantages of the devices.

According to the data provided by the UNE, 5 solar panels of 260 watts each are required to cover the energy needs of a home that has an average monthly consumption of 185 kWh.

One of the users who read the publication sent a question to the electricity company in the comments section without receiving a response: “What would happen if a person is capable of generating, through solar panels or some other ecological means, an amount greater than the consumption of their home? Would the UNE be able to take on this private generation and pay for it?”

In 2019, through Decree Law 345, the sale of surplus electricity generated by private producers from this type of source was authorized. But the provision does not modify the state monopoly of the Electricity Union, which is the only one authorized to buy, distribute and commercialize energy of private origin.

A year earlier, at the 35th International Havana Fair, it was announced with great fanfare that the Spanish company Assyce Yield Energía SA and the German EFF Solar SA would install solar panels to generate 100 megawatt hours of electricity in the western provinces of Pinar del Río, Artemisa, Mayabeque and Matanzas.

It was expected, the authorities said at the time, that both companies would begin to provide electricity to the National Electroenergy System in 2018, as explained by the general director of Foreign Investment of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Déborah Rivas.

This newspaper has tried to contact Assyce, but its business phone number has been disconnected.

Decree Law 345 also established that business systems and forms of private management dedicated to tourism could carry out “technical and economic analysis” to “install technologies that take advantage of renewable energy sources.”

The new legislation, however, did not come accompanied by flexibilizations from the General Customs of the Republic for the importation by the private sector of equipment to produce clean energy, such as photovoltaic panels.

Importing solar panels to Cuba is not exactly cheap, as they are items that require the payment of a considerable customs tax. According to their generation power, the rates vary between 200 and 1,000 pesos for panels of 900 watts up to 15 kilowatts. Customs has reiterated on several occasions that travelers can bring into the country only one panel on each trip.

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