The Cuban authorities have announced the return of those stranded in Russia, but the volunteers maintain that they have not cooperated in the departure of the most affected (Cuban Consulate in Russia)
14ymedio, Havana, 4 June 2020 — The flight announced organized by Russia, by which Cubans stranded in the country could return to the Island, arrived in Havana last night, but only 23 of the 83 passengers who got off at José Martí International Airport were trapped tourists. The bulk of the group was made up of 43 Cuban students with scholarships in Russia and another 17 were civil servants. At least 60 people remain in Moscow without finding and solutions to return home.
The plane, which left this Wednesday from the Russian capital to Havana, later left for Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile where it left the rest of the passage and picked up the Russians who remain in Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
Later it will return to Havana for the 70 Russians who are still stranded on the Island since the partial closure of the borders that came into effect on April 2 — as part of the measures to stop coronavirus infections.. The trip will culminate on June 6, with the aircraft landing in Moscow with 200 Russians on board.
The consul in the Russian capital, Eduardo Lázaro Escandell, said that a hundred Cubans requested to return but not all of them were able to pay for a ticket.
The price of 43,726 rubles (about $ 630) has been an insurmountable obstacle for many of those wanting to return home.
Russian Anna Voronkova and Pedro Luis García from Havana, already known as the angel of the Cubans in Moscow, mobilized to achieve the return of the islanders. “The Cuban authorities are not helping their citizens in any way. We are the volunteers, the Russians and foreigners, who are concerned about the Cubans,” Voronkova told 14ymedio.
The young woman contacted Veronika Birman, a Russian businesswoman who works in tourism, with whom she tried to find help, but there was no collaboration from the Cuban consulate.
María Zajárova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, was the one who made her team available to the volunteers to advance their exit, according to Sputnik, and managed, after many efforts, to get three of the four humanitarian passages, at half price. They focused on people with chronic diseases and a pregnant woman.
Birman acknowledges that the support of the airline and Anastasia Dyumulen, director of the airline’s information and communications policy department, was essential.
“We tried to get those 4 and even more to go. The company and the Russian Foreign Ministry were willing to consider the possibility of giving some free humanitarian places, but it was not possible to coordinate in time due to misunderstandings with another party involved,” explained Voronkova to Sputnik.
But they still have at least 60 pending cases.
The Russian government sent a batch of 15,000 tests for the detection of the coronavirus to Havana to contribute to the fight against the pandemic, according to a statement from the Cuban Embassy in Moscow.
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Medical collaboration between Cuba, Haiti and Norway dates back to 2012. (Cubadebate)
14ymedio, Havana, 4 June 2020 — The Cuban Prisoners Defenders (CPD) organization accuses Norway and Luxembourg of contributing to the financing of the slavery system of Cuban doctors who work on international missions and asks them to review their triangular collaboration agreements if they want to continue being an example in human rights to the whole world and not face a complaint before the European Union Court of Human Rights.
The NGO bases its accusations on the economic participation of both countries in two missions of the Cuban medical brigades, Haiti and Cape Verde. The NGO has investigated these missions in depth including what the health professionals were subjected to in the usual conditions, which can be considered trafficking in persons, slavery and forced labor.
In the case of Haiti, the brigade was established in 1999 and continues to today, with a total of 348 health workers, of which the total number of certified doctors is unknown. The Cuban Prisoners Defenders study emphasizes this point, which insists it has total respect for professionals and their level, but shows their surprise at the high number of people who practice without passing their degree. “80% of the Cuban doctors in Haiti declare that they do not have their academic degrees, among other things because they prevent them from taking any degree from the Island, just as they are not allowed to carry their current passport with them.” continue reading
Norway, a country that does not belong to the European Union (EU), although it does belong to the European Economic Area, has contributed a total of 2.5 million dollars through three agreements of this type (triangular) since 2012, to the support of the brigade in Haiti. The money contributed by Oslo was mainly destined to the construction of permanent medical infrastructure, but a around 800,000 dollars were planned for the Cuban brigade.
In Haiti, Cuban doctors earn $ 250 a month, less than the already poor salary of local doctors, who pocket about $ 400.
In the case of Luxembourg, which is a member of the EU, the cooperation is more recent. This March it signed an agreement endowed with almost half a million euros for the establishment of a contingent of Cuban doctors in Cape Verde.
According to CPD information, the group established in that African archipelago is made up of 79 collaborators who provide their three-years of services in different health areas, in addition to another 33 belonging to the Henry Reeve brigade, who arrived on April 22. Twenty of them are there exclusively to combat Covid-19 and are financed by a tripartite agreement with Luxembourg.
In the specific case of workers in Cape Verde, CPD cites an example of the surveillance to which the doctors are subjected, among other things. According to the report, on August 7, 2017, a communication between the office of the then Minister of Public Health, Roberto Morales, reached the embassy in Madrid, with a copy to the ambassador in Cape Verde. It was a request, by order of Colonel Jesús López -Gavilán, head of the Health Department of the Ministry of Interior, that an official from the diplomatic headquarters in Spain go to the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport to supervise the stopover of five Cape Verdean physicians.
The direction was “to investigate and check the communication with family members abroad” since, according to the payer, one of them had shown “strong indications and intentions to ’desert’.”
CPD recalls that it has investigated the treatment of Cuban doctors abroad since 2018 and that in May 2019 it filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court and with the United Nations documenting possible crimes of forced labor, human trafficking and slavery.
For this reason, the CPD is warning Norway and Luxembourg, “where their citizens enjoy full rights and freedoms,” of the consequences that their actions may have “out of a misguided desire for solidarity.” And it asks both countries and the European institutions as a whole to confront this scheme through which the Cuban State profits.
The organization maintains that it is not against the provision of medical services in other countries, but claims the importance of it being done in terms that respect human rights and international labor law, in addition to the transparency due to the parties.
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Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo minutes after leaving the police unit. (Facebook / Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara)
14ymedio, Havana, 12 June 2020 — The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and the rapper Maykel Castillo were released around seven in the morning on Friday after spending all night in police custody, according to reports on social networks.
Alcántara and Castillo were beaten by the police while handcuffed in an official vehicle, and they published photographs with injuries to their legs and arms. They say that those responsible for the beating were about ten police officers from the Cuba y Chacón unit in Havana, where they were taken on Thursday.
“Maykel was eating some bread on the doorstep of his house and I, who had gone to the corner for a moment, arrived and saw him debating with the police because they wanted to take him away,” Alcántara told 14ymedio. continue reading
“The day before, by the way, that same policeman had told him twice to put his shirt on. I told the policeman that Maykel had his facemask, not to take him, but they didn’t understand. That’s when I start filming. The policeman tells me that I can’t film it and that I have to go with them, also arrested.”
The artist continues: “In the patrol car I tell the police that he is a racist, a dictator, and when we get to the parking lot of the unit they leave us in the car. At that point Maykel’s phone starts ringing. One of the policemen says that we can’t touch the cell phone and he opens the door where Maykel is and begins to hit him.
“The moment I see that, there is another one who comes and opens my door and they start hitting me with a tonfa. He grabs me by the neck, they hit me on the head, they took me out of the car and threw me to the ground to hit me more. A little horse [motorized officer] comes and lifts me by the handcuffs, takes me out of there and takes me to the station.”
According to his account, they were in the dungeon part of the night until they were taken out for an interrogation with the State Security: “There we received the usual threats: prison. They told us that they would accuse us of an attack and that there would be a trial. There they also took my statement about what happened, took our fingerprints and took photos of the wounds.”
Alcántara says that they were also taken to the Tomás Romay polyclinic: “A doctor saw us there and filled out an injury certificate but we never got a copy of it. We asked for it but they told us no, that it would stay in the unit. At seven in the morning they let us go.”
Anamely Ramos, a curator and teacher expelled from the Superior Institute of Art, denounced to this newspaper that when she tried to enter the unit to get news of Alcántara and Maykel Castillo, an officer told her that she could not enter.
“I had the permission of the guard who was outside who had told me that I could enter but at the door of the unit an agent said no. At that moment, a police officer came and told me that I could not pass, that they had already explained everything to me. He pushed me, other policemen came, women and men, and one of them threw me against the floor and put me in a headlock to immobilize me. I had gone there because I had authorization and had said that I only wanted to clear up some doubts I had about the arrest of the artists. Finally, the officer in charge came and I was able to speak to him,” she explained.
Ramos also details that while she was outside the Cuba y Chacón police station she saw how some officers went out to photograph the patrol in which the artists had been taken to the unit and that “he did not have a scratch.” Both Ramos and Alcántara assure that they will file a complaint with the authorities about the actions of the police.
This week Alcantara called for a collective action to keep a minute of silence in solidarity with anti-racist protests in the United States after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police became known.
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Iliana Hernández, Esteban Rodríguez, Oscar Casanella, Héctor L. Valdés, Esteban Rodríguez, Maikel Osorbo, Camila Acosta and Ángel Santiesteban participated in the request. (Courtesy)
14ymedio, Havana, 8 June 2020 — This Monday a petition signed by more than 3,000 Cubans, 500 of them residents on the Island, was delivered to the National Assembly of People’s Power with a request to repeal Decree Law 370 “as unconstitutional.” The petition is addressed to Esteban Lazo Hernández, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez and other top officials, according to the independent journalist Camila Acosta, who spoke with 14ymedio.
“The only way we have to demonstrate that human rights and all international covenants and treaties regarding human rights are violated in Cuba, is by way of this petition, first appealing to the institutions within Cuba and then demonstrating it internationally. When a complaint is made, the first thing the international organizations ask is that all the legal resources that exist in the country have been exhausted. That is what we are doing, despite various institutions and international media having already spoken about what is happening in Cuba with this decree,” said Acosta.
The document was delivered simultaneously to the State Council, the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic and the People’s Supreme Court. Iliana Hernández and Esteban Rodríguez, Oscar Casanella, Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, Esteban Rodríguez, Maikel Osorbo, Camila Acosta and Ángel Santiesteban Prats participated in the delivery. continue reading
“Although it is true that the Cuban Constitution is contradictory, that the laws in Cuba are made to crush citizens more, that is the Constitution that exists, that is the Government that exists and we have to demand that it respect our rights,” added the reporter, who was recently fined under this Decree Law.
The text is addressed to Esteban Lazo Hernández, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez and other high officials. (Courtesy)
According to a statement published on the Facebook page, No to dictated laws, the signatories make this request protected by the right they have to “address complaints and requests to the authorities,” as recognized by Article 61 of the Constitution. They also put the demand to several Cuban officials who promote before the Assembly “the question of unconstitutionality of Decree Law 370.”
“It is very likely that they will not give us the answer we expect, but it is the next step, and then we can file the complaint with international organizations,” said Acosta.
In order to fine citizens and independent journalists, the authorities have relied on subsection (i) of Article 68 of the decree on “the computerization of society in Cuba.” This subsection involves a fine of 3,000 pesos and/or the confiscation of equipment for “disseminating through public data transmission networks, information contrary to social interest, morals, good customs and the integrity of people.”
According to the calculation of the fined activists, 27 Cuban citizens, independent journalists and activists from the Island have been fined 3,000 pesos under Decree Law 370 since January. Some of them have had their work equipment confiscated, ranging from computers to cell phones, and others have been summoned to the police units to receive the threat that if they continue with the journalistic work they may face the same fate and be fined.
On May 6, several organizations and the media published a statement denouncing that the Cuban Government annihilates freedom of expression on the Internet through Decree Law 370.
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On Tuesday 89-year-old Raul Castro reappeared, wearing a mask, to review a return to normalcy after the Covid-19 peak. (Granma)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, June 10, 2020 — Raul Castro appears in photo accompanying a Granma newspaper article about his most recent public appearance. Whether measured in pixels or centimeters, the image of the First Secretary of the Communist Party takes up barely two percent of the photo.
Although the headline states that it was the Army General who presided over a session of the Politburo, the article does not provide any actual quotes of the “clear directions” he gave. The editor is forced to resort to impersonal language, stating that “the work of our people was recognized” and reiterating” that “lack of discipline must be guarded against.”
A week after his 89th birthday, this half-hearted appearance only serves to feed rumors about Raul Castro’s inability to lead the country under the current constitution’s much disliked Article 5. continue reading
Keeping in mind the traditional suspicion with which Cubans read between the lines of whatever the official press has to say or not say, it is obvious that the decoded message should read as follows: Raul Castro will not be around ten months from now to announce his final retirement at the VIII Communist Party Congress.
Playing for time has been the younger Castro brother’s specialty. He called upon us to do everything “slowly but surely*.” He constantly warned that change will happen gradually, even when it seemed increasingly urgent to speed up reforms. This has allowed him to enjoy the irresponsible peace of mind of those who privately chose as their motto “after me, the deluge.”
If it were just about the fate of one person, this issue would be unimportant. But behind all the postponements the future has gone through on this island, there are the many cancelled dreams, aspirations and projects of millions of Cubans.
Translator’s note: The original phrase in Spanish is: “Sin prisa pero sin pausa” — literally: ‘without haste but without pause’.
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Dozens of people in line at the Plaza de Cuatro Caminos to claim the products they bought weeks ago through the TuEnvío platform. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 10 June 2020 — The Cuban Government has surrendered to the evidence of the failure of its virtual stores and has ordered their temporary and staggered closure in order to restructure the sales. “Despite the different measures taken to meet customer requests, we recognize that we have not achieved the expected result and instead of decreasing, dissatisfaction has grown,” admits Cimex in a statement.
According to the commercial vice president of the state entity, Rosario Ferrer San Emeterio, the demand has overwhelmed a system unable to provide the service. In the future, stores will sell food and personal hygiene/cleaning modules for 10, 15, 20 and 30 CUC.
In November 2019, the TuEnvío virtual stores began to take off, going from 100 visits a day to between 6,000 and 8,000. According to official data provided this Tuesday by Héctor Oroza Busutil, president of Cimex, it went from processing 1,356 orders in February and 6,000 in March, to 73,386 in April. In the first fortnight of May, orders had already totaled 78,893. continue reading
The increased demand for food and hygiene products during the pandemic has collapsed the system. “Furthermore, the organization of the processes and the amount of trained personnel required is not in adequate for these conditions,” Oroza said on State TV’s Roundtable program.
Despite the recognition that the service was neither ready nor capable of withstanding the enormous increase in demand, Cimex only partially assumes responsibility and attributes the remaining blame to the United States embargo.
“Along with the country’s acute financial restrictions, which have significantly limited the supply of products in the network of stores, problems persist related to the performance of computer systems, inadequate completion and preparation of personnel, insufficient transportation for distribution, the problems in the areas to place orders, failures in the payment and return processes, among others,” the statement highlights.
When stores reopen, the number of modules to be put up for sale will be based on “processing and distribution” capacity, and when they run out, the service will shut down until the next day. These packs will be limited to one daily per customer and will be delivered in store or at home within a period of up to 10 days.
The official press has released a planned closure plan.
Amilkar Odelín Ante, commercial director of the Chain of Caribe Stores, also took stock of the situation in its stores. The manager explained that in the first quarter, in 5tay42 3,000 orders were placed, while in May the number rose to 24,000.
“These stores did not have the operational capacity to face this demand and at no time was the flow of order generation or the schedule to carry them out regulated. In addition, there is the underlying problem related to the availability of high-demand merchandise, which has led to delays when these items are ordered,” he recognized.
In Villa Diana the 1,100 daily orders were exceeded, an amount that could not be dealt with, according to Odelín Ante, causing great dissatisfaction among customers, which has forced the closure to be able to comply with the accumulated orders and solve the marketing problems.
In this case, the sale by modules and options will be based on availability and the minimum will be 250 CUP. Purchases are limited to one food and hygiene module per day in the combo mode, and home delivery is extended from 5 to 10 days. In the specific case of 5tay42, when it distributes the overdue orders, it will assume it can fill 500 daily orders.
Odelín Ante indicated that two telephone lines are planned for customer service for Villa Diana, in addition to an employee to deal with the complaint emails. “This weekend more than 3,000 orders were delivered and, with the calculated rhythm, Villa Diana will be able to restart their services on June 20,” he said.
The avalanche of protests has been so difficult to contain that not only has the service been stopped until the improvements have been resolved, but the official press dedicated extensive coverage on Wednesday to report various cases of customer discontent.
Among them is the story of Ana María, who after 23 days waiting for a package from Villa Diana, found that the products in the package did not match those on the invoice. Her attempts to contact Caribe stores through all channels were unsuccessful, but she was confident that her money would be returned. When it was not, she appeared at the offices, where she found a line of about 20 people waiting to make claims.
Customers lamented the “very poor attention” by the store staff, from the manager herself, and excepting “the decent, patient and pleasant doorman.” In addition, they denounce the alleged diversion of products — that is internal thefts all along the supply chain — as a cause of the lack of products in their boxes.
The report quotes a client who waited from eight in the morning until five-thirty in the afternoon on June 2 to claim her order and reported abuse by the business manager. During this time she saw packages of chicken arrive, which the website did not offer, and which were later “taken out of the warehouse by two workers.” She also claims that they replaced her detergent with cookies, when she herself could see, when a door opened, the warehouse full of detergent.
Neither of the two affected who went to make complaints in this case had their problems satisfactorily resolved. “Today I feel that my rights have been violated, not only as a customer, but also as a citizen, and I am very sorry that people like this manager behave as they do, and the work of Dr. [Francisco] Durán, the health care personnel and the State Council is tarnished,” say those affected, stressing the responsibility of employees — or minimizing that of the authorities.
The text quotes another customer, in this case of the store at 5th and 42nd, who went to the offices to demand a delivery that she had been waiting more than a month for. “The main problem, in addition to the delay, is the uncertainty of whether the products you bought will ever arrive,” she regrets, adding that as long as that purchase does not arrive, you have to figure out how to put other foods on the table, if you have the money to do so. Cubadebate tells the stories of several people in this situation.
Other stories speak of the problems with getting money returned, which is incomprehensible after the digitalization of the purchasing process announced by the managers of Cimex and Tiendas Caribe.
The text includes a multitude of substitutions in the products included in the combos. “How is it possible that the order is ready to deliver or pick up and in the end products are missing? Why, if the customers’ phones are in the account, do they not call beforehand to confirm what they are going to deliver? Why does an order placed after yours include an item that you ordered but did not receive?” protests a customer.
Technology is another of the trouble spots. Users spend hours on the web to get some of the most desired products, such as chicken, which forces them to shop at dawm. “I understand that demand is greater than supply. But this marathon only achieves that there are a lot of fractional purchases from the same home in order to guarantee necessary products before they run out,” says another Alamar client.
This way of supplying, also becomes a vicious circle, since users are waiting so long to see what is on offer, and they update the page so many times that the servers are overloaded “I wish you could put all the available products on the site and people could make their purchases,” says a computer scientist.
Other complaints related to this aspect is that the product is not removed from stock once it is selected by the customer, since sometimes it is not discovered until the purchase is closed that the selected item is no longer available because another user got it before you finished shopping.”
Logistics is another element that has not worked properly. “If each of these stores has different inventory, why not unify the one destined for virtual stores, in addition to checking that the integration of warehouse inventory and computer systems always works like a Swiss watch, reflecting the real amount of products,” questions the report, which adds that the poor quality of what is available generates many small orders resulting in a high delivery cost, with all that this implies (fuel, vehicles, human resources …).
Despite everything, the report continues to insist that electronic commerce has come “to stay” although it needs better management of resources.
“It is real that the products available to not meet the demand in the case of Cuba, and that part of the blame is borne by the economic problems of a country surrounded by the economic blockade of the United States (…). Added to that is the scarcity, or complete lack, of national production of many of those assortments that are marketed in the retail trade network,” says the newspaper. However, after all this commentary on the failed project, the text indicates that it is “worthwhile to recognize the political will to promote this commercial scheme.”
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Rosita Fornés shone brightly in a constellation of stars during a time when television was becoming part of Cuban family life.
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, June 10, 2020 — With just over two years to go before hitting the century mark, Rosita Fornés left the world of the living to enter the realm of legend.
My mother, who was born in 1917, always said, “Even when she was a child, she was a woman.” For people of my generation, who began adolescence by learning how to be anti-imperialists, we had already been conditioned to think of her as something akin to a Broadway star, alien to our cultural roots. For my son, who was born in 1995, everything she did just seemed really cool.
Against all odds, Rosalia Lourdes Elisa Palet Banavia was born in New York on February 11, 1923. She cultivated a legion of admirers who knew her simply as “Rosita.” Whether she was singing, acting or dancing, their devotion to her was the same. She did everything well but her professionalism was hardly a God-given talent. It was something that can only be achieved through hard work. continue reading
On television she performed in operettas, zarzuelas, comedies, musical shows, soap operas, short stories, and plays. She left an extensive body work on stage and film but it was among her fellow countrymen that she left her deepest mark.
She served as a model for thousands of girls who tried to make themselves more attractive by imitating the way she looked and smiled. Her critics noted a certain exaggeration in her bows to the audience at the end of a perfomance but, unlike other divas who came later, she never craved power.
Rosita Fornés shone brightly in a constellation of stars during a time when television was becoming part of Cuban family life. The names of those leading men with booming voices and the actresses who broke their hearts are remembered today only by the very old. Rosita defied time and enjoyed the longest artistic career to which one can aspire.
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He who becomes ill with serious symptoms is isolated from his family as soon as the symptoms manifest themselves. (EFE)
14ymedio, Juan E. Cambiaso, Buenos Aires , 6 June 2020 — To those who already have seven decades of experience and who have lived through other pandemics, it is surprising that today we suffer the exaggerated perception of the impact of the number of infected and dead on the total population of the affected countries. Just under six and a half million infected and three hundred and eighty thousand dead compared to a world population of approximately seven billion eight hundred million inhabitants. These are small numbers no matter how great the pain of those reached by the disease.
What happens, it occurs to me, is that is has put an end to the certainty that these medieval episodes were not possible because science and medical instruments protected us against everything. With the victory against cancer, which sounded possible and close, we were going to be potentially eternal. Molecular biology should help a little. We are Homo Deus defeated and, therefore, scared to death. All because one day a Chinese man ate a bat and turned the world upside down. continue reading
That uncertainty reminds us in a shrill voice that we are going to die. A truism that increasing longevity was blurring. Someone always has a grandmother over a hundred years old who is perfect, and from the exception we derived the rule. The novelty puts us all in the position of the heart attack victim who has died in his sleep.
The recreation of images that could well have been from painters from the 15th and 16th centuries, such as Memling and Brueghel, has effects that we thought were foreign to our times: the neighbors rudely expel a brave doctor from his home for fear of contagion. The return of lynchings in the face of a panic that we judged from distant centuries.
As with the black plague, clerics pray and ask for prayers for the pandemic to pass. The Church never had faith in science and prefers incense. A curative treatment or a vaccine would not leave room for the miracle.
There is a tremendous novelty. He who becomes ill with serious symptoms is isolated from his family as soon as they manifest themselves. Sick, he suffers, if it touches him, he dies in solitude and is cremated without his loved ones being able to see him. He leaves his home at risk of evaporating. The subconscious is not indifferent to it.
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As the shortages affect the network of state stores, many products are submerges in the informal market. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, 8 June 2020 — “It was sugar water,” says a young man from Havana as he shows a container of bath gel he bought on the black market. “I contacted the seller by Telegram, we met at a corner and he showed me the merchandise of various types, with extract of melon, avocado and roses, but later the one I took was a fake.”
As the shortage runs through the state-owned store network, many products plunge into the informal market, where they are not rationed but can cost more and the customer is at risk of being scammed. These commercial operations, which are carried out illegally, are propitious terrain to deceive and cheat consumers.
It would turn around, a novelty: Since the arrival of Covid-19 on the island, the authorities have tightened controls against informal trade, which for decades has been a vital ally for the subsistence of many families. Every night the Cuban Television Primetime Newscast highlights exemplary court rulings to dissuade anyone and broadcasts images of surprise raids captured by hidden cameras that show sellers and buyers in some clandestine operation. continue reading
Sellers have found in instant messaging services a refuge from which they can establish initial contact, from WhatsApp and Telegram to the armored Signal, for the most cautious. But for customers, this pathway limits their ability to see, test, and evaluate merchandise, increasing the risk.
“Pork leg at 55 pesos a pound,” Randy read in a classified ad that referred to a Telegram account. Once in contact with the seller through that app, they agreed that the delivery of the product would be made on Saturday morning. “I don’t go into houses or climb stairs,” the merchant told him, and at the right time he would show up with two other men in an old Chevrolet car.
“The whole operation was done from inside the car and with a weight that he brought, but when I got home I realized that between the two legs I bought I had been cheated by like ten pounds,” says Randy. In other words, I lost more than 500 pesos and it did not even occur to me to take a picture of the license plate, not to mention that if I denounce him I might be the one who ends up in jail.”
According to the Penal Code, the crime of “reception” is committed by a person who buys property that “evidently or rationally suggests that it comes from a crime.” The contemplated sanction is “deprivation of liberty for three months to one year or a fine of one hundred to three hundred ’shares’* or both.” In times of crisis, authorities are much less tolerant of the black market, and the penalties for buying on the black market are multiplied by increased vigilance.
“I was on my motorcycle and a police patrol stopped me,” a young resident in the Havana municipality of Diez de Octubre tells this newspaper, preferring anonymity. “In the backpack I had a quarter of a bag of corn feed for the chickens that my mother raises in the yard. As I had bought it from a guajiro and had no papers, they took it from me and fined me.”
“I spent the whole night in a dungeon for a few pounds of animal food,” he explains. “Now I have to look for the product again, although I will have to hide it better to take it home.” His idea is to wait for a friend who has a vehicle with an official plate and who is moving personnel for the battle against the Covid-19 to transfer the feed in the trunk.
“But I have to have eyes in the back of my head because it’s not just the police, I already lost money a few weeks ago on feed that was sold to me and it was mixed with sand,” he explains. “People with a knife between their teeth cheating to get a few pesos from anywhere. When I got home and saw that, I wanted to go back and complain, but I didn’t even know what the seller was called.”
In the 1990s, the economic crisis of the Special Period not only sparked creativity to invent culinary recipes, but it was the scene of some scams that became true urban legends. Replace the tomato sauce fwithr a beet-based one, soak old blankets used to clean the floor for days in order to pass them off as breaded pork steak, and even the legendary cheese on a pizza that was actually a melted condom.
How many of those scams were real and which are the result of the imagination it is difficult to know, but the current circumstances that the Island is going through seem to be awakening some ghosts. Many adulterations are even carried out using state industry’s own infrastructure.
Among the most counterfeited products in the last half century in Cuba have been rum, cigars and tobaccos, beers — for which there are small, totally clandestine mini-industries — cleaning products such as detergent, tomato sauces and cold meats from private sellers. Among the latter, fillings with plantain or sweet potato are very frequent.
In December 2017, the authorities dismantled a network of adulterated medicines for child consumption. The counterfeit product was marketed in the island’s pharmacies under the brand name Ritalin to treat ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Several BioCubaFarma employees replaced the active substance, methylphenidate, with a placebo substance that is used to clean the machines after each production has been completed.
“They sent me to take antibiotics for several days so that I could get a tooth removed and I could only find the pills with a vendor that a friend recommended,” says Viviana, a Havana woman who got tired of asking the pharmacies for the arrival of the drug. “I paid for it and left for the house as excited as it was, but after three days the swelling and pain wouldn’t go away.”
Viviana decided to disassemble the capsules of the supposed antibiotic and inside what she found was baking soda. “Almost 20 CUC spent on bicarbonate and now I am left without money and in pain,” she complains. But she continues to look for a “good contact that sells medicines because that risk is preferable to doing nothing and waiting for the infection to go away on its own.”
At their home in Santiago de las Vegas, the García family — a fictitious name for this report — prepares a aromatic to clean bathrooms. The extract of the product is taken out of the factory where he works by the father, and once home they prepare it by adding large amounts of water and packing it. “The trick is to apply a little of the pure product to the mouth of the bottle before closing the lid, so when the client opens it to smell it, it feels pure.”
Beyond the initial scent, when the buyer starts using the scent, he will realize that it is “more water than anything else” and that the scent it leaves in the bathrooms is very faint and does not last long. “But when he figures that out, we will not be around because we are careful not to give out any data, phone numbers or names.” The family sells on the street and each day chooses a different neighborhood.
“Yesterday we were on El Canal in Cerro and we already know that we won’t be back there for a long time,” says the García’s father. “It is not that we are cheating, it is that even with a low quality product we are selling cheaper than the State does and we deliver it to the door of the house.”
*Translator’s note: The Cuban penal code does not set specific fines, it sets a number of ’shares’. In this way the amounts of the fines can be raised throughout the penal code simply be redefining the value of one share.
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Photo: José Daniel Ferrer has been the most internationally prominent political prisoner for the past year. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 5 June 2020 — In a report on human rights in Cuba, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)* expressed disappointment that the new constitution, ratified in 2019, has preserved the one-party regime that has ruled the island for six decades.
The organization, which has not issued a report like this in thirty-seven years, acknowledged that the new constitution is an improvement over the previous 1976 constitution with regards to some rights but notes that but it failed to take the steps needed for people to exercise them. IACHR also believes that giving the constitution legal precedence over international treaties was a missed opportunity and is disappointed that it failed to abolish the death penalty.
The IACHR points out that Cuba remains the only country in the Americas where there are no guarantees on the exercise of free speech and noted its concern over the serious limitations on freedom of opinion, expression, and the dissemination of information and ideas. continue reading
In the recent three-year period covered in its analysis, the IACHR determined that the Cuban state continued to impose serious limitations on political rights, first and foremost by failing to hold free elections but also by refusing to establish separation of powers.
Some groups, particularly human rights acitivists, have been victimized by the system through harassment by the security forces, which on many occasions act with impunity and are protected by regulations of questionable legality. Furthermore, since the judiciary is not independent, defendants have no guarantees to a fair trial.
The IACHR provided the government with a series of recommendations to ensure that rights and freedoms of political opponents and human rights activists are respected. These include guarantees on free movement, which is routinely violated through regulations that prevent individuals from traveling. The commission expressly requested that Cuban authorities issue “public condemnations of all acts of aggression” and provide “training and education to public officials, especially to police and security forces.”
The report also touches on problems of other vulnerable groups, suggesting special attention be paid to Cubans of African descent, women, the LGBTI community, minors and people with disabilities. It calls for the developing specific legal protections, collecting of statistics on the specific adversities they face and allowing them to exercise the legal rights they have on paper.
With regards to rights and benefits, the commission argues specifically for the right to decent housing, adequate supplies of food and water, proper sanitation, comprehensive health care, and freedom of thought in education.
The report also addresses the U.S. embargo, which the commission opposes. It does not believe, however, that the Cuban leadership is justified in consistently using the embargo as an excuse for its actions. “The IACHR has reiterated that the embargo must end because of the impact of economic sanctions on the rights of the Cuban population, while emphasizing that the embargo does not exempt the State of Cuba from fulfilling its international obligations, nor excuse its violations of the American Declaration,” the report states.
Between 1960 and 1983 the IACHR published seven reports specifically on Cuba. Since 1985 it has consistently included Cuba in its annual report after determining that fundamental conditions and institutions inherent to representative democracy do not exist in the country.
The report was prepared in spite of “the Cuban state’s lack of consent to an observation visit by the organization and because of disturbing information received about the serious human rights situation in the country.” In essence, it had to carry out investigations ex officio and rely on information gathered from fifty-five interviews with Cubans living inside and outside the country, focusing on the period from 2017 to 2019.
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
At dawn on Friday, the lines in front of Western Union were longer than normal and marked by uncertainty. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 6 June 2020 — On Thursday afternoon, two of the Western Union offices in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución municipality had closed earlier than usual because they no longer had cash. At dawn on Friday, the lines in front of the premises were longer than normal and were marked by uncertainty.
After the new sanctions against the Island’s government announced this week by the United States, the level of concern among Cuban families has risen substantially due to the risk of cutting off the flow of remittances that allow them to eat or clothe themselves, among other expenses. Fincimex, the bank under the control of the Cuban military, has been blacklisted in Washington and this could affect money transfers through Western Union.
“My daughter, just in case, just sent me the remittance for this month and the one for July and August as well. If everything goes well for me, by September I might be traveling to Guyana to do the paperwork and be able to reunite with her, I am counting the days for that,” says a woman waiting in line at the Western Union office at Boyeros and Ayestarán. continue reading
There is no notice taped to the entrance but all customers ask the window clerk questions when it is their turn. With infinite patience and great kindness she invariably replies to them: “Don’t worry that until now we have not received any guidance to stop the service so we will continue to be open without problems.”
Caption: There is no notice taped to the entrance but all customers ask the window clerk questions when it is their turn.
“The Western Union has been here a lifetime, even in the middle of the Cold War there was the Eagle and Dragons office working, it was the only one, but hey, there it was. I don’t think they are going to close now, maybe there will be more limitations on the amounts that can be sent, but close, I doubt it,” says an older man in the middle of a small circle in the line.
If there aren’t, then it’s possible that the existing agreement between Western Union and Fincimex will be saved and everything will continue as before.
Most of the people in the line looked very pessimistic. “If they take this away from us, I don’t know what we are going to do. Thanks to my son’s help I can feed myself, if it weren’t for that I would be eating from the garbage, like many retirees nowadays,” laments a woman when she leaves the office with her money in hand. “The Western Union is on the brink,” she says.
“You see this money, now I will go and spend it on food, as that is what it’s for, not for anything else,” she said and and asked who was last in line at another line a few meters away at a small market.
The same scene was repeated in front of the Cuban Post Office on the corner of Infanta and San Lázaro, where there is another Western Union branch. This Friday there were dozens of people there, afraid that the arrival of remittances by that route could be cut in a few days.
The Cuba Post Office at the corner of Infanta and San Lázaro, where there is another Western Union branch. (14ymedio)
“This is the only thing that allows me to continue living in Cuba, because with my pension I could not even cover the expenses of one week,” explains Rebeca, a 75-year-old retiree who has considered “asking for family reunification” several times with her two children living in the United States.
“If this Trump measure is designed so that people are thrown into the streets, what I plan to do is launch myself into the reunification process with my children because without this assistance it doesn’t make any sense to stay here,” she says. In line, others reiterate the idea. “As soon as the airports open, I am leaving even if it is for Honduras,” a young man who has come to collect the money his sister sends to an aunt repeats several times.
There are also those who fish in the troubled river of sanctions. “Delievery of remittances in Cuba, the same day and with home delivery,” reads an announcement on a popular classifieds site for buying and selling. “We can deliver the money in convertible pesos or in American dollars,” adds the text which includes a Miami phone number to make the contact.
“It has been a long time since a large part of remittances arrive through routes other than the Western Union, so the only thing this new measure by the United States is going to do, if it is applied in its entirety, is to help those routes grow,” says a man who for more than a decade has dedicated himself to delivering dollars sent from the United States to families in Cuba.
“I have moved money that has ended up in medicines, house purchases, private businesses and even visas to leave the country,” says the commission agent. “There is no one who can stop it, neither Díaz-Canel nor Trump because here the people are used to these remittances and they are going to fight for them by any means possible.”
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The children have been out of class since the end of March and some parents are desperate. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 5 June 2020 — “When I saw the news from the minister on the Roundtable program on TV I said to myself: uffff, it will be a long vacation.” Alicia Díaz, a resident of the municipality of Playa and mother of an eight-year-old girl, felt slightly dizzy when she heard the head of Education, Ena Elsa Velázquez Cobiella, announce on national television that the classrooms will not open until September, at the beginning of a new school year.
“Taking into account the epidemiological conditions, the need to evolve to an increasingly favorable state and the priority that students have for us, it is advisable to restart teaching activities in educational institutions from the month of September,” Velázquez said in front of the cameras.
Diaz is, in spite everything, among the parents who have best endured the difficult task of becoming teachers during quarantine, because her daughter, she says, is very responsible. continue reading
“My daughter gets up on her own and turns on the TV at class time. If she has any questions, she asks me and, of course, I always answer within my means. Also, we are lucky that her teacher has created a WhatsApp group to respond to all the concerns that arise along our way among the mothers of the classroom,” she tells 14ymedio.
Since the end of last March, when the classrooms closed to slow down the progress of Covid-19, parents, guardians and grandparents have assumed the task of maintaining the continuity of studies in most of the subjects at all levels of education with the support of teleclasses.
For Olga, who lives in a shelter in the Havana municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, the experience has been very different from Alicia’s. “My son is in seventh grade, he was following on the first days because I forced him to wake up early, but it became hell to get him to keep his attention on the television and I got tired, copying the directions for the work he has to complete and between the two of us we made some progress. What worries me the most is the mathematics, I see he is lost there and in that subject I cannot help him.”
According to her account, her son’s math teacher has telephoned all the mothers — the fathers are rarely engaged in these matters — to see if they have any doubts about homework or subjects, but she, “unfortunately,” does not have a cell phone or a landline. “I wish I could communicate all the time with the teacher to clarify my doubts but no, I’m left with the doubt.”
Sitting a few meters away, on a patched and dirty wooden bench, a woman looks at Olga with a stern face and interrupts. “This has not been the same for everyone. I don’t know what you’re complaining about if your son is a saint and you just have one. I have to deal with my entire gang. I am about to shoot myself,” she says, pointing the two fingers of her right hand to her temple.
The woman gets up and unloads in a speech that leads three neighbors to look out the window. “You know tmine oare four: the little one, who is in third grade; the twins, who are in fifth grade; and the big one, who is in eighth grade. None of them have their heads in school right now and I am alone with them, I can’t multiply myself to watch all those Teleclases. At first I tried, but there are too many and my head can’t take it all in. Also, I don’t have time, because I also have to go out and fight for food. Right now, look at where everyone is,” she complains and points to the entrance to the shelter where the children gather around a speaking playing reggaetonat full volume.
The minister promised on TV on Tuesday that the teaching activities will continue for two more weeks through television channels, especially Educational and Tele Rebelde, and noted that the official website Cubaeduca and the application MiclaseTV host all the content that has been taught for free. But this is a Distant possibility for families with few resources.
“At the right time, students will also be able to enjoy a vacation period,” said Velázquez Cobiella, who added that the study plans for the 2020-2021 school year are already being modified.
A primary school teacher residing in Luyanó, who prefers to remain anonymous, says that she has the majority of her students “under control” via WhatsApp. “The Internet has been a great advantage in this situation. Every day there are Teleclases we talk in the group that I created about the directions that were given and the mothers can post their questions, some of which I have had to monitor by calling.
The latest coronavirus outbreaks detected in Havana keep the authorities on alert, with the numbers as of today including 2,119 cases and 83 deaths. Cuban PresidentMiguel Díaz-Canel noted that “although the country is already preparing the entire strategy for the recovery stage of Covid-19, it cannot be applied until we are very sure that there is exact control of the epidemic.” A long summer awaits the families, who already started it in March.
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Citizen defenselessness widens and expands in direct relation to the deepening of the general crisis of the system. (14ymedio / File)
14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 3 June 2020 – Very early in the morning, Yasmani gulped down his usual sip of coffee before going out into the street with his cart to sell fruits and other agricultural products in the municipality of Centro Habana. He did not imagine that this would be his last working day in the time of Covid-19, which continues to hit the Cuban capital.
Yasmani was one of the few cart vendors licensed by Cuba’s National Tax Administration Office (Onat) who, for over a decade, had managed to survive harassment, confiscations during police operations, temporary arrests, extortion by inspectors and whatever abuse the authorities have committed against this reviled niche of the private sector, euphemistically baptized as “self-employed.”
Yasmani is the typical merchant known among Cubans as a ‘fighter’. He is persevering, intelligent and a hard-working man, someone who occasionally “gets his foot on the door” and is always “up and about,” able to bounce back from calamity time and time again, and in a short time sneak back into the complicated trade network of the Cuban capital, always in a fragile balance between what is allowed, what is accepted, what is illegal and what is prohibited. continue reading
This pragmatic entrepreneur came to possess two rolling devices for selling his merchandise, which were quickly confiscated by the police and because of which he was on the verge of losing his license and going to trial.
Years back, there were better times for this empirical entrepreneur, who came to possess two rolling devices for the sale of his merchandise. The carts were soon confiscated by the police and he almost lost his license and went to court, accused of “illicit enrichment”. He came out of that and other shocks thanks to the usual procedure: placing generous and timely bribes in the appropriate pockets.
Yasmani has always managed to make his cart one of those with the best assortment in his neighborhood, and also the one selling the best quality products of its kind, thanks to his longstanding contacts with private suppliers and his astuteness to duly justify each and every one items of merchandise.
This has been the way in which this young family man has earned a living, between mishaps with the authorities and brief periods of relative peace, and has pursued his and his family’s livelihoods. Until that fateful morning, while he was waiting on a customer and he saw a vehicle from the Revolutionary Armed Forces Prevention Corps – popularly known as “red berets” – slowly approaching, straight for him.
“At first, I thought they were going to ask me for directions or something like that, but I immediately noticed a bad attitude and knew that they were coming against my business. I have already had so many problems with inspectors, corrupt police and almost as many insolent officials as there are in this country that I was not surprised that these people also came to take a slice off me. But what I did not imagine is that they were going to treat me with so much bullying,” shares Yasmani.
I have already had so many problems with inspectors, corrupt police and almost as many insolent officials as there are in this country that I was not surprised that these people also came to take a slice off me
Two young men “with awful dog faces” got out of the vehicle and, without a greeting or explanation, told him that he had to collect everything and leave. “Selling is forbidden, and you know that; don’t be a smart ass.”
The small merchant’s complaining or his insistence on trying to find out what the correct answer to such arbitrary response was, remained unanswered. Why had the Onat not informed him of the business closing, or whether it was a temporary provision related to some strategy around Covid-19 and its significant incidence in Central Havana. In particular, Yasmani wanted to know why it was the Army Prevention Forces and not the common police who were targeting a civilian like him, since the country was not at war and without a curfew or any another extraordinary measure having been declared by the highest authority.
Far from receiving any explanation, his questions only succeeded in further irritating the military men. The one who seemed the least young of them confronted him, with an attitude between menacing and mocking, as he cast fierce glances at the customers and neighbors who had gathered at the location. “Ah, are you going go crazy and act like a fighting cock? Are you a ‘leader’ in this neighborhood? Don’t you don’t know that there is an emergency in the country and the Army is in charge of everything? Where do you live? Let’s see?”
Yasmani pointed him towards the nearby building where he has resided since he was born. “I live there, where that balcony is, with the hanging diapers, which belong to my son whom I have to feed. And no, I have not heard of any emergency. They haven’t even mentioned that in the news.”
The military man did not flinch. “Well, it is better that you live nearby, so it won’t be too much trouble for you to take away all of this. And when it happens again, if you haven’t, we are going to take you and then it won’t be to your house.” After that final bravado, the repressors left arrogantly, visibly proud of the awe they had awakened among the witnesses of that infamous scene. Some supportive neighbors helped the incensed merchant carry his tiny rolling agricultural-market home and assisted him in storing his produce.
“Well, it is better that you live nearby, so it will not be too hard for you to take away all of this. And the next time it happens, if you haven’t left, we will take you and then it will not to your house”
Since then, Yasmani and the rest of the few cart drivers who barely kept selling their products through thick and thin have disappeared from the intricate landscape of Central Havana without an Onat official having come forward to explain or to tell them if, at any unknown date they will be able to return to their activities of earning a living and punctually paying their taxes to the treasury.
“It is of no use that we pay taxes and social security or that no union has been invented for this sector. Self-employed workers do not have labor rights and we do not receive cash aid as is guaranteed to the state sector, possibly with the same funds that we contribute to the treasury”, complains Yasmani. And he adds: “What they are doing with this is forcing me to return to the black market, to contraband, to illegality, because my family is not going to starve.” So I ask him what he plans to do and his answer is blunt: “Whatever it takes.”
Thus, from one official ineptness to another, social unrest continues to grow. And now, as if the police deployment that has enthroned itself in public spaces of the Cuban capital in recent months were not enough, the Army’s repressive bodies now come to directly join the repression against civilians without the existence of an extraordinary official statement to justify such an excess of its functions and powers. Citizen defenselessness widens and expands in direct relation to the deepening of the general crisis of the system.
Betsy Díaz Velázquez said that “the established retail networks, both state-owned and self-employed, would be taken advantage of, including the points of sale of the so-called cart vendors”
Not only are we facing the serious combination of an irreparable economic crisis, aggravated by an epidemic which has not officially been recognized, but the country is also heading, decapitated and without compass, precariously commanded by a group of improvised cabin boys who at any cost try to hold onto the cover of the vessel on the brink of being shipwrecked.
The country’s top leadership has again demonstrated its inability to meet its own minimum guidelines. Suffice it to recall that on March 20th, in a special appearance on The Roundtable TV program, the Minister of Internal Trade, Betsy Díaz Velázquez, declared that – with a view to expanding the sale of agricultural products and avoiding the concentration of people at fairs and agricultural markets – “would take advantage of established retail networks, both state and self-employed, including the points of sale of the so-called cart vendors.” This would not only optimize food distribution, but would bring them closer to the population.
Behold, just over two months after such resolves were announced, food is increasingly moving away from the tables, and uncertainty and hunger are looming over Cuban households. Things are very bad if the government’s response to the crisis is the multiplication of the repressive forces and the army on the streets. In these times of frustration and hopelessness the lords of power could not send us a worse message.
Translated by Norma Whiting
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Asked to imagine the future, young people turn the question around, saying it’s enough to see it how it is now. (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 4 June 2020 — The most notorious failures of that process called the Cuban Revolution are two: failing to satisfy the material needs of the population and failing to form the “New Man.” At least that is the result of the testimonies collected in The Cuban Theory of the Perfect Society, the documentary film by Ricardo Figueredo Oliva, who wrote the script and was in charge of production and direction.
In a sequence of testimonies, we see, in turn, illegal slaughterers, censored artists, entrepreneurs limited by bureaucratic restrictions, men and women who engage in prohibited gambling, victims of ideological repression of several generations, drug users, adolescents and young people who only think about emigrating.
The absence of a voiceover gives greater prominence to the voices of those interviewed, where coherent pronouncements are mixed with nonsense. Cultural animator Michel Matos, language teacher Reynaldo Mayarí, rappers David Escalona and Raudel Collazo, actor Roberto Gacio, filmmakers Juan Pin Vilar and Eduardo del Llano are responsible for the conceptual discourse while “unknown people of all times” pepper the theory with their anecdotes and events. continue reading
If the film were to be judged, at little more than an hour long and taking its title literally, it would have to be said that it would have been healthy to include the opinions of some representatives of official thought and, as a counterpart, at least one pair of political opponents. But that would be another movie.
No matter the generation, above all is the idea of frustration with reality. (Screen capture)
With just under ten minutes to go before the documentary ends, one of the teenagers interviewed in a park is asked to answer the question of how he imagines the future, but he fights back with a question to his interviewers: “You’re not from here, and aren’t you seeing what it’s like?”
The question transcends the film crew and confronts the viewer himself who is shaken by the resounding evidence. It doesn’t matter if one side of the screen belongs to one generation or another, people more or less believed in official promises and took more or less time to reach disappointment, the reality is resounding and is constantly overshadowed by frustration.
This Cuban theory of the perfect society will probably never fit in the canons of the academy; surely it is classified as enemy propaganda from the official sectors, and as ‘light’ or folkloric from the environments where the overthrow of the dictatorship is the only demand. But it will remain as a testimony of these times, as evidence of the failure.
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In Santa Clara, lines are now longer than usual, partly because of those who buy to resell in the informal market. (Laura Rodríguez)
14ymedio, Laura Rodríguez Fuentes, Santa Clara, 31 May 2020 — José Daniel is not called that, but he liked that pseudonym to create a fictitious profile on Facebook and on the messaging platforms that he uses to sell home products whose marketing has been banned by the Government since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
At about thirty years of age, José Daniel travels on a rustic bicycle that has a plastic box on the back, where he keeps the merchandise that has been previously ordered via the App Messenger. Very cautiously, he covers them with a cloth and places a black jacket on top of that, which might mislead the police if they arrest him. Being careful, he makes only one delivery a day.
In early April, the Government ordered that the sale of food and hygiene products would happen onl in state stores and in the hard currency businesses controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces. continue reading
Purchase caps were established: two units of each merchandise per person. The distribution of some food and hygiene items was suspended and physical markets closed, where previously it was traditionally tolerated to allow individuals to sell the products they brought back from trips abroad.
The government said the measures are intended to prevent the hoarding of basic necessities due to the emergency stemming from the Covid-19, but critics say the measure is intended to let hard currency to enter Cuba’s decimated economy.
In the center of Santa Clara, the Cimex network store called Praga, has been out of stock since the start of the pandemic. (Laura Rodríguez)
The result of these measures in Santa Clara was a growth of fifty percent or more in the informal market, according to calculations that take into account the number of merchants and products.
Now, the informal market uses the social network Facebook to offer goods, and messaging platforms such as Telegram or WhatsApp to finalize sales of products that the government regulates: chicken, pork, toothpaste, clothing, light bulbs and others.
José Daniel, like other merchants in this digital black market, asks that his identity not be revealed because he risks a prison sentence of between three months and one year, as established by the Penal Code. He says that less than a month ago a friend of his was taken to one of the Santa Clara police units for carrying a bag with several pounds of ham.
Since the government announced the regulation of the market, the official media have shown the arrests of alleged hoarders on TV. But these public Facebook pages have not been touched, perhaps so as not to give a further twist to the shortages that the country is experiencing and that affects ordinary Cubans.
José Daniel also says that he studied pedagogy, and that under his same pseudonym hundreds of merchants operate. Others use names like Verónica but they are men, or they choose the identities of famous people in Cuba like Becky G, a reggaeton singer.
“The profile is common (several use it) and the requests are reviewed (taken) by whoever has mobile data at the time,” he said. “Every day, we receive about ten or twelve orders, at all hours, according to the offers we publish.”
The products marketed by him and “his people,” as he calls those who are part of his network of colleagues — i.e. illegal resellers — are obtained in the same way as ordinary people do: by waiting in long lines at the stores of the Cimex chains and TRD Caribe.
“We always go with more than five or six together, or sometimes we talk to our family members so that they can help us purchase more, but we don’t take them in large quantities either,” says José Daniel, who does not consider himself a hoarder and does not like the government’s use of this term.
For him, a hoarder is one who takes advantage of scarcity or keeps staples for the wholesale market. He says he buys goods that sell quickly in this clandestine market, including the most demanded and rationed such as oil or chicken.
Unlike the state ’online’ stores, which have generated criticism, the black market sells and offers home delivery. (Laura Rodríguez)
When the pandemic broke out, Cimex and the Caribe expanded the e-commerce services of the online sales platform www.tuenvio.cu with the idea that people would stay home and not be exposed to Covid-19 while lining up to buy basic products.
However, very few were able to access the platform the day it launched with new services because it collapsed. Those who managed to register and make purchases got the wrong products or did not get them at all.
Authorities closed the platform until pending purchases were addressed. On the other hand, the Santa Clara black market never had this problem.
For almost a year, when two groups were created on Facebook, Telegram and WhatsApp called La Candonga de Santa Clara and Revolico Ventas Santa Clara, everything has worked smoothly. In them you can find everything that is scarce in state stores but at exorbitant prices.
Although an important part of what is for sale on these platforms has been purchased in state stores, and therefore reselling it is illegal, its existence is not a secret to anyone. Both groups are public on Facebook.
In order not to have problems with the authorities, the administrators of these portals do not accept publications from users related to the island’s politics or situation that go “against morals.” Those who defy such prohibitions are immediately eliminated.
In Santa Clara, where about 220,000 inhabitants live, the site La Candonga has more than 34,000 members while Revolico has 45,000, each representing a family, which means that the majority of the population of that city uses one or both these two platforms.
Sellers include photos of the products they trade. Sometimes they indicate the price or ask for offers by Messenger, WhatsApp or Telegram.
Like Facebook, Messenger is the messaging platform most used by Cubans and is ideal for informal market transactions because it does not require giving a phone number that the authorities can later track.
Most merchants, in their false profiles, charge a supplement for home delivery.
Since the government decreed restrictions on the sale of products, traffic on the sites La Candonga and Revolico has exploded.
According to official information from Facebook, in the last eight weeks about 14,000 new members have joined the La Candonga group. On the page approximately 935 daily ads are posted by different users who buy or sell merchandise.
The Revolico site was joined by some 32,000 new members in the last 28 days, according to the same source, and has 548 ads.
These groups have become the only way to get items that are basic or hard-to-find at hard currency stores, such as toothpaste, in addition to chicken or ground meat in amounts higher than officially allowed.
The site La Candonga offers everything from light bulbs, stoves, paint, clothing and shoes, to cheese, ham, eggs and sex toys, the importation of which is prohibited.
Many, however, protest the high prices of the items, which sell for up to four times more than the original value. A tube of toothpaste, which normally costs 1.10 CUC, reaches more than 6 CUC. A bottle of oil, whose original price is 2 CUC, can end up costing 4 or 5 CUC.
“The resale of so many products from the stores on these pages is an abuse,” says a user of the La Candonga page. “Total lack of respect. If what is resold had remained in stores, someone would have bought it at a normal price. If the government does not comply, we should help each other and not massacre each other.”
Others defend the page because they prefer to pay for products at any price in order to avoid the lines and avoid contagion.
“I would rather have it brought to me than have to stumble from store to store,” says Ariannys Lemus, a mother and housewife from Santa Clara. “Hopefully this is not shut down because then we are going to embark. I prefer to pay anything for a pound of cheese that is nowhere to be found.”
The success of the virtual site La Candonga in Santa Clara is due, in part, to the closing down of the commercial area that bears the same name and was closed in April by the authorities to control the epidemic, since it is located in the city’s hospital area.
Hundreds of self-employed people gathered in La Candonga — a word brought to Cuba by the Angolan war soldiers in the 1970s and 1980s to designate a trade area — and were dedicated to selling products imported from Panama or Guyana by individuals such as the doctors returning from missions in other countries. Although this activity was not exactly illegal, it was not totally legal either. It was tolerated.
It is those same “candongueros” who created the virtual platforms.
Those same “candongueros” switched to virtual platforms and thus joined a totally illegal market, in which the operate as resellers of products taken from state hard currency stores.
Overnight, Facebook groups became their only means of selling the products they had invested thousands of dollars in, between trips abroad and wholesale purchases.
Yanet González traveled to Mexico twice earlier this year. From there she was able to bring more than 50 kilos of merchandise. “When they closed the area, I had to start selling what I had bought through the networks because I had to get the money back,” says the thirty-year-old. “I have managed to sell some, but I am a little afraid to postother items that I’ve been told may not be sold, such as personal hygiene products, for example.”
As in other times of crisis or scarcity, the Government has made efforts to transmit an image of toughness against hoarding and the black market.
In recent weeks, it has organized raids and confiscated several warehouses of illegal products, discovered by complaints from neighbors or anonymous calls.
In addition, the television newscast has issued reports, almost daily, of seizures made in various provinces. They have exposed the faces of the accused to the cameras, whom they label as “embezzlers” or “hoarders” in the midst of a pandemic.
In the province of Villa Clara, for example, on May 13 the police raided the illegal warehouse of a citizen who had in his possession more than 400 boxes of juice, 120 liters of oil, more than 1,000 packages of jams and 538 bottles of rum.
Many of the black market products seized in recent weeks were pulled out of currency stores through hoarder networks. (Laura Rodríguez)
The products came from the state’s own establishments and hard currency stores. In other raids, the official media have reported the arrest of several carriers who allegedly diverted oxygen cylinders or stored large bales of onions in the province of Mayabeque.
However, these operations have only touched the tip of the iceberg of a purchase and sale system whose operation enjoys good health.
So far, two fundamental links in this business have not been affected. The social network sites where the articles are usually advertised have not been the target of the authorities. Nor are the administrators or clerks of the hard currency stores, who frequently collaborate with the so-called hoarders in exchange for bribes.
José Daniel and his work colleagues suspect that the Government, despite its rhetoric, has decided to “turn a blind eye” to virtual reselling. “They don’t want to tighten the rope too much so that people don’t suffocate.”Just in case, he takes his precautions. “I take care of myself, I do not want to appear on the newscast.”
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14ymedio, Havana, 4 June 2020 — The flight announced organized by Russia, by which Cubans stranded in the country could return to the Island, arrived in Havana last night, but only 23 of the 83 passengers who got off at José Martí International Airport were trapped tourists. The bulk of the group was made up of 43 Cuban students with scholarships in Russia and another 17 were civil servants. At least 60 people remain in Moscow without finding and solutions to return home.
