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The head of European Union diplomacy arrived on Wednesday in Havana on her first trip since the signing of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement between the EU block and the island, which went into effect on November 1.

“I want to express to Mogherini that I am here, kidnapped, on the orders of Raúl Castro,” says the activist, who is being held at the Comandante Doctor Eduardo Bernabé Ordaz Ducungede Psychiatric Hospital, popularly known as Mazorra.

“I am grateful that she has come to our country and I thank the European Union for her interest in approaching Cuba, but always ensuring that human rights are respected,” he added.

“I am also requesting that she assess my case so that justice is done, because my social and political rights are being violated,” said Llorente, who has not yet received a medical evaluation of his case despite the repeated complaints he has made.

After several denunciations of his treatment in the independent media, the “man of the flag” is appealing to Mogherini to take “some measure” that allows “this situation to end, because the kidnapping has gone on for eight months.”

Llorente regrets that the Cuban government wants to make the world believe that he is a psychiatric patient. “No doctor has diagnosed me with a single mental disorder and no court has ruled against me.”

After eight months deprived of liberty, Daniel Llorente Miranda has come to the conclusion that the threads of his case are being handled from the highest levels of the Government.

“I accuse Raúl Castro Ruz of my kidnapping and of an abuse of power over me; if I was hospitalized I would be receiving medical treatment and that is not the case.” He adds that if he were imprisoned for a crime, then “he would have a [formal] case,” but no formal charges have been made against him nor has he been presented with a file number.

Known as the “man of the flag” Daniel Llorente has stood out for the activism he displayed, alone, after the diplomatic thaw between Cuba and the United States. His image traveled through social networks and made the covers of many international newspapers when he hoisted the flag of the neighboring country during the beginning of the last year’s May Day parade in the Plaza of the revolution. The digital newspaper The Washington Free Beacon chose him as 2017’s Man of the Year, calling him “Cuban Flag Guy.”

During the public intervention that ended with his confinement and that took place a few yards from a platform with high representatives of the Government, including Raúl Castro, and in front of the domestic and foreign press accredited on the island, the activist shouted for freedom for Cuba. As a piece of performance art, it broke the uniformity of a rehearsed choreography but lasted only a few seconds because his trajectory was interrupted by seven security agents who rushed at him and took him down him by force.

Since then he has not touched another flag of the United States other than the one he has tattooed on one of his hands, and his oppressors have managed to keep him away from the activism he performed on the streets.

Considered an opponent “on his own account,” he is characterized by his appearances at public events with the Stars and Stripes to demand a closer relationship with the neighboring country and democracy for Cuba.

The first time he publicly waved the US flag was during the reopening in Havana of the embassy of that country in 2015. The following year he did it again in the context of the visit to Cuba of US president, Barack Obama. Later he was detained for several hours after waving his flag to welcome the first cruise ship in half a century to arrive in Cuba from the United States.

Since his last arrest, which occurred on the same day as the incident in the Plaza of the Revolution, Llorente has not been allowed out in the streets for a single day. He spent the first weeks of his imprisonment in the 100 and Aldabó Prison, but at the end of May he was transferred to the Mazorra Psychiatric Hospital.

From there he went on a hunger strike, sent several letters and gave interviews to various independent media to denounce a confinement that he described as “unfair” since his case has been subject to no mediation by a court, nor is there any court decision that justifies the “post-criminal security measure” that they are applying to him.

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Among the goods seized in the searches were 1,697 bags of cement, 175 steel bars, 120 cement blocks, 11 LED lamps, 11 bulbs and a yard of gravel, which the resellers offer for double or triple their initial values.

The police have detained other citizens of the province for the same reasons, and they will be placed “at the disposal of the courts.”

The housing deficit is one of the most sensitive social and economic problems on the island, where more than three generations often coexist in the same household.

According to official data, at the end of 2016, Cuba registered a deficit of over 880,000 homes throughout the country, which currently has a total of 3.8 million homes. Furthermore, the housing stock is generally deteriorated and plagued with critical problems in large cities such as Havana and Santiago de Cuba.

In addition to the aging of the houses and the shortages at the points of sale for construction materials, the damages caused by the hurricanes that frequently hit the country add to the problems.

In the parliament’s last plenary session of the year, held last week, it was reported that on the island there are still more than 239,800 damaged dwelling units due to hurricanes such as the recent Irma, which left millions in losses after its passage last September.

President Raul Castro has insisted on a search for “agile” solutions to this deficit, which the Government tries to alleviate with a program of local production of materials to build homes, an approach almost paralyzed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, but which in recent years has begun to show a slow rebound.

Since 2012, a policy of subsidies for the repair and building of homes has been in effect in Cuba, which has benefited 345,090 people with 115,030 grants.

In this way, 62,485 homes have been completed, and another 52,545 are in progress.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Cuba and the European Union normalized relations on November 1, with the implementation of the first cooperation agreement between the two coinciding with renewed tensions between Washington and Havana.

The accord contemplates the possibility of suspending the agreement in the event of violations of human rights commitments and, in addition, lays the foundations for commercial relations between both parties.

Amor and González are concerned that the EU has been “dragged” to “abdicate from exercising an active influence in favor of democratization and human rights” on the island.

The text delves into what it defines as “the climate of violations of human rights in Cuba,” with “injustices and arbitrariness that would not be tolerated by the EU in any of its member states.”

“Do you know that more than 4,800 arbitrary detentions were committed in Cuba in 2017 and that there are roughly 114 political prisoners in their prisons, including prisoners of conscience like Dr. Eduardo Cardet?” the OCDH asks Mogherini.

In the face of the successive reports on violations of rights that the Observatory has sent, the office of the high representative has “come up with answers.” Meanwhile, in its annual report on Human Rights in the World (2016) it called the island “a one-party democracy.”

“A declaration that ignores political values and coexistence established in the West,” the authors of the text point out, asking if “the EU is redefining what democracy is in such a relativistic way?”

The repression against the independent candidates who tried to present themselves during the recent People’s Power electoral process is also described in the letter. “Is this what we must now understand as democratic for the European Union?” it says.

“The best and greatest good will, when it becomes voluntary and biased, can lead to huge errors,” warn Amor and González, who declare themselves “in favor of political dialogue. But not dialogue without demands, as has been established from Europe.”

The signatories of the letter conclude by saying that they do not understand “that the EU, to be present in geopolitics, has to stop being Europe; or at least abandon the values that have made it an example for the World.”

The agreement between the EU and Cuba still has to go through a long and complex process with regards to the application of all its clauses. So far, only Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary and Slovakia have ratified the pact.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

The economic reforms promoted by Raúl Castro also suffered setbacks

In civil society, the most relevant initiatives revolved around the municipal elections held on November 26, with efforts to nominate independent candidates as possible delegates to the People’s Power. However, an intense repression, coupled with a permanent campaign of defamation against the activists, led to not a single one being nominated.

With the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House and the new direction taken by his administration with regards to relations with the island, a process of “cooling” of the diplomatic thaw initiated by Barack Obama began. The climax of that estrangement was reached after the scandal of the alleged acoustic attacks against US officials working on the island.

The resulting departure of most of the staff of the US Embassy in Havana and the cancellation of consular work at the site, such as the issuance of visas, accelerated the backward steps in the relationship between the two countries. Now, Cubans who want to visit our neighbor to the north must apply for a US visa from a third country, which complicates the process and makes it more expensive. The elimination, last January, of the policy of wet foot/dry foot policy that granted migratory privileges to the citizens of the Island has also been a severe blow for those who planned to emigrate.

The passage of Hurricane Irma across the northern part of the country and the significant damage left by its winds were part of the bad news that rounded out 2017. According to official figures, the storm left 10 dead and 13.185 billion dollars in damages to industry, housing, agriculture and other infrastructure.

The passage of Hurricane Irma across the northern part of the country and the significant damage it left were part of the bad news that rounded out 2017

Foreign investment did not grow as the ruling party expected. The Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz, said last October that “Cuba has managed to attract foreign capital exceeding 2 billion dollars in 2017,” but acknowledged the “delays in the preparation of studies, the delays in the completion of procedures and the lack of preparation of the national entities.”

In the creative sector, artists experienced a reinforcement of censorship that led to the removal of works for their critical content, penalties against cultural officials for allowing references to the independent press in official catalogs, and the arrests of independent artists to prevent them from presenting their works.

The degree of political propaganda in the national media also increased, especially in the days close to the first anniversary of the death of former President Fidel Castro. Oblivious to this expansion of ideology in the press managed by the Communist Party, alternative cultural consumption grew. Phenomena such as the Weekly Packet and illegal wireless networks were consolidated during this year.

The reputation of Raúl Castro continued to wane in national public opinion because of the breach of important promises such as monetary unification, the promulgation of a new Electoral Law and the increase of food production. His absence in the areas affected by Hurricane Irma also contributed to this loss of popularity, in a country where surveys are not conducted to measure support for a government.

The Venezuelan crisis was one of the most important factors affecting the last twelve months in Cuba due to the cuts in the oil subsidies

The Venezuelan crisis was one of the most important factors affecting the last twelve months in Cuba due to cuts in the island’s oil subsidies received from Nicolás Maduro’s government, which had a significant impact on the national reality. The greater rapprochement of Russia, in the field of business and energy investments, managed to alleviate some of the vacuum left by the cuts in imports from Venezuela.

In Latin America, the departure from power of an ally such as Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and the subsequent distance his predecessor Lenin Moreno has shown toward the island, together with the electoral defeat of the left in Chile, have continued to deepen the turn to the right of the region’s executives. The loss of the Plaza of the Revolution’s strategic allies, such as those in Brazil and Argentina, has made itself felt on the international stage.

Not even the first tests of Nauta Hogar, a web browsing service for Cuban homes, or the forecast of ending the year with 4.7 million foreign visitors, or the reduction of infant mortality to a new national record and the announcement of new migratory flexibilizations to start in January of 2018, have managed to dispel the shadows left by 2017.

In this complex panorama, 2018 begins for Cuba with several urgent needs to be resolved in the economic sphere and many uncertainties surrounding the transfer of power that will take place next April. Few dare to predict the course that the country will follow in the coming months, but almost everyone – both government officials and critics – agree that the year that just ended had been a “bitter” one for Cubans.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.