Twitter is No Longer the CIA’s, it is “Our Bay of Pigs of the 21st Century”

The book was presented on Tuesday at the Capitolio in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 15 November 2017 — Twitter is “our Bay of Pigs of the 21st Century” according to the journalist Enrique Moreno Gimeranez, who presented his book Manual for the Exercise of Digital Journalism on Twitter on Tuesday at Havana’s Capitolio.

In the volume, the author criticizes “the malpractice of Cuban journalism on Twitter” which “has inefficiently used this resource on several occasions through slogans difficult to understand, retain and reproduce by foreign recipients.” continue reading

The text, the thesis of the author’s degree, was presented in the Sala Baraguá of the National Assembly of Popular Power by Franco-Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, Tubal Páez, honorary president of the Union of Journalists of Cuba (UPEC) and Rosa Miriam Elizalde, director of the official website Cubadebate.

Moreno studied journalism Marta Abreu Central University in Villa Clara and after graduating he started at the CMHW station La Reina Radial in Villa Clara, where he is currently working.

In Moreno Gimeranez’s thesis, available on the internet and now published by the Pablo de la Torriente Brau press, the use of Twitter by Cuban journalists is addressed, but without mentioning the independent press which has a strong presence on that social network.

All users, labels and moments mentioned in Manual For The Exercise Of Digital Journalism On Twitter, which has a print run of 2,000 copies, are exclusively linked to official media.

The idea of ​​investigating the use of this social network on the Island came to Moreno Gimeranez when he was a third year journalism student and participated in the coverage of the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) held in Havana in January of 2014.

The author collected interviews with nine experts from Spain, Argentina, the United States, Colombia, Peru and Cuba, among other countries.

During the presentation, journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde pointed out that the book “is an example of the alliances that can be created to make communication practical.” While Ramonet urged “spreading to the new generations” the use of Twitter “not only technically, but in the more general area of ​​social, political and cultural life.”

The call contrasts with the first years when Twitter began to be used by activists within the Island. The first accounts appeared between the end of 2007 and mid-2008, when the authorities lashed out harshly against the social network and the official newspaper Granma called Twitter “a tool created by the CIA.”

Over the years, state institutions and entities opened their own accounts on the social network of the little blue bird, which are frequently used to call for an end to the US embargo, repeat political slogans and distribute news from the official press.

In 2016, Cuba registered more than 4.5 million internet users, according to official data published by the country’s National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI).

However, in a report by Freedom House that analyzed the situation in 65 countries, the Island remained among the five worst nations in the world in terms of Internet freedom, with 79 negative points, only better than China (87), Ethiopia (86), Syria (86) and Iran (85).

In Latin America Cuba occupied the last position, w

The Fear of ’14ymedio’

The author of the review of ‘Departure’ regrets “that the exclusionary bias maintained in cultural affairs has impacted the career and life of the three officials.”

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Regina Coyula, Havana, 15 November 2017 — A more inclusive air can be breathed in the corridors of Performing Arts of the Ministry of Culture. Or at least I thought that was the case when they told me that an article written by me about Departures, a work by the company El Ciervo Encantado (The Enchanted Deer), was in the catalog of the Theater Festival of Havana this year. But after the initial optimism, the logic of how events occur in authoritarian regimes caused me to doubt.

Was it an accident or a consequence of ignorance, mistake or intention on the part of three officials involved in the catalog? In any case, there was an institutional response: all of them have been removed from their positions. continue reading

My text, as has been described in the article about the punishment, is not conflictive. So that is not what the problem is. Nor should my signature be a problem because, to put it in the manner of my dear Manuel Díaz Martínez, I am an unimportant person. What is important is Departures, which twists the broken fibers of a country that for many years converted those physical partings into emotional ruptures that were intended to be final.

The work was exhibited before and during the Theater Festival, so nor is it because of the work itself. The lack, crime, transgression or whatever it is called by those imposing the punishment, has been to use a text from 14ymedio, a digital newspaper that for the authorities does not exist, inaccessible from the servers of the state telecommunications monopoly. The fact may seem ridiculous and even false to anyone who does not know the mechanisms of censorship in Cuba.

With regards to this, just a week ago I was at a presentation in Miami of the anthology The Compañero Who Watches Me, a compilation prepared by Enrique del Risco, literary and always political, of almost sixty writers about their experience with censorship, Big Brother, State Security. Sixty writers is not a small number for this little island, but at the same time their contributions fall short by the number of testimonies that do not appear because the protagonists opted for the healthy silence of voluntary oblivion, or because they were unaware of the existence of this project.

The current events surrounding Performing Arts do nothing more than provide an update to the stories in the book, not at all in the key of the past. I could not avoid the analogy.

Sincerely, I regret that the exclusionary bias maintained in cultural affairs has impacted the professional careers and lives of the three officials involved. It is an unequivocal signal for many of those who declare that politics does not interest them, whom I invite to look at the facts that have led to this “administrative” measure.

After the initial stupor, the three officials can look with new eyes at information and events all around them that previously they did not see (or did not want to see, it must be said). It is said that it is a capacity that many deploy only after being dethroned.

Without becoming Socratic, knowledge is a good path to individual freedom.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to making a 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 becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Three Cuban Cultural Promoters Fired For Publishing a Review From ’14ymedio’ in an Official Catalog

The excerpt from Regina Coyula’s theater review that appeared in an official catalog with a reference to 14ymedio. (Luz Escobar)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 14 November 2017 — A scandal is shaking up the National Council of Performing Arts (CNAE) a few days after the end of the 17th edition of the Havana Theater Festival. The publication in the festival catalog of an excerpt from a review of the event that appeared in 14ymedio has caused three employees of the state entity to be reprimanded and dismissed from their positions.

The head of the CNAE’s Directorate of Artistic Development, Noel Bonilla, his assistant Marielvis Calzada and CNAE vice president Marlén Gutiérrez are the three workers punished by the publication, who now find themselves in the midst of a process of administrative sanctions. continue reading

The inclusion of a paragraph from a theater review published in this newspaper last February and signed by Regina Coyula unleashed the wrath of the authorities of the Ministry of Culture (Mincult) because the text came from the independent press, a part of Cuban journalism censored and hidden by officialdom.

The excerpt chosen for the catalog addresses the performance of Mariela Brito in the piece Departures, by the company El Ciervo Encantado (The Enchanted Deer), which deals with Cuban emigration. “But beyond the stories told, others float like empty rafts, those who didn’t live to tell,” says the author of the article.

Although the excerpt from the review, included on page 69 of the catalog, does not contain direct political allusions or ideological messages, Mincult officials blamed the three employees for having allowed the name of this newspaper to appear in an official publication.

“The first thing that happened was that they brought us together and asked: ‘What is14ymedio doing in a Council publication? Why is it in the catalog, instead of promoting other authors who are within our institutional system and the recognized press in Cuba?’ ” explained Noel Bonilla on Monday by telephone to this newspaper.

Bonilla adds, “it is true that it was published in the wrong way, without consultation, not verified” and especially “in the haste with which the catalog was put together” and because of “the delays that occurred in the printing process.”

The Festival, which took place between October 20 and 29, had the support of the French Embassy in Cuba, the Goethe Institute, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway among other foreign entities.

Bonilla said in his Facebook account days ago that “after almost fifteen years” he ended his responsibility as head of CNAE, after committing an alleged error. He informed readers that “he will remain attentive” to the world of theater because he considers himself “a cultural agent committed to the poetic obsessions” of artists.

In this message on social networks, the promoter told “those artists or aspirants” who were waiting for their evaluations, not to worry because “I’m sure someone will ensure continuity very soon.”

“Who sows walls collects nothing and that dreadful nothing will lead them to failure, to oblivion, to the abyss,” he says.

In a telephone conversation with 14ymedio the promoter was more cautious and avoided confirming that he had been removed from his position. Bonilla said that “until this minute” he has not been told “any official information about being fired from my job,” but confirmed that it was required because of several errors of content in the festival catalog.

With a degree as a Professor and Instructor of Dance, Bonilla has worked as a dancer, choreographer and professor at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) of Havana. Before the incident, he was in charge of overseeing the artists in their qualifying evaluations and overseeing the progress of their projects.

“He is very capable and has managed for several years to survive in a position that carries a lot of responsibility but where one can very quickly make a misstep,” says a young actress who has worked with Bonilla and who prefers anonymity. “Right now everyone is talking about the injustice they have done to him,” she adds.

In February of this year, Bonilla was awarded the French Republic’s Chevalier Medal of Arts and Letters for his “exceptional trajectory” in the universe of Cuban and French dance.

Coyula, a regular collaborator to 14ymedio, cannot get over her astonishment at what happened. When she learned that her article appeared in the catalog she believed that “the cultural authorities had become more inclusive or that maybe it was due to someone’s ignorance of someone.”

“What I never thought was that by including that excerpt they might fire these people from their positions,” laments Coyula, who for eight years has run the blog La Mala Letra (Bad Handwriting) with topics ranging from social stories to computer news.

This independent newspaper has been blocked from servers in Cuba since its foundation. To access the site, Cuban internet users frequently use anonymous proxies or read the articles through an emailed news service or in the PDF with a selection of the best of the week, which is distributed hand-to-hand.

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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.

“My Attackers Act As If Nothing Happened”

José Enrique Morales Besada feels deceived and refuses to let the perpetrators go unpunished. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, 13 November 2017 – It was a warm night in June and José Enrique Morales Besada was connected to the internet at a Wi-Fi hotspot in Morón, Ciego de Ávila. On returning home, his life took a dramatic turn when he was a victim of a homophobic attack that left him with serious physical consequences and a desire for justice that current Cuban legislation has failed to satisfy.

Last Friday, the Prosecutor’s Office decided to close the criminal process for his case and settle it with the imposition of a fine on his attackers. The interest in the attack on the part of the National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex), led by Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela Castro, has not been enough to bring his assailants to trial, although it did speed up the police investigation. continue reading

At just 21, this young man has spent the last months shuttling between medical consultations and police appointments after two men insulted him and hit him on the side of his face with a bottle. José Enrique only remembers lying on the floor, with a friend by his side who was screaming for help, he tells 14ymedio by phone.

Morales Besada dreamed of becoming a professional singer. He performed at parties and tourist facilities, offering pop themes, ballads, classics in English and popular dance music, but now he can barely finish a sentence without speech problems that stop him in the middle of his words.

“Every time I speak I have a very strange feeling, so I can’t sing because I can’t modulate my voice well,” he laments. The blow caused him to lose several teeth, destroyed part of his gums and caused a serious fracture of the jaw for which he had to undergo surgery.

Four years before the attack, the streets of Morón were filled with colorful displays when the province became the site for the Day Against Homophobia. The annual vindication has not succeeded in banishing the prejudices that remain deeply rooted in that region and in the rest of the country.

For Morales Besada, the Ciego de Ávila LGBTI community faces a “dark panorama” and its members suffer constant aggravations in the streets as well as “degrading treatment.”

“It is very difficult to sit in a park without someone passing by and throwing an insult or a can of beer,” he complains.

Homophobia in Cuba also enjoys police complicity. “When somebody goes to file a complaint about something like that they treat them like they’re crazy,” declares the young man, who, in spite of appearing with witnesses before the authorities, barely managed that his attackers spent 24 hours in custody. “They left after paying a bond of 1,000 Cuban pesos (roughly $40 US) each.”

The Cuban Penal Code does not include the concept of “hate crimes” regarding attacks against people based on ethnic origin, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation and identity. The latter, specifically, are not included in the current legislation and attacks against them are treated by the police and the courts like any other crime.

A few days after the attack, the singer wrote in his Facebook account an initial message saying what happened, demanding justice and asking Mariela Castro directly for help.

The report that was prepared in the hospital, and that recorded the facial and mouth injuries, was “conveniently” lost. (Courtesy)

In 2015, Mariela Castro had assured in a public event that the institution she directs was working in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior to closely monitor these aggressions. “A thorough and specialized analysis is needed to determine the type of crime because all situations where LGBTI people are victims do not have hatred as a motive,” said the sexologist.

Cenesex began to investigate what happened in Morón and sent a letter to the municipality’s National Revolutionary Police (PNR). Morales Besada admits that when the officers heard the name of the daughter of the Cuban leader “they started running around and wanted to do in a day what they should have done from the beginning.”

The 10th was when Morales Besada knew that there would never be a trial for his attackers. The Prosecutor’s Office dismissed the opening of the trial and has settled the case with a fine against both perpetrators. After hearing the conclusion from the investigator, the young man came out crying. He did not even want to sign the official communication.

Morales Besada denounces multiple irregularities in the process. “Nobody from the investigation visited my maxillofacial doctor to ask what my current state of health is,” he complains. In addition, the report that was prepared in the hospital recording the facial and mouth injuries he suffered was “conveniently” lost and only appeared, after much searching, detailing cervical injuries.

“No trial was held and they deceived me because until that moment they had told me that they would be taken to court.”

Members of the Cuban LGBTI community have collected more and more records of assaults and hate crimes. Although official institutions do not publish statistics on murders or violent acts against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, the news now is made known thanks to social networks.

In May 2015, this newspaper published an article about the stoning death of a 24-year-old transsexual in the city of Pinar del Río. The official media never published the news.

Morales Besada, who feels deceived and refuses to let the perpetrators go unpunished “as if nothing happened,” published a Facebook message last Friday that has made his case known to thousands of internet users.

The young man claims that both attackers have a history of homophobic violence. “They beat another boy who works in the Cayo but he did not accuse them because he is afraid.”

“This attack has left me without a life,” says José Enrique. The physical damage can leave permanent affects, but what adds to the pain now is the impotence he feels in the absence of justice.

‘14ymedio’ Invites Readers to Join

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 14 November 2017 — Two fundamental premises have guided the work of 14ymedio since its birth more than three years ago: making journalism of higher quality every day and maintaining editorial independence. To achieve this we have opted for a strict financial autonomy that allows us to pronounce freely on any subject.

So far, our financing comes from the contributions of a small group of friends in a personal capacity, from alliances with private foundations and academic institutions, and from sponsorships, events, content sales and advertising.

Today we take an important step by launching a collaborative membership model that will allow readers to contribute to the financing of 14ymedio. Thus, we can devote more resources to journalistic investigations and maintain universal and free access to the content of our media, in addition to solidifying our editorial freedom.

Our readers can become members of 14ymedio by visiting our membership portal, where you can support us with a small financial contribution. In return, you will receive invitations to events and the opportunity to collaborate with ideas regarding the editorial content.

On this site there is all the information about the different levels of membership, about our work and the editorial team, as well as a detailed breakdown of our finances.

We are the first medium in Cuba to take a step of this nature and we intend to make this privileged relationship with readers the main source of income for 14ymedio, in a participatory and transparent manner.

This Tuesday begins a new stage for 14ymedio. We hope you will join us, just as you have done since the beginning.

Become a member of 14ymedio.

In Cuba, the Cold War Returns

While the political class bares its teeth and boasts of the holster on its belt, around the United States Embassy in there is nothing but long faces. (EFE)

Raúl Castro has not taken advantage of the steps taken by Barack Obama and has chosen to opt for caution rather than reform

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 13 November 2017 — It was too quiet to last. The diplomatic thaw between Cuba and the United States has failed and both nations are resetting their watches to the times of the Cold War. In recent weeks new causes of tension have arisen and political discourse returns to that customary belligerence so yearned for.

The link between the Plaza of the Revolution and the White House has taken several steps back from where it was on 17 December 2014, a date coined in Cuba as 17-D, when Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced the normalization of relations. This leap into the past is motivated by the alleged acoustic attacks – sounds that resemble the singing of dozens of crickets – that caused nausea, dizziness and headaches in United States diplomats stationed in Cuba.

The official propaganda machine had slowed down during the reconciliation period and now tries to resume the rhythm that characterized it in the days of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. However, we can see the fatigue and in particular the apathy of a national audience more attuned to daily survival than to diplomatic squabbles. continue reading

Cartoons lambasting the US president have also returned to the pages of government newspapers, while the concept of anti-imperialism takes center stage in the agendas of government institutions, unable to articulate a less ideological discourse. These are good times for recalcitrants, opportunists and radicals.

Lacking their favorite target, the regime’s spokespeople had found themselves lost among so many hugs, conciliatory photos and delegations of American businessmen who came to the Island. Unable to deal with the calm, now they can fill their lungs with the air of storm. Only confrontation makes them important, only combat seems alive to them.

While the political class bares its teeth and boasts of the holster on its belt, outside the United States Embassy in Havana long faces abound. Every morning dozens of Cubans arrive in the neighborhood, distressed by being stranded in the middle of an immigration process due to the suspension of consular work at the embassy. Small businesses in the area that thrived on selling coffee, renting rooms to visa applicants traveling from elsewhere in Cuba, or helping people to fill out immigration forms, have descended into sudden bankruptcy. Uncle Sam stimulated the economy of thousands of families near the perimeter of the imposing building and now everything is on hold, impregnated with uncertainty.

The neighbors can only remind themselves of the image of August 2015 when US Secretary of State John Kerry participated in raising the American flag in the recently inaugurated US Embassy in Havana. It was “the best time in this area and the country,” says Paquito, a neighbor who made a living offering a consignment service for bags and cell phones to visa applicants. Today his room is empty and his greatest wish is that “the yumas,” the Americans, “will return as soon as possible”.

Throughout the country many fear that Donald Trump’s measures will go further and end up affecting the flow of regular flights between the Island and its northern neighbor, flights restored during the past administration. A cutback in the sending of remittances also populates the nightmares of countless families who survive thanks to the help that comes every month from el Norte.

Those who predict a worsening of relationships are right. The withdrawal of non-essential personnel after the acoustic attacks is just one more episode in a soap opera punctuated with hatreds and passions, bickering and wrangling that have dominated both countries for more than half a century.

The new episode has only added a new measure of mystery, spy stories and sophisticated aggressions to what was already the typical script of this “avoidance/approach” conflict, where the object of desire is both rejected and hazily desired.

The terrain for belligerency is fertile, and on such a fecund base sprout the most varied speculations about the perpetrators of the attacks allegedly suffered by the diplomats.

Supporters of the thaw point to an orthodox group within the Cuban government who saw the pact with the United States as a betrayal. A “Taliban” brotherhood well enough placed in the spheres of power to be able to undertake an action of such complexity.

Others speculate that a third country, such as Russia, Iran or North Korea, used Cuban territory to perpetrate an attack on its old rival. In that case, the island would have been merely the scene of a struggle of external powers with national intelligence not even aware of it. The latter is very unlikely in a country where surveillance has escalated to degrees of oppressive sophistication and intensity.

There are also those who point to Fidel Castro as the evil genius behind the acoustic attack plot. The only man with more power than Raúl Castro who would have been capable of organizing something of that nature emerges amid the speculations of those who remember his incalculable capacity to annoy Washington.

Those who hold the hypothesis of the “poisoned will” of the Comandante say that the mysterious noises began before his death last November and also remember how he distanced himself from the diplomatic thaw. The eternal anti-imperialist must have liked nothing about his brother’s flirtations with the tenant of the White House, say those who support this conjecture.

The official press points out that the acoustic attacks have been just the pretext for Trump to implement a policy towards Cuba more aligned with those segments of the diaspora discontented with the thaw, as it downplays what happened and sows doubt that such aggressions even existed. However, it reiterates that the Government is willing to cooperate with the investigation.

The big loser in all these events is Raúl Castro. The main legacy of his mandate rested precisely on having achieved a rapprochement between both nations. Through the thaw, the youngest of the brothers made his own mark and stepped away from the shadow of the Comandante en Jefe, a contumacious agitator of the conflict between the Island’s David and the American Goliath.

The general, who until now has been unable to fulfill many of the promises of his mandate – such as monetary reunification, in a country fractured by the duality between the convertible peso and the Cuban peso – or returning to wages their lost dignity, sees how his government’s legacy is vanishing.

Diplomatic normalization is, without a doubt, a story of the failure of the second Castro, who did not take advantage of the steps taken by Barack Obama, preferring to opt for caution instead of reform. If he is not directly responsible for the acoustic attacks, then he is responsible for the negligence that allowed others to carry them out and for not having been able to prevent this incident from resulting in the current diplomatic confrontation.

In the end, the era of extended hands is over and the island is in the midst of an economic recession, suffering the effects of a powerful hurricane, facing diminished support from Venezuela, while the so-called”historic generation” is on the verge of biological obsolescence. The Cold War has returned, but the Cuba of those years no longer exists.

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Editor’s Note: This text has been previously published by the Spanish newspaper El País in its edition of Sunday, November 12.

Canned Guarapo

The drink known in Cuba as guarapo, made with the juice of crushed sugar cane and a lot of ice, should be drunk immediately, because otherwise it “gets dark and smells bad.” (Gpparker)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 10 November 2017 — “Whomever figures out how to sell guarapo in a can will get rich,” says Overti, a Villa Clara resident in Havana who is trying to open his own café in the capital. “I started by setting up the trapiche – the sugarcane crusher – but I never managed to maintain a supply of cane, so I wasn’t able to sell even the first glass,” he tells 14ymedio.

The refreshing beverage, made with sugarcane juice and a lot of ice, has to be drunk immediately because otherwise “it gets dark and smells bad,” says the merchant, referring to the tendency of the juice to almost immediately begin to ferment. In other Latin American countries, as well as in south Florida, guarapo is sold in glass bottles and even in cans, as Overti yearns to do, but these options haven’t yet arrived on the island.

Right now and until some local entrepreneur manages to squeeze the sugarcane juice into a container and preserve it to keep it fresh for the palate, the consumers of this beverage are going to have to satisfy themselves with the so called guaraperas – the stands where the juice is sold fresh – which are increasingly scarce in the Cuban capital.

The inability to solve the transportation problems to ensure the cane arrives on time every morning has forced many guaraperas to close, leading to a scarcity of the drink that is so popular and refreshing for pedestrians. “If it were up to me, I’d set up a guarapo factory and the people here would never drink water again,” Overti dreams, although right now he can’t offer for sale even a single glass.

The Headline That Ended the Career of the Director of ‘Granma’

“Raúl Gala presided over the historic event,” reads the unfortunate subtitle on the front page of this Wednesday’s Granma. Main headline: “October Revolution, One of the Most Important Events of the 20th Century” (Screen capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 10 November 2017 — In recent hours, in the absence of information about the reasons that led to the dismissal of the director of the newspaper Granma, many observers have set themselves to seek out some error that crept into the official organ of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC). They pour over the pages of the newspaper to uncover some proof of a blunder that annoyed those at the highest level and provoked the sudden exit of Pelayo Terry Cuervo.

After looking closely at each issue of the last week, some have detected a blunder on the front page of the edition from Wednesday, 8 November, which involves the name of the Cuban ruler. “Raúl Gala presided over the historical event,” it says, just under a huge headline in red ink that refers to the October Revolution. This time, the poor grammatical and journalistic practice of eliminating prepositions and articles to shorten sentences, played a dirty trick on Granma’s editors. continue reading

The newspaper, which since its founding in 1965, has been characterized by a sober tone and a marked cult of personality towards the country’s highest leaders, would have conveyed, with this error, “a major lack of respect,” according to some angry militants of the only party allowed in the country that were consulted by 14ymedio.

“It was not only because of this, but that there had been an accumulation of several errors that represented a lack of care,” says an editor close to the publication, who preferred anonymity. The professional recalls that the newspaper has had a history of lapses that have exposed it to “popular mockery,” such as “when, in 2009, they published on the cover a photo of the Cuban flag that lacked the star,” he recalls. At that time, Terry Cuervo “was not the director, but in the corridors of the newspaper we are still talking about that mistake.”

Putting only the first name of the Cuban president, to give feeling of ​​familiarity with readers, has contributed to aggravating this week’s error since the word Gala, in addition to a capital letter, seems to replace the family name of the first secretary of the PCC, a very serious thing when it is the name ‘Castro’ that is omitted.

Although in journalistic circles no one believes that it was only for this reason that Terry Cuervo was dismissed, according to a foreign correspondent with many years of experience: “For less than this Stalin would have sent him to the Gulag.”

In Guanajay, the Editors of a Magazine Dream of Publishing in Digital Format

Readers of ‘The Thinker’ recognize the difficulties that the publication has had to go through for two decades. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Bertha Guillen, Candelaria, 10 November 2017 — It has not remained seated like the famous figure of Auguste Rodin, but nor has it been able to walk as much as its editors would like. The magazine El Pensador (The Thinker) edited in Guanajay, Artemisa, is two decades old and its founders dream of being able to publish it on the internet one day.

This Thursday, the notes of the Guanajay Hymn marked the beginning of the celebration of 20 years of a magazine born in the lay community centered around the San Hilarión Abad Catholic Church. A time that has passed rapidly for some, but that others, like its director José Quintero Pérez, remember every moment of. continue reading

“Our first issue was released on 9 November 1997 and it was edited by hand, typed on a typewriter, then we cut out the articles and pasted them on a sheet, which we photocopied and that’s how it all began,” he tells 14ymedio.

On the island, publications linked to the Catholic Church filled a gap for decades that could hardly be filled by other independent magazines, due to the strict controls maintained by the Government on the distribution of printed material.

Vitral (Stained Glass) and Espacio Laical (Space Lay) were some of the most well-known magazines born from the interaction between the concerns of the church and contact with communities. However, despite institutional protection, they were also victims of censorship.

In 2010, a report by the ISP agency counted 46 bulletins and magazines plus 12 websites and seven electronic bulletins that reached four million Catholic readers on the Island and many other Cubans in exile. A phenomenon that has been enhanced with the emergence of new technologies in the country.

The popular Weekly Packet has, for more than two years, had a Christian section that is made up of Catholic and also evangelical materials. An independent television channel has also been born from the interaction between faith and the digital world.

El Pensador, still far from having even a website, “has been concerned to understand and be part of the construction of a better future for all Cubans,” says a faithful reader who participated on the anniversary this Thursday.

Thought bubble: “I dream of having water.” ‘El Pensador’ not only addresses religious and parochial issues but also addresses social issues of interest to the community. (14ymedio)

With a bimonthly frequency, the magazine issued its 119th edition this week to approximately 125 subscribers. Although it has not managed to position itself on the World Wide Web, the publication is well known in Pinar del Río and Artemisa.

“To say that it’s been easy would be to lie. They have called us a little newspaper, a little newsletter and a bulletin. We have had to adopt different formats, sometimes with more pages, sometimes with fewer,” recalls Ángel Mesa, one of its founders. “We have spent many sleepless nights to bring an issue out, but we have the support of our readers,” he declares.

With a majority of Christian topics, El Pensador also includes among its pages social issues ranging from criticism of the deterioration of popular festivities, to the serious ethical problems that surface on the island, a situation that the Government itself has had to recognize.

“We are happy because we have been faithful to the objective of communicating,” and in the pages of El Pensador there is no “exclusion of people,” points out Quintero Pérez.

Mesa reports that the name of the publication arose from the readings of Father Félix Varela’s texts where he invited people “to think first.” The initial team has had to train on the fly.

In these years, the editors have not been exempt from criticism, unpleasant situations with the authorities, and, from time to time, some have has felt an urgent desire to desist, but the group has remained fairly complete despite the difficulties, says Mesa.

“I want to congratulate El Pensador for daring, it is not easy to dare and it can become a problem, but this world has been changed by people who dare, who dared because they dreamed that things could be different,” says a Baptist pastor who participated in the celebration for the 20 years of the magazine.

The magazine “has dared to dream that Guanajay can be different, if we think about this we can make a good contribution to our country,” he added.

Flavia, one of the young readers, believes that the main challenge for the editors is to increase the number of contributors and to remain as an alternative space for the “forgotten exercise of thinking” to continue “questioning all things until the truth in them is found.”

Cuban Court Ratifies Three-Year Sentence Against Karina Gálvez

Cuban Court Ratifies Three-Year Sentence Against Karina Gálvez

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 10 November 2017 — The Provincial Court of Pinar del Río ratified the sentence of three years of deprivation of liberty against Karina Galvez issued last September. The economist was informed on Wednesday of the sentence on appeal and must spend the time of imprisonment under “limitation of freedom” at the home of her mother.

The Court also confirmed the confiscation of Gálvez’s home, which also functioned as a space for the activities of the Center for Coexistence Studies (CEC) in Pinar del Río. The activist described this decision as “unfair” but she assured 14ymedio that she expected it. continue reading

This Thursday Gálvez received a summons to appear before the judge on November 21, in order to “be instructed about the obligations and restrictions that have been established.”

On that occasion the judge will inform the activist about the conditions under which she will serve her sentence. For the time being, the Court ruled that the three years in prison are “replaced by limitation of freedom,” so she will not have to enter a penitentiary.

Official citation to Karina Gálvez. (CEC)

“In the citation it says that I must self-manage employment but I still do not know if it can work for myself,” explains the economist.

The case against Gálvez began on January 11 when she was detained for a week in the Criminal Investigation Technical Directorate of the province and her house was sealed by the police. The economist was prosecuted for the crime of “tax evasion” during the purchase of a home.

After the trial, the property was made available to the Municipal Housing Authority, subordinated to the Administration Council of the Municipality of Pinar del Río.

With the ratification of the sentence, Gálvez also is prevented from “the issuance of a passport and leaving the national territory until the sanctions imposed have been completed,” so she cannot travel abroad.

The economist denounced in recent months an escalation of pressures on the part of the authorities, which included numerous interrogations in the Department of Immigration and Immigration of the province, where they inquired about the motivations of her trips out of the island.

Other members of the CEC have been summoned by the police and have received warnings, among them the director of the publication, Dagoberto Valdés, who in October an official said that from that moment his life would be “very difficult.”

The CEC organizes training courses for citizenship and civil society and in a recent public statement its members assured that they will not leave Cuba or the Catholic Church and that they will continue to “work for the country.”

The Art Of Turning Artists Into “Enemies”

Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara on a park bench in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, 10 November 2017 — He scribbled on a wall and they detained him for several months; he founded an opposition party and they accused him of buying some sacks of cement; he opened an independent media outlet and they denounced him for treason. Every step taken to be free ended with a disproportionate repression that can only be explained through the fear that the ruling party feels towards its own citizens.

The case against the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has once again exposed the fear that beats in the highest spheres and spills over onto everyone who leaves the assigned fold. The police officers who entered his house last Monday went in search of any evidence to incriminate him, because they are the executors of a punishment policy that is systematically applied against the system’s critics. continue reading

The sacks of construction materials are just a pretext to “show him the instruments” and to embroil Otero Alcántara in an infinite legal process. What is coming now is a movie we already know well: the trial at full speed, the sentence that allows him to be removed from circulation until after the date scheduled for the independent event and, meanwhile, a “good cop” who will whisper in his ear the advantages of emigrating and avoiding such imbroglios.

The artist will feel every kind of pressure. On the one hand, State Security will say that his call to participate in an independent event is a provocation that will not be allowed, and on the other hand the official artists’ guild will distance itself and its members from his proposals. Some of those who said “yes” to participating in the #Bienal00 will no long respond to the emails or will communicate that they will be unavailable due to an unforeseen trip.

Some will accuse him of wanting to attract attention, others will tell him he could have gone through official channels before throwing himself into organizing a parallel event. There will be those who will reproach him for having crossed the red line between art and activism, or for having dabbled in politics. The most caustic will whisper that now he can include his own face in the next Game of Thrones video he creates about the candidates for the Cuban presidency.

However, solidarity will also rain down upon him from those who, in recent days, have been expecting the imprisonment of the author of ¿Dónde está Mella?, a performance held in the former Manzana de Gómez, in Havana. His case will help show the world that Raúl Castro’s government has a similar modus operandi to attack opponents, artists and journalists.

The ruling party does not care if the “daring” report human rights violations, work with metaphors or investigate information. From up there, anyone who does not follow orders deserves only one word: enemy. Now, for them, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has fallen into that category.

A 16-Day Detention That Started With a Kidnapping

The activist Roberto Rodríguez Jiménez spent 16 days in detention. (Aulas Abiertas)

14ymedio bigger 14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 9 November 2017 — An arbitrary arrest is not the same if on the other side of the bars there is a family willing to ask questions or a friend who dares to investigate. Roberto Jiménez Gutiérrez believed that no one would notice his absence, which began on October 23 when the police crossed his path, but the reaction outside of Cuba surprised him.

“I was held incommunicado for sixteen days in the Technical Investigation Department at 100 and Aldabó,” the leader of the independent organization Juventud Activa Cuba Unida (JACU — Active Youth, United Cuba), which describes his arrest as a “kidnapping,” he tells this newspaper. “But the officers never told me where I was, I knew that from other prisoners,” he explains by telephone after being released last Tuesday.

In Jiménez’s mind, the days in the cell passed slowly without any logic. “Almost every day they interrogated me, but the most intense moments were the first 72 hours,” he recalls. continue reading

The opponent was on his way to José Martí International Airport, in Havana, to take a flight to Miami where he planned to participate in a dinner organized by the Legal Rescue Foundation (FRJ).

At dawn, police stopped the car in which he was traveling to the airport and told the driver to leave. “Everything that followed was very violent,” the JACU leader explains now. “I demanded that they show me a document that validated my arrest and then they hit me in the chest.”

After that the memories are confusing. Four policemen forced him into a patrol car and pushed him down in such a way that he could not even see the road the vehicle was traveling along.

“I am being accused of association, meetings and illicit demonstrations,” an offense for which one can receive from “three months to one year of deprivation of liberty.” The police also warned him, without showing him any papers, that he was going to be charged under Law 88, also known as the Gag Law.

The draconian legislation is the same as that which led to the imprisonment of 75 opponents and independent journalists in 2003, in a repressive wave known as the Black Spring. The dissidents tried in that case were sentenced to sentences as long as 30 years.

Under those rules Jiménez could be prosecuted for accumulating, reproducing and disseminating “information or documentation that goes against the Government.” The officers who interrogated him did not succeed in getting him to confess to the accusation. “They did not get anything, I held my position.”

That same day, the activist César Mendoza, director of the Center for Studies for Local Development (CEDEL), was also arrested. He was also going to participate in the meeting in Miami together with Jiménez, as well as be part of a panel at the recently concluded Cuba Internet Freedom meeting.

Mendoza saw him last Saturday when he was taken to another detention center, and cannot say where he is being held because he was moved in a fetal position. “They wanted to confront us with each other so we would implicate each other,” he explains. But neither of the activists confirmed the police hypothesis.

Now, Jiménez will have to go every Monday to 100 and Aldabó to sign a record and is awaiting a trial that does not yet have a date. “In the detention they confiscated a laptop, money and a tablet that were part of the things I was taking with me for the trip,” he adds.

The government repressors still do not understand why JACU works in the training of young people and “everything is done without profit and rests on the basis of human rights and democracy so that they can direct their actions and define their future.”

The activist recognizes that lately they have had to change the places where they meet “due to the pressures from State Security.” His arrest was one more drop in a cascade of arrests, threats and seizures.

“I do not have a family and they took advantage of that,” Jiménez laments, but in the days after his arrest a whole hosts of relatives materialized. The human rights organization Freedom House publicized his case and social networks filled with demands for his release.

When Roberto Jiménez Gutiérrez returned to walk through the streets of Havana his phone did not stop ringing. A new family had emerged during those 16 days of confinement.

More Than 300 People Sign a Petition for the Release of Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 9 November 2017 — The arrest of Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has unleashed a wave of solidarity on the internet. The artist Tania Bruguera launched a solidarity campaign that as of Thursday exceeded 300 signatures to demand the release of the young artist.

The declaration states that the government’s reaction towards the artist has been disproportionate and that the response is aimed at “blocking the organization of the independent Art Biennial of 2018 led by” Otero Alcántara.

The artist was arrested by police on Monday and will be tried tomorrow, Friday, accused of the crime of receiving stolen goods for having in his house several bags with construction materials that police say are of “dubious origin.” continue reading

The Cuban Penal Code sanctions this crime with “deprivation of liberty from three months to a year” or “a fine of one hundred to three hundred quotas* or both.” However, after Hurricane Irma cases against hoarders or people who diverted state resources have been judged more severely. The campaign describes Otero Alcántara as an artist who has developed “a work inspired by the reality of his country and that puts on display it contradictions.”

The text describes Otero Alcántara as an artist who has developed “a work inspired by the reality of his country and the pointing out of its contradictions”.

In the declaration that accompanies the petition for signatures, designated as “co-responsible” for what happened are Abel Prieto Jiménez, Minister of Culture, Miguel Barnet, president of the official Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), and Lesvia Vent Dumois, president of UNEAC’s Association of Plastic Artists.

When Otero Alcántara announced the initiative to hold an independent Biennial in May 2018, UNEAC circulated a note warning its members that “some unscrupulous people” were trying to organize a parallel event.

The artists ask for “his immediate freedom and without accusations of any kind” against Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and “the return of their property”, in addition to ending “the obstruction of the realization of the independent Biennial.”

Yanelyz Nuñez, another of the organizers of the #00Bienal de La Habana, explained to 14ymedio that “many friends have called to see what they can do and how the whole process is going.”

On the reaction within the Island, he said that “among the artists who live here the disconnect is important” and that they often ignore that these things happen. On Tuesday, the exhibition Nada Personal at the D’Nasco Studio was inaugurated, which included the work of Luis Manuel along with other artists, and most of the people there did not know what had happened.”

Núñez considers that the greatest pressure for the artist to be released is coming “from the web” and says that they have received a lot of support.

Núñez explained that Otero had been transferred to the detention center known as the Vivac as of Tuesday night and his family has hired a lawyer for his defense.

In a text signed by this young graduate of the History of Art, it is emphatically stated that “in the conviction that the realization of this project is important” they will continue with the next stages and that they are not afraid.

*Translator’s note: Cuban criminal law specifies fines in “quotas” rather than specific amounts so that all the fines can be updated by changing the value of a quota.

Director of Cuba’s Communist Party Newspaper Fired for his “Errors”

Prior to ‘Granma’, Terry Cuervo directed the newspaper ‘Juventud Rebelde’, the second most important in the country. (@pelayoterry)

14ymedio biggerThe director of Granma newspaper, Pelayo Terry Cuervo, was “liberated” from his post by the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), due to “errors committed in the fulfillment of his responsibilities,” a brief note published on Thursday on Granma’s website announced.

“Until the new director is appointed, the current deputy director Oscar Sánchez Serra will assumes these functions,” explains the announcement, which does not add details about the faults committed by the previous holder of the position.

The note also does not provide information on the future functions that the dismissed official will have, a sign that his departure has been on bad terms. The use of the word “liberated” to announce the firing is also a sign that the journalist did not leave in good standing. continue reading

Terry Cuervo, with a Bachelor of Journalism earned in 1988, had been appointed head of the Granma newspaper in October 2013, when he was described as having “an upward trajectory as a journalist, war correspondent in Ethiopia” and having occupied “different managerial positions in organs of the written press.”

Prior to Granma, Terry Cuervo directed the newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth), the second most important in the country, which is also controlled by the Revolutionary Guidance Department of the Central Committee of the PCC.

The former director was seen among his colleagues as a discreet man, far removed from the harsh public positions of his predecessor, the journalist Lázaro Barredo, who combined his work as head of the main official media with his presentations in the program La Mesa Redonda (The Roundtable).

Terry Cuervo was interested from his first days at the head of Granma in updating its approach and promoting the use of the internet and social networks. He came to manage a blog under the name of CiberEditor.

In April of this year, the Revolutionary Armed Forces handed Terry Cuerdo, along with other cultural personalities, a replica of the Mambi Machete belonging to Generalísimo Máximo Gómez.

His most recent public appearance was during the visit to the Granma newsroom of a delegation of editors from the newspaper Nhan Dan, official organ of the Vietnamese communists.

In an interview with the BBC, the journalist confessed that “Granma still fails today, as a newspaper, to get even closer to the reality of the country,” and he believed that he had not yet succeeded… but didn’t believe that he wasn’t trying.” He also noted that there were critical voices within the newspaper, which included himself, and that “they were trying to improve it.”

The new director, Oscar Sánchez Serra, has excelled in sports journalism and coverage of several baseball events in which the Cuban team has participated. He has also published numerous journalistic works of historical importance, aligned with the official line of the PCC.

In an interview at the end of last year, Sánchez Serra said that the responsibility of the Granma newspaper was “the most sought after, the most criticized, and the national and international touchstone constitutes a high responsibility.”

The Traces of Russia in Cuba: ‘Bolos’, Kamaz, ‘Polovinos’

“At one point we were everywhere in Cuba, but now you have to look hard to find a Russian,” ironically Valentina, with a vocabulary full of Cuban twists. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 7 November 2017 — “Sometimes I dream that I’ve returned to Moscow but the contours of the buildings look blurry,” confesses Valentina Rodriguez, 72. She married a Cuban who studied at a university in Moscow in the ‘80s and who lived for many years in Havana until she emigrated to the United States.

Valentina has two sons from that marriage, one of whom still lives in Ciego de Avila, in the center of the island, and the other who also emigrated to the US. They are called polovinos, which in Russian means the half of something because they look like “warm water, with a little Russian chill and some Cuban heat,” she explains. continue reading

“I never thought I would end up living in the United States,” she confesses in a recording she sent to 14ymedio.

“At one point we were everywhere in Cuba, but now you have to look hard to find a Russian,” Valentina says, with a vocabulary filled with Cubanisms. The official data confirm this perception: according to the Russian consulate on the island there are just over 1,000 nationals, although this figure is tripled if descendants are included.

Lately, as the centenary of the Russian Revolution approached, the official press has remarked on the friendship with Russia since 1973, when Cuba joined the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CAME), which led to the presence of the “comrades” dispersed throughout the country. “In most of the ministries there was a Soviet adviser who reported directly to Moscow and could intervene in the decisions,” says Valentina.

Such intense contract highlights that there are no more traces left in gastronomy, popular speech or cultural tastes. Perhaps because the differences were so many, in the words of an academic and writer, “Cubans and Russians beat on different wavelengths,” and sometimes they simply do not agree on anything.

“They welcomed me with affection but also there was some conflict from time to time because I had a very different way of looking at life and confronting problems,” recalls Valentina. “For me, my first months were marvelous, but with time it was a daily struggle with my Cuban family, the neighbors and even on the street.”

Not only were the Russians everywhere, the emblems and symbols of the Soviet Union filled the Cuban reality for more than three decades. Thousands of Lada cars were passing through the streets alongside the noisy Kamaz trucks, devourers of huge amounts of fuel, but strong as war tanks.

In Cuban homes, there were Aurika washing machines and Orbit fans while Krim TVs, all arriving from the distant country, played an infinity of cartoons and films made in the USSR. After the fall of the Soviet Union these appliances were replaced by others from China, South Korea and even the United States, while Hollywood productions filled the television schedule.

“They were ugly but long-lasting,” a home repairman who specialized in repairing Soviet washing machines told 14ymedio. “I have many customers who continue to use them.” The technician thinks that Cubans never valued the things that came from the Soviet Union because they cost very little and in addition were seen as rough or ugly. “But they were very good,” he says.

The nickname received by the Russians during their presence on the island and which is still in use today refers precisely to that rough image that the nationals captured in them. They were called bolos – bowling pins – in reference to their lack of sophistication and their tendency to prioritize operations before the aesthetic details.

While the political discourse was filled with phrases that spoke of sovereignty and national independence, behind the scenes the Soviets supported the entire economy of the island. Fidel Castro received more than 4 billion dollars a year from the USSR for his revolutionary project. the facilities of payment and trade with other nations of the socialist camp.

The country received some 200 million dollars that Russia paid each year for the rent of the Lourdes Radar Center, in the province of Pinar del Río, a military enclave that some voices within the Committee of Defense and Security of the Council of the Russian Federation is asking to be reopened.

The economist Óscar Espinosa Chepe, who died in 2013, was very clear about the economic weight that the Island represented for the USSR: “Actually, it was not Gorbachev. Cuba put an end the Soviet Union!” he told the Spanish press six years ago. “In unpaid credits alone the Russians estimate that they lost about 20 billion dollars over the time.”

The aid sustained the systems of health and education of which the Cuban government boasted for years in international forums. “But it did not help to develop the country, neither the countryside nor industry survived the collapse of the Soviet Union,” added Espinosa Chepe.

The economic support of the Kremlin diminished towards the end of the 1980s and stopped soon after, triggering the so-called Special Period on the Island, an unprecedented economic crisis. Cuba was then left with a debt of 35 billion dollars to Russia, which the Government of Vladimir Putin later canceled 90% of.

In the last edition of the Havana International Fair, last week, the Russian presence was again remarkable, but this time under other rules. Both countries made progress in the negotiations for the reconstruction of the rail network, a project that covers more than 680 miles of railway track, and also for the supply of construction, road and transportation equipment.

Polina Martínez Shviétosova, a writer of Russian origin living in Havana, believes that in recent years “the Russians have returned, they have been coming as entrepreneurs and it would be good if more came.” Although the ideal, she thinks, is that Cuban entrepreneurs, as individuals, could present a portfolio of business without state interference.

However, she acknowledges that this moment seems distant and that for now the greatest commercial relationship between the people of both countries is marked by the trips of the ‘mules’ who “go to Russia to buy the many products that are missing here.”

Martínez Shviétosova dreams of returning to live in Russia. “I wish my passport were an airplane,” she says. The writer prefers not to be pigeonholed into a nationality. “I want to be free of the idea that I’m Cuban or that I’m Russian,” but she likes to call herself polovina.

The writer recommends some places in the Cuban capital that offer Russian dishes. TaBARich opened its doors in October 2013 and its manager, Pavel, assures that it is “for the Russian community that lives in Cuba and also the nostalgic Cubans of the Soviet era.”

Last week, a cycle of Russian films was screened in a Havana cinema. “They are not like before,” warned a newspaper seller at the entrance to the theater. “They do not make me cry so much,” he joked. “They are not Soviet, they are Russian,” he repeated several times while only about four people bought tickets for the evening showing.