Communist Militants Force Withdrawal of a Poster For Being “Disrespectful” of Fidel Castro

The poster was part of a cleaning initiative organized by the José Martí Cultural Society. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 11 August 2017 — Military boots and olive green trousers drawn on a poster have provoked great anger among communist militants who seem to have managed, through their complaints, to get the organizers of a sanitation campaign to remove the poster from the streets and sewers near Havana’s Malecon.

The initiative, with the motto “Clean the Coast,” was organized for this coming Sunday, 13 August, coinciding with the 91st anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth. The date, coupled with the image, has been considered “disrespectful” to the deceased ex-president by some citizens, forcing, according to sources from one of the organizing entities, a cancellation of the day.

The cleaning activity was organized by the José Martí Cultural Society (SCJM) and the José Martí Youth Movement (MJM), but ultimately it has been replaced by other activities in the capital, said Reinaldo Perera, a member of the first of these associations. continue reading

“No, we are not going to undertake the activity that was initially planned in the area of ​​the sidewalks on the Malecón to clean the sewers from the 23rd street to a little further down. It was only going to be a sanitary cleaning,” Perera points out.

However, another employee of the SCJM, who preferred to remain anonymous, told 14ymedio that “the poster was withdrawn and the cleaning canceled because several members of the Communist Party called to complain about the misuse of Fidel Castro’s image.”

“Showing that part of the body and particularly the military boots was not pleasing to many people,” according to the worker. “We were warned that we had to remove all the signs we had placed in the areas surrounding the Malecon.” Some, he adds, were also afraid that the poster would be interpreted as the announcement of a police operation.

Yussy, a 28-year-old transvestite, is among the frightened. “When we saw the poster everyone was scared because it said that on that day they would not let us go to the Malecón and the police would crack down on the jineteras (female hookers) and the pingueros (male hookers),” he says outside the Yara cinema, a few yards from the Habana Libre Hotel.

“It would not be the first or the last time they did something like this, but people did notice it because of the boots, an area of the body that is not shown that much; on posters they usually put the face and maybe also the shoulders,” reflects Yussy.

An employee of the cinema says that the poster caught people’s attention and tourists “were endlessly taking pictures… An elderly gentleman, very upset, asked if the management of the movie theater had put up the poster,” she said, and added that he was going to call whomever he had to to protest what he considered a lack of respect.

The Government has prepared numerous activities of remembrance on what would have been the former president’s birthday. Starting Wednesday, at the Expocuba fairgrounds, south of the capital, there are children’s games, displays of the operation of locally manufactured induction cookers, and a sale of hygiene products from the Suchel company.

Since the beginning of the month the Casa del Alba Cultural, located in Havana’s Vedado district, has had an photographic exposition titled Fidel: Intimate Portrait, with snapshots taken by his son Alejandro Castro.

Thousands of miles away, in Crimea, a eight-foot high monument was inaugurated with the image of Castro and the words: “Victory is perseverance.”

Cuba’s Private Taxi Drivers Are Suspicious of Government Measures to “Bring Order” to the Service

A driver repairing the classic American car he uses to provide shared fixed-route taxi service in Havana (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 7 August 2017 — The new measures to regulate the private sector are arriving drop by drop, with last Saturday’s announcement affecting taxi service, calling for the creation of piqueras – taxi stands/stops – fixed itineraries and prices of five pesos for each stretch of 8 kilometers.

According to the Deputy Minister of Transportation, Marta Oramas Rivero, this initiative is intended to “bring order” to the services offered by the almendrones – the classic American cars used in shared fixed-route taxi services. Saturday’s midday television news announced new regulations for private passenger transport in Havana.

“The price of the total route is the sum of these segments,” Oramas said, who also detailed that the new program could be voluntarily taken advantage of by the “private carriers who decide to do so.” However, the announcement has begun to generate suspicion in a sector that, in recent months, has experienced an increase in controls and requirements. continue reading

Last February, the government imposed prices on the 7,100 almendrones in the capital. From the time licenses were first issued for this service in the 1990s and up until now, rates have been governed by the law of supply and demand.

In response to the already imposed regulations, many drivers eliminated intermediate stops and opted only to carry passengers traveling their complete route, a situation that contributed to further complicating transportation in the country’s most populous city.

The new piqueras, which will come into operation “soon,” will be operated “by a state entity and not by a cooperative,” clarified Oramas.

Carriers, however, still lack the necessary information, since it has been explained that those who join the initiative must “establish contractual relations” with the state entity in charge but it is unknown who will manage the piqueras.

“After working for a decade in [state-owned] Taxis-Cuba, I decided to make a living with my own car,” says Walfrido, 38, a regular at Fraternity Park, where he picks up most of his passengers. “If the piqueras are going to be administered by this [new] company I won’t join because it is very inefficient.”

Walfrido fears that “they are going to start organizing the stops and end up telling you where the car has to go.” During his years as a taxi driver in a state entity he often had to “stop picking up customers to transport guests from the government, people who were going to some activity or officials,” he recalls.

Without an independent union to represent them, the chances of the drivers putting pressure on the Government are minimal. However, with the strength that they do have, they have the ability to shut down circulation in the cities.

The vice minister defines it as an advantage that those who are part of the experiment will be able to access the sale of fuel in the wholesale market at a different price, and will be able to purchase of “parts and pieces,” according to availability, to enable them to keep their cars running.

The promise to obtain gasoline or diesel at a lower cost than in state-owned service centers could be a good stimulus if it were not for the fact that many of the owners of these vehicles are now being supplied in the “informal” market. The diversion* of fuel from the state sector maintains an illegal stable supply at prices ranging from 10 to 15 CUP per liter (roughly equivalent to $1.50 to $2.25 US per gallon).

Some welcome the possibility of buying discounted parts. “If they are going to stock the stores I am interested, but as it is right now there is very little to reduce [prices on],” says Rodobaldo, a driver who serves the route to La Lisa. “The month it takes me to buy a light to replace a broken one, that month I am ruined,” he says. “So if they lower prices and have the supply,” it would be welcome.

Each botero – or “boatman,” as the drivers are called – will be able to decide which route to work and “will be guaranteed the exclusivity of the service” offered on that route, said Marta Oramas Rivero, so that “only those designated to work on it” will be able to serve it.

The cars associated with the experiment will be marked with stickers showing their itinerary and the piquera they operate from, while those who do not join the experiment will be identified with a mark that indicates that it is a ‘free’ taxi.

But there are still more questions than answers. “They have not clarified whether the partners [in the scheme] will pay reduced taxes, who will pay the salaries of state employees who will work at the piqueras or if the government will control the expense of that fuel at a lower price according to the kilometers traveled,” says Walfrido.

“This experiment is green, green. It is going to fail and end up affecting a lot of people,” he laments.

*Translator’s note: “Diversion from the state sector” means, in Cuba, all the myriad ways workers, managers and officials steal from the state. Without this “diversion” across a wide range of resources and across the entire country, the Cuban economy would come to a standstill.

Music Everywhere He Goes

Raymel Casamayor takes musical walks through Havana, sharing musical genres rarely heard these days. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 8 August 2017 — Every Sunday, Raymel Casamayor meets with several friends in Havana’s Maceo Park and, together, they go for a walk through the nearby streets with a speaker connected by bluetooth to a mobile phone through which all kinds of Cuban rhythms are heard, beyond the rumba and reggaetón that dominate the area.

His musical walks have become the ReConstrucción project, which has been running for more than five months and aims to make sounds that have been overtaken by other, more popular ones, accessible to the public. “People have not had access to other rhythms. They have not had a way to gather and save other music; every day a new one begins and the others are left behind,” he says.

Casamayor offers a break from the monotonous reggaetón. (14ymedio)

The idea occurred to Casamayor, a sound technician, when he started living in Central Havana and noticed that many people did the same thing but with another type of music. He says that they first lent him a speaker and he started going out into the street with a friend, playing other rhythms to see what would happen. continue reading

“We played Cuban music, Benny Moré, la Sonora Matancera … I really thought people were going to throw eggs at us, but it was the opposite,” he says.

Samba, chachacha, rumba, something from Nueva Trova, boleros and even a merengue are among the musical genres Casamayor plays. (14ymedio)

“Every Sunday we are in Maceo Park and when, sometimes, I have to travel to another province, I do it there,” he says.

In Santa Clara he has undertaken his musical walks through the neighborhood of El Condado and has also passed through Holguín, where he sampled his playlist in Gibara, during the celebration of the film festival last April.

Because of the heat, the members of ReConstrucción pass out hats among those who come to listen. (14ymedio)

Casamayor breaks with the monotonous reggaetón just before five in the afternoon on Belascoaín and San Lázaro streets and begins to link a samba, with a son, with a cha cha cha, a rumba, something of the New Trova, boleros and even a meringue

The heat of the implacable Cuban August has led him to change the start time of the show. “Before we left early, about four o’clock, but now with this sun we are leaving at five,” and he passes out hats among those who approach to listen to the soundtrack of Casamayor.

As they turn into Laguna Street, at the back of the Ameijeiras Hospital, some neighbors recognize Casamayor and stop to dance. (14ymedio)

Some of his listeners make requests. “Last Sunday a man asked me to copy a selection of songs on a flash memory and I bring it here, I give them the song they like and it’s good because later they remember it,” he says.

As they turn into Laguna Street, behind Ameijeiras Hospital, some neighbors recognize Casamayor and stop to dance. In a few minutes the block heats up, those who weren’t there come as they spread the word. In a small walker, a baby leaps to the rhythm of a son while his mother also wiggles her hips.

Some young people join the group to ask for music by Yasek Manzano. “We’ll have it next week,” the ReConstruction members promise. (14ymedio)

Ada Maria, 64, comes to a halt when she hears Van Van’s The Tired Ox, and invites her little granddaughter to dance while telling her that this was the music she danced to at parties with her friends when she was young.

“Kids and parents love that we do this because there are very few places to take the kids this summer,” she says.

Some young people join the group to ask for music by Yasek Manzano and the friends of ReConstrucción tell him that, although they do not have any pieces by the jazzman, they will look for it. “We’ll have it next week,” they promise.

Children playing in an wading pool to beat the heat. (14ymedio)

At the corner of Calle Escobar and Concordia, in a plastic wading pool at the edge of the street, several sweating children are cooling off. They receive Raymel with such excitement that he himself gets soaked, but the undamaged speaker continues to spread music to the four winds.

Cuban Government Insists the Pause in the Granting of Private Work Licenses Will Be Short

A private fruit and vegetable cart of the type that will no longer be licensed.

14ymedio biggerEFE/14ymedio, Havana/Miami, 8 August 2017 — The government said Monday that it will not extend “for a very long period” the recent discontinuance of new licenses to open private restaurants and rent rooms to tourists, a measure greeted with concern in the self-employment sector.

The Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feitó said yesterday, almost a week after the new measures to regulate self-employment were announced, that the brake on licenses will continue for as long as “the approval process of the legal norms that will underlie this policy.”

When the new measures were announced, which, according to the Government, seek to curb irregularities in the private sector, the government said that the suspension of licenses would be maintained until “the system was perfected,” an explanation that caused uncertainty in the autonomous sector, which now includes more than half a million workers. continue reading

“We are not talking about a very long period of time, we are not talking about years, we are talking about a normal process of work for the approval of these rules,” state television said.

Regarding the permanent suspension of five types of license, such as for traditional carters, the paper explained that this is a “continuity measure,” since no permits have been granted for these activities for more than a year.

Feitó insisted that people who already have a license for self-employment can continue to exercise it, while the permits that were already in process (about 1,600) will continue the process for their eventual issuance.

She also highlighted the grouping of related activities under a single license, as in the case of professions related to cosmetic services, and mentioned the creation of two new licenses: “bar service and entertainment” (hitherto included in the license for restaurants) and “baker-confectioner.”

On the other hand, the Ministry of Finance and Prices (MFP) of Cuba published a press release on the sudden closure of the Scenius cooperative, specializing in economic, accounting and tax advice. The Government attributes the drastic measure to repeated violations of the “approved social scope” without specifying the violations.

The government’s action came after the independent magazine El Toque reported the situation of Scenius workers, who say they will defend their work “through administrative and political channels.”

“This is an internal process between the Ministry of Finance and the Scenius Cooperative and it is the responsibility of the Board of Directors of the Cooperative to carry out the discussion process with the partners and to apply what is established in the legislation for such purposes,” said a note published in the official MFP portal.

The Ministry points out that the cooperative, which “is not the most important in the country,” nor the only cooperative that provides similar services, and exhorts its managers, “who have been disseminating information” — referring to the contacts they have had with the independent press — to act with “responsibility and transparency” with the members of the non-agricultural cooperative.

“As set out in Decree-Law No. 305 of 2012, the Cooperative is dissolved if it is in breach of the purposes and principles that underpinned its constitution, and this is within the power of the body that approved it,” the official statement said.

Alfonso Larrea Barroso, a lawyer by profession and commercial director of the cooperative, told 14ymedio that they have hired a lawyer to appeal the decision of the Ministry of Finance and Prices.

Larrea regretted not only the end of the project but the fact that more than 320 people will be out of work after the closure. In Cuba there are 431 cooperatives of this type, a type of organization that the rigid system of socialist planning of the island, set up along Soviet lines, authorized to boost the economy. In his recent speech in front of the National Assembly, Cuban President Raúl Castro attacked this form of management.

“We decided to set up the cooperatives, we tried with some and immediately we launched ourselves to set up dozens,” the ruler added.

The Scenius cooperative, created in 2014, was responsible for evaluating the quality of the accounting records of several state-owned companies and was involved in the preparation and execution of economic plans, the execution of investment budgets and the management of collections or payments.

Cuban Builders Are Using an Ancestral Mexican Technique on Houses Damaged by Hurricane Matthew

The outskirts of Baracoa after the passage of Hurricane Matthew. (EFE)

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 8 August 2017 – Guantanamo builders are being trained in constructing ceramic brick vaults, a technique typical of Mexico, within a project to accelerate the completion of hundreds of houses affected by Hurricane Matthew, as was published this Tuesday in the island’s official media.

The construction solution, which is a part of an initiative brought to Cuba by the United Nations Development Program, does not require formwork, nor does it need steel or concrete, so it is cheaper than sheet roofing, the most common in Cuba.

The extension of this technique, applied for more than 200 years in Mexican states such as Jalisco, Michoacán, Querétaro and Oaxaca, could solve the “omnipresent problem” of the shortage of materials to build plate roofs “with the use of local resources, according to the state newspaper Granma. continue reading

In the eastern province — the most affected by the passage of the intense hurricane Matthew on 4 October 2016 — “the producers of ceramic bricks abound and there is a state industry, which together with the abundant availability of the main raw material (clay) should facilitate the extension of this practice,” the newspaper says.

Cuban masons, architects and engineers are being trained by Ramón Aguirre Morales, director of the Institute of Mexican Vaults and Regional Technologies.

Aguirre Morales explained that the ceramic brick domes are built in Mexican territories where “seismic activity is frequent and the vaults have not collapsed, because they are strong and safe constructions”

The bricks used are five centimeters wide, ten high and twenty long, weighing approximately 1.5 kilograms, smaller than those usually produced in the Cuban province.

Their smaller size and weight favors the building of arches and the support of one brick with another, said the Mexican expert.

Guantánamo was the province most affected by Hurricane Matthew, a category 4 on the 1-to-5 Saffir-Simpson scale, and the third most devastating in the history of the Island, where it caused material damages for 97.2 million dollars of damage, without loss of human lives.

The storm affected 46,706 homes, of which 8,312 were collapsed completely (17.8% of the total homes), according to official data.

Baracoa, the first Cuban town founded by the Spanish, was the place that received the direct attacks of Matthew and 90% of the 900 buildings of its historical center were partially or totally damaged.

Cuban Government Obscures the Figures to Hide the Magnitude of Emigration

Cuban migrants arriving in Mexico. (INM)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 3 August 2017 — Fewer than 42,000 Cubans have emigrated since 2013 according to official statistics published in Havana. However, US officials say they have welcomed more than 141,528 Cubans during the same period. The enormous discrepancy between these data is explained by the lack of transparency of the Cuban Government, which conceals the magnitude of migratory movements by counting them in the general category of citizens traveling abroad.

“Cubans do not migrate in great numbers, but they travel more and more,” said Ernesto Soberón Guzman, an official with the Foreign Ministry. In 2016, 723,844 Cubans went abroad, according to the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (ONEI). continue reading

Cuban Immigration. Sources: Cuban government and US Homeland Security. Orange line: Cuban emigrants admitted to the United States (US figures). Grey line: Cuban emigrants (Cuban figures)

If tens of thousands of Cubans who left the country do not appear as emigrants, it is because many of them return before the end of the two-year term that marks the end of their rights as residents on the island, explains Cuban sociologist Elaine Acosta.

“Others have decided to undertake the process known as repatriation, which allows them to regain their residence in Cuba and stay abroad,” adds Acosta.

Cuban law considers that those who remain abroad “continuously for a term longer than 24 months and without the appropriate authorization,” to no longer be citizens.

Those repatriated are counted in the official statistics as resident in the country, although in reality they live abroad. The same thing happens with those who return before the expiration of the 24-month period of a stay abroad.

This management of the figures shows a sudden decrease in emigration. Prior to the 2013 reform, more than 45,000 people left, but in 2014, for the first time in over half a century, ONEI says that more people returned to Cuba than left.

Number of trips abroad by Cubans (Source, Cuban government)

These figures contradict the figures published by the United States, which registered the entry of 141,528 immigrants from Cuba since 2013, not including rafters, while the ONEI only reported a general total of 41,935 émigrés during the same four years.

In addition, the figures from Havana include all Cubans who leave the country permanently, whatever their destination. Ecuador, which was also a popular destination for Cuban emigration, received 33,700 people from the island since 2013. And in the same period Spain registered more than 15,000 new residents who were born in Cuba. That is, the sum of Cuban immigrants in Ecuador and Spain, not including the US, which is the primary destination of Cubans, exceeds the total number of migrants counted by Cuba’s ONEI.

Residents in Spain born in Cuba according to the National Institute of Statistics. Historical series since 2010. (INE)

Elaine Acosta, the sociologist, believes that both segments (the emigrants who maintain their Cuban residence and the returnees) have significantly increased the number of trips abroad from the island, as in the last five years almost half a million have gone abroad.

On the other hand, returnees were only about 14,000, according to the ONEI. This category implies that the citizen recovers his or her rights on the island, among which include participating in the electoral process, receiving free care in the national health system, being able to own property, and the coveted permit to pay import duties once a year in Cuban pesos (CUP) – versus in Cuban convertible pesos (CUC), worth 25 times more.

“The quality of migration statistics leaves much to be desired because they respond to an ideology and there are no studies to break down the figures,” explains the sociologist, who regrets that the ONEI figures do not say how many Cubans who travel abroad have another nationality or residence. Another shortcoming noted by the specialist is that only the number of departures is counted, not the number of individuals who have traveled abroad.

For the sociologist, based in Miami, the national press uses the official figures to “depoliticize” the causes of the exodus. “This is an instrumental use of emigration to reinforce the thesis of economic migration and hide the reality that people are living,” he adds.

Osmanis Gálvez, 42, who emigrated to the United States three years ago, says he returns to the island at least once a year. He was recently repatriated after paying 100 CUC in an office of the Ministry of the Interior.

“I will not go to live in Cuba, but this is a way to inherit my mother’s house and bring her the products she needs without having to pay for them in dollars at Havana customs,” he says.

Frank, a Cuban who has resided in Miami for two years, did not need to be repatriated because on obtaining his permanent residence in the United States, he immediately traveled to Cuba and was able to “enter” before the two-year term expired. Since then he has been traveling once a week to Cuba as a “mule”to carry products to supply the island’s growing black market.

Although travel is one of the most common desires among Cubans, it remains the preserve of those who maintain work and residence outside national borders or have relatives abroad to finance the escape, since on the island the average official monthly salary isn’t even $30, and a plane ticket to Miami costs almost a year’s salary.

 

Prosecutors Demand Three Years in Prison for Karina Gálvez and the Confiscation of Her Home

The indictment also demands the seizure of Karina Gálvez’s house. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 5 August 2017 — Economist Karina Gálvez received the prosecution’s petition on Saturday for the alleged crime of “tax evasion.” According to this petition, the member of the Center for Coexistence Studies (CEC) could be sentenced to three years of house arrest and confiscation of her home, she informed 14ymedio.

“A messenger from the Tribunal, on a motorcycle, came to my mother’s house to give me a document that I had to sign as received,” she says. “The paper, sent by the Municipal Court of Pinar del Rio, details that the prosecutor has arrived at provisional accusations.”

The prosecution is asking for “three years of deprivation of liberty plus the same period of limitation of freedom.” This latter means a person cannot travel abroad, must inform the authorities when leaving the province, and is obliged to have work. continue reading

The accusation also requires the forfeiture of the house that Gálvez acquired after the flexibilizations for the purchase and sale of houses promoted by the Government of Raúl Castro at the end of 2011.

In the next five business days, her lawyer will present a plea to ask for acquittal or a lower penalty. “Starting with this communication, my lawyer will have access for the first time to the case file,” says the economist.

However, neither the lawyer nor the defendant has been informed of the date of the oral hearing.

In January, Galvez was arrested and taken to the headquarters of the State Security where she spent six days under arrest. The police searched her home and since then the house has been under investigation and is sealed, which prevents access for the owner or her family.

The economist has been under pressure from the authorities since last December when she was summoned to the Department of Immigration and Immigration (DIE), where she was questioned about her travels outside Cuba.

Other members of the Convivencia magazine have been cited by the police and have received warnings, including the director of the publication, Dagoberto Valdés, who last October was told by an official that “from today” his life will be “very difficult.”

Amid this wave of pressure, members of the CEC, which organizes training courses for citizens and civil society, issued a declaration of commitment to their work in the island. “We are not leaving Cuba, we are not leaving the Church and we will continue working for the country.”

The Private Sector is the Victim of the Government’s Double Speak

A private restaurant in Havana. (EFE)

14ymedio biggerReinaldo Escobar, Havana, 5 August 2017 — The brake announced last June has just materialized. By canceling the awarding of licenses in several areas in which people have been allowed to work for themselves, and stopping the award of new licenses in several others, the government has confirmed fears about the advance of the private sector, and put at risk the small spaces of efficiency won by the population.

This week the Official Gazette published the decision to not grant new authorizations for this form of non-state management “until the perfection of self-employment is concluded.” This formula hides a misleading term — perfection — too subjective to be the object of legislation.

Fears are also growing before what remains to be achieved. Both the last Council of Ministers as well as the recently concluded session of the National Assembly, made clear that there is a package of regulations directed at the self-employment and cooperatives sector that will be announced in the coming months. continue reading

Many business owners fear losing their investment if draconian requirements are applied to them, but those principally affected may be the consumers. They are facing the risk that the good service and better quality that the private sector has achieved in areas such as food service, lodging, appliance repair and transportation, among many others, could be a thing of the past.

This week’s decision was preceded by official statements about illegalities and tax evasion. It is expected, then, that the upcoming regulations will aim at prioritizing the fight against violators, rather than seeking solutions such as the establishment of wholesale markets, commercial import permits or tax incentives.

Punishment and penalization seem to be the only ways in which the Cuban government deals with its citizens. On detecting irregularities the only way the government resolves them is with coercive measures, such as suspending the issuing of licenses, an increase in the number of inspectors, or the demonization of the economic prosperity achieved by the most successful.

This confrontational attitude shows that autonomous forms of management continue to be a necessary evil for the ruling party, while the figure of the small businessman remains an antagonist of the “New Man,english beach blue flag status

” which was once intended to be created. The enemy does not land on the coast or found opposition parties, but offers tasty pizzas at home, manages beauty salons and opens websites to promote its services.

The government is trapped in a contradiction. On the one hand the government wants to prevent the private sector from growing too fast, but it exhibits the sector as an example of the progress of the reforms promoted by Raúl Castro. At the end of the first half of this year, the growth of those engaged in self-employment, with 567,982 workers, has been used in international forums and debates as a sign of openness and development.

However, that figure may be affected in the coming months. When the licenses returned by those who were disappointed and failed to succeed exceeds the number of licenses issued for new affiliates. It is easy to predict a decrease or at least a paralysis in the volume. Stagnation and the duration of this slowdown will have negative repercussions on the exercise and influence of the private sector in the national economy. A digression that could cause enthusiasm to decline and paranoia to grow.

Cuba Has No Plan B To Make Up For The Loss Of Venezuela

Cubans are tired of being unable to access foods of animal origin other than chicken. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 4 August 2017 – “It doesn’t matter when, all we get are feathers,” complains the father of a family, disgusted on finding no kind of meat other than chicken in the Hard Currency Collection Stores (TRD), the state chain that sells only in Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC). Since the beginning of the Venezuelan crisis, Cubans have been bitter about the shortages in retail markets, a problem that will grow in the coming months, according to economist Omar Everleny Perez.

The country cut 1.5 billion dollars in imports in the first half of the year, which will directly affect the population,” said Perez, in conversation with 14ymedio. continue reading

Trade balance: imports (black line) and exports (orange line) in Cuba since 1950.

The abrupt cut in imports stems from the decision to use 2.306 billion dollars to make payments on external debt, renegotiated with the Paris Club and other creditors, adds the former director of the Center for Studies of the Cuban Economy.

“They renegotiated a debt that they had not paid since 1986. Creditors waived up to 90% in some cases, but they had to pay that remaining 10% and could only do so by cutting imports,” he explains.

According to Perez, a contributor to the magazine Temas, the national economy is beginning to show signs of macroeconomic recovery but it is not enough.

“From the macro point of view, it seems that there will be a change in the trend line, but 1% growth does not tell you anything. The country needs to grow from 5 to 7% — and not just for one year — so that people feel it,” he adds.

“With this rate of growth, seeing an improvement in living conditions would take at least 30 years. How do you say that to a 50-year-old?” Pérez quips.

Cuba announced that at the end of this semester the economy had grown by 1.1%, after a GDP fall of 0.9% in 2016. Pérez attributes this positive result to tourism, which grew by 23%, and the sugar cane industry, which produced about 1.8 million tons of sugar.

“Tourism is changing lives in many parts of Cuba. For example, in the municipality of Trinidad, the revenues of the non-state sector surpassed those of state enterprises for the first time. In this municipality the private sector generated 56.9% of the total collected,” he says.

The Havana Consulting Group has just published very interesting data on the increasing contribution of remittances to the functioning of the national economy. The Miami-based consulting firm says remittances grew 2.7% in 2016 to $3.444 billion, surpassing net revenue from tourism that year, according to official sources.

The difference is even greater when compared to net tourism receipts, which will not exceed $1.3 billion after deducting the costs of imports needed to cater for tourists, especially food, as Cuba produces nothing.

Gross income from remittances (orange line) versus tourism (black line).

Pérez Villanueva is worried about the strong impact that the eventual fall of Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela would have on the Cuban economy.

“Venezuela continues to be Cuba’s number one trading partner, despite its crisis. For the past two years, the problems of that country have been growing, but no measures have been taken to counteract the end of that trade relationship,” he says.

Perez believes that Havana should be thinking of sending its highly skilled labor to other countries with oil reserves like Angola or Algeria. “It will never be the same as with Venezuela and those countries could not absorb the number of doctors [that Venezuela has been paying for], but at least it would cushion the blow,” he says.

Trade by country over time.

Cuba could take advantage of currently low oil prices to buy fuel from other allied nations, such as Russia or Algeria, but the lack of credit is a chronic problem, according to the Minister of Economy and Planning, Ricardo Cabrisas, who acknowledged in the Report on Behavior of the Economy and Planning 2017 that the Island’s ability to obtain loans is affected by the amount of debts due.

However, according to Pérez, Cuba is trying to strengthen new mechanisms to generate electricity from renewable sources, but “it needs time and money.” There is also an attempt to revive national oil production, which is declining due to the depletion of the wells.

“If the supply of Venezuelan oil is stopped, it would not be as it was in the USSR. We receive from Venezuela half the fuel we need, and in the time of the former Soviet Union we received virtually all of it,” he added.

“The country should bet heavily on foreign investment,” says Pérez Villanueva, who was ousted after a series of lectures in which he displayed his critical opinion on the economy’s progress on the island.

“The guidelines say that foreign investment is not a complement to domestic investment but rather a part of the national investment, but in practice the level of appropriations is not noticeable,” he adds.

Despite continuing to publish the portfolio of foreign investment opportunities, the investment flagship project, the Mariel Special Development Zone, continues to be bogged down with small investments.

For Pérez, the country has to immediately expand trade on its own, something that seems very distant, especially after the freeze in the granting of new licenses for self-employment announced last Tuesday.

“There is a mass of workers who could leave the guardianship of the State and pay taxes in activities related to what they studied [at the universities]. This would prevent engineers graduating in Computer Science from leaving for Canada or quitting to drive a taxi “.

However, Perez believes that the state does not want healthy competition to exist because the great socialist state enterprise remains its model. “In Cuba, ideology continues to set the tone, not the economy.”

Miguel Diaz-Canel, A Future Lenin Moreno?

Miguel Díaz-Canel, the current Cuban vice-president (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 4 August 2017 – Each ruler leaves his imprint. More than a decade ago Fidel Castro relinquished power and his brother promised continuity; but he dismantled the boarding high schools in the countryside, the army of social workers and the open anti-imperialist rallies. This coming February, Miguel Diaz-Canel could assume the presidency of Cuba and those who believe he will follow the script to the letter underestimate the vicissitudes of politics.

In recent days the news about the Venezuelan crisis has failed to overwhelm the political impact of what is happening in Ecuador. The country, which until recently was led by a man of arrogant discourse and aggressions against the press and his opponents, now has a more sedate president who is – at top speed – marking distances with his predecessor.

Lenin Moreno came to power wrapped in the controversy over a distortion of the vote in his favor. Last June, during a conference in Madrid, his main electoral opponent, Guillermo Lasso, defined that victory without circumspection: “In February there was the most brazen fraud that has been seen in Ecuador,” he said. The doubts about the cleanness of the elections and the closeness of the official candidate to Rafael Correa augured nothing good. continue reading

Nevertheless, a few months after assuming the highest position of the state, Moreno seems ready to chart his own course. He has huge motives to separate from Correa because the scandal of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht is stepping on the heels of the previous administration and the country has a debt of more than 24 billion dollars. A figure that the outgoing president tried to hide before leaving, but that has finally been revealed by the current executive.

Moreno has come to converse with several opponents, including the former president Abdalá Bucaram (1996-1997) exiled for years in Panama. This is a step that shows a clear change of direction for the Palace of Carondelet, which until recently fought those who disagreed politically with blows, insults and threats.

This week, the difference between the two most recent presidents went one step further and Moreno revoked the powers of the vice president Jorge Glas, a kind of tutor left by Correa to watch over the course of the so-called Citizen Revolution. The schism threatens to fracture the Alianza País party, shaken between those who support the former president and those who clamor for the decisions of the current president to be respected.

From distant Belgium, Correa burns with anger at what he considers a betrayal. His impetuous character, fed even more by ten years in power, has led him to write numerous critical messages against Moreno on the social network Twitter. His successor has become an antagonist and has refused to follow the path laid out by the 54-year-old economist for his party colleague.

In these months Moreno, as will happen to Diaz-Canel, has had to face his people and the international community. He has realized that it is one thing to be the designated heir, while something quite different to take the helm in the control room of a country that has long been ruled by the whims of one man. To lead with some efficiency, in both cases, requires breaking with those who placed them in those positions.

The differences between the Ecuadorian and Cuban cases are marked. While the government of Rafael Correa lasted a decade, on the island the Castro brothers have controlled every detail of the economy and politics for more than half a century. The imprint left by the Correa’s time in power in Ecuador is intense and is evidenced in a greater polarization along with a weakening of civil society, but the effect of Castroism is much deeper.

Moreno has managed to distance himself from his predecessor because, among other reasons, there are democratic structures in the country that support him in this effort, something far from the Cuban landscape. In spite of the international questions about his election to the presidency, the Ecuadorian has the approval of the majority of the governments of the region and of international bodies, some of whom see him as a concerned administrator trying to impose order on the asylum.

Miguel Diaz-Canel, less charismatic and grayer, will have biology in his favor. While it can not be ruled out that Rafael Correa will put an end to his Belgian retreat and try to reassume the Ecuadorian presidency, the current Cuban vice president will witness the deaths the members of the historic generation, people who now consider him a manageable upstart, with no battles or dead to show in his favor.

However, the economic gulf that the island dauphin will inherit will be even more unfathomable. The country that he will receive in February is experiencing a process of economic stagnation, has failed to resolve the dual currency system, is experiencing a slowdown in the expansion of the private sector and has not even been able to convince a significant number of foreign investors to put their money in the Island.

Sitting in the presidential chair and with the script of each step written on the table, Miguel Díaz-Canel will face the dilemma of having to make his own decisions. With the stares of commanders and generals fixed on the back of his neck, he is likely to opt for submission. But something of his imprint, his personality, will creep into the agenda. One day, out of bravery or fear, he will end up giving some mortal blows to Castroism.

When The Night Is Darkest

Anyone can be arrested without prior order, here we simply call it kidnapping. (Miguel Gutiérrez / EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Poleo, Caracas, 3 August 2017 — Many Venezuelans are exhausted, the dictatorship today posing to us a scenario of fear and despair. There is no public meeting or march that is not repressed even before it begins. The regime’s paramilitary and efectivos flood the streets of Venezuela with murders and arrests. Sniper rifle is no longer unusual at any demonstration, nor is it surprising that most of the bullet impacts against the demonstrators are directly to the head.

Nor are the arbitrary arrests of deputies or their relatives rare, in violation of their immunity. The rights of citizenship have ceased to exist, we are no longer judged by our natural judges, it is now military justice that is responsible for charging any citizen. Anyone can be arrested without prior order, here we simply call it kidnapping.

The most interesting thing about fear is that it leads you to attack those closest to you, who are just as vulnerable as you are. Fear makes you see your own weaknesses and leads you to blame your environment for your misfortune. It’s easier to distance yourself from what really terrifies you. And in psychological warfare this is well-known, demoralizing, deepening the differences, breaking the unit, fracturing it, so powerful is fear. That is why fear is a fundamental part of tyrannies, hope is eaten away, it neutralizes joy and devastates faith, demobilizes and in this spiritually devastated terrain, sows meekness, dependence, ideologies.

Division is good for dictatorships. continue reading

The currency is devaluing at a rapid pace. Just yesterday my wife miraculously got my medicine for tension, though they only sold her two boxes, and when I went to buy another two boxes (a month’s treatment) in the same place, just an hour and a half later, I paid twice as much.

The black market dollar, that is, the only one that obtainable, goes from a price of 10,389 bolivars per dollar on Friday, July 29 to 13,780 on August 2.

Every minute that passes, the darkness closes in on the noble nation of Simon Bolivar. My hope is set in the new dawn. These are hard times, the next few hours are decisive and I am sure that we are all going to put everything we have into survival of our country.

We are pacifists, democrats and a people of faith.

But the dictatorship can never underestimate the strength of a people when they close the windows of freedom. We Venezuelans have shown through 18 years that we are not going to put our knees on the ground. We are going to fight, have no doubt.

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Editorial Note: This testimonial is part of a text that the author has published in his blog and has shared with 14ymedio.

 

The Vicissitudes Of A “Regulated” Person

A uniformed Immigration official reported Monday to Regina Coyula that she could not travel because she was “regulated”. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Regina Coyula, Havana, 1 August 2017 — I should be in Panama right now. But on July 31, when I showed up at the desk at José Martí International Airport, I was shown to an office where an Immigration officer informed me that I could not travel because I was “regulated.” The word has unpleasant connotations because the most frequent regulation in Cuba is menstrual regulation. In any case, questioning that official about the cause of such a ban was futile. She did not seem to know anything beyond the bad news, and it is logical that she does not have the details, given the way compartmentalization works (or is supposed to work) within the Ministry of the Interior.

I can deduce with confidence that this measure comes from the department that “attends” opponents of the government, known as Section 21 or the Directorate of Counterintelligence Confrontation. In order to know why I was “regulated,” the old retirement villa of the Marist Brothers in La Vibora district, known Villa Marista, is the place where the questions are asked. continue reading

An officer on duty (‘visitor’, I think they call him) was responsible for hearing my complaint and handling the response. The officer dialed the phone and asked for Lieutenant Colonel Kenia, and explained that I was standing in front of him asking about the reasons for the “regulation.” On the other end of the phone, the person asked for my name and surnames, and after a pause the response was disconcerting: Section 21 is not responsible for my ban on leaving the country.

I, who have an idea – an old idea but an idea at least* – of how counterintelligence works, know that if you do not have a traffic ticket or a charge against you for stepping on the grass, and if you do not work for any state agency, but you do engage in independent and critical journalism, the cabals mark 21.

But the visiting officer, very convinced that my meager record of opposition did not qualify me for the league of 21, suggested that I visit the offices of Attention to the Citizenry for Immigration where – and these were his words and not my interpretation – they would tell me who had “regulated” me and why.

After a few stumbling blocks with the leadership of the place, I arrived at 20th Street near the corner with 7th, in Miramar. I did not omit any details speaking to the official who received me and I was direct: I went to Mexico on June 26, invited to a political meeting and I was not allowed to travel.

At the time I did not inquire about the measure, because it seemed to me part of a strategy to abort or disrupt the meeting since, like me, a large group of would-be attendees was left on land by decision of the authorities. But this July 31, I was not going to a political meeting, I was going to the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Governance Forum, an event sponsored by the United Nations. As I do not belong to any party and I am the leader only of my own opinions, I wanted to know by whose orders and why I remained “regulated.”

The official, a captain, clarified for me first thing was the mistake of the Villa Marista officials; they could not give me information about who decided this part of my life and why, but she would consult on my case with her superior, a lieutenant colonel and head of the Department of Attention to Citizenship.

I spent the wait of 40 or 50 minutes reading. Then the captain wrote down my version and put my phone number at the bottom of the page. She then informed me that the bosses had made the decision to “deregulate” me starting on Wednesday.

“That is, I can get on a plane at one in the morning on Tuesday/Wednesday?”

The captain said yes, and, cheerful, added that, just in case, she would suggest doing it after eight o’clock in the morning.

I thanked her for the attention and I walked out under a tremendous downpour. Just 20 minutes after leaving the Immigration office, the phone rang. It was the cheerful captain with a counter-order: “No, you can not travel until further notice and you will be notified.”

This is when one wonders what is the idea of ​​the political police and the guidelines they receive, because my participation in the event is not newsworthy, but my absence is.

Why is the government so sensitive when it is accused of violating human rights? What Rule of Law do they presume if they do not respect their own body of law shaped during this long authoritarianism? What are they afraid of, it the propaganda always insists that they enjoy the unrestricted and combative support of our working people?

But what am I doing asking rhetorical questions?

*Translator’s note: Regina Coyula, in an earlier stage of her life, worked within Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior

The Private Sector Accounts For 18% Of The Cuban Economy Despite The Obstacles

The Havana Consulting Group highlights the importance of Cuban exiles in the development of the private sector on the island through their financial support. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Miami, 1 August 2017 – The work performed by the self-employed in the island already generates 17.8% of the gross income of the Cuban economy despite difficulties such as high taxes and shortages of raw materials, according to the latest report from The Havana Consulting Group (THCG), which considers this sector as “a necessary and essential force in the development of the country.”

The study by THCG contrasts with the measure announced Tuesday by the government, which, according to a note in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, intends to suspend the granting of several forms of self-employment licenses with the aim of curbing “illegality and disorder.”

The analysis published by the independent consulting firm based in Florida, states that the 535,000 people who work legally in the private sector (plus another 500,000 who do so illegally) on average receive, as a minimum, income ten times higher than what is received in the state sector. continue reading

“This change that is taking shape in Cuban society is irrefutable proof that, if the government were to decide to make a real economic opening and release the country’s productive forces, with a reform like Viet Nam’s or China’s, in two to three years Cuba could take out millions of Cubans out of poverty. In a short time it would be another country,” says THCG.

“This significant difference in earnings has led to the creation of new market segments with different levels of purchasing power, which have consumption patterns different from the rest of the population,” explains the author of the article, Emilio Morales.

Nevertheless, THCG argues that, despite the boom in private activities, “This significant difference in wages has given rise to the creation of new market segments with different levels of purchasing power, who have patterns of consumption different from the rest of the population.”

The report was drafted ahead of the authorities’ decision to limit licensing, affecting nearly thirty occupations such as home rentals and paladares (private restaurants) and cafés. The decrease in the issuance of these licenses may result in still greater increase of the state sector in the economy of the island.

“In the period 2010-2016 there has been a boom in the Cuban private sector. Entrepreneurs have developed very successful and profitable business models,” the study says.

According to THCG, the state agency GAESA, which belongs to the Armed Forces, controls strategic sectors such as 85% of the retail market, 40% of the hotel sector within the Cuban tourist industry, and 27% of the Telecommunications Company of Cuba, among others. However, the independent consultant’s analysis points out that “its business structure only represents 21% of the gross income of the Cuban economy, not 60%, as the media and news agencies have pointed out in recent weeks.”

The report also stresses the importance of Cuban exiles in the development of the private sector on the island through their financial support, “which has managed to create a market of goods and services that is estimated at between 2.5 and 3.8 billion dollars.”

“The fact that Cuban entrepreneurs already control 18% of the gross income of the economy with all the limitations they have is a good sign that the mutation has begun to take shape,” THCG said.

The Betrayal Of The Minstrel

Silvio Rodríguez lost the ‘blue unicorn’ of his creativity many years ago. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 30 July 2017 — Songwriters are often confused with prophets or leaders. The output of numerous troubadours has ended up molding consciences, erecting political slogans and becoming unquestionable mantras. Every social movement needs its musical soundtrack and in Latin America these loners of the guitar have sonorously accompanied more than one.

Chroniclers equipped with melodies most commonly take these songs literally, confusing the characters of their stanzas with the flesh and blood being who ascends the stage. Under the lights, in the intimate atmosphere of a theater, they intone those phrases that are later later subverted for thousands of spectators into slogans and postures. continue reading

After the hard years in which a ballad could cost them their lives or prison, Latin American troubadours who shaped the protest songs now exist in a stage of permissive tranquility. The fiercest battle is waged against reggaeton, not against censorship. Their greatest fear lies not in swelling the blacklists, but in the audience moving the dial to look for some other, “more moving,” music.

They are no longer the focus of the reviews and the critics, and find themselves in the boring corner of the consecrated who no longer fill stadiums nor provoke sighs. They live on past glories and rarely does one of their songs make it to the top of the lists, although on TV they are still presented as “unsurpassable” or “indisputable.”

Among these shaggy ones of the easy verse, the most roguish have ceded their guitar to some power they criticized years ago, to vegetate in the shadow of festivals, tributes and interviews. The few darts they still throw in their lyrics mix the most recurring commonplaces of progressive discourse, while their clothing maintains every trace of a disguise of calculated sloppiness.

The best-known names of a few decades ago, today they caress the discs with which they assembled crowds and made their consciences throb. In the absence of those emotions, they are now engaged – without score and with weakened voice – in their professorships of how to behave civically or how to incite a rebellion that they themselves dismissed as unprofitable.

Some of those musical themes they composed, when they breathed the air of making love not war, have been hijacked by militants and extremists who sing them – neck veins bursting – in front of their political opponents. From libertarian musical expressions they became the gags to silence differences, mere hymns of blind battle.

The times of rhyming and believing each verse have given way to cynicism. Many of the minstrels who put rhymes to nonconformity moved away from the public scene; others parked their uncomfortable songs in search of greater income, while the majority, having lost the muse, have become defenders of whatever cause can hide their creative drought.

Nostalgic for a time when crowds gathered, more than one has chosen to sing to the powerful and dedicate his refrains to certain unpresentable populists. They compose to order, exalting in their refrains faded revolutions transmuted in dictatorships, and so they earn a space on the official platforms where the promises abound and the sincerity is lacking.

These are not the times when Victor Jara took his art to the ultimate consequences. “I do not sing for singing / nor for having a good voice, / I sing because the guitar / has meaning and reason,” said the Chilean who died at the age of 40 with dozens of bullets embedded in his body. Now there are plenty of artists who take care with every word to avoid moving beyond the scheme of the politically correct. Composers of polished rhymes and well-combed hair who walk through government palaces and whose honoris causa is welcomed.

They are a part of that plethora of intellectuals and artists who appear in the family photo, pointing out anyone who confronts them as the cause of all problems. Bitter anti-imperialists, false ecologists and distrustful of wealth – as long as that phobia does not affect their own pockets – they star in cantatas against distant powers and governments under which they do not live.

About four years ago, the Spanish singer-songwriter Luis Eduardo Aute said that he identified with President Rafael Correa’s Citizen Revolution. The statement was made at a time when the Ecuadorian ruler was engaged in a tough fight against the media in his country and put strict limits on freedom of the press. The irreverent poses always involve a lot of myopia, of not seeing beyond the fabricated irreverence. Under the influence of his own refrains, Aute believed in the character of his songs and that: “They say that everything is tied / And well tied to the markets,” when in reality he forgot that other powers also like to control every detail, especially words.

In Cuba lives an extreme case. Silvio Rodríguez lost the ‘blue unicorn’ of his creativity many years ago. As his subjects were filled with visible seams and boredom, his public outlook became closer to the official discourse. He stopped writing unforgettable songs to engage in diatribes against “the enemies of the Revolution.”

Recently, the singer added his signature to the manifesto Let the Catalans Vote, asking the Spanish Government to allow a referendum on independence in Catalonia. Rodríguez’s name is accompanied by other figures such as artist Yoko Ono, African-American philosopher Angela Davis and Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchú.

Rodriguez, author of Ojalá, initialed the statement that “a large majority of Catalans have repeatedly expressed in various ways the desire to exercise the democratic right to vote on their political future.” He considers that “preventing the Catalans from voting” contradicts democratic principles, precisely those that Cubans have been unable to enjoy for decades in their own land.

There is nothing left in this Rodriguez of the rebellion that characterized his first tunes. In 2003, he signed the Message From Havana To Friends Who Are Far Away, in which a group of intellectuals offered justifications for the imprisonment of 75 dissidents on the island. The document also supported the decision of Fidel Castro’s government to shoot three men who hijacked a passenger ship to try to escape to the United States.

With a comfortable life, a recording studio authorized by the Government and with a full table, the minstrel went astray in bows and silences. His music, which once accompanied the disobedience of so many citizens in this part of the world, is now a part of the official lyrics, of the symphony of power.

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Editorial Note: This text has been previously published by the Spanish newspaper  El País  in its edition of Sunday 30 of July.

Machado Ventura Denies Cuba’s Mediation In The Venezuelan Conflict

Machado Ventura and Raul Castro greet each other in Cuba on the 26th of July Celebration. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 26 July 2017 – There were few surprise in Jose Ramon Machado Ventura’s speech this Wednesday during the ceremony for National Rebellion day in Pinar del Rio. The Cuban Communist Party number two reiterated that “the direction of the Revolution is laid out,” and denied that Cuba was participating in the solution to the Venezuelan conflict, as suggested by the British newspaper the Financial Times.

The national celebration of the 64th anniversary of the assault on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba and the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Barracks in Bayamo, was the last that Raúl Castro would attend in his capacity as president of the country before his retirement on 24 February of next year, and also the first after the death of Fidel Castro in November. continue reading

The ceremony took place in “a provisional place of the Revolution,” according to local media, in the absence of a permanent space for official ceremonies. Controls on the roads have increased since the weekend and during the day of the event vehicles were not allowed to circulate near the ceremony site.

Machado Ventura, as the main speaker of the event, called for respect for Venezuela’s autonomy and attacked Luis Almagro, secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), whose performance he described as “disgusting” and “at the service of imperialism.”

The Cuban vice president strongly criticized Almagro’s appearance before the subcommittee for Latin America of the United States Senate last week, when the OAS Secretary General denounced the “collapse of democracy” in Venezuela.

“In recent weeks, the interventionist and destabilizing actions against the Bolivarian and Chavez government led by constitutional president Nicolás Maduro Moros have increased,” Machado Ventura said Wednesday. He criticized the recent threat of sanctions on Venezuela announced by Donald Trump’s administration.

“A few days ago an influential American (sic) newspaper was discussing the alleged involvement of our country in an eventual international mediation related to the situation in Venezuela,” he said. “Cuba flatly rejects such insinuations and claims absolute respect for [Venezuela’s] sovereignty and self-determination,” he added.

Last week the British newspaper said that Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos had traveled to Cuba to convince Havana to mediate in the “growing” Venezuelan crisis, which left more than 90 dead after three months of protests.

“Those who attempt, from the outside, to give lessons in democracy and human rights while encouraging the violence of coups and terrorism must take their hands off that nation“

“Those who attempt, from the outside, to give lessons in democracy and human rights while encouraging the violence of coups and terrorism must take their hands off that nation,” Machado Ventura said pointedly to the island’s senior government officials, local officials and a small number of foreign guests.

The rest of the speech was devoted to the historical review of the revolutionary process and to comparing the current situation of Pinar del Rio with that of January 1959. “We have programmatic documents that set the direction and scope of the changes that we will continue to make with the aim of achieving a prosperous and sustainable socialism,” he explained about the future of the country.

The speech shunned the national reality, ignoring issues such as self-employment or cooperatives that have generated concern among citizens after Raul Castro, speaking to the National Assembly of People’s Power, warned of deviations and irregularities detected in the non-state sector.