Older people walk through the streets of Havana suffering from the cold. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 9 January 2017 — Havana is a winter scene. The waves pour over the wall of the Malecon in the low areas, the winds shake even the thickest branches of the trees, and people huddle together all wrapped up as they pass through the streets. The cold front arrived last Saturday, changing the image of the city that, until a few days ago, had experienced the fifth warmest December since 1951.
The drop below 68 degrees Fahrenheit was felt first in the west of the island and by Sunday had spread to the center and east. The cold has arrived accompanied by rain and high winds that have reduced attendance at schools and workplaces. continue reading
The winter effect is also seen at the Coppelia ice cream parlor, where there are very few customers. “This is the best time of the year to come,” said a customer, who took advantage of the low demand to order a bowl with five different flavors.
Older people complain of the pains in their bones that come with “the cold,” while tourists continue to stroll through the historic center of Havana in light clothing and with a thick layer of sunscreen on their skin. For them the idea of winter in Cuba is a joke.
Older people complain of pains in their bones that come with “the cold,” while tourists continue to stroll through the historic center of Havana in light clothing
The official press has warned of “the desirability of protecting children, the elderly and people afflicted by certain chronic diseases,” but housing problems force many to spend considerable time outdoors, in parks and streets, given the tight housing conditions which make coexistence indoors a challenge.
This is, in addition, the season of love. “So you can hug, without so much sweat all over the place,” said a teenage girl in love, curled up next to her boyfriend in a doorway on Galiano Street. In May or June they will probably only walk hand in hand, if even that.
The most elegant take out their scarves, berets smelling of mothballs after long months of storage, and turtle-neck sweaters. It’s “now or never” to wear these items. In a few days it could be back to the eternal summer that the tour operators promote and that the nationals must endure the rest of the year.
Specialists at the Institute of Meteorology have warned that the climate will be warmer, drier and more extreme by the end of this century. The temperature will increase by an average of up to seven degrees Fahrenheit and the country will suffer a 15% to 50% decrease in rainfall.
Vice Admiral Julio César Gandarilla, Cuba’s new Minister of the Interior, has unleashed a fierce crackdown across the country (ACN/ Marcelino Vázquez)
14ymedio, Mario Penton, Havana/Miami, 11 January 2017 — While in the United States Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, made it clear that human rights will be an important part of Washington’s policy toward Cuba, the island’s police forces carried out repressive actions in different parts of the country.
“The increase in repression is due to several causes, among them a push that the government is making in the last days of Barack Obama’s administration to make it clear to Trump that they do not care about the policy change he has announced towards Cuba,” said José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) speaking from Santiago de Cuba. continue reading
Ferrer denounced the arrest of Jesús Romero and Alexis Rodríguez, activists of his organization who were accused of “posting an opposition sign in the center of the city.”
Among Unpacu members recently detained are also its coordinator, Ovidio Martín Castellanos, and the singer Yuniel Aguilera.
“After the death of his brother, Raul Castro needs to increase terror levels to maintain power,” says Ferrer, who says the government is willing to do anything to eliminate any hint of dissent.
“The increase in repression is due to the push the government is making in the last days of Barack Obama’s administration to make clear to Trump that they do not care about the policy change he has announced towards Cuba”
“They know people are tired of the same thing. When in April we mobilized more than 1,000 people the political police told us that we would never do something like that again,” he adds.
At the other end of the island, the editor of the magazine Convivencia (Coexistence), Karina Galvez, was the victim of search of her home, which ended up being sealed. Galvez herself, age 48 and an economist by profession, is under arrest for the alleged crime of tax evasion.
The director of the Center for Coexistence Studies, Dagoberto Valdés Hernández, called the escalation against the civic project he leads – including the suspension of a planned meeting and multiple arrests – acts of “harassment” by State Security.
Also arrested this day was regime opponent Óscar Elías Biscet, founder of the Emilia Project, which seeks the change of government in the island by means of a popular uprising. After a few hours, Dr. Biscet, who has spent long years in jail, was released.
Activists Eduardo Quintana Suarez, Jose Omar Lorenzo Pimienta and Yoan Alvares, who belong to the same organization, were also arrested, as reported by El Nuevo Herald.
Activist Martha Beatriz Roque was arrested when she attempted to attend the scattering of the ashes of the recently deceased opponent Felix Antonio Bonne Carcassés. She explained to 14ymedio that her detention lasted until two on Wednesday afternoon.
Opponent René Gómez Manzano told this newspaper that they “appealed” to his sanity so that he would not attend the ceremony where the ashes would be scattered, although he finally succeeded in doing so.
This repressive wave unfolds a few hours after the replacement of the recently deceased Interior Minister, Carlos Fernández Gondín, by Vice Admiral Julio César Gandarilla
According to a press release from Democratic Directorate in the city of Holguín, human rights activist Maydolis Leiva Portelles, together with her three children, under arrest since November 27, 2016, were brought to trial.
The entire family, according to the press release, including two minors, was the subject of an act of repudiation that included “violent raiding of the home, beatings, and robbery of personal property.”
This repressive wave has been unfolding within a few hours of the replacement of the recently deceased Interior Minister, Carlos Fernández Gondín, by Vice Admiral Julio César Gandarilla. Among other prerogatives, the person who controls the portfolio of the Interior Ministry also exercises command over State Security and the National Revolutionary Police.
“With the [previous minister] repression was quite extensive, although it must be said that in Cuba a minister cannot do anything without Raul Castro authorizing it. The policy carried out by Gondín continues with Gandarilla. We will have more repression as the discontent increases,” says José Daniel Ferrer.
A strong police search and the arrest of Karina Gálvez marked this day in Pinar del Río. (Coexistence)
14ymedio, Havana, 11 January 2017 — The economist Karina Galvez, a member of the editorial board of the magazine Convivencia (Coexistence) has been arrested and taken to the headquarters of State Security on the Pinar del Rio highway. Her home is sealed and family and friends are not allowed access.
On Wednesday morning the police searched Galvez’s house. Several officers from State Security’s Technical Investigations Department (DTI), officials from the Institute of Physical Planning, and numerous police officers took part in the raid, as reported to 14ymedio by Dagoberto Valdes, director of the independent publication in the city of Pinar del Río.
Livia Gálvez, Karina’s sister, explained that an official who identified herself as “Major Odalys,” told her that Karina was being held under the crime of “tax evasion,” which could be linked to the sale of a property. continue reading
She added that she was told that she may visit her in seven days to bring her personal hygiene supplies.
Yoandy Izquierdo, a member of the Convivencia team, said the police search lasted nearly four hours.
“They have not taken anything from the house, what they have done is to paste notices handwritten in pen on the doors and garage,” said Izquierdo, who witnessed an Interior Ministry official stating that “the house is not confiscated, it is occupied.”
“There is a police car and a DTI car outside the house,” Valdés said in a telephone conversation with this newspaper in the morning. The director of the study center also reported a visible operation around the block of the building.
So far the reason for the search and Galvez’s arrest is unknown.
Karina Gálvez, editor of the magazine Coexistence in Pinar del Río. (Alongthemalecon)
On 24 December Karina Galvez was summoned to the Department of Immigration and Aliens (DIE) where she was questioned about her travels outside Cuba. During the interrogation, two officers demanded that she give details about her participation in a forum on internet governance in Guadalajara, Mexico.
In recent months, members of the magazine Convivencia have been subjected to pressure and warnings. Dagoberto Valdes underwent an intense interrogation last October at police headquarters on San Juan Highway in Pinar del Rio. A uniformed official told him, “From today your life will be very difficult.”
The Center organizes training courses for citizens and civil society in Cuba. The entity functions independently from the State, the Church and any political group. The magazine of the same name was begun in 2008; it is published bi-monthly and has just released its 54th issue.
Enrique Iglesias in a file image with the Cuban group “Gente de Zona”. (Networks)
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 11 January 2017 — My mother had a T-shirt with the face of the Spanish singer Julio Iglesias, bought in the informal market in the early eighties. At a meeting of the Union of Young Communists they warned her she could not continue to wear it. The author of La vida sigue igual (Life Remains the Same) had fallen into the blacklist of censorship and after that the garment languished in a drawer in our house.
This January, almost four decades after that point in my childhood, Julio’s son Enrique Iglesias has come to Cuba to film the music video for the single Súbeme la radio (Beam me up to the radio). A legion of fans is preparing to follow him to the locations where he will work alongside director Alejandro Pérez, musician Descemer Bueno and the Puerto Rican duo Zion and Lenox. continue reading
Although the national media have handled Iglesias’ visit with caution, the news spread rapidly among the people. There will undoubtedly be crowds around the places where the singer plans to go, in the style of Beyoncé, Rihanna, Katty Perry, the Kardashians or Madonna, during their stays on the Island.
This Wednesday, many young people sigh to get an autograph of the successful artist and wait to capture on their cellphone a moment in which he approaches, passes, makes himself seen. They are women who are the same age as my mother was in those years when she was prohibited from wearing a T-shirt with the face of the other Iglesias, the forbidden one.
My mother could never go to a Julio Iglesias concert. I do not think she even listens to his songs anymore. This week, other Cuban women like her will have their little historical rematch
At that time, the Cuban authorities offered no explanations about the ban. There were only rumors and half-statements: “He made statements against Cuba,” was heard in some official circles; “Julio sang for Pinochet in Chile,” warned the most furious militants, in reference to the artist’s 1977 trip to that South American country.
The truth is that Iglesias, the father, swelled the list of singers who could not be broadcast on radio and television. Has name was added to others excluded, such as Celia Cruz, Olga Guillot, Nelson Ned and even Jose Feliciano. The latter was only broadcast again in the Cuban media much later on.
A few years before he was banned, the film inspired by the life of Julio Iglesias had been a blockbuster in the island’s movie theaters. Many viewers boasted of having seen the film several times in one day and the choruses of its songs displaced the songs of the New Trova.
Iglesias, as well as appealing to artistic tastes, meant a fresh wind at a time when Cuban music was filled with slogans. He spoke of romance, love, loss and oblivion, in a country where the bolero had been set aside and the only passion allowed was that which could be felt by the cause and the Revolution. He took off among young people, tired of so much focus on trench warfare and feeling the need for more flesh and less Utopia.
My mother was never able go to a Julio Iglesias concert. I do not think she even listens to his songs anymore. This week, other Cuban women like her will have their little historical rematch. Another Iglesias has arrived, his songs are different and the Cuba in which he has landed little resembles that Sovietized island of old. Music just won a match over ideology.
The demands of children have grown along with the prices of toys. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, Luz Escobar, 6 January 2016 — Half a hundred people crowded around the outside of the store. Some shelves display dolls, play tea sets and teddy bears: an explosion of pink and lilac. In others, plastic wagons, swords and firefighters’ equipment appear darker and bluish. There is no other occasion like Three Kings Day – Epiphany, when Cuban children traditionally are given Christmas gifts – to highlight the sexism promoted by many toys for children.
In the line to get to the children’s department in Havana’s Carlos III Plaza, is Yuraima, 42. She hopes to buy a gift to deliver to her niece this Friday. “I look for something nice and cheap, but also different, because she is a very smart girl,” she told 14ymedio. The woman does not want to repeat the stereotypes that prevented her from enjoying some games when she was little. continue reading
Yuraima’s mother never agreed to buy her a plastic building set that she insistently asked for when she was nine years old. “That’s a boy thing,” her mother would say. Growing up and deciding on a profession, she continued to like “putting things together and taking them apart.” Now she works “fixing electrical appliances” in a private workshop in Central Havana.
While girls are presented as princesses, fragile and focused on looking beautiful, boys seem ready to battle and kill many-headed monsters
Although the government still has a tentative attitude towards the religious origin of the January 6th tradition, the market has ended up imposing itself. A fury of purchases has taken over the children’s shops in the days prior to the arrival of Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar, and the informal market has supplied itself for the occasion.
Most toys on sale are promoted with well-defined gender images and promote the learning of certain behaviors or attitudes. The face of a smiling girl decorates a box containing plastic pans and tiny cups in the downtown Galeries Paseo store. A few yards away, a muscular hero armed with a pistol stands out in the package containing a helmet and a shield.
While girls are presented as princesses, fragile and focused on looking beautiful, boys seem ready to battle to kill many-headed monsters or save a frail woman from the flames of a fire. Among the few unisex toys are table games, balls and Legos.
In the world of video games the distances also widen between both genders. The digital entertainments where girls dress their “paper” dolls with the most varied clothes have increased in the networks that distribute alternative media. In contrast, the sagas of heroes, sorcerers and monsters are the most abundant among boys.
Alicia González Hernández, from the Department of Sexology and Sexual Education at the Pedagogical University, has warned in her studies about the “blue, masculine world… of competition and achievements, open outwards, towards public life and social realization,” as opposed to “a pink, feminine world … of tenderness and help, turned towards intimacy, towards private life and the realization of the family.”
Women occupy 66.3% of the professional and technical positions, but in their houses they continue to carry out most of the domestic tasks
In 2015, 60.3% of graduates of higher education in Cuba were women, and they occupied 66.3% of professional and technical positions, according to the “Social Economic Landscape” report. However, women continue to do most household chores at home. They are responsible for preparing food, scrubbing, washing, ironing and caring for children.
Hence games that imitate household activities, with kitchens, small washing machines and tiny cleaning utensils are bought for girls. “That’s what they see their mothers doing and what they think they should do to become real women,” reflects Yuraima. In her opinion, “the grandparents influence a lot in those stereotypes, because they give dolls to the girls and toy cars to the boys,” she complains.
Princess toys for girls and battle toys for boys. (14ymedio)
In daycare centers and pre-school classrooms, children also find a divided universe. At the corner of a classroom in San Miguel del Padrón, the teacher Daysi, 28, has prepared several play stations that include a hairdresser and the kitchen of a house. “There are boys who also play with the dolls, but it is not the common thing,” although she says that “more and more, girls construct structures with pieces of wood.”
Small girls who play with marbles or spinning tops are called “marimachas” (butch) while boys who play house can receive worse insults. The strict definition of roles starts from the time they are babies and parents choose the pink basket for girls and blue for boys. The rest of their lives they are expected to accept or reject the gender molds that society imposes on them.
Most women surveyed prefer “a strong man, who fights, practices sports, drinks alcohol, is dominant, has money and, of course, never cries”
Julio César González Pagés, coordinator of the Ibero-American Masculinity Network and author of Macho Male Manly, led a study in 18 cities on the island with interviews with more than 20,000 people. Most women surveyed prefer “a strong man, who fights, plays sports, drinks alcohol, is dominant, has money and, of course, never cries.” Behaviors that are promoted from the home, reaffirmed in schools and supported in social or romantic relationships.
Such attitudes increase with the profile that surrounds many products for sale. State stores do not promote a balanced and non-stereotyped image of women. The critique of these rigid schemes has scarcely penetrated the public debate.
Younger parents, more aware of the issues being debated around the world, try to erase stereotypes in their children’s play. “Her father brought her a water gun, very nice,” says Lady, the mother of a three-year-old girl who is married to a Spanish resident on the island. The woman remembers that the grandparents “were very annoyed,” but in the end “everyone has gotten used to it.”
This year Lady has bought a science kit for her daughter, with a small plastic microscope and some containers to collect samples. “No Barbies and princesses, better to play with something that resembles reality.”
The EU member states have participated in “follow-up activities and have reported on the use of short-term detentions and violations of freedoms of association and assembly.” (EFE)
14ymedio, Madrid, 4 January 2016 – Last year closed with a balance of almost 1,000 more arbitrary arrests than in 2015, according to data from the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, based in Madrid, which on Wednesday issued its annual report on the situation on the island.
In 2016, there was a total of 9,351 arbitrary arrests, 5,383 against women and 3,968 against men. A year earlier, there were 8,314 acts of this type.
Most of these arrests were “made by the political police to prevent the exercise of the rights of association, assembly and peaceful demonstration,” the entity says. continue reading
Organizations most affected have been UNPACU (with 138 detainees, 70 raided homes and 48 members currently in prison) and the Ladies in White, who have suffered harassment by the authorities every Sunday since they started street demonstrations almost two years ago.
The Observatory also cites the cases of two activists whose legal situation at the moment is delicate. One of them is Eduardo Cardet, national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), arrested on November 30 and for whom the prosecutor is requesting up to 3 years in prison for the alleged crime of “undermining the authority.” Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto (The Sixth), has been in prison since late November for a graffiti farewell to Fidel Castro – Se fue (He’s gone) – and his family knows very little about the details of his situation.
In addition to the opposition organizations or prominent members of the anti-Castro activism, the Observatory notes that there has been an extension of the repression of civil society, as, for example, against the Convivencia (Coexistence) project in Pinar del Rio, led by Dagoberto Valdes.
The current Law of Associations regulates the make up of these entities, the report says, but independent organizations claim that in practice they are not allowed to exercise their rights and there is no recognition of their legal status by the State. “In addition to these legal impediments, the political police ‘monitors,’ that is they talk, spy, threaten, repress and try to infiltrate every group,” it added.
The report describes the general situation of Cuba’s civil rights, noting that there has been no positive change despite the normalization of relations with Washington, initiated more than two years ago, and the rapprochement – “voluntary and with the acquiescence of the government” – with the European Union, which signed a new bilateral agreement with Cuba on December 12.
“We cannot assess the Cuban situation and the effectiveness of international changes related to Cuba, from a perspective that does not take into account the exercise of rights and freedoms,” reflects the organization.
The Observatory notes that there are still no elections nor political pluralism and that the year has ended without a new Electoral Law, repeatedly promised by the powers-that-be.
The economic conditions on the island continue to be negative the organization stresses, and although official propaganda calls for support for the self-employed sector, there have been withdrawals of licenses from several private workers “for making use of the citizen’s right to publicly disagree with the Cuban regime.”
The report adds that workers’ rights are permanently violated because workers cannot freely choose their employment or be remunerated according to their social contribution, which pushes them to the illegal market. Discrimination against Cuban workers is also addressed, recalling the case of the workers from India who worked on the Manzana de Gomez Hotel in Havana, at salaries of 1,400 to 1,600 dollars, while Cuban workers were receiving less than 100 dollars.
“In the last six years, the Cuban government […] has announced more repressive and disciplinary measures in the workplace under a model that aims to maintain the essence of the system: collectivism, state ownership of the means of production, planning, centralization of decisions and the prohibition of individual accumulation of wealth,” it adds. In addition, in early 2011 the Government launched a plan to lay off 1,300,000 state employees.
The text also refers to discrimination against organizations of vulnerable groups such as LGTBI or racial diversity, since they cannot defend the rights of their members, being outside of officialdom.
“The only solution to the problem of all Cubans is a comprehensive reform, that is, constitutional and legal changes that cover all spheres of social life [and are accompanied by] public policies that respond to the huge problems […] of the poorest and most destitute, which are the immense majority of citizens,” the report close
Cuban rafters took refuge in the highest part of a lighthouse in the Florida Keys for fear of being repatriated to Cuba. (Screenshot: WSVN)
14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 9 January 2017 – They crossed the Florida Straits six months ago and in a desperate act took refuge in the American Shoal Lighthouse to avoid being deported to Cuba. A bottle thrown into the sea and miraculously found made known their complaints about the conditions they found on the US Coast Guard cutter. After demonstrating “a well-founded fear” of being repatriated, they were taken to the Guantanamo Naval Base. Today, some members of the group of the “Lighthouse Rafters” feel pressured by the authorities to return to the Cuban-controlled part of the island, and are overwhelmed by the lack of work.
“We want to work, we are refugees, not prisoners,” explains one of the 17 rafters who remain at the base waiting for a third country to decide to receive them as refugees. Having been considered “wet feet” at the offshore lighthouse, they were not able to take advantage of the so-called “wet foot/dry foot” law — the Cuban Adjustment Act — that automatically gives refuge to Cubans who step foot on US soil.
“We are very grateful for all the help they have given us, but we do not understand why we are not allowed to talk to lawyers or work,” he explains. continue reading
Although initially there were 20 emigrants taken to Guantanamo, three of them were returned to the island, two voluntarily and a third when it was discovered that at some time he had worked for Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior, the main repressive organ of the Cuban government.
“We are forbidden to speak to the press about our situation,” explains the rafter and asks to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by the authorities at the Naval Base.
Of the group of 17 men who remain there, 10 are unemployed, according to the testimony of a second rafter who also did not want to give his name.
“We can call our families once a week, but nobody tells us how much longer we have to be here. Some of us work in manual jobs and they pay us $4.97 an hour,” he explains.
According to the migrant, “the number two of the base,” Denis Mojica, has told them twice that if anyone who does not accept the conditions proposed to them, “the door is open to return to Cuba,” a phrase in which they suspect there is hidden pressure to return to the island.
“People came here to interview us, but no one explains to us what our legal situation is and when we can work; they tell us there is no work. It’s very difficult to sit around with our arms crossed all day. The only thing we are asking for is that they let us earn our keep,” he explains.
According to a spokesperson for the US State Department who spoke with 14ymedio, “all the protected migrants who are living on the Guantanamo Naval Base are there voluntarily. They are free to return to their country of origin at any time, but the United States is not pushing them to do so.”
The spokesperson also said that migrants are regularly visited by officials who care about their situation and the most recent inspection visit was made last December.
However, they clarified that the employment opportunities on the base are “limited.”
Apart from the lack of work, refugees emphasize “the excellent care” received from US personnel.
“The take us out walking and with regards to sanitation we have no complaints. We have health coverage and we are given financial aid of 107 dollars on Sunday to buy our food. We also have thirty minutes to talk to our families on the phone,” he adds.
“The first demand was for them to consider the lighthouse to be United States territory, and the rafters as ‘dry feet’ and we lost. Right now we are in the process of appealing,” explains Ramón Saúl Sánchez, leader of the Democracy Movement that filed a legal appeal for refugee status for which the rafters fought in the court for a judicial verdict that would allow the rafters to stay in the US.
According to the activist, the group of lawyers who is undertaking their defense pro bono has not lost hope that the judge will declare the structure to which the rafters fled, built 136 years ago seven miles from the Florida Keys, part of US territory.
If this happened, the Cubans could remain in the United States. Otherwise, the State Department must find a third country to host them, a process that can sometimes be extremely long and complex.
A woman at the entrance of her house with a mural that announces her neighborhood’s Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (EFE)
14ymedio, Leandro Cansino, Stockholm 31 December 2016– It was very necessary for me to write to you. Let me send you something that comes from my soul: thank you for existing, thank you for all the bad things you do for me. You have no idea how much I have to thank you, it is not sarcasm and much less irony, I write from the bottom of my heart. I know you’re surprised by this letter, but I think I never thanked you for annoying me and constantly trying to injure my life. Believe me that I appreciate all the negative effort, gratuitous on your part. Don’t think that you have won because you drove me crazy, before I tell you my solid arguments. You and I are like a engine, with a positive and negative charge in order to work.
You are not my rival. A rival is a person or a group of people who try to achieve the same thing at the same time, but that is not the case with us. I fight to get to the top of the highest mountain and you fight grabbing be around the waist so that I don’t get there, but since you don’t have legs, we don’t compete, you are not my opponent.
I really appreciate your time and effort in discovering my mistakes, horrible gestures of yours that I like, so here I am, fixing the mistakes you find in me. Every day I grow more and I owe it all to you. continue reading
I value you very much, even if it doesn’t seem like it. I value you because no one would appreciate a sunny Saturday if it weren’t for those grey and stormy afternoons, because no one applauds the hero without a villain who ties the maiden to the train tracks.
You have no idea how much I’ve grown in wisdom since you have been stalking me. It is true that you interfere in personal things, but in my professional development you are irreplaceable. I want you to be there, faithful follower of my triumphs, I need to you see how far I can go.
I never want you off my back, I need you to challenge me every day in order to do things better. You make me so good that we could even be friends, but no, stay there, my sweet enemy, so that soon I will reach the goal and you will wear away. All this sacrifice will never be forgotten.
An ingenious way to demand, in the first person, that a sewer leak be fixed. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 9 January 2017 — The residents of a central street in Old Havana exhausted every way to get a sewer leak fixed. For weeks they had complained at the “Accountability Meetings” of the local People’s Power, reported the problem to their polyclinic, and written letters to the Havana Water Company; but the hole is still there.
The desperate residents’ last resort has been to make their dissatisfaction known through the hole itself. Handwritten on a piece of cardboard, an ingenious demand to fix the break is written in the first person: “How long am I going to be like this? I have been like this for three months already and no one does anything. Will it take a death to resolve the problem.”
The initiative is unusual in a country where showing a poster with demands may be the shortest way to a prison cell, but the text has managed to survive several days in the midst of the daily bustle, because it mixes the despair and distrust of the citizen with that humor that relaxes tensions and makes you smile whether in a maternity ward or a funeral parlor.
An image of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara presides over a beer bar in Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 7 January 2017 — In December the Cuban parliament banned the use of name of the deceased former president Fidel Castro to designate public spaces and banned the marketing of his image. It was not the same with Ernesto Che Guevara, whose face adorns everything from ashtrays that are sold to tourists, to a sign promoting the sale of beer on tap in a Havana bar.
The ex-guerrilla is also seen in school murals, hospital rooms and shirts sold to foreign visitors in all the airports in the country. A thriving industry of souvenirs is sustained with the image of a man who was an outspoken critic of capitalism and the market.
Reinterpretations of the image of Che have taken all possible and imaginable forms: from the American musician Jim Morrison to Christ. As he figures so prominently in the daily landscape, many Cubans no longer even notice the frowning expression that stares out over them from so many walls.
In just over 50 minutes, the script details the expenses that face this fictional character, inspired by the director’s own brother. (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 9 January 2017 — How to explain to our grandchildren the economic absurdity of today’s Cuba? What pedagogical juggling will be needed to detail the black market, the ration book, the “Hard Currency Collection Stores,” and the capped prices? Will they believe us when we describe the devalued Cuban peso and its counterpart, the chavito? The movie The Singular History of Juan With Nothing, by the director Ricardo Figueredo, could help in this educational endeavor.
The documentary tells of the life – the “survival” – of Juan, a worker whose only source of income is his monthly salary of 250 Cuban pesos (CUP), the rough equivalent of 10 Cuban Convertible pesos (CUC – each worth roughly one dollar). Juan is a hypothetical “ordinary Cuban” who does not receive remittances from abroad, who does not “divert” (i.e. steal) state resources, or resell products to survive. A citizen living a grey life, that doesn’t allow him to buy even a new shirt, invite his girlfriend to a coffee shop, or polish his shoes. continue reading
In a little more than 50 minutes, the script details the expenses faced by this fictional character, inspired by Figueredo’s own brother, in order to feed himself and pay for basic services such as water, electricity and gas. The story is based on real testimonies that delineate a distorted economy, plagued with contradictions and where honesty is an obstacle in the struggle to survive.
In the voice of actor Luis Alberto Garcia, who serves as narrator, The Singular History of Juan With Nothing details the products still distributed on the ration book and their corresponding prices, a glimpse of the subsidized poverty enthroned by the rationed market which, as the economist Juan Triana says, also “transmits injustice.”
A selection of archive images helps to understand the misery trap in which millions of today’s Cubans are snared. It is an explanation sprinkled with sarcasm and certain historical details that the government has wanted to bury, such as its promises that shortages would never reach our markets or that Cubans would never fail to be able to enjoy their traditional Christmas nougats.
It is likely that this mix of humor and good memory have contributed to the film’s not having been selected to participate in last December’s latest edition of the Festival of New Latin American Cinema. However, the film is already circulating in alternative media networks, which means it enjoys a larger audience than it would have had in a few showings in December. So the life of Juan is being seen in the same way that characterizes it: separate from institutions and away from official privileges.
Among viewers, the title of the film awakens the memory of a poem by one of the regime’s favorite poets, Nicolás Guillén, in which he assures us that, after January 1959, we Cubans will become “Juan with everything,” an assertion that becomes a mockery when the protagonist uses a fifth of his salary to buy soap and deodorant in state-owned stores, at prices with “taxes of more than 200%,” the documentary says.
The agricultural market and illegal trade networks complete the choices that the impoverished man must resort to in order to feed himself, while simple arithmetic makes clear he won’t be able to do so, that no one can live a decent life with a decent wage. The tension grows and the audience’s uneasiness rises as the money slips out of Juan’s hands and his plate remains empty of food.
The interviews with self-employed workers, retirees, state employees and analysts make Figueredo’s film transcend a mere didactic explanation to achieve a high testimonial value, a hardened portrait of a Cuba no one is satisfied with, not even the voices closest to the official discourse that are heard in the film.
However, the greatest achievement of the documentary will only be seen later, when the incredulous generations of the future believe that we are exaggerating by telling them what we have lived through. The Singular Story Of Juan With Nothing will be like those fossils that, when unearthed, show the fierce anatomy of an extinct animal, the grim skeleton of an economy in ruins.
14ymedio, Havana, 30 December 2016 – Cuban Faces of 2016: His death propelled ex-President Fidel Castro into the headlines of the international press, which had forgotten him since, in July 2006, diverticulitis forced him to leave power. Following the death of the nonagenarian leader, the government of his brother Raul Castro declared nine days of mourning, during which parties, loud music and the sale of alcoholic beverages were banned.
The official television broadcast an extensive and exhausting program with praises to Castro, documentaries about his life, some of his most talked about speeches, and the opinions of his followers and friends. In Miami, Cuban exiles celebrated his death on the streets and social networks were filled with caricatures, jokes and condolences.
In the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana a photo of former President was installed before which thousands of Cubans paid tribute to him, and his ashes, which were guarded for two days at the Ministry of the Armed Forces, subsequently traveled across the island from Havana to the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia in Santiago de Cuba. There they were placed in a stone-like mausoleum near the tomb of José Martí.
14ymedio, Havana, 29 December 2016 — The young cyclist Marlies Mejías has participated in two Olympic Games and won seven titles at the Pan American Championships. This year she became the first Cuban athlete of her specialty to be hired by a professional club, the Weber Shimano Ladies Power. She also recently successfully broke into the world of mountain biking and was crowned winner in the second edition of the Titan Tropic in western Cuba.
In 2016, the athlete suffered a serious fall and thought that she would not be able “ever rise again as an athlete,” but in six months she has managed to compete in great events. Mejías was in seventh place of the Women’s Omnium in the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games and made history in the women’s section of the Vuelta a Colombia competition, winning the awards for points and flying goals.
At the Pan American Track Championships, held in Aguascalientes, Mexico, the Cuban won a silver medal in the individual race and a bronze medal in the first edition of the women’s Madison event.
Viengsay Valdés, ballet dancer. (Facebook / Carlos Villamayor)
14ymedio, Havana, 29 December 2016 – Cuban Faces of 2016: Viengsay Valdés has been First Ballerina of the National Ballet of Cuba since 2001, after a 15 year career that began in the Alejo Carpentier Provincial Ballet School. During the Special Period, this young woman with her exotic name, which in Laotian means “victory,” graduated with a Gold Degree from the National School of Art.
Valdés has been guest star in the most prestigious ballet companies in the world, such as the Marinski Theater Ballet in St. Petersburg; The Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow; The Royal Danish Ballet; and the Royal Ballet of London. This year she especially stood out during his performances in the 25th edition of the International Ballet Festival of Havana, celebrated between October 28 and November 6.
A comprehensive tour of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia completed her agenda in 2016. Mid-year she played the character of Kitri for a season of the classic Don Quixote. Critics say that it is the most emblematic role of the extensive repertoire of the ballerina.
Juan de la Caridad García new archbishop of San Cristóbal de Habana. (Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba)
14ymedio, Havana, 28 December 2016 – Cuban faces of 2016: Ordained as a priest in 1972 and consecrated as a bishop in 1997, Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez belongs to a new generation of prelates within the Cuban Church. He served as a priest in Ciego de Avila and as a bishop in Camagüey until his appointment as Archbishop of Havana in April of this year.
The arrival of Garcia Rodriguez at the head of the capital diocese occurred after Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Jaime Ortega y Alamino for exceeding the age of 75 years, as established by the Code of Canon Law. After receiving the news, the lay Catholic Dagoberto Valdés considered that it was “a gift from the pope to the people of Cuba,” because the Camagüeyan priest “truly smells like the sheep,” as the pontiff wishes.
Weeks after taking office, the new archbishop generated a festering controversy stating that he did not want there to be in Cuba ” capitalism or anything like that, but that socialism progress” to go “forward in a fair and balanced society of brotherhood.”
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 9 January 2017 — Havana is a winter scene. The waves pour over the wall of the Malecon in the low areas, the winds shake even the thickest branches of the trees, and people huddle together all wrapped up as they pass through the streets. The cold front arrived last Saturday, changing the image of the city that, until a few days ago, had experienced the fifth warmest December since 1951.
