A man reading the official daily Granma. (EFE / File)
14ymedio, Havana, 22 September 2016 – “It’s on the penultimate page,” the employee of the newspaper kiosk in Havana’s Cerro district tells a young woman who is buying two copies of the newspaper Granma this Wednesday. The terse note from the Cuban Volleyball Federation about the five- year prison sentences for rape handed down in Finland to visiting Cuban athletes sparked particular interest among Cubans, when it appeared in the official organ of the Communist Party, although citizens had to look hard to find the information.
“If it had been a group of athletes from the United States who had raped a Finnish woman, the news would have been on the front page,” said one of the buyers of the official newspaper on hearing the vendor say where to find the article.
At the “sports rock” in Havana’s Central Park – a site of informal, but loud and vigorous, daily debates about everything sports, popularly known as “The Hot Corner” – baseball still stars as the most discussed topic. But today the poor showing of the local team, the Industriales, in the National Series has to share time with a lively discussion of the trial of the Cuban volleyball players in Tampere, Finland. continue reading
The sports fans complain about the lack of coverage in the official press about what happened and the lack of details about the judicial process.
“They don’t say hardly anything and you have to hear about it from the antenna (the illegal satellite dishes hidden around the city) or on the street,” explains Samuel, a follower of the sport who was sharing his opinions on Wednesday with the other regulars of the “rock.” “I found out because my aunt gets the signal in her house with the news from Miami, because here they have just given us drabs and drabs,” complained the young man.
Some of those assembled lacked confidence in the conclusion of the Finnish court. “This is a bed (a conspiracy) that they set up for these boys in order to harm Cuban sports,” insists Victor Zuñiga, a retired welder who remembers having seen “a lot of humbug like this against our people.”
No women participated in the “Hot Corner” debates this Wednesday, where the sports talk is traditionally engaged in by men. “It if were my daughter that had happened to, it wouldn’t matter whether they were top-flight athletes, I would want justice and would want to see them behind bars,” says Gretel, 49, who was nearby.
The Cuban Volleyball Federation merely communicated in an official note, in which it made no assessment of the facts. 14ymedio tried to contact the body, but in all calls made as of this writing it was only possible to communicate with an answering machine.
Mika Ruotsalainen, Minister-Counselor of the Finnish Embassy in Mexico, which handles consular affairs for all the Caribbean countries, told this newspaper that there are no extradition treaties between the Republic of Finland and the Republic of Cuba.
The diplomat said the Cuban athletes will have to serve their sentences in a Finnish prison.
The Pinkanmaa court imposed sentences of five years in prison for Rolando Cepeda Abreu, Abraham Alfonso Gavilán, Ricardo Norberto Calvo Manzano and Osmany Santiago Uriarte Mestre, and three and a half years for Luis Tomás Sosa Sierra.
Ramon Saul Sanchez, president of the Democracy Movement. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Mario Penton, 20 September 2016 — Ramon Saul Sanchez, president of the Democracy Movement, said on Tuesday at a press conference in Miami that if American Airlines does not change, within 24 hours, its “policy of apartheid” against its Cuban-American employees, the organization would take action against it ranging from protests in the street to possible lawsuits.
“The Democracy Movement rejects apartheid on the part of AA by virtue of nationality against Cuban-American workers whom the regime will not allow to enter Cuba, and and other nationalities with American citizenship,” said Sanchez. continue reading
A Cuban exile himself, the president stressed that his organization has nothing against flights to the island. “This is not a campaign against the flights to Cuba, which we support and we believe are useful for family reunification,” he said, but he argued that the Cuban law preventing Cuban-Americans from entering the island on their United States passports is the real problem.
“We believe AA as a prestigious company, which should not discriminate against people simply because the government of Cuba does,” noted Sanchez.
With flights to Cienfuegos and Holguin on 7 September, the company began direct service to the island. These were the first of 12 daily flights to Cuba. The problem arose when, on a flight to Varadero, the crew needed to stay overnight in Cuba and the Cuban authorities refused Cuban-American flight members permission to do so because they did not have Cuban passports, according to the Miami Herald.
The company’s response was to withdraw the Cuban-American employees from the flight, although they were paid for the day. Ramon Saul Sanchez made clear that although AA decided to bear the cost of the paperwork required for Cuban-Americans to enter Cuba, so as not to upset the Cuban government, the campaign would continue.
Cuban law does not recognize the dual nationality of Cubans living abroad, and requires those who want to travel to the island to first obtain an expensive passport (about $450) that must be renewed every two years at a cost of $200. In addition, the Cuban Government reserves the right whether to admit its nationals to the island, which is enforced through an entry permit called a habilitación, which also must be paid for.
For the Democracy Movement, maintaining this law is a way to maintain its excessive charges to penalize the Cuban exile. “We are asking American Airlines to open a constructive and friendly dialog among everyone working to overcome this discriminatory practice,” said the movement’s president.
A Democracy Movement activist prepares posters for the protest against American Airlines. (14ymedio)
As a part of the actions the organization has already begun it sent a letter to Doug Parker, CEO of the company, in which it expresses its dissatisfaction with the measure. Sanchez said his movement has already planned a protest for Saturday in front of the AA Arena in Miami and will continue the pressure until the policy is changed.
“We know that the main discriminator is the Cuban government. To associate itself with the policies of apartheid by virtue of nationality that the Government of Cuba practices against its own citizens puts a shameful stain on the image of the company,” said Sanchez.
Last April, Democracy Movement organized a demonstration outside the headquarters of the shipping company Carnival for a similar reason. The cruise company did not allow Cuban-Americans to book passage to Cuba because of a ban by the Cuban government on their entering the country by sea.
“At the time Carnival Cruises said they would not continue service to Cuba if Cubans were not allowed to enter. We urge American Airlines to cancel their trips to the island if the Cuban government does not change its policy,” Sanchez added.
The troubadour is passing through Havana to record a disc in the EGREM studios in Miramar, along with several songwriters.(Courtesy)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 31 August 2016 — Passing through Havana to record a CD in the EGREM studios in Miramar, along with several singers, the troubadour Roland (Roly) Berrio spoke with 14ymedio about the beginnings of his career and health of Trova in Cuba.
Luz Escobar. Together with other troubadours you are currently working on an album that pays tribute to La Trovuntivitis project. How did that project arise?
Roly Berrio. The city of Santa Clara was left quite bereft in terms of music in the hard years of the Special Period, so it all began with the desires of students to do something on a stage with many shortcomings. So at that time there was a flourishing of projects, peñas – weekly shows – and the troubadours.
We started singing in several places in the city until one night El Mejunje opened its doors for us alone, we were five or six troubadours: Diego Gutiérrez, Alain Garrido and the Enserie trio. We are all included in La Trovuntivitis, which is a generic space for our own music, for music that has certain pretensions, social, aesthetic, risky. We have been singing there for 20 years now. continue reading
Escobar. In other provinces troubadours do not have their own spaces.
Berrio. Santa Clara has had the good fortune to have leaders, both political and cultural, who have given a lot of freedom and support to the projects of young people. Without much hesitation, without fear. This has helped this movement to exist, but also in fine arts, in literature and in almost all its manifestations. Unlike in other provinces, where there are musicians and artists with talent, but when it comes to joining together and having institutional support it has been difficult to create a movement.
Of course, we also had a very bad stage in terms of political and cultural leadership. That led to a falling-out and artists rebelling. It was a moment of rupture.
Escobar. What role did Ramón Silverio play in the birth of La Trovuntivitis?
Berrio. Everything. Like our Bartolome de las Casas. He has been the doer, an example of freedom and inclusion. A project he presents, he understood the project as his own.
Escobar. What was the effect on you of your time with the Enserie trio?
Berrio. The trio was part of my beginning, my musical and intellectual training. I continue to compose songs in three parts. I bring three ways of addressing the theme that I’m dealing with, three ways of looking at it, three ways of presenting the song.
Enserie was unusual because the composition was made among three people, the lyrics and music. It was a kind of workshop, we didn’t know the rules, it was entirely empirical. We wanted to give strength to a song that experienced the most critical years, in the nineties the media in the country – and therefore much of the public – completely dismissed the singer-songwriter.
Escobar. Are you planning a concert in the coming months?
Berrio. On September 10 I will appear at the Museum of Fine Arts with themes from an upcoming album of single songs. It still has no name and I am going to record it France.
Roland (Roly) Berrio. (Courtesy)
Escobar. Do you feel that you are a chronicler of reality?
Berrio. Art can achieve awareness without having to dictate a sentence that says what you have to do. Some of the rejections to the music of the Nueva Trova movement were, in my opinion, very judgmental. There was a lot of “thou shalt do this” or “you have to be the New Man.”
My song seeks pick up the pieces that were broken and that are still somewhat scattered in the society, in the country.
Escobar. How do you assess the health of Trova?
Berrio. Trova has not had, beyond the moments it had in the eighties, much impact on the broader plane. What happened is that people like an individual of some genre, and not the genre as a whole. In the eighties, whether or not you knew the person who was going to sing, if Trova was announced the venues were full and people came to know there was a curiosity that then began to disappear.
American Airlines launched its scheduled flights to Cuba on Wednesday 7 September. (AA)
14ymedio, 20 September 2016 — The Democracy Movement called a protest against American Airlines (AA) for Saturday 24, in response to the company’s apartheid towards its Cuban-American employees
The airline, according to information published in recent days, does not allow its workers who emigrated from Cuba after 1970 to serve on the crews of its flights to Cuba, because the Cuban government is requiring that they present, along with an American passport showing that they are US citizens, the Cuban government’s own paperwork that authorizes them to enter the country.
Ramon Saul Sanchez, president of the Democracy Movement, in statements to Diario Las Americas, said that this exclusion is applied to Cuban-Americans “with the deliberate intention [by the Cuban government] of receiving an additional income of 400 or 500 dollars [the cost of the paperwork] for each person traveling to Cuba.” continue reading
The leader of the organization said it has requested permission for the protest, to be held in front of the American Airlines Arena in Miami, since the airline “is allowing the Cuban government to practice a kind of apartheid against its own employees who are Cubans nationalized as Americans.”
Last April, the Democracy Movement organized a demonstration outside the headquarters of Carnival Cruises for a similar reason. The cruise company did not allow Cubans to travel on its ships because of a ban from the Cuban government on their entering the country by sea.
“Many voices joined the campaign, and Carnival changed its position. In the end, the company said that if it could not carry Cubans it would not sail to Cuba. That led the regime to overturning the old policy,” said Sanchez.
The exile told the media that their lobbying strategy includes dialog with the airline’s management in the coming week, the protest scheduled during a Disney event at the American Airlines Arena, and possible legal actions being studied by the organization’s attorneys.
“We are also asking AA to adopt the Sullivan Global Principals [whose aim is that companies and organizations of every size, and a broad spectrum of industries and cultural entities, work to achieve common objectives in human rights, social justice and economic opportunity] which worked in South Africa, and that they not associate themselves with the apartheid practiced by the Cuban government,” he added.
The Democracy Movement is not opposed to commercial flights to Cuba, “because they have brought a drop in prices and tariffs and now the Cuban regime earns less because of the competition.”
Dunieski Eliades Lastre (left) and Edelvis Martínez Aguilar (right), Cuban migrants killed in Urabá, Colombia. (Courtesy)
14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 18 September 2016 — “With the money from the sale of my mother’s house, we bought the death of my brother.”
Spoken with indescribable bitterness, these were the words of Edgardo Nordelo Sedeño, brother of Dunieski Eliades Lastre, age 25, murdered in Colombia on 8 September along with the young woman Edelvis Martínez. Both were Cubans and were trying to sneak through the jungles and borders that separated them from their goal: the United States and their dream of a free life.
Although Forensic Medicine has ruled out for the moment the alleged rape of Edelvis Martínez, the prosecutor has revealed gruesome details in the tragic ends of these young migrants trying to reach the United States. continue reading
Edelvis Martinez Aguilar was an accountant for a paladar, a private restaurant in Havana. She left with her boyfriend Liover Santos Corria, 35, heading to Guyana. After crossing Venezuela and Colombia they met up with Eliades Dunieski who apparently traveled to Capurgana to get to the Darien jungle. That day, two of them were killed in a Colombian swamp.
“We can not say that Martinez had been raped, at least there is no macroscopic evidence of that. Forensic Medicine did the research, collected samples from the body and are undertaking a conclusive analysis of the issue,” an official with the Columbian Attorney General’s office told 14ymedio, who asked to remain anonymous.
“We have found clear signs of torture in both victims before the murder,” he added.
The alleged perpetrators were identified as Johan Estiven Carreazo Asprilla, alias ‘Play Boy’, age 20, and Carlos Emilio Ibargüen Palacio, age 26. According to Santos, the only survivor, the Cuban migrants paid $1,500 to be taken to Panama, but once they arrived at the Gulf of Uraba the smugglers demanded more money. When the Cubans explained that they had no cash, the boaters murdered them with knives and hid their bodies tied to a tree trunk at the bottom of the Matuntugo Swamp. Santos saw his girlfriend beheaded after she was raped, he says, but he was able break loose and escape from the crime scene.
“The young man is under protection on a Navy ship because we fear for his safety,” said the source in the Colombian Attorney General’s office. According to the investigator, it is very likely that there are more people involved in the murder of the Cubans so it is necessary to protect the main witness.
“The boatmen pleaded not guilty, but the prosecution has sufficient evidence to incriminate them,” the source explained.
Following the arrest of suspects involved in the crime, a search of the travel backpacks of those killed found cell phones, cash and clothes. Also seized were a firearm, a smoke grenade, several pieces of clothing related to the crime scene and a wooden boat in which was one of the shoes of the murdered woman.
The alleged murderers of the two Cuban migrants in Colombia. (Colombian authorities)
The identity of those murdered was corroborated by Cuban authorities. According to what this newspaper has been able to confirm, the United States embassy in Colombia has taken up the issue and expressed interest in granting asylum to the survivor.
Although the Cuban consulate in Bogota declined to comment on the matter, the Colombian Foreign Ministry said they have been in contact with the relatives of those killed through diplomatic representatives in Miami to advise them on the procedure to claim the bodies.
“Colombia will provide all the help needed for repatriation, but this is a matter for the family or the Cuban Embassy. Family members can delegate power to the embassy or manage the process independently,” said the Foreign Ministry.
14ymedio spoke with the relatives of the victims in Cuba and in the United States. For Maria Isabel Aguilar, the mother of Edelvis Martinez, her main concern is that so far she doesn’t know what the process is for repatriating the body of his daughter.
“We went to MINREX (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) but there they told us to wait for the authorization of the Colombian government to bring the bodies. We don’t know how to bring my daughter. I only want her here with me,” she said.
Dunieski Eliades Lastre’s brother, Edgardo Nordelo Sedeño, said that the cost to repatriate the bodies is around $3,000 each. The family members who had to privately arrange the trip to MINREX explained via a telephone call that although the Cuban government authorized the entry of the bodies, they will not pay for the costs of bringing them home.
“Dunieski was my younger brother, my mother’s delight. So much so she wanted to sell her house to be able to pay for the ticket so he could have a better life,” explained Nordelo, who arrived in the United States last February by way of Ecuador.
“I don’t understand the motive for the murder. The other boy … told me that my brother told them, ‘Don’t kill me, I’ll give you the number of my brother in the United States so he can send you money. It wasn’t for money. I don’t understand why they did it,” he said.
Eliades Lastre managed to make the crossing from Guyana to Turbo in one week. According to his relatives he had a good trip until he reached the Colombian coast.
“Because of the bad weather they couldn’t take them to where the other coyote was. They returned to the home of a guide and a few minutes before leaving the house where they were hiding, he wrote me to tell me. That was the last time we communicated,” recalls Edgardo Nordelo.
“The blame for the death of our family members belongs to those who pushed them to the jungle and made them seek out coyotes to achieve their dream of freedom,” he said.
Moment of approval of the Declaration of Margarita, at the conclusion of the Non-Aligned Summit in Venezuela. (@MNOAL_Venezuela)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 19 September 2016 – The summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ended this Sunday on the Venezuelan island of Margarita with commitments to the sovereignty of each country and a call for unilateral corrective measures. The work of the meeting urged the elimination of “weapons of mass destruction” but avoided admonishing North Korea for its recent nuclear tests.
With little political influence in the international arena, the NAM has crossed the threshold of six decades of existence with its importance in check. Born at a time of strong geopolitical and ideological conflicts, in the midst of the Cold War, the bloc has failed to maintain its intended neutrality and several of its nation members have ended up developing economic and political alliances with more than one “superpower.” continue reading
However, the biggest setback for the organization, which includes half the world’s population, is having turned a blind eye at several transcendent moments in its history. The most notable of these was not strongly condemning the Soviet Union’s armed intervention in Afghanistan, which joined NAM in 1961, early in its existence.
This oversight was most striking during the 6th Summit, held in Havana in 1979, when Fidel Castro was named president of the movement. The presence of occupation troops from the Kremlin continued to 1989, but the leader of the organization never made any gesture of disapproval.
This September the silence has been repeated, in complicity with one of NAM’s most fractious members. At the summit, held in the Venezuelan Caribbean to which 120 member countries were invited, no pronouncement was made on the nuclear test recently conducted by the Pyongyang regime.
The Non-Aligned Movement has not only looked the other way as famine and lack of rights has affected the North Korean people, but has also been silent about the danger posed by the more than 20 nuclear bombs and almost a thousand ballistic missiles of different types that have reached the hands of Kim Jong-Un. The Movement did not make a forceful statement against the only country that has tested weapons of mass destruction in this millennium, though it dedicated considerable time demanding “peaceful settlement of disputes and refraining from the threat or use of force.”
NAM now proposes a “refounding” of the United Nations that seeks to expand the Security Council and to transform of the workings of the international organization. But with such oversights and its history of double standards it is difficult to promote a more democratic global and effective entity.
Instead, it could bring to the United Nations the same convenient blindness that it has been practiced for decades.
Many Cubans have become accustomed to relying on water tankers for their water. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 19 September 2016 — A sign announces the sale of an apartment in Havana and stresses, in capital letters, that the “water never runs out” in the area. Not far away, another sign alerts neighbors of a multifamily building: “Starting today, the water-pump will only operate for one hour.” In the last three years, Cubans have lived with drought and water shortages, and forecasts suggest that the situation will not change in the coming months.
According to a recent report released by the engineer Abel Salas García of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH), 48 of the country’s sources of supply are completely dry. Another 200 show partial affects, which means that more than 790,000 people receive water right now on a different cycle than what they were used to, and more than 50,000 receive their supply through tanker trucks. continue reading
To talk about the cycle “they were used to” alludes to the fact that in many places citizens have become accustomed, as a normal situation, to water only flowing to their homes every other day, or sometimes only three times week.
The areas with the highest cumulative rainfall between January and August were Artemisa, Isla de la Juventud, Pinar del Rio and Havana. At the other extreme, the least favored regions are Santiago de Cuba, Ciego de Ávila, Villa Clara, Sancti Spiritus and Cienfuegos.
In the specific case of Ciego de Avila, as detailed in the INRH report, of the 14 groundwater basins in that largely agricultural province, six are in critical condition.
In January, the reservoirs were filled to around 53% of their volume and, although up to August rains were close to the historical average in the three regions (eastern, central and west), at the end of August this rate was only 52%. In absolute terms, the country had 653 million cubic fewer meters of stored water than is usual for August.
According to experts, rainfall in the Cuban archipelago has been decreasing by around 1.6 inches annually, which they attribute to climate change and other environmental factors caused by the hand of man.
A lack of water caused by erratic rainfall is exacerbated in Cuba by wasteful leaks in the pipes, in over-wide pipes that bring more water to leak out, and in unstoppable domestic drips caused by lack of maintenance in homes where, given the high price of faucets and plumbing supplies, people find it cheaper to let the water flow uncontrolled than to fix the plumbing.
An abandoned house in the Tarara district. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 17 September 2016 – “This was my house,” says Elena, a Cuban-American who returned to the island this week and visited the place where she spent her childhood. In Tarará she took her fist steps, but the place barely resembles the residential neighborhood of her memories. In five decades it has passed from being an enclave of rich people to hosting a teacher’s training school, a Pioneers camp for schoolchildren, a sanatorium for children affected by radioactivity, and a tourist’s villa.
In the town, located east of Havana in a beautiful coastal area, the city’s crème de la crème settled in the middle of the last century. None of the residents of the 525 houses of this little paradise could imagine that soon after the titles of their homes were released, only 17 families would remain there and the rest would emigrate or lose their property after Fidel Castro’s coming to power. continue reading
“My father bought the parcel with great enthusiasm, he always said that he would live his last years here,” recalls Elena now. She walks around the house that has lost all the wood of its doors and windows. Weeds have taken over the terrace area and on the floor of the main hall there is evidence of the many bats that sleep in the room every night.
A man sweeping the street asks the newcomer if she passed through “the entry gate” control where visitors must pay for access to Tarará. For five convertible pesos Elena has returned to the place of her nostalgia, with “lunch included” in a solitary cafe by the sea.
She heads in that direction, but not before crossing herself before the lonely church dedicated to Santa Elena, which had gotten its cross back a few years earlier, after its having been removed during the decades when the most rabid atheism ruled the place. “They baptized my littlest sister here,” recalls the woman in front of the chapel.
In the bar of the local restaurant the waiter tells her that during elementary school he spent several weeks in Tarará. Although they swap stories about the same piece of Cuban earth, they seem to be talking about opposite poles. “I liked coming because they gave us yogurt at breakfast and lunch, and in one of the houses I saw a bathtub for the first time,” explained the man who is now over 40.
His memories correspond to the days when the once glamorous villa had been converted into the José Martí Pioneers City. The camp hosted thousands of school age children every year, “they were like vacations except we had to go to school,” explained the man.
The Soviet subsidy supported the enormous complex which included a cultural center, seven dining rooms, five teaching wings, a hospital, an amusement park and even an attractive cable car crossing between the two hills over the Tarará River, which is now a mass of rusted iron.
The cable car has become a tangle of rusty iron. (14ymedio)
Elena, meanwhile, recalls the backyard fruit trees, the squash court, and the softball field that filled with families on the weekends. However, her fondest memories relate to the drive-in theater located at the entrance to the village, which is now converted into a parking lot. Between her memories and the waiter’s are 30 years, and a social revolution.
“Now the only people who can enter are those with reservations in the few houses rented to tourists in this neighborhood,” explains the employee. They belong to the families who resisted leaving despite all the pressure they received. “Overnight the village filled with young people who came to the countryside to study dressmaking,” he explains.
The few residents who didn’t leave “went through hell” the sweeper says. “They had to travel miles to find a store and all around the houses were places for dancing and checkpoints,” he recalls.
A few years ago the state-owned tourist corporation Cubanacan rehabilitated 274 houses and another state-owned entity, Cubalse, did another 223. However, the projected tourist center hasn’t taken off. “This place lost its soul,” commented the sweeper while gathering up leaves from a yagruma tree that have fallen on the sidewalk. The plaque marking the pier where Ernst Hemingway docked his yacht can barely be discerned in the midst of the undergrowth.
In the nineties, Tarará was the epicenter of a program sponsored by the Ministry of Public Health for children affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident. They came from Moldovia, Belaruss and Ukraine, shortly after the economic crisis – sparked by the loss of the Soviet subsidy after the breakup of the Soviet Union – had put an end to the Pioneers camp.
The official press explained, at the time, that Cuba’s children had donated their “palace” to those affected by the tragedy, but no one remembers a single meeting at the school announcing the transformation the villa would undergo.
Early in this century 32,048 patients from Central and South America and the Caribbean passed through Tarará in the noted Operation Miracle, funded by Venezuelan oil. They came with different eye diseases such as cataracts and retinitis pigmentosa. They found a haven of peace in the place where only Cuban personnel working with patients and the few remaining residents were allowed to enter.
A decade ago 3,000 Chinese students came in turn to study Spanish and a police school was established in the neighborhood; its classrooms are often used to hold members of the Ladies in White when they are arrested on Sunday after leaving Mass at Santa Rita Church, on the other side of the city.
“This looks like a ghost town,” says Elena loudly as she walks the streets. Successive “programs of the Revolution” that filled the neighborhood have ended and now all that’s left is a development of numerous abandoned houses and others were a few tourists take the sun on the terraces. The beach where the visiting Cuban-American found her first snails is still there “as pretty as ever,” she says.
Casa Potín passed through several stages since its days of excellence in the middle of the last century. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 15 September 2016 — At night the corner is illuminated and the new awnings surprise passersby. The Casa Potín restaurant, for decades, embodied the decline of state services, but now it is experiencing a rebirth in the hands of the cooperative. So far, as a cooperative, it has managed to increase the prior monthly salaries of 300 Cuban pesos (about $12 US) by ten times. However the managers of the establishment feel that the lack of a wholesale market and the high costs of renting the site are obstacles to the development of the business.
Located on the corner of Linea and Paseo Streets in Havana, Casa Potín has passed through several stages since its days of excellence early in the last century when it was privately run. Many years after being nationalized, and with the arrival of the so-called Special Period, the place declined due to limited menu, lack of hygiene and the poor professionalism of its employees. continue reading
Three years ago, when it was converted into a non-agricultural cooperative and received bank credits equivalent to one million CUPs, it began to climb out of that hole. Most of the money was invested in refrigeration equipment, furniture and restoring the premises. In addition, the members of the cooperative worked to form a unique opportunity to try to recover the singular menu and the lost prestige.
The centrally located establishment is one of the 189 dining cooperatives that have been approved in recent years in Cuba. At least 80 of them are already operating and the rest are in the midst of making repairs and applying for credit before opening to the public.
“This place has changed, there was a time when it was in trouble and had a very limited menu,” says Ramon, 72, a neighbor of Casa Potín. The retired engineer is a self-confessed “devoted customer” of the place, which he has seen transformed from “disaster to glory.” However, he believes that the prices “are not within the reach of many pockets and continue to be high.”
“When we took over the management of this restaurant through this new method [government permission for non-agricultural cooperatives], the place had been closed for months because the previous management had accumulated a debt of half a million [Cuban] pesos and we had to assume that,” said a member of the cooperative who requested anonymity. The woman is optimistic and added, “If everything continues as it is now, we will pay off the debt at the end of this year.”
The reason for the large amounts of imported products consumed in the restaurant is the absence of a wholesale market where the products can be bought, according to Casa Potín’s managers. “We were very excited when the Zona+ wholesale market [owned by Cimex, a government entity] opened in Miramar, but in reality there is no difference between the costs of buying there and at the other market,” said a waitress at the restaurant.
The centrally located La Casa Potín restaurant is one of the 189 dining cooperatives that have been approved in recent years in Cuba. (14ymedio)
The legislation allows this state entity to raise the prices of some products sold in the dining network cooperatives, a sword of Damocles under which they must work. Similar measures applied to the agricultural markets and private transport have contributed to shortages and loss of quality in goods and services.
“We have had problems the whole summer with supplies from the Beverages and Soft Drinks Company,” says one of the cooperative’s employees, “so we can’t guarantee a stable supply of domestic beers or malts.”
Cooperatives have the prerogative to import equipment for commercial purposes through the Cimex Corporation, something that is still closed to self-employed workers.
Not only is it an uphill battle for the managers of Casa Potín to get basic supplies. Of the 18 initial workers who initially became part of the cooperative, only three remain at the forefront of the management of the restaurant-bar.
“People think that this is something where you don’t work very much and earn a lot, but that is not the case, we sweat it every day, making the numbers at the end of the month is not easy,” adds the employee, who acknowledges that when the place was managed by the state many products from the warehouse “were lost” and “there was a lot of diversion of resources.*”
The transformation into a cooperative has not changed the ownership of the property which remains with the state and each month the Havana Restaurants Company charges about 13,000 Cuban pesos (CUP) for rent. “It’s hard, very hard, but we have more autonomy and many customers are returning to Casa Potín.”
*Translator’s note: “Diversion of resources” is an all-encompassing term used in Cuba for what is generally theft by employees.
”There is no bread for lack of flour.” Commodities that are scarce in Venezuela are sold illegally on the Petare black market. (Twitter)
14ymedio, Rolando Polea, Caracas, 15 September 2016 — It’s 6:00 am on June 28, I drive slowly along the Panamerican highway, my view lost before the long line of people in shelters between the fog, the drizzle and hunger. Pressing up against each other as if for warmth. Almost a mile separates the last person in line from the entrance to the supermarket. It is the same image as the previous day. Everyone is waiting for the store to open so they can buy any regulated product that arrives, no one knows what, nor do they know how many they will be able to buy, much less if any product will show up at all.
And the agents of Venezuela’s “Bolivarian” National Guard have arrived, dressed in their usual olive-green uniforms and some Robocop protectors, who with rifles, helmets and shields, monitor the line. continue reading
I step in front of the closed door of the supermarket, flanked by the big truck of the anti-riot troops, only to notice that on the other side, extending for about 700 yards, is another line made up of the elderly. Many young people among them, these are the “liner-uppers,” family members, grandchildren, children and people who hold other people’s places.
It’s hard to get rid of that metallic taste left by the “shedding” of dignity.
Suddenly my mind, which strives to focus on the road and the radio to forget the tastelessness, is dejected by a call to the radio station, a complaint, from a lady who speaks, more words, less words, warning about the irresponsible favoritism of the officials charged with the sale and control of regulated products, allowing certain categories of public officials – like firefighters, doctors or security agents – to go ahead of the other public employees, a situation that doesn’t seem fair.
Almost immediately a “public official” calls the radio station, specifically a firefighter, to call the lady’s attention to the fact that his work saving lives and the long shifts make it impossible “to stand in line for 10 hours” to buy the regulate products of the basic market basket, and he demands that the woman complaining have some “understanding and civility.”
In the space of hardly a breath, the newscaster takes another call in which a “public employee” takes the firefighter to task, insisting he recognize that the difference between “officials” and “public employees” is governed by an internal scale in the government structures, but that eventually “everyone has the same right”…
The diatribe ends with the silence of the newscaster, and then a brief, “There you have a complaint for the authorities to consider,” followed by music, just music. What more can be added.
I think that in the midst of this whole string of unhappy complaints it’s worth remembering the public employees who, while a firefighter, police office or even a Bolivarian National Guard, work long and arduous shifts, whether saving us or repressing others, they simply, for the most part, “suck lives.”
Amid the government inefficiencies, there are some few employees or officials whose mystique and honesty are shrunk in the morass of corruption and bureaucracy. My acknowledgement, congratulations and honor to those heroes who survive that oasis in a desert of the convinced.
How far did the class struggle go… destroying the historical materialism of Marx and the classes in the productivist terms of Max Weber, the founding fathers of modern sociology, they should be appalled, the war of the proletariat.
What was heard had to have deep roots in the thinking of modern Venezuela, the misery of the totalitarian state, in which, after the ruin and disappearance of virtually all private initiative, is all that’s left standing.
Its inefficiency has plunged the country with the largest oil reserves in the world, one whose oil industry was considered one of the most efficient in the world, into a war economy, and achieved an equalization of misery, using the control of hunger and terror as weapons of social dominance.
While launching international campaigns to sell the wonderful utopia of “21st Century Socialism,” we Venezuelans die of poverty and famine.
At last, I have arrived at my job. The everyday job, the one that pays taxes, creates employment and whose productivity is seen in the results. The effort of private initiative, the only kind not stopped after the presidential decree, a decree that reduced the working hours of public employees to a half day, from 7:30 AM to 1:00 PM starting in late February this year, in order to address the energy disaster caused (for the second time) by the El Niño phenomenon, for which they never made provisions.
I am part of the private effort that continues to work a full day and that doesn’t shorten the workweek to two half-days, which the parasitic government decreed at the end of April this year, with its announcement that public employees would work only on Mondays and Tuesdays.
I’m part of one of the lowest classes in “21st Century Socialism.”
The society is divided into two blocks, consisting of castes:
Those Above:
Bolibourgeois: The highest framework of political, economic and military power, privileged and amalgamated under a corrupt system in which one has to have to have “wet hands” to belong and not represent a danger to the rest. For them there is no humanitarian crisis nor shortages and they are the ones who do not understand why those below “don’t eat cake, when there is no bread.”
Businessmen survivors: Simply entrepreneurs who are committed to working in Venezuela, whose lives abroad are assured, as are their possessions and in many cases their families. However, they are still here and on them depends a large number of direct and indirect jobs and they support virtually the entire weight of the low production and taxes.
Political opposition: Formed by the union of old and new leaderships, which are determined to return the democratic spirit of the nation through constitutional means. Enemies of the status quo, traitors to the “Bolivarian” ideal, political prisoners.
Those below:
Public officials: Those whose activities cannot be cancelled. Important people in the areas of healthcare, control, repression or “protection.” They are the first to get food…
Public employees: Those employees whose activity can be cancelled without stopping the running of the country. I offer as proof, months of no activity and everything is working. They are second in line for food.
Elderly: Older adults, some pensioners, other survivors, must stand in line or they simply don’t eat.
Bachaqueros: (a word derived from bachaco, a voracious ant-like insect) A criminal class that plays on the hunger and health of its peers, new proprietors whose networks are fed by the bolibourgeois, the “connected,” the corrupt or the Local Committees of Supply and Production. I don’t know exactly where to put them because they move like mafiosos, in the shadows.
Paramilitaries and Colectivos: Criminal fiefdoms, charged with extrajudicial state security. Official paramilitaries susceptible to extermination when they try to take private initiatives. Generally, they are the best armed in the country. They gather in mega-bands with specific territories and strategic alliances.
Us: Those of us who continue to work every day, who sign, validate, provide the masses for the opposition marches, the nonconformists, those who have no time to stand in line because if we don’t work the country stops, the employees of small initiatives, small businesses and merchants, artisan producers, service-oriented microenterprises. Those of us who use the weekends to get whatever food we can find.
Others: Survivors, the needy, those who rise at midnight to get two bags of rice and two packages of flour, to feed seven or eight people, because they cannot afford produce, those who die of scarcities because they can’t get or can’t afford medicine. Those who die in a hospital for lack of a catheter. Those who stand in line with their children who no longer attend school because they can’t feed or clothe them properly. Those who go through the trash of the supermarkets looking for an onion or a tomato they can eat. Those who are angry because they feel cheated. Those tossed out of the public administration because they were denied their right to claim indemnization on penalty of losing their money forever, or who don’t have the power to work in a public institution. They were fired for signing petitions against the government or for having different political preferences, simply because being a public official or employee requires submission to the one-party government.
Venezuela has one of the highest inflation rates in the world. (EFE)
The Others are the growing rage of a society devoid of values. The Others are the silent society, the timebomb of a savage revolution, without ideology or principles. Because they are the ones with their education and their human condition snatched from them, the ones who fall back on their instincts, return to the jungle.
I should also mention, without downplaying their importance, those who left, escaped, found asylum, dreamers and hopers who survive, the majority, in a diaspora spread across the planet. They are the displaced, part of a refugee and nomadic humanity, so much in vogue these days.
And to think that the food and medicine that is still gotten and shared is produced by the surviving Businessmen and by Us.
I should also mention without downplaying Those, those who left, escaped, asylees, and hopeful dreamers, who survive, most in diasporas spread across the globe. They are displaced, part of a refugee and migratory humanity, so fashionable has set.
And to think, that food and medicines and still get spread, are produced and carried by survivors Company and Us.
Venezuela is more than this. We Venezuelans must be more than this. But the mass seems to prefer eating crumbs forever, rather than rising up and changing, to make a change.
The US contractor Alan Gross on Tuesday at the Cuba Internet Freedom in Miami. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 13 September 2016 — The last day of Cuba Internet Freedom Forum (CIF), which is meeting in Miami this week and was attended by dozens of experts in the use of networks, explored the importance of recognizing internet access as a fundamental human right and analyzed trends in the digital market on the island and the landscape of independent journalism, among others. The event, organized by the US Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) and the first of its kind in history, seeks to promote new ways to increase connectivity in one of the countries with the worst internet access index in the world.
Among the most relevant events of the day was the Internet Freedom: Fundamental Human Right workshop, which involved the US subcontractor Alan Gross who spent five years in prison in Cuba for “acts against the territorial integrity of the state.” continue reading
Gross’s first words were “¿Qué bolá?, asere” – what’s happening, dude. Gorss said that “information is food for the brain” and, therefore, should be considered a human right.
The former prisoner, cigarette in hand, also noted the island’s need to “land” in the 21st century. “If we believe that the Cuban government says about the the need for exports to improve its economy, we have to think that it would facilitate contacts between producers and foreign markets, and that can only be done through the internet,” he added.
In the panel on trends in the digital market in Cuba, the founder of the site Apretaste, Salvi Pascual, explained the results of a survey conducted through this new initiative, which allows information to be collected through Nauta email. The results show that the majority of those consulted on the island want internet, although they would have to pay a fixed monthly fee. The survey also showed that a high percentage of the inhabitants on the island want the government rationing system to be maintained.
“Internet is a universal human right and that is why the Castros fear it,” said Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio in a video message addressed to the public forum.
In another panel, dedicated to independent journalism on the island, the analyst Miriam Celaya recalled the background of this phenomenon. Other participants such as Rolando Lobaina, Ivan Garcia and Ignacio Gonzalez also addressed the issue from the plurality of independent sites and the awakening being observed in other media in which official journalists participate, such as El Estornudo, OnCuba and El Toque.
Lobaina raised the challenge of organizing an event of this kind on the island, but said government repression towards the independent press “would probably prevent it.”
The Internet Freedom Forum Cuba closed its doors Tuesday in Miami. (14ymedio)
The event presented the work of the digital site Martí Noticias, which has about six million visits to its website and an average of more than nine minutes of time spent on the site.
“It is an excellent opportunity for an exchange between those of us on the island and those in exile. The future of the internet in Cuba we are going to guarantee for everyone,” Joanna Columbié, a member of the Somos+ Movement (We Are More). The activist added that this type of event has a real impact on ordinary Cubans, because it provides tools to facilitators who, once in the country may continue the educational work there.
According to Rachell Vazquez, a freelance journalist who contributes to 14ymedio, it is increasingly necessary that the information produced in Cuba not only reflect the reality of the capital, but also the interior of the island.
“Freedom, both of expression and on the internet, is fomented when people of a neighborhood or a municipality see their lives, their concerns and their hopes reflected in the work we do. That’s the best way to contribute to the change of mentality in Cuba,” she said.
Erick Jennische, Swedish sociologist and journalist, author of ‘We Have to Get the Police Out of Our Heads’
14ymedio, Yania Suarez, Stuttgart, 12 September 2016 – Erik Jennische, author of “We Must Get the Police Out of Our Heads” declared that the book was written to enlighten the Swedish reader about the democratic movement in Cuba and its current state. However, the Cuban reader will not find much of use in this reporting, even though it is the most complete that exists on the subject.
Despite their efforts at transparency, despite that in recent years the presence of dissidents on the web and on TV in Miami, they are still a mystery for the majority of those living on the island. The stigma of official propaganda against them still prevails and, above all, the idea still prevails that they are a group of conspirators, plotters, filled with secrets, who work in the shadows (reality is not like this, but what is reality, on the other hand?). The consequences of this general ignorance are considerable: in the collective imagination, opponents are isolated and inaccessible, because people do not usually participate in what they do not understand, and they also tend to fear it. continue reading
Jennische’s book eliminates this prejudicial enigma about them and tries to explain them in almost all their aspects (leaving the task of scorn for the enemy).
We find in it everything from the path a person can take to become an opponent of the regime (a subject that interested the sociologist Jennishce in its time), to certain keys to understand the new relations with the United States; from the first steps of the movement, to its current shape and direction. The result is extremely enjoyable, the book reads with the nimbleness of a story – a form it uses more than a few times – despite the flawed translation.
An interesting chapter examines the principal organizations in Miami, about which we know little. Another talks about the indirect influence of Gene Sharp in the recent direction of the democratic movement. Another evaluates the advantages of the internet – which the government fears because, among other reasons, it establishes certain social conditions that Fidel Castro exploited for this struggle and later eliminated when he came to power.
The unveiling of undercover agents that happened during the trials of the 2003 Black Spring, the author derives that the function of those infitrated was merely propagandistic: they offered no “secret” information from espionage because all of these opposition figures had been public and didn’t spy on anybody; nor was very consistent evidence needed for the convictions.
Rather, “the results of the participation of those agents in the democratic movement for year, were simple defamations… they described the democratic activists as cowardly, avaricious, imbeciles and contentious,” as if it were a telenovela (one could add that they also conferred on them the mystery that today distances others from them, having been “revealed” to the people through an “espionage operation”).
“We Have to Get the Police Out of Our Heads” has generated some controversy when, at the end of the book it suggests that we have perhaps overestimated the ability of the secret police to stop the progress of the democratic movement. The efficient Stasi, the author argues, couldn’t stop it in Germany despite their growing files, and the reason is that they are incapable of processing the information they collect into a good analysis of society. Surveillance, on the other hand, only serves to intimidate the indecisive and to publicly stone a person.
Certainly, the question raised is much more interesting than the conclusion above. In Cuba there are experienced leaders with more than a little responsibility such as Jose Daniel Ferrer, who pay a lot of attention to the issue of infiltrators in their groups, because state security is also engaged in sabotaging, through agents, the activities of the opposition.
But the contribution of Jennische, even in that controversial fragment, is always intelligent, always worthwhile. The reader will appreciate the discrete analysis that guides it and the abundance of data gathered. It is not a definitive book: the history of the democratic movement remains to be written and some will find missing pieces. But it is a good step to moving us beyond that difficult shadow.
The Regla ferry connects that town and Casablanca with Havana across Havana Bay. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 14 September 2016 — Residents and visitors of Regla and Casablanca can now travel with their laptops on the maritime vessels that connect the historic center of Havana with these two towns. For decades, travelers with computers were obliged to make the trip in buses or cars, due to a prohibition from the authorities.
Several of these boats, known as lanchitas de Regla, were the scenes of immigration incidents prior to the 1994 Rafter Crisis. Controls at the terminals at both ends escalated started at that point and prohibited carrying passengers with scissors, bottles with liquid, cakes for parties, and electronic equipment like laptops.
As of last week, and without the official press having published the information, people with laptops are allowed to board the ferries. One of the employees responsible for inspecting passengers told 14ymedio that “now you can travel not only with one, but with all the computers you want.”
The relaxation happened after a restructuring of urban transport implemented beginning in August. Given the decline in the number of buses now serving the towns of Regla and Casablanca, the authorities have removed what many considered an “absurd prohibition.”
Condemned to Humility / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 14 September 2016 – Limits on property tenure and wealth accumulation are prominent in discussions about the documents issued by the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC). “The Talibans” – as the hardliners are often referred to – demand precision and the entrepreneurs also need it, for different reasons, to understand the subjective opinion of the local overlord who is going to determine whether someone has become too prosperous.
With only 15 days left to complete the analysis of the Conceptualization of the Bases* of the National Development Plan, issued by the congress, these documents have been discussed only by “the membership of the party and the Young Communists Union, and representatives of mass organizations** and large sectors of society.” continue reading
In December, if the deadlines are met, a plenary session of the PCC Central Committee will put the final touches on the these directives, perhaps with some modifications or additions. The principles that govern the country’s economic activities in the coming decades will not have been subjected to the scrutiny of a significant number of citizens.
This Monday one of these debates took place with several district delegates selected from the Santa Clara’s People’s Council. According to the official newspaper Granma, among the most debated topics was Paragraph 104 of the Conceptualization, which rejects the idea of “the concentration of property and wealth in natural or legal persons.”
As the official Party organ, Granma usually chooses with care the opinions it publishes, and in this case it published the opinion of several delegations about “the need to define how far it will allow this phenomenon [tenure of property and wealth] to go, and the imperative of defining limits.” Others called for “strict supervision by the competent bodies, with their control system to prevent the proliferation of new rich in Cuba.”
Such fears are consistent with the implementation of a new measure where it is stipulated those receiving monthly salaries exceeding 500 Cuban pesos (CUP, about $20 US) must make a special contribution of 5% to Social Security. A decision that also includes workers at state enterprise earning up to 5,000 CUP (about $200 US), who will have to also pay a personal income tax of 3%.
However, a self-employed person who has a personal net income of 60,000 CUP a year (an average of 5,000 per month) faces a tax rate of 50%. This is a clear obstacle to the development of private entrepreneurs, which the government has had to tolerate given the economic collapse of the country, but against whom it maintains a stubborn animosity.
Following the recent closed-door discussions, it is probable that the limits of wealth concentration in the hands of Cuban citizens will be defined with more precision. It is very likely that when the definition is written precedence will be given to the voices insisting “this is and will remain a Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble.”
With this thundering no one can sleep, grow or prosper. If, given that a successful entrepreneur who manages to earn the equivalent of about $200 US a month will be placed on the top of the food chain and pay the highest tax rates, what can be expected from the corrective they will reserve for those who start a small or medium sized business?
During the five years in which the Guidelines from the Sixth Communist Party Congress were in effect, Point 3 of the economic management model was designed to prevent the concentration of property. Some analysis suggested this point would be eased in the Seventh Congress, but instead it was strengthened by adding the word “wealth.”
A superficial glance could lead to the conclusion that those incapable of creating, moved by envy, want to tie the hands of those who through risk, imagination and personal effort put their goals above the prosperity managed by the generosity of a paternalistic and controlling state. Surely there are better arguments to explain these blunders.
Translator’s notes: *“Base” in this context refers to what in other, non-totalitarian contexts, would be called the “grassroots,” that is Party organizations at the local level. **”Mass organizations” refers only to government controlled entities such as the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the University Students Federation (FEU), and so on.
14ymedio, Ricardo Fernandez, Pinar del Rio, 12 September 2016 – Rolando Pupo Carralero is a self-declared lover of the countryside, despite having begun working the land by necessity, when he abandoned his studies in economics.
Currently a member of the national executive of the Cuban Independent and Democratic Party (CID) and coordinator in the western region of for political group, Pupo has worked for many years growing tobacco. From his experience in the fields, he believes it is very difficult for regime opponents to own land, and believes the farmers have become aware that the “Revolution” pays them one-forty-fifth of the value of what they produce.
Ricardo Fernandez. How is it possible that within the opposition there are no independent farmer organizations?
Rolando Pupo Carralero. In Cuba, they don’t allow members of the opposition to have land. It is not a written law, but the land is in the hands of the state, and it is distributed to those who are “suitable” and opponents are rarely in that category. continue reading
People who inherit land can be part of the opposition, but even so, the government has ways to pressure them not to be. Among these, the strongest are the requirement to be associated with a cooperative with a “legal personality” because otherwise they cannot buy supplies and services or sell their crops.
There is still no private sector in Cuba capable of buying one farmer’s entire production, nor is there a legal market where you can buy fertilizer or supplies if you are not affiliated with the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP).
RF. Does that mean that the peasantry is in agreement with the Cuban system?
RPC. The fact that they can not belong to the active opposition does not mean that they do not oppose the system, but the farmer does not have freedom or autonomy. Despite the mechanisms used by the government to indoctrinate and repress the peasantry (cooperatives, ANAP and other institutions of that type), farmers are not completely subjugated. You have to be at a meeting of the cooperative, which convenes monthly, to see the high level of dissatisfaction and the harshness in the well-founded opinions expressed by the members.
RF. How have the farmers changed their position on the government?
RPC. Initially the peasantry supported the Revolution because it brought some benefits, but the accounts have been made clear over time. For example, in the case of tobacco, the state buys the first quintal (more than 70% quality) for 2,574 pesos, for which you need 1,300 cuttings, with a large expenditure of resources in planting, cultivation, harvesting and drying.
But that quintal of tobacco contains 12,800 leaves (80 cujes of 160 leaves each) and if we figure that for a first quality cigar you need only three leaves, the quintal is the equivalent of 4,266 cigars for export, and an amount equal or more in hard currency.
So they pay the farmer 102 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC, about $102 US), when the real value of the production is 45 times higher. These absurd inequalities mean that from their work they earn barely enough to live, which is why they have awakened to the reality of the system; although they can not protest openly.
RF. Are there opponents with ties to the countryside?
RPC. I am one of them. I cannot be an owner, but I do cultivate land with my stepfather, who is an owner. Many opponents work in agriculture, some out of necessity and others for love. Although government pressures have made themselves felt, with threats to the owners who employ dissidents, the farmers no longer let themselves be intimidated.
For example, State Security periodically threatens my stepfather, saying they will take away his land if I keep working on it; but he defends his position with my right to work and live together because I am his family.
Gone are the days when being an opponent was a stigma for society. The peasants don’t hire people based on whether they are communists or opponents, they look for work performance regardless of political position.
RF. How has it been for you linking agricultural work with the opposition?
RPC. Sometimes it is a bit complicated because some underestimate the farmers, associating them with terms such as peasant or brutish; but there are a lot of smart people working in the fields.
14ymedio, Havana, 22 September 2016 – “It’s on the penultimate page,” the employee of the newspaper kiosk in Havana’s Cerro district tells a young woman who is buying two copies of the newspaper Granma this Wednesday. The terse note from the Cuban Volleyball Federation about the five- year prison sentences for rape handed down in Finland to visiting Cuban athletes sparked particular interest among Cubans, when it appeared in the official organ of the Communist Party, although citizens had to look hard to find the information.
