AUTHORS – Translating Cuba

Overwhelmed By the Excess of Garbage, Las Tunas Trash Collectors Stop Working for the Cuban State

Many employees have been “frightened” by the situation of landfills in the province, and the increase in wages is not enough to avoid the stampede

14ymedio, Havana, 25 April 2024 — The garbage collectors hired by Communal Services in Las Tunas to pick up the trash with a horse and cart have protested again because of the low wages and the terrible conditions. “Few have stepped forward to face the work,” the authorities complain, alluding to the 252 who are still collecting garbage in the province. Their taxes were lowered at the end of last year when they demanded “to earn more and sweat less.”

Each cart operator is paid 40 pesos per cubic meter of garbage, and they pay 35% less in taxes. The carts can carry 15 cubic meters a load and make three trips a day, with which they earn, the authorities calculate, 1,800 pesos (some $5 US at the informal exchange rate) on a good day. “But they don’t even want to carry out that work,” complained Elser Prieto, the provincial deputy director of Comunales, in an interview given this Thursday to Periódico 26.

What explains the reluctance of the cart drivers to work with Comunales? Neither the official press nor the manager will risk a hypothesis, but the hygienic situation of Las Tunas, where waste has been accumulating for months, seems to be one of the keys, suggests Periódico 26. In addition, there is the lack of personnel – ideally, about 659 cart operators should be working – and the lack of tools for collection, plus the complication of maintaining a cart and horse, and the risk of disease. continue reading

Comunales should maintain two collection trucks and eight tractors, but it only has 2,000 liters of diesel per month

In the province of Las Tunas, Comunales should maintain two collection trucks and eight tractors, but it only has 2,000 liters of diesel per month and, of the tractors, only two work. Most of the collection must be taken care of by horse-drawn vehicles. According to the official newspaper, the province generates about 33,200 cubic meters of waste per month.

The saturation of garbage, the leaders admit, has frightened many cart drivers, who “have been vocal about the low salary they receive,” says Prieto, who claims to have “dialogued with them” without them listening. The leader mobilized local Hygiene and Epidemiology officials as part of a “strategy” that he did not reveal to “support” the collection, despite the “low number” of cart operators, whose stampede continues.

At the beginning of April, Periódico 26 described the overwhelming landscape of garbage in Las Tunas: a capital city “full of dumps,” municipalities in absolute “deterioration,” absence of a communal work system and “lack of sensitivity” of the leaders, who act only “when it is indicated by the higher authorities.”

They also regretted the “social indisciplines” such as throwing garbage in any corner, but they recognized that “many residents have no other option

They also regretted the “social indisciplines” such as throwing garbage in any corner, but they recognized that “many residents have no choice but to throw garbage in the dumpsters even when they are full.” “What else can they do if there is no fuel and no horse-and-cart operators?”

The newspaper also demanded a salary increase for the cart operators- “there is no other way” – a measure that should have been taken “many months ago.”

“A very serious problem, in addition, is the inefficient work system of the companies of Communal and Aqueduct Services to face the collection of waste and the discharge of sewer water, which runs through many streets of the capital city,” they summarized. “The deterioration of state equipment and the lack of fuel affected the capacity of the state entities in charge of garbage collection. The situation worsened because the self-employed who collected waste abandoned their positions, overwhelmed by the increase in operational costs.”

When the cart operators threatened to withdraw because garbage collection was not as profitable as they expected, Comunales raised an outcry

When the cart operators threatened to withdraw because garbage collection was not as profitable as they expected, Comunales raised an outcry, since using animals has been the only method they have found in the face of fuel shortages and the absence of special trucks.

Drivers prefer to work in the transport of passengers or cargo, a better paid and less cumbersome job. During the last tension with the cart operators, the testimony of one of them was eloquent: “I don’t need to spend all day covered in muck, with the risk of getting sick, because there are many things in the waste that can hurt you, and they check your papers over and over again. Now, hired privately, with a couple of good cart-loads a day or disposing of debris from a construction, I’m doing well.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Quisicuaba, or the ‘Revolutionary Calling’ To Look After the Poor

The official press celebrates with “hope” the work of the project in a new report on begging

In the project’s dining room this Friday, they served spaghetti without cheese / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 26 April 2024 — In the second part of a report on beggars in Cuba, in which the authorities recognize that the State is not able to deal with the increasing number of homeless people, the official press celebrates with “hope” the work of the Cabildo Quisicuaba project. Its director, Enrique Alemán, who mixes spiritualism and Afro-Cuban religions with activism in favor of the regime, says that he offers meals to more than 4,000 “wanderers” and “vulnerable” people a day in a dining room in Havana. If this is true, it would mean feeding three people per minute for 24 hours each day.

It’s not the first time that the Government has praised Quisicuaba’s “social” work. Every time the media is there, even the international media like Reuters, they offer the same numbers.

Nor is it explained where the food and the resources to serve them come from

What Alemán does not mention, in a video released by Cubadebate, is that a year ago his soup kitchen on Maloja Street, in Central Havana, had, according to an article from the Swiss Embassy in Cuba, half as many people as now. The increase in homeless people, beggars or “people with wandering behaviors,” as the regime calls them, is a reality that the Government can no longer hide. Nor is it explained where the food and the resources to serve them come from. continue reading

A resident of Nuevo Vedado who once asked Quisicuaba for help told 14ymedio that not everything is rosy in the project. “I live alone and I’m now 76 years old, so I talked to a social worker to see if I could get any help. He told me about Quisicuaba and managed the delivery of a lunch,” he recalls.

“When the food arrived, it was disgusting. My dogs didn’t even like it. I remember that they brought it to me in a bike-taxi, although I think that now they no longer send couriers and you have to go to Centro Havana. I never asked for it again,” he says.

The first part of the report on beggars in Cuba gave an account of the problem: 39% of those who live in the Centers for the Care of Wandering People have not reached the age of 60; 60% sold their home and do not have the resources to join society; 86% are men, 30% have some disability – including 25% with psychiatric disorders – and 31% “have high patterns of consumption of alcoholic beverages.”

In the face of the unrealizable proposal to pass the ball to the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) or other traditional organizations, Quisicuaba – with its double religious and “social” character – strives to ensure that the regime does not look foolish. A few years ago, the project inaugurated an “assisted living center” in San Antonio de los Baños, Artemisa, in an abandoned rural high school.

Now, according to Alemán, 113 people reside there, and they hope to receive another 24 soon

Now, according to Alemán, 113 people reside there, and they hope to receive another 24 soon. All were previously taken care of in the Havana dining room, and after the opening of the “camp” they arrived at the facilities.

“Many of the patients who are here were alcoholics, for example, and therefore we try to create the family atmosphere that they do not have elsewhere. Here we have a simple regulation that is based on the person’s own will to want to get ahead. We give occupational therapy and work to make them feel important,” the director of the place, Yadelkis Hernández Morales, explains to Cubadebate.

Quisicuaba counts on the help that the Government and local administrations do not give to their own state shelters. “One of our fundamental premises lies in self-sufficiency, including our social dining room. To do this, we request idle land from agriculture, and we now produce coal for cooking food. In addition, we harvest bananas, sweet potatoes, malanga, pumpkin, cassava and beans. We also have an organoponic garden and a livestock module,” says Hernández. The contribution of the regime does not represent a great economic sacrifice, but it allows them to take part of the credit for the functioning of Quisicuaba.

The place also has a medical team, as well as staff from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. Likewise, the medicines shown in the Cubadebate audiovisual are imported, although Quisicuaba does not state where the funds come from, since it is a non-profit project.

Alpidio Alonso, also showed up and applauded the “deeply cultural work” of the project

The Cuban authorities, who support the initiative, often show their faces in the center and give promotion to Alemán, who has also highlighted the “revolutionary vocation” of Quisicuaba. This same Thursday, a retinue made up of Abel Prieto and other members of the jury of the Casa de las Américas Award – foreign intellectuals – arrived at the Havana headquarters. The Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso, also showed up and applauded the “deeply cultural work” of the project.

Also, last December Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel toured the Quisicuaba facilities in San Antonio, to “learn how the Quisicuaba Project and several agencies of the Central State Administration, Cuban civil society organizations, the Party and the Government have worked together since 2020 to make this noble work a reality.”

Despite the Government’s attempt to whitewash its image, the homeless in Cuba are far from disappearing. A report by this newspaper reports the situation of residents of Havana who, like many on the Island, try to survive without the help of relatives abroad.

“Every week I get more and more acquaintances in Cuba asking me to send them money, because they don’t have children who send it to them. But I can’t deal with everyone; I have my children there too,” said a man from Havana living in Miami who doesn’t understand how those who don’t receive remittances can survive.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Cuba: Gradual Process Versus Voluntarism, a Matter of Methodology

As the results of their proposals have been the same, perhaps it makes no sense to discuss how they carried them out.

Fidel and Raúl Castro during the last session of the 6th Congress of the Communist Party / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 April 2024 — Any attempt to theorize about methodological issues in the way of governing is usually dismissed when the results are the same. That is one of the reasons why the differences in method to exercise power between Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl are barely mentioned.

If I had to define Fidel’s method, I would reduce it to a single sentence: “We will go forward no matter the cost.”

Raul’s contribution is evidenced in his attempt to achieve “a sustainable (and prosperous) socialism” and his insistence on advancing “sin prisa, pero sin pausa” — without haste, but without pause.

Four years ago Raúl met with a large group of leaders from all political and governmental levels, and he warned them that waste and improvisation had to be eliminated and that they had to “have their feet and ears glued to the ground.”

When in April 2018 Miguel Díaz-Canel assumed the position of president of the Council of State by appointment, Raúl Castro assured that this was part of a process of “gradual and orderly transfer.”

While it can be said that everything that happened in Cuba from 1959 to 2006 (especially the disasters) was the result of Fidel Castro’s indisputable voluntarism (everyone makes his own to-do list), it can also be said that the poor result of the reforms promoted by Raúl Castro from 2008 to the present is largely due to the slowness and lack of depth of their application.

As the results have been the same (I have my own list), it makes no sense to discuss the methodology.

But I make this observation:

If Fidel Castro had applied the nationalization of foreign companies in a gradual and orderly way, and his Revolutionary Offensive of 1968 would not have been decreed with the stroke of a pen but with his feet and ears on the ground…

If Raúl Castro, a chainsaw ready for action, had put an end to the inefficient socialist state enterprise and put the country’s economy into private hands, opening the doors to foreign investment…

The methdology wouldn’t have mattered.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Armed Seamen From Mexico Transfer the 28 Cubans Rescued by the Paradise Carnival Cruise Ship

Migration Agents used vans to transport the Cuban rafters rescued last Sunday by the Paradise Carnival cruise ship / X/@INAMI_mx

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, April 26, 2024 — As if they were criminals, armed seamen guarded the transfer to Playa del Carmen of 28 Cubans, including a minor, last Tuesday. The migrants were handed over by the Paradise Carnival crew, who rescued them on Sunday 20 miles from the Island.

The cruise ship, which arrived at the San Miguel pier that same day, informed the captaincy of ports that among them was a group of rescued rafters. Agents of the National Institute of Migration took care of the Cubans and with the support of sailors took them in vans to the Winjet station, tourist transport ferries in Cozumel, to take them to the immigration station of Playa del Carmen.

A group of Cuban rafters guarded by armed seamen from Mexico at the exit of the San Miguel pier in Cozumel / Facebook/Esquema Cozumel

Darío Canché, who offers tourists diving tours, snorkeling and boat trips, told 14ymedio that before eight in the morning on Tuesday the seamen were already at the pier. “With these operations you think that there’s a shipment of drugs, but they took out several people carrying plastic bags. I asked if it was human trafficking and one of the people from Migration told me it was none of my business.” continue reading

What caught Canché’s attention is that their new footwear had no laces. “When they arrest you and before putting you in the cell they take everything away from you, even the laces, because they’re afraid you’ll kill yourself.”

At the immigration station they refused to give the list of Cuban names to this newspaper, under the argument that there was already an official statement. They also did not want to report why these people were delivered to Mexico and not to the island of Roatán (Honduras), where the cruise ship Paradise was moored last Monday.

Trajectory of the Paradise Carnival cruise ship/ Dayli Mail

The report indicates that the rafters are at the headquarters in Cancún, “where they were provided with care and accommodation while their situation is resolved.” The minor was “channeled” to the municipal System for the Integral Development of the Family (DIF), in the Casa Filtro shelter, which will determine the protection measures and the plan of restitution of rights. Migrant defense attorney Jose Luis Pérez denounced Migration’s lack of transparency: “These Cubans have the right to regularize their stay in the country, but they will surely be isolated and threatened with deportation. It’s a way of scamming them.”

A member of the Beta Group revealed to 14ymedio that Mexico continues to deport Cubans, despite the fact that last October it announced that the process of “assisted calls” – as they call the expulsions – was paused until further notice. Last January, nine people from the Island were returned on a commercial flight. Last year, 774 Cuban migrants were returned.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

At Least 100 Cubans Remain Hospitalized for Lack of a Pacemaker, Says an NGO Related to the Regime

The mediCuba-Europa organization launched a campaign to buy 1,500 pacemakers and send them to the Island

The president of the NGO, Franco Cavalli (l) and Miguel Díaz-Canel (r) met in Havana in 2023 / Granma

14ymedio, Havana, 25 April 2024 — MediCuba-Europa, an NGO related to the Cuban Government, launched a campaign this Wednesday to raise funds for the purchase of pacemakers for patients on the Island. According to the organization, they need 1,500 pacemakers immediately, and at least 100 Cubans have to stay in hospitals because they do not have one. “Unfortunately, most pacemaker manufacturers refuse to market them and send them to Cuba. However, we have identified an Italian company willing to provide them at affordable prices: about 500 euros for a unicameral pacemaker,” he said in a statement, although he did not reveal the name of the company.

The NGO also explained that it is working with “an American solidarity group” to send between 300 and 400 pacemakers to the Island in the coming weeks. The donation of medicines, he added, is also necessary in the current economic conditions.

The organization, based in Switzerland, is composed of members from thirteen European states

The organization, based in Switzerland, is composed of members from thirteen European states (Germany, Sweden, Italy, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Finland, Norway, Spain and Austria). In addition, there are partner institutions from three other countries, the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Directed by the Swiss doctor Franco Cavalli, mediCuba-Europa maintains several projects with Cuban state institutions such as the financing of pediatric antitumor drugs for the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology of Havana, in which it planned to invest between 10,000 and 20,000 euros per year (10,725-21,451 dollars) since 2010, but in the first five years the figure amounted to 99,000 euros (106,184 dollars). According to the project’s report, the execution period will last “until the blockade* ends.” continue reading

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Island, mediCuba-Europa promoted another campaign to finance the purchase of 250 pulmonary ventilators, and in 2021 delivered $600,000 for the purchase of syringes and needles. The NGO also announced that it planned to support the development of Cuban vaccines against the virus, although it is not known if that proposal materialized.

In addition to maintaining direct collaboration with the Cuban Government, Cavalli is a strong advocate of the regime on the international stage and has denounced the United States embargo* as the main cause of Cubans having poor access to healthcare.

The shortage of medical supplies on the Island has become a chronic problem. In mid-April, the official press announced that enalapril – one of the most prescribed drugs on the Island and the most scarce – was returning to the pharmacies of Ciego de Ávila after missing for several weeks. However, the authorities explained that “there is only availability to cover 70% of the dose.”

The shortage of medical supplies on the Island has become a chronic problem

The lack of enalapril is not the only one – far from it. Of the 603 products on the so-called province card – 197 imported and 401 of domestic production, the authorities said, although they do not add up – on average 226 have been missing. In addition, 471 had zero or low coverage in the most recent 15 and 30 days.

The worst situation occurred in 34 of the 84 products of the control card: contraceptives, tranquilizers (out of 23, 16 were missing) and antibiotics (out of 24, 17 were missing); all this as a consequence, they said, of the “effects of the current economic crisis and the resurgence of the United States blockade against Cuba,” which brought the shortage to “historic levels.”

The export of Cuban doctors on “missions” to different countries, however, continues to bring great monetary benefits for the regime, which does not reinvest those funds in Public Health. Last February, for example, 89 health workers arrived in Honduras to help in the hospital network. The hiring, by the Government of Xiomara Castro, violates the country’s Constitution, according to Honduran doctors.

*Translator’s note: There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in the same year in February, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

The Government Unearths a Case of Illegal Slaughter of Livestock To Warn Farmers

The three involved in the robbery, which occurred in 2022, were sentenced to six and nine years in prison

The robbery occurred on 5 September 2022, in the Gratitude cooperative of the Avila municipality of Majagua / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Havana, April 25, 2024 — The official press unearthed, this Wednesday, the case of theft of two horses and two oxen in Ciego de Ávila in 2022, perpetrated by three farmers living in Sancti Spíritus. The news, which announced the penalty of nine and six years in prison for those involved, coincides with the process of livestock and land control carried out by the Government from this March until the month of May.

According to the newspaper Escambray, the three men, 40, 41 and 27 years old, who “had the mission of producing and protecting the land (…) in the area of La Teresita, near Majagua, disrupted the honorable profession by the illegal slaughter of livestock that belonged to others.” In addition, it highlights, two of them have “long criminal records,” which include several years in prison and fines. The third accused, although he has no criminal record, “maintains social misconduct,” the newspaper argues.

The robbery occurred on 5 September 2022, in the Gratitude cooperative of the municipality of Majagua in Avila, where those involved cut the fence and took the animals, three of them from the company and one owned by a farmer. These were slaughtered and sold at 100 pesos per pound of meat. continue reading

The animals were slaughtered and sold at 100 pesos per pound of meat

“During the investigative process, the Police carried out searches in the homes of the three defendants and found meat and instruments used in the illegal slaughter, plus a scale used in the sale. With this evidence, they proceeded to arrest said citizens,” the newspaper summarizes.

Two years after the crime, two of the defendants were sentenced to nine years in prison and the other to six years, for theft and illegal slaughter of livestock and sale of the meat. They must also jointly compensate those harmed, the newspaper added.

Another food-related crime occurred recently in Las Tunas, where the Ministry of the Interior seized six tons of potatoes from a private company in the main municipality. According to the official press, the authorities noted the “illegality of the invoices” of the business, so the product was withdrawn and an investigation initiated.

An agent of the ministry, Ender Simón Gutiérrez, explained to the local newspaper Periódico 26 that, “in reviewing the documentation of the alleged legal purchase, it did not justify the origin of the volume of the product.”

The potatoes had been acquired by the private company in the province of Artemisa and were sold in the city of Las Tunas at 80 pesos per pound, a price that, the newspaper says, was not authorized either. In the ration stores of the province, the price of one pound of potatoes is 11 pesos, while in the state markets leased to private individuals it is 70 pesos.

The government company Acopio, where the tubers were delivered, distributed the tons between the Ernesto Guevara hospitals, the pediatric Mártires de Las Tunas and the Clodomira Acosta psychiatric hospital, in addition to the Carlos Font nursing home, the Calixto Sarduy medical center and two children’s homes without government subsidies. These centers, adds Periódico 26, with praise for the agents who “watch over the legality,” “now have a good amount of that product to reinforce the feeding of patients, the elderly and children.”

The prosecution of crimes related to food production in the country has intensified in recent months, and the Government’s inability to import food has become evident. The control of the farmers, in which a “hard hand” was promised, is one of the strategies to alleviate the crisis. Despite the farmers’ discomfort, quantities of “diverted” products have been returned to the State.

The prosecution of the authorities for crimes related to food production in the country has intensified

An article published on April 19 in Periódico 26 revealed that, in Las Tunas alone, when only a fifth of the registration had been completed, the Ministry of Agriculture managed to add to the state inventory 30,170 liters of milk, 27 tons of beef and 142 tons of agricultural products that were not being delivered to the State.

“The first data reveal a negative difference between the livestock counts in the records and the one that really exists in the pastures, without documents that appropriately support the reasons for that lack,” the media said at the time. In addition, there are cases of “delayed conversions, improperly registered births, unidentified animals and illegal sales.”

History repeats itself in Artemis, where the authorities found all kinds of misdeeds: animals without a brand or ear tag, with unreported changes of category, outside the farm without authorization and without documents have been just some of the 9,300 violations counted.

State pressure on farmers and landowners, added to the fear of being fined or locked up, has forced them to attend en masse to the livestock control records and to register the animals that have died or were raised illegally. However, the number of violations is still remarkable. In just a month and a half of “controls” in the province, the authorities have added to the State plan 2,600 liters of milk that the farmers did not deliver to the official channels, according to El Artemiseño.

Last February, the theft of 133 tons of frozen chicken from the Food Marketing Company of Havana was also news, which ended with 30 defendants, 11 of them in pretrial detention.

Translated by Regina Anavy

________________________

The Emigration of Its Militants Is a Blow to the Communist Party of Cuba

Party meetings, public events and morning workplace meetings have become a roll call to count those absent

The speed with which some Cubans change the PCC red card for residence in the ’yuma’ (US), never ceases to surprise / Cadeca

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 25 April 2024 — Even opportunism crumbles. Wearing the ideological mask in Cuba meant, for decades, obtaining revenues and benefits, but for some time now it seems to cost more than what it brings in. This morning I learned from a former official, linked to propaganda in the official media, that she is diligently waiting for her humanitarian parole to be approved to move to the United States. Instead of rejection or annoyance, the news has provoked congratulations among her former colleagues in the core of the Communist Party.

“You’re incredibly lucky, you’re leaving!” another militant, already retired and lacking anyone to claim him on the “other side of the pond,” told her with a touch of envy. According to what the future migrant has assured her friends, she will alternate her life between Miami and Havana, but everyone senses that it is a trip with no real return. “In a few years, for sure, she will publish on Facebook the photo with the flag of the little stars next to an image of the Statue of Liberty, after becoming nationalized,” predicts the pensioner.

Although the phenomenon has been quite common in recent years, the speed with which some Cubans exchange the PCC red card for residence in the Yuma is still surprising. With the same enthusiasm that, util recently, they used to get ready to participate in official events, they pack their suitcase and go to the airport. The speed with which they shed the skin of the simulator is causing a schism in the ranks of those who still say they support the system. continue reading

Party meetings, public events and the morning workplace meetings have become a roll call to count those absent and calculate how many more will emigrate. They look into each other’s eyes, weigh every word each other says, look for signs that they are waiting for a visa or a ticket. But the potential migrants do not give up. Trained in hiding their criticism of the regime and keeping quiet about any discrepancies, they guard their departure until the last minute.

From the plane window, up there, they will smile with relief. Down here, their cronies in the cause will also do the same. They know that with each acolyte who leaves, loyalty fades, masks crack, the system falls apart.

____________

The Governor of Cienfuegos Resigns ‘Upon Recognizing Mistakes Made in the Exercise of His Responsibility’

Alexandre Corona joins the long list of senior Cuban officials who leave their duties in 2024, since the dismissal of Alejandro Gil Fernández as Minister of Economy

Alexandre Corona Quintero during an interview with the official newspaper 5 de Septiembre / 5 de Septiembre

14ymedio, Madrid, 24 April 2024 — Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel approved on Wednesday the dismissal of the governor of Cienfuegos, Alexandre Corona, who requested his resignation “upon recognizing mistakes made in the exercise of his responsibility.” According to a brief statement made public by the official press, which does not detail what the mistakes are, he will be replaced until a new governor is elected by Yolexis Rodríguez Armada, who was up to now a provincial deputy governor.

It is a case, therefore, different from the recent “movements of cadres,” such as the governors of Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas, Villa Clara and Ciego de Ávila. All of them were “liberated” from their posts to perform “new tasks,” according to the prose used by the regime in these circumstances. In recent weeks, the president of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), a union organization in the orbit of the Communist Party of Cuba, was also replaced.

Corona joins, of course, the long list of senior Cuban officials who leave their duties in 2024, since the dismissal of Alejandro Gil Fernández as Minister of Economy. continue reading

The expression used to communicate Corona’s departure is very similar to the one used when reporting the arrest of Gil Fernández, who is still under “rigorous investigation”

In fact, the expression used to communicate the departure of Corona is very similar to the one used when reporting the arrest of Gil Fernández, who is still under “rigorous investigation” today for “serious mistakes made in the performance of his duties.”

From her home in the Canary Islands, María Victoria Gil told 14ymedio a month ago that her brother, Gil Fernández, the former Minister of Economy and right-hand man of Miguel Díaz-Canel, was being held incommunicado in “some detention house of the Ministry of the Interior.”

President Díaz-Canel has reiterated in recent months the Government’s “zero tolerance” for economic crimes, and the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, quoted in official media, has asked for “a tougher hand” in the face of “weakness, the lack of urgency and poor control” in the state sector.

Last March, the YouTube channel Molinos por la Libertad denounced Alexandre Corona for leading a corruption plot that also involved “heads of the Ministry of the Interior, provincial and military counterintelligence leaders” and even “the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero and Díaz-Canel himself.”

According to this video, the governor, a former Ministry of Interior intelligence officer expelled for corruption in 1998, owned several small businesses, such as ConstruSur, which diverted resources that he himself authorized to build social housing. However, the Government never responded to these accusations.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, Where Humor Has Given Way to Pain

Without electricity and Internet access, this is how its inhabitants spend a good part of their days

Calle Vivanco, in San Antonio de los Baños, this Wednesday / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, San Antonio de los Baños, 24 April 2024 — “It hurts to see this town like this,” is the laconic phrase released by a woman sitting in a park in San Antonio de los Baños when a newcomer asks her for an address and tells her how deteriorated he has found the so-called City of Humor. Destroyed sidewalks, facades that don’t conceal the brickwork and the taciturn faces of the people complete the sickly picture of this small town in the province of Artemisa.

A central hub between the agricultural towns of the area and Havana, the land of the Ariguanabo River copes very poorly with the economic crisis and the mass exodus that also affect the rest of the Island. “Blackout!” a neighbor was heard screaming today from inside his house to warn his wife who, sitting at the door, was trying to sell cigarettes one at a time. Seconds later, after the telecommunications towers that provide the web browsing service in the area stopped working, internet access on mobile phones was cut off.

Without electricity and without internet access, this is how the people of San Antonio de los Baños spend a good part of their days. All life is paralyzed when “the power goes out and this town becomes dead,” another local neighbor confirms to 14ymedio who remembers the times when “you had to look before crossing the street because so many cars were circulating.” Now, with the local economy having hit rock bottom, San Antonio de los Baños is not much different from any other place in deep Cuba, where the days are spent standing in line and flies buzz around everywhere.

All life is paralyzed when “the power goes out and this becomes a dead town”

In the streets and houses, drought and problems with the supply of drinking water have added a reddish patina to everything, and the clayey earth of the area is turned into fine dust that gets into every crack. Rosa María, another resident, wipes her face with a small towel. Her sweat adds a spot of brown to all the previous ones. She is waiting for some transport to take her away from the small town.

“I’ve been here for more than an hour but imagine that to go to Santiago de las Vegas they want to charge you 150 pesos. Quivicán is just as much; they have lost respect for money,” she says. A few meters away stands the intensely colored facade of the Los 3 Grandes bar and cafeteria, of the Palmares chain, which offers national cocktails, appetizers and musical shows on weekends, one of the few places for nightlife that is maintained.

“I came to visit my family, and I see that they are all thinner and sadder,” says the man from Havana who was asking for directions. “My brother-in-law who used to repair cars now survives by fishing, because he can no longer maintain the business, and his family depends on what he manages to catch.” His little niece has it worse. “For children there is no place, nowhere to have fun. They go from school to home and from home to school; there is nothing else.”

The Coppelia ice cream parlor is now in the hands of a small private company that sells each scoop of ice cream at 120 pesos and a bowl at 400 pesos. Of course, unlike the times when it was managed by the State, its menu overflows with flavors: chocolate, strawberry and dulce de leche were some of those offered this Wednesday, but the interior was practically empty. The new prices have driven away the previous clientele, frightened by inflation.

The new prices have driven away the previous clientele, frightened by inflation

“To satisfy your stomach, you need a pizza,” said a sign of another private business nearby, also with many ornaments and few customers. For 140 pesos each, the buyer can take home a piece of baked dough, with tomato sauce and cheese. In another, called Colorama, a more chic place for more well-off people, a slice costs 900 pesos but includes ham, chorizo and olives.

The rise in the cost of living makes it more difficult to spend, and in the community that once lived from agriculture, the nearby International Film School and the tourists who came to visit the Museum of Humor in the land of jokes and sarcasm, the depression is quite noticeable.

Along with the decrease in the flow of potatoes and bananas due to the drop in production, the school no longer has as many resources as before, when it resold thousands of cans of beer and packages of coffee at a better price than in the State stores. The exhibition with portraits and works of illustrious humorists does not attract as many visitors or as much laughter either. The river that runs through the town contains a green and stagnant water that many avoid approaching.

“A crippled house, like the whole town,” says a resident on the same block

In a corner of Vivanco Street, the neighbors have knocked down part of the facade of a house about to collapse. “A crippled house, like the whole town,” says a resident on the same block. “This is like a punishment; since we threw ourselves here into the street, the punishments have not stopped,” says the man about that Sunday of 11 July 2021 when San Antonio de los Baños was the place where the massive popular protests that shook the entire Island began.

Carrying a suitcase, a young man advances at noon this Wednesday to the point where the private trucks leave for Havana. “There goes another one who isn’t coming back,” says a neighbor. The wheels of the luggage cart kick up the reddish dust that remains in the air and sticks to everything. In the town where people once laughed until their stomachs hurt, now the days seem more like a wake than a party.

[From TranslatingCuba.com: Note to ‘anonymous translator’ – Our most sincere apologies, we will definitely follow up. Please feel free to email us directly about this at: TranslatingCuba < at > Gmail (dot) com]

____________

Cuba Approves the Financing of Construction Materials for Victims of the March Rains in Havana

The greatest effects, including severe damage to agriculture and electricity networks, were concentrated in the municipalities of El Cotorro, San Miguel, Arroyo Naranjo and Boyeros

El Cotorro was one of the municipalities most affected by the rains that occurred in March / Courtesy

14ymedio, Havana, April 24, 2024 — Once again, the Cuban Council of Ministers approved the financing for 50% of the cost of construction materials needed by the victims of the intense rains of March 22 and 23 in Havana, which caused 26 total and 122 partial building collapses.

The greatest effects, including severe damage to agriculture and electricity networks, were concentrated in the municipalities of El Cotorro, San Miguel, Arroyo Naranjo and Boyeros, according to the state newspaper Granma.

The Government’s decision is similar to that of other catastrophes, such as Hurricane Sandy, which devastated Santiago de Cuba in 2012, and Hurricane Ian, which did the same in Pinar del Río in 2022. However, it had little effect on the reconstruction of the lost assets.

One year after Hurricane Ian, barely 45% of the affected houses had been repaired

One year after Hurricane Ian, for example, and according to official data, it had barely been possible to repair 45% of the affected houses, and only 3% of the collapsed ones were raised again, not to mention the situations of Sandy’s thousands of victims, many of whom were abandoned to their fate.

The Unofficial Gazette, which in two paragraphs legalizes the help that will be given to the most recent victims, does not explain where the materials that will be sold to them will come from. In November 2023, in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero to analyze the development of the Housing Program, Dilaila Díaz Fernández, general director of materials of the Ministry of Construction, explained that to cover the needs of the Housing program, 83 million bricks are needed per year, but in 2022 only 39 million were available. continue reading

There is also no cement or steel for the manufacture of buildings. At the beginning of March, the newspaper Escambray published that the Siguaney cement factory, located in the municipality of Tabasco, will only produce 20,000 tons of cement this year due to the energy crisis in the country. The figure represents less than half of the 47,000 tons obtained in 2023.

The Unofficial Gazette does not explain where the materials that will be sold to those affected will come from

The terrible housing situation does not exclusively affect Havana, where according to the General Urban Planning Plan of Havana there are 946 properties at risk of collapse. In Ciego de Ávila, for example, more than 40,000 houses would have to be built to resolve the housing situation, which is not the worst in the country. Very close, in Villa Clara, 39% of the houses are in poor condition. In July 2023, the Granma reported that 61,559 families from all over the Island lived on dirt floors and that only 2,103 had solved the problem.

Other data from the Ministry of Construction indicate that the housing deficit in Cuba exceeds 856,000 homes. Between 2021 and 2023, only 50,000 had been built. By the middle of last year, only 13% of the state subsidy program had been implemented, and 154 of the 9,000 rooming houses had been eliminated.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

‘Sadly, For Us, Cuba is Over,’ Says a Canadian Tourist

Christian Maître recounts his wife’s time in a precarious hospital in Santa Clara after suffering from appendicitis

Christian Maître and Caroline Tétrault back at the airport. / Courtesy Ch.M. / Ici

14ymedio, Madrid, 25 April 2024 — “Sadly, for us, Cuba is over. I am sure that the world is full of very beautiful places to see.” This is how Christian Maître, a Canadian from the city of Shawinigan, in the province of Quebec, expresses himself in an interview with the radio station Ici . His vacation on the island was about to end when, one day before his return, scheduled for April 4, his wife suffered a sudden abdominal pain that changed everything.

Caroline Tétrault had lost her mother in mid-March, a victim of cancer. The whole family had planned a trip to Cuba at the end of that month they decided to go, expressly, in tribute to his wife. In total, 22 people enjoyed the trip without any major inconveniences other than the shortage of some foods. Until April 3, when Caroline began to complain of severe abdominal pain, which was initially dismissed.

Rest could not calm the discomfort, so they notified the hotel doctor, who referred them to a “small hospital” in Cayo Santa María. The diagnosis was very quick: in 10 minutes it was decided to transfer her to Santa Clara, where she had to undergo surgery for appendicitis.

Caroline Tétrault had lost her mother in mid-March, a victim of cancer

“The ambulance trip was very unpleasant, because she felt unbearable pain and the discomfort was total,” says Maître in statements to Le Nouvelliste. But the arrival was not much better. The tourists have not revealed the hospital to which they were taken, but from the videos they took inside everything indicates that it is the Arnaldo Milián, also known as the new continue reading

hospital by the people of Santa Clara, who go there to undergo some examinations and analyses, because it the largest hospital and the one with the most resources in the province.

For Canadians, however, the impression was devastating. The place seemed disused and without light, they point out. “Finally we reached an illuminated hallway, but you could hear the background noise of a generator, there were dogs, it looked like the scene of a horror movie, but with doctors in white coats,” says Maître.

“When entering the operating room, in the hallway, the ceiling was like it had been torn off, I even closed my eyes thinking to prevent it from falling on her. When I let go of her hand, I thought I was seeing her alive for the last time,” he says emotionally.

On the contrary, he does not have a bad word for the medical care. “The doctor tried to reassure me about the procedure, he told me: ’Here we don’t have the infrastructure, we don’t have the resources, but we have good staff.’ And that is 100% true. They saved my wife’s life – she had peritonitis due to her appendix exploding – so I couldn’t say otherwise,” he says emphatically. They took a liter of infectious fluid from Caroline.

Maître himself reveals that he had to go out to buy juices and ice cream for his partner, but there were difficulties in finding cash

After the procedure, things were not going to improve. At that moment they found themselves lacking food to follow the patient’s recommended diet, which the hospital could not provide. Maître himself reveals that he had to go out to buy juices and ice cream for his partner, but there were difficulties in finding cash, since the black market did not accept his cards or his currency.

Although there are no signs, next to the hospital there is an extension of the Los Flamboyanes – several blocks down – a small store where people can buy food for doctors and relatives who look for the diet prescribed for admitted patients and where it is likely they should have gone.

With Tétrault’s discharge, things did not improve, since then he had to buy antibiotics, also non-existent and on the black market. “Some acquaintances who went to Santa María, also on vacation, were able to bring medicine from Quebec. We also went to another resort to get more dressings and dollars. In addition, three people from Quebec sent us personal things. Luckily I had outside help,” acknowledges Maître, who admits that without it it would have been impossible to get through those days.

Maître and Tétrault, now at home, are recovering from the illness, scare and stress, but they still have to pay between 1,000 and 5,000 dollars

Maître and Tétrault, now at home, are recovering from the illness, the scare and the stress. They still have to pay between $1,000 and $5,000 once they resolve pending issues with the insurance, but they do not recommend anyone travel to Cuba.

The case coincides in time with that of Faraj Allah Jarjour, the Syrian who lived in Canada and died on March 22 of a heart attack while on vacation in Cuba, but his body has not been found and the body sent to his family was that of another person. The Cuban Government has apologized for this matter, which continues without any explanations or knowledge of where the missing body is.

In Canada there is an alert to travel to Cuba with caution due to the shortage of medicines and food, but Canadians continue to massively choose the Island and they are its largest market, far ahead of the second, which is Cubans living abroad. Last year, almost a million Canadians visited the Island.

____________

Letters From Readers: ‘If We Don’t Act Now, We Will Lose Cuba’

Actions speak louder than words and our country, which seems to be a victim of an unprecedented war, a bombed nation, is eloquent.

All that remains of our culture is travestied in tourist attractions / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Jorge Luis Leon, Houston (Texas), 24 April 2024 — Today there is nothing left of yesterday’s Cuba. “I didn’t know” or “I didn’t realize” are the excuses that many use to escape their responsibility to the Island where they were born. At this point, however, continuing to wear that blindfold, which dilutes the misdeeds of a dictatorship, is unacceptable.

Sugar, coffee and tobacco, worn symbols of a country in ruins, were once the engines of one of America’s most prosperous industries. Banking, the apparent emblem of this time, has instead become a joke in bad taste. The Government’s excuses, always ready on the tip of the tongue, do not hide this reality.

Actions speak louder than words and our country, which seems to be the victim of an unprecedented war – a bombed nation – is eloquent.

All that remains of our culture is travestied in tourist attractions, and of our riches, only the memory.

Cuba exhibits a panorama that seems insurmountable. The recovery of a country is not an easy task and denying what is happening, the atrocities of which our Island is a victim, contributes little to our future.

We need to choose our future with our own hands, educate new generations with ideals that have already disappeared among Cubans, such as democracy, freedom of the press, and leaving behind corruption and indoctrination. It is time to take off the blinders, we are concerned with the destiny of a country.

____________

Havana’s Cafe Baco, a Glamorous Interior and a Culinary Insult

Some tourists are seduced by the presence of lobster on the menu / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 21 April 2024 — “We are state-run and our prices are low,” says an employee in an impeccable white shirt on Friday. He is standing outside the building that houses the collection of Havana’s Museum of Fine Arts. The young waiter is trying to lure customers into the building where Café Baco, a rarely visited restaurant, is located.

A European tourist and his Cuban girlfriend scrutinize the menu that the man has handed them outside the imposing building, once known as the Asturian Center. “Nowhere in Havana are you going to find lobster at that price,” insists the employee, directing his gaze at a group of travelers who have just gotten off a Transtur bus.

“Nowhere in Havana are you going to find lobster at that price”

“Come in. You won’t regret it,” Dayana hears him say. The 45-year-old Havana resident, who was standing nearby, falls for the sales pitch and decides to give Café Baco a try. “I didn’t even know this existed because there’s no sign on the street or anything. I’ve brought my children to this museum several times but I didn’t know it had a restaurant, much less that it sold shellfish. So I’m going to try it and we’ll see how it goes.” continue reading

Unlike tourists, who are dazzled just by the sight of lobster on the menu, Cubans are focused on other details when choosing where to spend their money at a time of high inflation. “I normally don’t eat in state-owned restaurants because I know they’re inferior,” Dayana says as she climbs the imposing staircase with marble railings, elaborate balustrades and carved parapets.

The ambience causes the Havana native to salivate. It seems like the prelude to a lavish banquet. “The food must be at the same level as this staircase,” she says sarcastically, imagining that the decor is one thing but that what’s on the plate is another. No one else climbs the steps; no other customers come in. It is around 12:30 and the place seems deserted. The echo of Dayana’s footsteps is all that can be heard inside.

The only sound in the deserted restaurant is the echo of Dayana’s footsteps / 14ymedio

Wearing a crown of grape leaves and nude to the waist, Bacchus — the Greek god of wine and food — reigns over the dining room from a wall to one side. The walls themselves are covered in dark green tiles. Elaborate arches, supported by columns with flowery capitals, give the space the air of a Spanish tavern, a place where you could sink your teeth into a nice cod, pierce an olive with your fork and enjoy a good red wine.

The baronial Spanish touch, however, is limited to the tiles and a reproduction of Diego Velázquez’ painting “The Triumph of Bacchus.” Otherwise, it is cross between a place that serves bad food and a state-run workplace marked by apathy and supply shortages. “The menu is full of items they don’t have,” Dayana says in a phone call to her sister from inside the restaurant. “I was going to tell you to come here but changed my mind because it’s so bad.”

Without bothering to lower her voice so as not to be heard by the employees, she continues telling her sister about her experience. “Just imagine, I order a fruit juice and they bring me a glass that’s half ice and half instant soda,” she says, appalled. A few yards away, a tourist who has just entered the room is is taking photos of the Velázquez mural, more commonly known as “The Drunkards.”

“The view is nice but I sat on a balcony where it’s cool because it doesn’t smell good inside”

“Of course, the view is nice but I sat on a balcony where it’s cool because it doesn’t smell good inside. You know, it smells like burnt grease, like they haven’t cleaned in a long time.” Dayana continues as though she were dictating a review for a restaurant guide. “I came in because I was tired of walking and wanted to check the place out but I already know what to expect. They don’t have most of the things on the menu.”

A waitress approaches the table with a plate of rice, a pork cutlet, some cabbage, and a few slices of cucumber. For a moment the customer thinks she has scored a great deal. Only 900 pesos compared to the more than 1,500 pesos that such a meal would cost in a privately owned restaurant in a less historic and less sumptuous location. But the feeling passes as soon as she brings the spoon to her mouth.

The soupy rice is made up of grains from different sources, the cabbage is limp, the cutlet is under-seasoned and — to top it all off — the empty vinegar cruet is sticky to the touch. “Based on how quickly they brought everything out, and the temperature of the rice and the pork, you can tell it was already was prepared,” she reflects, her cell phone pressed to her ear. Over by the wall, an inebriated woman next to Bacchus stares at the Dayana with a scornful smile.

Soupy rice, limp cabbage, under-seasoned pork cutlet, and and an empty vinegar cruet that is sticky to the touch

Though the meal was as she predicted, Dayana nevertheless feels a pang of frustration. “I’m going to order a coffee to get over it,” she says. Minutes later, the waitress brings a cup that is missing its saucer. Mixed with milk and generously sprinkled with cinnamon, the imitation cappuccino seems like an opportunity to put the bland menu out of her mind.

“No surprise, the coffee is bad. It’s mixed with a lot of other things but at least it perked me up a bit so I get up and walk home,” she says during the umpteenth phone call to her sister to tell her about Café Baco. The experience has cost her 1,195 Cuban pesos, less than four dollars at the current exchange rate on the informal market.

After the last sip, a dark, sandy-textured sediment remains in the cup. Dayana leaves 1,250 pesos on the table, takes her wallet and exits. As she is walking out, two of the drunks in the Velazquez painting, their noses red and looking directly at her, seem to be laughing harder, mocking Dayana.

____________

Cuban Authorities Fail to Explain the Case of the Lost Body of the Tourist Who Died in the Melia Varadero Hotel

Faraj Allah Jarjour’s family paid $7,300 to transport his remains to Quebec and was given a coffin with the body of a Russian

Faraj Allah Jarjour next to his family in an image from 2021 / Facebook/Faraj Jarjour

14ymedio, Havana, 23 April 2024 — The family of Faraj Allah Jarjour, the Syrian who lived in Canada and died on March 22 of a heart attack while vacationing in Cuba, still has not received explanations from the island’s authorities, who sent the body of another person to Quebec . “Until now we have no answers. “Where is my father?” declared Miriam, the traveler’s daughter, to the Inquirer portal.

According to Miriam, they paid 10,000 Canadian dollars (7,300 US dollars) to transport her father’s body, as indicated by the Canadian consulate in Havana. However, at the end of last week they were given the remains of a “20-year-old Russian with several tattoos.”

The body of the young Russian was sent to his country, but as of Monday they had no news of the whereabouts of Faraj Allah Jarjour’s remains. The Canadian consular authorities in Cuba blame “the company on the island that coordinates the return of the remains,” Miriam said. The 68-year-old tourist’s family has emailed officials, including a member of Parliament, who offered to contact Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly. continue reading

The death of Faraj Allah highlighted the shortcomings at the Meliá Varadero Hotel, where the family had arrived two days before to spend a week’s vacation with all services included, La Tijera published on its social networks.

Miriam said that the hotel does not have medical facilities, so her father’s body was covered and remained under the sun for more than eight hours. Furthermore, due to the lack of transportation, a vehicle transported Faraj Allah’s remains to Havana for certification.

The case of this lost corpse illustrates, once again, the state of the tourism industry in Cuba, which has not raised its head since Covid-19 and which, however, continues to have Canada as the first country in number of foreign visitors.

So far Faraj Allah’s family has spent 25,000 Canadian dollars (18,248 US dollars) throughout the process, including 15,000 Canadian dollars (10,950 US dollars) for funeral services.

____________

Warning of Upsurge in Violations Against Intellectuals and Journalists in Cuba

Image shared on her networks by Alina Bárbara López Hernández, after several hours of detention by State Security / Facebook

14ymedio, Havana,April 23, 2024 — The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) denounced on Monday that, “in the midst of the poverty” that the Island is experiencing, the Cuban Government “dedicates enormous resources to increase repression against intellectuals, trade unionists and independent journalists,” pointing out several repressive acts committed by the political police in recent days.

The organization, based in Madrid, mentioned the arrest of reporter Camila Acosta, a collaborator of CubaNet, this Sunday in Cárdenas, in the province of Matanzas, “when she was on her way to visit relatives of political prisoners. Four police cars participated” in the operation, orchestrated by State Security.

In the same province, last Thursday, Professor Alina Bárbara López Hernández “suffered bodily injuries due to police brutality during an arbitrary arrest.” The academic was detained for several hours at the Playa police station, and after returning home she denounced the mistreatment she suffered in a Facebook post. continue reading

“We warn of the upsurge in violations and call on the international democratic community to denounce these facts”

López Hernández reported that doctors diagnosed her with a “right humeral dislocation (sprain of the right shoulder)” and a “subluxation in the thumb of the left hand.”

Also in Matanzas, but this time in the municipality of Colón, the secretary general of the Independent Trade Union Association of Cuba, Iván Hernández Carrillo, was summoned by the regime, “as part of the harassment campaign he suffers.”

Last week, in Camagüey, independent journalist José Luis Tan Estrada was interrogated twice, explains the OCDH report. The former professor was ultimately fined 3,000 pesos “for violating Decree Law 370, a law used by the Havana regime to silence activists, journalists and citizens” after being accused “of publishing memes, comments and even “liking” other publications.”

Also, “the former political prisoner Luis Darién Reyes Romero was intimidated with a gun in the middle of the street in Old Havana by a repressor dressed in civilian clothes,” a fact classified by the OCDH as “serious.” The video circulated on social networks in which Reyes Romero showed the face and weapon of the State Security agent while chasing him.

“We warn of the upturn in violations and call on the international democratic community to denounce these facts. Likewise, we support the efforts of the Cuban Catholic Church to mediate the serious crisis that the country is experiencing,” the organization concludes.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: