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“That means that several maintenances will coincide in some units, especially in February,” the minister explained. However, he argued, with apparent conviction, that the situation is far from that of last year. “We are estimating that there may be hours of impairment now, with a slight difference from the previous year, which coincide with a resuscitation of the economy,” he said before mentioning the large industries that are going to be back on track.

“That was not planned when we had 10 and 12 hours of blackout; now we are talking about two or three hours a day. And not for everyone and not in all the provinces. If there is an exit from a large unit on that day, there will be an impact,” he said.

O Levy added that this is based on simulations that they have done and which, not even in the worst case scenario, reflect the situation experienced last year. In addition, he said that the incorporation of two large engines in the Moa and Mariel plants, along with the energy from the new Turkish patanas [floating electric plants that generate 140 MW] will add to the SEN. “The incorporation of more power is one of the lines of action of our strategy,” he argued.

The minister made these statements during a visit to the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes thermoelectric plant, where he took the opportunity to talk to the workers and praise their work. “The collectives have remained united, working with excellent quality,” he told them.

Other planned interventions are the incorporation of 40 engines adjacent to the Cienfuegos Oil Refinery, which at one point had only two working, he explained. “We follow the same strategy at the Cruces fuel oil site. We have to be clear about how many engines have to enter the month of January, how many have to enter the month of February; how it is concretized with what we have in hand,” he said. The goal is that, when demand begins to rise in May, everything will be in full condition.

However, reactions on social networks to the minister’s video show that citizens, when talking about blackouts, do not trust promises at all. “Well, it smells like a blackout, a deficit, alumbrones [a word coined for the rare moments when the lights are ON] or whatever you want,” wrote one woman. “Maintenance every two months. If what they want is to begin the blackouts, they shouldn’t justify it so much,” added another.

The Russian news agency Sputnik, on Tuesday, reported that Iran had an interest in building thermoelectric power plants and cited statements by Mohammad Ali Farahnakian, advisor for international affairs of the Minister of Energy, allegedly collected by the Tasnim news agency, although its existence has not been proven.

In December, Miguel Díaz-Canel toured the largest energy-supplier countries for the Island: Algeria, Turkey, China and Russia. With them he achieved some future-looking agreements which could attempt to improve the situation of the SEN, but Cubans are not so sure, judging by comments like that of a user who ironized: “Let them try not paying Turkey and you’ll see.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Honduras, she continues, “will take as an example this system, which is one of the best in the world, and will make the exclusive system inclusive, and we will begin to raise the cultural level of the population by deepening values such as solidarity and cooperation, taking as a starting point the thought of General Francisco Morazán [founding father of Honduras, nicknamed “the Simón Bolívar of of Central America”], and thus we will eliminate social discrimination through education, and we will be equal.”

The speaker emphasizes that “the Cuban school system transmits its knowledge and achievements to 43 countries, and Honduras will now be one of them.” Although the Ministry of Education of Cuba does not currently have updated figures on its international missions, in 2013 it did make public that those countries had a total of 2,326 teachers, then the highest figure recorded, and they intended to increase it in the following years.

At that time, the largest group (423) was in Venezuela, the country with the highest presence of Cuban educators, followed by Equatorial Guinea, with 221, and Angola, with 219. By 2015, Angola had 1,400 teachers.

South Africa and El Salvador are other nations with which the Island has signed educational agreements. The export of professionals — mainly doctors but also teachers, engineers, sailors, architects and even artists — is the main source of funding for the regime, and is considered by several international organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Prisoners Defenders, as forced labor.

In Honduras, another educational agreement with Cuba is in force, which advises on the Honduran national literacy program with the system called Yo Sí Puedo [Yes I Can], exported to countries such as Mexico.

That agreement was not without controversy, and, in the face of complaints from national teachers, the Honduran Deputy Minister of Education, Edwin Hernández, had to clarify that Cuban teachers would not teach and that “they would only be a support.”

“What we will have is advice; that is, Cuban teachers of high technical level are going to advise us on establishing the program in the country; those who are going to teach literacy are Honduran teachers,” he said last August, while clarifying that his department had not yet “generated expenses for the consultancies.”

“The investment in the Cuban assistance, in relation to the results that this is going to bring, will be minimal,” said the official.

Both countries signed a “memo of understanding” last July, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Honduras and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Strategic Investment of Cuba. Although the details have not yet come to light, the Honduran Foreign Secretary, Eduardo Enrique Reina, declared: “With this memorandum, we open up the possibility of moving through new paths of collaboration in science and technology, literacy programs and the exchange of scholarships, among other things.”

Tegucigalpa approached Havana again after the electoral victory of Xiomara Castro, former first lady and wife of former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, deposed on June 28, 2009 when he promoted constitutional reforms that the law prevented him from doing.

Before her election as the first female head of state, the media and the opposition had warned that Castro’s program followed a chavista* plan of “national rebuilding,” something that, in the light of the newly signed agreement, seems to be true.

*Translator’s note: Chavista — i.e. after former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The panorama of the essay has been more fruitful than that of any other genre, undoubtedly led by the reissue of the formidable Mito y revuelta [Myth and Revolt ] (Turner), by Ernesto Hernández Busto. Through nine portraits of such controversial authors as Ezra Pound, Vasili Rozánov and Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Hernández Busto enters the territory of “reactionary” writers, considered cursed or controversial by critics.

Although published in 2021, this year readers were finally able to access El árbol de las revoluciones [The Tree of Revolutions](Turner), an essay by Rafael Rojas on the cartography of Latin American revolts and the influence of the Mexican and Cuban revolutions on the region.

In El cuerpo nunca olvida [The Body Never Forgets] (Rialta), the killer essayist Abel Sierra meticulously exposes the horror of the Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP) and its imprint on Cuban history. It is a “detained investigation” – according to Rojas – of one of the biggest “national traumas” after 1959.

Why didn’t Severo Sarduy return to Cuba? This is the question posed by researcher Oneyda González in Severo secreto [Secret Severo] (Rialta), a kind of choral biography of this canonical author that reproduces the interviews made for the documentary of the same name released in 2016.

Eros y política (debajo de la mesa) Eros and Politics [Under the Table], by Juan Abreu, passes the knife over the political and journalistic fauna of Spain, the country where he lives in exile, with devastating vignettes of figures such as José María Aznar, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, Pablo Echenique and Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo. Abreu’s prose dilutes the border between the public and the private, and enriches the biography of the portrayed with his fulminating style. Hilarious and profound is also Nuestra hambre en La Habana [Our Hunger in Havana], where Enrique del Risco – in the words of Yoani Sánchez – “crudely portrays the national obsession around the dinner plate and casseroles.”

Living in Rome since his youth, maestro Alvar González-Palacios, a rara avis in Cuban essays about art, published this year Sólo sombras [Just Shadows] (Elba), a group of biographical sketches of characters as disparate as Borges, Karen Blixen, Cavafis and María Félix.

The autobiography of academician Roberto González Echevarría, Memorias del archivo [Memories from the Archive] (Renacimiento), addresses the life trajectory of this Cuban professor at Yale University and his relationship with intellectuals such as Alejo Carpentier, Severo Sarduy and Harold Bloom.

The actor Actor Alexis Valdés published, through Vintage Publishing, El miedo nos hizo fuertes [Fear Made us Strong], about his hard childhood in Havana and the personal reasons for his career.

The thirty years of the publication of Antes que anochezca [Before Night Falls] (Tusquets), by Reinaldo Arenas, motivated the launch of a commemorative edition – with a new cover and revised text – of one of the most moving books in Cuban literature.

Todo Paradiso [All Paradise], a volume that brings together the novels Paradiso and Oppiano Licario, by José Lezama Lima, with a foreword by José Prats Sariol, is from Verbum, one of the large publishing companies of this year. The book fulfills the Lezamian project of merging both stories into parts of the same story.

That same publishing house, based in Madrid, brings together Toda la poesía (1994-2021) [All the Poetry] by the novelist Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, an undoubtedly indispensable text as a complement to the narrative work of the matancero writer.

During the Guadalajara Book Fair, Anagrama announced that a Cuban, Carlos Manuel Álvarez, had won its Chronicle Award with the book Los intrusos, [The Intruders], a “mixture of reportage, testimony, profile and memory” about the “long encampment” of the San Isidro Movement in 2020.

Among the foreign writers who dealt with the Cuban theme this year, it is worth highlighting the Barcelona native Victor Amela, author of Si yo me pierdo [If I Get Lost] (Destino), a novel about the days he spent on Federico García Lorca Island. The author of Poeta en Nueva York [Poet in New York] spent three months in Cuba in 1930, which he defined as “the happiest of my life.” Esclava de la libertad [Slave of Freedom] (Grijalbo), a historical novel by Idelfonso Falcones, reflects on the slave phenomenon of the nineteenth century in Cuba and its return in later times.

Cuban Privilege (Cambridge University Press), On U.S. Foreign Policy towards the Island, by academic Susan Eckstein, motivated a heated controversy during her presentation in Miami, in addition to several protests in the vicinity of the International University of Florida, where it was debated by politician Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat.

The academic reflection in the United States about the Island deserved the Pulitzer Prize for Ada Ferrer, with Cuba: An American History, which also addresses the link between the two countries from their founding to the successive thaws between Havana and Washington.

About the essay Locura nuclear: la crisis de los misiles en Cuba [Nuclear Madness: the Missile Crisis in Cuba] (Turner), by historian Serhii Plokhy, (born in Russia, grew up in Ukraine and now lives in the United States), Cuban Jorge Ferrer has written that it is not only “the most comprehensive study” of the warlike tension between Cuba, the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962, but a kind of instruction manual  about “how to negotiate on the edge of the cliff.”

Knowing Russia better, the roots of its conflict with Ukraine and its relationship with the Island has led to numerous approaches to the culture of that country. Jorge Ferrer himself translated this year, for the Acantilado publishing house, the exceptional novel En memoria de la memoria [In Memory of Memory],by the writer María Stepánova, which explores “the trail of a life, the repository of a century of existence in Russia.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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However, says Alfonso Vidal, there is a faction related to the Government of Havana within the Grand Lodge, managed by counterintelligence officers, which intends to place in office — in violation of the legislation, he says — a candidate favorable to the regime.

“I am aware that my dismissal from office was being orchestrated through an Extraordinary Session in order to create a fictitious circumstance for Deputy Grand Master H. Fernando González García to illegally occupy the position,” Alfonso Vidal denounced in his letter.

González García, according to the Grand Lodge circular, was also abroad, but will return, they say, on January 5. The former Grand Master suspects that his return is motivated by that goal.

Alfonso Vidal considers that the special circular of the institution — initialed, in fact, by his substitute — was out of place and manifests a “total contempt for the Masonic Legislation,” in addition to manipulating his decision not to return to Cuba and labeling his attitude as “bad.” To say, moreover, that they had not communicated with him in the last two weeks is not a “coherent motivation” to assume his resignation without a document issued by the former Grand Master himself.

“What was the ’serious abandonment of the position and functions entrusted’ if all witnesses can attest that I participated in every day of work in our friendly power [the Mexican lodge]? They don’t have an honest answer, I know,” he says.

The former leader of the Freemasons questions those who try to effect what, in his opinion, is a “coup d’état,” with the intervention of counterintelligence agents of the regime “who claim to be Freemasons.” “Everyone and each of those who find themselves signing, looking for support, trying to win the support of representatives, lodges, opinion leaders, who spent days trying to send me an intimidating message, all are collaborators and perpetrators of the crime of treason to Freemasonry and will pay,” he denounced in his letter.

The extensive document also describes in great detail the “attacks” on Cuban Freemasonry in recent months, and relates them to the active work of several of its members in denouncing government repression during the protests of July 11, 2021 and those of the summer of 2022.

He mentions, for example, the open letter to Díaz-Canel sent by Master José Ramón Viñas Alonso, in which he offered “his opinion on the call for confrontation between Cubans that made everything worse,” earning him pressure from State Security to make a retraction.

Another case is that of his predecessor in the position of Grand Master, Ernesto Zamora, who refused to attend a meeting with Díaz-Canel from which they intended to exclude José Ramón Viñas Alonso, whom the authorities had “regulated*” shortly before, preventing him from traveling to the United States.

And finally, in December 2021, Alfonso Vidal recalls, the regime considered intolerable the intervention of Grand Speaker Luis Steve Ocaña in which he invited Cuban Freemasons to get involved in politics.

“When one is elected to Grand Master it’s not all that one imagines it to be, with the pressure that it represents to be in charge of the fraternal destiny of more than twenty thousand brothers. Obstacles appear that one has to overcome,” Alfonso Vidal said in defense.

“The fact that the Sovereign Grand Commander [José Ramón Viñas Alonso] became a nuisance for the Cuban Government and the organs of repression, and seeing that he received in many cases expressions of support that were not only Masonic but also from outside the order, State Security went on a mission to take him out of the middle,” he explained.

The short-term intention, says Alfonso Vidal, was to force him, as Grand Master, to expel Viñas Alonso from the order “under some pretext.” He also said that he had mentioned this situation to Viñas Alonso on a trip they made together abroad — once their ban was lifted — “because I did not consider it safe to do so inside Cuba.”

Faced with his refusal to accede to the pressures of counterintelligence — an individual who identified himself as Poll made more than 70 intimidating phone calls in one day — Alfonso Vidal made the decision not to go out without company. In addition, he received several police summonses, in which an officer told him that for more than 40 years State Security has been working on Cuban Freemasonry with its infiltrators.

Fernando González García, the current Deputy Grand Master who will return to Cuba on January 5 “running to comply with orders” is one of those agents, in the opinion of the former dignitary. Other members of the Masonic leadership are part of the “conspiracy” against José Ramón Viñas Alonso, he says: Ernesto Zamora, whom he accuses of having apologized to the Communist Party for his opposition to Díaz-Canel, and the current treasurer of the Great Lodge, Ernesto Navarrete, who “is a policeman,” and who he suggests is managing the Masonic funds in an irregular way.

Taking advantage of a business trip to a lodge in Veracruz, he and his wife decided to request political asylum in the United States, alleging that they have suffered systematic harassment by State Security in its “masonic hunt.” His son, however, remains in Cuba. For his part, says Alfonso Vidal, José Ramón Viñas Alonso — the main objective of counterintelligence — is “resisting harassment.”

*Translator’s note: “Regulated,” as the term is used by the government, means forbidden to leave the country.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Another high-ranking Masonic dignitary, Deputy Grand Master Fernando González García, was abroad when he heard of Alfonso Vidal’s escape. The statement says that he “has announced his return” for January 5.

The letter, signed by the acting Grand Master Armando Guerra Lozano, and by Grand Secretary Carlos Alberto Pírez Benítez, has circulated on several digital platforms linked to Freemasonry in Cuba.

Francisco Javier Alfonso Vidal had been elected Grand Master of the Great Cuban Lodge in March 2022 and was already serving as treasurer of the institution. His election, carried out by the Masonic Parliament, was held after several postponements due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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There are few official responses, on the other hand, to analyzing the infant mortality data, which barely moves, although from the outside it has been stated on several occasions that the neglect of the Maternal and Childcare Programs (Pami) is the most plausible cause. The project has less funds, like almost everything on the Island, and the professionals are fewer and fewer each day, since the abandonment of the profession is massive, in some cases to leave the country and in others to dedicate oneself to another more lucrative sector, less overloaded with work and demands.

Noemí Causa Palma, national head of Pami, said, according to the official report, that “measures have been implemented for the improvement of the doctor and family nursing program and the elaboration of the development plan for the specialties of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Neonatology, Pediatrics, Pediatric Intensive Care, Pediatric Surgery and Comprehensive General Medicine,” although it doesn’t seem that these efforts to improve the situation have contributed much.

Another indicator that barely moves is that of adolescent pregnancies, which went from 18% in 2021 to 17.8% in 2022, a small shift if one takes into account that campaigns have been carried out to put an end to this problem.

The only data that give the Ministry of Public Health a respite are those of infant mortality due to congenital defects. The rate is 0.96 per thousand live births and goes from being the second to the fourth cause of deaths in children under one year of age. Ultrasound screenings are high, with responses exceeding 90%, reaching 99% in second and third trimester ultrasounds.

After all these data, there is another one that continues to highlight the demographic debacle of the Island. In 2022, 95,402 Cubans were born, 3,694 fewer than the previous year. The decline is a logical consequence of the massive Cuban emigration, which occurs especially among young people, and the aging of the population remains unstoppable. Although the census carried out in the year that has just ended has not yet been revealed, catastrophic numbers are expected.

Finally, the note reviews the assisted reproduction program. In 2022, 15,679 infertile couples were evaluated, little more than last year; however only 5,912 pregnancies were obtained, compared to 6,199 the previous year. “This decrease is due to the fact that high-tech pregnancies were not achieved in territorial centers, a result that was achieved in 2021 with the development of 316.” On the other hand, in the provincial services the data were better and went from 1,819 pregnancies the previous year to 2,113 in 2022.

“The instability of some medicines influenced the decrease in pregnancies conceived since municipal consultations, where 3,799 were conceived against 3,998 in 2021,” the note adds.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba’s other hope in the World Classic is Onelkis García, who in the Major Leagues played with the Dodgers and Kansas, in addition to a stretch with the league of Japan. Also included is the left-handed pitcher Roénis Elias, who left the Island in 2010.

According to the FCB, Cuba will have as its backbone the team that won the Elite League, a tournament that just last December 24 defined the semifinals with Agricultores, Centrales, Portuarios and Tabacaleros.

Among hopes, Cuba’s team is formed for the World Classic, while the Island continues to receive news of ball players’ departures. Jorge Álvarez, La Pólvora, the Gunshot, is already in the United States. Last June he was nominated for the SN61 Golden Glove award for his arm power. In April he scored eight triples with Camagüey.

Also in the United States is the Camagüeyan receiver Julio César Nogueras. This athlete made “the well-worn crossing from Nicaragua,” according to the La Comarca de Los Toros Facebook page. In 2023 he will try to focus on his career within the world of baseball.

Before these departures was that of former pitcher Ifreidi Coss, who is in Mexico waiting to be able to reach the United States. On the Island he worked as a coach and debuted in the National Series at the age of 18. In 120 innings he had 87 strikeouts. “If the right-handed Coss didn’t get the Rookie of the Year it was because of the record season that Kendrys Morales had,” published Baseball FR!

Injuries after 2007 were the main obstacle for Coss to maintain his numbers, so after 2010 he decided to end his sports career.

“I injured my arm and then other things happened. I didn’t have enough support to rehabilitate myself well. At first Uberto Beltrán took care of me and I did well, but the required follow-up to that injury was not given, perhaps due to professional jealousy,” he once told the Escambray newspaper.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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