Cuban activist Magdiel Jorge Castro in front of the Directorate of Migration where he was summoned on December 19, 2022. (@mjorgec1994/Twitter)
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 21 December 2022 — The Bolivian Government announced on Wednesday the expulsion of Cuban activist Magdiel Jorge Castro, made public on Monday.
The Minister of Government (Interior), Eduardo del Castillo, told the media, including the Spanish agency EFE, that “any foreign citizen who settles in national territory must comply with legal and current regulations” and that if the General Directorate of Migration has determined that the Cuban citizen has “breached the rules” then he must “leave the country.”
“Any citizen who violates our regulations, who commits offenses or crimes, will have to comply with the corresponding sanction,” Del Castillo said.
Magdiel Jorge Castro said on his networks on Wednesday that he presented an appeal for reversal of the order, which forces him to leave Bolivia, where he now resides, within the next 15 working days. “I will wait for the response within the deadlines that Bolivian law determines,” he tweeted.
On Monday, the activist denounced his case, and told this newspaper that when he arrived at Migration, where he was summoned, “there was a whole folder with my tweets, as State Security tends to do in Cuba.” He asked which of his publications violated the law but “they didn’t know how to tell me.”
The immigration order, shown to this newspaper, indicates that Castro “infringed Bolivian regulations, altering public order through social networks.” Therefore, the text, dated December 16, 2022, continues, “he is granted the temporary mandatory exit order.”
By “acts that alter public order,” the document cites, “participation and/or incitement to unrest, confrontation between citizens and acts against morality and/or dignity.”
On Tuesday, Castro gave an interview to Cuban influencer Alex Otaola, where he described the Bolivian government’s decision as “political persecution” against him, while warning of the dangerous precedent this sets for other Cubans seeking asylum in third countries. continue reading
Bolivia and Cuba moved closer again with the Government of Luis Arce, after the suspension of diplomatic relations with Cuba by the then-interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, who is now in prison.
The Bolivian president was received last week by his Cuban counterpart, Miguel Díaz-Canel, in Havana, where he also attended the extraordinary session of the National Assembly in commemoration of the eighteenth anniversary of the creation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Treaty of Commerce of the Peoples (Alba-TCP).
For Castro, as he stated in his conversation with Otaola, this visit is directly related to his expulsion from Bolivia.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Five players increase the bleeding of athletes before the end of the year. (Collage)
14ymedio, Havana, 21 December 2022 — Five more Cuban players joined the long list of dropouts in recent weeks. The experienced Héctor Miguel Ponce, Javier Camero and Edwin Vassell are already in the United States, revealed journalist Francys Romero, while Ernest Machado and Erik Matos have settled in the Dominican Republic.
Ponce is a benchmark pitcher for the Industriales team, and between 2021 and 2022 he also participated in the Italian circuit, where he played for Cagliari and Brescia. He left a mark with a pitching average of 127.2 innings, and he struck out 138 batters.
This is the second exit of this habanero, because in 2016 he was already looking for fortune outside. However, a few months later and in the face of the disinterest of foreign teams in hiring him, he decided to return to Cuba. Director Guillermo Carmona included him in January of this year on his list of pitchers, proclaiming that his staff “has 9 pitchers who are capable of throwing a 90 mph ball” and that he has assembled what was needed to “minimize the impact of some absences,” published the official media Jit.
Camero was key in the national title of Matanzas two years ago. The commentator for the defunct Metropolitanos team, Iván Alonso, called him “an elegant batter,” because he “emerged like a star from the youth world championships,” according to Swing Completo. Specialists refer to this athlete as an “explosive” man “with punch” on the baseball diamond.
“Camero intervened in two matches of the current Elite League with Centrales. After that, he made his way to the United States. He is 32 years old, and in his last three National Series he hit more than .300 with Matanzas,” Francys Romero said. continue reading
For his part, Vassell had a place within the Cienfuegos team. Like Ponce, this baseball player had already tried his luck in the Professional League of Venezuela in 2015, but unexpectedly returned to the Island. Today he is in the United States, where he is looking for a better future.
On Tuesday, the stay in the Dominican Republic of the Under-15 baseball players, Ernest Machado and Erik Matos, was also confirmed. With these departures “there are already five members of the last World Cup” of the youth category who are looking for better opportunities for sports development abroad, according to Baseball FR!
“Most likely and with the economic situation prevailing in Cuba, half of the members of this team will end up leaving the country,” Romero stressed.
In the U-15 World Cup held in Mexico, Machado launched 3.1 innings without allowing home runs or steals. This right-hand pitcher from the province of Artemis has qualities and hopes to perfect his game in the Dominican Republic.
Meanwhile, Matos, at the age of 15, has a powerful right and has scored throws of between 88 and 90 miles per hour.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Raúl Castro, during a session of the National Assembly of People’s Power last week. (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 19 December 2022 — The approval of the right to euthanasia announced by the Cuban Ministry of Public Health hasn’t brought about, as one would suppose and desire, a wide debate between its supporters and its critics.
The idea of offering a “dignified death”, of avoiding a prolonged and painful agony, is supported when there’s scientific confirmation that the person’s illness is both incurable and lethal and when it’s the expressed desire of the patient themself (or of their closest relatives, if they should find themself incapable of expressing their will).
It’s the tenacity of the self preservation instinct that can counter the idea of euthanasia (and all forms of suicide), and it can reappear as a change of heart at the last moment, when the process of switching off life is already irreversible. On the other hand, religious considerations which leave the decision in the hands of God oppose the practice.
It’s very tempting to apply the argument in favour of euthanasia in other areas of life. When a successful farm is affected by a blight, it’s best to pull up the sown field and plough the earth; when a company becomes unproductive and despite refurbishments continues to make a loss, the best solution is liquidation; when a whole economic, social and political system doesn’t produce the hoped-for results, you need to change it.
To not beat about the bush, this moribund Cuban type of socialism deserves the application of a merciful euthanasia, above all so that it stops causing such unnecessary pain to all the 11 million patients who suffer under it. There’s an abundance of evidence that the ills contracted under the rules of this system are incurable and that sooner or later the collapse will come without warning.
It’s the self-preservation instinct of a group of people who still cling to their privileges and ideologies that counters this social euthanasia — ideologies with shades of pseudo-religion that invoke the blood spilled in arriving at where we are, from a people still committed to dead leaders of the past and continuing to believe in the blurry illusion of a prosperous future.
It wouldn’t occur to anyone, including myself, to commit suicide even if everything indicated that I were about to suffer a horrible, painful and prolonged departure, but we Cubans don’t have to go on supporting “this” and from here on I’m daring to recommend a “dignified death” for the whole process. And the only ’will’ to take into account here is the will of those who are suffering.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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Cuban activist Magdiel Jorge Castro, on his departure from the immigration offices where he was informed of his expulsion from Bolivia. (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Madrid, 19 December 2022 — Cuban activist Magdiel Jorge Castro, who disseminates information and opinions through social networks, received an expulsion order from Bolivia, where he resides, on Monday. He has 15 days to leave the country, as he said through a direct broadcast on Twitter.
“The justification they use are my publications on social networks, publications that are basically against the Cuban government, against the dictatorship, and denunciations of human rights violations,” Castro told 14ymedio by phone.
The young man says that when he arrived at Migration, “there was a whole folder with my tweets, as State Security tends to do in Cuba.” He asked which of his publications violated the law, he says, “and they didn’t know how to tell me.”
The immigration resolution, which this newspaper accessed, indicated that Castro “infringed on Bolivian regulations, altering public order through social networks.” “Therefore,” the text, dated December 16, 2022, continues, “the temporary mandatory exit resolution is granted.”
By “acts that alter public order,” the document indicates “participation and/or incitement to riots, confrontation between citizens and acts against morality and/or dignity.” continue reading
Before the summons received last Friday, Castro says, he had not been contacted or warned.
“I want to make it very clear that my publications, which can be accessed because my public profile is there, have never alluded to Bolivian national policy and exclusively mention my country,” defends Castro, who does not yet know if he is going to appeal the ruling, for which he has three days.
What he does plan to continue doing is to report it. “It seems a hugely arbitrary, but I find it even more scandalous that Bolivia lends its public institutions to the armed wing of Cuban State Security to come here and manage at will the rule of law of a sovereign country such as the Plurinational State of Bolivia.”
There is no record of a similar case that has occurred for any other Cuban.
After the suspension of diplomatic relations with Cuba by the then-interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, who today is in prison, still without trial, for, according to her persecutors, having organized a “coup d’état,” both countries approached the government of Luis Arce again.
The Bolivian president was received a few days ago by his Cuban counterpart, Miguel Díaz-Canel, in Havana, where he also attended the extraordinary session of the National Assembly in commemoration of the eighteenth anniversary of the creation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (Alba-TCP).
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Caption: In some provinces, the availability of vehicles doesn’t even reach 30%. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 12 December 2022 — Passenger transport in Cuba is in a limited situation, as revealed this Sunday in the parliamentary committee on attention to services, which took place in the presence of the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz. The plan has been fulfilled by just 59%, said Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, Minister of Transport, since it was intended to reach 1.733 billion passenger trips* (17% less than before the pandemic), and only 1.5 billion can be transported.
The reasons are the lack of fuel and technical capacity, which, in turn, causes losses for the sector. According to the report, the technical availability coefficient, which determines the proportion of vehicles in useful condition, is barely 42%, but there are areas where the figure sinks even lower, such as Pinar del Río (30%), Guantánamo (26%) and Santiago de Cuba (23%).
By company, National Buses is meeting 48% of the plan (and covers only 43% of interprovincial routes compared to 2019); Transmetre, is at 50%, and Escolares, is at 53%. The Turquino Plan, which connects the mountainous and inaccessible areas of the Island, has 110 of its 198 routes not in service, which is more worrying.
The railway is not going well either, and this is nothing new, since cars are missing and the infrastructure is not in good condition, which reduces capacity. According to the data, locomotives — the few there are — could carry 12 or 13 cars but must take only 11. continue reading
By sea, there are more problems. Perseverance, a modern ferry acquired for millions from an undisclosed Asian country arrived on the Island in the midst of great expectation this July. But it still cannot operate because the dredging of the port of Batabanó has not been completed.
By air, although the drop in flights has been evident, signs of recovery are seen, the authorities added.
Another fact that they highlighted as striking is the fall in transport licenses for private individuals, who move 30% of passengers. A quarter of these have suspended or cancelled their permits, something that is no surprise other than to the authorities, who seem unconcerned about the drivers’ complaints. They are tired of state price limitations, which are impossible to sustain, together with the increase in the cost of fuel and the price of parts needed to maintain their vehicles.
“Many charge high prices with the aim of meeting expenses. At the end of September, these forms of transport had only transported 44% of what was planned,” the report says.
“One of the most complex issues facing the population is prices. It is true that private carriers have to buy dollars in the informal market to acquire parts and pieces, but nothing justifies that they want to have up to three times the profits with their activity,” said the prime minister.
The Economic Affairs Committee, despite its importance, offered little data of interest, although there were many words from the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, who used the usual recipe of voluntarism** for next year. “The plan is a goal that requires effort to be fulfilled,” he said.
He also resorted to referring to the US sanctions and the international crisis that worsen, in his opinion, the country’s problems, but added that “with creative resistance we will win,” and that this is “a path that involves sacrifices.” Nothing new here.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was that generated by his words regarding inflation. According to the president, “although things are expensive there is a group that can buy them; hence the high prices continue to be maintained. How is this resolved? Producing more, but currency is needed,” he said, to support his statement about the excess liquidity that, in his opinion, exists on the Island.
Díaz-Canel also stressed the energy problems, which any country, he said, would “solve with shock measures” (that is, increasing prices, as he insinuated, ignoring measures such as European consumer protection measures to try to contain the increase), while in Cuba, each megawatt costs one million dollars, and that amount “is not generated by the Electric Union nor is it financed by the rates fixed for the population sector,” he recalled.
The parliamentary committee brought to light other worrying issues, such as the lack of food production. The goal for the new year in terms of the sugar harvest is to produce 455,200 tons, 90,000 of them for export (the contract with China was originally for 400,000 tons), but the yield is very low, according to the data presented: an alarming 7.9% of the goal.
The deputies gathered there took the floor to allude to issues that concern everyone but which will not be solved without a real will for change. Among them were the rise in prices in the state sector, the impossibility of acquiring more and more products in a place other than foreign exchange stores, the high losses of many state companies without consequences for them, and the catastrophic situation of the thermoelectric plants — despite the vaunted capital repair of the rebel Guiteras plant, which doesn’t work for a week in a row — while resources are allocated to other matters.
The deputy for Cienfuegos, Dinorah Navarro, admitted that there is dissatisfaction among the workers of the thermoelectric plants and alluded to the investments made in tourism, with an ambiguous statement: “We do nothing and continue to build hotels while the thermoelectric plants remain in these conditions.”
Translator’s notes:
*To put these numbers in context, Cuba’s population is approximately 11.3 million. If each person took one transit trip a day, every day, for the entire year, it would total just over 4.124 billion annual trips.
**”Voluntarism” means individual effort.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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According to official data, more than 87% of Cubans have received the complete three-dose scheme of one of the three vaccines against COVID-19. (EFE)
14ymedio, Havana, 19 December 2022 — The process of recognition by the World Health Organization (WHO) for Abdala, the Cuban vaccine against COVID-19, remains halted after the documentation was delivered to the health authorities in April. Eight months later, Eduardo Martínez Díaz, president of the BioCubaFarma business group, assures the State newspaper Granma that the problem lies in the American embargo, which forces the banks not to work with the Island.
The doctor explains to the Communist Party newspaper that “one of the components of the evaluation process is behind schedule.” BioCubaFarma announced months ago that it had decided to transfer the production of one of Abdala’s components to its new plant in the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM). WHO experts planned to visit and evaluate the factory by the end of this year, but it will not be possible to do so.
“Although the production line, where the formulation, filling and packaging operations of that complex take place are already active and producing, the line on which the recombinant products are manufactured has delays in its implementation,” says Martínez Díaz.
“This delay is due to the fact that payments have not been made to the company in charge of the commissioning of the equipment and systems of that production line. We have been trying to make payments for nine months, which have not materialized due to the refusal of several banks to make the transfer,” he concludes. The doctor is hopeful that in 2023 the study can be completed and will receive the endorsement of the health authorities, almost three years after the beginning of the pandemic. continue reading
In the interview, the expert insists that the Cuban vaccines approved on the Island — Abdala and Soberana 02 and Plus — are “safe, effective and capable of controlling the epidemic,” and that this is supported by the control of the disease in Cuba as well as in the countries that have recognized these vaccines without waiting for the WHO’s approval.
According to Martínez, eight countries have given the authorization “and others are evaluating them,” although it has only been made public, to date, that Iran, Mexico and Nicaragua have given the green light to Cuban serums. In the case of Tehran and Soberana, their manufacture is through a partnership with the Pasteur Institute. Mexico has also approved Abdala after receiving the approval of its regulator, the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks. Nicaragua also recognizes the two vaccines.
In addition to the previous three, Venezuela, Vietnam and Belarus have used some of the Cuban serums after receiving lots exchanged or purchased from the Island. At the moment, the number of units delivered abroad and the money obtained through their sale are unknown. The Cuban authorities announced that their vaccines would be economical, although the Nicaraguan press estimates that they cost 7 euros per unit based on a loan requested by Daniel Ortega’s government from the World Bank. However, there is no breakdown to verify the credit.
In any case, Cubans vaccinated with Abdala or Soberana — almost 100% of those immunized on the Island — have had real difficulties traveling to many countries (including the United States and the European Union) where it was mandatory to present a covid certificate or passport with one of the serums recognized by the WHO.
Martínez Díaz in his interview this Monday claims as a distinctive element of Cuban vaccines the high “thermostability” that requires less cold temperature than other vaccines (such as those of Pfizer or Moderna) and are stored at between 2 and 8 degrees. He also says that they can last up to a week at temperatures above 30 degrees celsius, “which makes them attractive for use in poor countries, where there are difficulties in maintaining the chain of refrigeration,” he adds.
The slight side effects and effectiveness that, they claim, have been demonstrated in the studies carried out on the Island, were also argued by the official despite the fact that this would not be a differentiating feature from any of the other authorized vaccines. Martínez emphasizes that the results of the research have been published in several scientific journals, which require that they be subjected to peer review. “To date, more than 20 scientific articles have been published in high-impact journals, and other reports continue to be prepared,” he says.
The doctor insists that Cuba, unlike other countries, has not suffered the onslaught of omicron, although it is hardly verifiable, since it is necessary to sequence each case to find out, something that has not been done in any country in the world and much less on the Island, where the mere diagnostic capacity was very limited at the time of the explosion of the variant. Martínez said, in any case, that this situation is due to the fact that the vaccines developed on the Island decrease their capacity against this variant by two times, while others do so by 20 times.
“This phenomenon that we are observing has its explanation in the nature of the antigen we use and the very design of our vaccines,” he explains. Martínez says that the Island’s laboratories use the RBD antigen, which produces antibodies against a region of the protein that is common in all variants of the virus.
Meanwhile, other vaccines (the ones based on messenger RNA) have used the full spike protein (S), which induces defenses against areas where there are mutations. The American Chemical Society warned at the end of 2021 of the possibility that vaccines based on protein S (Pfizer or Moderna) could fall short if the strategy was not diversified. Since then, pharmaceutical companies have been studying the situation and possible improvements.
“We defend the hypothesis that vaccines based on the RBD antigen can be a universal booster for the rest of the vaccines against COVID-19 by amplifying a protective immunity against the different variants of the Sars-Cov-2 virus, which have circulated or that could be generated in the future. Recently, several groups of scientists around the world have published articles that support this hypothesis,” says Martínez.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Published, ironically, by a printing house on Calle Amargura (Bitter Street), the sketches in the book are by Conrado Massaguer. (Collage)
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, Spain, 18 December 2022 – If oblivion had a physical form, or a symbol, it would be that of a faded photograph. From an original shaky camera shot, or just from the degrading of the resulting photographic paper print itself, a photo that has lost its sharpness doesn’t tell us very much. One is tempted to think that, just as the paper deteriorates with the passage of time or even through the work of termites, so the person depicted in the photo also ends up in the land of abandoned things.
This thought occurred to me yesterday while I was looking at a photo of Gustavo Robreño, the forgotten Cuban republican writer who joined the team at the celebrated Alhambra theatre in Cuba in 1900 and composed ElveloriodePachencho (Pachencho’s Vigil) with his brother Francisco.
I’m looking at Robreño now, in a kind of daguerreotype of image; he has all of that fresh elegance of the nineteenth century — a white hat on his head, suit and walking cane — or at least he appears to have these details from what can be made out from the fading yellowing image. The picture looks as if it’s under water and it’s difficult to tell whether he’s looking genuinely surly or just mocking, whether his face is wrinkled or even if he’s sporting a moustache.
A man scattered across two centuries, stirred by theatre and politics, he was born in 1873 in Pinar del Río and died in 1957 — perhaps anticipating how the good times were about to end. As a young man, in Spain he read and discussed with all the intellectuals of the ’Generation of ’98’. The language of his books is creole, mocking — it’s impossible for him to write a single word without it having an opposite or a calculated crosswise meaning.
In 1915, Robreño undertook a kind of ’settling of scores’ with Cuba’s past, in order to better explain the convulsive beginnings of its early Republic. If I’m not mistaken, he wrote one of the first histories of the Island in the twentieth century, possibly the only one — apart from the comic strips of Vistadeamaneceren el trópico (A View of Daybreak in the Tropics) by Guillermo Cabrera Infante — in which Cuba is described as an incoherent, not very serious place, sometimes charming but at the end of the day tragic and irredeemable.
Historia de Cuba: narración humorística (The History of Cuba: a Comic Narrative) is also a rare edition. Published, ironically, by a printing house on CalleAmargura (Bitter Street), the drawings in the book are by Conrado Massaguer, a promising young artist of 26 at the time. continue reading
On the book’s cover, Massaguer has drawn an amazed Christopher Columbus holding out a nappy (diaper) to an indigenous baby there in front of him on the ground, crying inconsolably. Behind them some Spaniards peer across at a palm grove from where a nanny goat gazes out suspiciously.
The scene is a forewarning of what’s to come. Robreño launches into a hillarious revision of the Cuban story from the first arrival of this famous Admiral up to the birth of the nation. No one escapes his satire. The prologue, signed by a skeptical ’Attaché’ — a pseudonym that isn’t difficult to attribute to Cabrera Infante himself in a previous life — puts the book into context: “The time of blood and heroism over, now experience Cuba in the time of caricature, in which it governs itself, legislates, and even makes revolutions to the sound of loud guffawing”.
It was the first cautionary note: the Cuban people have a historical compulsion to “sell their soul to the devil…and then live happily, unconcerned…inebriated”, “with a firefly in their hand and a big cigar in their mouth”. Robreño demonstrates this in his book, pointing out the ridicule of a multitude of episodes in which opportunists dress up with much ceremony.
Of the burning of the indian man, Hatuey, romanticised by historiography, Robreño says that it was “an admirable case of civilised savagery…or savage civility”. According to this writer from Pinar: the artist Velázquez “died of envy” because of Hernán Córtes the Brave — “as one couldn’t give the other up” — and Alejandro de Humbolt was a “German flora-fauna geologist who tried to show the world that Cuba was an almost habitable country and not a tobacco factory”.
In 1762 the Spanish treated the English invaders politely and asked them “if they would like [to take] anything” [meaning: to eat or drink]. The Count Albemarle’s reply was no less polite: “Havana!”. Rather circumspect, governor Juan de Prado then puts a scary warning out to Havana’s residents: “Citizens, the English are five miles away from the capital and according to reports they are all wearing ’pointy shoes’, strong and new. So have your backsides (asses) prepared because I fear it won’t only be on the ground where the invader puts his feet”.
Robreño’s book becomes positively acidic when he talks of the “patriots, traitors and loan sharks” of 1868, who argued against his “little memo” after the ’burning of Bayamo’, and even more when he refers to the first years of the republic, in a magnificent portrait of families who never will pardon neither the living nor the dead.
The history of Cuba — “A country ill from chronic laughter” — should, for Robreño, be evaluated from a higher perspective, that is, “from an aeroplane but with a handkerchief over your nose”. I wonder whether the collective rage of the nation would not have wanted to hide away Robreño’s book, deny his very existence, give him up for lost, or even burnt.
And it’s not surprising. If anyone wanted to undermine or subvert the the ’gravity’, fiction or convenient silence of all the Cuban politicians — and those of today are a grossly inflated version of those from antiquity — you only need to read Robreño’s apocryphal history to the kids.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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“The objectives of the Economy Plan for 2022 were not achieved,” Gil summarized. “The approved measures have not had the necessary impact.” (Twitter/Communist Party of Cuba)
14ymedio, Elias Amor Bravo, Economist, 10 December 2022 — Cuban communists are privileged. Not only because they hold all the power in the nation, but also because they do what they want, without giving explanations, and then in their congresses they erase any responsibility. This is what happened in the recent Political Bureau of the Central Committee when reviewing “the implementation of the ideas, concepts and guidelines derived from the Eighth Congress” and the “economic, social, political and ideological measures to face the current situation in the country.” Any decent review of these issues should lead to an assumption of responsibilities and immediate decision-making to correct errors.
But no one should expect anything from this procedure. The Party has made economic decisions like the Ordering Task,* which since January 1, 2021 has altered the lives of Cubans, throwing them into a situation of misery and poverty difficult to find in other countries. But no one has taken any responsibility for it. The so-called “accounting of the Political Bureau to the Central Committee” ends up becoming an exercise of “I wasn’t the one” that always identifies one person responsible for everything that happens to the unfortunate Antillian nation.
The Plenary of the Party is a good example of the correlation of people who lead the country with absolute power. Along with Díaz-Canel there are Esteban Lazo, Manuel Marrero, Salvador Valdés, Álvaro López Miera, representing the army, and also guests, such as Ramiro Valdés and José Ramón Machado Ventura, and the general, Joaquín Quinta Solá. A total of 108 of the 113 members of the Central Committee, and Granma says that the absences are justified. Of course.
The report of the Political Bureau, presented by Morales Ojeda, is a good example of how communists see reality and try to face it. It is as if they had a different historical time from that of society as a whole and, in a way, the problems are seen from above, as if they did not affect the single party that only understands that “we are in a scenario of progressive socioeconomic complexity, derived from the effects of the intensified blockade and the 243 measures of the Trump administration,” and to a lesser extent, “due to the erosion of the confrontation with COVID-19, the deviations from the Ordering Task and the global economic crisis, aggravated by the conflict in Ukraine.” continue reading
And behind this scenario, according to the communists, appears “an aggravated situation of material deficiencies, which affects all the social and economic sectors of the country. Undersupply and inflation persist, with insufficient results in the measures adopted, which maintains a direct impact on the quality of life of the people.” No one, absolutely no one, is able to identify in this scenario of misery and poverty a self-reliance derived from the forced implementation of an economic model, the Marxist-Leninist, which is the origin of the improductivity and general inefficiency of the economy. We don’t even talk about this.
For communists, the only important thing is ideology. And instead of being interested in improving the economic conditions of the population, they warn that “the problems have been used opportunistically by the enemy, who increased the subversive and destabilizing plans, using a fierce media campaign as a spearhead, as part of a true fourth-generation or unconventional war.”
The discredit of the ruling political class in Cuba has to do with a growing detachment from society that considers that there is no measure, plan or initiative that goes well. But the communists claim that the fault lies with an alleged “external enemy” that has always been there, but that now, when the failure of the economic model is more evident, appears with more force. Don’t they realize that there’s something strange here?
The Political Bureau emphasizes above all “the intense work, extraordinary effort of the cadres, militants and, especially, of our people, trying to overcome every obstacle,” which is evidently a declaration of inefficiency, since despite that effort the goals are not achieved. But in addition, a declaration of ineffectiveness is made, because it is recognized that “not always have all the expected results been achieved,” and they announce that the solution is “unity”, the eternal communist unity that contemplates only a part of society, the communist one, as the only one able to solve problems. The rest of the options have no place in the political system. And along with unity, there is talk of the “reserves,” which is never fully understood.
So in the face of a scenario like the current one, the communists insist that progress must be made in the improvement of the methods and styles of work of the Party; in particular, the exchanges with the population, in the workplaces, in the universities, with the militancy, of the municipalities, of the cadres, in the decisions adopted by the Political Bureau. That is, internal exchanges of communists with communists, which whitewashes any state of public opinion of the population and prevents knowing the reality. It’s like navigating a sea in fog and without a compass. Cuban communists have chosen this path for a long time, and so it goes, at least in terms of economic matters.
Alternatively, they are dedicated to controlling academia, science and research, projects in municipalities and activity in communities and society. They also want to project ideology towards health workers. There is not the slightest interest in producing more and doing it efficiently. This is the least of it.
For communists, it is a priority to “raise the responsibility and attitude of the militants, paying maximum attention to the state of militancy, and the growth and quality of new members.” They received a strong blow in the last municipal elections, with the lowest levels of participation in decades, and they fear what may happen in the general elections of 2023. The truth is that these trends will continue as long as the communists pull out all the stops and have the support of the leadership of the army to remain the only party in Cuba.
What happens is that without alternatives to the economic, social, political and ideological measures to those imposed for 63 years, there is no solution. It was seen with the Ordering Task, and they are on their way to maximum separation from the people. Young Cubans know that, much better than entering a Party that doesn’t know what to do, there is no comparison to leaving the country. That’s the reality.
Communists will remain focused on the fight against what they call crime, corruption, illegalities and social indisciplines, without wanting to recognize that these behaviors take place because of the existing economic model. And that the autonomy of the socialist state enterprise has become a mantra that is difficult to achieve, since no one believes in it anymore.
Only Guilarte de Nacimiento spoke in the communist conclave about inflation, the shortage of basic products and the increase in prices. A pity. The issue arose only at the end of the report and covertly, despite the fact that in October, year-on-year inflation was already almost 40%, the highest in the world. The loss of purchasing power of wages and pensions suffered by Cubans doesn’t allow comparison worldwide, and this is an inheritance of the communists, who demanded the implementation of the Ordering Task in their previous congress, despite all the warnings. The political bureau’s report did not take into account that the main threat to Cuban communists is what they have caused themselves: inflation. We will continue to talk about it.
*Translator’s note: The “Ordering Task” [Tarea ordenamiento] is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The Mexican Committee for Refuge Assistance (COMAR) has responded to 78,367 asylum applications in two of its offices.
14ymedio/EFE, Mexico, 15 December 2022 — The brothers José Luis and Raúl Borroto entered Mexico 40 days ago through Chiapas. “We paid the coyote $4,000 to take us to the border and he abandoned us.” These Cubans are part of the group of 368 migrants that the National Guard arrested on November 18 in the municipality of Tecpatán, in Chiapas, a state bordering Guatemala.
They spent 20 days at the Siglo XXI immigration station located in Tapachula and were released after paying a lawyer $3,700. “They threatened us with deportation if we didn’t pay; they were going to put us on a plane and return us to Cuba,” Raúl told 14ymedio. “There are many Venezuelans without documents or money. They are returning them to Guatemala.”
José Luis and Raúl left the immigration headquarters and immediately began their procedures at the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) to apply for asylum. They must show up on January 9 to find out if they were accepted. The lawyer recommended that they process an amparo [request for sanctuary] that would cost $1,500 each so that they can move freely through the country and thus be able to reach Ciudad Acuña (Coahuila) to cross to the United States.
According to COMAR , as of November of this year, 17,487 Cubans applied for asylum. Alejandro Austria de la Vega, in charge of the delegation in Chiapas, expects 2022 to end with a little more than 80,000 applications for migrants, with Cubans being the second most important national group. continue reading
“Tapachula is the central point of asylum requests for people who transit through national territory with the intention of reaching the United States in search of a better quality of life for their families, who stayed in their countries of origin,” he told 14ymedio.
The influx of migrants on the southern border of Mexico grew by 40% in the last two weeks compared to the previous year, so the authorities doubled their attention, according to officials of the National Institute of Migration (INM) reported on Wednesday.
According to Migration records, 6,000 multiple immigration forms (FMM) have been granted in the last 15 days; that is, about 400 daily to natives from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti and Africa. They have placed tents, tables and chairs in the temporary care module to serve about 1,200 migrants a day.
Migration and National Guard agents have avoided setting up camps for migrants to stay to sleep or stand in line from the night before. “We are not going to allow them to set up tents or stay here to sleep,” an official warned the migrants who were going to carry out procedures.
Graph showing requests for asylum this year. (COMAR)
Among those who are waiting for regularization is the Venezuelan Jürgen Casanova, who travels with 15 people. “We are asking for help and sleeping on the streets to avoid spending money on rent for houses or hotels, since all this is hard,” he told EFE.
On a white poster, the South American wrote: “Hello, Mexico. We are a Venezuelan family that needs your help. May God bless you and multiply your support.” Casanova commented that the situation is difficult. “We were victims, we were robbed on the Guatemalan border with Honduras.”
A similar story is told by Ecuadorian Luis Taboada, who travels with his wife and two minors. On a poster, he asks for help to feed his family. “People who have not gone through this journey, who do not try, it is not an easy thing, especially if they go with children. At the beginning I thought that everything would be easy,” he warned.
Even so, he said that he will not give up his trip and will continue despite the shortages and lack of food, since the only option is to meet the final goal of reaching the United States.
The region is experiencing a record migratory flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection Office stopped an unprecedented number of more than 2.76 million undocumented people in fiscal year 2022, a figure that includes substantial increases in Cubans and Venezuelans.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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A minority sector of Cuba’s Tainos continued to partially and syncretically transmit their own traditions. (EFE)
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 16 December 2022 — At 87 years of age, the Cuban Francisco Ramírez Rojas began to cry before they gave him the genetic certificate that said exactly what his grandfather had repeated so many times: that they, despite everything that was said, were descendants of indigenous people.
The document accredits that he, chief of the community of La Ranchería, in Guantánamo, is one of the few living descendants of the Tainos, one of the large groups of pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Island that, according to historian Manuel Moreno Fraginals, “disappeared as a society, drowned biologically and culturally” by the European and African ethnic component.
Despite the story of the “massive extermination” of the indigenous people attributed to the Spanish conquerors — the well-known “black legend” — and although it is true that there were multiple violent encounters on the Island between the two groups during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the vast majority of Cuban Indians mixed in the new villages, died from “undeliberate attacks of pathogens from Europe and Africa, while a minority sector continued to partially and syncretically transmit its own traditions.”
Francisco is not alone. Members of 27 families in 23 communities in eastern Cuba have a proportion of Amerindian indigenous genes that on average doubles the Cuban average, according to an unprecedented study presented this Thursday by a multidisciplinary team in Havana.
The research, five years of fieldwork on the back of decades of previous investigations, adds to ethnographic, historical and even photographic studies, for the first time on a relevant scale, the scientific certainty of DNA tests.
The study “is a milestone,” says the historian of Baracoa, Alejandro Hartmann, one of the promoters of research in these communities. continue reading
The analysis of Francisco, for example, says that 37.5% of his genes are of Amerindian origin, 35.5% European, 15.9% African and 11% Asian. In the country as a whole, by contrast, the Amerindian component on average is 8%, compared to 71% for the European component.
One more detail is that all the DNA tests in this study — 91 people, 74 with conclusive results — refer to female Amerindian ancestors. All male ancestors were European and, to a lesser extent, African.
Specifically, as Cuban geneticist Beatriz Marcheco, from the National Center for Medical Genetics, explains to EFE, from these DNA studies it can be estimated that all these people analyzed descended from “between 900 and 1,000 female” Amerindians who lived in the 16th century.
They survived, hidden in the remote areas that their descendants still inhabit, the “demographic debacle of unimaginable dimensions” that, Marcheco explains, followed the emergence of the Spaniards and Africans in Cuba. There is no trace of male Amerindians.
“It’s not unusual that our own books, even the most recent ones, have discussed for years the total extermination of the Amerindian component of our population. Indeed, we do not have closed communities, but we do have these people who have retained those physical characteristics, who have that footprint on their DNA,” says Marcheco.
DNA studies have been the finishing touch on the project, which emerged five years ago as an initiative to portray descendants of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Island.
But as Spanish photographer Héctor Garrido, coordinator of the Cuba Indígena project, explains to EFE, the initiative was evolving towards a “more comprehensive” approach that ended up including historical documentation, portraits, ethnographic studies, anthropological research and, as a cornerstone, genetic analysis.
All these perspectives underline the thesis that the DNA tests confirm. Physical features show the Amerindian component on the faces portrayed, and ethnographic studies collect indigenous traditions such as making cassava (yuca bread cakes), using the “coa” (agricultural tool), growing cimarrón tobacco and celebrating their own religious rites.
The study, according to its authors, has repercussions in multiple areas, starting with the communities investigated — Francis’s tears are proof of this — and ending with Cuba as a whole.
It has also touched them personally, after an intense coexistence with the communities with “big personal implications,” the project director says.
Garrido emphasizes that these families were “fully aware of being descendants of indigenous people” and felt “proud of what they are.” However, he adds, they had mixed feelings when at school they were taught “that the indigenous people were extinct.”
The editor of the meticulous book on the project, the Cuban Julio Larramendi, is convinced that Cuba will welcome these conclusions as “beneficial” and that now is a “good time” to make them known.
“We have this living root, a root that must be fed, watered, given the opportunity to grow and reproduce, to show what traditions have survived, to show that they are part of our culture,” he says.
Marcheco digs deeper into this idea: “All this will allow us a reflection, a new look, a reunion with our roots, a reinterpretation of our origins. And that will have an influence, not only on Cuban thought, but also on the way in which we assume our culture, our diversity, to the extent that we seek a society that includes all of us.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuban Norge Luis Vera is the only pitcher with more than 30 postseason victories. (Cubadebate)
14ymedio, Havana, 16 December 2022 — The Cuban Norge Luis Vera, considered one of the best National Series pitchers of all time, arrived in the United States this Friday. The gold medalist at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens reunited with his son, Norge Carlos, who currently has possibilities with the Chicago White Sox, journalist Francys Romero revealed on his social networks.
He referred to Vera as “the ace that Santiago of Cuba needed in the times of Antonio Pacheco, Orestes Kindelán and Gabriel Pierre,” for his performance in international events and “classifying among the best in history in victories and effectiveness.”
With Vera’s departure, the Island loses an experienced athlete who also won the silver medal at the Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008 Olympics, in addition to winning the national championship six times with Santiago de Cuba and being the only pitcher with more than 30 postseason victories. Most importantly, Cuba loses an athlete who was on the way to transmitting his knowledge to new generations.
Vera leaves a difficult void to fill in Cuban baseball, which continues to grow, with the escape of pitchers, so many punches that the panorama paints a resounding defeat. The native of Siboney was ahead of Yoen Socarrás, the 35-year-old from Sancti Spíritus, who was part of the first Elite League. continue reading
Francys Romero told Baseball FR! That just before leaving Socarrás Island he had “asked to leave the sports system,” so he did not rule out that he “will try to settle in the United States and then continue his career on independent circuits or in Mexico. He won’t be short of finding work.”
Sonora was also the departure place of Granma’s former pitcher and pitching coach Ciro Silvino Licea. In mid-September, the baseball player took a flight at Havana’s José Martí International Airport to Nicaragua, from where he embarked on the journey to the United States.
His departure took the Agricultores team by surprise, because he was considered part of the squad of coaches who would intervene in the first Elite League. Licea is a reference among the pitchers in the 23 National Series with 208 games won with 3067.1 innings, where he added 1,887 strikeouts, with an average of 3.69 clean runs, in addition to possessing “a slider difficult to hit and a fast ball over 90 miles an hour with a repertoire that has improved over the years,” as posted on Facebook Sportsby Modesto Agüero.
Days earlier, Yanier Fernández Piedra, the former Mayabeque pitching coach, arrived in the United States. “It was a difficult decision to leave Cuba, my family was there, the economic situation was very tough,” he told PeriódicoCubano.
Fernández has completed studies in Physical Culture and Sports from the Agricultural University of Havana Fructuoso Rodríguez Pérez, so his foray as a coach of youth teams may be an option.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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“At first sales were limited to ten per person but, since no one was willing to pay that price, they did away with that and now you can buy as many as you like,” says one customer. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Mercedes Garcia, Sancti Spiritus, 13 December 2022 — The beverage that would normally be lifting spirits at holiday parties in Sancti Spiritus has actually been enflaming the city’s already tense economic situation. When it was announced a few weeks ago that beer would be available for sale near year’s end, it created a certain amount of enthusiasm, but that ended as soon as the first cans arrived at state-run stores.
“Thüringer beer for 200 convertible pesos each,” reads a sign at a downtown store on Cespedes Street where rationed goods can be purchased. “At first sales were limited to ten per person but, since no one was willing to pay that price, they did away with that and now you can buy as many as you like,” says one customer who is not planning to buy the thirty cans he, his wife and his 25-year-old son were allotted. “Better to buy them from private individuals, who are selling them for 170,” he adds.
“We’re moving backwards like crabs. They’re selling the most expensive beers on the black market,” complains another customer whose hopes were raised when she learned that stores in every neighborhood would be carrying the product. For years it had only available in privately owned restaurants and hard currency stores. She had planned on buying twenty for herself and her husband. “Ten to drink on Christmas Eve and the same amount on New Year’s Eve,” she explains. Now she is altering her plans and is looking for a more affordable alternative.
“It’s a disgrace that it’s the state itself that charging these prices,” she adds. “My pension is a little over 2,000 pesos. That means that every beer I drank would cost me 10% of my monthly retirement.
Some stores in Sancti Spiritus have started carrying malt beers from the Dominican Republic. An employee at one store says they are also awaiting the arrival of “some jams and cookies.” Given the bitter taste “end of the year beer” has left behind, however, few people have any illusions about a few trinkets being able to sweeten the last days of December.
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The Rail Union confirmed that the fire in the Luyanó workshops was caused by a short-circuit. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 16 December 2022 — The fire in the Francisco Vega Sánchez rail maintenance workshops in Luyanó, Havana, on Thursday night was put out by the fire service. Pictures on social media showed huge clouds of smoke and flames coming from the building, as well as electric sparks caused by the fire reaching the electricity grid.
The Cuban Rail Union confirmed that the accident occurred at 6:00 pm and was caused by a short-circuit in the workshop’s transformer bank. The Fire Service, police (Policía Nacional Revolucionaria, PNR) and workers from the site all participated in extinguishing the blaze.
“There was no loss of life during the incident, nor any real material damage”, reported the organisation in a short statement on social media.
Fires are not a rare occurrence in the ailing Cuban rail system and in the last month alone there have been two other fire incidents in other locations. The most recent one was at 6:00 pm on Sunday of last week in a locomotive which was making its way between south Santa Cruz and Camagüey. The independent news outlet HoradeCuba released video of passengers fleeing from their wagon as flames reached it.
One of the passengers told them that the train stopped “in the middle of nowhere” and that straightaway rail workers began to ask all passengers to collect their belongings and leave the train. There has been no word as yet from the authorities giving any details of the causes or damage created by the accident.
There was also a fire in a train wagon carrying tobacco leaves from Pinar del Río at the end of November. The government had used the rail system for moving a part of the crop which was still undergoing its drying process — the part which had escaped damage from hurricane Ian — though that catastrophic weather event had left in pieces the tobacco processing infrastructure that was necessary for producing the best habanero cigars in the world. continue reading
The railway system currently finds itself in a terrible condition, with breakages in tracks, bridges and gradient crossings, as well as wear and tear in locomotive stock, which itself is a cause of the easy spread of fire.
The last attempt at renovating the rail system was made known in October when the government announced an agreement between the Railway Union and Beijing Fanglian Technology — by which a Chinese company would gradually begin to take up the renovation of the rail infrastructure. This new chapter of cooperation includes the restoration of workshops and locomotives in the Mariel Special Development Zone, as well as the importing of spare parts.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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Dawn in Cuba, a country submerged in an economic crisis and an unprecedented migratory exodus. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 18 December 2022 — Those December days are approaching when we all take stock, set new goals and forecast what is going to happen. The year 2023 arrives on an Island plunged into a deep crisis, with an uncertain outlook. In the absence of certainties, I want to venture on this list (very particular, subjective and absolutely determined by my circumstances) my personal and national toeholds, what I think will happen next year:
I am going to continue living here in Cuba, in the country where I was born. I am stubborn (very stubborn) and one day my ashes will be scattered on this earth, under a guava tree.
Every morning, from Monday to Friday, I will try to record and broadcast my Cafecito informativo podcast, a modest contribution to the Cuban information ecosystem.
I will dedicate my best hours to the newspaper 14ymedio, an informational space that will be nine years old next May and that has built a reputation for being serious, constant and with people in the information field. There is still a lot to achieve, but we will achieve it with work, work and work. continue reading
I am not going to allow the political police to prevent me from enjoying the sunrises, the smell of the romerillo daisies and the waves breaking in Caleta de San Lázaro. That’s mine too.
I will try to read more, although bringing in books and printed material is still so complicated on this Island, but I am a “rare” philologist who enjoys audiobooks and reading volumes in digital format. In the absence of paper, kilobytes come in handy.
I am going to spend less time on social networks, especially on Facebook, because I have several professional projects that demand a lot of time. However, I always keep an eye on everything that is published from inside the Island be it a complaint, news or a report.
But the most important thing is that I will continue to be a happy person. My happiness does not depend on the political or economic model in which I live. I am happy because I breathe
I will plant new plants. Gardening and the urban garden are the particular forms that I have chosen so that this authoritarian system does not destroy my most sensitive side. I will watch my tomatoes grow, I will water my pumpkins, I will eat the lettuce and chard sprouts growing on my balcony while I observe the dysfunctional Ministry of Agriculture which — erected right in front of my terrace — fails to harvest hardly anything.
I will continue without saying a word to State Security. If you call me, you know, I’ll repeat what I’ve said so much: “I don’t talk to the political police.” I don’t care if they are named after the guerrilla Ernesto, the disappeared Camilo or the Pharaoh Ramses . I have nothing to tell you. Silent strike is what it takes in those cases and they already know it.
I will look more into the eyes of my dogs and my cats. In those infinite pupils there is a lot of wisdom.
My complaint about authoritarianism, the new ways of totalitarianism and the faces of generals that become managers will continue.
But the most important thing is that I will continue to be a happy person. My happiness does not depend on the political or economic model in which I live. I am happy because I breathe, because I am alive, because I understand that each breath is a miracle for me and I owe it to all those who preceded me. I am happy despite the dictatorship and living in a failed country. I am happy because that is also a form of rebellion.
With that being said, I wish you all a happy 2023. It may not be the year we are all waiting for, but it is the year we have achieved.
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Daily life on the Island continues to experience the onslaught of the Government’s economic mismanagement, which admits that the measures have been “insufficient” to improve GDP. (14ymedio)
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 15 December 2022 — On Thursday, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) listed Cuba as one of the countries in the region with the worst economic projection for 2023. With only 1.5% growth, the forecast of this United Nations agency is not as optimistic as the Cuban Government’s, which assured that next year the country’s GDP would grow by 3%.
The ECLAC forecast represents, in itself, a decrease in its forecasts for Cuba: its latest report, in October, had placed the increase in the Island’s GDP for 2023 at 1.8%. The regime’s analysts, of course, rejected this number.
Cuba is not the only country whose GDP will decline next year. ECLAC has pointed out that a group of Latin American nations is in a similar situation. The GDPs that will grow the least next year are, according to the organization: El Salvador (1.6%), Colombia (1.5%), Mexico (1.1%), Argentina (1%), Brazil (0.9%), Haiti (-0.7%), and Chile (-1.1%).
ECLAC guaranteed that the economic slowdown in the region will deepen in 2023 and that the growth rate will be 1.3%, 0.1% less than estimated in October. Regional GDP, it estimates, will close this year with an expansion of 3.7%, higher than the 3.6% forecast three months ago but far from the 6.7% recorded in 2021.
According to ECLAC, the slowdown began in the second half of 2022 and reflects both “the exhaustion of the rebound effect on the 2021 recovery” and “the effects of restrictive monetary policies, greater limitations on fiscal spending, lower levels of consumption and investment, and the deterioration of the external context.” continue reading
“The monetary policy responses adopted worldwide, in a context of increased global inflation, have led to increases in financial volatility and risk aversion levels and, therefore, have induced lower capital flows to emerging economies,” the institution said.
In the Preliminary Balance of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 2022 presented this Thursday, ECLAC points out, however, that “the expected reduction in global inflation by 2023 will tend to moderate the increases in the monetary policy rates of the main central banks.”
The report also highlights that the process of recovering labor markets “has not made it possible to eliminate the traditional gaps between men and women,” and that during 2022, ” an increase in unreliability as well as a drop in real wages have been observed.”
In addition, debt levels continue to be high, “so it can be expected that the fiscal space will continue to condition the trajectory of public spending.”
“The risk of rising interest rates, depreciation of currencies and increased sovereign risk would make it difficult to finance governments’ operations by 2023,” the agency added.
To avoid a new lost decade such as that observed during the period 2014-2023, ECLAC calls for “innovative public policies in the productive, financial, commercial, social and care economy.”
Venezuela (12%), Panama (8.4%) and Colombia (8%) will lead economic growth this year, followed by Uruguay (5.4%), the Dominican Republic (5.1%) and Argentina (4.9%), according to the report.
In the middle of the table are the Caribbean islands (4.5%, not counting Guyana, which is experiencing an oil boom), Costa Rica (4.4%), Honduras (4.2%), Guatemala (4%), Nicaragua (3.8%), Bolivia (3.5%), Mexico (2.9%) and Brazil (2.9%).
In the line are Ecuador (2.7%), Peru (2.7%), El Salvador (2.6%), Chile (2.3%), Cuba (2%), Paraguay (-0.3%), and Haiti (-2%), according to the balance sheet.
For 2023, Venezuela continues to lead the projections (5%), followed by the Dominican Republic (4.6%), Panama (4.2%), Paraguay (4%), the Caribbean Islands (3.3%), Guatemala (3.2%), Uruguay (2.9%), Bolivia (2.9%), Honduras (2.7%), Costa Rica (2.6%), Peru (2.2%), Nicaragua (2.1%) and Ecuador (2%).
Translated by Regina Anavy
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14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 21 December 2022 — The Bolivian Government announced on Wednesday the expulsion of Cuban activist Magdiel Jorge Castro, made public on Monday.
