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“The workforce will be maintained,” the official clarified. “One part will participate in the conservation and preservation of the refinery, and another will be incorporated into the maintenance and repair work, after the authorization of funding for these activities.”

Pérez resorted to euphemisms and circumlocutions to mitigate the helplessness in which the workers will remain. In case of any doubt, he referred to the “93 measures to save the national sugar agro-industry” drafted by the Government.

It’s not clear how the “relocation” of sugarcane personnel will be organized or which workers are promised “sources of personal income” in the production of sugar-derived foods. In addition, the authorities promise to hire them as workers in the “construction of 447 homes, mostly in sugarcane communities,” and will offer them employment in the “rescue and commissioning” of about thirty carpentry shops and warehouses linked to the sugar mills.

The plan foresees the delivery of 141,905 acres of land to sugar companies in the future, destined for the preparation of the next harvest, but it didn’t specify when it would happen. This is just a “projection.”

In the absence of work in this harvest, there is no choice but to concentrate on the next one, that is, “planting cane and food,” says the official, who presents Azcuba’s decisions as a “strategy” for the creation of more stable “work collectives.”

Granma dedicated a good part of its report to the words of Dionis Pérez about the tasks carried out by the inactive Uruguay sugar mill, known as the Colossus of Jatibonico (Sancti Spíritus).

The Government “had decided that there would be few inputs and little financing to repair the mill. We were only going to do conservation work and repair some lines of the equipment,” said Eddy Gil Pérez, director of the plant.

Of the 424 workers employed at the Uruguay mill, 180 are today engaged in minor repair work and 101 in miscellaneous activities of painting or construction. The idea was, according to the manager, that everyone would be left with “some work tie” and within the sugar sector. The money to pay those salaries comes from a bank credit that must be repaid within the impossible two-year period. Even so, only 80% of the payments have been covered.

“Next year, the State will grant us a credit for the concept of a ’paralyzed factory’,” says Gil, who expects 15 million pesos from state banks for the Uruguay mill to resume its work in 2023.

The “dead time” of the Cuban sugar mills will be extended until next year, without there being good reasons to expect a change in their infrastructure. The deficiency in the organization of the harvest translates into unemployment, instability and more debts for the Cuban sugar industry, which was once the first in the world.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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So far, the authorities already identified an indirect and habitually responsible party: the United States. In addition, they point out that “the same participants in these events recognized that they were abandoned to their fate by human traffickers,” whom official sources accuse of acting irresponsibly, aggressively and negligently. “When there are cases of human trafficking with boats coming from abroad, their final destination is the United States,” they stressed.

“These criminal elements, which are located in that country, act for profit and without real interest in human life. They act at night, in inhospitable places, and travel at high speeds. Another element that characterizes them is that they overload the speedboats, which demonstrates their lack of knowledge of the navigation rules,” said Oceguera, who added that these routes are occasionally used to introduce weapons or drugs, a fact that he described as a “serious threat” to national security.

“To this is added,” the official said, “the fact that the materials of the boats are not adequate, the balseros don’t know the most basic rules of navigation, lack rescue methods and don’t have any way of determining the state of the sea,” the official stressed.

Despite everything, the lieutenant colonel recognized that there is a fluid exchange with his American counterparts when it comes to supervising border waters. “It’s a direct communication, case by case and in real time. When such an event is detected, you are immediately informed of the number of people on board, the characteristics of the environment, and their position.”

Mario Méndez Mayedo, head of the Directorate of Identification, Immigration and Alien Affairs of the Ministry of the Interior, and Laura Pujol Torres, Deputy Director General of Consular Affairs and Cubans Residing Abroad, also participated in the program. The latter specified that emigrating should not be a politicized or negative phenomenon, but something that is necessary under appropriate conditions.

Pujol insisted on the responsibility of the U.S. Government in increasing the flow of travelers for having paralyzed the granting of visas between 2017 until this year (when it finally delivered the amount agreed in the agreements), and for maintaining a policy of sanctions that suffocates the country’s economy. She didn’t make the slightest gesture of self-criticism about the inability of national authorities to mitigate any possible effect of the embargo and insisted that the Cuban Adjustment Law “irresponsibly stimulates this type of event and hinders any action that, on the other hand, the authorities may have to mitigate these issues of irregular migration.”

According to her, several Latin American countries, including Cuba, have recently started talks with the United States, and things are on the right track. “Positive steps have been identified within Joe Biden’s Administration to reverse this process, and Cuba will always be willing to talk and cooperate,” she said.

Colonel Mario Méndez Mayedo detailed the cost of a trip through a coyote, which has passed, according to his calculations, from 2,000 to 3,000 dollars a while ago, to 15,000 dollars, and he added that these traffickers profit by putting the lives of others at risk and, frequently, leaving when things go wrong. In addition, along the way they find corrupt agents who demand more money and end up blackmailing relatives. He also cited the minors involved in these outings, the wounded and dead that remain on the road and the inhuman conditions of these trips that, despite everything, hundreds of thousands of people undertake every year.

The soldier finally accused the U.S. of politically manipulating Cubans, whom it welcomes as asylum seekers for alleging “credible fear” when many return to the Island within a few months “without any problem, and that is known by the US authorities.” And he added: “It makes no sense for a person who legally leaves his country to have ’credible fear’ as an argument to enter the United States.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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“His life was not that of a communist, and he acquired a fortune in the International Financial Bank” from money he obtained in his business of buying and selling paintings. Gil detailed how she also participated in art trafficking and obtained her slice, although not at the level of García, who was often arrested by the police and released shortly after thanks to his connections.

She said that García, with the complicity of journalist Ciro Bianchi Ross and the family of Antonio Núñez Jiménez, was responsible for the sale of a fake Picasso painting to an Italian collector. For the scam, Gil said, they earned $200,000. The Italian, of course, returned to Cuba to file a complaint, but the participants were left unpunished “for absence of evidence.”

“They removed him from the program without doing anything,” says Gil, who also wasn’t clear about the causes of Edmundo García’s expulsion and didn’t know anything about his “mission” in Miami.

In the second segment of the interview, the presenter referred to her brother, Alejandro Gil, whom she considers “a communist.” “My brother has no need to be where he is,” she said, but “he blindly believes that he will be able to move the country forward.”

Alejandro Gil graduated as an engineer in Maritime Transport Development from the Technological University of Havana (CUJAE), a profession that has little relation to his current position as Minister of Economy. “I can’t exempt him from his responsibility,” Vicky acknowledged, alluding to the current crisis in every sector that the country is going through. “I can’t even say that I’m a puppet sister.”

“The Cuban economy has always been led by incompetent people,” she concluded. “Political will has always triumphed over economic reality.” She added that Cuba can only grow financially through “its beaches, nickel and the poor doctors.” María Victoria Gil discredited the Ordering Task*, whose failure could be easily predicted.

“Give me time,” has always been her brother’s response, “convinced” that his recipe to save the economy is the right one, according to her.

“My brother was a tycoon,” she says unequivocally, recalling his very successful career in a maritime insurance company in the United Kingdom. He was a member of several international clubs in London, Russia and Havana. He “left everything,” she explains, “for communism and stupidity.” Back in Cuba on one of his trips they made his head spin with flags and honors, and he became part of the government apparatus. “My family wanted to kill him,” she said.

Vicky defended herself from the accusations of being “a figurehead of the Castros” and said she had bought a small, charming place of just 150 square feet in Tenerife, Canary Islands, with the money of a cousin, who lives in Spain.

Gil analyzes Fidel Castro with the same indulgence and describes him as a “human being who was wrong,” although he did admit that he was “too self-centered.” She commented that there are many rumors about the leadership of Cuban power, and many are true, such as those that refer to Raúl Castro’s grandson, Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, El Cangrejo [The Crab].

María Victoria Gil regrets that her brother “was involved in that problem” at the age of 58, because he’s the person who’s “most hated” by the people, along with Miguel Díaz-Canel and Manuel Marrero. She said that he lives in a tenement “that is falling down” and suffers from the blackouts, although other sources point to a comfortable house in the neighborhood of La Víbora, in the Havana municipality of Diez de Octubre.

“I hope he finds a way out, or leaves at the right time,” she said. “He will have to leave Cuba if there is a big change.”

Translated by Regina Anavy    

*Translator’s note: The “Ordering Task” 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.   

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The newspaper gives the example that even induction cookers, which are sold in a regulated manner in the pinareña province for families who have been left without equipment, can be found in Facebook or WhatsApp groups at prices six times higher than the official value, about 20,000 pesos.

The harsh government warnings against the black market “do not seem to change” social media sales groups, recognizes the newspaper, which admits that, by informal means, “the most diverse assortments can be obtained, the result of corruption, lack of scruples and lawlessness.”

The shortage of food and basic products on the Island causes distortions that contribute to fueling illicit trade, through which electronic items as well as medicines can be accessed, but at exorbitant prices. Miguel Díaz-Canel has recognized that this happens “in plain sight” of his administration and the Communist Party.

In that sense, in recent days, several operations have been carried out against the informal market and traders who sell their products at prices above the fixed prices. Last week, the Municipal Inspection Directorate (DIM) in the Havana municipality of Playa imposed fines of up to 8,000 pesos on sellers who offered a pound of tomatoes, peppers and carrots at a price of up to 300 pesos.

The Government of Havana also reported that it imposed fines of up to 8,000 pesos on two bakeries in Ciudad Libertad, a neighborhood of the Havana municipality, after it was detected that they sold the standard bread with a weight below that established in the technical quality standards. In another operation in the Lido neighborhood, the inspectors confiscated from sellers several products from the basic basket [ed. note: i.e. the rationed goods allocated to each individual/family] that, the municipal government said, will be delivered to social institutions.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In a statement made public this Sunday, the NGO based in the United States confirmed the names of the other deceased, none of whom had been mentioned by the Cuban authorities, who have not offered their condolences for what they consider a “painful act” that occurred because of the “hostile and cruel policy of the US Government against Cuba.”

Raidel Rodríguez López, head of Operations of the Northwestern Detachment of Border Guards, which covers the Bahía Honda area, Artemisa, where the events took place on the night of October 28, and Lieutenant Colonel Leovanys Cutiño Rodríguez, chief of the General Staff of the same detachment, have also joined the list of repressors.

Both are named by the FDHC as responsible for these “murders,” after attacking a boat with 23 people on board. The survivors, the organization recalls, “say that they were sunk on purpose.”

The NGO also attributes responsibilities in this event to General Jorge Argelio Samper Muarra, in charge of the Head of Border Guard Troops of the Ministry of the Interior since 2017, and to Colonel Jorge Luis Navarro Nolasco, head of the Northwest Detachment of the same police force, both previously on the list of repressors.

The two are guilty by the positions they occupy, “for several acts of violence by the troops under their command against Cuban balseros [rafters] on rustic boats, endangering their lives or causing them injuries and even death.”

The story also confirms that this is just another crime against humanity perpetrated in cold blood in the solitude of the sea by the communist regime,” argues the FDHC, which mentions several similar tragedies, such as the bombing of civilians aboard the XX Aniversario boat on the Canímar River, in July 1980; the sinking of the 13 de Marzo tugboat on July 13, 1994, which resulted in 37 dead, including 10 children, and the death of William Padrón Maza, from Avila, on March 1 of this year, from serious injuries received after being rammed by the Cuban Border Guard Troops 11 miles from Cayo Coco, when he was in a speedboat that was stranded.

In its document, the NGO reports that “eye-witness accounts by dozens of survivors attest to the fact that the border guards systematically attack them in the boats that carry men, women and children in their attempt to escape from hell.” It’s a “cruel method of preventing irregular exits by sea,” says the FDHC, which is being carried out “especially now, when the regime doesn’t want anyone leaving that way.”

That was the reason, the NGO concludes, for the “brutal repression” at the end of August in the Artemiseño hamlet of El Cepem, where several residents were prevented from going to sea on rustic boats: “They lie when they blame the Cuban Adjustment Law, when they know that those who are intercepted at sea are repatriated.”

Translator’s note: As of the date of this translation, the number has continued to rise.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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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.