14ymedio – Page 181 – Translating Cuba

A Documentary Rescues the Writer Lezama Lima from the Clutches of the Cuban Regime

The film collects the vision of 28 ‘witnesses’ about the writer. (Ivan Canas)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 21 August 2022 — In order to “stir up the anthill,” on the 45th anniversary of the death of Cuban writer José Lezama Lima (1910-1976), last Sunday the filmmaker Ernesto Fundora, at the Rosario Castellanos Bookstore of the Fund for Economic Culture, in Mexico City, screened his documentary “Lezama Lima: Soltar la Lengua” [Lezama Lima: Loosen the Tongue].

The film assembles fragments of interviews with friends and disciples of Lezama, collected by Fundora between 2009 and 2015, and finally edited in 2018. Despite the fact that the post-production of the documentary is modest and that there are excessive and almost primitive visual effects, his mind does a wonderful job in remembering the formidable author of Paradiso.

Except for images of his participation in a couple of congresses and around hundreds of photographs, very little visual material on Lezama is preserved. Hence the difficulty that we get the sense that Lezama is being offered to us as something more than a voice and a presence among books. However, Fundora succeeds in having those who knew the author evoke a Lezama who is vital, convincing, and nearby.

Just when he had published one of the essential novels of the Spanish language and was getting recognition outside Cuba, death came to him

Some of the testimonies, such as those of Cintio Vitier, Fina García Marruz, César López and Antón Arrufat, shared the friendship of the Cuban teacher since the beginning and middle of the century; in others, such as those of Manuel Pereira, José Prats Sariol, Enrico Mario Santí, Froilán Escobar and Félix Guerra, his influence and teaching during his youth was essential.

For the devotees of the “Lezama Cult,” the writer is still awaiting continue reading

recognition. The 1959 cultural bureaucracy kept him in the crosshairs as “republican junk” until, after the so-called 1971 Padilla Case, he was banished from editorial and public spaces.

Just when he had published one of the essential novels of the Spanish language and was getting recognition outside Cuba, death came to him without the expected “restoration” and in almost absolute solitude.

Several young writers who accompanied him in his last days, such as Prats Sariol and Reinaldo González, recall their sadness at the empty house and the abandonment of his friends, whom State Security “recommended” not to frequent 162 Trocadero Street. He died on August 9, 1976.

During the Special Period, the movies Fresa y Chocolate and Lista de Espera recovered the Lezamian cultural imprint and were, in a way, promoters of the “liberation” of the taboo. Young people avidly sought dramas that were not only disturbing and difficult, but also marked by exclusion, such as the books by Severo Sarduy, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and Lydia Cabrera.

The truth however, is that bureaucrats have done everything possible to bury the ‘Lezamian’ work, cancel its study and constantly define it as “hermetically sealed”

The regime and its cultural machinery then began a meticulous work of biographical rewriting, in which old colleagues such as Vitier took part, presenting Lezama as an author “of the Revolution,” an admirer of Castro and Guevara as “messiahs” of a new “imaginary era,” Latin American, according to the paradigm of Casa de las Américas, and a writer who “some officials” did not “correctly” understand.

The truth is, however, that the bureaucrats have done everything possible to bury Lezama’s work, cancel its study and constantly define it as “hermetic,” “intricate,” “incomprehensible” and “elitist.” The celebration of his centenary was mediocre and there is still no center of study named after him. His scattered and poorly organized library is inaccessible to scholars, and no Cuban publishing house has issued critical or annotated editions of Paradiso, La Cantidad Hechizada, or any of his major books.

Hence, Lezama Lima: Soltar la Lengua acquires an exceptional value as rescue and recollection. Exceptional are the last frames, which offer information and clarity about the ostracism, the false promises of rehabilitation with which the Communist Party deceived him, and the unusual conditions in which he agonized and died.

As Fundora himself states, almost half of the 28 individuals who rendered testimonies of him have died, so the film, enriched by photographs and fragments of poems, recollects the final vision of many of them about the writer.

In addition, the documentary works as an excellent initiation for those who have not read the work of José Lezama Lima and deny, through authorized voices, each of the myths with which the regime has tried to appropriate one of the greats of Cuban culture.

Translated by Norma Whiting

____________

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.

A Blackout Frustrates Dozens of Customers in a Foreign Currency Store in Havana

Supermarket at 3rd and 70th, in Miramar, Havana, during a blackout. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 29 August 2022 — Scheduled power cuts don’t bypass even profitable businesses. This Monday, it happened in the 3rd and 70th Shopping Center, in Miramar, Havana, three times. After the power went out the first time, the center turned on a generator, but it quickly stopped working. The second time, they used another generator, which also went out quickly. The third time the blackout arrived, there was no auxiliary equipment to turn on, and the store was completely in the dark.

The explanations of the employees didn’t alleviate the displeasure of the customers. “With all the dollars they extort from people here, you’d think they’d have power,” a woman protested aloud. Meanwhile, workers shouted to the customers to go to the cash registers next to the windows, where there would be natural light.

“You can’t record here, please, you damage the image of the shop,” a cashier told a young man who took out his cell phone to photograph the corridors in the dark. “Same with the image here; it’s not very good,” the boy replied.

The 3rd and 70th supermarket is one of the largest in the city that sells its products in foreign currency. It was also one of the first stores to be dollarized when there was economic flexibility in the 90s, and nearby is an abundance of embassies, the houses of diplomats and the homes of more affluent families, so it’s considered a business with a somewhat exclusive clientele.

But not even this location and the uniqueness of its consumers has saved the place from shortages, fights in the lines and the deterioration of its facility. To prevent the semi-empty shelves from being seen, the Center’s administration places the same product repeatedly, a very common practice in Cuban state stores. This Monday, the sequence of cans of the same vegetable or the row of mustard bottles tried to hide the reality that even these markets don’t have a great variety of goods. continue reading

The butcher’s area was the one that showed the least number of options. If it weren’t for the products of private businesses, the refrigerators of the place would have been practically deserted, devoid of dairy products, frozen food or the long-awaited boxes of chicken quarters and breasts, which are so in demand in a country where no one knows when they’ll come across certain foods again.

This Monday, at one point and to the chagrin of the buyers, the employees sent everyone out. Just when almost everyone had left, the current came back, and people began a stampede. “The light came back, the light came back!”

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

A New Fault Delays the Promise of Diaz-Canel and Raul Castro About the End of the Blackouts

“The fact that Raúl Castro shows his face can mean a warning for those foreign investors who are looking for memories with the Castros for their offices in Madrid or Paris.” (Revolution Studios)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 August 2022 — The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, in Matanzas, left the National Electric System this Tuesday, according to the Cuban Electric Union (UNE), “due to losses of turbine parameters (empty).” Although the state company then assured that “work will be done immediately on the solution to the leak in the boiler that had already been detected previously,” the news, in any case, further casts a shadow over the announcement made by President Miguel Díaz-Canel this Monday: that the blackouts will end in December.

That date would look promising if it were not for the fact that the same man stated last May that the energy situation would improve before the start of June, while just last week, on State TV’s Roundtable program, industry officials warned that the “complexity” would last at least a year.

Together with Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro went for a walk through the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant, in Felton, in Mayarí. The general stood to the right of his successor during the tour of the Holguin center as a more-than-necessary support-cane for the leader.

“Felton 1 decides today the course of the recovery strategy, and its start-up is vital for the fulfillment of the outlined objectives, first, to minimize or eliminate blackouts by next December,” Díaz-Canel said. continue reading

Edier Guzmán Pacheco, director of thermal generation of the Electric Union (UNE) explained that since the beginning of August, a program is being carried out that should solve the problems of the plant this summer, with a view to starting the production and startup of the unit “very soon.”

To this end, technical modifications have been made to the machinery and the auxiliary systems, in addition to tests that guarantee “the stability, reliability and efficiency of the equipment.”

Felton, the Holguin energy colossus, with the capacity to supply about 500 MW, had a breakdown in the boiler of unit 1 at the end of July that caused its exit from the National Electrical System, while unit 2 has been disabled since it suffered a major fire at the beginning of the same month.

The machinery of the first unit, which is being repaired, must reach, according to the director of the plant, Euclides Rodríguez Mejías, 260 MW. “It would be a positive injection and would significantly reduce the effects on the population,” he said.

“We’re going to have the support we need in Felton,” Rodríguez told the official press. “It’s a commitment, but Felton is ready to take it on.”

With regard to block 2, the project manager, Eric Milanés Quinzán, said that its structure has been dismantled by 8%, and work will be done on the reconstruction of the boiler and maintenance of the high-medium cylinder of the turbine, as well as the incorporation of various equipment.

Díaz-Canel, who had also visited the Santiago de Cuba power plant, explained that the task is not only focused on quickly repairing the failures to overcome the power cuts of up to 12 and 14 hours, which has pushed citizens to their limits, but also about stabilizing the system with investments that will arrive in 2023 and change the electro-energy matrix.

These investments and their acquisition are, in the opinion of the Cuban economist living in Spain, Elías Amor, one of the possible reasons that led Raúl Castro to place himself yesterday, at the age of 90, next to his dauphin. “That Raúl Castro shows his face can be a warning for those foreign investors who scan their memories with the Castros from their offices in Madrid or Paris,” says the expert, who warns of Díaz-Canel’s low media attractiveness for businessmen who “in their youth had communist ideas and now, at the head of large corporations, feel a sickly attraction to the Cuban regime.”

And the economist considers that there is another important reason: to express the Army’s support for the head of state and, therefore, the risks faced by citizens who protest the blackouts.

“Díaz-Canel will feel calmer having obtained the explicit support of Raúl Castro, so any maneuver to relieve him of the post has been put on hold until further notice,” he adds. “The Cuban communists thus lose political initiative, if they ever had it, and instead of concentrating on changing things and preparing a viable future for Cuba, they concentrate on technical programs to solve the failures that took the different units of the power plants out of service, so they don’t raise their heads. Order and discipline, Raúl Castro’s eternal song.”

Meanwhile, the population remains desperate, and this Monday the week began with a deficit of 36%, with a generation of 2,280 MW for a maximum demand of 3,100 MW. The UNE predicted that up to 890 MW would be missing during the highest consumption period.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Castroism Stole the Cuban Rum Industry and Now Seeks to Appropriate the Figurehead of the Bacardi Family

Members of the Communist Party of Cuba paying homage to Bacardi at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, in Santiago de Cuba. (Juventud Rebelde)

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 29 August 2022 — The imposing funerary pyramid of Emilio Bacardí Moreau, who died on 28 August 1922, is not far from the mortuary stone of Fidel Castro, the man who dismantled the rum distillery and the cultural legacy of the Bacardí family.

One hundred years after the death of the patriot, historian and philanthropist from Santiago, the same regime that expropriated the Bacardí distilleries and buildings intends to pay tribute to the first Republican mayor of Santiago de Cuba.

Tributes and biographical notes in the official newspapers now present Bacardí as a kind of politician precursor of the revolutionary practices of 1959. He is credited with a rabid anti-imperialism, and his business and political acumen is minimized. The issue of rum is taboo, and they almost classify him as a feminist for asking the widows of the mambises to fill positions in the town hall.

Bacardí will attain everything the Cuban regime needs, including a “little war of memory” against the heirs and directors of the company, who are currently based in Bermuda.

However, investigating and quoting Bacardí means playing with fire, because not all those who have contributed to the tribute have expressed themselves in politically “desirable” terms. continue reading

Some texts recover the sappy language of the social chronicle of the Republic, in addition to making use of terms such as patrician, eminent and patriarch, inconceivable in the official organs of the Communist Party.

Censorship confronts journalists with a curious dilemma: they must reconstruct the history of Cuban rum manufactured by Bacardí, talk about it as if it were still being distilled on the Island and suspend any reference after 1960.

“If Cuban rum is the best on the planet,” Cubadebate reasons, “in Cuba the best is that of Santiago de Cuba, the one initiated by Facundo and bequeathed by Don Emilio Bacardí Moreau,” the official government site says, without mentioning the expropriations after the triumph of the Revolution or talking about “trademarks.”

In commemorating his death, Bohemia magazine repeats that the initial tomb of the patriot was “humble to the point of surprise” — the phrase is by Fernando Portuondo — but they forget to talk about the sumptuous mausoleum of a millionaire that was later dedicated to him, described as just a “symbolic pyramid structure.”

The “main course” of the tributes was the presentation, once again, of the two volumes of Emilio Bacardí Moreau: on Passionate Cuban Humanism, published in 2018 by the historian Olga Portuondo, a controversial biography of the patriot whose distribution and sale was delayed, until it was almost impossible to find in bookstores.

Successfully, but serving the official appropriation of “uncomfortable” figures, Portuondo introduces the work of Bacardí as the founder of the oldest Cuban museum, as well as the author of the monumental collection Chronicles of Santiago de Cuba and other books, fictional and historical, of smaller scope. He is presented as an intellectual and mambí conspirator, rather than a politician or entrepreneur.

During the commemorations, there was no shortage of those who remembered quietly the “prophetic coconut tree” of Facundo Bacardí. Facundo, father of the Bacardi clan, was the man who, in 1862, coined the symbol of the bat to identify his new technique for distilling rum. In the vicinity of the factory he planted a palm tree that survived earthquakes, wars, fires, independence and flag changes.

“The company will live in Cuba as long as the coconut tree,” the legend said. On October 14, 1960, on the eve of the centenary of the company, the coconut tree just dried up, and Fidel Castro expropriated Bacardi’s premises without compensation.

The family members went into exile, with the “secret recipe” of rum, honey and yeast strains. Several international legal proceedings have been brought against the Cuban government, but none have been successful.

To this day, the most emblematic brand of Cuban rum continues its production in the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Italy and the Bahamas, but not on the Island.

This Sunday, numerous officials, Party leaders and historians aligned with the regime, and some workers of the Provincial Heritage Center, concluded the tribute in front of the mausoleum of the patriot in the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia.

Whipped by the sun of eastern Cuba, and after anachronistic speeches by the members of the Central Committee, none of the attendees were able to toast to the memory of Don Emilio with a drink of Bacardi rum.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

From Jail, Rapper Maykel ‘Osorbo’ Suggests He is Willing to Leave Cuba

Rapper Maykel Osorbo “began to get scared” when “his lymph nodes swelled” in prison, says Anamely Ramos. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 August 2022 — “If a door were opened for me right now, where I could go into exile, brother, I’d go, do you understand?” The words of Maykel Castillo Osorbo, in a telephone conversation from prison with Armando Labrador, owner of the Cántalo TV YouTube channel, suggest that the artist is willing to leave Cuba in exchange for his release.

The audio, shared Monday on that channel, by Esteban Rodríguez, who was accompanied on this occasion by other activists in exile: art curators Anamely Ramos and Carolina Barrero, actress Iris Ruiz and protest rapper Eliexer Márquez El Funky, co-author of Patria y Vida with Osorbo, Gente de Zona, Yotuel Romero and Descemer Bueno.

The plan to get Osorbo out of prison – where he is serving a nine-year sentence for contempt, assault, public disorder and “defamation of institutions and organizations, heroes and martyrs” – is part of a “very long process,” in the words of Anamely Ramos, one of the people closest to the artist.

It started when he became sick in prison and they began to fear for his life. Distrusting the medical tests carried out in prison and facing the uncertainty of a lack of diagnosis, Ramos said on Cántalo TV, that “it was evident that something had to be done to save Maykel’s life, because we don’t even know what he has.” continue reading

The curator stated to this newspaper that, although he had not said so publicly, when his lymph nodes began to swell the musician confessed that he would leave if he had “the opportunity”

The curator stated to this newspaper that, although he had not said so publicly, when his lymph nodes began to swell the musician confessed that he would leave if he had “the opportunity.”.”That’s when Maykel started to get scared,” she says. “Until that point, Maykel had kept telling me that even if they blackmailed him, he was not going to leave Cuba, that he preferred to be in prison.”

It is the same position that Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), maintains until now. He was sentenced in the same case as Osorbo, to five years in prison, for disrespect against the nation’s symbols, contempt and public disorder.

Alcántara has denounced on numerous occasions that State Security, as it has done to other opponents, such as artist Hamlet Lavastida, is trying to blackmail him with the prison-for-exile ‘card’; however, in his case, he has made it clear for now that “he will not under any circumstances accept exile as an option.”

In addition, he recently denounced via MSI (the San Isidro Movement) that blackmail involved Osorbo: if Alcántara did not accept a forced exile agreement, the rapper would also not be able to leave Cuba to be treated for his health problem.

Both activists refused to appeal their convictions last July. In the case of Osorbo, he declared through his friends that “he will no longer lend himself to that circus,” referring to the trial to which they were subjected.

Despite Maykel Osorbo having already expressed his desire out loud, Anamely Ramos states that, in any case, his release depends on the regime. After alluding, without details, to “steps being taken in different countries,” she said, “Whether those steps will give rise to results or not, we don’t know, because Maykel is in prison in Cuba, sentenced in Cuba. Ultimately, only State Security knows whether they are going to let Maykel out or not.”

Translated by Silvia Suárez

____________

With the New Cuban Data Protection Law, State Security Will Go Unpunished

Among the rights that, according to the text, should be guaranteed is the protection of identity, immigration status and political affiliation, among others. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 August 2022 — With the publication this Friday of Law 149 on the Protection of Personal Data, which will enter into force in February 2023, a set of rules is made official that aims to guarantee respect for “personal privacy.”

The appearance of a legal body that regulates the processing of private information, “by public and private individuals or entities,” is still controversial in a country like Cuba, where the State intervenes unscrupulously in conversations and personal databases, to manipulate them in its favor in legal processes or as a method of surveillance.

This new legislation, based on articles 40 and 48 of the Constitution of the Republic on “human dignity,” also addresses the existence of archives, information reservoirs and data storage on digital platforms, in addition to the “promotion” of a social culture of data protection.

Published this Friday by the Official Gazette, Law 149 was approved on May 14 by the National Assembly and will enter into force within 180 days. Among the rights that, according to the text, it should guarantee, is the protection of data related to image, voice, identity, religious beliefs, migratory status and political affiliation, as well as medical, judicial and administrative information.

Because the data is of a more sensitive nature, whoever requests it, whether people, companies or authorities, must clearly state the reason to the citizen, in addition to guaranteeing its security and confidentiality. The owner, in addition, must offer his express consent, “freely and unequivocally,” so that his data can be stored in any file, including government files. continue reading

“The person may not be obliged to provide sensitive personal data, nor is its processing lawful without the consent” of the owner, according to the legislation in its article 16.1, except “for reasons of general welfare, public order and the interest of defense and national security.”

As for the police and other authorities, Cubans have “the obligation to identify themselves” through their documents, but the authorities don’t have the right to demand “other data other than that reflected in those documents.”

Article 19, one of the most problematic for describing a common practice of some spaces and programs of the Cuban Information System, states that citizens “have the right not to disclose these [their data] and, consequently, to have respected their personal and family privacy, their personal honor and identity, their own image and voice.”

The use of videos, fragments of conversations, photographs, names and other sensitive data as part of the regime’s propaganda, exposed on national television by journalists such as Michel Torres and Humberto López, is a flagrant violation of a right that existed even before the drafting of this law.

In article 54, Law 149 adds that “the use of recordings of images and voices of people obtained from mobile phones, cameras, recorders and other similar devices, in no case can affect the rights protected in article 19.

This situation also contradicts the practices of the Ministry of the Interior and State Security, which have systematically used as legal evidence to hold trials after July 11, 2021, material from networks and personal devices.

Despite the fact that the articles of Law 149 are introduced as guarantees for citizens, it’s unlikely that they can be invoked against the Government during criminal proceedings. As has happened on other occasions, the National Assembly formulates laws as diplomatic tricks to cleanse the image of the regime vis-à-vis international organizations, but it gives them little real value.

The document is full of formulas that, if invoked by the defense of someone whose right to privacy has been violated, ensure the impunity of the State. The “public order and interest of defense and national security” will continue to be the regime’s alibi every time it needs to violate its own Law on the Protection of Personal Data.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

The Preparation of Cuban Lobster Destined for Export

Cuba was the fifth largest exporter of lobster in the world in 2020.(El Universal)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 August 2022 — The production of lobster destined for export is one of the few things that seems to be going strong in Cuba. In Niquero, a municipality of Granma Province, the plan for July of 44 tons was exceeded in just nine days, reaching 52 tons of the crustacean.

According to Jorge Rosa Acuña, plant manager of the company InduNiq, most of the success can be attributed to the implementation of new technology: a tunnel freezer and a plate freezer that have accelerated the capacity to store the lobster.

“Previously, it took us 24 hours to freeze a production; today we need only eight. The plate freezer allows us to carry out other productions on a par,” the official explains to the local newspaper La Demajagua.

In a context of constant blackouts and energy limitations for companies, the Government seems determined to maintain a meteoric march of the lobster industry, which in 2020 — the last year for which data are available — returned an income of 40.5 million dollars. The island was then the fifth largest exporter of the product worldwide, only behind Brazil, Nicaragua, the Bahamas and Honduras.

One of the company’s workers explained to the provincial newspaper that the processing of lobster is very delicate due to the demands on foreign sales. In Cuba, the product has practically disappeared from all markets. continue reading

“There are several indispensable requirements to meet the customer’s demands. Lobster is an export product that goes to the world market: Asia, Africa and Europe. So it includes review processes and quality control,” he said.

It is the second Cuban company in just three months to report its success in this area, one of the main ones along with rum, tobacco, nickel and shrimp. Last May, the La Coloma fishery in Pinar del Río presented in the official press its lobster hatchery project for export.

“It’s a project that, more than increasing the amount of product to be exported, raises the economic value of the company and is one more selection for customers that we will offer,” said Ray Leonar Sánchez Ramírez, director of the company.

The investment in the ponds, which keep the crustacean for up to 72 hours before it is moved abroad, is two million pesos, but it would allow the production of two tons of lobster per day.

The lobster catch season runs from the beginning of June to the end of January. After the end of the season, a closure period of at least four months is established to facilitate the recovery of the species before the start of the new season.

Cubans hadn’t seen lobster for ages, until after the protests of July 11, 2021 (known as ’11J’), the Government sent to the markets some products that hadn’t been seen for a long time, in order to appease the spirits of the population. Among them were the ground beef and the reputed crustacean, which cost 200 pesos without being of excellent quality.

In the most well-known gastronomic places in Havana, a Cuban lobster dish can easily exceed 700 pesos. This is the case of the state-owned Bodeguita del Medio, where 280 grams of lobster costs 705 Cuban pesos, as well as of the private bar-café Mercy, which serves it for 990.

On the black market, prices can be more affordable. In the case of fishing towns such as Batabanó or Caibarién, they can even be less than 100 pesos, but on average, lobster can be obtained for 400 pesos a pound on the “informal” market.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Cuban Parents are Distressed by the Outrageous Prices of School Supplies

In Cuba, even elementary school students don’t feel sure about the exams if they haven’t paid a tutor for several sessions beforehand. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 26 August 2022 — After two years of ups and downs, between the forced confinement of the pandemic and the economic crisis, the beginning of the school year in September is causing more than one scramble in Cuban homes. The return to school will take place in the midst of high inflation that increases the price of shoes to the snack that students need.

Parents wonder what this new beginning of teaching will be like with the long blackouts that hit the island, the shortage of flour that has sunk the production of bread, so necessary for school snacks, and the loss of value of the Cuban peso against foreign currency, in a country where only in stores that take payment in freely convertible currency can you buy shoes or a backpack.

Given the succulent slice they can get from the sale of school accessories, even several restaurants that sell their products through the Internet have added offers that have nothing to do with food. Backpacks for children at 60 dollars, snack bags, water bottles, pencils and erasers now alternate with their dishes of lasagna or fried rice.

“School supplies for girls,” reads one of these options, which for $120 include the backpack, a pair of notebooks and other tools needed in class. Home delivery in Havana can add about ten dollars more, but in the provinces it can be even more expensive. Having a family abroad that finances the purchase is essential in this case, because payment is made online with Visa or Mastercard.

Those who don’t have emigrated relatives must buy school supplies in Cuban pesos, at the exchange rate with the dollar that is currently in force in the market. Translated into the national currency, the price of a small backpack purchased in Panama can exceed 2,000 pesos, plus 300 for shipping to the house. continue reading

As for the school uniform, the nightmare is no less pressing. “I’ve been wearing this uniform since the tenth grade,” a student from Sancti Spíritus, who is about to start his last year of high school, tells 14ymedio.

“They give you high school uniforms, but no one thinks about the growth spurt at age 17. In the eleventh grade my mom had to ask for another pair or pants and depend on the officials to solve it,” he says.

He’s lucky that his mother is a seamstress, otherwise everything would get tight. “To top it all off, the polyester fabric is hot and fades easily,” he says. In the middle of the school year, the family had to buy a few meters of fabric that was very expensive to sew extra shirts and pants. “I have to take care of them,” the boy continues, “because when high school is over I have to donate them to a cousin of mine who is just starting out.”

No matter what grade he’s in, his municipality or the family’s condition, the student will always have hand-me-downs in need of repair from their use by many generations, with books full of Soviet anecdotes, anachronistic for today’s Cuban student.

“My books always have to be passed down,’” says the young man, showing the texts marked with a pen, drawn on the back and the covers or unbound. “Pencils and notebooks are another story: before you could go to Artex, and get a pencil and a couple of notebooks, but now there isn’t even that.”

The return to school will take place in the midst of high inflation that increases prices from shoes to the snack that students need. (14ymedio)

The shops of the Artex group used to market stationery, backpacks and other school supplies. But with the extinction of the Cuban convertible peso and the dollarization of the economy, the family can invest very little money in materials that Artex no longer even offers, as it is now almost entirely dedicated to the sale of tobacco and handicrafts at outrageous prices.

“Books almost never arrive; notebooks, which are of very bad paper, always come in the second or third week, hopefully. And it’s better not to mention the pencils with horrible graphite” says the student interviewed by this newspaper.

The young man has been wearing the same backpack since junior high school; the shoes are sent to him by a family member from the United States and the rest, such as socks and underwear, had to be bought in the informal market.

After two years of zero, or hasty and mediocre activity, the logistical aspect is just one side of the problem. Even primary school students don’t feel sure about the exams if they haven’t paid a tutor for several sessions beforehand. In many cases, those who offer these support classes are the same people as the student’s teachers, who have found in these reviews of the coursework a financial complement to their squalid salaries.

Another issue is the food,” continues the young man. “When you live far from the school, you have to bring a snack, because the prices of snack vendors and the private restaurants are impossible to pay. Or you walk home, which, for example, can be over one mile from school.”

Despite these and other obstacles to learning, such as the terrible school furniture or the lack of hygiene in the bathrooms, triumphalist announcements about the beginning of the new school year proliferate in the official press.

“The material base of study is assured in both internal and semi-internal centers,” lies the newspaper Tribuna de La Habana, although it discreetly admits the deficit of 4,000 teachers in the capital’s classrooms, which will be covered “with various alternatives.”

“Completing the faculty and ensuring retention” are priorities of the new course at the Artemisa pedagogical school, says a local newspaper, although it doesn’t specify what measures will be taken to achieve that goal when there are only 77 places out of the 122 that should be filled.

In the continuous journeys through the provinces by the Minister of Education, Ana Elsa Velázquez, the directors of the sector formulate the same guarantees: the State has resolved all the weaknesses, everything has been repaired and the panorama is positive.

The domestic reality, the complaints of mothers on social networks and the external aspect of schools suggest the opposite. Those Cubans who expose the reality are harassed by State Security, as happened with Trilce Denis, a Havana mother who denounced in a direct transmission the difficulty of starting school in such precarious conditions.

“I want to know, on the 7th, when school starts, what snack is going to be given to the children,” Denis said, upset. “Today I decided that I’m not going to send my son,” she concluded.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Diaz-Canel Says Goodbye to Camilo Guevara, “Promoter of the Ideas of his Father,” ‘el Che’

Camilo Guevara March was Che’s third son and was 60 years old. (Latin Press)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 August 2022 — Despite his irrelevance in Cuban public life, it was the president himself who announced on Tuesday the death of Camilo Guevara March, one of the sons of Ernesto Che Guevara.

“With deep sorrow we say goodbye to Camilo, Che’s son and promoter of his ideas, as director of the Che Center, which retains part of his father’s extraordinary legacy,” wrote Miguel Díaz-Canel, who sent in his message “hugs to his mother, Aleida, his widow and daughters and to the entire Guevara March family.”

According to the Prensa Latina agency, Guevara March was “on a visit in Caracas” and died “as a result of a pulmonary thrombolism that resulted in a heart attack.”

Born in 1962, Camilo was the third son of Che, after his sister Hilda, the daughter of Che’s first wife, Hilda Gadea; and his sister Aleida, who was also the daughter of Camilo’s mother, Aleida March. Camilo also had a younger sister, Celia, and a younger brother Ernesto, the last two children of Che and Aleida March. continue reading

Despite being a “director of the center dedicated to the study and dissemination of the thought of the Heroic Guerrilla,” as described by Cubadebate in a brief statement, Camilo, like all the descendants of Che Guevara, has lived removed from power in Cuba. With his sister Aleida, of course, they were the most visible heirs. Both traveled around the world and participated in official events.

Few things were known about his private life, except that he had a relationship with Suylén Milanés, daughter of Pablo Milanés, who recently passed away, and had with her a daughter, Camila, dedicated to the world of music. He was a lawyer, although he did not practice his profession.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Many Cubans with Dengue Fever Hide at Home to Avoid a Bad Time at the Hospital

A family waits on their balcony minutes after their home is fumigated in Centro Habana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 22 August 2022 — The tiredness that María felt last Wednesday did not bode well, although, at first, she thought it had been the walk in the sun throughout Central Havana in search of bread. Later, her discomfort made her fear the worst of it, of which she had no doubts the next day, when she woke up with a fever of 101F: she had dengue fever.

The woman, however, refuses to have it confirmed by a doctor. “I take a lot of fluids, vitamins and paracetamol for the fever,” she tells this newspaper. “If you go to the doctor they don’t give you anything either.” María remembers that the last time she suffered from the disease, 12 years ago, when she was visiting relatives in the province, “they almost brought me to the police because I refused to go to the hospital.”

At that time, she points out, they hospitalized people to avoid contagion. Now, she ventures, alluding to his central Havana neighborhood, “this must be riddled with dengue, because today they were fumigating the streets early and they never do that here.”

“If all those who get sick went to the doctor, the official figures would be much higher, but a good part of the population is afraid of being admitted, and so people do not go,” the official press published this Monday, citing a patient from Pinar del Río.

In the same article, the director of the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology of that province, Andrés Villar, offers the figure of 1,457 outbreaks as a result of the Aedes aegypti mosquito in the Vueltabajo area alone. However, the State newspaper Granma does not go beyond describing the situation as a “complicated scenario.” continue reading

In Ciego de Ávila, the newspaper Invasor echoes that the infection rate in the provincial capital, of 0.43 –- compared to the permissible 0.05 -– “sets off the alarms.”

Yordanka Hernández Rodríguez, deputy director of Epidemiology at the Municipal Hygiene Unit, reported that last week, of 114 samples analyzed in Ciego de Ávila, 48 were positive.

The Ministry of Public Health, for its part, has not issued any alert or figures that encompass the entire country. The minister, José Ángel Portal Miranda, appealed to “individual and family self-responsibility” in the face of the spread of the virus.

The minister also warned that patients can progress to a serious condition “very precipitously” and are asked to go “immediately” to medical services “at the slightest sign of alarm that may appear, especially between the third and seventh day after the first symptoms, such as repeated vomiting, edema or swelling, severe abdominal pain, irritability, drowsiness and bleeding.

This Sunday, on the fourth day after her first symptoms, the fine rash characteristic of the disease appeared on María’s extremities. She no longer has a fever, but she prays that it does not turn into severe dengue, hemorrhagic fever, the only case in which she would go to a doctor: “If I go, I only help them with the statistics; they are not going to help me.”

____________

After Being Threatened by the Regime, Pastor Alain Toledano and Family Arrive in the US

Evangelical pastor Alain Toledano and his family upon arrival in the United States. (Outreach Aid to the Americas)

14ymedio, Havana, 26 July 2022 — Evangelical pastor Alain Toledano Valiente and his family arrived in the United States on Monday. The minister, according to the organization Outreach Aid to the Americas, was forced to leave the island under threats from the Cuban authorities: “Leave the country within 30 days or you and your family will face the consequences,” he was warned.

The family’s arrival in the United States was possible thanks to the intervention of the US Ambassador General for International Religious Freedom, Rashad Hussein, and the Department of State’s Office of Consular Affairs, which allowed the pastor “to obtain emergency parole,” which provided “a secure entry,” the organization said.

The Cuban government’s hate campaign against the cleric, according to Outreach Aid to the Americas, was carried out “simply for running an unregistered church and speaking tirelessly for the rights of other religious and church leaders.”

The leader of the Sendas de Justicia (Paths of Justice) network denounced in November that a man broke into his home, when his wife and daughter were alone, in an act of intimidation, given that the man tried to rip the door off.

During the recovery stage of the covid-19 pandemic, Toledano and his family suffered harassment from the regime on restoring religious services in their church. In August of last year, the leader of the Sendas de Justicia network was arrested at his home in continue reading

Santiago de Cuba, charged with “propagation of an epidemic.” The accusation was unfounded, since since the first week of June 2021 the Government had authorized the churches to resume their activities normally and moderately.

In September of that same year he was summoned to the Police Third Unit, again accused of spreading the virus. As the pastor told Radio and Television Martí : “They booked me like a complete bandit, like a complete criminal.”

The US Government through the #JailedForWhat campaign demanded the release of Alain Toledano, “detained for religious practices,” and questioned Cuba because “instead of promoting and protecting religious freedom,” the government on the island denied religious leaders the right to exercise their beliefs.

In 2016, Toledano suffered the unjust expropriation of land and the demolition of his church in Santiago de Cuba. Despite the fact that he met with the first secretary of the Communist Party in the province, Lázaro Expósito, to claim the goods confiscated by the police during the raid and demolition of the place of worship, the only thing that was returned to him were some discs and computer mice.

____________

Spanish Businesses Want Legal Security Before Investing in Cuba

Mango, on luxurious Manzana de Gómez in Havana, is one of the few Spanish clothing stores in Cuba. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 29 August 2022 — The discrete opening to foreign market investment announced by the Cuban government this month has piqued the interest of Spanish businesses, according to the economic daily Cinco Días.

On Monday, the Spanish daily published an article which mentioned that the businesses which market raw materials, food, equipment, machinery, replacement parts, inputs for the development of local industry or inputs for the development of renewable energy will benefit the most, according to Hermenegildo Altozano, a partner in the Bird&Bird law firm, which provides legal advice related to operating on the island.

The specialist warned, however, that it all depends on the weak point of investing in Cuba: legal security. “Cuban operators must comply fully and precisely with the commitments made to foreign operators and they must be assured that there will not be restrictions or conditions on foreign transfers in freely convertible currency,” he explained.

Ignacio Aparicio, an partner at Andersen’s Cuban Desk, another legal advising company specializing in Cuba, believes that the measures of the executive branch are pending additional details, but he considers them of interest to foreign business owners. “Participation of foreign investors had not been possible until now, which limited the posibility of international brands of various products entering the Cuban market. They always had to access these channels through third-party, state-owned companies, which made it difficult to correctly implement their marketing policies such as price setting, sale pricing, and protecting their brand,” he told Cinco Días.

According to that outlet, the companies with the most options are those that have already been exporting to Cuba, such as those that sell equipment, which in 2021 made up 37% of sales to the Island, valued at € 235 million in machinery, mechanical or electronic devices. continue reading

Food, especially preserved meat and fish, represented 19% (€ 117 million), and plastics 8% (€ 49 million).

But the information is also suggestive of a possible arrival of textile giant Inditex, which has a presence in every country in the world except on the Island. “Companies view it as good news due to their affinity for Cuba and the acceptance of these brands in that region of the world, but at the same time, have some reservations due to the uncertainty and the lack of legal security,” said Eduardo Zamácola, president of the National Association of Retail Fashion (Acotex).

The business owner, who through Acotex represents more than 800 companies, believes that if these obstacles can be overcome it will open up a business opportunity for Tendam (which owns Spanish Cortefiel, Springfield, Pedro del Hierro, Women’secret and Fifty); Mango, which had two stores in Havana though only one remains; and Inditex. The Spanish textile empire created by Amancio Ortega includes many popular brands, among which the most well-recognized is the original, Zara.

The article highlights the “successful” Spanish presence in Cuban tourism through hotel management. According to data from Icex (the Spanish government agency that promotes international investment), there are 100 hotel administration contracts on the Island of which 70 are with Spanish companies. Meliá and Iberostar, with 33 and 18 hotels, are among those with the largest numbers, although the activation of Title III and IV of the Helms-Burton law resulted in legal trouble for both of them, especially the first; the final legal decisions are pending.

Furthermore, Icex revealed that three Spanish groups, Globalia, Atlantic Group Investment and La Playa Golf and Resort, are developing large-scale real estate projects associated with golf courses: El Salado (Artemisa), Punta Colorada (Pinar del Río) and La Altura.

Foreigners will be able to invest in wholesale commerce through mixed enterprises, international economic association contracts, or through the creation of an affiliate in Cuba or a franchise that is 100% foreign-owned. In contrast, for retail, the only modality will be through a mixed enterprise.

This measure is intended to ease the scarcity of goods on the Island, which has worsened in the last year, but although investors are eyeing Cuba, the warnings are the same as usual and it all depends on the fine print in the norms.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez
____________

Cuban Doctors in Mexico Are a Cover for Political and Military Tasks

Pa rt of the 55 Cuban doctors who arrived in the Mexican state of Colima in the second week of August. (Facebook/Indira Vizcaíno)

14ymedio, Havana, August 25, 2022 — The president of the Prisoners Defenders Association, Javier Larrondo, said this Thursday during a conference, that “there are State Security agents” among the 641 Cuban doctors hired by Mexico. The conference, entitled “The military truth behind Cuban medical missions in Mexico,” was attended by several members of Mexican civil society and took place in the Casablanca Hotel in Mexico City.

Larrondo added that the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador “is allowing slavery on Mexican soil” and “financing” the Cuban regime. He also specified that, when the health workers entered the facilities of the Mexican Air Force, they were under less control than that usually executed by the military, unlike what happens with ordinary passengers.

In addition, “no one has seen the degrees of the Cuban doctors,” whose presence has already been evaluated by some analysts as a “risk to the security” of the State, Larrondo noted.

Another member of the conference, Beatriz Pagés, former deputy and director of Siempre magazine, pointed out that the mission of medical groups is “more political, more military and indoctrination than healthcare.”

She recalled that this procedure has been carried out by Cuba in other countries, and that it responds to “the advice of those who helped Hugo Chávez and now Nicolás Maduro to preserve themselves in power in Venezuela.” continue reading

By introducing the military with the support of Havana, López Obrador intends to “consolidate his autocratic project and have the presidency guaranteed in 2024,” Pagés said. The Mexican government is “increasingly approaching the most radical dictatorships in Latin America, where human rights are violated, journalists, priests and free-thinking women and men are imprisoned and it’s moving away from democracy,” the journalist warned.

Diplomat and politician Ricardo Pascoe, who served as Mexico’s ambassador to Cuba from 2000 to 2002, explained that the visit to the island of the Mexican president last May also had a military connotation. General Luis Cresencio Sandoval González, Secretary of National Defense, and José Rafael Ojeda, Secretary of the Navy, were traveling in the official delegation, with the task of “organizing political cadres, as in Venezuela.”

According to Pascoe, López Obrador’s government is financing a regime that replaces “the lack of economic development with slave labor.” The result is a strengthening of the “capacity for internal repression” of a regime that is extending as long as possible the “last days before its fall.”

Cuba learned this system of labor exploitation from North Korea, Pascoe explained. The Asian country “invented” an effective way to “rent its people to other countries. There are millions of North Korean slaves working in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and China.” With that money, Pyongyang “develops its nuclear weapons.”

Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos, S.A., a Cuban company internationally accused of human trafficking, agreed with Mexico to hire more than 600 doctors, for the monthly payment of $1,308,922.

For her part, the vice president of the European Parliament for Latin America, Dita Charanzová, explained that “80% of what is charged for the missions goes to the regime. It’s time for the people to know the truth and the other side of Cuban medical missions.”

During the conference, the testimony of a Cuban doctor who was in Mexico during the pandemic was disseminated. He revealed that upon their arrival in the country their passports are withdrawn. Seventeen colleagues escaped from his group, who left the hotels where the Mexican government hosted them. “Cuba doesn’t release the specialists for fear that they will leave,” said the man, who also said that the detachment sent by Cuba is composed of military and general practitioners “who work in primary care clinics.”

This data confirms the suspicion of Dolores González Meza, a union leader in the medical sector, who indicated last Sunday that Cuban doctors are not specialists and that they have limited themselves to offering “ambulatory care, prevention and health promotion.”

The doctor consulted by Prisoners Defenders also mentioned that, on his trip to Mexico, 123 Cuban health workers took a course of just five days on the treatment of COVID-19, when the duration on the Island itself is one year.

“We had a preparation with some Sabina ventilators that had nothing to do with those in Mexico, which also has advanced technology. Their technicians are at a higher level than Cubans,” the man said.

According to several reports written by the Cuban health workers themselves, they were limited during the pandemic to “making beds, taking vital signs, conducting surveys, and handing sponges to patients for bathing.” This contrasts with the triumphalism of the Cuban authorities, who even arrogantly managed to claim the decrease in mortality caused by the coronavirus in Mexico.

In addition to these speakers, Javier Nart, Vice President of the Delegation of the European Parliament for Central America, journalist and novelist Desirée Navarro and lawyer Emiliano Robles, were part of the press conference. Prisoners Defenders, a non-profit association based in Madrid, focuses on the defense of “human rights and pro-democratic defense through legal action.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Report Reveals ‘The Military Truth Behind the Cuban Medical Missions in Mexico

Image disseminated by the official press last July of Holguín “specialists” who will serve in Mexico. (Ahora)

14ymedio, Madrid, August 26, 2022 — The characteristics of the last Cuban medical brigade imported by Mexico, which began to arrive in the last week of July, offer no doubt about the spurious interests behind the facade of humanitarian collaboration with which they have been sold to public opinion.

“They are all military” and “none of the doctors are specialists” (they’re family doctors or general practitioners), says Prisoners Defenders (PD) in its detailed report, “The Military Truth Behind Cuban Medical Missions in Mexico,” presented this Thursday in the Mexican capital, about the more than 600 health workers hired by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to, supposedly, fill places that Mexican specialists don’t want due to “insecurity and remoteness.”

Some of those ‘soldiers’, according to the report and asserted by the director of PD, Javier Larrondo, at this Thursday’s press conference, are “from Cuban Intelligence or G2, now introduced into the country through military airports, without the authorities, except for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his closest team, being able to know this fact.”

The document dismantles what he calls “national fraud” on the part of the Mexican president: the solicitation to fill 13,765 places for medical specialists “in poor and high-risk areas of the country,” launched after complaints against previous contracted Cuban missions.

“The characteristics of the areas under contract, which concentrated most of the ’vacant’ places, don’t have the basic infrastructure and equipment for training, care and decent work for doctors, as presented by schools, associations and federations on June 1,” the report explains. “Therefore, the inevitable happened and what could undoubtedly be predicted by the Government: more than 60% of the positions became vacant.” continue reading

That is, the solicitation, in the opinion of the Madrid-based organization, was only an “excuse” for the hiring of Cuban doctors, who, despite what was advertised by the official propaganda, do not have any specialty.

Havana presents them as such, PD says, after passing courses of between three and five days, “without documentary evidence or any professional validation or accreditation in Mexico.”

The discrimination that Cubans pose against their Mexican counterparts, who, as described in the report, are required to practice as specialists, is also being denounced precisely by health personnel from the state of Colima, one of the areas where doctors on the Island have already arrived, along with Nayarit.

Prisoners Defenders also points out in its report the “political, civil and criminal responsibility” faced by López Obrador for knowing “perfectly the convictions for slavery and all the circumstances that affect this slavery and putting at risk the health of Mexican citizens, as well as the embezzlement that this farce of health services represents for the public coffers.”

Among them is the violation of several articles of the Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada “by promoting human trafficking and slavery on Mexican soil.” The consequences of this, the NGO says, “could be broad for the Government of the Republic and entail even more serious sanctions or consequences.”

The report includes an account of the health missions that have been sent to Mexican soil, since the first one, in April 2020, with the argument of helping to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. All of them were harshly questioned from the beginning by the medical profession, the Mexican media and opposition politicians.

On the hiring of the first contingents, PD details the specific amounts that the Mexican Administration paid to Havana: more than six million dollars from the government of Mexico City (where 585 health workers worked), two million dollars from the government of Veracruz (which hosted 174) and almost two million pesos (about 100,000 dollars) from the government of Quintana Roo (where seven health workers were sent). In addition to them, 40 doctors collaborated in Tabasco during those months.

Reports on the following brigades, largely sent to military hospital facilities, were vague. However, in recent years there have been not a few reports published in the local press revealing some details, such as, for example, that Cuban health workers, far from fighting COVID-19, limited themselves to “making beds” and “carrying out surveys” due to their lack of specialization.

In total, between April 6, 2020 and July 15, 2021, according to Prisoners Defenders, a total of 1,947 Cuban collaborators were sent to Mexico due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of these, 17 “deserted,” the organization reported.

For the more than 600 who will be reaching 15 Mexican states in the coming months, according to the legal agreement reviewed by Prisoners Defenders, the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) will give the Marketer of Cuban Medical Services up to 1,177,300 euros per month (more than 14 million euros per year). Payments will be made, the NGO continues, to an account of the Marketer, “by bank transfer to an account of the Government of Cuba.”

PD recalls, finally, in its investigation, all the instances that organizations have spoken out against internationalist missions, calling them forced labor, such as the Human Rights Foundation, Human Rights Watch, the US Department of State and the European Parliament.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Cuba: The Unfinished Dream

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 28 August 2022 — “It’s in the genes.” Javier Figueroa de Cárdenas is a relative of Miguel Figueroa, a brilliant 19^th century autonomist. Autonomism was a way of being patriotic in Cuba, especially since the “Pact of Zanjón,” which in 1878 put an end to the “Ten Years War,” until 1898, when the United States tipped the balance in favor of the Cuban insurrection.

Independentism

Autonomism was defeated by the independentism promoted by José Martí, but, as the most reliable historians recognize today, the best Cuban minds were autonomists: Rafael Montoro, Antonio Govín, José María Gálvez, Eduardo Dolz, Figueroa himself and a very long etcetera. Unfortunately, the experiment only lasted 20 years (from 1878 to 1898,) the same period that the “Liberal Autonomist Party” lasted, the first political entity that emerged in a totally independent Cuba.

Javier Figueroa is an excellent professional historian. I met him with Sylvia, his wife, in Puerto Rico, where he taught until he retired. He got his PhD from the University of Connecticut, and he has published a very remarkable book, with more than 700 pages and with almost 2000 footnotes, which he has called “The Unfinished Dream: A History of the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE). Cuba 1959-1966”.

The unfinished dream and the “Spanish pax”

Why is it called The Unfinished Dream? Because Cuba has not been liberated and democracy has not been restored, as Alberto Muller, Juan Manuel Salvat and Ernesto Fernández Travieso, the three founders of the DRE, proposed at the beginning of the adventure, in 1961. And why could they not achieve it? Somehow, this first review tries to address that issue. In fact, Cuba and all of Latin America pay to be far from the European fighting pit. They pay (and charge) for the Spanish isolation. The 19th century brought the destruction of the “Spanish pax.”

For several centuries Spain had kept her colonies on the sidelines of European crises, only bothered by the actions of pirates and corsairs. But Napoleon appeared in European history, invaded Spain and, after a moment of doubt, the Latin American peoples became independent, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico. (I know I am oversimplifying, but this is not the place to detail the hypothesis.)

Not all were costs, of course. There were some advantages. To the extent that Spain did not participate in the two world wars, with their enormous share of blood and destruction, but with the relative advantages of the two continue reading

post-war years, Latin America continued to be perceived as something different, despite the fact that language, religion, the layout of the streets, the division of powers and the rest of the symptoms pointed to Europe itself, led by Spain and Portugal, sticking its head out across the Atlantic.

Fidel Castro was a disciplined communist

Thus, on January 1, 1959, came the news that Fulgencio Batista, president and (not so) strong man of the country, had fled the island, leaving his army completely helpless. In the US embassy in Havana there was total confusion. Some accuse Fidel of being a communist. Others, of being, fundamentally, “fidelista.” There are even some (the fewest) who think that he is an “anti-communist democrat.”

A few weeks must pass to unravel the mystery. It happens in April 1959. But the outcome is not at all clear. Castro travels to the USA that spring. He has been invited by the press association. He announces that he will go as part of “Operation Truth” to contradict those who oppose the executions.

Dwight D. (‘Ike’) Eisenhower, as president, and Richard Nixon, as vice president, are in the White House. On April 19, Nixon invites Castro to visit him. Eisenhower is not available. He has some urgent golf games. The VP writes a short memo in which he characterizes Fidel as charismatic (which he is) and as “incredibly naïve” regarding communism (which he is not) or a “disciplined communist” with all its consequences (which he is.) But Nixon’s opinion was not taken seriously by Ike.

Until the beginning of next year. 1960, an election year in which, in the November elections, at the end of the year, Kennedy was preferred over Nixon. However, Eisenhower adopted a wrong strategy, perhaps due to misunderstanding of the Cuban drift that forged the presence of atomic weapons pointing at the United States from Cuba, just 90 miles away.

Let me be clear. Stalin had died on March 5, 1953. With him he had taken to the grave the notion that the Latin American peoples should wait for the American revolution to assault the “winter palace.” That was the talk of Earl Browder and of Browderism. Fidel Castro had shown that a communist revolution could be made a stone’s throw from the USA. Everything depended on what Moscow was willing to risk.

Khrushchev times

Those were the days of Khrushchev, who believed that the future would be communist. He thought that the USA was a giant “Potemkin village.” The first object had left Earth headed for outer space. It was Russian. The USSR was winning the space race. There were reasons to be confused.

In 1966 it wasn’t like that. But what could Eisenhower have done in the last year of his second term, in 1960? Perhaps, understand the danger of Fidel Castro, and admit that Latin America was one more region of the European side, facing the communist challenge, and act accordingly. That meant that he should openly engage his armies, and not uselessly try to hide behind the CIA, created at the beginning of the “Cold War,” in the late 1940s.

Only that this course of action contradicted the widespread prejudice that Latin America was not part of the same value system of the Western nations, subscribed to by Eisenhower, and Fidel Castro should not be taken seriously by his enemies. (It is said in Cuba, sotto voce, that on that first trip to the US, after the triumph of the revolution, a drunken Congressman, Republican or Democrat — in this case it makes absolutely no difference — stared at Fidel Castro, tried playfully to take his hands, and just said, “Oh, Fidel Castro, Cha-Cha-Cha!” The Maximum Leader, as he was called then, looked at him in astonishment.)

A book about Cuba from 1959 to 1966

It gave me great joy that the author gathered in one volume so many scattered friends and even the dead and executed: Virgilio Campanería, Manolo Salvat, Alberto Muller, Joaquín Pérez Rodríguez, José Basulto, Juanito de Armas, Emilio Martínez Venegas, Nicolás Pérez, Huber Matos, Rolando Cubelas, Miguelón García Armengol, Ramón Cernuda, Luis Fernández Rocha, Ignacio Uría, Pedro Subirats, José María de Lasa, Miguel Lasa, Pedro Roig, José Antonio González Lanuza, José Ignacio Rasco, Manuel Artime, Fernando García Chacón, and so many others that would make this chronicle a useless catalog of names.

It occurs to me that the same scruples that Muller, Salvat and Ernesto Fernández Travieso had in accepting the CIA aid were shared by all the groups and personalities that joined the fight in that first wave. To what extent was it honorable to accept financial aid from the CIA?

José Miró Cardona, engineer Manuel Ray and the People’s Revolutionary Movement (MRP), Manuel Artime at the head of the Revolutionary Recovery Movement (MRR), Tony Varona with his Revolutionary Rescue (RR), and all the organizations with their acronyms in tow had serious doubts about accepting the aid offered by the CIA. Perhaps they didn’t know that the collaboration between the USSR and Fidel Castro began as soon as the revolution began.

Angelito Martínez Riosola

Indeed, the party of Cuban communists, the PSP, took over State Security since the beginning of the revolution, and put a man trained by the KGB at its helm. On March 4, 1960, when Eisenhower became convinced of Fidel Castro’s communist drift, and asked the CIA to put together a response, it was already too late. That same day, Soviet General Francisco Ciutat de Miguel had arrived from Curaçao to take charge of the defense of the communist tyranny that had emerged in Cuba. On the Island he was called “Angelito Martínez Riosola” by direct appointment of Fidel Castro.

The CIA was not effective at all in fighting the KGB. It even almost lost in Guatemala in 1954. Despite this, they entrusted the same team to prepare a response plan. The infiltrations it made behind the Iron Curtain were all annihilated. It was, as they used to say in Cuba, “Monkey against lion and the monkey tied up.”

Salvat ended up selling books in Miami, Miró Cardona teaching law in Puerto Rico, Ray exercising his profession as a builder of cheap prefabricated houses. In short, the first batch settled for “the unfinished dream.” Downhearted, Santiago Álvarez told me that the Kennedys would have solved the issue, but I don’t know. They would have to use the US armies or wait for the inherent inability of the collectivist economy to produce goods and services, to cause certain changes that would wipe out the system. That’s what we’re waiting for.
____________

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: