The authorities have released a list with their names and photos. (Collage)
14ymedio, Havana, 18 August 2022 — On Thursday, and without giving details about the age and exact function of the 14 men who died on August 6 in the explosion of one of the tanks set on fire in Matanzas, the Cuban authorities identified the victims.
Faced with the silence of the Government since the accident occurred, family and friends identified some of the deceased on social networks and independent media. But only today has the official Cuban press released a list with their names and photos, but without their ages; at least four of them were recruits of active military service.
The young people going through military service, described as soldiers by the official newspaper Granma, are: Leo Alejandro Doval del Prado, Adriano Rodríguez and Fabián Naranjo Nuñez, from Matanzas, and Michel Rodríguez Román, from Mayabeque.
Leo Alejandro Doval del Prado, 19, had been presumed dead by his aunt Yunia Doval and other relatives. “I don’t love you as a hero, my boy, I prefer you as a coward!” Doval wrote on Facebook. “I have always admired your values, and we, your family, know that you are not one of those who run, without imagining that today I would prefer you to have fled. I would feel the same pride if you came home now saying that suddenly you became cowardly, rebellious, defiant and got off the fire truck, because in the end, you would not be one of them.” continue reading
Days ago, official journalists mentioned Michel Rodríguez Román, 20, among the deceased, but then deleted the information. Resident in the municipality of Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque, he was serving in Fire Command number 3 of Juan Gualberto Gómez airport in Varadero.
Another of the deceased is Fabián Naranjo Nuñez, initially also identified in his relatives’ posts on social networks. The young man, of unknown age, did his military service in the same fire command. “We don’t know anything about this boy. Please, if anyone sees him in any of the hospitals, let us know,” Yanelys Naranjo González wrote on Facebook.
The Cuban authorities concluded on Wednesday that it’s “impossible to identify absolutely” the bone remains found in the fire area. Jorge González Pérez, president of the Cuban Society of Forensic Medicine, pointed out that — despite the fact that they cannot undergo a DNA test due to the degree of calcination — they believe that the fragments correspond to the 14 missing people.
In this group there are also Pablo Ángel López Martell, Rolando Oviedo Sosa, Osley Marrante Guerra, Luis Ángel Álvarez Leyva, Andy Michel Ramos, Osmany Blasco Sosa, Raciel Martínez Navarro, Diosdel Nazco, Areskys Quintero and Luis Raúl Aguilar Zamora.
González Pérez said that it’s also impossible to know if each of the 14 groups of bone remains belong to each of the 14 missing separately.
In addition to these victims, two deaths had already been reported, firefighters Juan Carlos Santana Garrido, 60, and Elier Correa, 24 years old.
The last report of the Ministry of Public Health on the accident records, in addition to the deaths, 130 injured people, of which 18 are still hospitalized and 112 discharged.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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As happened in the Special Period, religion regains a kind of “anesthetic” status on the Island. (Yoruba Cultural Association)
14ymedio, Havana, Juan Izquierdo, 17 August 2022 — Like a young fortune teller or a sorcerer out of A Thousand and One Nights, in Omar’s memory are rites, spells, stories and words, mixed in ancient languages. Talkative, with toasted skin and wide-open eyes, he lives among books and sacred objects of the the Regla of Ocha.*
Omar has tried to understand Santeria from practice, respect and rationality. Devoid of fanaticism and open to dialogue, there are few people in Santa Clara — a city that’s a labyrinth of beliefs — with whom you can talk so seriously about the Afro-Cuban religious universe.
“Although I warn you,” he says, “that I will only talk about Ocha, because Palo Monte and abakuá, also of African origin, are two topics in which I have no life or book experience.”
In this conversation with Omar, I’m trying to learn why Cuban celebrities and politicians are so interested in Santeria and what the “state of health” of this religion is on the Island. It’s continually intriguing that there are pro-government factions and “independent” babalawos [high priests] who predict the government’s imminent fall.
Politics, religion, fear, honor among initiates, superstition, the usurpation of ritual elements by State Security to frighten dissidents… the list of topics would exhaust the serenity of a reasonable interlocutor. But Omar is patient, like an elderly sorcerer, and he begins to look for the causes of the problem.
“The Afro-Cuban religion is everywhere,” he says. “It penetrates jargon, gestures and imagination; it molds national beauty, and even gives shape to the worst in Cubans, in a process where many elements are replaced by others of disturbing origin.”
“The first sign of this ‘mess’,” Omar explains, “can be found in what someone called the baby boom of the babalawos in the eighties and nineties.” This boom occurred thanks to Miguel Febles (1910-1986), a santero who “reduced” the rigorous controls to be initiated into the religion. continue reading
The center of consecration of a babalawo is the “foundation,” an orisha or fetish on which the ceremony is performed. Before Febles, the number of foundations was very small, and to initiate a new babalawo the fetish had to be loaned or rented, often from one city to another.
“Febles relaxed the rigor for delivering the fetish,” says Omar, “in favor of the economic capacities of those who intended to receive it. That guaranteed an arithmetic growth in the number of consecrations.”
The babalawo had traditionally been formed according to criteria very similar to those of Freemasonry: he must be heterosexual, “wise,” a good son, father and husband, with availability to advance in the study of religion. But, after the reform of Febles, that ideal was blurred, and “people of a very diverse nature began to be consecrated, among whom were many foreigners, thugs, pimps and people from different professions.”
Santería, practiced in a more or less orthodox way by many Cubans, also faces the mass exodus experienced by the Island. (14ymedio)
The Special Period and the new millennium brought more changes to the Regla de Ocha: initiations became more expensive, a process of commodification began — monetary benefit rather than spiritual profit — and santeros immersed themselves in a kind of “success model.” Not to mention the “invention” of orishas to attract tourists who were looking for an “exotic” and Creole religion.
“In this new dynamic,” Omar laments, “people ask for three fundamental things: solving love problems with witchcraft or sorcery; spiritual cleansings to improve personal luck; and magical protection to deal with justice.”
He adds that “the hazardous living conditions faced by Cubans condition the search for security on the esoteric level, precisely because they want to control the chaos that is experienced daily through the intervention of magic.”
Omar refers, not without discomfort, to Cuban artists who have made Santería a kind of “seal.” “Luna Manzanares became iyawo [an initiate of Santeria] during Fidel Castro’s pharaonic funerals,” he says, “knowing that an iyawo is prohibited from participating in funeral activities or entering cemeteries.”
“Kimiko and Yordi made their most famous video, ElCampeon [TheChampion], dressed as iyawos, even though they knew that in their state it’s taboo to take photos or appear in a video. But these artists did nothing more than reproduce what Chacal and Yakarta had done at other times, and many others. Today the timberos celebrate with musical themes their access to the most misogynistic and exclusive cult of Ifá, according to the trend that Adalberto Álvarez began when he became a babalawo.”
Omar doesn’t speak of the “approach” of the leaders of the Communist Party to Santeria, considered as an “unofficial religion” by the Central Committee, nor about the “saints” attributed to Díaz-Canel and other government figures. “I had no idea that elements of the Ocha, such as animals, were used to threaten or scare dissidents. That amazes me!” he says, when asked about the dismembered birds in the doorways of several opposition houses.
“But don’t be fooled,” Omar warns, “the visibility of the practice has nothing to do with its good conservation.”
As happened in the Special Period, religion once again acquires a kind of “anesthetic” status on the island in the face of the difficulties of life. People pray, look for answers, trust the “beyond” and consult all kinds of divinatory mechanisms to know how much longer they have to “resist.”
On the other hand, the Government has made every effort to assimilate and organize, according to its parameters, the religious panorama of the island. Entities such as the Council of Churches of Cuba and the Yoruba Cultural Association have an agenda defined by State Security, according to a recent report by the organization Prisoners Defenders, based in Madrid.
Santería, practiced in a more or less orthodox way by many Cubans, faces not only the internal division and infiltration of the G2, but also the mass exodus that the island is experiencing. The response given by babalawos and their believers to this phenomenon and their rigor or flexibility in the new rites, celebrated beyond the Island border, will largely determine the survival of this religion, which has several centuries of antiquity and tradition in Cuba.
*Translator’s note: La Regla de Ocha combines the Yoruba religion, Catholicism and Espiritismo, which allows communication with ancestors through prayer. The saints of Regla de Ocha are called orishas.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The smoke from the four burning storage tanks, of the eight at the Supertanker Base. (Cubadebate)
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 12 August 2022 — Nearly a week after the fire started in the industrial zone of Matanzans, it is more than evident that the Cuban communists have been overwhelmed by this catastrophe, for which there was no organization, nor protocols, or anything like that.
The state-run communist press, attempting as always to appear in the best light, accused the free press, the objective press, social media, i.e. us, of not speaking of heroism and of harassing when there was uncertainty. They also accused us of using the terms “failed state” and “country in crisis.” Let’s see how unaccustomed to criticism the Cuban communists are. They prefer to die while killing, but something makes them think they must spin a fine web or the whole thing will collapse.
It would be good, now that the fire is under control, it they would investigate, with utmost transparency, responsibilities for what occurred, and purge those who are not up to the circumstances. It would be an exercise in credibility, transparency, and responsibility to the Cuban people, and the entire world.
In case this would happen again, we must determine whether the operation was carried out correctly, if the available resources were on par with the needs, the true reach of international aid, the people affected and the solutions to be taken; in short, to learn from experience so that if it were to happen again they won’t spend a week carrying out activities that were mostly failures.
This is the direction that Diaz-Canel’s revised discourse should take, before one of local communists in charge, audacious and bothersome, such as Sucely Morfa, steps in. It is a piece of advice for Díaz-Canel to tell the truth, rather than ’wandering the hills of Úbeda’*, and to take the bull by the horns or there will be a Sucely who will do it for him, in spite of the imposed hierarchy among communists.
And, take note that I’ve said Sucely Morfa and that it did not cross my mind that the role should be played by Prime Minister Marrero, Provincial Governor Sabines or Vice President Morales Ojeda. They are for other things. Díaz-Canel should watch the youth, divine treasure, because the conga that will replace him will emerge from there.
I know that in politics decisions must be made at two levels. In the short term, facing the gallery to appease the Tyrians and Trojans*, one must do what is necessary to avoid turmoil. In the medium term, investigate and purge those responsible, however painful. continue reading
Díaz-Canel’s discourse belongs entirely on the first level, like when he gave his support to the colleagues of several organizations, especially drivers, or appreciated the international air and naval cooperation. That discourse has reached its end, it no longer makes sense, and now we must begin to demand responsibilities if things, as all indications are, have not been handled well.
This agenda compromises Díaz-Canel, who at the same time must be wondering what he will do with the supertanker base and must lay a foundation for recovery without resting on his laurels.
And then, official data will not cease to surprise, day after day. The Minister of Public Health said that as of Thursday, 130 people had been injured and treated, including two firefighters who were admitted to the hospital the day before for mild intoxication due to smoke inhalation. Only one death, 24-year-old Elier Correa Aguilar, providing services in the Firefighter Corps, although he was from Granma province. Twenty-three patients remain hospitalized, two were re-admitted to the hospital for follow up. Four patients remain in critical condition, two critical and 17 serious. We must thank God the disaster didn’t cause more harm, which is why it is so important to investigate and find the missing.
It is also surprising that the Minister of Science, Technology and Environment continues to state, with satellite images and radar, that it is not possible to detect the cloud, as it has disbursed. This is perhaps the worst possible scenario, rather than calculating its toxicity and effect on air quality. The longer it takes, the worse it will be. And they will need to prove the impact not only on air, but also on rain, vegetation, the soil and grasslands, in the medium and long term. A disaster from every viewpoint.
With the fire out, for which we should all be glad, the time has come to carry out equally important work, before the applause and the doling of awards puts an end to what occurred in Matanzas. These are new times that are not related to the evils of revolutionary times. A final piece of advice for Díaz-Canel: beware of Sucely Morfa. It has begun.
Translated by: Silvia Suárez
*Translator’s note: ’Wandering the hills of Ubeda’ is a very common Spanish expression, from the 13th century, meaning going off on a tangent, losing the thread, failing to focus on what matters.
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Andy García Lorenzo was sentenced to four years in prison in a trial held on January 10 in Santa Clara. (Facebook/Roxana García Lorenzo)
14ymedio, Havana, 17 August 2022 — Andy García Lorenzo, one of the protesters imprisoned on July 11, 2021 in Santa Clara, “is in poor health and hasn’t received the medical care he needs,” his sister Roxana García Lorenzo reported on social networks. The young man is isolated in the infirmary of El Yabú, the labor camp where he is serving his sentence, on the outskirts of the municipal seat of Villa Clara.
“We don’t know if it’s something he ingested,” García Lorenzo clarified in a live broadcast. On August 13, Andy had “more than six consecutive episodes of vomiting and diarrhea in less than half an hour,” according to the family, after receiving a call from Andy on Wednesday.
After presenting these symptoms, the other inmates “began to yell at the guards to help him and they were ignored” for a half hour. The young man at that time was inside one of the dormitories, and only after two hours was he taken to a hospital.
“He said that his mouth twisted, his tongue went backwards, he was short of breath, and he didn’t have the strength to get up,” said García Lorenzo. “All this was not reported to the family; we just heard about it now, and it happened a few days ago.”
The political prisoner “hasn’t eaten for two days,” he told his family, “not because he is plantado*” on a hunger strike, but because “the diet he was given isn’t enough” to prevent him from getting sick again. “And we family members aren’t even allowed to bring the medicines or the food” he needs.
García Lorenzo also reported that his brother no longer has rehydration salts and has not been given medication in prison. “He was in the infirmary, and no one even asked him how he was doing. He was put in the ambulance by the inmates themselves,” since no prison worker helped him. continue reading
“Andy told me that it was the closest moment he has been to death, that it felt like he was really going to die, and even we didn’t know anything,” the young woman said.
García Lorenzo said that his brother “is innocent and shouldn’t be in prison. His life is in danger.” He also said that the young man “has a family that will stand up for him.”
What happens to Andy is going to have “a political cost,” he warned, “because we aren’t going to shut up.” He added that his family is tired of “so much misery, so much repression and so much mistreatment.”
Andy García Lorenzo, 24, was sentenced to four years in prison on January 10, along with 15 other protesters who took to the streets on July 11, 2021. The prosecutor proposed an initial sentence of seven years in prison for public disorder, contempt and assault.
Since he was arrested, his family has been one of the most active in the defense of the July 11 political prisoners and has repeatedly denounced the harassment they have suffered from State Security.
*Translator’s note: Plantados [literally ’planted’] are the “immovable” political prisoners who refuse to participate in rehabilitation programs of political education and manual labor. They are usually given the harshest punishments.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Specialists at the site of the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base. (Periodico Girón)
14ymedio, Havana, 17 August 2022 — Venezuela will once again invest in the Matanzas SupertankerBase, where half the fuel tanks were destroyed after the gigantic fire that lasted several days. Nicolás Maduro, reports PrensaLatina, announced on Sunday that he will support the reconstruction of the stricken facility and that he has already instructed the Ministry of Petroleum to do so.
In an act of commendation for the 43 firefighters and experts from the state-owned PDVSA sent to Cuba to mitigate the fire, the Venezuelan president reiterated his country’s solidarity with the Island, from which he has mainly received doctors and military training in exchange for oil since 1999.
“Cuba knows that it has our scientific, technical, engineering and worker support,” Maduro said in statements to the official Cuban press. “Contact the Cuban oil and energy authorities to begin the reconstruction design of the Supertanker Base in Matanzas,” he ordered.
Both Venezuela and Mexico sent dozens of flights with personnel and material aid to help stop the flames, which remained uncontrolled for five days, until the fuel from the tanks was consumed.
The Cuban authorities have focused on extolling that aid but still haven’t provided the list of the 14 people they continue to call “the disappeared.” Nor have they mentioned the environmental consequences or the total cost of the disaster, which began on August 5, due to a lightning strike according to the official version. continue reading
So far, the Government has recognized only two deaths: firefighters Juan Carlos Santana Garrido, 60, and Elier Correa, 24. Of the 132 injured in the fire, 18 are still hospitalized: four in critical condition, five serious, and nine, “under care.”
Although the industrial enclave of Matanzas where the Supertanker Base is located dates back to the 1980s, when it was built with money from the Soviet Union, the damaged tanks are very recent, from 2012, and were constructed with the economic and technical support of Venezuela.
In a 2020 publication, some specialists warned of the danger of storing fuel for more than two months, referring to the conditions in which the reserves stored by Petróleos de Venezuela are held, in tanks similar to those of the Matanzas Base.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Four years after Fidel turned to dust, his name lives on in a new dynasty. (EFE)
14ymedio, Yunior Garcia Aguilera, Madrid, August 16, 2022 — Does the Cuban revolution still exist? For some it ended at the exact moment Fidel Castro delared it to be Marxist. In the pages of Bohemia years earlier he had accused Fulgencio Batista of being the communists’ candidate in the 1940 election, of being photographed with Blas Roca and Lazaro Peña. Socialists writing for New York’s Daily Worker criticized the assault on the Moncada Barracks, characterizing it as a fool-hardy adventure, a provocation, a putsch. Even a far-left Chilean journalist claimed the events of July 26 had been organized by the CIA.
In his biography, History Will Absolve Me, Fidel makes no mention of Marxism. In interviews with journalist Herbert Matthews in the Sierra Maestra, he would deny that Marxist ideas played any role in his movement. And after taking power in 1959, he would again swear before the press and the entire world, in Spanish and in English, that he categorically rejected communism. To associate him with that ideology, he said, was “a smear campaign.”
But Eisenhower’s less-than-polite welcome during Castro’s visit to the United States would motivate Khrushchev to send an emissary. The revolution’s red shift was not borne of conviction, much less of popular demand. It was the result of a bruised ego. It was also the pragmatic solution of a street fighter. If he was going to take on the neighborhood bully, he had to join forces with another bully of the same weight and size as that of his enemy.
In December 1961 Fidel Castro not only betrayed all his democratic promises, he also killed off his “green as the palm trees” experiment, turning it into something else.
Thus began another revolution, one that aroused the sympathy of many leftist intellectuals, who saw in it the chance to cleanse socialism of its Stalinist stain. “It will be different in Cuba,” they claimed. Their enthusiasm would wane in 1968, however, when the bearded lover exposed his hairy chest. The Revolutionary Offensive to nationalize all of Cuba’s remaining small businesses was irrational and extremist. Censorship of poets was rampant. Che died disheveled and alone in a Bolivia that he neither knew nor cared about. Fidel supported Soviet tanks’ rolling into Prague. That year marked the end of another revolution: the romantic one. continue reading
A new constitution in 1976, a carbon copy of the bureaucratic Eastern European model, consolidated the state. Cuba had officially become a satellite, with the constitutional text itself serving as the marriage contract. The rhetoric and liturgy of the Leninist creed reached their climax in a country that, just a few years earlier, did not know how to say tovarisch (comrade) or spasiva (thank you).
Seemingly solidified, the regime managed to survive the 1980 Mariel crisis but would again be in mortal decline by the end of the decade. Perestroika and glasnost had supporters among the population but the nation’s leaders were not about to give up even a millimeter of their absolute control. The firing-squad execution of General Ochoa, a Hero of the Republic, along with three other officials sent a loud and clear warning. Not long after, General Abrahantes, a former interior minister and head of Fidel’s security detail, died in prison. As far as the Cuban public and the world at-large were concerned, it all had something to do with drugs. For reformist factions within the palace, it was an ultimatum.
So began the fifth life of a cat named Revolution. Like a feline on a hot tin roof, tired and bleary, it had to survive. People took to the streets for the first time to challenge the regime. They later took to the seas on anything that would float. After the economy hit bottom, strategists revived Bastista’s dream of filling the country with hotels. There was no miracle capable of multiplying the loaves and the fishes. Only the problems and the prostitutes multiplied.
A new feline life-cycle began when Castro took off his uniform and put on a suit to receive the pope. With Chavez, Evo, Correa and Kirchner in power, it was a new period of optimism: the Pink Tide. The cat thought it would live forever.
But death brought an end to that period too. Four years after Fidel turned to dust, his name lives on in that of a new dynasty. Except that New Man turned out to be just as clumsy as the Golem in Jorge Luis Borges’ poem. And today, lying in literal darkness, the cat counts out its days.
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La Playita 16 has never been a place that is well cared for by the authorities. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 16 August 2022 — “Don’t take off your shoes!” a mother yelled, this Monday morning, to her newly arrived son at Playita 16, a piece of coastline west of Havana that serves as consolation for those who cannot afford a trip to the white sands of Santa María del Mar or Boca Ciega, in the eastern part of the city. The precaution of keeping his shoes on is not only because of the sharp rocky stretch that appears before reaching the water, but also because of the garbage that fills the area, bottle tops, empty cans, paper and other waste.
An employee wipes a damp cloth over the counter of a coffee shop a few meters from the waves. There are barely a couple of customers in the place because, despite the heat, the high prices for beer and soft drinks scare away thirsty bathers. A young man asks the woman if the Comunales company — the public services provider — ever goes through the place to collect garbage. “Ah, I don’t know. This is my little piece and it’s clean,” she replies as she shrugs. Outside, the heap of varied packaging covers the ground, gleaming in the August sun.
La Playita 16 has never been a spot that is well cared for by the authorities. Rather, it is a vexing place where, in the ’70s, hippies, rockers and all kinds of people considered “uncomfortable” by the Cuban power structure and its desire to “parameterize” any hint of diversity, congregated. In that piece of coast in the municipality of Playa, the police were fattening themselves by issuing fines and taking away the long-haired youths. Also from there, innumerable and rustic boats departed during the 1994 Balseros [Rafters] Crisis.
Then, at the end of the last century, dollarization began to change the face of this coastline lacking sand and umbrellas. The appearance of several kiosks selling drinks and food attracted other visitors who alternated looking at the sunset with a cold drink or a slice of pizza. Perhaps from those years there are still some more gentrified bathers who parade their bathing suits, their colorful towels and their purebred dogs around the place, but they are few. Most of them have migrated from the beach or the country.
This Monday, almost at noon, despite the harshness of El Indio and his arrows, a drunk who spent the night on the concrete road continued to snore. Some children frolicked on the shore and a lady watched the horizon from under the protection of a huge hat. Around them, the torn bags, some tetrapack boxes that once contained juices or small doses of Planchao rum, and the empty bottles were also part of the scene.
A piece of cardboard flew from a nearby bench to land on one of the waste piles, right next to a couple with a baby stroller who were taking a photo with the little one’s red cheeks in the foreground, behind the already blue sea, and to the side was the motley mountain of debris.
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Ernesto Oliva Legra, the Cuban doctor murdered in Ecatepec, Mexico. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 15 August 2022 — Ernesto Oliva Legra, a 32-year-old Cuban doctor from Santiago de Cuba, was killed in Ecatepec, Mexico, in a shooting that occurred early Friday morning at the hospital where he worked. Along with him, two women were also shot.
The news, reported by several independent media, was released on social networks. Specifically, due to a Facebook post from Edgar Martínez Aguilar, who indicated that the deceased, who had arrived at the ISSEMYM Hospital in Ecatepec, was in that municipality in the State of Mexico, bordering the Mexican capital, known to be one of the most violent in the country. The condolences of his relatives also confirmed his death.
“My cousin left Cuba for Mexico, to be able to progress and looking so young, they have shot him,” Yarine Yoa Matos lamented on her Facebook wall. According to the El Chago news page, the young man from Santiago had been in Mexico for three years.
On Saturday, the local press was reported that the doctor had been “severely wounded” with a bullet in the head in an attack on the Maternal and Child Clinic in the Tierra Blanca neighborhood, and that a nurse named Abigail and a 60-year-old patient had also died. continue reading
Two armed subjects, details the note in El Sol de Toluca, arrived at the health center around 3:30 in the morning and asked “for a woman,” after which they began to shoot and hit the three victims.
The event coincides with the importating of 500 Cuban healthcare workers from the Island to Mexico, to remote areas of the country, such as the Mountain of Guerrero, which are not only extremely poor but where violence, as a result of the dispute between drug cartels, rages with impunity.
These doctors, a source from the Health Institute for Welfare (Insabi) explained to 14ymedio, will receive a salary similar to their Mexican counterparts, between 41,784 pesos (2,042 dollars) and 35,237 pesos (1,722 dollars) per month. With the usual opacity in these cases, the same source indicated that “it has not been established whether the money will be received by them or through the Government of Cuba,” and that “lodging and food will be covered by the municipal authorities [of the cities] where each hospital in which they will work is located.”
The Havana regime continues to bet on the export of medical services – its main source of income – to alleviate its diminished economy.
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Arrival of repressive forces to prevent the protest on the night of August 9 in La Esperanza, Cienfuegos. (Justice 11J/Captura)
14ymedio, Havana, August 17, 2022 — Cubans banged on pots and pans again on Tuesday night in protest against the long blackouts they are suffering. In San Antonio de los Baños, where the protests of July 11, 2021 began, the noise was heard in the neighborhoods of Hospital, El Palenque, La Punta and La Placita, among others.
“After ten hours without electricity, we were supposed to have power between eight and eleven at night, but our service was cut off again at about ten,” María de los Ángeles Alfonso, a resident of San Antonio, explains to 14ymedio. She joined the demonstration when she “heard the banging in the distance.”
“I went out with my daughter, and we started shouting to get the lights back on; we also shouted ’freedom’. A little later, some plainclothes police arrived on motorcycles and asked us to go home,” she explains.
The officials told the residents that they were “giving pleasure to the enemy and the empire,” but the warnings didn’t persuade them to go home and stop the cacerolazo.* “I told them that for me the enemy was the one who wouldn’t let me live a normal life,” says Alfonso.
Despite being threatened with consequences if they persisted, “no one went home, and they continued to bang,” Alfonso says. “We almost had another blackout in the early hours of the morning, and these are holy hours when they don’t cut off the electricity. So demanding works.”
Through social networks, the usual medium in these cases, some videos were published where you can hear, in complete darkness, the beating on metal. Reports also include a cacerolazo on Tuesday night in the Pekin neighborhood of Güira de Melena, the third protest in less than a week in this municipality of Artemis province.
To the cry of “Homeland and life!” dozens of residents in the city of Manzanillo, in the province of Granma, also took to the streets to protest continue reading
this Tuesday against the power outage. The demonstration forced the authorities to reinforce the police presence around the government headquarters, as reported on social networks by neighbors.
This demonstration joins the many that have occurred in recent days in several places on the island, such as Santa Clara, Bejucal, Holguín, Cienfuegos, Santiago de Cuba and Pinar del Río.
The legal platform, created to follow up on the hundreds of defendants after the demonstrations of July last year, has registered up to 59 protests on the island over power cuts since June 14.
Likewise, since they published their first report on the subject on August 4, as of this Tuesday, the organization counted 15 more protests.
“Despite the fact that the new events have been mostly peaceful (we have verified only one incident of property damage), we note the escalation of state violence,” they said in their text, which reports that there was “intervention by repressive forces to contain concentrations of people” on August 5 in Martí Park, and on August 9 in the La Esperanza neighborhood, both in the city of of Cienfuegos, and on the 8th in the Alcides Pino neighborhood in Holguín.
In La Esperanza, in addition, “people reported that they beat protesters and that a pregnant woman was arrested.”
They also warn that in San José de las Lajas (province of Mayabeque), where there were cacerolazos on August 1 and 12, agents from the Ministry of the Interior threatened the demonstrators with “years of prison.”
Justice 11J has had access to two judicial decrees imposing a precautionary measure for the crimes of public disorder and contempt issued by the Municipal Prosecutor’s Office of Palmira (Cienfuegos), which include information on 16 people, 12 with a measure of pretrial detention.
*Translator’s note: Cacerolazo is a word coined for demonstrations where people go out on the street, or from their doors, windows and balconies, and bang on “casseroles” (pots and pans) to protest.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Up to 130 Cuban pesos are paid per dollar outside the official banks. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 16 August 2022 — The price of the dollar continues to rise in Cuba’s informal market after the entry into force of the new foreign exchange rates decreed by the Government two weeks ago. There is no change in this trend after Monday’s announcement on State TV’s Roundtable show, of an alleged opening to foreign investment in trade under the control of the State.
Up to 130 pesos is paid per dollar outside the official banks, according to the independent media outlet El Toque in its daily chart. The euro has the same value in the informal market, and the freely convertible currency (MLC) reaches 134.5 pesos.
On August 3, the Government, desperate and in the midst of the worst economic crisis in the country’s history, announced the purchase of cash dollars at 120 pesos instead of 24, and as of August 9, Cubans can already withdraw national currency at ATMs with this exchange rate. Since Tuesday, one can also transfer funds through magnetic cards in MLC to accounts in pesos with the new exchange rate.
However, the rise in foreign exchange is dragging with it the prices of many products that are sold in the private market and also in the informal market in Cuban pesos (CUP). continue reading
“The bag of bread that I bought at 70 pesos last week already on Saturday cost me 90,” laments a neighbor of Los Sitios, in Central Havana. “The saleswoman says that they have to buy the euro to deposit it and then buy the flour in MLC, so now it costs them more.”
Goods such as soft drinks, juices and beer, which can only be purchased at the MLC rate to supply private businesses, are also increasing in price in private restaurants and cafes. The 12-oz. can of imported beer that was bought a couple of weeks ago at 200 pesos, is now around 250. Also the main dishes based on chicken, fish or seafood have increased their prices in the paladares, “private” restaurants.
For its part, the real estate market is increasingly expressing its prices in foreign currency, in the face of the instability of the peso. On classified sites, ads for homes for sale most often carry the amount in dollars, with the warning “to be paid in the United States.” Others clarify that “if you don’t have euros in hand, don’t even call.”
The best offer in the informal foreign exchange market contributes to further lowering the little enthusiasm that customers had to sell euros and dollars in bank branches. On Monday, an employee of the Metropolitan Bank located on the ground floor of the Ministry of Transport in Havana asked, on several occasions, while organizing the line in front of the office, “Is anyone here to sell foreign currency?” No one answered.
A few meters from that branch, a private cafeteria offered a more favorable exchange rate. “We accept payment in dollars, one at 130,’’ explained a young man to a couple of customers who wanted to pay with a ten-dollar bill. “We will give the change in pesos, of course,” the employee said. “Much better than at the Bank, where they are still asleep and haven’t raised the price.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The attempt to promote development in the country’s business to boost wholesale trade through foreign investment faces the same problem as always: what to trade. (Granma)
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Valencia (Spain), 16 August 2022 — No one was calmed by the appearance on State TV’s Roundtable show of Betsy Díaz Velázquez, Minister of Internal Trade, and Ana Teresita González Fraga, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade. The officials used their appearance to announce alleged changes in the role of foreign investment in domestic trade and thus try to solve the problems of shortages in the wholesale and retail trade that afflict Cubans.
Badly, things are going very badly in Cuba, such that there is a leap into the void like this. Nor do they believe most of the things they said, and thus they were unconvincing and with an argument bordering on the most absolute lack of credibility.
Why do we say this and not believe that these new measures will achieve the positive effects on the functioning of wholesale and retail trade, as well as foreign investment in Cuba?
For the same reason that the “63 measures” haven’t served to stimulate agricultural production. Once again, Cuban communists believe that the main problem of the economic model that governs the country can be fixed with ’sake of appearance’ patches, ignoring the structural reforms that must change, update and modernize it. Let them forget about it: a house is not built starting with the roof, but with solid and firm foundations. That’s what the two Castroite leaders didn’t talk about on state television.
Several aspects deserve attention, in addition to this superficial way of addressing a more structural problem. The measures announced are temporary, which makes it difficult to achieve any interrelationship between them, no matter how much the communist leaders say otherwise. In fact, they can only be seen independently and in isolation, and they arise in a global economic context that is by no means the most suitable to adopt for this type of problem.
The measures, in addition, seem to be made, preferably, for state enterprises; in particular, the elimination of the foreign exchange restrictions with which they operate. Has the regime already found a way out for the dollars it started buying on August 4 with the exchange rate instrument? This is bad, like killing flies with a cannon. continue reading
This circulation of foreign exchange from the private sector to State entities to overcome the problems of shortages in the domestic market of goods, highly demanded by the population and by non-state actors, is a reckless decision, which won’t achieve the objective, no matter how flexible customs procedures and operations become. The first thing that has to be guaranteed is a stable framework for these operations to actually be carried out, without the need for promotion by the State, and here we have one of the evils of the Cuban economy.
The communist leaders were cautious and recognized that “actions are insufficient to curb the complex economic situation, since shortages in the domestic market are maintained, and the expected impact on the development of wholesale trade hasn’t been achieved.” So, what is the point of straining the domestic economic scenario, more than it is, with measures in which no one has the slightest confidence? Who will assume responsibility when in a few months the new failure of these measures is seen?
The idea of transferring the alleged benefits derived from the participation of foreign investment in the development of trade in areas like the access to supply markets, attracting financing, equipment, administration methods or the use of innovative techniques for logistics management, should be based on a prior analysis of the intention of foreign investors to participate in this “business.”
They might be surprised, because it’s difficult for foreign capital to have any motivation to make this contribution. Will this objective be achieved through direct interference by the State? Let them say it, because then foreign investment will leave the country. It’s that simple.
The two ministers should know that the attempt to promote the development of business throughout the country to boost wholesale trade through foreign investment faces the same problem as always: what to trade, and what production of goods and services can be directed to these operations? In addition, doing it with joint ventures is no less complicated, since this entity is the least used by foreign capital in Cuba. Let them wonder why.
The idea that businesses with foreign investment are mainly destined for the sale of raw materials, inputs, equipment and other goods that boost national production, as well as the supply of some finished goods — for example: food, cleaning products or electricity installation systems with renewable energy sources — is part of that obsessive mania of Cuban communists to control and direct foreign capital, a model that hasn’t produced revenue since the adoption of Law 118.
That there are entities that can finance domestic producers who have the conditions to become suppliers, with a differentiated financial scheme applied to these entities, which guarantees the stability of the supply chain, including the authorization to make sales in freely convertible currency (MLC). This creates confusion between the different agents and lays the foundations for a principle of political discretion in decision-making. Not good.
It is also intended to authorize the modalities of foreign investment established in the country for the provision of goods and services, which have the conditions for this purpose, that can be sold in the wholesale trade segment, including forms of non-state management, non-governmental organizations, embassies, business representations and branches in Cuba. It’s a crazy decision, which has very little to do with economic rationality and which falls into this area of “every man for himself” and the Regime’s lack of credibility that we talked about at the beginning of this article. Imagine an embassy in Cuba selling sanitary napkins or toilet paper to small businesses.
Entangling trade with foreign investment through these measures “carries a very high responsibility so that they have the immediate result that the population expects,” Ms. Díaz Velázquez acknowledged.
On a theoretical level, the minister believes that sales in MLC will increase products available in pesos and, with this, it will be possible to counteract the increase in inflation and stabilize supply. The problem is that this cycle has been in operation for more than a year and has not yielded any results. So, what reasons are there to expect that it can be different now? None. The figures for the sector are the same. Nothing has changed and will not change, so any transformation is impossible.
Cuban trade, modern, competitive and efficient before 1959, has become a useless waste after 63 years of communist domination. It’s probably one of the most inoperative and unfair trading systems in the world, with an aging, underutilized and deteriorated infrastructure, and without incentives to improve supplies. There is a lot lost, because the communists eliminated intermediaries and commercial agents from the beginning. Recovering trade goes beyond putting patches on foreign investment.
The Regime’s obsession with prioritizing the State market and interfering in the businesses that may arise to boost national production, achieve productive chains and offer goods and services to the population, leads to the very disaster of measures that lack experience in other countries of the world. Far from unblocking operating conditions, this will make them more confusing by authorizing only certain foreign investments and prioritizing what has to be done based on political and discretionary decisions, the worst thing that can happen to an economy.
And in the midst of this national environment of widespread shortages suffered by Cubans, the leaders who participated in the Roundtable came up with the idea that it’s necessary to export however and as soon as possible. Export what? Apart from the fact that the State has a monopoly on foreign trade, which implies absolute control of this activity and the execution by State entities of export and import operations, which “has not been renounced nor will it be renounced,” as one of the communist leaders said, in case anyone had the slightest doubt, there are still “risks” from applying these measures, because of that obsessive mania of the Cuban communists with everything that has to do with economic freedoms.
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Editor’s note: This article was originally published on the Cubaeconomía blog and is reproduced with the permission of its author.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López in a file photograph. (EFE/Rayner Peña R)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Caracas, 16 August 2022 — The Minister of Defense of Venezuela, Vladimir Padrino, inaugurated on Monday the “Border Sniper” competition, which is part of the international military games organized by Russia, using the Caribbean country, for the first time, as one of its venues.
“We embrace all nations, their delegations, their representatives, who have come to Venezuela to compete in a good fight, within the framework of these international games,” said the military leader during the opening ceremony of the tournament in the state of Lara (west).
He said that, in addition to Venezuela, representatives of Russia, Burma, Belarus, Abkhazia, Uzbekistan, Bolivia, China, India, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Indonesia and Cuba will participate in the competition, countries where “imperialist aggression against the people is condemned daily.”
The minister explained that this is the seventh edition of these games, in which Venezuela has participated since 2015.
The Defense portfolio said that the competition, which will last until August 27, “gathers together the best snipers in the world,” and “only expert soldiers in the art and precision of shooting participate.” continue reading
The so-called “Army Games” in Venezuela will include, in addition to the sniper competition, spaces that can be visited by those interested, among which are shooting ranges, obstacle courses and exhibitions of weapons and exercises typical of military life.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered on Monday, at the opening of the “Armia-2022” forum on the outskirts of Moscow, to arm with modern equipment his allies in Latin America, Asia and Africa, countries that don’t submit to the dictates of the West.
Putin greeted the foreign delegations attending the largest military fair in Russia, including the Venezuelan one, headed by General Ricardo Ramos, Deputy Minister of Defense Education, who met with Alexandr Fomin, Russian Deputy Minister of Defense, who praised the “relations among allies” with Caracas.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Güira de Melena has been experiencing protests for several days, since, last Friday, neighbors in El Pulguero and the central Calle Real demonstrated against the blackouts. (Captura)
14ymedio, Havana, 16 August 2022 — The neighbors of the municipality of Güira de Melena, in Artemisa, banged pot and pans again on Monday night in protest over the power cuts that prevent them from sleeping.
In a video broadcast on social networks, as usually happens in these cases, a woman is heard saying: “Corea launched,” referring to the neighborhood that protested this time. She says that the video was filmed on August 15, 2022 at “9:15 pm.”
“We’re sick of these blackouts,” “Homeland and life,” “We can’t take it anymore,” she also shouts behind the camera.
“It was quite punctual,” Raudel Espinosa, a resident of Güira de Melena, tells 14ymedio, reporting that the entire area has been without internet access since that moment. When the pans rang out this Monday in Corea, the neighbors had already been “hours and hours without electricity,” on one especially hot night, she says.
“People are very upset, not only because of the heat but also because of dengue fever,” which thrives in this kind of neighborhood.
Güira de Melena has been experiencing protests for several days, since, last Friday, neighbors in El Pulguero and the central Calle Real demonstrated against the blackouts.
It wasn’t the only demonstration on Monday on the Island, which suffers from an unprecedented energy and economic crisis. In Trinidad (Sancti Spíritus), according to several Facebook users, protestors attacked a bank branch. “Someone broke the windows of the bank on Colón Street in Trinidad with a hammer and got inside,” Carlos Sibello wrote. continue reading
Other comments alluded to the fact that the young man who broke the glass was being treated in the hospital, since he was “all beaten and bloody.”
“Last Thursday night, patience reached its limits in Bejucal, Mayabeque Province, where a neighbor in the municipality told this newspaper, “They shut down the power at eleven at night and turn it on at seven in the morning.”
Around midnight, several residents went out with their pots and pans to protest, and, says the same source, “at that moment they turned off the power, they shut down the Internet, they shut down everything, so that people couldn’t mobilize.”
“Some people passing by joined in, like a conga,” says the woman, “asking for freedom and that they turn on the power.”
The local officials, says this neighbor, sent people to “take videos of the demonstrators.” After the protests of July 11, 2021, it was these kinds of videos that allowed State Security to identify the protesters, arrest them and prosecute them, in manipulated trials that ended with disproportionate sentences.
So far, neither the Government nor the official press is reporting on the frequent protests that have occurred since mid-July, when the power outages happened every day. Two night protests against the blackouts took place this weekend in the neighborhood of El Condado, in Santa Clara, where neighbors took advantage of the darkness to demonstrate, shouting slogans and beating on pots and pans in front of the dreaded Fifth Unit of the Police of that city.
On July 15 and on August 1, the Luis Dagnes neighborhood of the Popular Council of Altamira, in Santiago de Cuba, went out on Los Palacios Street, in Pinar del Río.
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The Cuban government has not revealed the costs of the Matanzas fire, considered the worst in history. (José Ángel Portal Miranda)
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 16 August 2022 — Specialized teams found more bone remains at the site of the large industrial fire recorded in Matanzas, the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal, reported on Monday.
“The tireless search for bone fragments and objects that could have to do with any of the missing people thought to be at the scene of the accident at the time of the explosion continues,” Portal said on Twitter.
The fragments were found on Sunday in “several places in the area” of the fire and have already been sent to “the laboratories for identification.”
Last Friday, the Cuban Government reported that it had located at the site of the fire — which began after the alleged impact of lightning in one of eight fuel tanks with 50,000 cubic meters of capacity — the skeletal remains of four people, presumably firefighters.
Officially, 14 people are listed as missing, mainly firefighters who were working on extinguishing the flames when a large explosion occurred.
Forensic doctor Jorge González Pérez, who directs the work of the investigation of the remains of Matanzas, said on Monday that they haven’t located the place where the 14 victims disappeared, and calculated that this could take “two more days.” He added that he considers it “unlikely” that “there is some laboratory test, for example DNA” that can be performed in this case.
So far, the Government has not disclosed their identities, despite the demand of independent activists and NGOs, who have claimed that some were young people doing military service. continue reading
So far, the relatives of the missing are the ones who have gone on social networks to say that they have no information about them, and some who have been given as dead, such as the young Leo Alejandro Doval del Prado, 19.
The fire was officially declared extinguished on Friday.
The flames affected four fuel tanks in the industrial park, strategic for the country, causing serious explosions, with flares of over 30 feet, and a column of toxic black smoke that reached Havana, 60 miles away.
The Cuban Government has also not disseminated estimates of the economic cost of this event, which is already described as the largest industrial disaster in the country, nor the exact levels of contamination from the accident.
The total, to date, after the incident is two deaths, 132 people injured and 19 hospitalized, according to the daily report of the Ministry of Public Health.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The victims of the collapse, disposed to set up their domestic barricade, prevent the passage of vehicles and pedestrians. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 12 August 2022 — In Cuba, the walls speak as much as the people. Cracks, humidity, bricks, leaks, beams, shreds of clothing, clouds of dust — these are the words of a pained and urgent language: that of the collapsed buildings. They’re not exclusive to Havana, but in Old Havana, punished by salt from the sea air and overpopulation, the boundary between habitable and ruin is more diffuse and matters less.
It’s part of the daily drama that a family, subjected to blackouts and continuous shortages, sees the structure of their house suffer, checks how it trembles during a cyclone and observes how it falls apart due to lack of maintenance.
The roof of a building on Habana Street, between Aguiar and Muralla, in the oldest area of the capital, collapsed several days ago. Not knowing what to do, the inhabitants picked up their belongings and took to the streets in protest.
The faces of mothers, children and the elderly are so desperate that it’s frightening to see. There’s a lot of anger and visceral impotence, because the solution doesn’t depend on personal effort but on the parsimony of the bureaucrats. They tried to appease them with promises: guaranteed food, electricity, materials. But nothing happened.
This Friday they returned to the street again. The junk they have on the street contains their whole life: cribs, mattresses, springs, wash basins, wheelbarrows of bricks, furniture that has been in the family for decades, Soviet devices and Chinese fans, relics of all eras.
The junk they have on the street contains their whole life: cribs, mattresses, springs, wash basins, wheelbarrows of bricks, furniture that has been in the family for decades, Soviet devices and Chinese fans, relics of all eras. (14ymedio)
The victims of the collapse, disposed to set up their domestic barricade, prevent the passage of vehicles and pedestrians. They want the country to stop and listen to them. “No one will pass through here until this is resolved,” shouts a woman, who only agreed to the request to let an elderly woman clinging to her cane continue. continue reading
Local authorities don’t offer solutions or respond to dialogue, but they have already sent the usual gang of State Security agents, motorcyclists with police badges, ex-combatants ready to assert their collection of medals and traffic officers, to divert clueless drivers out of the area.
At the end of the street, a couple of agents try to discredit the screaming women. “They’re being stupid, they’re shameless,” they tell anyone who stops to see the panorama. “They know that they can’t be there and that there are people working to solve the problem. But no: what they want is to put on a show.”
Among those evicted is a woman dressed in white. She’s an initiate in santería and iyawo, but the State Security officers lie to passers-by, telling them that she is a Lady in White.* “No one here cares about whether someone is a saint or a dissident, kid,” someone who passes by answers them. The police are frustrated: the old techniques are of little use.
“Look how the Government helps,” says one woman, pointing to a squalid cardboard box with yellow rice and stale pumpkin, which was distributed in the neighborhood at ten at night. “That’s the food they’re going to help us with,” she says, “I’m supposed to feed my son with that?!”
“We are desperate,” explains another of the victims. “There’s no gas or electricity, and in addition, our kitchens also collapsed. What do we do?”
Those who watch, those who beat people, the bureaucrats, all of them often suffer the same shortages. However, that doesn’t prevent them from complying with the orders of those who live comfortably, without blackouts and fed with imported delicacies.
Meanwhile, a retired old man is preparing to fulfill his “duty” and juggles to interrupt a young man who is filming the scene. No matter where he focuses the camera, the old man harasses him, nudges him and stands in front of the camera, until the young man gets bored and leaves. “We don’t have blood in our veins,” says an angry man who witnesses the scene.
With the barricade and the people shouting, Habana Street is narrowed by sweat and despair. The claim of the evicted, shipwrecked in a country adrift, summarizes the pain of the entire island.
*Translator’s note: An opposition movement founded in 2003 by female relatives of jailed dissidents.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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14ymedio, Havana, 18 August 2022 — On Thursday, and without giving details about the age and exact function of the 14 men who died on August 6 in the explosion of one of the tanks set on fire in Matanzas, the Cuban authorities identified the victims.
