14ymedio – Page 186 – Translating Cuba

Why Are Cubans Right to Distrust Their Banks?

A line at the doors of a bank in Havana after announcements in changes in the system. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Elias Amor Bravo, Economist, 14 August 2022 — In the second year of the Ordering Task,* the Cuban communist regime has gone a step further in the line of formal banking procedures for economic transactions with the publication of Resolution 123/2022 of the Central Bank of Cuba, which updates the processes of issuance, use and the processing of payment card transactions. In essence, a set of mandatory rules is established for those who want to operate with “plastic money.”

The focus on banking [versus all cash transactions] in the Cuban economy has been announced on numerous occasions by communist leaders, who are obsessed with the high ratio of money in circulation — known as ’M2’, a measure of the money supply that includes cash and readily available deposits — relative to the GDP. This ratio reached as high as 91% in 2020, to fall to 57% in 2021. However, this data has to be evaluated with extreme care, since it includes the combined effects of monetary unification and inflation, so it likely was not, in fact, so low, but it continues to worry the leaders.

Why do communists want to ’bank’ the economy — that is shift from an economy that operates primarily in cash?

Basically, for two reasons, and both are in the interest of the regime and have little to do with the well-being and prosperity of Cubans.

The first is that the expansive circulation of paper money is a dangerous part of the inflationary spiral. In fact, in the Cuban economy, the acceleration of the GDP or CPI deflator since 2019 had a lot to do with the abundance of cash, especially in the hands of the public. continue reading

Much of the responsibility for this situation lay with the communist regime in authorizing wage increases without concurrent increases in productivity, which increased the amount of money without increasing the availability of goods and services. Inflation produced from this situation became the economy’s response to very serious errors in terms of wages and pensions.

Therefore, the reduction of cash in circulation, through moving money to banks seemed an option to be developed. Unfortunately, there is no information available on what percentage of monetary circulation continues to materialize through cash in the hands of the public, and what percentage flows through banks, but it’s estimated that the former can be around 80% of the total. The interest of the regime is to control the latter, where higher value-added products and services move. They believe moving to magnetic cards makes it easier, or so they think. It remains to be seen if they succeed.

The second reason is in the DNA of the communist regime. Banks are an instrument of party and state control. They inform, control, and handle customers’ personal information at will. There is no level of protection for personal data in Cuba as in other countries of the world. Cuban banks are empowered to ask customers about the origin and/or destination of the funds they are going to dispose of, a practice that breaks with the elementary principles of bank secrecy.

So, having most of the productive money in the “banked” economy, allows the regime to tighten its control mechanisms over the banks in question. This is one of the aspects that causes widespread mistrust among Cubans towards the banking system, regardless of bank runs, confiscations and other similar practices in these 63 years of communist rule.

The truth is that the leaders want to get away with it, and in recent years they have done their homework regarding how to shift the economy to banks (versus cash), paying salaries and pensions by transfers in a large part of state companies and agencies in the budgeted sector, thus breaking the dependence on the “cash envelope” that was the main monetary link of the population. But is that payment by transfer enough for people to use payment, debit or credit cards?

As always happens with these things, the communist regime wants to impose, through resolutions, economic behaviors that don’t exist in reality, and, as a result, instead of achieving the objective, it ends up encountering the most absolute rejection of the measures imposed by economic agents.

This time the same thing is going to happen, no matter how much the state press supports the campaign. Cuban communists don’t quite know that before imposing a mandatory legal framework, you have to take a moment to see if what you want to regulate already exists in reality. They don’t. They throw themselves into the dry pond and then crash. Resolution 123/2022 of the Central Bank of Cuba (CCB) will be a good example.

The rule is redundant, and, so to speak, it says things that are already known. For example, everyone knows that the power of the Central Bank is to “exercise the regulation and surveillance of the country’s payment systems and dictate the rules of operation, in order to ensure that they function efficiently, within adequate levels of security for participants and the general public.” But is it really dedicated to it or is it just print on paper? Is there a study that reveals the efficiency of the Central Bank in ensuring the proper functioning of payment systems? I don’t know of any.

The relevance of the bank card in its different modalities, which the resolution has opened to the maximum, should be based on a prior knowledge of what percentage of Cubans use that means of payment and, above all, which segments of society, and going a little further, what they use the card for. And more importantly, the state of banking technology that allows operations with plastic money should be investigated. That way no one would get surprises.

The resolution refers surprisingly to “participants who act under license as issuers, payment transaction processing centers and payment card acquirers” as if they want to convey the idea that in addition to banks there may be others that issue cards. It may be causing a real proliferation of plastic money that ends up generating more problems than solutions. The procedure is also simple, if other standards within the Cuban communist regime are taken into account.

In this sense, the concern for the prevention and detection of operations in the fight against money laundering, financing, terrorism, the proliferation of weapons and the movement of illicit capital boasted by the regime should be extended to all types of banking operations and not just cards.

This will be a process to follow over time, because it has just begun. The Cuban communists’ objective of ’banking’ the economy is hampered by the logical and justified fear of citizens of the banking system, and what is even worse, the scarce tradition of Cubans’ relations with their banks. A tradition that was broken in 1959 with the confiscations and expropriations of funds, deposits and all kinds of financial operations of Cubans in the banks that existed in Cuba at the time. Wanting to erase all that with the stroke of a pen, as if it hadn’t happened, will not be easy. There are still many of us left to remember that dark episode of our history.

*Translator’s note: The “Ordering Task” is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures related to different elements of the Cuban economy.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Salman Rushdie, Irreverence and Complexes of All Kinds

During a visit to Bombay in 2004, Rushdie received death threats from several protesters. (VISHAL OLWE/EFE)

14medio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 14 August 2022 — He is balanced between life and death but the official Cuban press has hardly said a word. He is an enemy of the Iranian regime and that is enough for Havana to remain silent in the face of the attack that has seriously injured a writer who uses metaphor and his extensive knowledge of history as tools to connect with millions of readers. He is the irreverent child of every party, the one who throws the cake in the face of the strict organizer of the fake festivity.

Years ago Rushdie was the subject of a fatwa, pronounced by Iranian clerics, who sentenced him to death for blasphemy. If any inhabitant of this Island was asked what such a curse means, they probably could not explain much beyond some clumsy babbling. Our mestizo and insular roots may have saved us from certain religious extremes, but we are no strangers to judging sectarianism. We may not be immersed in certain debates, but common sense suggests that exterminating those who think differently is never a good idea.

Rushdie was attacked by a lunatic with a knife while lecturing in upstate New York. This is the latest chapter in decades of harassment in which the writer, who long ago deserved the elusive, capricious and fickle Nobel Prize, has had to change his name, hide, and go underground to avoid the extremists who persecuted him, not only to liquidate his libertarian spirit but, incidentally, to win the juicy reward of more than three million dollars placed on Rushdie’s head.

Why is the word confronted with weapons? How is a writer right now in intensive care just because of what he put on paper? No matter what he has said, his freedom of expression is above everything that we can oppose. I don’t care if his name is Rushdie, he is Indian and has declared himself a questioner of all dogma. He puts one syllable after another with unsurpassed beauty and neatness. That puts him on the Parnassus of creativity.

Climbing onto a stage to try to kill a man who is talking seems like one of the most emblematic scenes of human folly. Can the word be assassinated? Is a voice extinguished by stabbing it in the neck with a dagger? Please, leave us with your blindness and go somewhere far away, to another galaxy if possible. Stop being so difficult and so lacking in self-esteem, the name of writers like Salman Rushdie will be repeated long after some police report notes the sad name of the person who tried to kill him.

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The 14 Cubans that the Regime Sent to Die in the Matanzas Fire

In the absence of government transparency, relatives have uploaded the information on social networks. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana | 10 August 2022 — If there is something surprising about the majority of those who disappeared putting out the fire at the Matanzas Super Tanker Base, it is their youth. The Cuban government counts 14 – after having given the initial number of 16 – and affirms that they are firefighters, but the desperate calls of family members on social networks show that, for the most part, they were adolescents between 17 and 19 years old who were undergoing Military Service, sent to fight the flames without any experience.

One of them, Leo Alejandro Doval del Prado, 19, was presumed dead by his aunt Yunia Doval and other relatives. “It is impossible to find survivors. There is not even hope of finding his body,” Doval told Radio-TV Martí.

On Tuesday, the woman published a heartfelt letter addressed to her nephew, wherever he is, in which she describes him as “cute, affectionate and principled.” A student at the Secondary Vocational Institute of Exact Sciences (IPVCE) Carlos Marx, from Matanzas, he was doing his Military Service in a fire department and his dream was to become a neurosurgeon.

“I always admired your values and your family knows that you are not one of those who run, without imagining that today I would prefer that you had fled”

“I don’t want you as a hero, my boy, I prefer you to be a coward!” Doval writes. “I always admired your values and your family knows that you are continue reading

not one of those who run, without imagining that today I would prefer that you had fled. I would feel the same pride if you arrived now saying that you suddenly became cowardly, rebellious, defiant and got off the fire truck, because ultimately, you are not one of them.”

The authorities, so far, have only confirmed the death of Juan Carlos Santana Garrido, a 60-year-old firefighter whose body was recovered on Saturday, and at no time have they published the list of missing persons.

Burnt truck at the scene of the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base. (Yumuri TV)

In the absence of government transparency, and as on other occasions, such as after the explosion of the Saratoga Hotel on May 6, the relatives have unloaded the information on social networks, through which their names can be traced.

Official journalists reported the death of Michel Rodríguez Román, 20, but later deleted the information. A resident of the municipality of Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque, he was doing military service in the Fire Department number 3 of the Juan Gualberto Gómez Airport in Varadero.

“Who ordered them to place themselves in the red zone, where they would be hit by the flames if the fire increased in strength, as it did? Whoever he was, he didn’t think about how he was endangering the lives of children.”

Osley Marrante Guerra, 28 years old, has also been declared deceased, according to his cousin Iván Guerra in statements to Radio Televisión Martí: “At around 4:20 AM, the GPS signal was lost, apparently it was the time of the second explosion and that was when he died. A co-worker of his and his boss died too”.

The family of Fabián Naranjo Núñez is not only “heartbroken,” but outraged. “I hold every person, anyone in authority who allowed inexperienced boys to fight a fire of such magnitude, fully responsible,” his cousin Yarleny Horta wrote on Facebook, something that was reiterated by another cousin, Yanelys Naranjo González: “Whoever ordered them to be placed in the red zone, where they could be reached by the flames if the fire’s strength increased, as it happened. Whoever he was, did not think how he was endangering the lives of children, that their parents at home believed to be safe and sound. And today they don’t have an answer to give us. We can only wait.”

“Around 4:20 in the morning the GPS signal was lost, apparently it was the time of the second explosion and that was when he died”

Sources close to Luis Raúl Aguilar Zamora confirmed to 14ymedio his death during the fire and pointed out that he was not a firefighter, but worked as a civilian for the Armed Forces. “In my opinion, he became one more victim of the regime who left his wife with their two minor children. Everything is very sad,” said a relative of Aguilar who preferred to remain anonymous.

Luis Ángel Álvarez Leyva, originally from Holguín, served in the same airport’s fire department. “Matanzas authorities told us that we have to wait until the last moment, that if after 72 hours he hasn’t appeared, that the heat is so intense that my brother may already be dead. But in real life, they didn’t tell us that he is dead, formally. They are going to keep informing us because it is not yet known if he is alive or maybe the explosion has thrown him to the mountains. I’m hopeful that he will appear,” Luddvianka Álvarez said in an interview with Martí Radio-TV.

Meanwhile, relatives of Andy Michel Ramos have also reported him missing. According to Amarilys Ramos, nothing was heard from him after he went to the scene of the incident.

The only thing known about Osmany Blasco Sosa was that he was on duty, putting out the fire. The relatives of Raciel Martínez Navarro, Diosdel Nazco, Adrián Rodríguez and Areskys Quintero have also asked for help to obtain information. The only thing known about the latter is that he worked at the company Unión de Construcciones Militares de La Habana.

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“The Triumph” and “Freedom” are the Names of Cuban Boats that Arrived in the United States

A group of 16 Cubans and one other person whom the U.S. Border Patrol accuses of being a ’coyote’ arrived in Florida on this boat last Wednesday. (Twitter/@USBPChiefMIP)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 August 2022 — “El Triunfador” and “Libertad” are the names of two precarious boats in which 35 Cubans arrived at Marathon Cay, FL, in the U.S., between Wednesday and Thursday of this week. The passengers of El Triunfador, three women and 16 men who made landfall this Thursday, were placed in federal custody, and “will be processed for removal proceedings,” according to Walter Slosar, head of the Border Patrol, through his Twitter account.

These 19 rafters have the option of applying for asylum, which involves proving to an officer or judge that they’re afraid to return to their country. If Cubans convince the relevant authorities, they are “given bail and can ask for asylum,” explained Willy Allen, an Immigration lawyer.

The judicial process for the 16 passengers who arrived Wednesday on the Libertad boat will be different, since they were detained after a maritime smuggling operation. Agent Slosar indicated that an alleged smuggler was arrested with them, so an investigation was initiated.

If it’s proven that the Cubans were victims of human trafficking, the alternative, as lawyer Miguel Díaz pointed out to the television network Telemundo 51 in Miami, is to focus on applying for the D visa or the U visa, continue reading

which can be used by victims of crimes, as long as the authorities consider their petitions valid. Those who benefit from this type of visa are granted a residence permit for four years and authorization to work in the United States.

In recent weeks, the departure of boats from the Island has skyrocketed. According to records published by Officer Slosar, in the month of August alone, 143 Cuban rafters, who managed to reach Florida in 14 motorboats, fishermen’s boats and rafts, have been arrested.

A week ago, Adam Linhardt, spokesman for the Monroe County sheriff’s office, predicted the arrival of more rafters, especially from Cuba, which is going through an unprecedented humanitarian crisis with the increase in commodity prices and a notable increase in police repression.

Residents Take to the Streets of Guira de Melena Banging Pots and Pans in Protest of Blackouts in Cuba

Protests at the Altamira People’s Council in Santiago de Cuba on August 1, 2022. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 August 2022 — This Friday night another popular protest took place in Cuba motivated by power outages, this time in the Güira de Melena municipality in the province of Artemisa. To the cry of “Turn on the current, dickhead!” and banging on pots and pans, dozens of residents from the El Pulguero area and the vicinity of Calle Real demonstrated against the blackouts.

“We were without electricity all afternoon, no one could cook or pump water during those hours,” Raudel Espinosa, a resident of the El Pulguero neighborhood, told 14ymedio. “People can’t take it anymore because every day they cut off our electricity, so first a few people starting banging on pans, but immediately more people joined.”

Espinosa details that the police arrived shortly after in the most central area of Güira de Melena, in the vicinity of Calle Real where a protest also took place. “They arrived asking who had participated in the protest but the people did not want to collaborate with them, rather they kept yelling at them to turn on the power,” he says.

Since the first demonstrations against the blackouts, on July 15, in Los Palacios (Pinar del Río), protests have been added throughout the island, which is suffering an unprecedented energy crisis. On August 5, the same day that the gigantic fire started at the Matanzas Supertanker Base, continue reading

hundreds of people demonstrated in the Martí Park in Cienfuegos, demanding an end to the blackouts, which in some areas last up to 14 hours a day.

Added to the people’s complaints over the long daily blackouts is the severe economic crisis that the Island is suffering. But in addition, the protests not only occur at night but have moved into broad daylight, such as the one that occurred on August 1 in the Luis Dagnes neighborhood, of the Popular Council of Altamira, in Santiago de Cuba.

“What they do to us is an abuse. The whole night without electricity and the power went out again at 11 in the morning,” activist Aurora Sancho explained that day to 14ymedio.

Electricity shortages, however, are far from easing. The official media reported this Saturday morning that the current deficit is expected to be 717 MW, while the previous day it reached 1,155 MW. Using the usual euphemism in these cases, the authorities described the situation as “very complex.”

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July 11th Cuban Protestor Suffers a Stroke in Prison

Cuban activist Angélica Garrido and her husband Luis Rodríguez Pérez. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 August 2022 — Angélica Garrido suffered a stroke that paralyzed “the right side of her face,” confirmed the Cuban activist’s husband, Luis Rodríguez Pérez, speaking to 14ymedio after visiting her this Friday at the hospital to find out about her state of health. “Angelica felt some sensation on the right side of her shoulder” as well as “in her mouth and eye,” he detailed.

Garrido, who was sentenced to three years in prison for her participation in the protests on July 11, 2021, let her husband know that her “principles are firm even if her body is not.”

Rodríguez believes that the possibility of parole in Garrido’s case is being hindered by State Security, which “is attacking all the time,” looking for reasons to prevent his wife from leaving prison.

Although Rodríguez did not rule out that this is a ruse, and the intimidating act towards Angélica are due to the demonstration that he led in the Havana Cathedral a few days ago together with several relatives of 11J prisoners. “It could also be that they are going to release her and then they are increasing the repression to keep it as calm as possible, anything, but the repression against her has really intensified. They are playing with her hopes.”

Angélica Garrido and her sister, the writer María Cristina, had their sentences of three and nine years, respectively, ratified in June, after the continue reading

appeal hearing held in the Provincial Court of Mayabeque.

Prior to this Friday’s visit, Rodríguez uploaded a message to his Facebook account in which he made his love for Angélica known. “Hate dictated about you, three years in prison; I, inevitably, am imprisoned in you, to life in prison. Here we are, gorgeous. The children are gorgeous. I don’t care, my girl, I don’t care if tomorrow when I hug you hug me with one arm.”

Rodríguez explained that it was a foreign doctor who gave Angélica the first diagnosis and that at the Calixto García hospital in Havana, where she was taken, they confirmed her condition. This Saturday, he indicated, he will contact her to find out her progress after the antibiotics they are giving her.

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A Contest to Find Out What Cubans Know about Gaesa

Promotional poster for the contest “What Do You Know about Gaesa?” sponsored by the Cuban Conflict Observatory.

14ymedio, Havana, August 12, 2022 — The Cuban Conflict Observatory (OCC) is sponsoring a competition — “What Do You Know about Gaesa?” — in which all Cubans living on the Island are invited to participate.

To participate, contestants must answer a series of questions:

- - Can you explain why so much has been invested in hotels when half their rooms have been unoccupied since 2018?
  - Why has this money not been invested in power plant maintenance, food production, housing construction, health and medication, or in a lightning rod system for supertankers in Matanzas?
  - Why is Gaesa not required to report its earnings to the Comptroller General of the Republic of Cuba?
  - How do you think these problems with Gaesa might be solved?

Answers may be sent either by email to concuba2020@gmail.com or by Whatsapp to +1 305 926 0852. The deadline for entries is October 10, 2020.

The contest offers a first prize of 300 dollars, a second prize of 250 dollars and three third prizes of 100 dollars. Five award-winning mentions come with telephone recharges.

In a statement released on Thursday, the OCC notes that the Business Administration Group, Inc. (Gaesa) is an “umbrella organization controlled by army generals who control 60% of the nation’s economy and more than 40% of hotel rooms in Cuba yet are not required to report the company’s earnings to the Cuban people

The source of funds for hotel construction remains a mystery. The government has not announced any significant for investment in this sector, which is controlled by Gaesa’s military leaders.

The OCC also mentioned that last year it invested 157 times more in hotel and real estate services than in health, and 366 times as much as in education, long touted by the Cuban regime as its two most historically important accomplishments.

OCC states it is not necessary for participants to provide their name, only a pseudonym, but does ask that they indicate the province in which they live, their sex, age and the best way to contact them.

Winners will be notified by email and announced in a press release on October 20, 2022.

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Trying to Stop Dengue Fever with an Inadequate Fumigation Campaign

The racket wasn’t coming from a machine in the sky but from an old fumigation truck of the Comunales company. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 11 August 2022 — Early Thursday morning, the inhabitants of Nuevo Vedado in Havana woke up startled by the roar of what seemed to be a small plane, flying over the streets of the city. However, when they went out to their balconies, they noticed that the noise didn’t come from a flying machine, but from an old fumigation truck of the Comunales* company.

The vehicle dispensed its smoke on the streets, sidewalks and ditches, so that the gas would reach the numerous mosquitos that nest after the summer downpours. It’s a random measure, but one urgently decreed by the Government, which has always lacked a systematic and coherent strategy against the aedes aegypti mosquito which transmits dengue fever.

Another Public Health measure has been the sending of medical personnel to inspect residential buildings in the area. But even when time and human resources are allocated for this, doctors must face multiple daily setbacks on the island.

A doctor on her way to inspect a building in the area entered the elevator to evaluate the upper floors and, between one level and another, was trapped by a power outage. Had one of the neighbors of the building, already accustomed to the “rescue” during blackouts, not come, the woman would have remained there, locked in the elevator until two in the afternoon, when the electricity was scheduled to return.

Other neighbors have filed complaints with Public Health, since health workers appear in homes during the most inappropriate hours, when people need to go to work or out to the street. Their presence must be validated; it’s “mandatory” and decreed by the Government.

As if that weren’t enough, the proliferation of dengue hemorrhagic fever and other mosquito-borne diseases are at their most critical point. The most recent report presented by the Minister of Public Health pointed out, as causes, “vacations” and the “period of rain and intense heat,” but concluded, with the usual rhetoric, that the only possible measure is “surveillance, timely admission, trained personnel, adequate treatment and closing ranks in the areas of greatest risk.”

In contrast to the official optimism, the minister offered concrete data on the transmission of dengue fever in 11 provinces, 23 municipalities and 33 health areas of the island. During the last week of July, the incidence rate of suspected dengue cases increased by 35.5% compared to the previous week, with an average of 68.3 cases recorded per day, mainly in Havana, Holguín, Isla de la Juventud, Guantánamo and Camagüey. continue reading

A report published in Tribuna de La Habana reported that “intensive fumigation” vehicles similar to those of Nuevo Vedado will circulate in the municipality of Playa. The proliferation of insect-borne viruses, which include dengue, Zika and chikungunya, especially affects the coastal area of Havana, where outbreaks abound.

According to Manuel Bravo Fleitas, Director of Health in this municipality in the west of the city, there is a map that records the most affected blocks and the nuclei of dengue transmission, which includes the local polyclinic.

The most frequent practice in this and other municipalities of the island has been home care and the sporadic follow-up of patients. The symptoms that indicate the condition, which neighbors must report to the health directors, are fever, muscle and eye pain, in addition to fatigue and exhaustion.

“Playa shows a similar behavior to the rest of the Havana territories in terms of the number of cases and the number of fevers, with an average of 100-120 per day,” the report says.

As the situation becomes increasingly alarming, the Community Services procedure continues to respond to a precarious pattern: workers irrigate puddles, tanks and swimming pools with little bottles of diluted insecticide. Fumigation devices, in addition to being old and very annoying, usually don’t have the necessary maintenance and fuel, and neighborhoods continue to suffer from unhealthy conditions and systematic deterioration.

Abandoned and collapsing buildings are ideal sources for mosquito nesting, in addition to numerous rubbish dumps and common areas that are barely cleaned of grass and garbage. The impossibility of ventilating houses properly, due to frequent blackouts, facilitates the scenario for night bites of mosquitoes.

Added to this panorama is the fact that Cuba is far from having satisfactory control of the COVID-19 pandemic, and hospitals have a more worrying lack, that of medical supplies, which are indispensable for treatment and recovery from these diseases.

*Translator’s note: Servicios Comunales is a public company in charge of services such as garbage collection, mosquito control, and others.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Promoting an Initiative so Cubans Don’t Send Their Children to Military Service

Carlos Miguel Mateos Rosaenz clarifies that “the petition is not addressed to the Cuban authorities.” (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 August 2022 — 14ymedio, Havana, 12 August 2022 — He left Cuba in 2019 after suffering pressure for opposing the new Constitution and now, from Colombia, he leads an online petition calling for an end to compulsory military service on the island. Carlos Miguel Mateos Rosaenz talks to 14ymedio about the reasons that led him to promote an initiative that has already collected more than 2,000 signatures.

The death of at least four young recruits in the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base gave this 49-year-old émigré the final impetus to publish the petition, but he was also motivated by the concern of many mothers he knows on the island “whose children are about to enter compulsory military service.”

His experience in military service marked him very negatively, and now he regrets that these young people have died because of “the irresponsibility and mediocrity of dictators.” In the request on Change.org, he also describes the regime as in great need of “maintaining an army that only serves to perpetuate a corrupt and murderous mafia in power by repressing the people.”

Mateos Rosaenz clarifies that “the petition is not addressed to the Cuban authorities,” to whom he does not even grant any authority. “Rather, it’s aimed at raising awareness among Cubans inside and outside [the island] about one of the many problems we have.” He wants the initiative to reach as many people as possible and to support parents so that they “don’t send their children to die or to repress the people in rebellion.”

“I don’t think it will lead the dictators to do anything, as if they weren’t dictators, but at least it will create pressure, it will inform, it will move wills.” But even if he has only discreet results, Mateos Rosaenz will be happy: “If I manage to get a single boy in Cuba to save himself from these things, I will be satisfied.” continue reading

For this man, who considers himself a political exile in Colombia, his collection of signatures was something that was going to arise at any time. “I have no more merit than that I came up with the idea of the petition. If I didn’t do it, some other Cuban would have done it.” Since he published the application, “cyber attacks on the networks” have rained down on him, but he is not intimidated. “There attacks are praise for me, and they show me that I’m right.”

Now, while continuing to give massages, do acupuncture therapy and teach martial arts, Mateos Rosaenz keeps his eye on the page where every hour the number of people who sign his petition increases. At the bottom of the text he published, a signatory left a brief message: “We don’t need an army. We have no enemies; the real enemy is the Cuban regime.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Closure of the Matanzas Supertanker Base Forces Oil Tankers to Unload in Other Cuban Ports

The NS Laguna was notified of the change of course and will be diverted to the port of Antilla, in Holguín. (ACN)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 August 2022 — The fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base, not yet fully extinguished, has had a considerable impact on the port activity of that city. Ships carrying oil usually dock there, and their cargo is transported to other parts of the island by land or pipeline.

However, the destruction of 50% of the Supertanker Base has limited the possibility of fuel storage in Matanzas and has forced the redirection of the ships that were headed there.

On Wednesday, the ship NS Laguna, 249 meters long and 44 meters wide, sailing under the flag of Liberia (Africa) with a shipment of 700,000 barrels of Russian oil, was diverted. According to the Vessel Finder nautical application, the ship left the port of Ust-Luga, in Russia, on July 26, for the Matanzas terminal, where it was expected to arrive in mid-August.

The NS Laguna was notified of the change of course and will be diverted to the port of Antilla, in Holguín, of lower capacity than that of Matanzas. It is expected to dock this Saturday at 11:00 p.m. and discharge the fuel there.

A similar situation occurred on Wednesday, when two Cuban-flagged oil tankers, transporting crude oil from Venezuela to the island, were diverted by the company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (Pdvsa) to smaller terminals.

The oil tanker María Cristina sailed from the Venezuelan port of La Cruz, arrived briefly in Havana and had to interrupt its unloading in Matanzas, where it was docked during the explosion. It had to go to Santiago de Cuba and deliver the rest of the crude oil there. continue reading

The ship Vilma also advanced from the port of José, on the Venezuelan coast, to the Antilla terminal. Lourdes and Esperanza, while the usual ships of the “oil fleet” between the two countries are still in Venezuela.

The shutting down of the port of Matanzas represents a notable difficulty for the transport and processing of crude oil on the island. The delay will affect electricity generation, one of the most critical problems facing Cuba, where long blackouts have led to popular protests.

According to Vessel Finder maps, the only ships anchored in Matanzas Bay are the Mexican Bourbon Artabaze, specialized in firefighting, with technicians and military personnel on board and sent by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in addition to the tugboat Hurricane 1, under a Cuban flag.

The data also reveal that, since the accident, the Cuban tugboat Tormenta 1, the oil tanker Caribbean Alliance, under the Panamanian flag, and the two aforementioned ships have frequented the Havana port.

It is hoped that the Cuban Government, in order not to interrupt the flow of crude oil that the island urgently requires from its Venezuelan, Russian, Iranian and other allies, will redirect other ships in the coming weeks and improve conditions in the ports of Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Antilla.

These terminals have proven to be the only ones capable of processing the oil shipments that, before the Supertanker accident, Matanzas administered.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Fire at Matanzas Supertanker Base in Cuba is Controlled After Five Chaotic Days

Elier Correa, 24, had been presumed dead at first, but was found to have been hospitalized since Friday. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 11 August 2022 — Although it recognizes that risks still persist, the Cuban Government declared the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base extinguished on Wednesday, five days after it began as a result of a lightning strike, according to the official version.

In the four affected storage tanks, out of a total of eight 50,000 cubic meters each (50 million liters) and their surroundings, some active points remain, where emergency teams are located, EFE reports.

In statements by the second head of the Cuban Fire Department, Daniel Chávez, the work is focusing on cooling the area, where “minor” flames may persist for days.

The images shown by the official media that accessed the site of the accident, unprecedented in the history of Cuba, are devastating. Next to the completely melted tanks, fire trucks and other burned vehicles are observed. This is where 14 people went missing while fighting the flames.

The authorities still haven’t provided data on the missing persons, mostly young people who were going through military service and were sent to fight the fire without any experience. Only one person was mentioned: the firefighter, Juan Carlos Santana Garrido, 60, who has died.

In its last statement, the Ministry of Public Health raised the number of injured to 128, of which 20 are hospitalized: 5 critical, 2 serious and 13 “under care.”

Far from offering information, not only about the fatalities but also about the cost of the incident for the perpetually diminished Cuban economy, the official press focused this Thursday on extolling President Miguel Díaz-Canel for visiting the destroyed facilities. continue reading

A man rides a bicycle while observing the smoke that remains from the fire in the industrial area of the port, this Wednesday in Matanzas. (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa)

Thus, they pick up the words of the hand-picked president: that “what happened in the last few hours didn’t paralyze the country, because many things have been done to continue improving the situation” and that “there was serenity, an ability to reach consensus on how to work.”

Roberto Morales Ojeda, a member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Part (PCC), goes so far as to describe as a “feat” the “integrated, coordinated work, deployed with extraordinary effort.”

The article from the State newspaper Granma, with the pompous title “The five days that shook Cuba, and the lessons gained forever,” devotes only half a sentence to the “25 flights from Mexico and Venezuela,” countries whose help to extinguish the fire was fundamental.

These nations contributed 127 specialists, 45,000 liters of retardant foam and 8 breathing air tanks with armor, in addition to other materials.

Regarding the missing, it simply refers to the statements of the Minister of Health, José Angel Portal Miranda: “The experts who will be in charge of the rescue and identification of the bodies have come prepared.”

About the environmental pollution, which concerns both the residents of Matanzas and those of other neighboring provinces, even Havana, the Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, said that the indicators “are below danger figures” and that “there are no patients with pollution-related symptoms at the hospitals.”

Another unanswered question is what could have caused the tragedy. The Matanzas Supertanker Base, the product of an agreement signed between Cuba and Venezuela, is a facility that is barely ten years old.

Some specialists, such as Alexandr Gofstein, rescuer and former head of the Russian Rescue Preparedness Center, explained that “the fact that the fire spread from one tank to the others shows that there were defects in the very structure of the base, which led to a disaster of such a proportion.”

However, hydraulic engineers Eric Cabrera Estupiñán and Alejandro Alomá Barceló, who worked on the design of the fire system of the facilities, which were inaugurated in 2012, said in an interview with Periodismo de Barrio that the Base had been built with “the necessary security measures of the highest international standard,” including a fire station.

Despite the fact that, as Cabrera said, “a lot was invested,” the troops who were sent to fight the fire initially included boys who were doing their military service at Fire Command number 3 of Varadero airport, 25 kilometers from the accident.

“Apparently what happened is that the lightning generated very strong energy,” the engineer speculated, and hit the top of the first tank. “At the top there is a cooling ring, which didn’t work,” he explained, although he did observe that “the cooling system of the neighboring tanks was working.”

Alomá, for his part, pointed out that the tank where the accident began “was practically destroyed from the first moment, at least the top, due to the many gases that had accumulated there.”

Both specialists stated that they have no way of knowing if the fire detection system, which automatically starts cooling measures in the facilities, worked correctly. “We have no idea if the pumps managed to move the amount of water required for cooling,” Alomá said.

Nor did they see that the necessary chemicals were used in this case — a kind of detergent with foam that eliminates oxygen in contact with the fire and, therefore, extinguishes it — but they didn’t venture any reason.

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 located, in tanks similar to those of the Matanzas Base.

Chemical engineer Fernando Morales, for example, explained that “stopping the production of an oil well causes damage to it,” and Eudis Girot, executive director of the United Federation of Oil Workers of Venezuela, assured that the “structural composition” of the tanks is not designed to house oil for a long time.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Flames Go Out in Matanzas but the Drama Continues in Cuba

In the face of each tragedy, the questions pile up and the detailed results of the investigations are rarely published. (Prensa Latina)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 12 August 2022 — The sky has turned blue again over Havana and in the city of Matanzas the flames at the Supertanker Base no longer rise on the horizon. However, the tragedy is still ongoing and the questions we all ask ourselves remain unanswered. Why did the lightning rod system not work? Who ordered taking inexperienced young people from the Military Service to try to stop the flames? What is the magnitude of the environmental disaster that this incident has left?

In the face of each tragedy, the questions pile up and the detailed results of the investigations are rarely published. With the plane crash that occurred in May 2018, barely any generalities were offered about its cause and we had to settle for a vague official statement that placed responsibility for the accident on the crew. We are still waiting for the report from the experts on the explosion at the Saratoga hotel from more than three months ago, nor is there any realistic analysis of how many lives were lost on this island for not accepting, at the worst moment of the pandemic, the covid-19 vaccines from the Covax fund.

The regime’s lack of transparency is matched only by its ineptitude. The mix of secrecy and inefficiency in this system is proving deadly for Cubans. The violation of the minimum security protocols, the triumphalism that makes one believe that it is possible to achieve certain goals when the minimum conditions to do so do not exist, and the stubbornness of carrying out projects “at whatever price is necessary” take lives every day in this country. Lives for which no one is responsible because the impunity of those responsible for ending them is absolute.

Unfortunately, this type of disaster will become increasingly common in Cuba, because the inefficient and centralized model imposed six decades ago cannot properly manage the challenges posed by our reality. They make up the figures, tidy up the press headlines, inflate productivity reports, skip security measures to shorten the time to undertake a work, blame third parties for their bungling, and shield themselves in their power so as not to pay for so many catastrophes they themselves provoke with their dismal performance.

It’s not just about reinforcing infrastructure, improving protection against lightning strikes, better handling cargo in an aircraft hold, or thoroughly checking a hotel’s gas supply line. The most important thing to preserve our lives is to eliminate this system as soon as possible and get so many incapable and untouchable leaders out of their seats.

It was not a lightning strike that caused the Matanzas disaster, but rather the lethal essence of this broken and cruel system.
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Human Rights Group Reports the ‘Young Man With the Placard’ is at Serious Risk in a Cuban Prison

“The young man with the placard” remains incarcerated in the prison of the Combinado del Este. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 11 August 2022 — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued a resolution in which it considers the situation of Cuban opponent Luis Robles as “at serious risk.” Robles, known as “the young man with the placard,” was arrested in December 2020 for demanding the release of musician Denis Solís, on San Rafael Boulevard in Havana.

In the document, the IACHR, an organization belonging to the Organization of American States, describes several precautionary measures that are necessary to protect the rights and integrity of the imprisoned.

“He continues to be deprived of liberty in the circumstances described and may be further denied his rights,” adds the Commission, which proposes that the 29-year-old inmate get access to adequate medical care and receive medicines for his chronic gastritis. In addition, his relatives and lawyers must be allowed to visit him in prison.

The Commission asks that some “alternative to the deprivation of his liberty” be evaluated and that action be taken against the threats and harassment suffered by Robles in the Combinado del Este prison, in Havana, where he is serving a five-year sentence for the crimes of enemy propaganda and disobedience.

The Cuban State must inform the Commission within 15 days if it has adopted the proposed precautionary measures; however, since the organization Prisoners Defenders, based in Madrid, initiated this request, there has been no continue reading

government response on the case.

Among the background and reports that the Commission used to document its resolution were the contributions of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the United Nations, which asked the Cuban State to release Robles “immediately” during its 91st session.

Returning to the complaint of Prisoners Defenders, the Commission reported that Robles has been held incommunicado with his family and that he survives in “inhuman conditions.” It adds that on February 12, 2021, Robles asked for medicines and that “they didn’t give them to him so that he could just die there.” In addition, he has suffered beatings by State Security agents during his detention. The document also reports that “the young man with the placard” remained naked and slept on the floor for two nights, in punishment cells, on the orders of the prison authorities.

“The Commission considers that the proposed beneficiary, deprived of liberty since December 2020 after a demonstration on public roads, would be in severe conditions of detention in the Combinado del Este prison and has not received access to the necessary medicines for his chronic illness to date, after 1 year and 8 months of detention,” the resolution states.

In June, Yindra Elizastigui, Robles’ mother, reported that her son has been maltreated constantly, such as being photographed without clothes, against his will.

The mother, after filing the relevant complaints at the request of the Ministry of the Interior, received as a response from the regime that the photographs were taken for “an investigation into a newspaper report saying that Luis Robles had been beaten,” so they took those images “to show the world that my son had no traces on his body of physical abuse.”

On July 23, Robles’ mother revealed that the head of the prison unit where her son is being held said that he will not be granted the benefit of “the minimum,” that is, the transfer to a labor camp upon serving a year and three months of sentence. “Given that he has not behaved well, because he has made some calls abroad denouncing the abuses to which he has been subjected,” she reported on Facebook.

Yindra Elizastigui has filed complaints about violations of the rights of prisoners and recalls that Luis Robles is the father of a two-year-old boy. “They love to remind the prisoners that they must fulfill their duties, but they forget that they also have rights.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In the Midst of the Blackouts, a Luxury Hotel Without Customers Illuminates Havana

Greater Aston, located on 1st and D Streets, very close to Malecón Avenue. (Courtesy)

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 10 August 2022 — In the midst of an almost absolute blackout in Havana’s Vedado, the Grand Aston Hotel Havana seemed to have fallen from another world, less precarious and underdeveloped. All its lamps, windows, spotlights, reflectors and even humble light bulbs were at their maximum capacity, without any attention to the ominous reports of the Electrical Union.

Energy conservation is not an issue of interest to the directors of the Greater Aston, located on 1st and D streets, very close to Malecón Avenue. “The newest and most elegant” hotel in the city, according to its website, also doesn’t seem to concern the Cuban Government too much, which juggles to attract investment from foreign companies in the tourism sector.

It’s not the first time that state hotels and establishments seem to enjoy special “isolation” in the cities of the island, safe from power cuts, the misery of the people, police repression, hunger and protests provoked by all these factors.

On the same day that the Grand Aston threw its luminous aura over the darkened capital, Habaneros watched the sinister glow of the fire at the Supertanker Base in Matanzas.

Also during that day, the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric power plant announced its umpteenth exit from the National Electricity System, under the pretext of not having “sufficient water supply” and no fuel, while an acidic and heavy downpour bathed the rooftops of the city. continue reading

The torment for the Cuban people doesn’t end there. A few days before the explosion in Matanzas, the Minister of Economy formally declared war on the informal currency exchange and provoked the usual question: “If we don’t have electricity, food, well-being or a future, what are they doing with our dollars?”

Neighbors looking at the incandescent tower of the Grand Aston had to think that, perhaps, the hotel was the only place in Havana where those questions referred to a distant reality.

It is not for nothing that managers say that anyone who can afford a room at the Grand Aston will access “a refuge where they can relax and recharge their batteries, while experiencing its glamour.”

The price of the only illuminated Eden in Havana ranges between $179 and $244 per night, tropical and truly luxurious, not like the accommodations of the rest of Havanans.

The Grand Aston, as seen in the photograph, scandalously happy about a Cuba extinguished by the death, exile and hard lives of its citizens, is the most eloquent symbol of how the darkness of the country feeds the government businesses.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Basketball Players Yusleidis Miranda and Anay Garcia Break with INDER and Arrive in the United States

Yusleidis Miranda and Anay García participated in three games of the Monsignor Romero Municipal League team before leaving for the United States. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 10 August 2022 — Cuban basketball players Yusleidis Miranda and Anay García made their best play, but it was not in a game; it was against the regime. Both were hired last June through the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) to play for three months with the club Liga Municipal Monsignor Romero of El Salvador. The athletes have broken that link, and this week they arrived in the United States.

In a video shared on social networks, Miranda documented her journey through El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, until she reached the southern border of the United States, which she described as a “country of freedom.”

The three months she had to be with the Salvadoran team were reduced to three matches. Her goal since she left the island, like that of her friend, was to emigrate, as she explained in a post of gratitude to her family: “Thank you to all the people who trusted me and reached out to me. One more goal accomplished, and let’s go for more.”

In her brief stay with the Monsignor Romero Municipal League, Miranda scored 49 points with a success rate of 44% and recorded 41 rebounds. García scored 58 points with 47 rebounds. Both were recognized on the island as athletes of the year in 2018.

Her level of play led Miranda to be hired for a month in 2018 by the Dominican team Santiago de Los Caballeros. “Following that contract we returned, and I was selected to play in Colombia at the Central American Championship in Barranquilla, where I obtained a silver medal,” the athlete told the reporter.

According to journalist Daimir Díaz Matos, Miranda dreamed of “being part of the National Team and being an athlete recognized by Cuba.” continue reading

Miranda’s next move was to leave for El Salvador. She was hired by the same team from which she resigned a few days ago: the Monsignor Romero Municipal League, but with the permission of INDER. The institution allowed her to establish the contacts and procedures necessary to emigrate.

Anay García’s experience, for her part, was different. This 6’4″ athlete was one of the members of the Pinareño team that consecutively won four titles in the Superior Basketball League, the last of them in 2016.

With gaming experience in the leagues of the Dominican Republic and Argentina, García went through the COVID-19 pandemic in isolation, training alone in the gym of San Juan and Martínez. The contract in El Salvador represented the opportunity to leave the island and break her dependence on INDER. The basketball player now sees her sporting future in the United States.

The exodus of Cuban athletes has also generated a notable vacuum in athletics. After three retirements and a failure at the XVIII World Athletics Championships, which were held in Eugene, OR, USA, where no medals were won, the National Athletics Commissioner herself, Yipsi Moreno, was removed from her position.

The Olympic champion in Beijing 2008 and silver in Athens 2004 was accused of privileging athletes close to her, while harassing others who ended up leaving athletics or leaving the country.

The abandonment of Yusleidis Miranda and Anay García adds to the bleeding of Cuban athletes in recent months, including that of the Olympic medalist and world record champion, Yaimé Pérez, who escaped after Cuba’s sports failure in Eugene.

During that championship, the physiotherapist Carlos González Morales and the javelinist Yiselena Ballar Rojas, who left the delegation in Miami, also defected as soon as their plane landed.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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