‘My Children Believe That Their Father is in a School Not in Prison’ for Cuba’s July 11th (11J) Protests

Daniel Joel Cardenas and Marbelis Vazquez. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 6 May 2022 — Before the pandemic, Marbelis Vázquez and Daniel Joel Cárdenas managed La Guarapera Velázquez, a private business with which they dreamed of making the money necessary to emigrate. But instead of starting a new life in another country, the husband is now in prison for the July 11th (11J) protests in Cárdenas (Matanzas).

The last name of Daniel Joel, 34, seemed predestined to merge with the municipality where he lived and not just because they were exactly the same. His acquaintances also nickname him El Cárdenas and since January he has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for demonstrating in the streets of his city where one of the most intense protests of that day took place.

That Sunday dawned calm and the family had plans to go to the beach. The afternoon would be full of sand and waves, but it turned into screams and police operations. First, Cárdenas and Vázquez learned that people were protesting in the centrally located Calle Real following the spark of indignation that had ignited that same day in San Antonio de los Baños (Artemisa).

Later, the screams came closer to his home, when dozens of neighbors raided a gas station store. The economic crisis, the lack of freedoms and the rigors of the pandemic pushed the people of Cárdenas to the limit. The most repeated cry around that gas station was “hunger!”, a roar that mixed with the sound of breaking glass.

Close to the resort of Varadero, Cárdenas is considered by the authorities to be an area with high incomes and the only stores with stocked shelves are the ones that take payment only in freely convertible currency (MLC). It also has a tradition of being “un pueblo gusano*” – a ‘worm’ town — where many do not sympathize with the system. It is not for nothing that some of the most symbolic images of 11J came from there. continue reading

When they heard about the protests, the couple weighed what to do. In a few weeks their dream of emigrating could materialize, but they decided to leave home and go to the gas station. There, Cárdenas met several friends who had come from the protest on Calle Real, the first police patrols were also beginning to arrive and stones were raining against the shop windows.

People took what they could, but the food often fell out of their hands, as Vázquez now recalls. The husband tried to carry some mayonnaise jars that someone had dropped outside the premises but finally gave them to a friend, says the wife. She adds that in the video shown by the official media she is seen throwing a stone, but on already broken glass.

The police siege continued to increase and Vázquez says that Cárdenas returned to his house. The family got ready and left for the beach. The initial plan was no longer to swim and play in the sand but to see if, after the popular protests, boats would arrive from Florida to pick up relatives. But no boat arrived and the “combat order” given by Miguel Díaz-Canel had already unleashed repression throughout the island.

Two days passed. It was around eleven o’clock in the morning on July 13 and Cárdenas was in the living room with his twin sons. The screeching of tires from a truckload of uniformed men startled him. Then came the chaos: screaming, barking dogs, shoves and gunshots. The scene was captured by Vázquez’s mobile phone, which also captured the testimony of her husband’s pool of blood on the ground.

Those minutes that seemed like an eternity have been narrated in diametrically different ways. In the woman’s version, the uniformed special troops shot her husband, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head. The projectile did not penetrate the skull but traveled through the back of the scalp on the left side, leaving a dark furrow.

In the video that Vázquez recorded and spread on social networks, shots are heard and we see one of the soldiers, who had sneaked into the house through the patio, brandishing a short weapon and entering the room where the wife is, with one of her children in her arms.

The man was also hit in the chest and back. The door of the house was seriously damaged by the violent irruption of the s0-called black wasps. “They had no mercy on my husband or my children,” says Vázquez. “I still close my eyes and remember that moment. My children carry with them a trauma that they will never forget,” she reflects.

In the version broadcast by the official newscast, the story does not include shots, but instead shows Cárdenas walking through what appears to be a detention center for a few seconds and then, already sitting on a chair, facing the camera, he affirms that he is on Friday July 16. With these images, the government sought to deny the alleged gunshot wound.

However, Vázquez replies that during the recording her husband showed his bruises on his chest, which were not included in the report, and they did not take pictures of the wound on his scalp, which, the wife details, never received sutures and measures about 12 centimeters. The physical damage would also be accompanied by an offensive against the reputation of Cárdenas.

“The trial against him seemed to be that of a dangerous criminal,” says the woman. During the three days of last December that the oral hearing lasted, the defendant was transferred cuffed by his hands and feet. “A whole circus set up with false witnesses,” she laments. The devastating sentence: 15 years behind bars for sabotage, public disorder and spread of epidemics.

The authorities tried to build a case against Cárdenas for allegedly paying minors to participate in the protests. The teenagers, neighbors who shared with the man a taste for raising pigeons, were arrested and pressured, but refused to testify against him. Now, they are still prisoners and their relatives avoid denouncing it for fear of reprisals.

“My husband’s current situation is heartbreaking.” Cárdenas is in the maximum security prison of Agüica, in Colón. “In each visit there is always a new regulation or some unforeseen change. They do not give the prisoner the opportunity to communicate with relatives because, according to the guards, the telephones are broken. They even have German shepherds inside the visiting area, sowing terror.”

“We had a very nice life and dedicated ourselves to raising our children.” In the house there is a dovecote, because the man was associated with a pigeon federation. “My husband is not a thief or a criminal as they expressed in the trial, we fought hard to put food on the table for our children.”

Cárdenas “fed the children and bathed them so that I could rest, because having twins is exhausting. Now I have to face the care of my children alone.” Vázquez confesses: “When we visit him in prison I tell them that he is there studying. They believe that their father is in a school, not in prison.”

*Translator’s note: The term gusano — meaning worm or maggot — is a derogatory first applied by Fidel Castro to ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and those who wanted to leave Cuba.

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Cuba: Explosion at Havana’s Saratoga Hotel Has Killed 22, So Far

Hotel Saratoga, in Habana Vieja, after the explosion. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 6 May 2022 — The Cuban government lamented, this Friday afternoon, the death of 22 people, “including a pregnant woman and a child” due to the explosion of the Saratoga hotel in Havana.

In a press conference held by the medical authorities, it was detailed that there are three children in critical condition, two in serious condition and nine are in care. In hospital institutions there are 42 hospitalized adults, 18 of them in serious or critical condition.

The medical report also indicates that of the 56 injured reported so far, ten adults and three children have undergone surgery.

After a preliminary report from a meeting with the main leaders of the country, the authorities said that they are focused “on the care of the people, the relatives of the deceased and also those who are hospitalized.”

At the meeting, presided over by Miguel Díaz-Canel, the situation associated with the explosion was updated, the Cuban Presidency reported on its Twitter account, adding that “work continues to assess the state of the hotel structures and surrounding buildings.”

The explosion, which occurred this Friday morning around 10:50, has destroyed the Saratoga hotel, in Old Havana. The neighboring residential building is seriously damaged and the nearby school has lost its doors and windows. continue reading

A small shop on the ground floor of the hotel was reduced to rubble.

The official media report that the injured were taken to the Hermanos Ameijeiras, Calixto García, Manuel Fajardo and Miguel Enríquez hospitals. In addition, 13 people are missing. Five elementary school children were slightly injured.

Díaz-Canel went to the scene, accompanied by the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, and the President of the National Assembly, Esteban Lazo.

The causes of the event are unknown. It destroyed several floors of the building, located very close to the Capitol, but the Cuban government says that it took place while liquefied gas was being loaded. “Liquefied gas was being supplied to the hotel. The cook smells gas, checks the connections and discovers that there was a crack in the supply hose,” Cubadebate published based on a source: Alexis Acosta Silva, mayor of Old Havana.

In the afternoon, a news special on Cuban television showed how the wrecked vehicle was removed from the rubble.

The Saratoga was closed for repairs and its reopening was scheduled for this coming Tuesday, May 10. One of the sinister hypotheses received by a hotel employee by 14ymedio is that oxygen tanks that were being used in welding inside the works exploded.

The president of the Provincial Defense Council, Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, said forcefully that “we are talking about an accident” of which “the causes are being investigated” and that “we are not talking about an attack or anything like that.”

The official website Cubadebate, which had suggested that the events could be due to the “transfer of liquefied gas from a truck”, reports five dead and 25 injured, as a “preliminary” count of victimsThe hospitals that are receiving the wounded are Hermanos Ameijeiras, Calixto García, Manuel Fajardo and Miguel Enríquez.

State Security deployed an operation to try to remove the hundreds of onlookers who were crowding the Parque de la India, given the risk of the structure collapsing, and several residents of the neighborhood reported the internet service being cut off.

The area is one of the busiest in Havana, with several bus stops and a constant movement of people, many of them tourists. Around the affected building, in addition, there are numerous properties that are in a dire state. The detonation reached premises located several blocks away, such as on Monte Street, where broken glass was observed.

Cuban television news showed how the wrecked vehicle was removed from the rubble. (Capture)

From the tall buildings of Nuevo Vedado, in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, where the noise was heard loudly, the smoke could be seen. Instantly, sirens from firefighters and military vehicles sounded in the area.

The Saratoga, founded in 1933, is one of the most emblematic hotels in the city. Located in a 19th century building, it was last restored in 2005 and is categorized with five stars. Decorated in art deco style, numerous personalities who have visited the island have stayed there, such as Madonna, Beyoncé and high-ranking officials from other countries.

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An Unpacu Activist Dies in Santiago de Cuba

Unpacu activist Alfonso Chaviano Peláez, who died this Wednesday. (Capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 6 May 2022 — The activist Alfonso Chaviano Peláez, of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) and promoter of Cuba Decide, died on Wednesday in Santiago de Cuba.

As detailed by Ana Belkis Ferrer on Twitter, Peláez had recently been arrested, “violated and threatened by Castro hitmen.”

Chaviano Peláez himself recounted on April 15 that he had been arrested at the Unpacu headquarters when he was about to receive food for the needy. In a video shared on YouTube, the activist reported that a police officer “in a very violent way” forced him to get in a patrol car and took him to the military hospital.

“All these moves have been with pressure on my forearms and they always left me very sore,” Peláez said in his message, published two days after his arrest.

In his history, the activist had already accumulated other arrests and suffered from a lung disease that had forced him to undergo a tracheostomy. continue reading

On the other hand, the daughter of Eldris González Pozo confirmed that her father underwent emergency surgery, after suffering a heart attack on May 3 at the Boniato prison and while waiting to be transferred to the Confianza correctional facility.

According to what Evelin González told Radio Televisión Martí, while he was being treated “for his leg problem,” González Pozo vomited blood and fainted, they operated on him quickly and he is “serious, but stable.”

González Pozo is a self-employed person sentenced to three years in prison for the crimes of assault, contempt and disobedience. A member of the Eastern Democratic Alliance, he went on a hunger strike in April last year to protest his arrest.

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Yoan de la Cruz, the Young Man Who Broadcast the July 11th (11J) Protests in San Antonio de los Banos, Released From Prison

Yoan de la Cruz broadcast the July 11 protests live. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 6 May 2022 — Yoan de la Cruz was released this Friday after almost 10 months in prison, family sources and friends confirmed to 14ymedio. After the appeal, the young man’s sentence of 6 years in prison was changed to 5 years in prison without internment.

The young man, who on July 11 made the live broadcast of the first protests in San Antonio de los Baños that spread throughout the country, had received a sentence of 6 years behind bars last March after three months of the trials of the protesters in San Antonio de los Baños.

Until the day of his trial, Yoan remained almost incommunicado in Melena del Sur prison, Mayabeque, where it had been said that he would serve the rest of his sentence. “As a mother I feel like dying, it’s very sad and hard what you feel for so much injustice, but God is great and one day so much injustice will be paid for,” his mother Maribel Cruz wrote on March 22.

The case of Yoan de la Cruz caused a wide mobilization in the social networks of organizations, family and friends since he was arrested on July 23. The main argument for his defense was the strictly peaceful presence of the young man at the demonstration. continue reading

“He didn’t do anything for them to ask for that many years. The only thing he did was film,” his mother said in a message broadcast on social networks in different groups. “He is a very good boy. The whole town loves him.”

At the end of last month, six young people convicted of the 11J anti-government protests in Holguín also had their prison sentences commuted to house arrest, according to the organization Prisoners Defenders (PD).

The association, based in Spain, broke the news through a brief tweet in which it indicated that the beneficiaries are Keyla Roxana Mulet Calderón, 16 years old at the time of her arrest, Samuel Torres Durán, Yeral Michel Palacios Román, Ernesto Abelardo Martínez Pérez and Ayan Idalberto Jover Cardosa, all under 18 years of age on 11J.

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The Cuban Regime is Pursuing its New Enemy, the Dangerous DPEPDPE

On the private channels of Échate Esto, the design of that T-shirt has been announced since at least November. (Collage)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 5 May 2022 — The new message that the Cuban regime considers subversive is not even pronounceable. DPEPDPE, an acronym for “de pinga el país de pinga este” [which roughly translates as “fuck this fucking country”], has become the most used hashtag by activists on the island in recent days, especially since the government launched a campaign against it, considering it a serious threat.

On May Day last week, several citizens denounced on networks that State Security had carried out an operation to confiscate the T-shirts which have popularized the motto, accompanied by a cartoon doll with a childish outline, an open mouth and a resigned gesture, a garment which some activists were inspired to wear at the official march that day if they were forced to participate in their workplaces.

At the same time, Etecsa included the acronyms in its long list of censored words when sending an SMS, among which are “dictatorship,” “human rights,” “free elections” and even “Psiphon” and “VPN,” in addition to 14ymedio.

Deisy, one of the buyers of the T-shirt who was questioned by the political police, tells 14ymedio that she bought it for 350 pesos through the online store Échate Esto, dedicated to printing garments with different designs, although “there were several businesses selling that same T-shirt” and “there was someone who announced on Twitter that he was printing up to 175” of them. continue reading

The agents had a list with buyers of the garment. “I wouldn’t know if they got the list because they have the cell phone of someone from that brand or if they themselves provided them with contacts as a way of cooperation, because they are investigating them,” details the young woman, who says that they released her when they were convinced that “I did not know anything.”

“It was the clumsiness with which the regime reacted that elevated the meme,” says Deisy. “Regardless of whether or not someone called to put it on for May Day. Because that would have been a small action and of little or no consequence.”

In the private channels of Échate Esto, the design of that T-shirt has been announced at least since November, and it has not been uncommon to see images of young people dressed in the garment while on the bus or in a public place on social networks, but it was as of this last week that the matter has gone viral.

To circumvent censorship, activists have simplified the campaign in recent days and, instead of including #dpepdpe in their messages, they simply use the doll that accompanies the sweater, an original drawing by a designer who calls himself Flork of Cows [in English in the original].

The artist already boasts in his networks of being “the home of the characters that angered the Cuban government.” This Wednesday, he tweeted: “Dear new Cuban followers, thank you for your kindness in recent days. I love your drawings and I love the media-characters [yes, the doll is a media] that you are using as your profile image.”

Flork was referring, for example, to the “portraits” that the visual artist Julio Llopiz-Casal has made of numerous activists, journalists and other ordinary citizens, using that character as a basis.

“I immediately realized that it was very versatile and very effective,” Llopiz-Casal tells this newspaper, saying that he had already seen how many network users were modifying Flork’s drawing for their messages.

He began to do it almost by chance, quickly, with a phone application, at the request of a friend, identified on the networks as Guajiro Cubano, and from there, an avalanche of requests came, such as those of Saily González, Fernando Almeyda, Daniela Rojo, Luz Escobar “and even people I don’t know at all.” Although the demand exceeds his capacity, he says, he tries to tell everyone that yes, he is happy to interact in this way with other Cubans.

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

A Thief is Saved from a Lynching in Central Havana by the Arrival of the Police

The thief was captured on Galiano street, in Centro Habana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 5 May 2022 — A thief was stoned and beaten with a stick this Thursday in the middle of Galiano street, in Centro Habana, after being identified by several of his victims, a group of private workers in the area. According to the self-employed, the man, along with two others, are dedicated to stealing from stores, cafeterias and other businesses.

“About a year ago this subject staged a robbery three blocks from the La Época store and today they detected him again and recognized him,” says a neighbor who witnessed the attempted lynching.

“Several entrepreneurs followed behind him and threw stones at him. The criminal, to defend himself, also threw stones but finally they caught him and hit him with a stick,” details the neighbor. “If the police did not arrive they would have killed him. The man was bleeding from the head.”

The thief, about 55-years-old and black, had to be transferred by police officers to the Luis Galván Soca polyclinic to be treated in the emergency room.

According to witnesses, given the injuries caused to the thief, a discussion arose between the private workers and the people who came to see what was happening, who asked the victims “not to hit him anymore, not to take justice into their own hands.” continue reading

Last Tuesday, in Camagüey, another thief was captured after stealing a girl’s cell phone on the street. A video that went viral on social networks, shared by the Kuba x Inside page, recorded the outrage and the cries of people upon learning of the robbery.

A large number of residents of Calle Segunda Transversal, between San Rafael and Carretera Central, participated in the capture of the criminal, who was handed over shortly after to a police patrol that arrived at the scene and tried to calm things down.

In recent months, social networks have been filled with complaints in which citizens ask that urgent measures be taken in the face of the increase in assaults in the country. Some also complain that there are police officers to repress protests and prevent alleged crimes against the State, but not to find thieves in the neighborhoods.

The Government does not give figures for robberies and thefts or violent assaults, so it is impossible to determine when crime increases or decreases. Nor do the official media address this type of case or the possible waves of robberies, generally limiting themselves to covering only thefts in the state sector and, in many cases, magnifying those events.

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For Asking for Freedom in the Streets of Havana, Ktivo Disidente is Imprisoned in Cienfuegos

Ktivo Disidente is accused of disobedience and contempt for his protest in Havana. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 5 May 2022 — Carlos Ernesto Díaz González (known on social media as Ktivo Disidente) is accused of disobedience and contempt after climbing a wall on San Rafael Boulevard in Havana last Thursday, April 28, and demanding freedom for Cubans.

According to his Facebook account, which is managed by another person, the rapper is detained in the Unpico Technical Unit, Pueblo Grifo, in Cienfuegos, and is expected to be transferred to the Ariza prison, in that province, considered maximum security. The same account indicates that the activist refuses to have a lawyer and is plantado’* (on a hunger strike).

Ktivo Disidente is a member of the Archipiélago collective and was arrested in November of last year, the day before the Civic March for Change, for putting up protest posters in Cienfuegos, where he lives. A week ago, perched on a wall in the Cuban capital, he raised his voice in a speech that lasted about five minutes.

“There must be no violence, there must be no bloodshed, but they must allow us to participate in the political life of the country,” he demanded. “He who is a communist so be it, but he who is not has to be respected,” he said, while most of those who passed by on the street looked sideways or recorded with their mobile phones. continue reading

Some also asked him to shut up, to which the activist replied: “The people are scared, the people are terrified: citations, a sector chief above you, an informer above you. How long do we have to live like this?” He also reproached those who entered the hard currency store next to the place where he was protesting: “You can buy there,” he warned.

Hours earlier, Ktivo Disidente had uploaded a video inviting Cubans to a march in favor of the release of political prisoners.

His detention was delayed until the police officers found a ladder with which to lower him from the height to which he had climbed. Later, he got down without offering any resistance and, according to witnesses, he was handcuffed and put into a car. Since then his whereabouts have been unknown.

This Monday, the activist Yasmany González Valdés, who had been arrested in the operations prior to May 1, vindicated after being released the role of some Cubans including Ktivo Disidente, who he praised for his courage against those who ignored him in his protest.

“There’s nothing clearer than the video of Ktivo asking for freedom all by himself and people telling him: ’Shut up!’ This goes for the opponents and for the whole world, Ktivo is in prison for lack of support, so draw your own conclusions.”

*Translator’s note: “Plantado’ — literally ’planted’ — is a term with a long history in Cuba and is used to describe a political prisoner who refuses to cooperate in any way with their incarceration.

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After Being Released from Villa Marista, Activist Yasmany Gonzlaez Laments the Cowardice of Cubans

Yasmany González Valdés was arrested last Thursday as part of the police operations around the date of May 1. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana 2 May 2022 — The activist Yasmany González Valdés announced this Monday that he will stop posting on social networks after being released this Sunday after four days in Villa Marista, the State Security headquarters in Havana. The young man was arrested last Thursday as part of the police operations around May 1st, Cuba’s Labor Day.

“I’m already at home with my family (…) I’m going to quit, caballero, because nobody knows what a family member goes through when you’re in there,” González wrote on his Facebook account a few hours after his release. The activist lamented the lack of solidarity of the Cuban population with the dissidents.

The young man, who works as a self-employed bricklayer, gave as an example the well-known activist Carlos Ernesto Díaz González (known on social networks as Ktivo Disidente), who on April 28 climbed a wall on San Rafael Boulevard in La Havana and asked for freedom for Cubans, but received no support from the people.

“There’s nothing clearer than the video of Ktivo asking for freedom all by himself and people telling him: ’Shut up!’ This goes for the opponents and for the whole world, Ktivo is in prison for lack of support, so draw your own conclusions.” continue reading

Last Saturday, González’s wife was able to send him some personal hygiene products in Villa Marista, as confirmed to 14ymedio. The guards did not specify, at that time, if the activist was going to be prosecuted for any crime and limited themselves to announcing to his wife that he could visit the detainee next Wednesday if he was still under arrest by then.

This is not the first run-in that González has had with the political police. On April 12, he was fined with the application of Decree Law 370 for his publications on social networks in which he frequently denounces the violations of human rights on the Island and demands the release of those sentenced for the protests of July 11th.

According to the Inventory Project, on that occasion González was summoned to the National Revolutionary Police, “they took him to a cell and after a while, they took him to a room before a State Security officer and two inspectors from the Ministry of Communications of Cuba,” where they applied a fine of 3,000 pesos.

“Several of my publications were printed. They told me that my posts and videos incited violence and that if I did another one they would prosecute me,” Yasmany González told Proyecto Inventario. This mason’s fine is number 56 imposed by Decree 370, according to the records published by the Inventory Project.

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Controversy Grows Within the Cuban Regime Over the Dismissal of the Director of ‘Alma Mater’

Aylin Álvarez García, first secretary of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), published this image yesterday with Armando Franco Senén, although it was taken in December 2021. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, 28 April 2022 — The authorities are addressing, at the highest level, the departure of Armando Franco Senén as director of Alma Mater; his dismissal was announced on Tuesday and has generated a strong controversy between the readers of the university magazine and the Cuban intelligentsia, close to officialdom, or not, who believe that the journalist has been expelled for the novel treatment in form and content that he gave to the publication in the three years he was in charge.

This Thursday, Rogelio Polanco himself, head of the Ideological Department of the Communist Party, met with the deposed journalist and Aylin Álvarez García, first secretary of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) as of August, who hours before had taken the floor to deny that the measure was a punishment towards Franco. The young woman maintained that “his release at the head of Alma Mater has nothing to do with an expulsion or sanction” and that it is simply “a natural process of renewal, and responds to the cadre policy of the UJC and the country.”

After the meeting, Álvarez published a post on his Facebook profile explaining the three-way conversation accompanied by a photograph in a very friendly attitude with Armando Franco that would suggest the continuation of a good relationship between the parties if the image was current. In reality, it is a photo taken at a session of the National Assembly of People’s Power, the eighth of the IX Legislature –because of the silhouette of the Capitol and the number 8 printed on the credentials that both carry – that took place at the end of last December.

In the message, Álvarez insists on what he had previously said: the results of Alma Mater are evident and the intention is to take advantage of its experience and value in other communication projects because the young people of the UJC “learn, contribute, consolidate themselves as revolutionaries to then carry out other activities in society.” continue reading

The young woman had already said that Franco “had been proposed to integrate him into another necessary communication project, which had been communicated to him a few days ago,” although it is not clear which one or whether the journalist has accepted. On Tuesday, the statement that reported the dismissal never indicated that the former director was leaving to join a new project and just said: “By decision of the National Bureau of the Union of Young Communists, Armando Franco Senén was released from his functions as director of the magazine.”

The afternoon statement, on the other hand, hints that the process is not friendly at all. Álvarez writes phrases that suggest this: “I listened to all your dissatisfactions associated with the process of your release, and the treatment of your group at Alma Mater” and “we agree on the inappropriateness of some actions,” he indicates, always while emphasizing that there are no traces of retaliation, punishment or penalty in is dismissal.

But the environment closest to the journalist does not seem to be on the same friendly terms. The father of the ex-director of Alma Mater published a post – which is not available now but which the Uruguayan journalist Fernando Ravsberg took a screenshot of before broadcasting – in which he claims to feel “freed from the ban” that his son had imposed so that he would not speak out on social networks against those who insulted him from the Cuban officialdom itself.

Armando Franco Súarez highlights the pride he feels for what his son achieved at the head of the magazine and the more than a thousand comments of solidarity that accompanied the note of his dismissal, although he also regrets those who have attacked him, a few, and he affirms that they are giving “a nice gift” to the “enemies of the Revolution.”

“Even against my son’s decision, I recently published a post commenting on the danger of ’friendly fire’, of that treacherous fire that comes from those who are supposedly in your same trench,” says Franco Suárez, who asks that the affection of those who recognize his work be remembered  “because they cannot ’free’ him from that.”

Franco Senén’s departure has been followed by members of his team, including Yoandry Ávila Guerra, editor-in-chief of Alma Mater until now and who made his departure public by changing his employment status on Facebook. Also the illustrator of the publication, Kalia León, who said goodbye by sharing a collage of her authorship. “It was necessary for me to be part of it with my small contribution and I was really very happy while it lasted. Armando Franco Senén decided that the gender column was good for me and he was not wrong,” she writes.

In the midst of the controversy, Aylin Álvarez also wanted to settle the thorny issue of the autonomy of the university magazine. The decision of the UJC to meddle in the decisions of the positions raised a great cloud of dust among those who affirmed that the organization was overstepping the limits, but Álvarez confirms that the magazine is at the service of the Party and has little autonomy.

“This magazine, along with Zunzún, Pioneros, Somos Jovenes, El Caimán Barbudo and Juventud Técnica, belong to Editora Abril, which is directed by the National Committee of the UJC. The management positions of each of these media are the responsibility of the National Committee, and it is a Committee of Cadres of this instance where each movement or transit of its cadres is evaluated, as was done with Armando,” he asserts, ending the debate.

In the official blog La Cosa, by Julio César Guanche, the author had explained the connections between both apparatuses and warned that Castro’s centralizing policy had determined, even in 2006, that “the FEU (University Student Federation) would have ’organic independence ’ while subordinating itself to the PCC (Cuban Communist Party) – on which the entire Cuban political system depends – and more directly to the UJC.”

In the text, the author considers this contradiction a strict legacy of Soviet Marxism, “which never offered democratic solutions for any political system within what was then called the socialist camp,” and calls for the FEU to be granted “full autonomy” as a tribute to its centenary.

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Silvio Rodríguez Regrets the ‘Closeness’ of the Cuban Leadership and the ‘Powers of Impunity’

Silvio Rodríguez is worried that the Revolution will become a counterrevolution, he stated this Wednesday.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, 28 April 2022 — The departure of Armando Franco Senén, former director of the university magazine Alma Mater, continues to generate reactions, and the Communist Party has taken notice. In a message on Twitter, Enrique Villuendas Calleyro, an official of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee and in charge of the press, said that he met with the journalist, “who has a lot to contribute… I heard his concerns about the Alma Mater magazine and I ratified the PCC’s willingness to address them,” he added.

The message has been shared by Ronquillo Bello, president of the Union of Cuban Journalists and a contributor to Juventud Rebelde, who has spared no praise for Franco. “We are saddened, like so many colleagues and followers of Alma Mater, by the decision adopted in relation to Armandito and the publication. From Upec we have supported his projects, such as those of all those who strive in the press system to modernize the language, codes and aesthetics, as well as increasing its authority and scope in times when the mediacentric model is failing and audiences, increasingly fragmented, have to be conquered with unwavering professionalism and ethical heights.”

The journalist has asked that the situation be “overcome,” which has generated controversy among those who demand that it be rectified and that the removal of those who are critical be stopped, a situation that, in the opinion of several users, harms the Revolution.

The authorities will have to work to placate the outrage that has spread among the publication’s readers, including supporters of the regime such as Israel Rojas, who has expressed his admiration for the dismissed director and has even asked that the journalist be sent to be the director, for example, of Bohemia magazine. “Perhaps this is how such a historic and necessary publication is rescued.”

Silvio Rodriguez has gone much further, in what is already his umpteenth pronouncement against the Díaz-Canel government. The troubadour does not stop at the dismissal of Franco, on the contrary, the news serves to unleash an attack on the current power leadership. “What seems worrying to me is that, instead of opening up, the leadership continues to show signs of closure. And it seems very serious to me, at this point,” he accuses. continue reading

The artist, who hinted last month that the closure of his blog Segunda Cita was imminent, has continued to add content and this Wednesday the Alma Mater case broke out among its readers, who mostly reject Franco’s “liberation.” Rodríguez is not scandalized, however, that the Union of Young Communists (UJC) has made the decision, interfering with the autonomy of the publication.

The troubadour points out that the magazine has always been subordinate to the youth organization – since 1959, it appears – and this aspect does not concern him, but the fact that “political organizations insist on being so obsolete” does. “It worries me that the Revolution (or what uses its name) ends up being counter-revolutionary and that what confronts it seems or ends up being revolutionary,” he says.

Julio César Guanche, author of the official blog La Cosa, talks with Rodríguez in his space and claims the autonomy of the Federation of University Students (FEU) and Alma Mater of the UJC. The essayist reviews the trajectory of the centennial magazine and the centralizing process of the mass organizations that, according to him, were corrected in the XIII Congress of the Federation of Cuban Workers (CTC), in 1973. However, the separation is not as great as it should be.

“Specifically, the FEU would have ‘organic independence’ while subordinating itself to the PCC – on which the entire Cuban political system depends – and more directly to the UJC,” explains Guanche. In the text, the author considers this contradiction a strict legacy of Soviet Marxism, “which never offered democratic solutions for any political system within what was then called the socialist camp,” and calls for the FEU to be granted “full autonomy” as a tribute to its centenary.

Rodríguez cannot avoid intervening again in light of the comments, which do not cease, to continue charging against the system, in some aspects, since he does not hesitate to point out that the multiparty system does not seem “essential” to him, but instead calls for a diversity of spaces “where anyone can express what they think.”

“The policy regarding the press must improve a lot; this blog, until today, was always unequivocal about that. There are many freedoms that we deserve (in work and commerce) and I believe that they do not reverse the achievements of the Revolution, although they would affect the bureaucratic control and certain unpunished powers that we suffer from,” claims the troubadour. And as if he were biting his tongue, he adds: “And here I leave it.”

Silvio Rodríguez’s interventions in favor of people linked to culture or the press retaliated against by the Government have increased more and more. Almost four years ago, in June 2018, he came out in defense of the Uruguayan journalist Fernando Ravsberg, from whom the government, at that time still led by then President Raúl Castro, withdrew his correspondent credential in Havana.

“It seems that at last the Cazabrujas de Dores (Witch Hunters of Dores) feel strong and unleashed enough; so much so that they seem capable of doing what Fidel and Raúl did not do… If this materializes, if their press credentials are withdrawn in Cuba and push Ravsberg to emigrate with his Cuban family of 30 years, it could mean a turning point in this Revolution that so many of us have loved, defended and built,” he said then.

Since that date, and with the arrival of Díaz-Canel to power, the criticism has risen in tone and the troubadour has criticized recent decisions, such as the excessive sentences for those arrested for the July 11th (11J) protests in general and the case of the musician Abel Lescay in particular, but also historical measures such as the revolutionary offensive. Although the artist has not stopped demanding — and he ends the posts on his blog with this — the end of the blockade, he has also recently said that this cannot be an eternal excuse.

“If in 60 years we have not been able to develop a creativity that overcomes the blockade, we are in a bad way,” he said just three months ago.

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The Havana Book Fair: A Fair of Absences

Located in the San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress, which is accessed through the tunnel that crosses Havana Bay, the Book Fair is a true sauna. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 4 May 2022 — The door to the shop was kept locked, and every so often someone checked to see if everything was still in order for the children’s book exhibition that would start the next morning. Despite vigilance, within a few hours hundreds of volumes disappeared. At that Havana Book Fair, 20 years ago, stealing the most coveted titles was the irrepressible desire of workers and visitors.

This anxiety has barely diminished over time. A few brilliant pages, a novel from this century or a voluminous dictionary can bring out the inner kleptomaniac of all of us on this Island. In part this is because publishing production has been plummeting in Cuba every year, due to the lack of resources for the printing presses, the ideological filters that privilege the most infamous titles and the new possibilities of publishing abroad that the digital format has opened up for writers.

But if the tendency to loot the shelves remains intact, the object of such dark covetousness becomes scarcer every day. At the beginning of this century it seemed that the most important literary event on the Island managed to break through and attract prestigious publishing houses, renowned authors and thousands of readers eager for news. But it was an illusion that did not last long. Two decades later, the Havana Book Fair is a space to buy bread with croquettes, to try to catch a piece of fried chicken, buy a poster with a Marvel hero or get hold of pencils and erasers. continue reading

And the books? They have receded into the background. The political conveniences and the international isolation of the Cuban regime led to terrible decisions when it came to choosing the countries invited to this reading festival; as well as in the selection of authors who could present their works and share space with the public. That, together with the lack of interest among publishers to pay the costs of attending an event where they obtained very little profit, definitively dried up its course.

In parallel, the national books became increasingly gray and not only because of the content. In the publishing houses, designers have long had the norm of making covers with a limited color variety, to avoid the high costs that a wider palette entails. The paper used was also becoming more fragile and yellowish to reduce print runs; while the careless printing of the children’s volumes hardly attracts a public eager for colorful illustrations anymore.

The pandemic also did its part. In 2021 the Fair was suspended, and it still had another postponement this year to move it from its traditional date of February to April. The postponement may not seem like much, just a few weeks, but in this tropical city it represents a difference of almost ten degrees in temperature. Located in the San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress, which is accessed through the tunnel that crosses Havana Bay, the Book Fair is a veritable sauna with its narrow galleries with thick walls and hardly any windows.

A military barracks can serve as a prison and stage for a firing squad, as it was after Fidel Castro came to power, but it will rarely function as a bookstore. But it’s not the heat or the rigors of transportation, in the midst of a fuel crisis that has pushed the country back to the paralysis of the 1990s, the elements that most affect this cultural event. If is the disinterests in its offerings, on the one hand, and the daily anxieties of Cuban readers, on the other, the true causes of their agony. A death rattle from which not even the fact that this year Mexico is the guest country, with its impressive literary baggage, has been able to overcome.

Between the last closing of the event and this reopening, a century also seems to have passed in Cuba. The package of economic adjustments that began in January 2021 unleashed inflation, the convertible peso was buried, the peak of contagion of the Delta variant of the coronavirus took thousands of Cubans in the summer months and on a Sunday in July across the Island, the largest popular protests in its entire history broke out. To top it off, the mass exodus has turned the country into a constant packing of suitcases and saying goodbye at airports.

The “festival of books,” as the official media call it, is back; but the country is on the run. The lines will continue in front of the food kiosks, nimble hands will try to steal the odd book from a shelf and parents will avoid going with their children through the areas of colorful volumes that cost a week’s salary. However, the Fair is dead.

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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the cultural magazine La Lectura, of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

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A Three-Hour Interrogation for Cuban Mother who Denounced the July 11th Trials at the UN

Ángel Jesús Véliz Marcano, 27 years old, was arrested on July 18, 2022 and sentenced to six years in prison. (Justicia 11J)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, May 3, 2022 — R turning to Cuba from Europe — where she denounced the situation of her son who was sentenced to prison after July 11th (11J) –has not been easy for Ailex Marcano, mother of Ángel Jesús Véliz Marcano. Authorities subjected her to an interrogation for three hours and confiscated 3,000 pesos, according to the account she gave Radio Television Martí from Camagüey, where she lives.

Marcano was in Madrid and Geneva, invited by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, where she denounced the situation of Cuban prisoners before the Spanish press and the UN. The feeling of solidarity and support she received in Europe disappeared when she stepped foot in Havana’s airport.

“They asked why I went to Spain, if I went by invitation, the purpose of my trip, who I met with, what the results were, whether I believed my situation would be resolved. I told them that I had not been listened to here, that the law was not being upheld because my son is not a violent person, nor aggressive and he is currently serving a six-year sentence for assault and public disorder, that I’d continue to do what I had to do for my son’s freedom because he should not be there,” Marcano told the news outlet.

For her return to Camagüey, Ángel Jesús Véliz Marcano’s mother was carrying 3,000 Cuban pesos, which were confiscated at the airport for exceeding the current 2,000 limit in Cuba. In mid-April, the Central Bank of Cuba approved an increase to the maximum amount that can be imported to the country to 5,000 pesos but the resolution stated that it would go into effect 30 days after being published in the Gaceta Oficial [Official Gazette].

Marcano confirmed that a man dressed in civilian clothing took her before the lieutenant colonel who interrogated her. As she exited, when she was entering the car to return to Camagüey, a police officer asked the driver for identification and documents. The vehicle was detained along the route at a check point where her luggage was searched, in her view, looking for a T-shirt or other article of clothing with an antigovernment message. continue reading

Despite the trouble, Ailex Marcano feels “super strengthened, with more energy.” In Europe she has seen “the enormous contrast between one society and the other. I mean, there I am welcomed, they help me, they empathize with me and I return to my country and I am a stranger, I am terror, I am accosted, I am limited,” commented the woman, who has been one of the most firm voices denouncing the incarceration of the July 11 protesters.

Her 27-year-old son was arrested on July 18, 2022 and sentenced to six years in prison, which he is serving in the Cerámica Roja prison in Camagüey, after passing through other facilities. Marcano has revealed that in the coming days he will be transferred to another, lower-security facility.

“My son participated voluntarily and spontaneously in the demonstrations, no one incited him. It is sad, what we family members are going through only because our children participated peacefully in the demonstrations, which were necessary,” she said in Madrid.

Marcano requested “international support” for families and mothers of the prisoners and reproached “national organizations” which refused to listen to those affected. In particular, she referred to the Federation of Cuban Women, which “is not sensitive to” the prisoners’ mothers, while in other countries they are “worried and concerned” for them.

“They are doing the work of listening and supporting, we don’t have this on the Island,” she added.

Despite the harassment she experiences from the Government, Marcano assures that she will not give up for her son, with whom she was able to speak upon her return to Cuba, as she revealed to Martí Noticias. “Mama I am very proud of you, you really have taken off,” he said.

The woman did not stint on words of praise for her son and those, who like him, went out to the street once they understood “the reality… Those young people, perhaps have innovative ideas that will lead us to live in a better world and make their dreams a reality. They have made us what we are today, we have awakened, we know the reality, we no longer believe what was written in the text books.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuban Migration Part 4 – Scare in Guatemala: They Viewed Cubans with Distrust

The agents, we’d been told, had already been paid, but they’d suggested we carry a $20 bill, just in case. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Alejandro Mena Ortiz, 26 April 2022 — That day they woke us up at four in the morning and gathered us together as if it were a show at dawn, grouping and distributing us: some by car, others in vans. I was assigned to go in a hermetically closed truck, with 27 other people. I said to myself: “My God, I can’t believe they’re going to put me in one of these closed things for so long!” But luckily, the trip was ten minutes. And then, in the forest: “Run, run!” and it continued until we got on a ‘coaster’ heading to Santa Elena.

There were many children in that group. With us, there were five: a one-year-old baby and others between 7 and 10 years old. Two kilometers after we were on our way, the police stopped us. The agents, we’d been told, were already paid, but they’d suggested we carry a $20 bill, just in case. It was $20 each for 27 people, just imagine.

Then the guide got out, they spoke, and the policeman told him: “Ok, go on.” We hadn’t even advanced 500 or 600 meters, when the patrol car came behind us at full speed, with the siren on, beeping for us to stop. At that moment we said: “Well, this is screwed up,” because one of the guards got on, with a lot of gesturing and a machine gun, and told the guide: “You’re a liar, I should shoot you in the head.” The children began to cry, a woman began to scream… and the two of them kept arguing:

– Hey, no, look here, the boss…

– I don’t want to talk to your boss, you’re a liar.

Apparently, the man had told him that the chief of police knew about us, but the other said he didn’t. I don’t know if they had not given him enough money.

– I’m not going to talk to anyone, move to one side because I’m taking all of you prisoners. Turn around. continue reading

Normally the guides say that if they take us prisoner, they take care of it, but my faith was a bit shaky at that moment. We hadn’t gone back even a kilometer and a huge black truck appeared, with the famous boss. They positioned themselves in the middle and got off. The policeman would point with the machine gun and I thought: “They’re going to shoot each other here and I don’t know what’s going to become of us.”

But they managed to fix the situation by slipping him some dough, which is what Guatemalans call money, and the policeman allowed us to continue, with the black truck in front of us all the way, making way for us. Thus, every time we passed near a patrol car, those in the black truck were there and waved their hands at us to advance.

We arrived at a restaurant in the middle of a town. It was 10 in the morning, too early to eat, but we had to eat. They gave us orange juice, a tortilla, cheese, beans, beef, very tasty, with onions… They told us that wherever we stopped to eat, we should do so, because one never knew when we could do it again later.

We headed out again, and when we reached a river intersection, we parted ways. I was going to Santa Elena and the others were going to a place called El Naranjo, on the border with Mexico, further north, because they were going to Cancun, to sort out the famous fake visas and be able to fly to Mexicali to cross the border. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard anything from them or from Lauren. That was the last place we saw each other. I hope they have arrived safely at their destination.

When we crossed the river, the guide in the black van told me: “Come, Cuban, you’re going the other way.” And then he spoke with a man in a minivan, which was on route to Santa Elena, and he took me with him. I told him: “Hey, are you going to leave me alone?” And he replied: “Don’t worry, if that man hands you over to someone other than the one I’m telling him about, we’ll kill him. Him and his whole family.” He told me just like that.

He gave the man $40 and said: “Listen to what I’m going to tell you: hand him over there, and make sure nothing happens to him. And if it goes well, I’ll have more work for you.” So, the man took me to a little town, one of those typical ones that have many small markets outside the houses – there was such beautiful fruit, melons, oranges, grapes, even strawberries – and I didn’t understand it.

The man took only me, but in the end, about five more people got on board, and I had to ride while hiding my nationality, because, according to what I heard, if they found out you were Cuban, they viewed you with distrust.

Finally, the man left me in Santa Elena. Just before arriving, I contacted the person who had to pick me up and sent him my location via WhatsApp. He was waiting for me, he got in front of the truck and said: “Unload the Cuban,” as if I were a sack of potatoes.

From there, he took me to a motel, a very humble, simple little hotel, but the truth is that those were the few days I was able to rest from the entire trip, which had been quite stressful until then. In fact, I felt very safe in Santa Elena, in Guatemala.

I met Juan and Juana, the manager of the little motel and the cook, a very nice old lady, very friendly. She had lost her husband in the pandemic and she had to sell everything to go live with a son, but she was building a house thanks to the work the manager gave her.

Despite being what he was, because he was a human trafficker, I saw that man help several people in the four days that I was there. The first day I saw a Cuban couple, his name was Yasmani and he was an ambulance worker in Cuba.

On July 11th, he took to the streets to protest, but afterwards he was so disappointed… The funny thing is that he told me that the next day they were handing out clubs to defend the ambulances’ parking lot, and to beat Cubans on the streets. “But how is this possible?” He told me. So, he came in and said, “Hey, the ambulance is smashed, it can’t go out today.” And he turned around and went home.

“Brother, after what I experienced on July 11th, the repression, the beatings and those who were imprisoned, I said to myself: “I can’t continue in this country,” he told me. He asked his relatives for help, took out a little money that he had collected from a business and set off for Nicaragua.

They were going to take the girl and him to Los Naranjos first, and then to Cancún and Mexicali. They were charging them $7,000 each, in addition to the ticket. By the way, first they had to travel to Barbados, then to Jamaica, with a stopover in Panama and from there, to Nicaragua. Huge rounds they had to do. I didn’t see them again afterwards, because they left at dawn. And those were the last Cubans I saw in a long time.

Tomorrow:

On the border with Mexico, if you don’t pay the ‘tax’ you get shot

Translated by Norma Whiting
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Lopez Obrador Speaks With Biden About Immigration Before Traveling to Cuba

The Mexican President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, had a virtual meeting that lasted 52 minutes. (Presidencia de México)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio/EFE, Mexico, April 29, 2022 — Reducing migration at the border was the main topic of Monday’s conversation held by U.S. President Joe Biden and his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “The tone of the call was very constructive,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Psaki did not clarify if Biden made any concrete request to López Obrador to strengthen Mexico’s southern border and prevent the passage of more undocumented immigrants from going to the United States, but she wanted to distance the position of the U.S. president from that of his predecessor, Donald Trump (2017-2021).

“This was not a call in which President Biden was threatening the Mexican president in any way,” the spokeswoman said about the virtual meeting that lasted 52 minutes.

The figures show the severity of the migration crisis for both Mexico and the United States. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) recorded 7,800 arrests of irregular migrants per day along the border with Mexico in the last three weeks, almost five times the 2014-2019 average, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

From October 2021 to the end of February 2022, the CBP reported the arrival of 46,000 Cubans by land in the United States. The five-month figure exceeds that of the 12 months of 2021, which had already been a record (39,303), and some calculations estimate that after a year about 150,000 nationals from the island will have arrived on U.S. territory, more than the 125,000 of the Mariel ’Boatlift’ exodus. continue reading

This was not a call in which President Biden was threatening the Mexican president in any way.

The conversation between Biden and López Obrador “was scheduled in part due to the Summit of the Americas (to be held in June in Los Angeles), but also because the lifting of Title 42 is approaching,” Psaki stressed.

Title 42 is a protective measure that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) imposed during the pandemic in 2020, during the term of then-president Donald Trump, and which has continued under Biden.

This measure means that the United States automatically deports the majority of undocumented immigrants who arrive at its southern border, without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum.

The CDC recently announced its plan to rescind that measure on May 23, but that decision now depends on the decision of a Louisiana judge, who suspended for 14 days the Administration’s preparations to end that regulation.

A source consulted by the AFP agency who asked for anonymity announced that the Summit of the Americas, convened for June 8 and 9 in Los Angeles, will address the issue of migration from Central America.

López Obrador will travel next week to Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Belize and Cuba. Meanwhile, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard will travel to the United States next Monday to advance issues of cooperation for development and the next Summit of the Americas, as reported in the publication.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘I Refuse to Talk About Her in the Past Tense,’ Says Brother of Missing Young Woman in Ranchuelo

At the time of her disappearance, Rojas was working as an administrator at the Ranchuelo pre-university school. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 2 May 2022 — It has been 45 days since the laughter of Yeniset Rojas Pérez has ceased to echo within the walls of her house in Ranchuelo in Villa Clara. The 33-year-old woman disappeared, in broad daylight, on March 18 while she was returning from her work and, since then, anguish has overtaken her family and friends.

Yerandy Fleites, playwright and brother of Rojas, describes as “devastating” the impact that the woman’s absence has had on her loved ones. “She is a person with a simple life, divorced, dedicated to raising her 10-year-old girl and caring for our mother who has major health problems,” he details.

At the time of her disappearance, Rojas was working as an administrator at the Ranchuelo pre-university school. The last time she was seen was that Friday around 11:00 in the morning when she was returning from the educational center to her home, a route that runs through “an overcrowded area, full of interaction, traffic.”

When the hours began to pass and Rojas did not come home, the family knew immediately that something had happened. “We tried to file the complaint with the police on Friday the 18th, but according to the protocols, we had to wait 24 hours, so it had to be done on Saturday the 19th.”

Fleites classifies the treatment they received from the police from the beginning of the investigation as good, but criticizes the authorities who have not supported them in the hard time they are experiencing. “There has not been a much-vaunted ‘social worker’ assisting this family, there has been nothing at all,” he notes.

Rojas was the fundamental pillar of her home, “a true warrior of life,” explains her brother, who says that the woman’s absence is “a nightmare continue reading

that seems to have no end.” The playwright criticizes the official indifference towards the case: “We feel that apathy, we have felt it, feel it.”

“It seems incredible to me that we have disappeared people in Cuba and that no mass media echoes the news,” Fleites wrote on his Facebook account when 19 days passed without having a proof of life for his sister. Since then, he has maintained the demand on social networks for Rojas’ disappearance to be broadcast in the national media.

“I fear that the silence, this silence right now, this silence that accumulates dangerously, extends over ‘the case’ and it begins to be forgotten,” he wrote then and now reiterates: “we are doing what they have been unable to make the media and the official press do.”

In contrast, the solidarity of the neighbors has been present the entire time. “The people, the neighborhood, the family, the friends, formed several parties and we searched for her for several days (at all hours) around the town. The human support, that support has been fundamental and it is the thing that gives us the most strength in the world. We have had at our disposal everything from a car, through a machete, to the pill that today does not even exist in the spiritual centers.”

Although the police investigation continues, Fleites fears that a lot of time has been wasted and that “from the beginning, more could be done, much more, starting by making the case visible as a matter of Cuba, not of Ranchuelo, and that this would perhaps allow the use of research methods, techniques, resources, intelligence, etc.

Rojas’s mother and father receive little information about the course of the investigation: “They are hardly taken into account, a week goes by and no one visits” from the police to update the relatives about the process. Without new data, the anguish grows, but Fleites clings to hope.

“I refuse and I will refuse to talk about her in the past tense,” he points out and on his Facebook wall the playwright has published several photos of a girl with a mischievous face hugging her brother. In the most recent one, Yeniset Rojas Pérez, already an adult, looks directly at the camera and smiles. “She is not alone,” one can read next to the image.

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