14ymedio – Page 219 – Translating Cuba

Basilio Gusman, One of the ‘Plantados’ in Cuban Prisons, Dies

Basillo Guzmán was originally from Campo Florido, Havana (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 April 2022 — Former Cuban political prisoner Basilio Guzmán Marrero, who spent 22 years confined to the Island regime’s prisons, died on Wednesday, in Virginia, United States, the country where he has lived for many years, as dissident Frank Calzón confirmed to 14ymedio.

Guzmán was originally from Campo Florido, Havana, and “joined the struggle against Fulgencio Batista’s regime, suffering persecution,” recounted the International Committee of Former Cuban Political Prisoners while lamenting the opponent’s death.

“Years later, following the rise to power of the ill-named Castrista Revolution he returned to the struggle in search of the freedom that was being snatched from the Cuban people,” added the Committee, which also highlighted that Guzmán was tried in the 1960s [and sentenced] to 30 years in prison, “of which he served 22, the majority of that time wearing only underwear.”

The former prisoner became known not only for his confinement in prison, but also for the positions he took while behind bars. According to Calzón, Guzmán was a man who, from the beginning, very clearly drew a kind of red line as a Cuban political prisoner.

He was known for his intransigence for not wearing the uniform of a [common] prisoner, one of the characteristics of those known as plantados* in Cuba, and Guzmán was especially known as a “key and very heroic figure for his confrontations against Castroism within the prison system,” added Calzón. continue reading

In the United States, he maintained his profile as an opponent of the Island’s regime. “Basilio was Alpha 66’s representative in Washington, D.C., where he lived. We offer his family our most heartfelt condolences,” concluded the Committee’s statement.

Basilio Guzmán Marrero was one of the signatories of a letter sent, in April, to US President Joe Biden and signed by more than two hundred intellectuals, artists, writers and Cuban-American leaders asking the president to condition his policies toward Cuba on a “general amnesty for all political prisoners” on the Island.

“A good man has died, a great patriot,” who “knew Castro-Communism’s hate very well,” wrote Julio M. Shiling, director of The Cuban American Voice, on his social networks. “Nothing, however, separated him from his own balance, peace, and light.”

“Thank you, friend, for your example and dignity! From another dimension, Cuba will continue to count on you. Our most heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and the entire Cuban political prisoner community,” added the writer and political scientist on his post.

When the International Committee of Former Cuban Political Prisoners announced Guzmán’s death on their social media, they also lamented the passing on Wednesday of dissident Evelio Díaz López in Los Angeles, California.

The Committee said Díaz was a member of a farming family from Matanzas where he “became known for the support he provided to the guerillas of Benito Campos and Agapito Rivera” and his “participation in the struggle against Castroism.”

*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.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Retirees Return to Work to Replace Young People Fleeing Cuba

“It is not mandatory to retire, people retire when they decide and, if they wish, after the established age,” says a Cuban official. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 14 April 2022 — The massive flight of Cubans is beginning to be reflected in the number of jobs to be filled in Cuba, to the point that the official press is already talking about the rehiring of retirees. “Currently many people request retirement with the plan to be rehired to increase their income and thus address the high cost of living today,” states the provincial newspaper of Sancti Spíritus, Escambray, in an article aimed at clarifying if it is possible to go back to work in a position that was abandoned.

The text explains that some retirees want to go back to work, although it does not offer data to support this, not only to supplement their income in a context in which pensions stretch less than ever due to runaway inflation, but also to “contribute their experiences and knowledge at a time “marked by the aging of the population and the lack of youthful strength.”

“The labor entity is not obliged to rehire the person who retires, this works as an agreement between the parties, and depends on whether they need it or not. It is a business decision. Not every place wants to rehire the same workers , but retirees can be employed in their own entities or in other places where they can manage the job and there they can also contribute their knowledge and experiences,” explains José Adriano Abreu, director of the National Institute of Social Security in Sancti Spíritus.

The official notes that in 2020 a rule was approved that allows companies to assess whether they need and want to rehire a retiree “because there are also young people waiting for those jobs that retirees leave.” The statement shocks the editor of the report himself, who writes: “But not accepting retirees back seems a bit contradictory in the face of the aging population that the territory is already experiencing.” continue reading

Abreu maintains that, in the case of Education, Sancti Spíritus withdrew the workers of retirement age because “it already had the available force of the new teachers who had just been trained”, a striking assertion since the ministry itself alerts , year after year, that there is a deficit of teachers.

In 2021, Minister Ena Elsa Velázquez Cobiella indicated that there was a shortage of teachers in 14 Cuban provinces. A year earlier, the hiring of more than 5,000 teachers, most of them retired, was announced to meet the needs of the Island. In 2018, 10,000 teaching positions were unfilled and a year before the number was 16,000.

Abreu, despite mentioning in Escambray that there are young people who need to work, reminds Cubans that “it is not compulsory to retire, people retire when they decide to and, if they wish, after the established age — 60 years for women and 65 in men — they can continue working for longer in their regular jobs.”

Last year, the Ministry of Labor estimated that there were 4,708,800 workers in Cuba, of which 3,105,400 are in the state sector and 1,603,400 in the non-state sector. The last population census, which is carried out in Cuba every ten years, was in 2012, and on occasion there were 11,167,325 inhabitants, compared to the 11,177,743 recorded in 2002.

In the coming months this data will be updated, which will highlight what everyone knows, the emptying of the Island, which, in addition to the human drama, is putting at risk an already damaged pension and healthcare system and, therefore, the entire economy.

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Cuban Government Calls 2021 One of the Hardest for Public Health

Nearly 90% of Cubans have one of the three doses against covid-19, according to the Government. (ACN)

EFE (via14ymedio), Havana, 10 April 2022 — Cuba’s Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal, acknowledged this Saturday that 2021 was the “hardest” year for the sector “in recent decades” due to the covid-19 pandemic, although he highlighted the work of health personnel in this scenario.

The headline noted, quoted by the official media outlet Cubadebate, that the circulation of the Delta variant of the coronavirus — whose first case in the country was detected in March 2020 — led to a complex epidemiological panorama during last July and August.

At that time, the new positives exceeded 9,000 and the deaths were close to a hundred daily, according to data released by the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap) and compiled by Efe.

Portal considered the high level of immunization in the Cuban population as an advance in the health system, where nearly 90% of the 11.2 million inhabitants have at least one dose of the three Cuba-developed vaccines against covid-19.

However, he blamed the crisis generated by the pandemic and the “strengthening” of the US economic embargo for the “sensitive” impact on the “availability of resources and on population health indicators.” continue reading

Last year, “the number of deaths increased in all the country’s territories, with the 60-year-old age group being the most affected,” he said.

He added that “covid-19 had a negative impact on registered infant and maternal mortality rates.”

The report also recognizes “the lack and low coverage of medicines, medical supplies, diagnostics, expendable material” and “problems in the technological infrastructure, obsolescence and breakdown of equipment.”

In January, the president of the state group of the biopharmaceutical industry (BioCubaFarma), Eduardo Martínez, informed the official newspaper Granma that in 2021 it only supplied 121 of its portfolio of 359 drugs.

The “basic” palette of medicines, according to the Government, includes 619 products.

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Motherhood Dropped in Cuba in the Pandemic, But Less So Among Teens

The authorities recall that more teenage pregnancies occur in more marginal environments. (14ymedio)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 13 April 2022 — Adolescent motherhood in Cuba has decreased in the last two years –marked by the pandemic — however the fall was at a much slower rate than among all other age groups, and therefore now represents a greater percentage of mothers in the country (17%), according to a study by the Center for Demographic Studies of the University of Havana.

From 2019 to 2020, pregnancies — both interruptions and births — per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19, decreased. The pregnancy rate was 123.4 and fell by around 9% compared to 2019, when this indicator stood at 136.8, details the study, cited by state media.

For the deputy director of the Center for Demographic Studies (Cedem), Matilde Molina, this decline could be explained by the confinement and closure of recreational centers, schools and other socialization spaces, according to an article in Cubadebate.

This situation led to “fewer unions and marriages, less frequent sexual relations, fewer sexual initiations and greater family control over girls’ leisure time and their contact with people outside the home,” the expert pointed out. continue reading

“In 2019 births to mothers between 15 and 19 years old represented 16.7% of the country’s total births, but in 2020 that figure rose to 17% and in 2021 to 17.1%,” she detailed.

The article also refers to reports from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) program in Cuba, which refer to the highest indicators of early pregnancies in the provinces of Camagüey, Las Tunas, Holguín and Granma, with 51.5 births per 1,000 women under 20 years of age, in 2020.

The sociologist and professor at the University of Havana, Reina Fleites, pointed out during a conference on Children, Adolescents and Youth – recently held in Havana – that early motherhood occurs more among mixed-race and black adolescents, living in rural environments, not engaged in study or work, and living in low-income housing and in precarious conditions.

“Many adolescents choose a ’maternity project’ based on the belief that this can be a way of migrating, improving their well-being, getting out of poverty or leaving their family of origin, some even believe they can achieve independence,” said Fleitas.

During April of this year, the third National Fertility Survey is being carried out in Cuba, whose main objectives are to update information on demographic, socioeconomic and cultural factors and the motivations and circumstances that play a role in the reproductive decisions of men and women, including adolescents.

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Cuba: The Majority Dilemma

International Workers’ Day March in Havana (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 12 April 2022 — The majority demanded Pontius Pilate crucify Christ. The majority of Germans, in the times of Hitler, acclaimed the Führer. The majority of Cubans, at some point, shouted “Firing Squad” and “Get out.” This civic immaturity creates Peter Pan societies, which refuse to grow up and hold onto Never Never Land. The immature society sighs for the bad boy, is attracted by the charismatic lunatic who ends up becoming Batman’s Joker. The world has seen more than one Joker wear a presidential sash and fry his country’s democracy in his own vanity while the masses applaud.

In marketing (and, of course, in politics), the bandwagon effect or the drag effect are often discussed. In it, people can be observed doing and believing certain things, based on the fact that many other people believe and do the same. As more people follow something, more want to hop on the bus.

I’ve always obsessed over the word equilibrium. I resist continuing to view reality through the screen of the old Russian television I had as a child. Krim-218* Syndrome makes us see everything in black and white, without nuances. Our parents’ generation felt panic if they were out of line, in a Cuba marked by uniforms. The Revolution imposed the weight of its own opinions, forcing us to repeat the same slogans, converting civil society en masse, into a committee.

The dogma became irrevocable. Those who managed to escape to other shores soon espoused the contrarian discourse, also in a nearly unanimous way. Those who until the previous day called the dictator “Fidel,” even while flaying him (in hushed voices), now began to call him “Castro.” The sad thing is that at times, deep down, opposing positions end up resembling each other. continue reading

Majorities almost never lead real change. It is painful to discover that in the last war for our independence more Cubans fought on the side of the Spanish than the side of the Mambises [rebels]. At the end of the struggle, the Liberation Army had 40,000 members. And many of those joined in the last months, when Spain was practically defeated and the United States intervened in the conflict. In contrast, on the Spanish side, there were 80,000 creoles from the Island, including volunteers and relief soldiers. The majority who greeted Máximo Gómez, when he entered Havana, with hands raised high, had done almost nothing for independence.

The bearded men of the Castro’s Sierra Maestra didn’t receive massive support either, as described in their history books. The assault on the Moncada barracks was a chaotic failure which was met with varied criticism from the same forces that opposed Batista. They were called adventure-seekers and irresponsible. The Chilean daily El Siglo, of a communist bent, even suggested that the assault had been organized by the CIA. Nor could they count on the majority during the frustrated general strike on April 9, 1958. However, a few months later, all of Havana went out to greet the new caudillo with triumphant euphoria.

On the 11th of July 2021, it became clear that the regime has already lost popular support. They’ve had to use repression and fear to halt the protests. Social media is a hotbed of criticism against the ruling class. The apparatus does not dare conduct the “elections” that should have taken place in November to select new “delegates” and have used the pandemic as an excuse. They don’t even dare to reveal the results of the surveys conducted discretely by the Party offices. The State newspaper Granma published an article on April 8th where they recognize they are a minority and speak of “turning off the lights of El Morro”*.

Democracy is not, and should not be, a dictatorship of the majority. The democratic ideal is based on consensus, debates, real participation, transparency, freedom to be a part of or oppose something, adherence to human rights, legality, justice, representation, citizen sovereignty, respect for minorities and the individual. Populism which aspires to dominate the rest while taking advantage of the frustrations, prejudices or the vengeful spirit of the masses always ends in tyranny.

Hopefully, we Cubans will be capable of breaking the vicious cycle. Hopefully, we will overcome the anthropological damage caused by so much propaganda, so much Never Never, so much Krim-218. Hopefully we will be capable of building a plural Cuba, which won’t fall victim to the majority dilemma again.

Translator’s notes:
*Krim-218: A reference to Cuban state television, which much of the country watched on Soviet Krim-218 model black-and-white TVs.
**El Morro is the iconic lighthouse at the entrance to Havana Bay, and ’will the last one…. turn off the lights’ is an iconic phrase used around the world in similar circumstances.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Southwest Airlines Triples its Flights Between Fort Lauderdale and Havana

Southwest Airlines has the second highest number of flights between Havana and Fort Lauderdale, in Florida. (SA)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 April 2022 — The low-cost US Southwest Airlines will increase its flights to Cuba from Florida starting in May, according to a statement from the company.

In the case of the route between Havana and Fort Lauderdale, the flights are tripled, going from one to three daily. In addition, one more flight will be added to the daily service between the Cuban capital and Tampa on Saturdays.

“The airline’s service, offering authorized trips between the United States and Cuba, is available to more Southwest customers,” the company said in its statement.

Southwest Airlines requested permission to operate in Cuba when commercial flights were authorized in 2016 under President Barack Obama. The airline then began to fly to Varadero and Santa Clara in addition to the capital. continue reading

In 2017, with Donald Trump as president of the United States, the bubble of flights to Cuba began to burst. First because of the saturation of the market, but also because the travel measures were becoming more restrictive.

In June 2017, Southwest chose to reduce routes and concentrate its flights in Havana, suspending those to beach tourist destinations.

“Our decision to interrupt the other flights to Cuba comes after an in-depth analysis of our performance for several months, which confirmed that there is no clear path to ensure the sustainability of the service to those markets,” said Steve Goldberg, a company manager in Florida said at the time.

In February of this year, the company resumed its operations to Cuba after the break during the pandemic and is the second airline, after Jet Blue, flying between the cities of Havana and Fort Lauderdale.

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As of October, Cuba Has Stopped Accepting Deportees From the US

Cuban citizens are deported from the United States, in a file photograph. (EFE/Alejandro Ernesto)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Washington, 13 April 2022 — The Government of Cuba has not accepted the arrival of citizens deported by the United States immigration authorities for months, a spokesman for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) told Efe on Wednesday.

So far in fiscal year 2022 (that is, since last October), Cuba has not accepted any deportation of Cubans by ICE through commercial or charter flights from US territory.

During this time, only 20 Cubans have voluntarily returned to the island from the United States.

For comparison, between October 1, 2020 and September 30, 2021, ICE deported 95 Cubans.

According to figures from the US immigration agency, there are currently approximately 40,050 Cuban citizens pending deportation from the United States to Cuba after receiving the final order from a judge.

Cuba’s refusal to accept deportations comes amid an increase in the number of Cuban migrants trying to reach the United States irregularly through a route that starts in Central America and crosses the Straits of Florida.

Data from the US Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP) indicate that in the last five months a total of 47,331 Cubans entered the North American country irregularly. In February alone, 16,557 entries were registered. continue reading

The Government of Cuba blames the United States for the increase in the irregular migratory flow and has accused it of failing to comply with the agreements on the matter.

However, on April 5, the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said he was willing to talk with his “adversary” the United States, despite the historical differences between the two nations.

“We don’t need confrontation to exist either, as some fools think,” Diaz-Canel wrote on Twitter, quoting a phrase from former Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Both countries began a rapprochement in 2015, known as a “thaw,” during Barack Obama’s last term (2009-2017), but it was reversed with the administration of Republican Donald Trump (2017-2021).

Trump tightened the economic sanctions against the Island and paralyzed a large part of the measures taken by his Democratic predecessor.

Upon his arrival at the White House in January 2021, US President Joe Biden said he would review Trump’s policies.

However, Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, stated last November that “circumstances changed” in Cuba policy after the July 11 protests, which were repressed by the authorities.

That day, thousands of Cubans spontaneously took to the streets to demand more freedoms and political change in protests that resulted in hundreds of people arrested.

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Raul Castro’s Ex-Son-in-Law Will Supervise the New Pricing Policy in Cuban Pesos

Prices of basic products such as chicken, edible oils and ground beef remain controlled in Cuba. (Cubandebate)

14ymedio, Madrid, 13 April 2022 — Stores in Cuba that take payment in the national currency — Cuban pesos — will be able to set the prices of the products they sell according to a resolution of March 30 published in the Official Gazette this Tuesday. Chain store bosses will now have the power to decide the prices of the items they have available, with the exception of a group of products considered essential, such as edible oils, chicken thighs and drumsticks, and ground poultry and beef.

The new provision indicates that these measures will be carried out under the supervision of the president of the Business Administration Group (Gaesa), who will inform “this Ministry about the results obtained from the decentralization process, at the end of 2022.” Gaesa is the military conglomerate that owns several chains of stores that only accept payment in hard currency, which is directed by General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, the former son-in-law of Raúl Castro and a strongman of the regime.

The group of products with controlled pricing also includes domestically produced hygiene and cleaning items of an economical line, such as toilet and bath soap, detergents, toothpaste, deodorants and cleaning cloths. Havana Club rum is also a protected product.

The rule indicates that, when setting prices, “current general principles are taken into account, with a comprehensive evaluation of costs and expenses with criteria of rationality and efficiency, as well as the correlation with market benchmarks.”

The authorities have called this measure “decentralization of powers to the business system,” while the Cuban economist Pedro Monreal has described it as ‘Ordering Task* 2.0’. The economist considers it “a risky bet, with no explanation of its economic rationale” and believes that this future “microeconomic price flexibility” can “provoke macroeconomic instability.” continue reading

According to Monreal, the decision seems to be based on the fact that there will be a positive effect of profitability on investment, instead of a negative effect on aggregate demand due to the reduction in real income, which can make the complex situation worse, since that there is a full conviction that prices are going to rise, in the current context of high costs for production due to the increase in the cost of raw materials, imports and freight, among other things.

The first reactions to the news, published by the official media Prensa Latina and Cubadebate, could not have been worse. There is a panic among the population that prices are going to increase immediately and they fear that businesses will raise prices trying to obtain higher profits.

“Another measure that instead of curbing inflation and favoring the population, favors the profitability of companies, already very high given the sales in the discriminatory stores in MLC [freely convertible currency]. Let’s see the prices they set now, obviously instead of lowering prices, they will rise like everything that has been left to the discretion of business groups, in a scenario of almost zero retail competition,” warns a reader who managed to capture the attention of a Ministry spokesman who responded to him:

“The decentralization process of powers for the approval of prices is aimed at strengthening the powers of the business system. (…) The increase in prices in the international market and the complexity for our country of accessing financing for acquisitions, with additional increases in freight costs. Companies cannot make arbitrary use of these powers, but must apply principles and procedures that allow them to cover marketing costs and expenses. Certainly, the process demands supervision and control that allows the identification of deviations, violations and rectifying them opportunely.”

Although concern is visible in the majority of comments responding to the news, there is also an important sector that seems disillusioned and makes fun of the repercussions that a measure like this can have at a time when stores in national currency are conspicuous by their absence and they lack any product whose price can be liberalized. The scarcity of products available in this context is a determining factor, since prices will go up according to scarcity.

“Please, it makes me laugh. Which are the stores in pesos that sell these items here in Mayabeque? Another measure very unpopular, against the working people, who already with their miserable salaries can [buy] less, and now every boss is going to set prices that are a gain for them,” replied one commentator. Another user, on Twitter, summarized the idea: “Calm down, in national currency they don’t even sell shit in this country, there are no problems.”

*Translator’s note: Tarea ordenamiento = the [so-called] ‘Ordering Task’ which is a collection of measures that includes 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 others.

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Hemingway Has Been Left Alone in the Floridita in Havana

This Monday, on the outskirts of Floridita in Havana, sun and abandonment compete. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 12 April 2022 — Two Floriditas and zero tourists. Both the emblematic bar in Havana and its copy in the Varadero resort are without customers to keep company with the bronze statue of Ernest Hemingway leaning on the bar of his favorite place. In front of the first there was only one convertible and two cocotaxis this Monday, where before there were dozens of buses and a hornet’s nest of Cubans hunting tourists.

Outside the premises the sun and the absence of people competed, while the rest of the businesses in the area remained empty or closed. The place, famous for its daiquirís, tries to return to its old glory years, with little success.

In the historic center of the capital this morning it was also possible to walk several blocks without encountering tourists along the way. Some private businesses in the Plaza Vieja remained with their tables empty under the sun, their employees promoted the premises, but only Cubans passed by along with some fellow countrymen who, due to their dress and physical appearance, one might confuse with those looking for business opportunities on the street.

“I’m Cuban, you’re not going to earn much today with me,” a man told a promoter who showed him a restaurant menu offering “good prices… If I sit here eating with the money to bring food home, my wife kills me.”

Cuba, which reopened its borders in the middle of November after the closure forced by the pandemic, prioritizes the tourism sector. This is its second largest item of gross domestic product (GDP) and its third largest source of foreign currency, behind the sale of medical services and remittances. continue reading

The state tourism sector expects to end this year with 84,906 rooms. And despite the restrictions due to the coronavirus, the lack of tourists and the shortage of supplies for construction throughout the country, the Grupo de Administración Empresarial SA (Gaesa), a military conglomerate, has not stopped its huge projects.

One of them, being built at 25 and K in El Vedado, is a luxury hotel that is projected as “the tallest of its kind in Havana,” aiming to reach 42 floors and 500 feet high.

The Government, which has not modified its plans due to the impact of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia, continues to aspire to the 2.5 million tourists it had planned for 2022, just over half of the number that arrived in 2019. Since then tourism has been unable to recover, even relatively speaking. The Dominican Republic, which reopened just a month before Cuba, has already returned to even slightly higher numbers than it had before covid-19.

The agony is such that Varadero experiences a previously inexplicable emptiness. Foreigners do not arrive, Cubans have no money and establishments are not supplied.

This explains why even the wasteland around the Floridita in Havana is small compared to the desert of clients that can be seen in its twin in Varadero, the peninsula that until recently monopolized a good part of the island’s visitors and lately barely survived with the arrival of Russian tourists, who are now no longer coming because of the war in Ukraine.

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Cuban Doctors Kidnapped in Kenya and Still Missing After Three years, Despite the ‘Indefatigable Efforts’ of Diaz-Canel

Cuban doctors Assel Herrera Correa and Landy Rodríguez Hernández were kidnapped in April 2019 in Kenya. (Collage)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 12 April 2022 — Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, affirmed this Tuesday that efforts to return to the country of the two doctors kidnapped for three years in Kenya continue “tirelessly,” though their whereabouts are still unknown.

“Today marks three years since the kidnapping of our doctors Assel and Landy. We continue tirelessly to make arrangements for their safe return to the Homeland with their families,” the president wrote on Twitter.

Surgeon Landy Rodríguez and general medicine specialist Assel Herrera were captured in the Kenyan city of Mandera (northeast), on the border with Somalia, and then taken to the latter country by alleged members of the Somali jihadist group Al Shabab.

On April 12, 2019, they were traveling, as usual, in a convoy to the Mandera hospital, protected by armed escorts, when they were intercepted after a shootout in which one of the police officers responsible for their security died.

The man who worked as a driver for both was sentenced at the end of last March to life imprisonment. According to local press reports, Issack Ibrein Robow, a Somali, was found guilty of kidnapping, aiding in a terrorist act and fraudulently obtaining an identity card. continue reading

Herrera and Rodríguez were part of a contingent of a hundred Cuban professionals who arrived in Kenya in 2018 as part of a bilateral agreement to improve access to specialized health services in that African country.

The governments of Cuba, Kenya and Somalia say that since the doctors were captured they have been making joint efforts to achieve their release.

In May 2019, traditional leaders from Kenya and Somalia who traveled to the Al Shabab-controlled region of Jubaland in Somalia to negotiate on behalf of the doctors, reported seeing the doctors providing medical assistance to the local population. According to the mediators, the kidnappers even demanded a reward of 1.5 million dollars as a condition for their release, the Kenyan press reported at the time.

Every time there is a contact in this regard with those countries, the Cuban authorities usually disclose it, although in a concise way and without specific details about the efforts.

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The New and Stealthy Omicron is Already Present in Most of Cuba

The Ministry of Health asked to maintain the use of the mask on the Island. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 April 2022 — The stealthy variant of ómicron, BA.2, was confirmed in at least ten provinces of Cuba according to the director of epidemiology of the Ministry of Health, Francisco Durán, who proposed this Monday at his weekly press conference to continue with protection measures.

This strain, which as of March has been predominant in Europe, Asia and the United States, is more contagious than the original omicron variant, although the covid-19 it causes is even less serious.

The daily report of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) does not specify in which ten provinces the new strain was found, but it indicated that as of April 11, 342 new localized infections and 2,367 active cases were registered on the island.

In total, there are 6,089 hospitalized patients and another 3,672 Cubans with suspected disease. The report adds that the provinces with the most positive cases for covid-19 in one day are Mayabeque, Ciego de Ávila and Camagüey.

Regarding the deaths, those in charge of health on the Island report 8,519 deaths from covid-19, and in the last week there were four deaths, as of Saturday. continue reading

On March 30, President Miguel Díaz-Canel called for extreme sanitary measures to prevent a new wave of infections, since government scientists predicted, despite the immunization campaign, a progressive increase in confirmed cases and hospitalizations. , according to the official newspaper Granma.

Days later, the Ministry of Public Health announced that as of April 6 it would no longer be necessary for international travelers to present PCR results, an antigen test or a vaccination card to enter the Island.

Despite this, the use of a mask is still mandatory, and “random screening” is maintained.

The authorities report that more than 10.6 million Cubans, in a population of approximately 11.5 million, have at least one dose of the covid-19 vaccine and more than nine million have already received the second and third doses.

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Musician Sentenced to Six Years for July 11th (11J) Brands ISA Officials as ‘Ass Kissers’

Musician Abel González Lescay was sentenced to six years in prison for 11J. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, April 12, 2022–The University Council of the Universidad de las Artes (ISA) has branded an open letter shared by a group called #FreeAbelLescay as “campaigns that intend to discredit the Revolution.” The group seeks to revoke the sentence of musician Abel González Lescay, a musical composition student at ISA who was sentenced to six years in prison for his participation in the July 11th protests in San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque.

The state institution believes the campaigns intend to “appeal to the empathies of students and professors, simplifying the events for which Lescay was penalized,” and, in addition, they insist that the “existing judicial system in the country is unknown, since his case is under review by the People’s Supreme Court.”

ISA confirmed that, “promoted by the press and political operatives,” these campaigns intend to “manipulate the transparency of the trials that resulted from the events of July 11, 2021,” in which, they said, there were representatives of the institution who “attended the oral trial” and “can vouch for adherence to consitutional guarantees.”

The musician has thanked the institution for the support it provided and for not being “the most repressive part of the dictatorship”, but invites ISA as well as the University of Havana to take interest in what the sanction documents say. Those who attended the trial “may discover lies like those of a detective game. The others will read a literary text so absurd as to cause us to be, as we say, empingue*.

Lescay adds that he does not know of a single campaign that intends to discredit “what they call the Revolution, disrespecting Castillian” and classifies the authors of the institution’s statement “shameless” and “ass kissers,” even though they may have done so with “good intentions.” continue reading

Abel Lescay was arrested at home–from where he was removed naked–on July 12th and was tortured and threatened with death for six days, according to his testimony. After being released on July 18th, “complex” days followed, he recalls. “What occurs in jail is ugly, and then in the street you remain poisoned for some time.”

On various occasions the musician has said that he had never had problems at ISA and that prior to beginning the current school year he went to speak to the dean, who referred to him as “a talented student” and offered psychological support to recover from the impact of the days he spent in jail.

For Lescay, who was tried on January 26th, the Prosecutor sought seven years in jail for public disorder, aggravated contempt of a continuous nature and contempt of a basic figure of a continuous nature; he was free while he awaited his sentencing. Finally, the total sentence was six years, four for “aggravated contempt,” two for “public disorder” and one for “contempt of a basic figure.”

The ISA’s University Student Federation (FEU) had published on April 8th a declaration to “alert” on the use of several students’ names in the letter which, according to them, was modified after it had been circulating at the instutition, “saying that the convicted student had been tried for ’simply rapping on a public street’.”

“This will not affect the public integrity of our students, but rather, it manipulates and unscrupulously uses their name and image to further the interests of feeding a political campaign around the judicial proceedings related to July 11th,” said FEU, who also alleged that the use of several names “were obtained to speak to the sensibilities” of young people.

After the sentence was published, dozens of citizens came to the musician’s defense on social media and some of them created a movement #FreeAbelLescay, which on April 6th published a letter addressed to Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel and other Cuban leaders, in which they request the revocation of the penalty.

On Monday, the movement issued a statement in which it denounced the pressure exerted on several student signatories of the letter. “We know there have been secret meetings with faculty members of the Superior Art Institute, in addition to pressures and threats of expulsion.” The note adds that any student or individual who “voluntarily decided to support this civic initiative,” is free to support it or request that their data be removed from it.

*Translator’s note: An obscenity, without a clear counterpart in English, that suggests ’enraged.’

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Nicaragua, From Guerrilla Sanctuary to Migratory Springboard for Cubans

Augusto César Sandino International Airport, in Managua, Nicaragua. (Twitter/@NonoBaBri)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 11 April 2022 — In my primary school there was a girl who bragged that her father was on a mission in Nicaragua. She appeared one day with a sophisticated bag to carry her snack and on another day with some brightly colored hair clips that the military adviser had sent her from Managua. In my child’s mind, that country was a place of olive-green uniforms and bustling markets, the destination of revolutionaries chosen to fight and buy trinkets.

The father of that girl returned a couple of years later loaded with suitcases and boxes. They moved to a more affluent neighborhood and one day I saw him on television during a medal ceremony. That man probably did not see a combat by a long shot, but he introduced himself saying “I was on a mission in Nicaragua” and it was more than enough to open doors and dazzle those who had never left the Island.

The years passed and this week I learned that the grandson of that “proletarian internationalist” has just left Cuba through the Nicaraguan route. Unlike his grandfather, the young man had to amass dollar after dollar to pay the high sum that they now ask for a ticket to “the country of volcanoes.” He spent a couple of nights in a hotel and the next morning the coyote was waiting for him to guide him on the first leg of his route north.

He stopped only at a market in Managua to buy some food and a phone card, he avoided anyone in uniformed as much as he could, and when he crossed the border with Honduras he wrote to his mother: “first step achieved.” The land that provoked so many anecdotes, which he heard at the family table, was only a springboard to get closer to his dream of living in the United States. The nation that his grandfather proudly pointed out on a map and that the troubadours mentioned in their combative lyrics, barely passed through the retina of the young man obsessed with other latitudes.

In about 40 years the meaning of the name Nicaragua took a 360 degree turn in Cuba. If in the 1970s and 1980s that country seemed like the comrade that, in this hemisphere, was going to follow with its own imprint the footprint traced by the Cuban model, today it is seen as a country of passage from which it is necessary to leave at full speed. Daniel Ortega, then painted by official propaganda as a progressive and rebellious young man, is now a dandruff-covered dictator from whom his own citizens are fleeing.

“The borders kiss each other and start burning,” a Cuban singer-songwriter repeated at the time. And yes, they continue kissing but not to expand any revolutionary flame, nor for the North American “eagle” to take flight elsewhere, but to put land between Cubans and the country where they were born but in which they do not see themselves growing or aging.

Nicaragua has become synonymous with flight. For the grandchildren of those Cuban soldiers who accumulated merits and merchandise in Managua, the name of Augusto César Sandino is only that of the airport where they land after escaping from this Island.

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A Young Cuban Woman Spent Nine Months in Jail for Yelling on July 11th and No One Apologizes for her Abusive Arrest

Lázara Karenia González is sentenced to three years of “correctional labor without internment”. (Facebook/Kirenia Wilhelm Benitez)

14ymedio, Havana, April 9, 2022–Lázara Karenia González, arrested for participating in the peaceful protests on July 11th (11J) in Cárdenas, Matanzas, was released on Friday after receiving her sentence of three years of “correctional labor without internment.” Thus, she will be able to remain outside of prison while serving her term of labor.

During the trial against protesters in that city, which took place on March 15th, the Prosecutor sought eight years in jail for the 28-year old, the only woman among the defendants.

As stated by activist Salomé García Bacallao of Justicia 11J, which compiles all the information about those arrested around that time and provides family support, González’s sisters, Kenia Chirino and Kirenia Wilhelm Benítez, “have not stopped denouncing, despite fear of reprisals.”

García Bacallao expressed her desire to “have contributed to her release” through her work, which included editing an article written by Orelvys Cabrera about González’s arrest “for a series published in Hypermedia Magazine, which includes videos collected by Inventario.”

Following his 37-day detention, the journalist fled to Russia and recently arrived in the U.S. He stated that he was “by Lázara Karenia’s side the entire time, without knowing it” and that he saw “how they arrested her… I recorded the arrest, her participation in the protest. She always remained peaceful, shouting the slogans we all did, ’Díaz-Canel motherfucker’, ’homeland and life’, ’freedom’, ’we are not afraid’, ’get out of power’.” continue reading

Those videos are proof of the violent arrest she suffered. Kenia Chirino has explained that on July 11th, her sister, Lázara Karenia was insulted by a woman from the other side of the street, “You are a ’gusana’ [worm]*, you are a ’gusana’ [worm], because look, with those clothes!”

On several social media publications, Chirino has stated that her sister is innocent and she was only defending herself, “But why do you speak to me like that? I don’t even know you. I haven’t done anything to you,” she said to the woman who was yelling at her. And at no time was there any physical aggression between them.

Activists and those close to González assure, in contrast, that the young woman was beaten by police and by a young woman named Nayelis Corrio, who used “a prohibited martial arts technique.”

Thus, García Bacallao concludes “Lázara Karenia is innocent and deserves absolution” and states that “the Cuban dictatorship has not offered any reparation for the damages they caused her, nor for the mistreatment she suffered. None of the state agents who participated in her arrest have been held accountable for the serious abuses they committed, despite having been identified.” On the contrary, she denounces, “they are presented as victims.”

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

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuban Doctor Asks His Followers for Help to Finance His Departure From the Country

Pupo has been unemployed since the end of 2020. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 April 2022 — “I made this decision to leave Cuba several months ago because I am aware that here it will be very difficult for me to practice my profession in a hospital,” says Alexander Raúl Pupo Casas, a protesting doctor who this week has publicly announced his desire to emigrate from the island.

“I was hoping that something would happen that would prevent me from having to leave my country. I like living here, not under this regime, but I like my country and I had to take some time to come to the conclusion of emigrating.”

Pupo has been unemployed since the end of 2020, shortly after, due to pressure, he announced his resignation from a position at the Ernesto Guevara hospital in Las Tunas, where he was doing his residency in Neurosurgery.

The young doctor’s problems began as a result of a publication critical of the Cuban government: “Where are the values of our people, where is the Cuban rebellion, how long will we continue to silently endure being blackmailed to our faces?” he wrote at that time.

Shortly after, the doctor announced that he had been expelled from the hostel where he was staying and was anonymously accused of “instigating disorder and creating destabilizing campaigns and states of opinion of the institutional and civil order.” He was unable to continue his Neurosurgery specialty.

He tried to make a living by copying audiovisual materials onto USB sticks and external hard drives, but that didn’t work either. “They visited the owner of the house where I doing that work, at his workplace, and threatened him. So I was able to save my medical degree but I survive thanks to donations from friends and followers.”

“Sometimes I have to use ingenuity to survive but I have not had to commit a crime to achieve it,” he says. The future as a migrant is unknown, although he knows that in order to practice as a doctor again he will have to make an effort, but “working in other occupations would be an honor.”

“I haven’t been able to work here for more than two years. I don’t have family abroad and I’m appealing to my supporters. I don’t have property in Cuba to finance my departure from the country.” His communication this week asks for help to cover travel expenses. “Buy the ticket and leave the country, that’s what I need,” summarizes his goal.

“In Cuba there is a lot of fear, also justified due to the repression and the lack of law. We doctors know well what a dictatorship is because we live in authoritarian structures within the hospitals themselves. My colleagues have let me know of their solidarity, but the fear has kept many away from me. Though I haven’t felt alone.”

“I can only think that perhaps they could demand more regarding the rights of their patients and themselves,” he stresses. “I don’t blame them because it’s a credible and justified fear. There hasn’t been a single Cuban authority that has come out in defense of my rights.”

The exodus of health professionals is noticeable. “Very few here want to work but we have no other choice. We are slaves and we are prevented from leaving the country.” He had been regulated — the government’s term for those forbidden to leave the country — but the ban on his traveling abroad was recently lifted.

“Recently a gynecologist colleague from Holguín told me that an entire team of her specialty had emigrated. If this continues in a short time, Cuba is going to have a shortage of professionals. All this due to the disrespect that the Cuban regime has towards its doctors.”

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