14ymedio – Page 250 – Translating Cuba

Public Marches Are Effective Tools of Political Change

Despite repression, public protests in Germany were repeated during the months of September and October 1989, attracting increasing numbers of participants. (DPA)

14ymedio, Sebastián Arcos Cazabón, Miami, 5 December 2021 — Unlike the popular protests of last July 11 and 12, the march called by the Archipiélago platform for Monday, November 15 was announced weeks in advance. The most optimistic put their hopes for rapid change in the march, but they underestimated the repressive capacity of the regime. The most pessimistic criticized the transparency of the announcement, arguing that it gave the regime a chance to prepare, and believed themselves justified when the official repressive deployment kept potential demonstrators at home. To a greater or lesser extent, optimists and pessimists were dissatisfied with the outcome of the announcement.

However one looks at it, disappointment with 15N [15th of November] should not be a reason to dismiss organized marches as tools for political change. After all, popular demonstrations played a key role in the fall of all the totalitarian regimes of Europe, and, surprisingly, few were spontaneous; most were planned in advance. To those who claim that Cuba’s circumstances today are different from those of Central Europe in 1989, I remind them that, beyond the peculiarities of each case, they all shared with Cuba the fundamental characteristics of the totalitarian model, with its strengths and weaknesses.

The case of the GDR, the former communist Germany, is sobering for Cuba because I believe the similarities between the two outweigh the differences. Like Cuba today, the GDR in 1989 was ruled by a hard-line Marxist regime with an extensive and brutal internal security apparatus, the notorious Stasi, mentor of the Cuban DSE [Departamento de Seguridad del Estado = the Department of State Security]. In contrast, dissidence in the GDR was mostly limited to Marxist-revisionist criticisms, and never became as openly anti-communist as did Cuba’s, nor did it reach similar levels of public activism, organization, or representativeness. So harsh was the GDR regime that its leader, Erich Honecker, refused to listen to Gorbachev’s calls for reform, and banned the circulation of Soviet publications. In the GDR of 1989, the regime was stronger and the opposition weaker than in Cuba today. continue reading

When Hungary removed the border fence with Austria in May 1989, tens of thousands of East Germans fled that way to West Germany, forcing Honecker to close the border with Hungary and Czechoslovakia, effectively turning the GDR into an island of intransigence in a sea of transitions. Unable to escape, some 1,500 people demonstrated publicly against the regime on Monday, September 4, in Leipzig, the GDR’s second most populous city. Despite the repression, public protests were repeated in Leipzig every Monday in September, attracting increasing numbers of participants. By Monday, October 2, demonstrators numbered more than 10,000.

Honecker threatened a Tiananmen-style massacre if the demonstrators dared to take to the streets again. On Monday, October 9, more than 70,000 people marched in the streets of Leipzig, and the Stasi did not dare to suppress them. The following Monday more than 120,000 demonstrators came out. Two days later Honecker was dismissed and replaced by his second-in-command. The following Monday, 300,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Leipzig. On November 4 the protest moved on to Berlin with more than 500,000 demonstrators. On November 7, the GDR Council of State resigned in plenum, and on November 9, the Berlin Wall fell.

It is likely that the example of what was happening in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia served as a stimulus for the demonstrators and a brake on the repressive forces. But it is indisputable that, with the exception of the first example, the popular marches that forced the fall of the regime in the former GDR were planned and announced in advance. Unlike its counterparts in Poland and Hungary, the GDR regime had no reformist or revisionist factions, and was united in its reluctance to implement reforms, even economic ones. The Stasi was one of the most efficient repressive apparatuses in the Soviet bloc, and before the September marches they never hesitated to use the most brutal tactics. Despite all this, the courage and perseverance of the demonstrators achieved what seemed impossible.

The 15N convocation was just one of the first of its kind in Cuba — the Ladies in White [Damas de Blanco] and other like-minded groups tried years ago to popularize marches as a tool of public protest. Inevitably, others will have to follow — it took the Germans ten weeks of continuous marches — if Cubans are to rid themselves of Castroism in the short term and with a minimum of violence. Some may fail, and there will be an inevitable cost in repression, but the mere civic exercise of convocation is fundamental and necessary in a country where the state has cultivated absolute hegemony over society for more than half a century. Cubans are beginning to use their atrophied civic musculature, and this civic exercise will give them back the pride and self-esteem necessary to live in a democracy.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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Russia Prevents 71 Cubans from Entering and Returns Them to the Island

The Cubans held in Russia denounced on social networks that they had to sleep in the toilets. (Facebook / Marisleisis Díaz)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 December 2021 — A first group of 44 Cubans out of 71 who were detained at the Vnukovo airport, in Russia, returned to the island this Saturday. “The citizens do not meet the requirements established by the Russian immigration authorities to enter their territory as tourists,” according to a post by the Cuban Consulate in Moscow.

The Foreign Ministry acknowledged that there is “a free visa agreement between the two countries,” although it argued that it must “verify the current requirements for entry into Russian territory.”

Last Friday the diplomatic headquarters listed on its social networks that among the requirements are to “present financial solvency to guarantee your stay, valid medical insurance in Russia with coverage of covid-19 and a PCR with a valid negative result.” To these requirements are added the accreditation of the purpose of the trip, presenting a valid passport, having a return ticket and having a lodging reservation for the time of stay.

The information was published a day after a group of Cubans denounced that they were detained “for no reason” at the Vnukovo airport. Dailey Ponce Carmenates shared a video on the Facebook group ’Russia for Cubans’ , where one of the travelers is heard saying, “So that the world can see what they are doing with us. Díaz-Canel puts the dogs on us and here too.” continue reading

Ponce specified that they met the entry requirements. “We all have return tickets, money for lodging and the required documents.” This complaint was followed by that of Marisleisis Díaz, who arrived on December 3 at the same Russian airport from Varadero on flight ZF556, of the AZUR Airline company. “They detained us in migration having everything in order.”

Díaz mentioned that the saddest thing about the retention is that they had “more than 24 hours with only one meal, without blankets,, having to “sleep in the bathrooms to be able to cushion the cold.” The complainant assured that they offered no answer to her situation and that “there were children” in the group.

After being detained for several days, the Foreign Ministry reported that the consul contacted them and “specified details for their safe return to Cuba as soon as possible.” And it was indicated that the return of the remainder of the travelers is already being coordinated jointly with the Russian authorities and the airline.

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Cuban Governments Finds Several Stores Are Selling in Dollars Without Authorization

A large part of the Cuban population rejects the proliferation of stores that only accept freely convertible currency. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 3 December 2021 — The Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil Fernández, announced in the Council of Ministers this week that there will be a “lifting of all entities that sell in MLC (freely convertible currency) without authorization.”

“It is not a decision of a company, from today to tomorrow, to put its sales in foreign currency. Here the foreign currency sales are approved, one by one, in the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers,” said the head of the economy, visibly upset due to the growth of currency circulation on the black market and the distortions that this causes in the national economy.

“Can you think about the effects?” He said speaking to government staff, as seen in a report from the Noticiero. “First, where do they get the currency from? In the end they are buying it in the illegal market, they are paying state companies with MLC that they have not generated and, on the other hand, they are carrying that cost, that exchange rate in the illegal market in their prices, and the population is paying them. ”

Gil Fernández added that there is a perception in the population that it is practically impossible to obtain national products or services without dollars and for this they must be supplied in the illegal market, which contributes to triggering inflation. The minister argued that he understands that the country is going through a difficult time and that there are no hard currencies, but that it is not justified how they are being accessed. continue reading

The legal methods are, he recalled, exporting and trading with wholesale and retail stores authorized to sell in MLC. “We have asked companies to self-manage their currencies, but through established channels, not in any which way, and we are going to correct it,” he warned.

The economy minister explained that the 2022 Economy and Budgets plan contains the necessary corrections to attract foreign currency and do so legally and that what is currently happening “is not the design” that was made for retail sales in MLC. “There has been an intention to sell everything to the non-state sector in hard currency,” he argued.

Foreign currency stores began to expand at the end of October 2019 on the Island, first dedicated to the sale of household appliances and electrical equipment. The intention was to capture those dollars that many Cubans were going to spend on these products in countries like Panama or Mexico through mules who brought the equipment to Cuba.

But in the middle of last year the measure reached grocery stores and toiletries. At that time, Gil Fernández himself warned that the unpopular measure would be temporary and, although not desirable, necessary to solve the shortage of foreign currency (dollars, in reality) on the island.

Raúl Castro himself had to intervene this April when people were told that the country was not going to be dollarized and that it was only a matter of “encouraging remittances from abroad.” In addition, he assumed personal responsibility — despite being already theoretically removed from politics — for “an inadequate social communication policy and the publication of incorrect approaches in several of our press media.”

When this type of sale started, it was explained that there would be 72 establishments throughout the Island that would trade in this way, a tiny number compared to the 4,800 points of sale in the country. But the truth is that the number of stores in MLC has grown right before the eyes of the citizens, although the exact data of their official and unofficial number is unknown.

In addition, the number of products sold in these establishments has also increased and, although it is not strange to see foreign currency stores affected by the general shortage that affects the country, the possibility of purchasing goods in them is much greater than in stores that take payment in national pesos.

In addition to the arbitrary decisions of state stores that impose payment in MLC without official authorization, many citizens are victims of scams committed by employees of some state-owned companies who take advantage of the facility to transfer MLC or pay with foreign currency through various applications for mobile phones.

This type of trick occurs, especially, with products such as beer, ice cream and soft drinks that are sold in very small quantities in national currency and to get them it is increasingly necessary to go to a market in MLC. The diminished supply that reaches the state gastronomic establishments ends up being resold by the employees themselves.

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Condor and Aeroflot Will Increase Flights to Cuba December

A plane of the German airline Condor. (EFE)

14ymedio, Madrid 2 December 2021 — The German airline Condor has announced its return to Cuba for the middle of this month. The company will fly twice a week from Frankfurt to Havana, Varadero and Holguín. This last city will be the first to host the arrival of a flight from the German city, on December 19. On the 26th the flight will be repeated.

Serving the capital city will take a little longer and it will not be until Mondays, the 20th and 27th, and on Thursdays the 23rd and 30^th of December when a Condor flight lands in Havana, while the Juan Gualberto Gómez, of Varadero, will arrive on Tuesdays the 21st and 28^th of December, and Fridays the 24th and 31st.

The Cuban Company of Airports and Aeronautical Services announced that for each company for the month of December “in view of the number of flights of the different airlines to our country.” continue reading

One of the most anticipated services is American Airlines, which returns to Havana this Thursday with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, with a capacity for 234 passengers. Starting today, a fight of the American company will leave Miami at 10:35 in the morning headed to Havana.

Other airlines that announced their return this week are Russia’s Aeroflot, which will connect Havana and Moscow on Tuesdays and Fridays in an Airbus A350, with a capacity of 316 passengers, and Viva Aerobus from December 21.

Mexicana flies from Cancun to Camagüey twice a week and to Santiago de Cuba once, in addition to connecting the capitals of both countries with a daily flight.

The Cuban government asks travelers from the United States for a complete vaccination schedule, while the rest of the passengers can enter the island with a negative PCR test.

The exception is for passengers from sub-Saharan Africa, who have been quarantined if they come from South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Malawi and Eswatini (Swaziland). In addition, they must present their complete vaccination schedule upon arrival on the Island, a negative PCR of the last 72 hours carried out at origin and a sample collection for testing at destination that will be repeated on the sixth day at the quarantine hotel.

The same rules apply to travelers from Belgium, Israel, Hong Kong, Egypt, Turkey, and all sub-Saharan African countries not listed above, except for the quarantine and second PCR.

All of them are considered at risk due to the multiple cases detected of the variant of the omicron coronavirus. However, it has already emerged that the strain was in Europe before arriving in South Africa and there is no additional measure planned for travelers from that continent.

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Cuban Medical Services Marketing Company Signs an Alliance with Melia Hotels

Cuban Medical Services Marketing Company posters, targeted to tourists, flood the walls of the José Martí International Airport in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 7 December 2021 — The Spanish hotel company Meliá has signed an agreement with the Cuban Medical Services Marketing Company to include health “products” in its hotels. In this case, it is not a question of an offer of highly trained specialists in medicine, as Cuba Marketing Company always presumes, but of alternative treatments aimed at enhancing the “quality of life.”

According to the Travel Trade Caribbean website, the project, ratified by Francisco Camps, representative of Meliá Cuba, and Yamila de Armas, president of the marketing Company, includes “massages of different types, therapies associated with music, aromas and yoga, tai chi, acupuncture, guided relaxation and anti-stress programs.”

All this will be served in the 32 hotels that Meliá currently controls on the Island, managed together with the Cuban State through an administration contract.

Thus, the Marketing Company implements the announcement that it made last September to diversify its range of action and fully immerse itself in “wellness” tourism. With this, the Cuban State intends to use one of its main propaganda assets, medical services, to recover the tourism sector, its third highest source of income, after a year and a half debacle due to covid-19. continue reading

The Spanish company is still involved in the lawsuit filed two years ago by the Sánchez Hill family, through the Central Santa Lucía company, for the operation of two hotels in Playa Esmeralda – Paradisus Río de Oro and Sol Río y Luna Mares – after the Trump administration activated Titles III and IV of the Helms-Burton Act, approved in 1996.

The lawsuit was filed in the Spanish courts, which have not yet ruled on the case. Meliá has always argued that this case cannot be tried in Spain, since it goes against the “Community Blockade Statute,” a norm approved by the European Union to prohibit in its territory the application of US judicial decisions related to the Helms-Burton Law.

In any event, the Executive Vice President and CEO of Meliá, Gabriel Escarrer, has been prohibited from entering the US since October 2019 as a result of this cause.

In its 2020 management report, Meliá stated that, of the 35 hotels it had at the end of 2019 in Cuba, with 14,781 rooms, at the end of 2020 it had 32 establishments and 13,916 rooms.

According to their accounts, the income obtained in Cuba fell by 84% in 2020, and 60% of its hotels remained closed for much of the year due to the pandemic.

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Young Cuban Dies Six Days After Starting Military Service

The young Carel Gutiérrez “was very sad and tearful when they put him on the truck,” the military told his mother. (El Majadero de Artemis – ICLEP)14ymedio, Havana, 1 December 2021 — On November 25, a delegation of high-ranking military personnel offered their condolences to Blanca Rosa Durán. Her 18-year-old son Carel Gutiérrez was crushed by “seven steel pipes” that fell from the ceiling in the Los Jejenes unit in Artemisa, where he spent his Active Military Service (SMA), as reported in El Majadero de Artemisa.

Durán remembers that her boy did not want to enter the SMA. Six days after entering the camp “forced by this dictatorship in that place, then this happens,” she declared. According to the independent newspaper, the pipes were poorly placed on the roof and “rolled under the influence of a breeze.”

The mother remembers that the young man, a resident of the Calle Ancha neighborhood, in the Guanajay municipality, “was very sad and tearful when they put him in the truck. He was just a child.” Military service on the island exposes young recruits to situations that put their physical integrity and even their lives at risk.

At this writing, testimonies have arrived of the conditions in which young Cubans are recruited for what the regime considers “an honorable duty” and forced to carry out tasks such and loading and unloading containers and even repressing protesters.

Reports of deaths from accidents, suicides, and murders among recruits are rarely mentioned in the official Cuban press. However, independent journalists have recorded numerous incidents, in many cases involving the use of regulation weapons. continue reading

Self-harm to obtain demobilization is also widespread, to the point that in 2019, the Supreme People’s Court, through an extraordinary publication of the Official Gazette, announced that it would begin to sanction recruits who resort to this practice.

The entity acknowledged that the drastic measure responded to the “increase in acts of self-harm committed by soldiers that result in sanctions in the El Globo Western Disciplinary Unit,” where recruits who commit indiscipline are imprisoned, according to the rules of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Among the most frequent self-injuries that the Gazette reported are “the ingestion of objects (screws, washers, blades, etc.), with the intention of evading the fulfillment of the activities of the disciplinary unit and the obligations of military service.”

The constant pressure from the officers, the poor conditions of the shelters and food, the work without respecting the hours of a working day and the use of these soldiers as political shock troops also increase stress and discomfort among these young people, who are recruited when they are just 16 years old.

On July 11, the day of mass marches, the infirmary of the Managua Tank Unit, in the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, Havana, was full of young people from the SMA. One of them told 14ymedio that his unit was called upon to repress the protesters. They were given a stick and ordered to “hit with it anyone who gets in front of them.” Many, he said, “never understood why they were sent to beat the population.”

Others, who had already completed their military service months earlier, were taken from their homes with the argument of being “reserves” to “fight” the protesters, as related by a mother from Matanzas. “The officer said that he was going with them to fight the ’counterrevolutionaries’ or he would be imprisoned.” The boy spent more than a month dressed in green doing posts in various places in Cárdenas and some towns in Matanzas and luckily “he didn’t have to face anyone”.

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Diaz-Canel Assures Pastors for Peace that ‘There are No Political Prisoners in Cuba’

Gail Walker, daughter of Lucius Walker, founder of Pastors for Peace, along with Miguel Díaz-Canel and Bruno Rodríguez. (ACN)

14ymedio, Havana , 4 December 2021 — “There are no political prisoners in Cuba,” said Miguel Díaz-Canel in front of the members of the Caravan of Pastors for Peace. “Here, there are people who are not with the Revolution and who can demonstrate freely,” the president emphasized in a meeting that took place on November 22, but was only broadcast this Friday on the State’s Roundtable television program.

“In Cuba there are many processes that are public, to discuss programs, to discuss policies as we did with the Constitution,” Díaz-Canel justified. “In everyday life there are people who speak ill of the Revolution. What happens is that many times this type of people whom they manipulate and use for that, or those who by their own conviction are against the Revolution, it leads them to commit crimes.”

As an example of this, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba points to “those who went out on July 11 to throw stones, to act against the people, to loot, wherever in the world they were (sic) imprisoned,” he stresses. “But not because they are against the Revolution, but simply because they committed crimes against property and against internal order.”

In a very different tone from the one he used during the day of the popular protests, when speaking to the national television cameras he said “the combat order is given,” Díaz-Canel opted on this occasion to try to dispel the questions about the repressive wave unleashed after the demonstrations and justified the arrests. continue reading

“What happens is that many times the empire itself in its media campaign tries to link to the activity against the Revolution, leading people to commit vandalism,” he adds. However, most of the popular demonstrations of 11J were peaceful in nature, and the participants used slogans and verbal complaints as the main form of expression.

Among the those listening to the president’s comments, in addition to the members of the caravan, were the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez and the head of the Office of Religious Affairs of the Communist Party, Caridad Diego, among other official officials, and Gail Walker, daughter of Lucius Walker, founder of the organization.

Díaz-Canel also took advantage of the occasion to defend the “equality” that the revolutionary process has offered to Cuban women and Afro-descendants, although he clarified that “imperialism tries to use these issues to fracture unity.” “They constantly encourage and create the slander that discrimination persists in Cuba.”

However, he acknowledged that young people have not been able to “enjoy the social conquests” that in his opinion were achieved in the first decades of the process. “We have the challenge of ensuring that generational separation is never an ideological break. We can only achieve it by sharing values and becoming part of the criticism we make within the Revolution.”

Díaz-Canel also did not miss an opportunity to send a message to the Joe Biden administration. “Imperialism, even the tiniest bit, is treacherous and despises the peoples,” he said, quoting a phrase from Ernesto Guevara. “It turns to slander and lies and when it is defeated it tries to make itself the victim,” he said. “Nobody believes what they call democracy.”

“North American bipartisanship is a lie,” he added and explained that “a Republican president imposes 243 measures to intensify the blockade against Cuba and a Democratic president leaves the same measures,” alluding to the sanctions promoted by Donald Trump which Biden has not eliminated, and has even added new ones.

It was recently announced that the White Hous’s intention to partially modify US policy towards the Island had been halted as a result of the repression of July 11, as revealed in an interview with NBC News by Juan González, United States National Security Council Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere .

“After July 11, we pressed the pause button,” said the senior official, who considers the date of the anti-government protests as a before and after. “Even the Cuban Americans who were in favor of the compromise said, ’We have to wait, pay attention to this moment and see how to move forward from here’.”

To date, independent organizations have documented 1,283 detainees as a result of the demonstrations on that day. Of that total, at least 540 are still in prison and there are a verified 42 convictions in summary trials.

In its report, the independent legal platform Cubalex showed special concern about “the use of the figure of sedition to impose exemplary sanctions on at least 122 people” and noted that before July 11, Cuban Prisoners Defenders registered 152 political prisoners.

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Cuba: Major Physical and Psychological Tortures Against Jose Daniel Ferrer are Denounced

José Daniel Ferrer is not well physically and does not know how much longer he will be able to resist, according to his social media. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, December 5, 2021 — Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) coordinator, José Daniel Ferrer, is subjected to ever greater “torture, as much physical as psychological” in Mar Verde prison, Santiago de Cuba, where he is being held. As his sister Ana Belkis Ferrer, made known on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Cuban Prisoners Defenders (CPD) accused the Cuban regime of “slowly killing José Daniel Ferrer” with “sonic attacks, psycho-pharmaceuticals, preventing his family from bringing him food.” They stated that he does not receive “medical attention” and he is held “in inhumane confinement within four walls, without seeing the sun and in isolation.”

At the beginning of November, Cuban Prisoners Defenders requested the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, to intercede “immediately” in favor of opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer. They warned that Unpacu’s coordinator denounced “a constant noise in his head like crickets, sounding constantly in an unbearable manner,” which results in a constant headache.

Last Friday, Ferrer was allowed a visit from his wife, Nelva Ismarays Ortega Tamayo, with little Daniel José and his daughter Fátima Victoria Ferrer Cantillo. “The Raúl Castro and Díaz-Canel dictatorship allowed this second family visit to José Daniel Ferrer García in almost five months of unjust, arbitrary and criminal confinement.”

In an extremely arbitrary measure, they prevented José Daniel Ferrer Cantillo from seeing his father. It was understood to be “punishment and vengeance” for the young man “for going out once again to the streets demanding freedom on November 15th,” the day Archipiélago called for a peaceful protest, which was ultimately thwarted by the harassment and repression on the part of State Security. continue reading

In August, the People’s Provincial Tribunal in Santiago de Cuba notified Ferrer that he must comply with a four-year prison sentence imposed by the tribunal in February 2020 for “injuries and imprisonment” against a third person. The opposition leader was detained since the protests on July 11th, until that moment he had enjoyed a modified sentence which allowed him to remain free.

The tribunal considered the Unpacu coordinator to have maintained “an attitude contrary to the requirements he must meet” because he did not have a job and “on various occasions has adopted behaviors that are incorrect and challenge authorities in the fulfillment of their functions.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Saily González Leaves Archipielago and Calls to Accelerate the Fights for Rights in Cuba

Santa Clara businesswoman Saily González. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 December 2021 — The businesswoman Saily González, one of the most active coordinators of the Archipíelago group since its creation, announced this Sunday that she is leaving the Cuban opposition platform. She was joined this Monday by activist Magdiel Jorge Castro.

“Today I am leaving Archipíelago, the most important undertaking to which I have contributed in my life and the human group that has been and is the most fraternal to me,” González wrote in a tweet. The reason, she continued, is that her world “goes at 48 frames per second and logic makes the Archipíelago walk at 24.” And she asked: “Do not look for more reasons that aren’t there.”

In a Facebook post, she clarified: “No, gentlemen, I am not leaving the country,” after arguing: “We have the common goal of conquering all rights for all Cubans, of ensuring that we can all contribute to our country, and the fronts on which I fight will never be exclusive, as the Archipíelago is not. This makes us sisters, and I am aslo a sister of everyone who thinks this way.”

González, also known as “Saily de Amarillo” for the small eponymous business she opened in Santa Clara in the hotel sector, has been one of the most visible heads of Archipíelago since the group called the march on November 15, finally frustrated by the threats and repression of State Security. continue reading

On 15November(15 N), an angry and violent mob prevented the young woman from leaving her house , and she limited herself to following the two instructions agreed upon by Archipíelago: to applause at three in the afternoon and to hang out white sheets. Days later, and as she had announced, she left with a flower in her hand and broadcast the walk by video, which ended by placing the flower at the foot of the statue of Antonio Maceo in Santa Clara.

After the regime disrupted the Civic March for Change through threats, acts of repudiation and militarization of the cities, Archipíelago called for the peaceful protests to continue until November 27. However, since the arrival in Spain, on November 17, of the most visible figure on the platform, Yunior García Aguilera, the group has been dismembered.

This Sunday, Twitter user Magdiel Jorge Castro, who has lived in Bolivia for two years, also announced his departure. “Today I leave Archipíelago, grateful for these intense months with such brave people,” he wrote on his Twitter account, where he has more than 26,000 followers. “The road to democracy is long and rugged but the end deserves every possible sacrifice. There are more than 600 political prisoners and a dictatorship to overthrow. It is time to unite.”

Castro, born in the province of Holguín in 1994, has been the promoter of several virtual campaigns to denounce the repression against Cuban activists and journalists. The young man has a degree in Microbiology and in recent weeks he has denounced several attacks by the Cuban official press against him for his activism on social networks.

He and González join other “desertions” from the Archipíelago in just a few days. On Friday, lawyer Fernando Almeyda resigned as one of the platform’s coordinators. By way of explanation, he said that “the political nuance of the platform and its coordinators, although I am sure that they benefit the Cuban cause, is moving away from my ideas, my way of thinking and my political position.”

In addition, the jurist was critical of Yunior García Aguilera’s “agenda,” “which does not respond to the objectives and purposes of the Archipíelago and over which the members have no real control.”

Before González and Almeyda, the group had already suffered notable losses. One of them was that of Daniela Rojo, who last Wednesday announced her resignation as coordinator of the platform. The young woman from Guanabacoa, mother of two young children, who was kidnapped by the political police on November 12 and spent five days in a house of the Ministry of the Interior under the custody of several agents, presented her decision as based on “personal and family problems.”

And another exit, earlier, was that of Professor Leonardo Fernández Otaño, also a moderator of the platform, who confessed, like Almeyda, not to share “a group of political actions carried out by Yunior García Aguilera since his departure from Cuba.”

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Cuban Opponent Silverio Portal Returns to Prison After Parole for Health Reasons

Silverio Portal must serve the remaining four months of his prison sentence. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 December 2021 — The activist Silverio Portal, leader of Independent and Democratic Cuba (CID), entered prison yesterday to serve the four months that remain in his sentence after having spent a year at home with an extra-penal license that was granted to him for health reasons.

“Our brother Silverio Portal Contreras, leader of the CID, is currently detained in prison 1580, San Miguel del Padrón municipality, Havana, by order of State Security and officials from this same place have revoked his case,” according to Lady in White Laura Labrada Pollán, speaking this Tuesday.

Portal’s return to prison was anticipated since last October when the authorities alleged the expiration of the measure he obtained on 1 December 2020 due to his state of health, although the opponent himself believed it was a punishment for his declared intentions to participate in the Civic March for Change called by Archipíelago for 15N (15 November).

Portal, in fact, managed to break out of the surveillance and march on November 15 and deposit a white flower in front of a bust of Martí, although at that moment he already had in hand the revocation of the extra-penal measure. “Silverio Portal Contreras chooses Liberty. Homeland, Life and Liberty!” he said in the video he posted on his Facebook profile to document his action. continue reading

The 73-year-old activist was sentenced to four years in prison in 2018 for the alleged crimes of public disorder and contempt, charges frequently used by authorities to imprison opponents.

Shortly after entering prison, he suffered a thrombosis that paralyzed one side of his face and had to be treated for two strokes, derived from his hypertension problems.

In addition, in mid-2020 the activist suffered partial loss of vision, apparently caused by a beating by prison guards.

“I hold Diaz Canel and the DSE responsible for what may happen to such a patriot, worthy and brave brother. I ask the world to raise our voices for Silverio Portal Contreras and for all political prisoners,” Labrada Pollán asked yesterday.

Portal has been one of the political prisoners who has received the most international support in recent times. At least 150 opponents signed a letter in his favor calling for his release, and the United Nations, the European Parliament, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International, as well as some governments such as the United States, demanded his immediate release. Now he will have to spend almost four months in Prison 1580 to finish his sentence.

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The Families of Four Cuban Political Prisoners in Santa Clara Demand to See Their Children

The family of Andy García Lorenzo, one of those detained on July 11th, with a sign asking for the release of the young man from Santa Clara. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, December 4, 2021 — The whereabouts of Andy García Lorenzo, José Miguel Gómez Monteja, Liván Hernández Salazar y Carlos Michael, detained in Santa Clara for participating in the peaceful protests on July 11th (11J), are unknown.

“They were transferred to an unknown location without providing information to their immediate family,” denounced Archipiélago in a statement on Friday, noting that this occurred “in the context of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s visit yesterday to Santa Clara.”

Andy García’s family placed, on the rooftop of their home in Santa Clara, a sign demanding freedom for the political prisoner. “We hold the State Security responsible for whatever physical or psychological harm my brother or any other prisoner suffers,” denounced Roxana García, Andy’s sister, this Friday in a brief video.

“They must tell us where he is, why they transferred him, what were the reasons,” demands the young lady, who along with other members of the family led a protest on November 15th (15N) outside their house, which was met with a prolonged, state-sponsored act of repudiation.

Andy García’s mother also demanded a response regarding the whereabouts of her son. “You took my emotional peace but you took my fear, you are rats, cowards, this sign will not be removed from this house,” she assured. “I demand to see my son, as a mother they cannot deny me that right, I will not be silenced.” continue reading

Recently, Roxana García and her husband, Jonatan López, launched an initiative to support families of the July 11th political prisoners in Santa Clara. The project, also supported by activist and Archipiélago member Saily González, seeks to help defray the cost of the food taken to jail at each visit.

“There are many prisoners who have never received a ’sack’ as it is referred to in the prison,” explained González in a Facebook video. “This is not just about the food they might receive, but also about the support from people outside, from their family and friends.”

For the young lady, it’s important to remember that “those people have been jailed since July 11th” because “they were the ones that went out to face the consequences.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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South African Parliamentarians Ask for Information About the Beating of Students in Cuba

The moment when a PNR agent grabs a South African student by the neck at the University of Villa Clara. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 December 2021 — South Africa continues unhurriedly waiting for explanations from the Villa Clara University authorities after the incident that occurred last November in which several young medical students from their country were beaten by the Cuban police when they were holding a party that got out of control.

Sibongiseni Dhlomo, South African Deputy Minister of Health, intervened this Tuesday in Cape Town before a commission of the National Council of Provinces (upper house of Parliament), where he was asked about the investigation he had announced a few days after the event. The politician said that his government is still waiting for an explanation, but alleged that the students were demanding one from him.

“The students were beaten up by the police on campus during a birthday party that was supposed to start at 7:00 p.m., but it finally started at 9:00 p.m. and lasted until the wee hours of the morning. It is not yet known who called the police, but the students say the officers asked them to turn the music down because it was too loud at that hour,” he said.

According to Dhlomo, the Villa Clara University of Medical Sciences reported the incident to the provincial leadership, which has established a commission to investigate the matter. “We will await the results. We will meet with the attaché in Cuba this week,” he said. continue reading

The event came to light thanks to a video shared in a massive way to denounce the exaggerated violence with which the National Revolutionary Police put down the party in the Santa Clara shelter where it took place.

“Walk, come on, upstairs!” the police said to the young people. “Record video, record video!” an English voice was heard saying.

After the controversy generated by the images that showed the excessive force of the Cuban police, the South African Ministry of Health assured that it would investigate what happened after confirming that those beaten were citizens of their country. However, they apparently trust the Cuban side to find out what happened.

On Tuesday, South African parliamentarians asked Dhlomo what his government had done to ensure the safety of South African students abroad, but his answer made no reference to it.

Dhlomo had made controversial statements last month, when he asked that the “sensationalist” video of the beaten fellows not continued to be shared. The official warned that its dissemination had “the potential to harm the families of the students and the diplomatic relations between the governments of South Africa and Cuba.”

Relations between the two countries have been very fruitful since the time of Nelson Mandela, although they have continued with their successors in office, all members of the hitherto unbeatable African National Congress party, which in the last elections began to take their toll on cases of known corruption these years, something that was noticed in the loss of votes despite maintaining the victory.

This same week, Cuba and South Africa renewed their cooperation agreement in the management of water resources and the supply of water, by virtue of which Cuban engineers advise those of South Africa to improve the maintenance and management of water supply and sanitation infrastructures. especially in rural areas and other disadvantaged communities.

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Washington and Latin America

Soon Ana Belén Montes will leave prison, but she will have left her perfidious work very well done. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 5 December 2021 — It is like the “never-ending story.” A circular nightmare.

Havana, summer of 1959. I remember a person who was very sure that US President Ike Eisenhower, in the middle of the Cold War, “would never allow the consolidation of a Soviet base 90 miles off the coast of the United States.” The person was a veteran of that “forgotten war” in which more than thirty thousand Americans died.

The reasoning was impeccable. A few years earlier, between 1950 and 1953, during the presidency of Harry S. Truman, the US Armed Forces had gone to fight on the Korean peninsula, a poor and dusty country, thousands of miles away, supposedly under an order from the recently created United Nations. The real purpose was to prevent China – the Communist world – from having another victory and conquering another country.

However, on 1 January 2023, the Cuban government will begin the 63rd year of its uninterrupted stay in power, exercising its most stubborn “anti-Yankee” attitude, without “Uncle Sam” appearing to care at all.

Why this indifference to Havana and its tense hatred against “the Americans”? For different reasons, among them, the tireless work of Cuban intelligence.

Ana Belén Montes, a Puerto Rican, was the highest-ranking spy, but not the only one, planted by “the Cubans” in the United States Defense Intelligence Agency. Her first contacts with Havana occurred in 1984, 17 years before she was arrested and accused of espionage, ten days after 11 September 2001. continue reading

She was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison plus five years of close surveillance, although theoretically she will spend them in her home. Her two siblings – Tito and Lucy, male and female – work loyally for the FBI. Montes will soon be released from prison, but she would have left her perfidious work very well done.

Indeed. Ana Belén Montes became the main analyst on Cuban issues for that institution for a great number of years. Her job consisted of coordinating from the Pentagon the vision between the different intelligence sections on the Cuban revolution, but her secret mission, agreed to with Havana, was to minimize the risk to Cuban communism and convince Washington of the convenience of lifting the embargo against the Island.

Fidel Castro didn’t like the arrival of Gorbachev at the Kremlin (1985). He came to think that Gorbachev was a CIA agent. “He can’t be such an idiot,” he said back then. He prepared for the worst. He met with the Brazilian trade unionist Lula da Silva. Brazil was a giant country, and the leader of the metallurgists union could support him with the “Workers Party.” Fidel Castro convinced him to support the Sao Paulo Forum. It was a kind of ‘International’ of the Latin American left that included the most violent organizations, such as the FARC and 47 other groups, which met in Sao Paulo in July 1990.

Faced with Mikhail Gorbachev’s strategy of “liberating Russia from the weight of the Soviet Union,” Fidel, who never did the math, didn’t care that the USSR was ruined on the way. His goal was fighting and defeating the United States, his particular war since he confessed to his secretary and lover Celia Sánchez his leitmotif in a handwritten letter dated June 5, 1958, in the middle of the Sierra Maestra.

Gorbachev’s strategic vision was evident in two matters that were very important to Fidel: he was notified, very discreetly, that Moscow would not continue to pay for the presence of Cubans in Africa, and the USSR sent a message to the Sandinista Front that it would not continue financing the war against the “Contra.” Gorbachev urged them to go to free elections against Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, something that Fidel strongly discouraged.

It seemed that communism was collapsing, but the Cuban regime showed that perseverance pays great results, even when its objectives were not the same ones that the USSR advocated – ending private property.

In 1990-1991 it seemed that Latin America had returned to the fold of democracy and development. Chile had separated from Augusto Pinochet, but not from its commitment to the market. But it didn’t happen like that: in 1994 Fidel invited Hugo Chávez, an unknown Venezuelan coup leader who had just been released from prison and had less than 2% popular support. At the end of 1998 he was elected President, guided by the Cuban political operators, and the return of chaos began.

In 2006 Evo Morales was elected in Bolivia. In 2007, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. In 2019 many young Chileans rebelled against the market, destroying many symbols of their recent successes. At the end of 2021, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya was elected in Honduras. She will control the government; her husband, Daniel Ortega will take power.

As I said, it’s like “the never-ending story.” A circular nightmare. There is no remedy.
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A Fair ‘For the News’ Outside the Carlos III Plaza in Havana

The sales area was cordoned off, consisting of several tents located in the area’s portals. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 4 December 2021 — This Saturday a trade fair paralyzed traffic on the avenue in front of Carlos III Plaza in Havana. With the participation of several CIMEX(Cuban Export-Import Corporation) branches, and after more than two years since this type of event was not organized in the shopping complex, the sale began in the morning amid complaints from the population and an abundant police presence.

The available products varied: oil, shampoo, deodorant, canned soft drinks, compote, among other products. The problem was in the quantity available, very little, giving the impression that it would soon be exhausted. Some merchandise which has practically disappeared or there are just small stocks o sale in stores in national currency, such as children’s articles, were being sold at high prices. A small backpack cost 495 CUP while some board games cost around 400.

The line extended several blocks from the place and was heavily guarded by numerous members of the police and the prevention department of the Armed Forces.Also notable in the vicinity were plainclothes officers who carefully observed everything that happened in the surroundings. .

The sales area was cordoned off and consisted of several tents located in the portals of the area, access was controlled by law enforcement officers who collected identity cards from people before they entered. continue reading

The products for sale varied, there was oil, shampoo, deodorant, canned soft drinks, compote among other products, the problem was the quantity available. (14ymedio)

Long delay, crowds at the entrance, the line advanced very slowly, a scenario that caused complaints as the hours passed and many lost hope of being able to buy anything. “This fair is only for the news, they sell little things to advertise, but this line is not moving and there are few products, we probably can’t buy anything,” commented a woman in line when she saw that the police were taking too long to organize it.

Within that restricted access area, several incidents occurred between the uniformed men and some people who tried to go out to the rope that delimited the place to look for money. “Return the money,” the policeman ordered a woman. “She’s my sister, she brought me money because I can’t buy everything I want,” she explained. “Give it back now,” replied the policeman in a threatening tone. The woman finally returned the money and, after a heated discussion, several uniformed officers detained her to a patrol car.

This newspaper was able to verify that there was no strict observance of compliance with pandemic-prevention measures there, some people lowered their masks to speak or smoke and the distance between the those in the middle of the crowd was not fulfilled.

In Carlos III there have been other fairs of this type in the past, although never with such an influx of the public, nor in the middle of a surveillance operation as large as the one deployed in the area this Saturday.

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In Havana, an ‘All for a Hundred’ Market… and More

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana , 4 December 2021 — Castile melon, Chinese plum and even mangoes. The supply in the private market at 19th and B streets, in Havana’s Vedado district, has increased in recent weeks, as Christmas approaches. However, most buyers see this entire burgeoning variety as a mirage, because they cannot afford the high prices of the products.

“This market should be renamed and called ’all for one hundred’,” says a woman sarcastically at the entrance to the busy store. “A 4-pound piece of papaya costs 100 pesos, half a melon 100, a mango 100,” and she cries out: “A mango! Where are we going to stop?”

In this agricultural market, which some ironically call “the boutique” not so much for its assortment, greater than in other places, as for its prices. The prices of pork, at 195 pesos per pound, and some vegetables, such as carrots and beets, at 50 pesos per pound.

The outlook for the state-run 17th and K market was not much better as, although the products cost slightly less, there were only eight or nine for sale. In the case of onions, there was not even a difference with a private trade: in both places the price was 75 pesos per pound. “The onion here should cost less,” says one customer as he meticulously chooses small, medium-quality tomatoes. “Only in the case of the red onion the price is lower, and the lower quality tomato costs 40 when the individuals have it at 50. It does not make a big difference.” continue reading

In other small squares of Centro Habana visited by this newspaper, the situation was repeated: in San Rafael a pound of eggplant reached 40 pesos on Thursday, and the plantain, 7 pesos per unit. “Those days of drinking eggplant water for cholesterol are over,” says an old woman. “Two of the smallest eggplants can cost up to 60 pesos. What else can a retiree buy here other than sweet potato and pumpkin (at 10 pesos per pound)?”

The cost of all this, Cubans on the street agree, went through the roof with the Ordering Task*. Before these measures, in force for almost a year, you could find pork steak at 35 pesos per pound. “At most 50,” says a neighbor from Centro Habana. “I’ve never eaten a pork steak from January to now, and I don’t buy tomatoes either. If that’s me, and I’m not poor, how is it for the ordinary Cuban?”

*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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