14ymedio – Page 258 – Translating Cuba

Inflation in Transportation in Cuba: A Threat to the Economy

It is not unusual in cities and villages in the interior of the island, to see the horse and cart in use as one of the main means of transport. Taken from Carol Kieker’s blog.

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 20 November 2021 — The failure of the communist social model imposed by the Castro regime for 62 years has one of its most obvious results in transportation.

In Cuba, unlike in the rest of the countries of the world, mobility depends on the existence of a state service, by bus or train or by horse-drawn carriage when things go wrong, but there is no independent and private transport.

The fleet of private cars is minimal and, because we do not track it, there are no statistics on how many cars circulate in the country. In Cuba, access to a private car as an investment is impossible for the vast majority of the population. The first cars that were put up for sale, those ridiculous Peugeots, were offered for scandalous prices that generated no little controversy. The private car is a luxury.

In such conditions, the mobility of people depends on the existence of national bus terminals in the different provinces and on services, under a monopoly regime, to which there is no choice but to resort when it comes to a travel for any reason. continue reading

Passenger transport by bus accounted for 62% of conventional means and 47% of the total. The alternative is a train that does not offer guaranteed departures or arrivals, and that meets 0.2% of the demand. Finally, travel by means of an ox or horse cart, the so-called animal traction, reached 27% of the total, in the official statistics of the ONEI.

“Makeshift” buses have been common in Cuba; here a cart pulled by a tractor is used as a bus in Pinar del Rio. (MJ Porter)

This being the case, mobility is a failure of the model, because all the service goes through the state, which has to invest in the purchase of buses, but also in terminals, spare parts, technology, internet, etc. So much so that, in the end, we have bitten off more than we can chew.

Now that the nation is beginning to regain a certain normality after the COVID-19 pandemic that required people be immobilized, the transport sector is showing a series of deficiencies and is unable to meet the increasing demand.

Changing the model is not possible. Cubans will not be able to buy cars, as in other countries, to achieve their free and independent mobility. The state will continue to provide the service under a monopoly regime. With known deficiencies. So what can we expect from all of this?

Cubans waiting for a bus, which may or may not come and will certainly be unlikely to meet the demand.

Little or nothing. An article in Cubadebate entitled “Interprovincial transport: a service on wheels?”explain some interesting things.

The authorities have set to work starting where they always have: service planning. An activity that consumes time and effort, and then leads to nothing because the plans are not met. And so, for example, it is found that of 19 planned departures in a terminal, only 9 left in these first days of the return to normality.

This is a good a priori data. That there is more supply than demand is a rarity in the Cuban economy where the usual thing is that there is a deficit, a shortage and this requires rationing.

So, how is it possible that interprovincial transport has these results? It seems it is due to planning errors. Those responsible decided to launch the same departures as before the pandemic, and of course, things have changed and no one seems to have realized it. The state planner to his own.

Produce routines, orders and processes, and then make mistakes. The reason is simple. The planner has no idea of the needs of the market. He plans because it is his thing, but he has never studied marketing in his life, nor does he base his calculations on market studies. Not interested. His goal is the plan. And we see the results. Routes and more routes, and then the buses do not leave or they go empty.

And above all, they believe that acting in this way is correct, even when it is recognized that they still do not cover most of the demand. In other words, they are committed to programming services that have less demand than supply, and there are others that are neglected. The state planner to his own.

Which is precisely not listening to people and attending to their needs. What for? Everyone’s salary will be charged regardless of the service and profits of the company. The state will cover the losses with subsidies and start over. And so we get to the source of the problem. The provision of transportation service by the state generates a perverse dynamic of dependence of this activity on the subsidies of the regime. Precisely when in the rest of the countries of the world, passenger transport is private, either with people’s own cars, or through private transport companies that earn money from the services they provide.

The directors of the state transport companies live calmly, because the consumer is not the king. And if they complain, it can be worse. They obey another monarch, the communist party, which arbitrarily and with political criteria, says what has to be done, and what does not.

And this is the second derivative of the problem. The first, state provision, the second communist interference. And with these ingredients, you have to think about how the basket that is manufactured is going to come out: of course, badly and full of holes.

Added to this are the problems derived from the lack of profitability, such as the lack of investment in new buses or in spare parts for tires or batteries, among others, which makes it impossible to respond quickly to unexpected increases in demand.

And if the bus is a failure, however you look at it, the railroad is even worse. The low use of this means of transport by passengers is due to the absolute neglect of the authorities. The design of the network, for example, has hardly changed from what existed before 1959.

People wait to be picked up by a passing driver on a main arterial nearly empty of traffic. (14ymedio)

On the other hand, private transport through the formal and informal ride-sharing system is used by the population, but since it is a sector regulated and intervened in by the state, it prevents an efficient provision of services, as it could be verified when the Ordering Task* came into effect and official rates were applied.

In the midst of this panorama, something appears that has caught the attention of analysts in relation to transport, and it is the spectacular increase in prices. The measurement of the inflation rate of the Cuban economy by ONEI, as of this October (latest published data) places the increase in the general price level at 66.3%, one of the highest in Latin America.

But if inflation has risen significantly, the component of the index that has risen the most has been, curiously, Transport, nothing more and nothing less than 174.7%, more than double the average, and a three-digit rate that is alarming due to its intensity, and above all, because it has an effect on the prices of other goods and services.

Thus, the return to normality in the last three weeks has coincided with a spectacular increase in transport prices and, perhaps because of this, demand is contained and does not reach pre-pandemic levels. The communists disdain the market and the laws of supply and demand, but one day they will have no choice but to recognize that they work and work much better than that silly planning that from year to year produces defaults and failures.

The highlight of this outbreak of inflation is that it starts from a time when demand was contained. Its origin is in production costs (energy) and is explained by the measures adopted in the Ordering Task, which have moved the Cuban economy away from the price stability that it had been experiencing until 2019.

With the diminished purchasing power of wages and pensions, and a low capacity to save, Cubans will reduce their demand for transport if prices do not return to levels compatible with the purchasing power of the population. And that would bring a greater need for state subsidies for companies, which goes against the Ordering Task. The transport sector is thus trapped in a vicious circle from which it will not easily escape, and the responsibility for this is squarely on the regime.

As indicated in the Cubadebate report, communists always blame others for their failures, they are incapable of taking responsibility for the country’s economic disaster. Now it is unscrupulous individuals who raise prices to take advantage of people.

Messages of the style that people take advantage of the situation, of problems, to earn money, go against the rationality of economic activity and are a populist hindrance that does not help to solve a problem which, like many others in Cuba is arranged with more freedom and choice. Transportation is a sector that should be privatized in its entirety.

*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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Tips to Tourists to See the Harsh Reality in the Cuban Paradise

Tourists passing down 23rd Street in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 20 November 2021 — I like the complicity of my terrace, especially at that time when I don’t know if it’s day or night, and the city wakes up smelling of the sea and freshly brewed coffee. In front of me the Capitol is projected with its golden dome and its monumental architecture, which not only dwarfs man, but also hides a city that suffers from neglect, heartbreak and the incompetence of a government more interested in appearances than in realities.

Upon arrival, dear tourists, you will find buildings gnawed by 60 years of indolence. With their cracks and exposed steel descending to their foundations, weakening their structures and causing them to collapse in some cases without warning. Collapses that condemn humble and working families to live in shelters, which look more like ghettos than temporary homes.

You can search, investigate, find those families who live in deplorable conditions in marginal neighborhoods that you can’t even imagine exist in the “Cuban paradise” that was described to you by the travel agency. If you do, you will discover people whose hope dies in the archives of oblivion or in the worn-out cliché of the lack of resources produced by a ’blockade’ (the US embargo) that only seems to exist for the most humble sector of society. continue reading

You should know beforehand that the ultra-worn excuse of lack of resources was disproved when in 1991 they squandered millions to satisfy the pride of a self-centered, hypocritical and lying dictator. And it is an easily disproved lie if we calculate the number of luxury hotels that are now being built in a few months. From those same terraces, they will be able to appreciate with their own eyes the harsh reality that the media under the control of the dictatorship try to hide from the world.

You, as I watch from my beloved terrace, will witness how the cancer of abandonment and indolence devours a city left to its own devices and where the few resources that exist are sold in the currency of the American enemy.

Your cameras will show the world the great scam of this failed and outdated system, designed to limit man’s progress in order to subdue and make him dependent. So I invite you all, camera in hand, to seek and show the world the fallacy.

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Spain’s Foreign Minister Supports Freedom in Cuba and Receives Yunior Garcia

Image of the meeting between Minister José Manuel Albares and Yunior García. (Twitter / @ jmalbares)

EFE/14ymedio, Madrid, 20 November 2021 — Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, expressed his support for freedom of expression and demonstration in Cuba this Friday after the Spanish Government facilitated the departure of Yunior García, one of the promoters of the Civic March that calls for a political change in the country.Albares explained to the Joint Commission of the European Union that Yunior García, with whom he had a meeting, received a visa from the consulate in Havana that was processed “normally.” It is, according to the Executive, a short-term tourist visa with limited territorial validity.

In his meeting with García, the minister told the activist of Spain’s commitment to freedom, as noted on Twitter .

In commission and in the face of criticism from Vox, which accuses the Government of “lukewarmness” and of siding with the “Castro dictatorship”, Albares has defended that he has spoken “very clearly” about Cuba: “Freedom of expression, freedom of demonstration and return of credentials to Efe journalists,” he said.

The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, also expressed this Friday the government’s concern about the situation in Cuba and pointed out that its objective is to help the well-being of Cubans and to guarantee their rights. That is why the ’documentation’ for García’s arrival in Madrid was facilitated.

Yunior García is the promoter of the Civic March of November 15 against the Cuban Government and, after his arrival in Spain, he has demanded an end to the romantic idea about a country that “is a dictatorship” and where the relationship of the Government with its people has become a “failed marriage.” continue reading

In a recent interview, the coordinator of the Archipiélago platform said that his departure from the island has been “celebrated as a victory for” the Cuban government, but what they really won was “the terror that they have implanted. You have to wonder how long can win that terror.”

The activist said that he went to the Spanish Embassy “to request a visa” in expectation of being arrested, and thus having the option of leaving the country. “If my only weapon has always been the word, I had to find a way to defend that word.”

García Aguilera warned that being away from the island does not mean that he is going to renounce his ideas, his principles, his objectives, but he did point out that they were moments that changed his life. “When you experience things that I can only compare to fascism, a rage begins within you that is very difficult to control.”

The aim is to “be useful” and then return to his country, as well as working for the liberation of the Archipiélago activists who were arrested and whose whereabouts are still unknown. “I’m not going to rest until those people are free and safe.” He insists that, although everyone “is waiting for a statement from Yunior,” now “the important thing is those who are detained inside Cuba, who are not allowed to leave their home, who are without internet, who cannot speak.”

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Otero Alcantara Has Been Invited to Art Activities Outside Cuba

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of Movimiento San Isidro (Foto: EFE/Yander Zamora)

14ymedio, Havana, November 19, 2021–Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara reaffirmed that he “would not, under any circumstances, accept exile as an option” to leave Cuba, as he made known to art curator Claudia Genlui Hidalgo, following a visit from his family at the prison where he has been held since the July 11th nationwide protests.

However, the leader of Movimiento San Isidro (MSI), to which Genlui also belongs, continues expressing “his willingness to leave the country to participate in artistic and residence programs which had already been planned and in which he had committed to participate.”

Genlui’s clarification comes a few weeks after it became known that the Cuban Government intended to remove Otero Alcántara from the Island as part of the negotiations announced by Tania Bruguera, and which facilitated the exit of artists Hamlet Lavastida and Katherine Bisquet, who traveled to Poland after Lavastida was released from prison in exchange for exile.

“Yesterday, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara’s family was able to visit him in Guanajay, a maximum-security prison, where he remains since July 11th, accused of the alleged crimes of aggravated assault, public disorder, and instigation of a crime,” wrote Genlui on her Facebook page. “He is also charged with offending patriotic symbols, a charge imposed last year for his work Le drapeau,” she added.

His family also communicated to Genlui that “he is well, plays sports and is in good spirits, though he is very worried for Maykel Castillo’s continue reading

health, of which he was informed at that moment.”

Furthermore, she said the artist was well-informed of all that had occurred on the Island in the last few days and “reaffirmed his commitment to the Cuban people.” “Movimiento San Isidro continues to track him and all political prisoners,” she concludes.

One of the family members who visited him relayed to 14ymedio that Otero Alcántara maintains his same convictions. “Not for a moment did he appear to be lost or that the events he is experiencing have changed his view, not at all.” The source also noted that visits to the prison will occur every two weeks.

While Otero Alcántara has been jailed, he contracted COVID-19 and between September and October, was on a hunger and thirst strike for several days to demand his release and that of all political prisoners, according to a statement from MSI.

The activist has been detained on numerous occasions since 2018, though the repression against him escalated in November 2020 when he initiated a hunger and thirst strike along with several activists to demand the release of rapper Denis Solís. It ended when the police rushed Movimiento San Isidro’s headquarters in Old Havana on November 26th, where members of the group were entrenched, and arrested 14 activists who were inside the building.

Toward the end of April, Otero Alcántara declared once again a hunger and thirst strike to demand an end to the police siege at his home. State Security entered his home in the middle of the night and transported him to Calixto García Hospital, where he remained without explanation for a month in the custody of security forces. On that occasion, Amnesty International declared him a “prisoner of conscience”.

In mid-September, Time magazine named Otero Alcántara one of the 100 most influential people of the year.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Social Networks and International Pressure Achieve the Release of a Cuban Minor

Starting image of the video broadcast by ’Girón’, in which, once it begins, only Reniel González’s mother speaks. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 November 2021 — Reniel Rodríguez, the 15-year-old activist arrested on Wednesday at his school, was released this Thursday as confirmed by his own brother through Twitter and spread the account of the Alianza Juvenil Libertaria (ALJ), of which he is founder. The day before, the boy had been led by a teacher to a police car in which he was taken to an EFI (Comprehensive Training School — i.e. ‘reform school’) of the Ministry of the Interior.

The release came shortly after the provincial daily Girón published a video in which his mother, María Josefa González Mayé, appeared “clarifying what had happened.” In the images, published on the newspaper’s Facebook account, the video starts with a photograph of the young man with his mother in which it is seen that he his hair appears as it had previously, in apparent contradiction with the dissemination of information that his head was shaved. However, immediately afterwards the video starts with the mother alone and Reniel is not seen again.

González Mayé tells the camera that on the 15th her son uploaded a video to the networks with a call in favor of the Archipiélago opposition march, something that she was unaware of at that time. Later, some officers came to her house to tell her that she should take her son to Menores, so she went to the school to pick him up. Rainel’s mother insists that he was present throughout the interrogation and insistently alleges that he was treated “very well.”

According to her version, at that time they informed her that she should go to the EFI, something that at first upset both of them, but she later said continue reading

that she had visited the place and greeted the director and the workers and changed her mind about the good treatment that, she repeats, she saw was given to the boy. “If my son had been treated badly, I would say so, I am not going to lie,” she says pre-emptively.

Before finishing the video, González Mayé sends a message to parents, asking them to be very aware of their children’s activities on social networks.

From the account of the Libertarian Youth Alliance, it has been assumed that Reniel’s mother was coerced to record the version that exonerates the authorities of an event that has spread like wildfire on social networks and led to a complaint to organizations such as UNICEF regarding the attitude of the Cuban government.

“The love of a mother for her son knows no limits. We believe that it would have been more true if the child, Reniel, would have made the statement, giving his reasons and demands. Not making this cheap copy of a reality show. We keep asking for concrete images of his situation,” said the AJL, which also observed that González Mayé was “having a horrible and depressing moment with her son, and that the Government is only trying to castrate his voice as it has always done with citizens who demand their rights.”

The youth organization also celebrated the news of the departure of its founder from the center with a tweet in which it praised the avalanche of solidarity received, resulting, in its opinion, in the resolution of the situation. “We are all grateful for the exceptional support they have offered in all forms and means. Once again we show that we are Fuenteovejuna. We unite for a just cause, injustice trembled and the people rose up.”

The Escape of Another Cuban Baseball Player Rains on the Celebration of the Day of Physical Culture and Sports

The young player Luis Jesús Quesada is already in the Dominican Republic. (@ francysromero10)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 November 2021 — Cuban national sport is in crisis. This Friday the prospect Luis Jesús Quesada left the island and is already in the Dominican Republic. The athlete from Cienfuegos joined Cristián de Jesús López, Darlin Jiménez and Gustavo Urgellés, who emigrated in the last 30 days in search of opportunities in Major League Baseball in the United States (MLB).

Quesada “left through the legal channels of the country,” according to the journalist Francys Romero. At 16, he said, “he is one of the best talents in his class and, according to my rankings, the number one in batting average and home runs in his category.” In the last National Championship with Cienfuegos, his average was .416 (37 hits in 89 at-bats), 11 doubles and three home runs.

The bleeding of players continues, while the state newspaper Granma highlights in an article Cuba’s “essence of a world sports power” on the Day of Physical Culture and Sports, recognizing the role of physical education as “the basis of Cuban sports.”

A foundation that seems broken with the flight of 12 baseball players last October from the U-23 World Cup that continue reading

took place in Sonora, Mexico, and another three in the Baseball Pre-Olympic in Florida with the desertions of César Prieto, Lázaro Blanco and Andy Rodríguez. To these losses was added that of the team psychologist, Jorge Sile Figueroa.

“I don’t know well about other sports, but young players don’t have the opportunity to grow on the island, they don’t have the freedom to choose, that’s why they run away,” said the players’ agent based in Miami, Carlos Pérez. “The boys shouldn’t have to be jumping from balconies or seeking asylum.” Meanwhile, Romero warned that “with the recent opening of airports in Cuba, the emigration of baseball players will begin to resume its normal patterns.”

The desertions have spread to other disciplines, such as the judokas Ayumi Leyva and Nahomys Acosta and the basketball player Raudelis Guerra, who left the island’s delegation during stopovers in Madrid, Spain, which affected the image of INDER (National Institute for Sports Physical Education & Recreation).

This Friday it was also announced that one of the youths who left the patriotic team in Mexico, Miguel Antonio González, is already in the US and will be represented by David Hastings. The next objective will be to obtain a free agent, although several teams have already shown interest in adding him to their ranks.

Last season he had an offensive line of .318 / .417 / .439, 7 doubles and two homers, plus 14 RBIs. In the U23 World Cup, he registered “five games, with .385 / .556 / .385, 5 hits in 13 at-bats and 3 RBI,” highlighted the FR website.

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Cuba Begins Two-Day Moncada 2021 Military Exercises

Raúl Castro was present with Díaz-Canel at the start of the Moncada 2021 exercise yesterday. (Estudios Revolución)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 19 November 2021 – The Moncada 2021 military exercise, which was convened to coincide with the date initially requested for the Civic March for Change, began this Thursday in Cuba with the participation of the high political command, including former President Raúl Castro, and in order to “prepare in situations of risk or threat to the security of the country “.

For two days, the main Cuban leaders and military chiefs will study “actions to prevent and face risk situations, threats and attacks on the country’s security,” according to the official state newspaper Granma.

The organ of the Communist Party of Cuba added that the maneuvers are carried out in the scenario of “unconventional war” imposed by the United States.

On Saturday 20, when Moncada 2021 ends, the National Defense Day will be celebrated with training activities and others contextualized in the “War of All the People,” a current strategy in Cuba in the face of eventual aggression.

The Cuban government convened these exercises last October 8, making them coincide with the date on which the Archipiélago opposition platform had requested permission to organize its marches in favor of political change in the country, scheduled for November 20. continue reading

Faced with this decision that the group considered “the threat of the tanks,” Archipiélago changed the day of its mobilization to November 15 to avoid coinciding with Defense Day, but the Government still did not give authorization, making the march illegal, also militarizing the country and threatening or preventing many activists from leaving their homes.

Every year, Cuba holds military exercises at this time, although the specific dates were interpreted as a clear response to the demonstrations, confirmed by the attitude towards the March even as the day moved. In addition, Moncada Exercises are of a higher level than traditional maneuvers and are usually announced much longer in advance.

The Moncada military exercises have been carried out sporadically with the objective of “increasing the level of preparation and cohesion of the leadership and command bodies at all levels, the troops, the economy and the population.”

The first time they were held was in 1980 — the most prominent were in 2007 and 2008 — and they are generally convened as an appeal to the United States that they “not underestimate” the Cuban people.

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Archipelago States Motives for Protest are Still Valid and Extends It Until November 27

Yunior Garcia trapped inside his home as pro-government supporters rally outside.

14ymedio, Havana, November 16, 2021 — After the Cuban government took actions that prevented the Civic March for Change from taking place, the online platform Archipelago issued a statement in response, calling upon participants to extend the protests until November 27, the one-year anniversary of a sit-in by artists and intellectuals in front of the Ministry of Culture. The group states, “The Cuban people have never been more united in the struggle for their rights.

The dissident group is proposing a series of activities to draw attention to its message. It asks people to continue wearing white clothing, carrying single roses, banging metal pots at 9:00 PM every night and spreading the word about what is happening in the country, their families and their neighborhoods, particularly among those who do not have access to social media.

It is also inviting all those sympathetic to its cause to lay a rose at the statue of a Cuban martyr at time time that feels appropriate and safe, documenting their actions so they can be disseminated online. The group characterizes such action as a way to repay “a debt of honor to the Apostle José Martí.”

The group made its proposal in a statement, released after midnight, in which it summarized the previous day’s events. The document criticizes actions by the government, stating it has criminalized and shown contempt continue reading

for the right to freedom of expression, assembly and protest recognized by the Cuban constitution and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It accuses the government of “turning Cubans against Cubans.”

“The Cuban government has responded to our calls the way a dictatorship does: with extreme militarization of the streets, harassment of more than a hundred activists, arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, acts of repudiation, threats, coercion and hate-filled speeches,” the document states. The group warns it will not tolerate this escalation of violence against peaceful citizens.

Despite all the efforts by authorities, the group portrays the march as a success. It cites expressions of solidarity it received from 120 cities around the world and from those in Cuba who were able to take to the streets to show a minimal gesture of support. “We have surpassed ourselves as a nation and this is the resounding success of November 15.

The group’s efforts will continue till November 27 and its goals remain the same: the release of political prisoners and prisoners or conscience, respect for the rights of expression, assembly and protest, an end to politically motivated violence among Cubans and the beginning of a dialogue with the goal of to resolving differences by democratic and peaceful means.

At the end of the statement the group suggests November 27 will not mark the end of its activities: “If the Government does not abandon its efforts to violate our rights, we will continue the civic struggle until Cuba is a state of rights, a republic ’of all and for the good of all’.”

The group expressed its solidarity with the many people linked to the opposition who remained unaccounted for, detained or under siege in their homes as of November 16.

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The Day the Cuban Regime Ran Alone… And Did Not Win

On November 14, the authorities placed a bus completely blocking the street Yunior García lives on, when he wanted to go out for a walk in white with a rose. (EFE)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 19 November 2021 — They say that the horse ran alone on the track and reached the finish line first. Locked in their stables and bound with strong chains were the possible adversaries of that contest. The victor could not contain so much arrogance in his body and he celebrated as if his legs — and not his tricks — had carried him. They say it was the 15^th of November, a day when the public was prohibited from witnessing the race.

In an interview with the Russian network RT, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez declared last Monday’s call for a Civic March a failure. “The face-to-face reality, the real, true, physical reality in Cuba indicates that nothing happened in the country,” the minister boasted. To drive it home, he told the complacent journalist: “You have been able to move freely, you know perfectly what happened, you experienced it together with the Cubans and you also know what did not happen.”

To avoid the scenes of people in the streets dressed in white or with a flower in hand, officialdom deployed the largest control operation– meter by meter – in the memory of many in this country. The bitter surprise of the spontaneity of the July 11 protests led to a preparation so that the avenues would no longer be a river of people shouting ‘Libertad‘ and demanding the resignation of Miguel Díaz-Canel. To achieve this, this time they tied up the entire island. continue reading

Police operations, a deployment of State Security agents in civilian clothes, acts of repudiation, threatening messages and the selective cutting off of telephone lines. They made use of all the cowardly tactics and abuses of power in the authoritarians’ manual, and also added to it from their own harvest of Castroism, experts in lying and in the preparation of stage sets. As they themselves tried for years to create the props of a medical power, which the pandemic shattered, for ‘15N’ the set design of “peace and tranquility” was proposed.

But the result was closer to the script of a funeral: deserted streets, murmured conversations in the lines outside stores , which until two days before were pure tumult, trembling hands that could not manage to remove a cellphone from a pocket before the intimidating gaze of the police, and tearful mothers who pleaded with their children not to leave the house that Monday. A white sheet hanging from a clothesline could paralyze the neighbor next door with fear, even the flower sellers hid, or only offered yellow sunflowers and very red roses. Terror starred in the day.

And then the regime believed itself powerful, shook its mane, flaunted the strength of its haunches and showed its teeth. Now, it wants to make national and international public opinion believe that it really earned the gold medal for its abilities and for the support its people gave it, but in the Plaza of the Revolution they know that everything is a lie: that if they had not carried out the the largest and most expensive repressive operation of the last quarter century on this island, Cubans would once again have shown their weariness with the current system.

Nor will the regime be able to prevent the neighing of the locked up horses from being heard. Without respecting the rules of the political game, eliminating your competitors or preventing them from showing their abilities as dissidents, you are only invalidating the court, the referees and the medals. It is forcing an entire people to find another way to get on the podium.
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Cuban Rapper Maykel Osorbo Distrusts Prison Doctors to Cure His Illness

Maykel Osorbo was detained on May 18 and is in a maximum-security prison in Pinar del Rio. (*Proyecto EvolucionEnCuba*/2013)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, November 18, 2021–Cuban activist and art curator Anamely Ramos on Wednesday denounced from Miami that the contrarian rapper, Maykel Castillo Osorbo is at risk in jail, where he has been held in isolation for six months.

Maykel Castillo “is sick”, denounced Ramos on her Facebook page, telling how after his six-day hunger and thirst strike, being in solitary confinement for over two weeks and at least four days in a punishment cell, Castillo called to say he had been taken to the doctor “to have his lymph nodes checked.”

In statements made to 14ymedio Ramos explained that today the singer “does not have a conclusive diagnosis” and he does not believe he will have one because “he will not allow any intervention and for that reason, it is important that he get out of there now.”

She notes that Castillo had been “complaining about his lymph nodes for more than two months” but that, although he told the doctor at the Kilo Cinco y Medio prison in Pinar del Río, she “did not pay it any attention” at that time.

Ramos clarified that she had not wanted to publish this news earlier because everyone was focused on the November 15th march and because she also needed to “hear the details in Maykel’s own voice.” She was finally able to speak with the rapper at the beginning of the week and he told her that “he has lumps all over–under his armpits, near his clavicle, behind his arm. He has been experiencing vomiting, fever, sweats, and extreme fatigue.”

Following a recent exam, “it appears to be a failure of continue reading

the lymphatic system, but the test was inconclusive and Maykel already told me that he will not allow them to perform any invasive medical procedures.” The activists also wrote that she does not trust any diagnosis or treatment that they might perform on Castillo. “If he is that way, it is precisely due to his unjust imprisonment and the mistreatment to which he has been subjected since long before he was in jail.”

Ramos reminded readers in her Facebook post that the rapper has been the victim of more than 120 acts of political violence in a little over a year, “He endured a year and a half in jail for opposing Decree 349. Maykel belongs to that segment of the Cuban population which is persistently discarded. The profound injustice the dictatorship represents includes this terrible asymmetry, where it is these people who always pay the highest price to be free.”

Similarly, she demanded the Cuban State free Castillo and not to deny him “the possibility of attending to his health in a trustworthy place,” if he so decides and “to put the brakes on the violence and the barbarity they have unleashed everywhere and which, in the end, will reach them too.”

Maykel Osorbo was detained on May 18th and on the 31st of that same month was transferred to Kilo Cinco y Medio, a maximum-security prison. He is accused of “assault”, “public disorder” and “evasion” for acts that occurred on April 4th, during a protest on Damas street, in front of the Movimiento San Isidro headquarters, when police attempted to arbitrarily arrest him and he refused to get in the patrol car.

Osorbo had denounced that he is imprisoned “for a song” which has become an anthem for freedom-loving Cubans and their struggle against the dictatorship, referring to Patria y Vida, which he sings with Yotuel Romero, Gente de Zona, and rapper Eliexer Márquez Duany, aka El Funky.

This Thursday, precisely the six-month anniversary of Osorbo’s arrest, Patria y Vida will be sung at the gala of the 22nd Latin Grammy Awards, a song that was nominated twice. El Funky’s participation in the event is confirmed; he traveled from Havana to Miami to attend the gala.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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“Wake up!” Says Pablo Milanes to the Mobs that Serve the Cuban Regime

Cuban singer-songwriter and guitarist Pablo Milanés offered a message of support for the protests called by 15N. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 15 November 2021 — “It is a beautiful thing that we coincide in showing our claim for absolute freedoms through flowers”, wrote singer-songwriter Pablo Milanés in a message in support of the protests called for this Monday throughout Cuba. Like the author of Yolanda and Yo no te Pido, dozens of Cuban and foreign artists have expressed their support for the Civic March for Change on November 15^th.

“My contempt for those mobs that they use to ‘represent the best of the people’ “Milanés said when expressing his support for Yunior García Aguilera and all the Cubans he represents and who fight inside and outside of Cuba”.

The troubadour also shared the lyrics of his song Flowers of the Future, along with a video performing the song at a concert in Alicante (Spain), on November 11^th. Among the song’s verses is: “Not everything is dead / there is someone awake / who will be thinking / for you and for him”.

“All eyes are on our Cuban brothers, Ojos Sobre Cuba” From Miami, Rosa María Payá asked, after the Cuban Government denied landing authorization for a flight to Cuba on Monday morning in which, in addition to the activist, MEP Hermann Tertsch and influencer Alexander Otaola would travel to support the demonstrations. “Today, the regime could prevent it, but the reunification of our nation is unstoppable, because the people, both inside and outside Cuba are determined to recover the Homeland and Life”, Payá wrote on her social networks. continue reading

I am ashamed that people of my race lend themselves to be like the ancient hunters of savages in their own torture and pain. They are using them

Yotuel Romero, one of the interpreters of the theme Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life), wrote: “On November 15^th, history will definitely change for our suffering people”. Alexander Delgado, from the duo Gente de Zona and also a participant in the song Patria y Vida that has become the anthem of the protests in Cuba, condemned the acts of repudiation against opponents who have made public their intention to participate in the civic protest. “The reality is that the demonstration is a worldwide right,” he said.

“Today is another day that this dictatorship is more despised,” Yomil Hidalgo wrote on his social networks this Sunday, a message that he accompanied with a photo of a silhouette of the Island of Cuba made with white roses. “It is very difficult to live being kidnapped and repudiated for thinking differently, enough injustices already, Cuba belongs to no one or a few, it belongs to all Cubans”, added the reggaeton artist who lives in Havana and asked for freedom “for our people”.

Another musician of the urban genre who presented himself was the Puerto Rican Don Omar: “I go to my Cuban brothers, I bet on the freedom and justice they need so much. They have innocently died in search of respect for the rights of others, which has always been peace”. In other messages supporting the protests, he has used the tags 15N #, #somosmasynotenemosmiedo (there are more of us and we are not afraid) and #patriayvida.

In addition, the clarinetist, saxophonist and composer Paquito D’Rivera directed a “salute of solidarity” to all Cubans who are going to participate in the 15N march “for Cuba’s final freedom”, which has been “prey to totalitarianism for over 60 years”.

On the other hand, clarinetist, saxophonist and composer Paquito D’Rivera directed a “salute of solidarity” to all Cubans who are going to participate in the 15N march “for Cuba’s final freedom”

In a transmission on social networks during a demonstration in support of 15N in Miami this Sunday, trumpeter and pianist Arturo Sandoval, together with Cuban-born actor Andy García, vowed “to support the cause of Cuba’s freedom”.

“Very soon it will be 63 years of that shameful dictatorship of Cuba. It is too much. I believe that these people need freedom, they need to breathe, they need to know what freedom is,” Sandoval said. On November 15^th, he affirmed that it was a day that all Cubans looked forward to with “great anxiety”.

“This is the time to tell the Cuban people that we are with them,” García said, emphasizing: “That repressive dictatorship that exists in Cuba can no longer be allowed”.

“Cuba’s youth, in which I believe a lot, will be able to show the world what it is to live in freedom and democracy and they will be able to teach the triumph of what a new Cuba is”, musician Emilio Estefan said for his part. His wife, singer Gloria Estefan, also expressed her support for 15N, noting that Cubans “will raise their voices peacefully as they did on July 11^th to express their dissatisfaction with that regime that has oppressed them for over 62 years”.

Actor William Levy asked that all eyes in the world be on Cuba. “Let the whole world see what happens. We need all your support to end this dictatorship,” he wrote on Instagram. “One day I left Cuba, but Cuba never left me,” he said in another message.

“Very soon it will be 63 years of that shameful dictatorship of Cuba. It is too much. I believe that these people need freedom, they need to breathe, they need to know what freedom is”

Panamanian singer-songwriter Rubén Blades expressed his full support for the Cuban people and their right to self-determination in a video posted this Sunday on his Facebook page. “I believe in the exchange of ideas on its own, I believe in the possibility that a society can determine its path and its destiny, so, based on that, I am with the people of Cuba, as I have always been”, said the musician.

“In the case of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, we support, as always, those who demand freedom to express their thoughts, the right to vote, and we condemn the government’s repression of their dictatorships,” he added.

On November 10^th, a group of former leftist presidents, artists and writers who support Cuba’s regime, signed a letter published by the official Cubadebate media in which they blamed the United States for any demonstration against the Government of Cuba. They also asked that the United States “stop its attempts to destabilize a nation that at no time has taken action against US security”. Among the signatories are journalist Ignacio Ramonet, writers Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Martín Almada, and musician Chico Buarque.

Translated by Norma Whiting
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A Latin Grammy Award for ‘Patria y Vida’, the Anthem of the Protests in Cuba

“Patria y Vida” performers during a call with Maykel Osorbo. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, November 18, 2021–Thursday, the song Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life] won the award for Best Urban Song at the Latin Grammys, in Las Vegas, USA. Beatriz Luengo, singer and wife of Cuban Yotuel Romero, one of the songwriters, went up on stage to receive the award.

Sung by duo Gente de Zona, Yotuel and Descemer Bueno, who live outside of Cuba, and Maykel Castillo Osorbo and El Funky, inside the Island, the song is, primarily, an homage to Movimiento San Isidro (MSI) [San Isidro Movement] and has become an anthem for the protests of thousands of Cubans who went out into the streets on July 11th to demand “libertad” [freedom] for Cuba.

Patria y Vida will be heard during the main ceremony, from the mouths of its creators. Except for Maykel Osorbo, for whom today marks six months in prison, all of the song’s participants will be on stage. In the song’s video, appearing alongside Osorbo, hugging a Cuban flag, is artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, MSI leader, who has also been in prison since July 11. continue reading

Moments before the ceremony, El Funky shared on social media that they’d been able to speak with Osorbo and, from jail, he was able to share a few words. “We were able to speak with Maykel Osorbo and feel his voice in these very significant moments, he made it clear that the Grammy is for the Cuban people, whether we win or not, we’ve come so far.”

In statements to 14ymedio at the beginning of the year after the video came out, Otero Alcántara said the most important thing about that act was to “call attention to society, the Black people of San Isidro, the Black people of Cerro, those who stand in line.” In his opinion, the audiovisual “helps create that project of a country, one those people can identify with, feel included.”

Since its debut on YouTube this past February 16th, the song broke viewership records and it currently has more than nine million views on that platform.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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Cuban Government Releases Daniela Rojo, But Arrests a Child Under 15 at School

Reniel Rodríguez was taken out of class this Wednesday and driven away in a police vehicle. (Twitter)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 November 2021 — Daniela Rojo was released this Wednesday, as confirmed by the activist herself by telephone to 14ymedio in a brief conversation.

The young woman, moderator of the Archipiélago platform and architect of the initiative for the 15N (15 November) Civic March for Change in Guabanacoa, had been missing for five days and the group to which she belongs had filed a writ of habeas corpus hours before to demand knowledge of her situation before the Criminal Chamber of the Court Provincial of Havana. During the July 11 protests, Rojo had already been detained for a month.

In the text, the refusal of the Police to provide the place of her detention was highlighted and that she had not been able to communicate with her relatives. “She is not registered as a detainee in any arrest record of the Police units that have been called to find out her whereabouts.”

Archipiélago also indicates that Rojo is not the perpetrator of “any crime” and that there was no “complaint against her, nor arrest warrant.” In addition, the platform indicated that her physical and mental health was unknown, and that her personal integrity was in danger “by not having any legal security.”

After her release, the activist Mag Jorge Castro celebrated the fact on Twitter and invited people to continue to demand continue reading

the same resolution for other cases. “Daniela Rojo is free and with her two little ones … the pressure works, now we go for the others … there are hundreds left.”

However, a few minutes later he himself reported the arrest of Reniel Rodríguez. The 15-year-old activist, who runs the Lunatico Debates channel and is the founder of Alianza Juvenil Libertaria (ALJ) (Youth Freedom Alliance), was apparently taken to a Investigation Center in Matanzas.

According to his account, the boy was notified around 11:00 in the morning by a teacher from his school, who asked him to accompany him. They then put him in a police car. “As of now he has not been released. He is only 15 years old, he is a child who will be branded for life, you cowards!” the activist wrote.

The ALJ reported at midnight its leader’s apparent situation via Twitter. “Our colleague, Reniel, is in the EFI (Comprehensive Training School). These centers are run by the Ministry of the Interior, where a complete indoctrination and behavior change for young people is ensured. His head was shaved and he only has access to one call,” they wrote.

This Thursday, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), based in Madrid, offered a public accounting according to which there were “more than 400 repressive actions” on the island during the last week.

Among them, as of Friday, about 120 house arrests with police surveillance, 62 summons to police stations, 50 acts of threats and almost 90 arrests, as well as 14 acts of repudiation and 35 cuts to Internet services are calculated.

The organization has highlighted in a statement the importance of focusing attention on “the victims of the regime,” and demands the release of all those who have been detained for “exercising the rights to freedom of expression and demonstration.”

The Observatory has asked the European Union that the actions of the Government, led by Miguel Díaz-Canel, have “political consequences… Let us reiterate our call to activate the mechanisms contemplated in the EU’s Political Dialogue Agreement with Cuba,” hit demands.

In addition to the arrests related to the 15N, the NGO Cubalex, a legal information center, reviewed this Wednesday the situation of the detainees as a result of the protests of the 11J, which stood at 1,271. Of these, at least 659 are still in prison, 42 have been convicted in summary trials and 8 in ordinary trials.

For 269 more people, according to the report, there are requests for prison sentences ranging from one to 30 years. Cubalex considers of particular concern “the use of the figure of sedition to impose exemplary sanctions on at least 122 people.”

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Cuban Lady in White Sentenced to Six Years in Prison for Participating in the 11J (11 July) Protests

Abascal is also a member of the Pedro Luis Boitel Party for Democracy. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 November 2021 — The Lady in White Sissi Abascal Zamora was sentenced this Thursday to six years in prison for her participation in the protests on July 11 (11J) on the island. Abascal, who is also a member of the Pedro Luis Boitel Party for Democracy, was accused of the alleged crimes of contempt, attack and public disorder.

As reported to Radio Televisión Martí by Armando Abascal, her father, the Municipal Court of Jovellanos, in Matanzas, ratified the sentence requested by the Prosecutor’s Office in the trial of November 3 after her participation in the protests that took place in the town of Carlos Rojas. In addition, her father explained, an appeal was filed against the sentence and it will take ten business days for the decision to be known.

The former political prisoner also said that after the first ten days of the trial, his daughter, who is now in home confinement, must be transferred to the Matanzas women’s prison and wait behind bars for “the resolution of the appeal.”

The mother of the 23-year-old activist, Lady in White Zamora Annia, told Diario de Cuba that her daughter was accused by major Silvia Martínez Montero, the political police for Jovellanos. “The trial was rigged. The three lawyers who worked that day made a very good defense, but it is sad that this work is not enough. It is a single power and the Prosecutor’s Office manipulates everything. Sissi was defended by a lawyer from Jovellanos, whose name is Vladimir, but their hands are tied,” he said.

Zamora also denounced that on July 11 his daughter was beaten by several civilian-clad law enforcement officers in front of the continue reading

Carlos Rojas police station when they tried to find out where the government opponent Armando Abascal was being detained.

“The protest had already ended, everyone had withdrawn, my daughters Lisi Abascal, Sissi Abascal and I remained,” he said. “Then a bus arrived full of women in civilian clothes, between 30 and 40, who attacked us horribly. We suffered injuries, my daughter Lisi was hit on the head with a bottle and she had to receive stitches.”

After learning of the six-year sentence for Sissi Abascal Zamora, Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, asked on her social networks: “Where are the henchmen who beat her?” “In Cuba there are no laws that protect you, much less justice. Freedom and justice for Sissi and all Cuban political prisoners without exclusion,” she demanded.

According to the prosecution’s accusation, Sissi Abascal Zamora during the protests shouted phrases such as: “homeland and life,” “down with the Castros” and “down with the Revolution,” and “she asked the local residents to join her.”

The Prosecutor’s Office also argued that the young woman placed a white sheet on the branch of a tree in the park that read “homeland and life,” while the protesters shouted “phrases against the revolutionary process” and expressions such as “henchmen, murderers, fucking police,” and also “banging on pots and pans with sticks.”

The NGO Cubalex, a legal information center, has documented 1,271 detainees as a result of the spontaneous demonstrations of 11J. Of these, at least 659 are still in prison, and, according to a recent report, 42 have been convicted in summary trials and eight in ordinary trials have been verified.

Cubalex considers of particular concern “the use of the figure of sedition to impose exemplary sanctions on at least 122 people,” with prosecution requests of up to 30 years in prison.

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Eusebio Leal Takes Possession of the Plaza de Armas in Havana

Local passersby taking photos next to the statue of Eusebio Leal, recently inaugurated in Old Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 17 November 2021 — The brand new statue of Eusebio Leal, inaugurated with pomp this Monday in front of the Museum of the City, the former palace of the Captains General in Old Havana, by the president-designate himself, Miguel Díaz-Canel, is only approached by national tourists, who are the only ones that recognize the historian of the Cuban capital rendered in bronze.

The gesture of the sculpture, the work of José Villa Soberón and Gabriel Cisneros Báez, which represents the deceased historian in life size, walking with documents in hand and “step alive,” as described by the official press, lends itself to passersby leaning on him and take selfies. He also begins to be the target of jokes and memes.

Leal became known at the national level through a program that Cuban official television broadcast for years under the title of Andar La Habana (Walk Havana), a phrase that has now become popular slang to describe the daily hustle and bustle in search of basic products that many times takes city residents from one municipality to another. continue reading

The place where the figure has been placed could not be more significant. Leal extensively described the wooden street located in front of the palace, the Plaza de Armas, which stands before the door of the building, and El Templete which, a few meters away, marks the founding site of the Villa de San Cristóbal de La Habana 502 years ago.

But above all, because Leal was always a great admirer of European royal houses. When King Juan Carlos I visited the Island in 1999, to participate in the Ibero-American Summit, the historian guided him to the throne that the Spanish royal settlements had been waiting for five centuries, but the monarch declined to sit.

Years before, in a select group of friends, Leal had summed up his admiration for power in one sentence: “I am a monarchist and Fidel is my king,” a premise that he followed all his life, in which he enjoyed official privileges but also had to fight against bureaucracy and prohibitions to promote the restoration process in the historic center of the city.

In addition to his political predilections, this Wednesday there were not many who took a photo with the recently inaugurated statue and most of those who did so were Cubans, before the curious gaze of the tourists who, with self-confidence and without a mask, strolled through the place. Attentive to every cell phone that came out of a pocket were the plainclothes police, fearful that some activist would come to the sculpture to make a sovereign rudeness.

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