14ymedio – Page 313 – Translating Cuba

Architects Working ‘Under the Table’ are Called Party Decorators in Cuba

“Havana survives because it was very well built under capitalism, with excellent professionals who have been banned since 1959”, defends an architect, while the city increasingly displays its makeshift construction practices. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 24 February 2021 — Since the Cuban Government released the news that Architecture is among the 124 activities that individuals are prohibited from engaging in privately, the profession has not stopped looking for spaces to express its discontent, sometimes from pessimism and disenchantment, other times from searching for solutions.

After two weeks of public debates among professionals, 14ymedio sought the opinion of some of those Cubans who have built their homes “by their own effort” without ever having seen an architect. 14ymedio has also consulted experts about the consequences that this practice can bring for the urban environment of the city.

“But who said that an architect is needed to build a house?” Iván Calvo, 52, of El Cerro, counterattacks, when asked if he had hired the services of a professional to build his home.

In 2018, after nearly a decade laying one brick over another, Calvo finally finished building his house. Every afternoon he goes up with his friends to the terrace to play dominoes and feed the pigeons that he raises with his 17-year-old son. continue reading

In 2021, the prohibition of the private practice of architecture and engineering was expressly established. (14ymedio)

“My life is my home, along with my family and my birds. I raised it by myself, with only the help of some cousins of mine who came over some weekends. I never needed an architect, beyond the bureaucratic paperwork with the house, the bricklayer I hired and I did all the work”, he concludes.

Rafael Fornés, a Cuban architect residing in Miami, declares that building without the guidance of a professional leads to “structural dangers” in the property that can later “cause collapses”.

“Havana survives because it was very well built under capitalism, with excellent professionals, who have been banned since ‘59. The legacy, the heritage and the wonder city are the result of the experience of Cuban architects and builders.”

Silvia lives in the house right next to Calvo’s, a young woman barely 26-years-old who, together with her husband, built a house on the roof of the property of her in-laws, but she sees it differently.

“The community’s architect is supposed to be there to develop the project but I wanted to do something decent so I looked for another way. I went to a friend with an Architectural degree who drew up the plans for me under the table, and then he just bribed the Housing official to get his signature, which is the only one approach the authorities recognize”, he explains.

Silvia’s friend makes a living in a professional studio that she founded three years ago with two colleagues. “Everything is very absurd, he has an Architecture degree, but in order to legalize his business and pay taxes he had to get a party decorator license,” said the young woman.

“Everything is very absurd, he has an Architecture degree, but in order to legalize his business and pay taxes he had to get a party decorator license”

The event has given rise to anecdotes such as the inauguration of the Monument to the Cuban Decorator, created in 2019 by the independent Arquitectura Infraestudio project as a “tribute” to that legal figure that allows them to exist and earn a living from their studies.

For architect Rafael Muñoz, the country needs construction professionals to “take charge” of the cities again. “We are submerged in an urban chaos that is annihilating the nation’s immense construction heritage”, stated the professional from Berlin, the city where he now resides.

“There is no insurance and no insurance companies in the country for professionals (to practice without them is suicide), there are no laws that specialize in real estate issues, there are no bids for public works, but contracts get awarded in a murky way or, worse still, they are ordered from overseas. There is also no transparent and binding pricing policy, there are no bank loans that allow the purchase of equipment or software licenses. No professional should practice with pirated software. If we want to be respected, we must respect the work of the others”, he specified.

Architects believe that they can contribute little to their colleagues’ statement from the Group of Cuban Architecture Studies (GECA) in which they demand of the Government, from an architectural and city point of view, to conduct this activity independently.

However, he claims “to address the issue from another point of view no less important, the human side and the ethical side” because he considers that recent laws “reinforce the deformation of the inverted pyramid” of Cuban society.

“The more you know, the more you study, the more you learn, the less chance of a decent life the country offers you. This discourages study and efforts to improve. Any young Cuban who chooses to enter university studies knows in advance that he will be choosing to be placed at the lowest level of that pyramid voluntarily. They are less and less willing to do so”, he explained.

The architect provides specific information about his generation but that illustrates the phenomenon in a general way: “In July 1989, 101 young architects graduated from the Cujae School of Architecture (José Antonio Echeverría Technological University of Havana). Today, more than 80 have left the country. This phenomenon, which nobody talks about, is repeated in every graduation and in every university degree in Cuba. Cuban universities are a machine for creating emigrants”.

“We are submerged in an urban chaos that is annihilating the immense built legacy of the nation.” (14 and a half)

Muñoz calls on those who “are at the helm of national ship” to give young people the opportunity “to assume their own future” or they “will continue to leave the Island en masse.” For him, the long-awaited legalization of Architecture and Engineering studies in the country faces “challenges that colleagues should not underestimate either.”

Architect Ruslan Muñoz, professor at La Cujae, published on his Facebook profile on the 11th a list of government measures that, in his opinion, have damaged the profession since 1960.

Among them, he highlighted the intervention and nationalization of construction companies and all their related industries in 1960, the closing of the planning companies and the gradual emigration of professionals between 1960-1963, the closure of the National College of Architects in 1967 and the Revolutionary Offensive in 1968 that nationalized all the remaining private business in the country, right down to the shoe shiners. He culminates his list in 2021 with the prohibition of the private practice of architecture and engineering, although he urges his colleagues to provide more data.

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Former Cuban Officers Urges Military Not to Follow Repressive Orders against the Population

The document, which was released by Radio and Television Martí, alleges that military elites are in control of “all profitables activities of the [state-owned] Gaesa monopoly.” (Granma (State newspaper))

14ymedio, Havana, February 24, 2021 — A group of former military officers from the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Cuban Ministry of the Interior have published a manifesto in which they declare themselves to be conscientious objectors, denouncing the Cuban regime for having unleashed “a war against the people and their economic initiatives.”

The document, released by Radio and Television Martí, alleges that military elites control “all profitable activities of the Gaesa monopoly without any oversight of its operations or income” and that its profits are not “being invested for the benefit of the people.”

“In the face of widespread poverty throughout the country, a caste of corrupt senior officials and bureaucrats have established a mafia state and are enjoying a life of leisure,” write the signatories. These include former brigadier general Rafael del Pino, former lieutenant colonels Omar Ruiz Matoses (father of dissidents Ariel and Omara Ruiz Urquiola), Mario Riva Morales and Alfredo Lima Perez, and former first-lieutenant Angel Madrazo Giro. continue reading

The authors state, “We oppose any order or plan to use military force to repress legitimate protests and demands by the public,” adding that they are also against weapons “being used to attack the people.”

“No one should follow orders which repress our families, neighbors, friends and other citizens. We urge anyone who can do so to request discharge or retirement from these bodies. The time has come to end the repression of women, seniors, children and young people who demand a dignified life.”

They also expressed their opposition to the Armed Forces continued recruitment of young people for military sevice in the midst of the current Covid-19 health crisis.

“The only real and immediate threat to the nation is widespread hunger,” they insist. “Families need to be able to rely on their young members to support them in their multiple endeavors for daily survival.”

As far as Gaesa’s activities go, they ask that the conglomerate’s profits be treated as part of the public domain. They charge that an elite cadre of corrupt soldiers and civilians “continues to speak on behalf of a revolution that they themselves buried long ago while while the puplic — especially retirees — is left to suffer in the most abject poverty. There is no longer any revolution or socialism to defend. Enough is enough!”

“What we want is ’homeland and life,’”* repeating a phrase from the song by the group Gente de Zona. A video of it performed by group members Yotuel Romero, Descemer Bueno, El Osorbo and El Funky has gone viral.

The manifesto was published on February 24 to coincide with the 126th anniversary of the Cry of Baire, “the definitive starting point in the struggle for independence which would lead to the founding of the homeland [José] Martí wanted to achieve.”

*Translator’s note: a twist on the well-known Cuban communist slogan “Patria o Muerte” (Homeland or Death.)

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‘To Have Beautiful Cities,’ You Need Architects, Say Cuban Professionals

The Bacardi building in Havana, a jewel of Cuban ‘art deco’, was the work of architects Rafael Fernández Ruenes, Esteban Rodríguez Castell and José Menéndez. (DC)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 February 2021 — The Group of Cuban Studies of Architecture (GECA) has launched a campaign on social networks to demand from the Government that they can practice their profession as self-employed. “Independent architecture should not be ignored in Cuba,” headlined a statement posted on Facebook this Saturday with the aim of having the authorities eliminate both architecture and engineering from the list of 124 activities expressly prohibited as forms of self-employment by the Ministry of Labor and Security Social.

In their statement they raise several questions: “How do you aspire to beautiful and orderly cities, to their future potential, if you do not have the independent architect? How do you aspire to build 300,000 homes by your own means without the help of the independent architect? How do you aspire to save the house, the little one, the 100-year-old one, ignoring the independent architect, who watches over the execution of your project and accompanies the work so that everything is done as planned and following good construction practices?”

In addition, they describe as “a necessity” that there are different ways to practice architecture in the country and stressed that “releasing” this activity, from the restrictions on self-employment, will “add ideas and proposals that have a positive impact on social spheres where the State does not reach.” continue reading

GECA, a non-profit organization created about five years ago, aims to disseminate contemporary architecture through talks and workshops. It returned to the charge with its demand in another post this Sunday.

“It is true that the list of permitted activities has been expanded and has benefited many,” they grant, “but the prohibition of self-employment in professional, scientific and technical activities constitutes an obstacle for the current times, since we need every opportunity to contribute to the progress and welfare of our nation.”

The association notes that Cuba’s architectural heritage “is full of exceptional examples devised by architects and engineers who exercised their work on their own” and clarifies that proposing the legalization of their profession “does not constitute a barrier to the existing state companies.”

“We do not intend to supplant them,” they assert. “The objective is to seek a balance where state companies and all possible forms of management coexist, generating, beyond the competitive end, a palpable result in the city.”

This would allow, they say, “the creation of mixed entities” that could be competitive even for export and that, in addition, would mitigate “the flow of human capital to other latitudes.”

Their demand, GECA concludes, “comes from society itself rather than professionals, which, after all, is the one who needs us.”

The National Classifier of Economic Activities, in Section 7.110, restricts the private exercisse of “architectural consulting activities that include building design and drawing of construction plans, urban planning and landscape architecture” or “the design engineering that includes civil, hydraulic and traffic engineering projects, water management projects, electrical and electronic, mechanical, industrial and systems engineering projects, or the management of projects related to construction.” In addition, it prohibits, in section 9.412, professional associations.

However, work in construction, masonry, plumbing, and electrical are recognized jobs in the new standard.

Since the new provisions were published on February 10, many architects have expressed their annoyance on social networks. For example, Universo García Lorenzo, who in a Facebook posts asks: “Constructions without architectural design?”

“Our professions as architects and engineers must be involved in equal conditions in all the processes and activities of construction in Cuba, which have already been authorized to practice on their own, independent, and in collaboration with the state company,” he demands. “We architects should no longer be supplanted by any other creative entity.”

García Lorenzo also argues that “the city, architecture, public space and all habitable spaces in their wide diversity are the material support of most of human activity,” and that their development is an inherent factor in human progress. “For a society that faces great economic challenges,” he says, “all productive activity must join that effort, without exclusions.”

At present, García Lorenzo recalls, “in state investments the architecture content is legally commissioned and contracted to artists or artisan creators, builders, industrial designers, many others legally authorized to work in an independent capacity, but without the competence or professional relevance of an architect.”

In fact, independent studios such as Apropia Estudio, Albor Arquitectos or Ad Urbis have been doing their work for years without explicit permission. With the new rule, as with filmmakers, they go from being ‘unlegal’ to illegal.

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The Precautionary Measures in Support of the San Isidro Movement Are a Clear Message to the Cuban State

The rapper Denis Solís receives a bad diet in prison, was attacked and is threatened by other prisoners. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 February 2021 — Almost four months after his incarceration, no one has been able to see Denis Solís, who is in the Combinado del Este, a maximum security prison in Havana. Laritza Diversent, from Cubalex, and Harold Miñarro, from Defend Venezuela, reported on his situation this Wednesday, at an online press conference called to disseminate the details of the precautionary measure granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to 20 members of the San Isidro Movement (MSI).

The decision, issued on February 11, affects both Denis Solís as well as Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Maykel Castillo Osorbo , Iliana Hernández, Anamely Ramos, Oscar Casanella, Katherine Bisquet, Omara Ruiz Urquiola, Adrián Rubio, Jorge Luis Estien, Alfredo Martínez, Amaury Pacheco, Michel Matos, Esteban Rodríguez, Iris Ruiz, Yasser Castellanos, Anyell Valdés, Jorge Luis Capote Arias, Abu Duyanah Tamayo and Osmani Pardo. With the precautionary measure, the IACHR considers that all of them are in a serious and urgent situation of risk of irreparable damage to their rights in Cuba.

It is not known, Miñarro said at the meeting, what the medical situation is of the rebellious rapper, whose arrest gave rise to the hunger strike at the headquarters of the MSI last November and these, in turn, to the protests of hundreds of artists. According to close indications, Solís could be isolated by covid. It is also known that he receives poor nutrition, that he was attacked and threatened by other prisoners. continue reading

Only his uncle, explains Diversent, has been able to go to the prison to bring him essential items, but “they have not allowed him to see him physically.” The authorities now allow Solís to communicate by phone, but the Supreme Court has refused to allow the Havana court in which he was tried in summary proceedings to deliver a copy of the record of the oral trial.

Iris Ruiz, one of the beneficiaries of the precautionary measure, participated in the press conference from Cuba, and trusts that it will help “the Government to promote dialogue.” When they have been repressed and attacked, at some point people may have come to believe that the activists were going against the law, says Ruiz, but the truth is that article 56 of the 2019 Constitution includes the right to demonstrate. “It is the State that impedes the right,” she says, although she is not deceived: “We know that the Government does not respect the precautionary measures, because they have continued with the acts of harassment.”

Laritza Diversent recalls that these actions “did not occur in a single day, but over a long period, some since 2018,” when the San Isidro Movement was created, and are framed “in the context of persecution and attack” on activists and the independent press.

Specifically, they record short-term detentions, between two and 24 hours, “in such a way that criminal proceedings are not opened.” A person can suffer up to five or six arrests in a week, as exemplified by the case of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. This is harassment that Iliana Hernández, Anamely Ramos, Oscar Casanella, Omara Ruiz Urquiola and Katherine Bisquet have also suffered.

They also detail the cutting of telephone lines and the internet for activists to prevent them from communicating with the outside.

The precautionary measure, explains Claudia Ordóñez, from Article 19, one of the organizations that together with Cubalex and Defend Venezuela joined the IACHR petition, obliges the Cuban State to “adopt all the necessary measures to protect the right to life and personal integrity.” This includes “refraining” from encouraging or favoring any “situation of risk or vulnerability” against these activists, such as acts of repudiation.

Although it is aware that it is difficult for the Cuban government to comply with this measure, the decision is very important, since “it gives the victims the recognition that their rights were violated.” The right “to disagree.” Thus, Ordóñez explains, the Commission sends a clear message: “Cuba is part of this continent, it is not a separate political-social-economic system, which is not well understood or is not touched because it is the result of a socialist revolution.”

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Barbers Rebel Against Price Controls

Barbers complain that government mandated prices will not cover their expenses. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, February 11, 2020 — A few months ago it was farmers, then independent taxi drivers, and now it’s the barbers’ turn. The government’s attempts to impose price caps on the “scissors sector” has met with fierce resistance from self-employed workers.

An article in the official press criticizing the rise in prices at barbershops that began at the end of last year has unleashed a torrent of criticism, both from hair professionals and from customers who say they cannot afford their services.

“I am a barber. I live in Ciego de Alvila and have to pay 1,500 pesos for a packet of one-hundred razaor blades,” says Alejandro, a self-employed worker on the outskirts of the city. “My clients inisist I use a new blade each time, so that means I have to spend fifteen pesos on each customer.” continue reading

From time to time Alejandro pays 250 pesos for a bottle of cologne to refresh the skin and send his customers off smelling like lavender. He pays 40 pesos for a box of talcum powder. The hairspray he uses on those who want to look impeccable hours after they leave his shop costs him between 375 and 500 pesos.

“It doesn’t stop there,” he says. “A single jar of wax costs me 250 pesos. Every month I have spend around 4,000 pesos just to stay in business. That’s after paying for my business license, social security and the supplies I need. And that’s not in Havana.”

In addition to the costs for “the here and now” Alejandro’s initial investment was almost 94,000 pesos, raised with help from his domestic partner, mother and emigré brother. “The government does not take this into account but everyone knows that the businesses that are respected here are financed with money from overseas.

Invisible investments of capital from abroad are very common. It is rare to find a successful business that has not received an infusion of dollars from the owner’s relative, friend or third party who lives abroad. Though there are no official statistics to confirm it, many believe that, without this foreign oxygen, most Cuban entrepreneurs would not survive.

For the barber from Ciego de Avila having a clientele means serving customers who come to his salon.”It’s a small city. You don’t have a lot of options. If they force me to cap my prices, I will have to give up my license,” he says.”But this is an art. We’re not factory workers. Every person who sits in that chair wants something different, something personal.”

Given the city’s wide internet coverage and a booming market for in-home services, some Havana entrepreneurs are trying to avoid heavy fines by making clandestine visits to their clients’ homes or practicing their craft on the black market, places beyond the reach of government guidelines and decrees.

“I still have options so let’s see how things turn out. For now, I pay my taxes, go to my customers’ houses for 100 pesos apiece and that’s that,” said a barber on Monday morning while working on one customer’s beard. When he was done, the man paid him the price he had been quoted, without complaint

“Fighting with the barber is like fighting with the cook. He can make your head look like a pile of cockroaches or spit in your food,” acknowledges Lárazo Miguel, a young man who agreed to pay 75 pesos for a quick haircut after much haggling with a barber on Marquez Gonzalez Street in Central Habana.

One of the barbers at the salon where Lazaro Miguel was getting his hair cut voiced a common complaint: “They want us to charge 25 pesos for a haircut but there are people who sit down in that chair and expect miracles. It’s not fair to expect us to charge the same for a once-in-a-liftime haircut as for a basic cut.”

“I know what my services are worth. The son of two doctors, who together earn more than 12,000 pesos a month, comes in, sits down in my chair and asks for a special cut. He wants me to use electric shears on one side of his head and scissors on the other. But I have to charge him 20 or 50 pesos for that. It doesn’t make sense for me, for him or for his parents,” as a self-employed hair stylist.

“A shave with cream, lotion and a facial massage is 100 pesos. A beard trim is another 50. I cannot do it for less than that,” adds Reynaldo, a self-employed barber. “What more do they want?” he wonders. “This is more than a barber shop. It’s a parliament,” says the owner of a salon on Neptuno Street.

“Everyone who comes here spends stays for at least an hour. They don’t just want to look good; they want to feel good. Customers come in, they sit down, they have some water, charge their phones, and even use the bathroom and toilet paper. Who is paying for all that?” one of them asks.

Fighting with the barber is not like complaining to a chef. At a restaurant, they just take the plate away but a few misplaced snips to your hair can stay with you for days.

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“The Fierce Political Indoctrination of Children in Cuba is Extreme Violence”

Erik Ravelo’s work ‘Doctrine’, in which he contrasts the image of a child in uniform on a cross formed by the arms of Fidel Castro. (Erik Ravelo / Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 24 February 2021 — Erik Ravelo cannot forget the day when, in the fifth or sixth grade, his teacher took the children out of class to take them to an act of savage repudiation in El Vedado. “An elderly lady, the mother of an opponent, was attacked, beaten and practically lynched in front of me. They slashed her face with a hardhat. They smashed her glasses. Bleeding, she was grabbed from the enraged mass and put in a police car. They took her away.”

This is how the artist himself told it on his social networks this Tuesday, when he presented his work Doctrine, in which he superimposes an image of a child in his school uniform on a cross formed by the arms of Fidel Castro.

Ravelo tells 14ymedio that the piece was finished just this Tuesday and it is his way of showing solidarity with what many of those who dare to express themselves freely “unfortunately are having to experience in Cuba.” continue reading

“As I explain in the text about my own experience, it is a serious offense against childhood to expose children to direct violence such as what they are exposed to when they are taken to a repudiation rally,” he says.

As he himself denounces in his post: “There are many people who have told me ‘but in Cuba there are no barefoot children smelling glue at traffic lights, cleaning cars and shoes on the street, sleeping on the sidewalks.’ And yes, this may be true, but this work wants to show that there are many forms of violence against children. It is not only the abandonment and extreme poverty, because the fierce political indoctrination to which a child is exposed in Cuba in my opinion is also violence. And extreme.”

I even remember, from that childhood, the song that everyone sang in chorus: “We don’t want them anymore, we don’t want them anymore, we don’t want them anymore, let them fuck off and go to hell.”

Why? he asks. “Was it to instill in us a love for our country? No. Was it to teach us to defend our country by beating an old woman? No, was it to make us better men? No. It was simply to instill fear in us.”

Ravelo says he was impressed by the comments his work has elicited. “One wrote: ‘I was that child too.’ I replied: ‘Yes, tiger, unfortunately we were all that child.’

As for using such “sacred” figures in his work, something that is not new in his career, Ravelo says that nowhere else in the world has he suffered “serious consequences” from any of his previous campaigns. In fact, his work Unhate for Benetton, showing a number of world leaders , including Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez, kissing on the mouth, won the Grand Prix at Cannes. “With this I want to show that art and graphic communication cannot be criminalized, and if it is, then it is only in Cuba.”

“It can’t be that I do Trump with a crucified immigrant child, and being in the United States absolutely nothing happens to me, or that I do Salvini in Italy and Merkel in Europe, or the Pope while living more than 18 years in Italy, but with Cuba it’s different,” he continues.

“I make art, and if art is criminalized or an artist is censored, it really touches us all,” he asserts, claiming the use of the image of Fidel Castro “to represent an idea is necessary,” in his opinion because the acts of repudiation “are one of the saddest, lowest and most inhumane pages” in the history of Cuba.

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“Independent Filmmakers Will Continue Filming Without Permits”

The filmmaker José Luis Aparicio believes with the new provisions, artists such as Jorge Molina or Miguel Coyula “are left in a punishable illegal situation”. (Facebook / Miguel Coyula)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 14 February 2021– The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) tried to reassure the film industry this week, stating that the new bans on self-employment do not affect them. The artists had expressed their complaints and doubts on the social networks, but the ICAIC insisted on a “clarifying note” that “independent audiovisual and cinematographic creators are not self-employed, but rather carry out their activity from their status as artists, recognized as a way of non-state management in the aforementioned Decree Law 373″.

However, three filmmakers who spoke with 14ymedio this Friday, consider that it is the combination of that decree with the new restrictions that puts their work in check.

One of them is José Luis Aparicio, who recalls that Decree Law 373 meant the creation of the Registry of the Audiovisual and Cinematographic Creator (Recac), the result of “a request that filmmakers have been making for years, especially those grouped in the G-20”, to gain access to possibilities that they did not have before.

Aparicio acknowledges that this came to grant “a legality to filmmakers so that they can carry out operations that were previously impossible or very complicated” and that they could, consequently, “produce in a more industrial, more conventional way” and “access funds, permits, export and import possibilities, all kinds of procedures”. continue reading

However, he sees as a problem that there are filmmakers who, for different reasons are not interested in being in that register, “because above all they believe in a more radical and underground type of independent cinema”, not because of the themes and the way in which that they count them, but in principle, because “they believe that belonging to a state norm that regulates independent creators already goes against the independent concept.”

He cites filmmakers Jorge Molina and Miguel Coyula as examples, who, by their own decision, do not belong to RECAC but “have an occupation that supports them”.

With the new provisions, says Aparicio, artists like Molina or Coyula “are now left in a punishable situation, of lawlessness”

With the new provisions, Aparicio thinks, artists like Molina or Coyula “are now in a punishable illegal situation”. Before, he explains, their situation was “in a certain way, allegorical and ambiguous” because, without having a link to the institution, “they continued to work as independent filmmakers, like they have done all their lives, in a non-specific way, filming without permits, the guerrilla way”.

“This is a very worrying situation for them and all the colleagues who have an interest for them to continue to make films and not receive any type of punishment for making their films”, says Aparicio, director of such films as Sueños al Pairo.

In addition, he continues, the new scenario also leaves “very badly off” those who are not traditionally filmmakers and do not have curriculum works to meet the requirements dictated by the institution or have not studied in film schools.

In any case, Aparicio reflects, “in all parts of the world” and at all times”, independent cinema has been created beyond legal provisions, decrees, license, political pressure, filming permits or specific conditions. “It has always been done at the snap of a finger, at the stroke of passion. To not identify that, in the case of cinema and art in general, is blindness on the part of the government when it comes to dealing with culture and art”.

Director Víctor Alfonso, an architect by profession, calls attention to another aspect of the problem, a question that has to do with logic: “How do you register if you don’t have work? At least three works are needed to be able to belong to the audiovisual creator’s registry. This is a paradox. How do you manage to have three quality works if you cannot film legally? That is the big question, but I honestly think that there will not be many changes, people will continue filming and nothing will happen “.

Director Víctor Alfonso, an architect by profession, points to another aspect of the problem, a question that has to do with logic: “How do you register if you don’t have any work lined up?

“They’re going to use that to hit the names they already have marked,” he asserts.” For example, Iliana Hernández, who goes out to film in the street tomorrow, falls under this pretext. The issue of independent journalists comes into play there too”.

Mijail Rodríguez, scriptwriter and organizer of the ICAIC Youth Show for several years, is of the opinion that Decree Law 373 “was a half-achievement” of the filmmakers after much battle with the institution. “The result does not include all the demands of that struggle that the G20 and the Assembly of Filmmakers led. Hence, many do not feel identified with [Decree] 373.”

“The problem is that now, by prohibiting audiovisual and cinematographic activity as self-employed workers, in some way it declares illegal any activity that is not endorsed by the institution, which is aggravated by Decree 349 (which regulates artistic diffusion in Cuba) that is still active, “says Rodríguez. The Ministry of Culture intends to “save” the artists through Decree Law 373 or the RECAC, but all this, Rodríguez concludes, “is used very conveniently… In the end, everything works as a control mechanism.”

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Translated by Norma Whiting

In Other Times…

Luis Robles Elizastigui, detained on December 4 for protesting with a banner on Boulevard San Rafael, in Havana, while citizens on the street tried to come to his rescue. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 22 February 2021 — What are the signs that predict the end of an authoritarian system? What symptoms does a despotic regime show as its decline approaches? These two questions have obsessed me in recent days, in the midst of unprecedented events that have been happening on this Island for weeks. Are they the clear death rattles of a dictatorship or just the rearrangement of a political model that refuses to die?

Protests in front of ministries, officials fighting back with an improvised and defensive discourse, massive solidarity against those stigmatized by official propaganda and an increase in social criticism, which no longer targets only the branches but goes against pillars of the system such as its leaders, its management of history and its management of national resources. Are these the agonies? Has the end already begun?

In other times, the audacity of those who now complain on social networks or outside an institution would have been answered more forcefully. The video clip Patria y vida, which has caused so much bitterness in Cuban officialdom, would have unleashed a fury of concerts in squares and parks throughout the country, to which the Government would bring its most faithful artists, in an endless and expensive show of “revolutionary reaffirmation.” continue reading

At the beginning of this century, the so-called Battle of Ideas was just that, a strategy to harness, through the channel of obedience, a society that had been ideologically “slackening” during the hard years of the Special Period. Those constant massive acts and the creation of social workers, red guards who responded directly to power, were some of the strategies used to tighten the political screw.

In the past, for every young person who stood in front of the Ministry of Culture this January, the Plaza of the Revolution would have mobilized another hundred – shouting slogans and waving banners – to “crush” with numbers the daring ones who demand greater creative freedoms and the end of censorship. The morning assemblies in schools with visceral attacks on these “enemies” and the meetings of militants to start commitments to support the system would have multiplied to the point of paroxysm.

But those times are no longer. The pandemic has tied the hands of the authorities who know that any call to meet physically not only presents a danger of contagion, but will be highly frowned upon and criticized by the population, as happened with the Government-sponsored “Tángana [brawl] en el Trillo [Park]. Young people for socialist democracy,” which was an attempt to respond to the events of November 27. The event only generated more outrage at the irresponsibility of bringing together hundreds of young people despite the dangers of covid-19.

A system that needs the constant mobilization and permanent recruitment of individuals so that they feel that they are soldiers who respond to orders and not citizens who demand rights is weakened when it cannot summon, gather, and unite its troops in front of the leader.

The virus is not the only reason for the “lukewarm” official response that has been experienced in the streets. There is the lack of money. The ideological offensive at the beginning of this millennium was propped up with Venezuelan resources. That uproar was only possible because Hugo Chávez made the necessary oil available to Fidel Castro to finance his political excesses and delusions. Now, Venezuela is economically sunk and the Cuban state coffers contain only debts and cobwebs.

Without a single peso to squander on ideological displays, and on the ropes due to the rebound in the pandemic and burdened by the growing popular unrest, the regime has only been left with the use of national media and social networks to try to counteract so much rebellion. Hence the constant smear campaigns that air on primetime television and fill the newspapers. Where, before, we had the parade and the march, now there are only a few “hateful minutes” left on the screen.

But this is little, very little compared to what Cuban power would have done in other times. Is this inability to show ideological muscle, in reality, a sign of the end? Before dying, do dictatorships fade, losing the streets and squares?

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Two Lines in Gervasio Street: Sitting to Buy Detergent, Standing for ‘Fruta Bomba’

People standing are in line to buy ‘*fruta bomba’* and those seated are lined up to buy detergent. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 17 February 2021 — Any product can already provoke “a demonstration as big as May Day,” a customer who waited for more than two hours to buy fruta bomba* on Gervasio Street joked this Wednesday in Central Havana. In front of that line, dozens of neighbors were sitting on the sidewalk in another line, waiting to buy detergent.

In the municipality that for days has become the epicenter of the pandemic in the Cuban capital, yellow ribbons or metal fences divide the areas with long lines from those where residents must wait for official delivery people to bring food to them at home, due to the strict quarantine decreed in neighborhoods like Los Sitio. Neither envies the fate of the other. While some wait for hours outside bakeries and farmers markets, others may end up receiving bread for breakfast around noon.

In terms of food costs there are not many advantages within the quarantined areas either. “So far they have sold us two types of modules with food. One that costs 282 pesos and that brings a piece of chicken, detergent and two soaps,” a resident of the quarantine zone details from the vicinity of Rayo Street. “The other module costs 700 pesos and contains chicken, minced meat and oil, but many neighbors have not bought it because they have no money,” he laments. “We’ve only been at this for three days and I’m already counting the pennies.” continue reading

“No low-priced food, much less free feed. Besides being locked up, they are charging us dearly for what they sell us at the door and, on the other hand, distribution is very slow. Yesterday at my house we ate at ten at night because between the time they sold us the food and we were able to cook it, they took the one thousand and five hundred pesos from us,” adds another neighbor who lives in one of the streets perpendicular to the central Reina avenue. “Who would have told me that I was going to miss the lines? But I miss them, because at least that way I could look for more options, but here is what I got.”

A few meters from his house and on the other side of the fences that define the quarantine area, almost a hundred people wait to buy cleaning products. They are sitting next to each other on the ledges of the steps and the doorways of the houses. The line are not the same as before: now the whole city is a long line, regardless of what they are selling.

*Translator’s note: ‘Fruta bomba‘ is ‘Cuban’ for papaya – which in Cuba is a rude word for a part of the female anatomy.

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ATMS in Camaguey, Cuba: Few and With Many Problems

Only the municipalities of Esmeraldas, Nuevitas, Florida and Camagüey have cash machines. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Ricardo Fernández, Camagüey, 20 February 2021 — Despite the Cuban economy’s urgent need for foreign exchange and commercial operations, one of the basic elements of the commercial chain continues to have serious problems. ATMs to withdraw cash are a headache, especially in the province, where they fail, do not have bills or cannot meet the demand.

The extraction of cash in Camagüey is limited to 34 ATMs in four of its 13 municipalities, a province where there is one device for every 22,500 inhabitants. The shortage of ATMs creates long lines, unnecessary delays and the dangerous crowds that are so ill-advised in times of pandemic.

Only the residents of Esmeraldas, Nuevitas, Florida and Camagüey have money dispensers in their territories, but they also encounter other obstacles such as the lack of low-denomination banknotes and breakages in the few that exist. continue reading

The use of magnetic cards imposed by companies and work centers as a means of payment to workers complicates the limited service. “I did not ask or choose to be given a magnetic card,” complains a state employee from Camagüey. “At the beginning when there were no ATMs, there were huge lines and now that they exist, when you have problems or they haven’t put money in, you have to return to the abusive lines.”

Another resident, while recognizing how useful money dispensers are, warns that at any time of day the lines are immense: “There are almost longer lines for ATMs than for the bank itself.”

Although paying in cash is still a very widespread practice on the Island, where 6.2 million magnetic cards were enabled as of the end of 2019, more and more retirees use this way to collect their pension. The opening of stores in freely convertible currencies (MLC) has also increased the number of nationals who resort to “money encased in a plastic.”

The alternative to the ATM, which could be the counter at the bank branch, can be another ordeal for customers. The monetary unification that began on January 1 has increased the lines in these places where defunct convertible pesos can be changed into Cuban pesos. In addition, on weekends most of these offices are closed, leading to longer lines in front of ATMs.

“When they installed the ATMs here in Nuevitas there was a little more relief but many more are needed. Only five blocks away I have one, however, there are those who live several kilometers from here, even within the same city, and have they have to travel even at night “to be able to get paid,” says the state worker.

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Act of Repudiation Against a Family in Havana for Painting ‘Patria y Vida’ on the Wall of Their House

Before the blue paint covered it over the wall read: Homeland and Life. #RevolutionIsRepression. Down with the Dictatorship. We don’t want more dictatorship. [Cuban president] Díaz-Canel we don’t want you. After: Blue paint.

14ymedio, Havana, 22 February 2021 — The activist Anyell Valdés Cruz and her family were victims this Monday of an act of repudiation in which Kirenia Pomares, the mayor of Havana’s Arroyo Naranjo municipality, State Security agents and other people participated. The rally included slogans, posters and graffiti on the facade of the house to erase the words that Valdés had painted hours before: “Patria y Vida” [Homeland and Life], “#Revolution is repression,” “Down with the dictatorship,” “We do not want any more dictatorship,” and “Díaz-Canel we don’t want you.”

Some complaints on social networks accompanied by videos recorded how several men and a woman jumped the fence of the house and with blue paint erased the phrase that Valdés had painted and put “Patria o Muerte” [Homeland and Death] on the walls and the floor. From the street, looking at the panorama, other neighbors who came to the act of repudiation with a Fidel Castro poster, applauded and shouted: “Viva Díaz-Canel.”

“These practices are those of common criminals,” Valdés denounced on her Facebook profile, and they are not justified because of her speaking out “against the system or painting posters on the facade of her house.” continue reading

While the ‘repudiators’ were painting the facade, from inside the house the activist Adrián Rubio, who was with Valdés and her family, was heard saying: “Down with the dictatorship,” “Cuba is hungry.” For her part, Valdés energetically shouted: “Down with the CDRs [Committees for the Defense of the Revolution], down with the Communist Party of Cuba.”

“The children have been crying to see so many people screaming. The woman who came inside the fence was the head of the provincial CDR, who claims to be the owner of this place. Along with another man who is from the Party, they threw paint with a very strong smell and they threatened to get me out of here,” the activist told 14ymedio.

“We were very upset, we have been very nervous, I am afraid that they will come back at night when everyone is at home because of the curfew,” she said.

In another video filmed from outside the house, more than a dozen people are seen shouting slogans and holding pro-government posters. A State Security officer, dressed in civilian clothes, approaches the independent reporter Sadiel Gonzaléz and snatches his mobile phone. Transmission is abruptly interrupted.

Valdés said that among those who participated in the act of repudiation were some of her children’s teachers.

“So that you can see what they are doing with the glass on the door of my house, with minors inside,” Valdés emphasized during a video when one of the people painted the door blue. “So that it is not seen neither inside nor outside and it is shown that they are dictators, repressors.”

At first, it seemed that they had also poisoned the activist’s dog, but ADN Cuba journalist Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho refuted that, after seeing the pet getting up with difficulty and on the wall near where it was tied up the phrase “Homeland or Death” was painted. “Obviously the State Security and sympathizers of the system put him to sleep with some liquid in order to get up next to the house,” the reporter denounced.

Since 2015, Valdés has lived in that abandoned state premises with her four children. Although the family has nowhere else to live, the authorities have tried to remove her from the premises and she constantly receives eviction threats, reports Cibercuba. According to this independent media Valdés was detained by the police last December, after expressing her solidarity with the San Isidro Movement and the peaceful activists who were on hunger strike and under siege by State Security.

In another incident this weekend, in the municipality of Ciro Redondo, in the province of Ciego de Ávila, the opponent Omar Torres Sosa was arrested twice for writing “Patria y Vida” along with other slogans on the facade of his home. In several posts shared on his Facebook profile, Torres showed how he was besieged by the police.

“I demand my right to an arrest warrant, they are not giving it to me; however, I am going to go because I am not afraid of them, I am going with the truth. Demanding freedom and rights is not a crime. Homeland and Life,” he said moments before being arrested. “I’m going against my will, but I’m not afraid of them.”

In a video, he denounced that the authorities want him to leave the country, “to stop doing the peaceful activism that I do, because at no time have we incited violence.” According to his account, State Security is fully willing to help him leave the country with his family, “but this is my country, this is my homeland, this is my Cuba and what we are doing is nothing more than claiming our rights” Torres emphasized.

The motto “Homeland and Life” has gone viral from the song of that name released last week, which has joined reggaeton artists Gente de Zona, Yotuel Romero and Descemer Bueno with rebellious rappers Maykel Castillo Osorbo and El Funky.

The video clip, directed by Cuban filmmaker Asiel Babastro, pays tribute to the San Isidro Movement — it features the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, wrapped in the exact flag they had at the headquarters while they were on hinger strike last November — and denounces the precarious economic situation from the country. It also includes several moments of the repression that Cuban artists have suffered in recent months , both in acts of repudiation and arbitrary arrests.

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“Homeland and Life”: The Hymn That Calls For Reason

There is no shame in “Homeland and Life,” nor is there a lack of patriotism, quite the opposite

14ymedio, Raudel García Bringas, Washington, 21 February 2021 — “Homeland and Life” has been, by far, the most popular news in the official Cuban media in its futile desire to annihilate the performers of this great music video, the same people who have been successful representatives of national music for years.

Could one think that they were excellent in one performance, while in another they have now been traitors to the homeland that gave us birth, bought by that imaginary and eternal enemy that is so despised but that at the same time is essential for life?

The slogans have been a hallmark of the Cuban system. The now-worn official slogan of “be continuity” necessarily contains a question: continuity of what? What do they defend? Does what they stand for make sense or is it worth it, if they even know what ‘it’ is?

“Homeland or death” was a slogan that Fidel Castro imposed on the Cuban people, but not on him or his family. “Homeland or death” does not suit the Castro family, which has luxuries, yachts, fortunes and the good life that the people are not allowed. It would be another task altogether to find out which motto would suit them best.

“Homeland or death” is not a motto for Miguel Diaz-Canel, who wears expensive and luxurious garments, totally inaccessible on the salary of any Cuban professional. “Homeland or death” is not the motto for the small group of key sectors of the Government that enjoy other kinds of benefits.

Obviously, it is better for them to “be continuity” than to think about that other gloomy and dire statement of death to which none of them is willing to succumb. The latter is rather for the masses whom they prefer not to think about or interpret.

It remains for the automatons, those military agents of all branches who do not enjoy the privileges of their superiors. Those others who have to keep shouting: “Homeland or death” to keep their small monthly benefits, their bag with oil and chicken, or their card allowing them twenty liters of gasoline a month. And others do the same for much less than that. And in these people’s minds is the conception that one cannot be different without being “an employee of the CIA,” as all of us who do not agree with them tend to be called.

“Homeland or death” does not evoke anything to be proud of. Beyond what it could say, it makes us reflect on millions of Cubans who have had to leave their homes, their families, and go into exile.

It reminds us of the loss of rights and of terror, when the repressive apparatus of the regime has been in charge of fabricating cases, and the overcrowding of the prisons with thousands of young Cubans who were only trying to find ways to survive. It reminds us of the victims of the March 13 tugboat, who were not mercenaries or terrorists, just people who wanted to flee like many others.

It reminds us today, with the “Ordering Task*,” that there is a lack of everything necessary for life because our salaries are still insufficient and the main products can only be purchased in a currency, the dollar, which workers do not receive. With the Ordering Task, it is no longer a matter of living decently, rather it is about surviving in the face of “save himself who can” or dying, as the motto says.

There is no shame in “Homeland and Life,” nor is there a lack of patriotism, quite the opposite. “Patria y Vida” is a much more rational and positive anthem than the nonsense of a “continuity” without a clear direction.

*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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Some 40 Mexican Doctors Who Don’t Want to Go to Cuba Request Protection Under a Writ of Amparo

Some of the doctors who filed for a writ of amparo—a protection order—protested on February 9 in the Zócalo of Mexico City against being forced to go to Cuba. (Excelsior)

14ymedio, Lorey Saman, Mexico, February 18, 2021 — Around 40 Mexican doctors have come together to file amparo lawsuits for protection from being forced to study their specialty in Cuba by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The writ of amparo—a legal instrument that exists in Mexico to protect citizens from possible arbitrariness by the State—is based on alleged violations in the selection process, which they agreed to after passing the National Examination of Applicants for Medical Residency (ENARM) last November.

“In Mexico, any act of authority must be duly founded and motivated, and if it had been established in the call for applicants that the only place of destination was Cuba, there would be no problem,” the lawyer Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, representing to the plaintiffs in Mexico City, explains to 14ymedio. “The point is that the doctors took the exam, but they weren’t told that it was to study in only one country.” continue reading

López Obrador announced in May last year that they would create a program of specialty scholarships abroad for doctors due to the lack of places in Mexico. In November, the health authorities reported not only the doubling of places but also the launch of up to 1,600 scholarships abroad, destined for Canada, the United States, Argentina, Cuba and Australia, under the National Council for Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT).

It should be noted that in these countries, access to medical residency for foreigners involves strict immigration requirements as well as qualification by a demanding specialty exam, something which the Mexican Government did not mention at any time when announcing the creation of the scholarships.

When CONACYT published the requirements to fill 1,000 places with scholarships on December 15, the students who had already received their ENARM diplomas discovered that the only destination available to them was Cuba.

The Undersecretary of Health Hugo López-Gatell— the visible face of the Government during the Covid pandemic—told the protesters that they “are free” to not go to the Island, but in this case they will have to repeat the exam in the next call.

In this regard, the lawyer recalled that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ensures the rights of people during the pandemic, and that the document asks governments and their leaders to be ethical and clear in their pronouncements. The official’s position, Rodríguez says, was added as evidence in the last lawsuit.

“There were only four locations authorized in Mexico where you could take the exam, and doctors from all over the Republic had to travel to these places. Many of them had to borrow money to do so. They didn’t know that they would have only one option for being placed, and this is something that López-Gatell didn’t consider. He is not taking into account the effort put in by the doctors who participated and won a place in the quota,” the lawyer points out.

“The rules weren’t clear, which is either an inconvenient mistake or a purposeful violation, and that is what we are contesting by way of a writ of amparo,” insists Rodríguez, a member of the Lex Artis Medica, a medical law group.

“Changing these circumstances is detrimental to the rights of resident doctors, who have earned a place in Mexico’s academic system,” he explains. “We want the judge to order the authority to respect the doctors’ rights, since they passed the exam.”

According to the lawyer, the doctors are aware that the Mexican health system can’t take on so many residents, and in the event that the State alleges that there are no places to send applicants, the lawsuit also requests that the quota they’ve already obtained serve them for the following year.

“This is not a problem generated by the doctors; it’s a problem that the State itself created by increasing the number of places, and by the Mexican health system for not having the capacity to accept them,” he asserts.

The lawyer also considers it extremely serious that the Cuban Medical Services Marketing Company prohibits postgraduate studies for HIV carriers and pregnant women. “The State should put an end to these discriminatory barriers and gender-based violence and it hasn’t done so, nor has it issued one single statement of agreement to improve these circumstances,” Rodríguez denounces. “In no way are we asking the Court to issue a recommendation to another country, but it can tell the Government to revise those parts of the agreement between Mexico and Cuba.”

The process began with the lawsuit filed last January by 12 doctors, which was joined at the beginning of February by another group. Little by little, Rodríguez assures, more doctors are being added: “They can either lose their place and retake the exam or join the lawsuit.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down the process due to the suspension of activities in the courts, but this week the doctors were informed that the lawsuits are already being reviewed. “At any moment we will have a resolution; either they will support the claims or they will ask us to clarify some point for the judge; in the worst case, they will dismiss the lawsuits.”

In March the doctors are supposed to begin residency in their specialties, but the processing of the protection orders could postpone their studies.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘They Are Going to Demolish My Little House With Me Inside’

Yaneysi Dupuy’s precarious construction in an abandoned State-owned wasteland in Santiago de Cuba. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Francisco Herodes Díaz Echemendía, Santiago de Cuba, 16 February, 2021 — Yaneysi Dupuy Zamora had been sleeping in the living room of her grandmother’s house for 13 years with her 10-year-old daughter. Two months ago she decided, with the few materials she could find, to build a small house on land abandoned by the State on Bartolomé Masón Street (San Basilio), on the corner of Peralejo, in the center of Santiago de Cuba.

There, in a vacant lot without a roof that in the past was a building for state use but of which only the façade remains, other families settled down to build nine small houses with materials collected from the streets.

“This space was empty, there was almost nothing, only garbage and three recently built wooden houses. I approached one of the neighbors and asked her if I could build something of my own in a corner,” she tells 14ymedio. Dupuy, 38, had submitted several requests to get access to a state parcel, but never received a response. continue reading

A few days ago, they received a visit from the inspectors of the Physical Planning Institute to inform them that they could not stay in the premises and they were given a notice that the State would demolish the houses within 72 hours. “I don’t have a bathroom, I don’t have anything, but even so, in this little piece, when I close my door, I can even rest,” says Dupuy. “For more than a week I have been without peace.”

Cuban legislation considers an “illegal occupant” to be anyone who has built or occupies “a dwelling built on land that is known to be owned by another person who has not allowed said building, or on state land without any authorization.” Penalties include fines, home demolition, and eviction.

Shortly after the first visit, another inspector fined each family 500 pesos. “He did not look at the conditions in which I am living with a little girl, that I don’t even have money to eat and how I am going to pay a fine of 500 pesos. I cannot tear this down, because where am I going to sleep with my daughter?”

The inspector returned three days later and sanctioned them with another fine of 1,000 pesos and warned them that he would later give them another of 1,500. “I don’t even know his name because he didn’t even have his identification,” says Dupuy, “but he threatened me in front of my daughter: ’Too bad your tiles are very nice because we’re going to destroy them’, that’s what he told me.” To which she replied: “Well, you will demolish it with me inside. I will close the door of my little house with my girl inside.”

The illegal residents allege that the land was abandoned, turned into a garbage dump that they have been cleaning little by little, in the middle of a city with serious housing problems. “This was immoral, while there are so many homeless people in Santiago,” another of the occupants of the vacant lot told 14ymedio .

Previously, the place was a large warehouse linked to private commerce that was nationalized in the 1960s. In 2012 the winds of Hurricane Sandy demolished the roof of the property and, after a few years, kiosks were placed inside it for the sale of beer and soda in bulk. Thus, it came to be filled with waste to the annoyance of the residents of the area who complained of rats and bad smells.

“Do you think this has the optimal conditions for a human being to live? No,” says Dupuy, who is a professor at the Provincial School of Arts. “Only those who need it, and yet we try to live because we have nowhere.”

“Do you think this has the optimal conditions for a human being to live? No,” says Dupuy, who is a teacher at the Provincial School of Arts. “Only those who need it, and yet we try to live because we have nowhere.”

According to official data, the housing deficit in Cuba reached 929,695 houses last year. Among the most affected provinces are Havana, with a shortage of 185,348 homes; Holguín, with 115,965, and Santiago de Cuba, with 101,202.

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The Cuban Regime and its Propaganda Apparatus Prefer Death to Life

14ymedio, Havana, 18 February 2021 — Covid-19 offers no truce — 923 cases and 5 deaths in the last report — but Cuban authorities seemed more concerned this Thursday about the surprising success of the video clip Patria y vida, which has gone viral on social networks. All the official media, starting with Granma, the daily of the Communist Party, dedicate several articles to denigrating the authors.

“Cuba will not renounce the slogan ‘homeland or death’, a declaration of principles of the historic leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro,” said Abel Prieto, former Minister of Culture and president of the Casa de las Américas, according to the Prensa agency. Latin.

Even the president of the Provincial Defense Council of Havana, Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, spoke about it in his daily meeting. After highlighting the effort “of the medical and paramedical personnel, various specialists, experts, the Police and the people in this contest, in which Cuba makes a difference with the rest of the world, due to the way it faces the pandemic,” the official insisted that “many people today repudiate counterrevolutionary songs on social networks created by artists who sold their souls to the empire and live under it. continue reading

Torres Iríbar called for “continues fighting against enemies, under the slogan of ‘homeland or death’ and the conviction that we will win, because the only way to win is by fighting,” the official press reports.

According to testimonies collected by 14ymedio, the authorities are calling for figures of the national culture to record a video singing the notes of the national anthem and conclude the song with the official slogan “homeland or death,” proclaimed for the first time by Fidel Castro in 1960.

“We are making a call that starting today at nine o’clock at night, in addition to the applause to support our doctors, we want our heroic anthem and the phrase ’homeland or death’ to be heard,” a Communist Party militant said this Thursday morning at an emergency meeting with retirees from a neighborhood in Havana’s Plaza municipality.

“We are not going stand by, because we have the last word,” said the pensioner in front of a dozen militants over 65 years old.

In the midst of the worrying panorama of the pandemic, the authorities, who in recent days had expressed certain self-criticism, acknowledging failures in the detection of the virus and calling for greater observance of health standards in institutions and work centers, have taken up the triumphalist tone to attack the song composed by Gente de Zona, Descemer Bueno, Yotuel Romero, Maykel Castillo Osorbo and El Funky,

Despite the strict measures, which include the confinement of the neighborhood with the highest incidence and the night curfew, the capital remains at the forefront of infections. Santiago de Cuba, which the previous day had a lower figure, returned to second place, with 117 cases.

Among the positives of the day, only a minority, 36, were imported. The accumulated number of positives since the pandemic began, in March last year, amounts to 41,688, and the number of deaths has risen to 282.

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