14ymedio – Page 315 – Translating Cuba

Young Cuban is Put on Trial for Refusing to Serve on Active Military Service

Oscar Kendri Fial Echavarría, 19, will be tried this Tuesday in Santiago de Cuba. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 December 2020 — Oscar Kendri Fial Echavarría, 19, will be tried this Tuesday in Santiago de Cuba, accused of “disobedience” for not enlisting in the Active Military Service (SMA). The young man claims that carrying and using weapons goes against his religious principles as a Christian.

“The sector chief brought a summons to my house. He came in and started talking loudly and saying that if I didn’t show up, he was going to put me in jail. I told him that I couldn’t do military service because of my principles as a Christian,” Fial Echavarría told Youtuber Ruhama Fernández.

The young man, a resident of the Contramaestre municipality in the province of Santiago de Cuba, had his first encounter with the police on December 11 when he was summoned and then detained for almost 24 hours. To be released, his family had to pay a bail of 1,000 Cuban pesos. continue reading

Regarding his arrest, the man from Santiago said that they made him sign a paper without knowing what it said. In addition, he spoke of the harassment and offenses of the head of the sector, whom he denounced to the ombudsman of the Ministry of the Interior. According to his account, the policeman was reprimanded.

“If we must respect all the laws as we do, they must also respect the principles of my son,” said the young man’s father during a video recorded by Youtuber Ruhama Fernández, denouncing that his son has been harassed on several occasions for his decision .

Fial Echavarría was called for the oral hearing of the trial this December 22 at 8:00 am, as recorded in the official summons that the Ministry of the Interior gave him.

Cuba is one of the thirty countries that maintain compulsory military service. Despite being criticized for their harshness, the authorities have not accepted the professionalization of the military on the grounds that there are limited resources to financially stimulate recruitment.

In October, activist Osmel Rubio Santos was detained for several hours by State Security, a few days after he declared himself a conscientious objector and refused to enlist in the Service. Rubió delivered a letter to the Cotorro Military Committee refusing to enlist. In the document, he explained that he was against taking up arms to defend the communist regime, and that he would only use them to “overthrow the Cuban dictatorship.”

To evade the Service, many young people have attempted for years to inflict some damage on themselves as a way to be declared unfit and also avoid sanction by the Military Prosecutor’s Office. However, in December 2019 that mechanism came to an end because the Government ruled that self-harm would be considered a crime of evasion of military service obligations and would be punished by criminal sanctions.

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The Risks of Working With the Wrong Profile

State Security car guarding the home of independent journalist Mónica Baró. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 22 December 2020 — In one of those sporadic arbitrary arrests that I have come to know at the hands of State Security, one of the agents who was driving me began to insult me in an uncontrolled way, emphasizing that everything I did was motivated by the money received from the empire.

As I am in the habit of not discussing politics with the police, I limited myself to thanking them for their insults, because they made it clear to me that they had the wrong profile of me.

I recall that I gave the example of a boxer instructed by his manager that his next opponent is dangerous with jabs, but as soon as he steps into the ring he receives an uppercut to his jaw that knocks him out.

“Did you understand why having the wrong profile of your opponent is dangerous?” I asked, and he stopped insulting me. continue reading

Since the middle of the last century the best police officers in the world began to develop more advanced investigation techniques. Criminal profilers appeared, whose fundamental objective was to understand the behavior and probable characteristics of the unknown perpetrator of a crime and, incidentally, to find the most appropriate way of questioning suspects.

In the omnipresent KGB of the Soviets and the efficient Stasi of the Germans, patterns to control opponents were developed. The Cuban State Security is indebted to those experiences and today the intelligence services of Venezuela learn from the Cubans.

Unlike common criminals, political opponents do not need to be discovered, but the main divergence between an opponent and a common criminal is that political activities that oppose governments only constitute a crime in dictatorial regimes. The case of spies in the service of a foreign power is another thing altogether, and is punished with harsh penalties in most nations.

Here a phenomenon worth studying takes place. To justify the repression of opponents, they try to identify them as, or at least link them to, the activities of an enemy spy, but it happens that the profiles to investigate some are incompatible to work with the others.

Many times, in the middle of an interrogation, opponents wonder if the state security agent they face on the other side of the table is part of the team that makes the lies or if it is only instructed to repeat them, or even trained to believe them. That officer is a professional, or at least he tries to look like one.

If their victim is not a repeat offender, they may say something like “we know you are a patriot, but they are using you and we want to help you.” If he appears on the list of “notorious counterrevolutionaries,” they show him all their contempt, assure him that “we already know everything” and take to launching more or less veiled threats against him and his family, including the presumed possibility that he or one of his relatives has engaged in some common crime.

As they do not want to identify themselves as “the political police,” they mask their repressive work with dissenting ideas under the guise of watching over the independence of the nation. They act as defenders of the attacked homeland occupying the trench that protects sovereignty.

In a good part of the population, born in the last six decades, it is relatively easy to activate the prejudice that anyone who demonstrates against the system only intends to “hand over the nation to the Yankee imperialists,” or “return to the capitalist past so that yesterday’s exploiters can regain their properties.”

As all prejudice needs a minimum base on which to settle, the evidence supports that the United States Government gave support to Brigade 2506 in the landing at the Bay of Pigs and the supply of arms to the rebels in Escambray. It is enough to visit the Museum of the Revolution to see the list of landowners and owners of confiscated companies who returned to Cuba, they or their children, in the invasion of April 1961 “with the sole purpose of recovering their properties.”

The most recurrent obsessions in trying to make the prejudices inculcated by government propaganda coincide with reality are relationships with foreigners and the sources of money.

The most difficult question to answer is whether the state security agent who detains and interrogates a dissatisfied person is unaware that the main objective of his victim is to recover rights, not property. As among the rights to be recovered is that of being able to own property and to be able to proclaim it freely, the agent interprets it as an incriminating evidence of the intentions of the person being interrogated to destroy the conquests of the Revolution.

Perhaps the most important detail that makes the difference between reality and the profile that State Security forms of political opponents, human rights activists and independent journalists seem insignificant, is that when it comes to presenting them to trial accused of terrorism, enemy propaganda, collaborating with the blockade [US embargo] or a fabricated common crime, it is not a requirement to convince the court, because the judges are part of the plot.

It is as if the manager of a knocked out boxer had previously agreed with the referee who, even with the boxer on the canvas and unconscious, raised his hand to signal he is the winner. Yes, the profile is fake. Who cares?

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Several Cuban Airport Workers Arrested for Theft of Goods

Aerovaradero workers who, according to National Television, stole merchandise. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 December 2020 — Several Aerovaradero workers were arrested for an alleged crime of theft and misappropriation, according to Cuban Television, in a new episode within the government’s strategy of showing its “relentless fight against corruption.”

The detainees are part of the ground staff that handles cargo for Aerovaradero, a company specializing in national and international air cargo, and that belongs to the Cuban Civil Aviation Corporation. According to investigations, workers stole household appliances and clothing in collusion with Mercedes-Benz employees.

According to the authorities, the incident emerged from the complaints of the passengers and the affected state companies. The prosecutor in the case explained that those involved in the network marked the loads that were in the dispatch area and mixed them with the loads that they were actually going to declare. continue reading

“Then, taking advantage of the same work flow of the Mercedes-Benz company, which periodically loads its imports, they mixed them to be able to extract them from the airport areas,” he added.

The investigations detected the shortage in the loads and allowed them to recover a part. Among the items stolen were eight air conditioners, televisions, computers, minibars, music equipment and sports shoes for high-performance athletes.

Ariel Matos Fonseca, Aerovaradero’s brigade chief, told state television that they should be more vigilant in their jobs and “more combative towards people who are not doing the right thing.”

With the growing economic crisis, exacerbated by the measures taken by the covid pandemic, thefts of this type have multiplied in recent months. One of the most surprising cases was the operation that discovered, last November in Havana, the theft in a state warehouse of more than 200 tons of rice , hiding it with empty structures behind a facade of real sacks.

A few weeks earlier, in Cienfuegos, the authorities surprised three workers of the Provincial Meat Company stealing 380 kilos of “first-rate” pork, with the alleged objective of reselling it in the informal market.

Other cases occurred, for example, in September, with the theft of two tons of coffee beans in Santiago de Cuba, and in June, with the seizure of an “illegal” shipment of more than 180 bags of onions in Ciego de Ávila.

The dismantling, in September, of a network of exchange office employees and illegal sellers who were engaged in the sale of foreign currency for the acquisition of household appliances was also sounded .

The recurring robberies in Correos de Cuba, denounced by numerous users on social networks, caused the state-owned company to be fed up, which issued a statement a few days ago describing the accusations as “unfair and uncertain.”

Post office workers, says the company, “are, as a rule, honest, humble, hardworking people, dedicated to the work of serving the people and with a high sense of belonging to their organization,” and when events have occurred criminal offenses, “are rigorously investigated, the necessary measures are adopted to prevent their recurrence, disciplinary and administrative measures are applied to those responsible and, when appropriate, they are placed at the disposal of the police and judicial authorities.”

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From January 1 Cuba Will Require Travelers to Have a Negative Covid Test

Immigration control at the José Martí International Airport in Havana. (EFE / Ernesto Mastrascusa / File)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 December 2020 — The Cuban government will require from January 1 to all international travelers a negative PCR test for Covid-19. The Ministry of Health acknowledged that the measure is due to the large number of imported cases detected with the reopening of the airports.

The requirement includes that the test be carried out in “a certified laboratory in the country of origin and carried out within a period of 72 hours before arrival in Cuba,” says the statement, signed by the Minister of Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda.

The health authorities also noted that the Ministry of Health is responsible for “the decision to issue the complementary hygienic epidemiological provisions authorized by the Law for international health control, in prevention of diseases that may harm our country.” continue reading

After keeping the airports closed for more than half a year, the Government decided, last October, to again allow commercial flights. Almost all the provinces of the Island had passed to the so-called “new normal” due to the low level of Covid-19 infection.

Havana was the territory that presented the most complex health situation and did not resume air traffic until November 15. The other provinces, before the reopening of the flights, either did not register positive cases or had a very low percentage of coronavirus infections.

However, with the arrival of international travelers, the situation became complicated throughout the Island. Indigenous cases skyrocketed and official data have set new records day after day.

The authorities have prosecuted travelers for the spread of epidemics. However, the official press has acknowledged that the complex health situation that still persists is due not only to the “indolence” of those who arrive in the country, but also to “violations of the protocols by medical personnel” and “the limited action of the political and mass organizations in the community.”

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Cuba’s Private Sector Phases Out Convertible Pesos before the Government

As early as last Monday, many private businesses on the island were no longer accepting Cuban convertible pesos. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, December 21, 2020 — What had been the most desired legal tender in Cuba for years is no longer wanted. The private sector has slammed the door on the Cuban convertible peso, the CUC, one week before January 1, the date the government has decreed that monetary unification will begin. Its death is being observed with neither grief nor fanfare. The only indication of its demise are the signs in private businesses that read, “We do not accept CUC.”

Although the chavito, as it is commonly known, will continue in circulation for six more months, until June 3, private sector workers prefer to do most of their transactions in Cuban pesos. They fear currency devaluation, long lines outside banks to change money and some last-minute regulation the government might pull out of its hat. “It’s better to be cautious. Everything seems very unsettled so it’s better not to be taken by surprise,” says a bread and cookie vendor near Boyeros Street in Havana’s Plaza district.

“I had already been served and was about to pay with CUC when I was told they couldn’t accept them,” recalls a customer who literally stood with her mouth open in front of the counter of a private ice cream parlor on Cuba Street in Old Havana. “This is really an extreme reaction. They still have several more days to exchange convertible pesos,” lamented the frustrated customer. “They’re just losing money.” continue reading

But the long lines on Monday at banks appear to validate the concerns of private business owners. “I came to exchange 200 CUC for Cuban pesos. I got here at 5:30 in the morning and I still haven’t been able to get inside because they’re having connectivity problems,” complained a private taxi driver who wanted to get bills in small denominations from a bank located on the ground floor of the Transport Ministry.

“After this, I’ll never accept another chavito. I’ll put a sign in the car that tells customers they can only pay with Cuban pesos. I’ll also put some stickers on the windows so they’ll know before they get in that I don’t take CUC,” he adds. “If accepting CUC because they’re still in circulation means I have to get to the bank at dawn every week just to change money, it’s not worth it to me. Let the Central Bank do it.”

The most cautious and best positioned private businesses are already implementing other solutions.”Our menu is in several currencies: Cuban pesos, convertible pesos, dollars and euros. You can pay with any of these four,” says an elegantly dressed employee outside a privately owned restaurant on San Ignacio Street who is trying to convince some tourists to eat there.”You can pay with cash or credit card. We also accept pounds sterling.”

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Cuban Farmers Call on Government to Open Up or Face Social Upheaval

The state cannot continue to be an exploitative monopoly and a parasite feeding off our family remittances. We have reached our limit,” warn farmers in a letter to Cuban authorities. (Flickr/tTnman6)

14ymedio, Havana, December 20, 2020 — In a letter to the island’s authorities, a group of independent Cuban farmers call upon the government to “change course before it is too late” and to unleash the the nation’s productive capacity, which they see as the only way out of the current crisis.

Economic measures included in the pending currency unification will “plunge tens of thousands of pensioners and other vulnerable sectors into poverty,” warn the letter’s signatories, Esteban Ajete with the League of Independent Farmers and Lisandra Orraca, a member of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women.

“Given the current situation, it is abjectly irresponsible to destroy the reputation of farmers and self-employed workers by portraying us as selfish because we have been forced to raise prices due to inflation that the state itself has caused,” the activists complain in a reference to government attacks. Official media outlets have blamed the sector for the recent increase in the costs for goods and services. continue reading

“The ones who have to lower prices are officials at dollar stores who add 200%, 300% and 400% to their import costs,” the letter goes on to read. Recent price increases come on the heels of a rise in electric rates, which take effect in January. “Who are the real parasites here?” the letter’s authors ask.

Ajete and Orraca call upon authorities to “stop their senseless economic war against agricultural producers and private businesspeople.” They believe the solution to the current economic crisis plaguing the island “is not to slander, attack and oppress those who create products, services and employment but to unleash the forces of production at once.”

“The state cannot continue to be an exploitative monopoly and a parasite feeding off our family remittances. We have reached our limit.” The farmers believe the only rational course of action is to “contain famine, prevent the spread of poverty, and rapidly promote large-scale employment” through economic freedom.

Freedoms they would like to see as the ability to “acquire legal ownership of our lands and businesses as well as to produce, set prices, market, export, import and attract investment without state intermediaries and without limits on economic areas under [private] management or the growth of [private] business ventures.”

The letter’s authors cite the “failed system of state control” as one of the causes for predicament in which the country currently finds itself. They believe that, given the opportunity, Cuban farmers and entrepreneurs could “contain and reverse the famine and poverty that are already spreading throughout Cuba.”

“Set aside the arrogance and abuse of power. The options are clear: either the government provides opportunities for widespread prosperity or it doubles down on repression and hunger, which will lead to an explosive and irreversible situation.” At the close of the letter, the activists use a popular phrase whose tone is unmistakeable: “We farmers speak clearly.”

In August the League of Independent Farmers and the Latin American Federation of Rural Women also sent a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet. “We see an oncoming famine that can be avoided,” they wrote. In the letter they also asked for urgent intervention to prevent hunger on the island.

“The cause is not external or due to some natural disaster. The famine that is just over the Cuban horizon is a consequence of a fierce internal blockade of our productive capacity by the national government,” write the signers, who several months ago launched the campaign “Without Farming There Is No Country,” which called upon the government to abolish taxes on agricultural activity and demanded the right to own farmland.

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From the Hard Currency Store to the Cuban Black Market, the New Informal Supply Route

A large part of Cuban society criticizes the opening of stores that only accept hard currency, others have seen their resources grow with these stores. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 20 December 2020 — As he leaves the store, he passes the magnetic card to his sister who is still waiting in line. Not only do they share the form of payment in La Arcada, a foreign exchange business on Havana Boulevard, but they also share the profits from the informal resale of deodorant, detergent and shampoo, the products that are scarce in the network of stores that take national currency.

Until a year ago, Natacha and Nadia — whose names have been changed for this story — were prosperous mules who made the trip between Havana and Panama City several times a month. “But the pandemic arrived, commercial flights were canceled and we had to reinvent ourselves,” Natacha explains to 14ymedio.

At first, when the closure of the airports seemed likely to be a short term thing, they continued to sell the merchandise that they had accumulated from their last trips. Then they began to stand in long lines to buy chicken and other foods that they offered at a higher price to “several willing customers who would to pay anything so as not to spend five hours” in line outside a store, details Nadia. continue reading

But “salvation came in July,” explains this 38-year-old woman from Havana with two young children. “When I was traveling to Panama, I had the good idea of creating a bank account there and I have a Visa debit card that I can use to buy in the foreign currency stores where they sell food and hygiene products.”

The sisters began to prepare for their new business since, through independent media, they learned that the offerings in freely convertible currency (MLC) were going to also extend to food and merchandise in short supply such as soap, laundry detergent and sanitary pads for women.

However, it was Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel’s speech confirming the opening of these foreign exchange businesses that served as the starting shot. “As soon as he finished speaking, I turned off the television and began calling my contacts to tell them that they could give me orders, that I had a dollar card to buy in those places,” Natacha explains.

Since then, their client network has grown and both sisters have developed a method of not exposing themselves too much. “We go to two different stores every week and so we rotate so that we don’t just go to one, lest an employee denounce us and accuse us of being resellers or hoarders,” says Nadia. “We are earning more than when we traveled to Panama.”

The hard currency stores have generated deep unrest among broad sectors. Faced with the avalanche of popular complaints about the social differences that these markets exacerbate, the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, tried to calm the spirits and insisted that the opening of stores in foreign currency for the sale of food and cleaning products was “a decision of social justice and socialism.”

The economy minister, Alejandro Gil, insisted that the opening of foreign currency stores for the sale of food and hygiene products was “a decision of social justice and socialism.” (14ymedio)

“An undersupplied market does not attract foreign currency,” the minister explained then, referring to what many Cubans have classified as the “monetary apartheid” that divides society between those who have dollars to buy products in these shops and those who must make do with the network of stores that take payment in national currency.

But to the same extent that a large part of Cuban society criticizes the opening of these stores in MLC, others have seen their resources grow, serving as a bridge between the merchandise in dollars and the anxious customers who can not find these products in the stores in Cuban or convertible pesos.

“I started out buying only shampoo, but now they tell me right away that they need toilet paper, hair softener, coffee or beer,” explains Humberto, a merchant with a small stall on Galiano street where, according to his license, only can only sell objects linked to Afro-Cuban religions. But a few yards from the table with necklaces and bracelets on display at the door of his house, he has “everything,” he boasts.

Stacked under a ladder Humberto shows customers disposable razors, hair dyes, packages of various brands of coffee, oil, imported tomato sauce, dish soap and large quantities of products for cleaning the home, kitchen and the bathrooms. “Don’t stand in line, I’ll do it for you and if you don’t have a dollar card, I also have that for you,” he says.

Humberto’s magnetic card was sent to him by a brother who lives in Spain. “From his own bank account he took out a debit card that he sent me and the original idea is that he would load onto it the remittance that my mother sends every month and I would take it out at the ATM, but I never imagined that this plastic was going to be the way I was going to earn a living.”

One of the great advantages, according to the informal merchant, is that “in stores they don’t care if your identity card says one name and the card another, so in addition to selling these products I rent the card to trusted people,” he explains. “For every dollar they spend they have to pay me 1.25 CUC and there are days when this card is used up to ten times at the same store.”

Humberto believes that, despite all the controls that govern the operations of the stores that sell in pesos, in the stores in foreign currency everything is “more relaxed.” The reason for a certain laxity is, in his opinion, very evident: “They want dollars and they want them at full speed, so they don’t start looking at where they come from or who has them. The route of those with MLC seems like a road without obstacles.

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Solar Energy is Cheaper but There Are No Panels for Individuals in Cuba

In 2018, it was announced with great fanfare that the Spanish company Assyce Yield Energía SA and the German EFF Solar SA would install solar panels in Cuba to generate 100 megawatt hours of electricity, but it never materialized. (Radio Progreso)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 December 2020 — The increase in the electricity rates, which starts with the monetary unification on January 1, has reminded Cubans recently that a good alternative could be the installation of solar panels, which were promoted so much a few years ago by the Government. The reality is, however, that individuals cannot get a hold of this technology.

The Cuban Electricity Union (UNE) itself has acknowledged this in the State newspaper Granma this Thursday, where it states that “the production of photovoltaic panels has not been guaranteed to make them available to the retail network for sale to the population.”

Despite the fact that the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment has a Solar Energy Research Center, several calls from 14ymedio to this official entity found no official who was able to specify the way in which an individual could acquire solar panels to generate their electricity. continue reading

“We have nothing to do with the sale of these devices, the related company is the Electronic, Automation and Communications Industry Group (Copextel) but so far it has only been able to sell solar water heaters,” clarified an employee of the ministry.

The Rensol brand heaters began to be sold at the end of 2019 to individuals and in national currency at the price of 2,945 Cuban pesos (CUP), in a pilot test that included 7,000 devices. But, the commercialization of this equipment has not continued to expand and currently they can hardly be found in the informal market at a cost that exceeds 600 Cuban convertible pesos (almost five times the original price).

“The Program for the Development of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency conceives the sale of panels to individuals,” clarified the UNE, stating that even “the rules for the implementation of this sale are in force.”

The company regrets that its industry, “due to the economic-financial difficulties” it is going through, cannot take on sales to the population. “Currently, the photovoltaic systems installed in the residential sector are very few and were imported by individuals,” he added.

The UNE, which went to the Granma newspaper to answer “more frequent” questions about the new electricity rates, and also explained the advantages of the devices.

According to the data provided by the UNE, 5 solar panels of 260 watts each are required to cover the energy needs of a home that has an average monthly consumption of 185 kWh.

One of the users who read the publication sent a question to the electricity company in the comments section without receiving a response: “What would happen if a person is capable of generating, through solar panels or some other ecological means, an amount greater than the consumption of their home? Would the UNE be able to take on this private generation and pay for it?”

In 2019, through Decree Law 345, the sale of surplus electricity generated by private producers from this type of source was authorized. But the provision does not modify the state monopoly of the Electricity Union, which is the only one authorized to buy, distribute and commercialize energy of private origin.

A year earlier, at the 35th International Havana Fair, it was announced with great fanfare that the Spanish company Assyce Yield Energía SA and the German EFF Solar SA would install solar panels to generate 100 megawatt hours of electricity in the western provinces of Pinar del Río, Artemisa, Mayabeque and Matanzas.

It was expected, the authorities said at the time, that both companies would begin to provide electricity to the National Electroenergy System in 2018, as explained by the general director of Foreign Investment of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Déborah Rivas.

This newspaper has tried to contact Assyce, but its business phone number has been disconnected.

Decree Law 345 also established that business systems and forms of private management dedicated to tourism could carry out “technical and economic analysis” to “install technologies that take advantage of renewable energy sources.”

The new legislation, however, did not come accompanied by flexibilizations from the General Customs of the Republic for the importation by the private sector of equipment to produce clean energy, such as photovoltaic panels.

Importing solar panels to Cuba is not exactly cheap, as they are items that require the payment of a considerable customs tax. According to their generation power, the rates vary between 200 and 1,000 pesos for panels of 900 watts up to 15 kilowatts. Customs has reiterated on several occasions that travelers can bring into the country only one panel on each trip.

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Cuba: System Reform Won’t Do Much Good

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 19 December 2020 — The Cuban regime wants to make reforms. That’s very good. Cuban society is staggeringly unproductive. They will start with the currency. Good thinking! It is useless to make reforms if the essential element, money, is worth very little. Especially in the vicinity of the United States, where His Majesty the Dollar reigns supreme, despite the fact that since 1971 its value is subjectively and arbitrarily measured. (In that year, Nixon removed the US currency from the gold standard.)

Cuban reformers would do well to look at what is happening just 90 miles from their shores. The exiles, who were prompted to leave by the hideous cry of “we don’t want them, we don’t need them” have prospered enormously. In the USA, with its nuances, things are done as they are carried out in the richest nations on earth.

Let’s talk about the 20%. continue reading

A few are “filthy” rich. They are billionaires. For others it is enough to have a few millions. There are many professionals who are very well off. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers, architects. Almost all have money invested in the stock market, second homes, and works of art. Small businessmen join that group. Some will grow to be great. Others will disappear, but along the way they will have learned a useful lesson that they will use in another endeavor.

The remaining 80% are part of the three middle social groups, plus the poor who struggle to join them––the upper middle group, the middle-middle group, the middle-low group and the extremely poor. Fortunately, social mobility is tremendous in the United States. I am not talking about “classes” because it is a closed concept, which Marxists have appropriated (and we can see the results.)

The extremely poor in the USA are those who have up to $25,000 a year for a family of four. Generally, they are poor people with a car, television, air conditioning, heating, drinking water, electricity, telephones, food stamps, police protection, judicial system, schools, and hospitals for free. They live in government “projects” or small subsidized apartments that, in South Florida at least, are called “Plan 8.”

The 20% and the 80%. That is the “Pareto Principle.” It is not a mandatory law of nature. It is a “principle,” an “observation” that is almost always fulfilled. Vilfredo Pareto was a great mathematician of Italian origin who taught at a Swiss university between the 19th and 20th centuries. He set out to find out the historical disparity between those who have resources and those who lack them. Wherever there is freedom to create wealth there are inventors, entrepreneurs, people who stand out for their desire to succeed.

General Raúl Castro should not find it difficult to understand the phenomenon. His father, Ángel Castro Argiz, who arrived from a Galician village wearing espadrilles, when he died in October 1956, left a capital of eight million dollars (the equivalent today of more than 100 million), several hundred workers, a 30-square kilometers farm, equipped with a movie theater, managed by his daughter Juanita, a school and a post office. Without a doubt, Ángel Castro belonged to the 20%.

Today the “Pareto Principle” has become a formula that is studied in marketing and in almost any activity: 20% of the causes generate 80% of the consequences. That is, 20%––more or less–– of products generates 80% of the sales. And 20% of the sellers support 80% of the sales. And so on.

The problem with Pareto’s observation is that it leads to inequality in income. Those who are part of the 20% receive a huge share of the money that society generates.

This is anathema to communists, determined that the results of all people are approximately the same, because they have not taken into account that human beings are different, have different dreams, and expect different remuneration, sometimes of an emotional character.

This means that it is not a matter of reforming the communist system, but of canceling it, and accepting willingly that some citizens live better than the average. It is not a question of making the three currencies disappear, or that children and adults can have a glass of milk when they want and not when central planning decides. It is about asking Cubans if they want to continue with communism or prefer to carry out their transactions as they are carried out in the thirty most prosperous countries in the world.

That’s the key.

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Young Man with Sign Accused of Acts against State Security

Luis Robles Elizastigui was arrested on December 4 for protesting with a cardboard sign on San Rafael Boulevard in Havana.(Screen Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 December 2020 — The young man who was arrested on December 4 for protesting with a handmade sign on San Rafael Boulevard in Havana has been charged with “acts against state security.” According to Diario de Cuba the charge was filed by First-Lieutenant Roberto Batista, who issued an order for “temporary detention.”

The same news site also identified the young man as 28-year-old Luis Robles Elizastigui, originally from Guantanamo, who is the father of one son. Bystanders rushed to his defense when police tried to arrest him for holding up a cardboard sign that read, “Freedom, no more repression.” The sign also included the hashtag “#FreeDenis,” a reference to the rapper Denis Solis, who was sentenced to eight months in jail for alleged contempt.

A family member who spoke to Diario de Cuba on condition of anonymity said that Robles’ whereabouts were unknown for three days after his arrest but stated that he is now being held at Villa Marista, a prison in Havana. continue reading

En el Boulevard de La Habana. pic.twitter.com/d0HSlUo2id

— Yoani Sánchez 🇨🇺 (@yoanisanchez) December 4, 2020

Videos of Robles protesting in front of a store on the popular pedestrian thoroughfare went viral. In them he can be heard shouting, “Freedom, down with the dictatorship,” to which some bystanders reply, “Down.” In less than a minute several uniformed police arrived and arrested the protester, who began shouting, “Freedom!”

In the video a chorus of voices can be heard shouting the same word as well as, “Thugs. You’re all thugs,” “Let him go,” “Down with the dictatorship” and “Oppressors.”

Several women attacked the police officers while the young man was being arrested. In at least one video they can be seen hitting and struggling with the police for a few seconds.

On the day of his arrest he was fined 1,000 pesos under Decree 272, Article 11 of the Penal Code which, according to attorney Santiago Alpízar, prohibits “creating a public eyesore” with billboards. Authorities have also charged him with “disorderly conduct and contempt.”

In statements to the press the attorney also noted that Robles’ actions do not fit the definition of “other acts against state security,” for which he is also charged.

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Paradise in Cuba Will Cost 50 Pesos Instead of 10

Facade of the Gran Teatro de La Habana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 16 December 2020 — The Alicia Alonso Gran Teatro de La Habana will increase the cost of tickets as of January 1 as part of the process of “economic reordering” and the country’s new salaries*. The institution announced that the first and second balcony will cost 125 pesos for Cubans.

The locations within the hall with the lowest rate will be the ’social gathering’ and ’paradise’ sections, with a price of 50 pesos. Foreigners will be charged a one-time fee of 750 pesos.

In 2016, the cultural complex increased the cost of its tickets and charged 30 pesos for the stalls, 25 for the balconies and 10 for the ’social gathering’ and ’paradise’ sections. continue reading

The theater is the headquarters of the National Ballet of Cuba, a company that with the new salary scale will be one of the dance groups that will receive the highest remuneration among nationals. The director will receive a salary of 6,960 pesos a month ($290 US), the first dancers will receive 5,810 and the choreographers, between 5,560 and 5,060.

The website of the Ministry of Culture reported that the prices of cultural services will be restructured to establish a “rate treatment” in a single currency as established by Resolution 328 of the Ministry of Finance and Prices.

The official provision indicates that “the heads of the agencies, superior business management organizations and other authorized entities, as well as the provincial councils” will increase “current rates in a similar proportion to the average growth of expenses for the provision of services, according their characteristics and classification.”

In this sense, museums, historical sites, local cinemas and theaters, local cultural and sporting shows will increase their current rates up to three times and national theaters up to five, that is, they will increase by 500%.

The resolution maintains the schedule of different prices for some “segments of the population, sectors and institutions, through the application of discounts to children, students, pensioners, activities related to their state function.”

*Translator’s note: As of January 1st, the Cuban Convertible peso will be retired, and the Cuban peso will be valued at 24 to 1 US dollar. Wages will be increased from the current average of the equivalent of $30-$40 US a month, to a minimum wage of 2,100 Cuban pesos ($87.50 US) but prices are expected to triple, across the board.

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Internet in Cuban Homes: A History of Failures

The Etecsa office in Candelaria, where Nauta Hogar is sold. (1ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 17 December 2020 — “They are already going down Tulipán Street, in a few months the whole neighborhood will be connected,” a neighbor told me excitedly three years ago, as he counted the days until the arrival of the Nauta Hogar* service to our building. In the intervening time, the candid dreamer ended up emigrating to the United States and in-home internet connections still has not reached this 14-story apartment block.

Web browsing from Cuban homes has experienced the same fate as many other official campaigns, which generate a lot of initial noise and few effects in the medium and long term. But despite the failure, this December the official press, with great fanfare, has announced, that 4.73 out of every 100 houses on this island already have an internet connection.

The number looks even more insignificant when balancing it against the more than 3,885,000 households reported in the 2012 census, of which 183,000 now have the ability to access the World Wide Web through ADSL technology. The pilot test with 2,000 houses, carried out at the end of 2016 in Old Havana, now seems like a story told by the Cuban Telecommunications Company (Etecsa) to put the gullible to sleep. continue reading

However, it is not only about the baby steps that the installation of the service has taken, but about the constant criticism that has surrounded its operation. Customers complain about drops in speed, the absence of a flat rate, and the high costs of hourly packages. What seemed like the perfect solution for professional work and entrepreneurship has been a source of dissatisfaction.

Not even this pandemic, which has kept us in check for more than nine months and forced millions of Cubans to work from home, has functioned as a spur for the expansion of a type of broadband connectivity that is already common in much of the world, even as it is being overtaken by more powerful and faster infrastructure. In this matter of access to the great World Wide Web, as almost always in everything, we are lagging behind.

Is this slowness the product only of the country’s economic problems and the often-repeated official argument that it is due to the US embargo? These kinds of explanations are not convincing and they sound more and more ridiculous, especially since it is known in many neighborhoods that the cables to offer the service have been installed for years now, and the only thing lacking for the data to run through them is the official will.

This little progress in the number of household connections points in another direction: the growing fear that the Cuban government has of the social and political implications of having a society that is increasingly online. The slowdown at Nauta Hogar seems to be based more on ideological reasons than technological ones, more on repression than on material resources

With access to the internet on mobile phones, the authorities on this island have verified that civic complaint can hardly be contained and the voices of its critics are loudly heard inside and outside national borders, while mockery and derision against officials and leaders grow by the minute.

On cell phones, the customer only has to buy a data package to surf, but at home internet requires a contract, the purchase from the state telecommunications monopoly of an ADSL modem, and family – not individual – use of the service.

*Translator’s note: “Nauta Home,” a service offered by the State (and only legal) telecommunications company in Cuba, ETECSA.

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Sancti Spiritus Returns to Cooking With Firewood Due to the Shortage of Liquefied Gas

The current over-the-counter price of 110 Cuban pesos for an approximate 10 kg. propane gas tank will shoot up to 213 with the new prices. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus | 16 December 2020 — A race against time is taking place in the streets of Sancti Spíritus. Before January 1^st, families want to stock up on products that will increase in price on that date; liquified gas in particular, an alternative for cooking in the face of rising prices of electricity.

These days, as the end of the year festivities approach, families prefer to use liquified gas cylinders for cooking, popularly known as balitas, instead of more expensive appliances or traditional firewood, which is less clean.

Users of liquid propane have been surprised to find that barely a handful of balitas are arriving at the places where they are sold. The shortage has forced customers to stand in 4- to 5-day long lines until a new supply arrives. continue reading

“At the worst moment in the line, the police arrived and disbanded the people in it, then they collected the ID cards and assigned them a number in order to call them in that order, but that did not work out either,” a consumer told 14ymedio on Tuesday, after waiting three days to buy gas.

In order to calm the spirits and reduce the crowds, employees devised a mechanism of phoning customers according to their order inthe line. “The idea was to make people go back to their normal lives and we would let them know when they could come to buy gas,” a local worker told this newspaper.

“But people have no trust and keep coming back to stand on line, they sleep out here and, of course, the police have had to intervene because that permanent presence here is a health hazard and lends itself to all kinds of irregularities: coleros (people who are paid to who stand in line for others), and even fights,” says the employee.

However, customers differ in their opinion. “The places in the lines are being sold on the streets, and if I’m not here watching who comes to buy, I will be left with nothing. The master’s eye fattens the horse and this type of line must be constantly monitored because if it’s not, it will be next July before my family sees the gas.”

“There are days when everyone wants to eat as a family and have a good time, I’m not ready to spend hours and hours in front of the wood stove,” warns Miguelina, a housewife who this Tuesday spent four days in the liquefied gas line. “At least I want to spend the holidays neat and pretty, not with the stink of smoke in my hair.”

This Tuesday, the police broke up the four-day-plus line that had developed in front of this liquefied gas outlet in Sancti Spíritus. (14ymedio)

However, consumers are not only in a hurry due to the proximity of the end of the year holidays and the increase in gas consumption on those dates, but because new prices for the product will also come into effect in 2021. The current over-the-counter price of 110 Cuban pesos for an approximate 10 kg. propane gas tank will shoot up to 213 with the new prices.

“There are things that one likes to cook with firewood, like the end-of-the-year roast pig, but making rice and food like that too is a punishment,” admits Francisco Narváez, a resident of the Toyo neighborhood. “My two children are asthmatic and at home when the wood stove is lit. They have to spend the day outside so that it does not affect them.”

The other option is household appliances for cooking food. Since their massive arrival in Cuban kitchens at the beginning of the century, as part of the “energy revolution” promoted by Fidel Castro, devices such as rice cookers and pressure cookers that use electricity have become very popular; over 68% of households in Cuba use them to prepare their food.

“Either I spend a week in the balita* line or I have a heart attack when the electricity bill arrives in January,” Narváez laments. “There is no salvation.”

Translated by Norma Whiting
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Broken Eggs

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, December 16, 2020 — “When a lady broke two of the eggs I had bought, I almost lost it. I found it difficult to contain myself,” says Luis, a Havana resident who was lucky enough this morning to find thirty eggs for sale in an informal market. But it was a treasure whose value was quickly diminished. He got in line to buy something else but, by the time he was done, only twenty-eight of them were still intact.

“I had gone to the market looking for yucca because I wanted to prepare and freeze some to make sure I would have it for New Year’s,” he said. “I had taken a short cut by avoiding Neptuno and walking along one of the side streets, I heard someone ask, “Hey, kid, what are you looking for?” At the entrance to a ramshackle communal apartment building, a woman who was carrying a child motioned for him to come over.

The woman recited a list of things she had for sale: evaporated milk, potatoes, eggs and shrimp. Other items could be had by walking through a winding corridor with rooms on each side. At the end was a tiny dwelling where he bought the carton of eggs for 300 Cuban pesos (~$12.50 US), the most expensive they have been in a decade. continue reading

Since last year it has been virtually impossible to find eggs on the open market. They are rationed and can only be purchased once a month. Each person is allotted fifteen. The first five go for 1.10 pesos apiece; the rest can be purchased at the subsidized price of 0.15 peso.

“I was happy but I wanted to buy some other things so I got in the line for bread,” recalls the unfortunate shopper. “People started getting nervous and began pushing. One lady almost fell on me and broke two of the eggs. I would have counted to ten to calm myself down but I had count to three-hundred for the 300 pesos I had just spent.”

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Buy Now Because Prices Will Triple in January

Cuban Communist Party official Marino Murillo has indicated that the transition to a single currency “implicitly carries with it a rise in prices because costs will increase and imports will be scarcer.”

14ymedio, Havana, 15 December 2020 — Customers’ eyes scan the wide selection of TV series, films and documentaries that Manuel has available. Manuel is an entrepreneur who sells pirated copies of the most lavish productions in the world. “Buy now because after January everything will cost three times as much.” His pitch is having the desired effect on December sales.

Manuel’s video playlist has everything, including recent Netflix offerings such as Queen’s Gambit, the most recent seasons of The Black List, Selena and Blood of Zeus, and other video releases that, thanks to copy-and-paste technology, Cubans can watch almost as soon as they appear on international streaming platforms.

Manuel works on downtown Havana’s Monte Street, a rundown thoroughfare with balconies on the verge of collapse and hellish traffic. He has been there almost ten years, long enough to see the rise of CDs, DVDs and the growing demand for video and film copying. “I thought I had seen it all but nothing like this December,” he says. continue reading

On Sunday, Marino Murillo, head of the so-called Commission for the Implementation of Communist Party Guidelines, told government media outlets that “prices for goods and services offered by the country’s non-state retailers will rise” due to currency unification, not necessarily because of “speculation and price gouging.”

Cuba’s so-called reform czar noted that the process of transitioning to a single currency, which will begin in January, “implicitly carries with it a rise in prices because [wholesale] costs will increase and imports goods will be scarcer. There is no reason to think this would be any different for private businesspeople.”

“By design, the prices of goods and services in this sector will rise as much as three times but no more because, regardless of costs, tax increases will keep them in line,” he added. This led private sector businesspeople to adopt his “three times” statement almost like a mantra.

“If he says it, then we’ll do it,” says a nougat and candy seller in Havana’s Tulipan Street. “In recent months they’ve raised the price of bread from 25 pesos (CUP)* to 35 pesos but we can’t afford even this small increase. With the rising cost of raw materials it’s possible it will be as much as 75 pesos by the first of the year,” he adds.

Others feel backed into a corner. They know that, although they will be paying triple the current price for basic products and other supplies, if they triple their prices, they will not have any customers. “I rent out this very comfortable room with its own entrance for 25 convertible pesos (CUC) a night (roughly $25). Most of my clients are foreign tourists”, says Dania Pineda, owner of a house with several rooms for rent in Havana’s Vedado district.

“With electricity rates going up along with the costs of basic items like soap, toilet paper and toothpaste that I have to provide customers, how much will I have to charge to make a profit?” she asks. She worries she will not remain competitive.”When I tell a customer that he has to pay the equivalent of $75 a night, he’ll tell me he’s better off staying at a hotel.”

“Today I bought a string of onions for 25 CUC, more than 600 Cuban pesos, but I was lucky because the man who sold them to me said it was a special price for Christmas and that by 2021 they would be much more expensive,” reports Isadora González, a retired teacher who supplements her pension with the help of remitances from two children living overseas.”This reminds me of when I was young in the 1970s, after the “Ten Million Ton Sugar Harvest,” one of Fidel Castro’s most resounding failures.

González recalls the months after the end of the ironically named 1971 campaign, which failed to meet its goal and plunged the country into a deep economic crisis. “Up to that point, if it had been a bad year, people used to say, ’There was nowhere to tie up the goat.’ But with everything in ruins, they called it ’the year of the missing goat.’”

But when you said “goats” back then, two things came to mind: the informants for the so-called political police and the depressed agricultural industry, brought down by centralized control, a shortage of animal feed, climatic fluctuations and the reluctance of producers who had no economic incentive to produce more.

Prices for beachside hotel room deals, restaurant dinners, home delivery and even electronic devices all seem to have an impending expiration date. January 1 will mark the end of an era. On that day anything could happen in terms of prices, though many already predict that people will wake up with “pizza at triple what it costs today.”

Translator’s note: Cuba currently has two currencies: the Cuban peso (CUP), which is not freely convertible, and the convertible peso (CUC), whose value is pegged to the dollar (but which cannot, in fact, be exchanged for foreign currencies). In December it was announced that the CUC will be taken out of circulation on January 1, 2021. The CUP will become the nation’s sole currency, which authorities have indicated will trade at an exchange rate of 24 CUP to the dollar.

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