14ymedio – Page 324 – Translating Cuba

Tenth of October: The Cry of San Isidro

Surveillance at the homes of independent activists, artists and journalists began on the eve of October 10. (Facebook / Héctor Luis Valdés)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 11 October 2020 — On October 10, a group of young Cuban activists and artists who identify as the San Isidro Movement attempted a civic action that included a concert and the presentation of posters that alluded to the need for changes in Cuba.

Starting the day before, the political police made full use of their considerable resources to prevent what in their opinion was a “counterrevolutionary provocation.” As a result, there were dozens of arbitrary arrests and many activists were prevented from leaving their homes.

In one of these repressive actions, a State Security official who identifies himself as Major Denis warned the independent journalist Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho that he would not allow him to leave the house and threatened him with fines and prohibitions, saying: “We will not let you cover the news of the uproar in San Isidro.” continue reading

Thanks to the obvious synonymy, this official definition excuses me from the complaints of those who find it disrespectful to call what the repressors thought was a riot the “Cry of San Isidro.”

On 25 May 1809, the Bolivians gave their Cry of Chuquisaca to proclaim independence, and since then — and perhaps before — it became a habit to name the libertarian demands in this way, by the name of the site where the historic event occurred, along with the date or the name of the leader.

Probably when Carlos Manuel de Céspedes chose the town of Yara to carry out the first fight for independence, on 10 October 1868, he did not suspect that his action would be baptized with that name, nor did he foresee that this would be his first military defeat.

On the other hand, saving the distances, the organizers of the event at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement perhaps foresaw that the political police would prevent it from taking place by appealing, not only to their active troops, but also to government sympathizers who would carry out an act of repudiation, emulating that paramilitary formation called the Volunteer Corps which, after the uprising of 1868, was in charge of “maintaining peace, order and discipline, at whatever price necessary” in the insurgent villages.

Demands for freedom are often given more value when done “with weapons in hand.” But he who is willing to die for an ideal is also determined to kill to achieve his purposes. The nobility of this challenge endowed with words and songs is that the risks that are run far outweigh the eventual damage that could be caused.

What happened this 10th of October has changed the history of the San Isidro neighborhood and its homonymous street.

From now on, the tour guides will have to answer other questions and give new explanations on that walk called “La Ruta de San Isidro,” which begins on Avenida del Puerto, right where the remains of the old Havana Wall remain.

It will no longer be enough to indicate the old colonial and neoclassical mansions, art galleries, bars and restaurants, or to show those who dance an improvised rumba. It will not be enough to point out that Miguelito Valdés, Mister Babalú, was born here, nor that, when passing in front of number 176, the legend of Yarini, the most famous pimp in Cuba, is told.

Now, when passing in front of the Museum of Dissidence, from where the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara called this peaceful protest, it will be necessary to say, still in a low voice but one day loudly: “The Cry of San Isidro happened here” and the story will have to be told.

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Don’t Count on Me

Statue of Christopher Columbus vandalized in Miami. (Miami-Dade Police Department)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 12 October 2020 — Today, October 12, is a day that has several names: Day of the Race*, Hispanic Day,* and Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity. Each designation feels beautiful and laudable to me. That journey in 1492, when Christopher Columbus arrived in this part of the world, defined human civilization as we know it, changed the way we visually represent the planet and shaped the culture of millions of people.

Currently, there are movements and trends that question, criticize or extol that moment. All must have a voice in the polyphonic chorus that we have become. But, this little person that is me took a degree in Hispanic Philology twenty years ago, a profession that I could not have had if the intrepid Columbus had not thought that he could reach “The Indies” by heading the prow of his ships towards this part of the “Oceana Sea.”

Not only would I not have been able to graduate in this language, but my own existence would have been compromised because my ancestors crossed the Atlantic — long after the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa María — from a place quite close to the one from where the “craziest of sailors, sanest of founders” set sail. To top it all, I share my life with a descendant of this Island’s native Taíno people and my son looks like the Guamá cacique, with shorter hair and a modern shirt. continue reading

In my house, every day, multiple cultures meet. Nobody is startled or surprised. Nobody wants to deny or exterminate anyone. Pale hands share with coppery ones. Sometimes in his dreams he is a behique from those early times, while lying next to him I am walking El Camino de Santiago in my familial Spain; he prefers the cold water of the rivers where his ancestors bathed, and I – every so often – feel the salty breeze like the one that must have touched the visage of Rodrigo de Triana; he dreams of caves and I of the surprise of a humid forest that explodes for the first time in smells and colors in front of my face.

Let no one count on me to ride the time machine and prevent Columbus from reaching this hemisphere. I know and I recognize the pain that was derived from that moment, the deaths, the submission and the suffering; but I also know the lights, the poetry born from the collision, the love between bodies so different, the children born from the mixture, the telluric force generated. No, I will not travel back to October 12, 1492 to prevent Columbus from disembarking, because it would be killing my current friends, cutting off the life of my offspring in advance, cutting off my family tree and missing this language that is my life. Don’t count on me.

*Translator’s note: Día de la Raza (Day of the Race) is the term commonly used in some Latin America countries for what is called Columbus Day in the United States; others call it Día de la Hispanidad, among the many names in use in different places.

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The Birth of a Definition: The Historic Generation

Raúl Castro is still the first secretary of the PCC and, if his endurance continues, he will remain so until April of 2021. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 4 October 2020 — This October 3^rd marked the 55^th anniversary of the creation of the first Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. The selection of this hundred people followed a scrutiny that only allowed those who had had some participation in the uprising against the previous dictatorship to be promoted, as long as they showed absolute loyalty to Fidel Castro and embraced, even if just in appearance, the Marxist-Leninist ideology.

What is referred to today as “the historic generation of the revolution” got its credentials that day.

If someone were to ask what requirements are needed to appear as a registered member of that generation, no one will probably know how to give a categorical answer, whether he is an academic, a former combatant or a member of the Party. It is a nebulous definition in which a few names are clear and others are not. But the truth is that, although not all out of the 100 chosen carry that label — sometimes simplified as “historic ones” — all who pride themselves on deserving it appear on that list. continue reading

Fidel Castro mentioned in public for the first time the idea of creating a unitary entity that would bring together the forces that had fought against the Batista tyranny.

In his speech to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the assault on the Moncada barracks, delivered on July 26, 1961 in the Sports City in Santiago de Cuba, Fidel Castro mentioned for the first time in public the idea of creating a unitary entity that would bring together the forces who had fought against the Batista tyranny: The July 26 Movement, the Revolutionary Directorate and the Popular Socialist Party.

With this decision, other groups were left out of the distribution of power, including the so-called “Triple A,” a derivation of the Authentic Party led by the ousted president Carlos Prío Socarrás, and with it, all those who tried to find a peaceful way out of the Batista dictatorship.

With the entities chosen by Castro, the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (ORI) were founded as a preliminary basis for the creation of a closer political group.

Barely two months after the speech in Santiago de Cuba, the process of dissolution of the involved entities began, but it was not until March 8, 1962 that the National Directorate of the ORI was presented with 24 members of the three mentioned organizations.

On March 26, after an acute crisis that year, Fidel Castro decided not to wait any longer and turned the ORI into the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba (PURSC) and, incidentally, placed himself at the head of the new entity. On October 3, 1965, its name was changed to the current Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), and only then was its first Central Committee introduced.

With this decision, other groups were left out of the distribution of power, among them the so-called “Triple A,, a derivation of the Authentic Party led by the ousted president Carlos Prío Socarrás

Strictly from an age point of view, this generation generally includes those born between 1915 and 1940. But the oldest on the list was a member of the former Popular Socialist Party, Juan Marinello, now deceased, who was born in 1898; while the youngest ones were a group of five combatants from the Sierra Maestra born after 1940, whose only active survivor is now General Leopoldo Cintra Frías.

Of that list of 100 founders of the Central Committee, only eight men remain active, 65% have died, the rest are in obscure retirement or have been ousted. There are at least twenty names that don’t even have a file in Ecured, “the Cuban Wikipedia.”

Of the eight active ones, only four maintain real power: Raúl Castro, who is still the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, who, if nature helps him will continue to do so until the eighth Party Congress is held on April, 2021, when he will be two months away from turning 90; the second in command in this organization is José Ramón Machado Ventura, who this October will become a nonagenarian; Leopoldo Cintra Frías, current Minister of the Armed Forces, who is only nine months away from turning 80, and Ramiro Valdés, vice president of the Councils of State and Ministers, who at 88 years of age is in enviable physical shape.

On October 3rd, 1965 the current name of the Cuban Communist Party was adopted and only then was its first Central Committee presented. (Archive)

The remaining four active, but with very little decision-making power, are Guillermo García Frías (b. 1928), director of the National Company for the Protection of Flora and Fauna; Major General Ramón Pardo Guerra (b. 1932), chief of the National Civil Defense General Staff; Julio Camacho Aguilera (b. 1924), who serves as Director of the Office for the Fundamental Development of the Guanahacabibes Peninsula, and Enrique Lusson, who is a member of parliament.

Of the eight active ones, only four maintain real power: Raúl Castro is still The First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba

For the youngest in Cuba, any official who is over 70 years of age can also be considered “historic,” although strictly speaking, it is not appropriate to for him be included in the revolutionary Parnassus of the Historic Generation. Such is the case of characters of some importance and of a certain age, such as Salvador Valdés Mesa (b. 1941), current Vice President of the Republic, who entered the Central Committee of the PCC in its fourth Congress in 1991; Esteban Lazo (b. 1944), current president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, who attained entry to the CC in the first Congress of 1975, as did Ulises Rosales del Toro (b. 1942), who was recently released from his responsibilities as vice president of the Council of Ministers and was appointed director of the Program for Versatile Plants Program.

In addition to the unappealable knowledge of biology, he who belongs in history will be in charge of judging each one for their own actions. Belonging to that generation presumes to assume not only “the glory that has been lived” — as stated in the official speech — but also all the guilt. The new faces that have landed in power, under the motto “we are the continuity,” must know that they also carry those responsibilities. With the same degree of guilt.

They carry on their shoulders the actions of the historic ones.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Packages of ‘Cubita’ Coffee Found in Canada are Fake, While There’s No Cuban Coffee on the Island

Social media users reacted with an avalanche of complaints to Cimex for selling the coffee abroad while stores on the Island have run out of it. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 October 2020 — Coffee, sugar, rum, and tobacco have for decades been emblematic of Cuba, but some of these products have disappeared or must now be imported. Cuban coffee, that star of story and song, is now unavailable in the stores, while its appearance abroad may be a false sighting.

While buying Cubita brand coffee on the Island becomes an almost “mission impossible” — missing as it is from the shelves and priced out of range for most local pockets — social media images abound of supermarkets in the US, Canada, and other countries where packages supposedly of the Cubita brand of Cuban coffee are for sale at very low prices.

These images provoked the indignation of Cuban shoppers because the product is being sold abroad at prices lower than those offered in stores on the Island. While a 250-gram package costs 3.45 CUC (Cuban convertible pesos) and the kilo-size costs 16.35 CUC — the equivalent of almost half the monthly salary (the equivalent in Cuban pesos (CUP) of 35 CUC) — it appears to be sold in other countries at a 30% lower price. continue reading

Cimex, the Cuban military’s conglomerate that distributes the product, boasted this past Monday on Twitter that the original brand “is registered in one hundred countries, where it is in turn marketed.” They did so to alert their clients that for several weeks “the sale of knock-offs and counterfeits being sold online by one of the e-commerce giants has been circulating on social networks.”

The group, while not mentioning Amazon.com by name, recounts that at first they sold the product in “the territory of the United States (Miami)” and that now it is extended to Canada, one of the countries to which the Cuban state-run conglomerate exports Cubita.

The corporation goes on to explain “how to identify genuinely Cuban coffee that is being marketed in Canada” so that the public “is able to recognize the original brand and not be affected by this vile plagiarization.”

Social media users reacted with an avalanche of reproaches to Cimex for selling the coffee abroad while the Island’s own stores have run out of it. “It is incredible that when the MLC (freely convertible currency) stores are inaugurated, there is Spanish coffee. And that Cuban coffee is in Canada. What economy can be sustained this way? The truth is, I do not understand it,” lamented Lucía María in a Tweet.

Indeed, this same week, the only coffee for sale at the Boyeros y Camagüey store in Havana was the Gourmet brand. According to the information on the package, this coffee comes from Spain, a country that does not grow this crop. Also, the type of coffee used, whether arabica — or the lower-quality robusta — is not identified.

This past July, the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, in a long report on the future of Cuba’s coffee production, reassured the public that the country plans to increase coffee production to 30,000 tons in 2030 and that it is one of the country’s main export items.

According to the official press, Cuban beans are in high demand because of the aroma of the arabica variety, which is the one grown on this Island. Mostly harvested in the eastern part of the country, arabica is exported at almost $8,000 per ton, mainly to Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. According to the Cuban government’s forecasts, about 10,000 tons were to be exported in 2020.

However, before the current shortage of supplies, Cubita had lost some of its favor among Cubans. Other national brands, such as El Arriero, Serrano, and Caracolillo, are more popular — but just as unattainable during the current crisis.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

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All Those Involved in the Rape of a Young Girl in Havana Are Under Arrest

The events occurred in the Havana municipality of El Cotorro. (Capture)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 6 October 2020 — The six men implicated in the rape of a 13-year-old girl in the Havana municipality of Cotorro were detained by the police. The mother of the minor communicated this to 14ymedio, while thanking the newspaper for publishing information about the case.

“I want to thank you for the complaints that came out in the independent press. They are all already imprisoned in the Técnico de Alamar, a police unit that specializes in investigations of murders and rapes,” the woman said.

According to her own account, the mother was contacted by the National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex), directed by Mariela Castro. “She, Mariela, contacted me through her secretary, because she had found out about the case through social networks,” she says. “They told me they were going to support me because justice has to be done and they shouldn’t be out on the street.” continue reading

As she herself told this newspaper, after reporting the incident to the police, the authorities arrested three of the accused and released them a few hours later. She also said that she never received the results of the tests performed on her daughter by Forensic Medicine. “My daughter felt a great relief to know that they are all prisoners, and so did I,” says the mother.

In the statements she gave a few days ago, the woman reported that of the six men now detained, five participated directly in the attack and a sixth “stood watching.”

She also said that her daughter was infected with a bacteria during the attack and had to undergo a treatment with antibiotics and that she has also needed psychological help. “To be calm and be able to sleep, she has to take Librium for everything those criminals did to her,” she lamented.

The Penal Code establishes penalties of seven to 15 years deprivation of liberty for those found guilty of the rape of a victim over 12 and under 14 years old.

Sexual abuse against minors grew in Cuba by 24% between 2016 and May 2019, as confirmed by a government report on human trafficking, which also states that every four hours a minor in Cuba suffers a sexual crime. In the last of the years analyzed, from June 2018 to May 2019, sexual crimes against children totaled 2,350.

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Western Union Improves the Exchange Rate for the Dollar in Cuba

Western Union does not allow the sending of dollars to Cuba, but in its latest statement it does not rule out that it may occur. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 October 2020 — Western Union, a US company, dropped the exchange rate between the dollar and the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) by 2%, according to El Nuevo Herald.

“We have made a correction in the exchange rate for money transfers from the United States to Cuba and from now on for each dollar sent 0.99 CUC will be paid,” said a company spokeswoman, who specified that the exchange rate varied from 0.97 at 0.99 CUC per dollar since last September 24.

Sending $100 to Cuba via Western Union from the US actually costs about $114, including commissions and shipping charges from the mobile app. In return, Cubans on the island received 100 CUC. Now, they will get 101.01 CUC. Details on rates are on the company’s blog .

Since the introduction of the Cuban Government’s new economic measures, especially the elimination of the 10% tax on the dollar and the expansion of its use for the purchase of food and personal hygiene and cleaning products, many voices have asked Western Union to allow the sending of remittances in the US currency, something the company has now opened the door to.

“Western Union is exploring all possible options to provide safe and reliable money transfer services for customers, including payment in dollars. At this stage, payment in dollars is not available,” the company says on its blog, where it is also clarified that the change in the exchange rate is not related to the Cuban government’s eventual abandonment of the Cuban convertible peso.

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Thousands of Cubans Continue to Seek Refuge on Mexico’s Southern Border

Cuban migrants in a shelter on the border of Ciudad Juárez, in the state of Chihuahua. (EFE)

14ymedio, Mexico, 5 October 2020 — Cubans continue to enter Mexico from the south despite the closure of the borders of the Central American countries due to the pandemic. So far this year, 4,174 have already requested asylum, according to the latest data published by the National Commission for Refugees (Comar).

As of last month, 27,666 people had entered as refugees and Cuba ranked third by country after Honduras (9,296) and Haiti (4,241). However, since 2013 only 1,082 Cuban applications have been approved.

One example is the municipality of Tenosique, in the state of Tabasco, where there are hundreds of Cubans waiting for their petitions to be resolved by Comar, which has rejected 90% of the requests in that city, as highlighted in a ContraRéplica report. continue reading

“There is an obvious delay and bureaucracy that has kept them stranded for several months, with no response to their asylum requests,” said Fernando Santiago Canché, the head of Asistencia Humanitaria del Albergue La 72 (The 72 Humanitarian Assistance Shelter). Some Cubans stay there, while others remain in housing rented in overcrowded conditions, until they achieve immigration status.

In mid-2016, the Mexican government signed a memorandum of understanding with the island that contemplates the repatriation of Cubans who enter the country illegally and are accepted by Havana. Since Barack Obama’s Administration ended the “wet foot/dry foot” policy, many Cubans have applied for refugee status as a way to legalize their situation.

In 2019, some 8,708 Cubans requested political asylum in Mexico, and almost all of the requests were received by the Comar delegation in the city of Tapachula, in the southern state of Chiapas.

It is in this city, on the border with Guatemala, where the greatest number of procedures are carried out. And it is in this area where the federal government had deployed hundreds of police and immigration agents in recent days to control the passage of the caravan that left Honduras last week and was finally dissolved.

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, congratulated himself for the migrants making that decision. “Both the Honduran and Guatemalan governments helped to convince these immigrants that there are no sanitary conditions and that they had to act differently,” the president said last Monday.

López Obrador considered that the intervention from Mexico “helped a lot.” He said, “Especially the warning that there could be political interests, because it is not by chance that a caravan is organized when we are less than a month away from the elections in the United States.”

Hundreds of Cubans remain stranded in several Central American countries and have not been able to continue to the United States due to the health situation. In Costa Rica, at the end of August the Government transferred a group of 225 Cubans who lived in terrible conditions on the border with Nicaragua to a camp in the canton of La Cruz, in Guanacaste province.

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Bolivia Says Cocaine Goes Through Cuba and Venezuela to the United States and Europe

A small plane and packages of cocaine seized by the Bolivian government. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 October 2020 — Bolivian Interior Minister Arturo Murillo pointed to Cuba and Venezuela as springboards for the cocaine produced in that Andean country and marketed in the United States or Europe.

After an anti-drug operation, Murillo appeared in front of the cameras to report the arrest of a Venezuelan citizen and the seizure of 202 kilos of cocaine and a small plane.

“There are Venezuelans who are involved in the coca-cocaine circuit. A lot of the drugs that is produced or crystallized in Bolivia goes to Cuba and Venezuela and it is a vicious circle that later takes it to the United States and Europe,” he said. continue reading

According to the minister, the seizure of this plan resulted in an approximately 1.3 millon dollar loss to the cartels. In addition, he said, the Bolivian government destroyed an airstrip and a laboratory.

“Fourteen years of impunity and protection for drug trafficking are over,” said Murillo, in reference to the management of former President Evo Morales who resigned in November of last year after protests over alleged electoral fraud. He is now living in Argentina.

The Executive branch headed by interim president Jeanine Áñez has been very critical of the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes, both close allies of the Morales government, with whom they formed ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America), the left-wing alliance promoted in 2004 by the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, which now has nine member states.

Áñez has accused both countries of interference in Bolivia’s internal affairs, expelled more than 700 Cuban professionals working in the country, and promised to investigate cases of alleged corruption under the previous government.

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Failures of the Cuban Revolution for Diaz Canel: Food Production

Cuban farmers have been hit hard by lack of inputs, fuel shortages and drought. (Flickr / Kuhnmi)

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, September 29, 2020 — President Díaz Canel told the Council of Ministers in September that “failure will never be an option for the Revolution.” It’s all well and good for him to think that, even to say it, but when the official communist newspaper says otherwise on a daily basis, it means something is wrong.

Either Díaz Canel is divorced from reality, which is quite likely, or the editors at Granma want to pull the rug out from under him. Or both. That is the way things are at the moment in Cuba, which is incomprehensibly celebrating sixty years of criminal rule by gangsters, who have made life impossible for decent people and forced many of them to flee the country. How the story ends, no one knows, but certainly not well.

That said, an article in Granma undercuts Díaz Canel’s triumphal tone by once again focusing on the failure of country’s agriculture and livestock producers to feed the Cuban people. As usual, Machado Ventura is driving the bandwagon, reminding farm laborers of “the need to work with the sense of urgency demanded by the current situation facing the country.” Slogan after slogan but still no deliveries of food to state-run stores. When a delivery does arrive, a line of customers makes sure it quickly disappears. continue reading

At this point in the story, telling Cuban farm peasants they have to “to work with greater preparedness, tenacity and intelligence to increase production, improve the contracting, marketing and supply systems, and monitor prices and product delivery” seems to me like a tactless insult.

And, as statistics show, the situation is getting worse all the time. Machado Ventura has told farm industry representatives that “going forward, we will only have those foods that we are able to produce.” This is starting to get really ugly. If the only supplies available to people are what is produced domestically, then we are facing an imminent, unstoppable food crisis whose only solution will be aid from United Nations World Food Program.

Communist leaders such as Machado Ventura are incapable of solving the problems that have destroyed Cuba’s once prosperous agricultural sector. They refuse to face reality and cling to what they call “our socialist project,” which has been disastrous for Cuban farming. Díaz Canel should be taking notes.

Machado Ventura’s solution amounts to “producing more with the few resources we have, which means making use of existing reserves, which are widely available and not insubstantial, and getting rid of the inefficiencies that often arise in certain areas.”

Well, let’s see. What resources is he talking about? The agricultural sector accounted for 17% of total employment in 2019 but, because it is burdened with state-owned livestock farms and land rented to tenant farmers who will never own it, productivity is very low. There are certainly resources but what reserves is he talking about when farmers now have to pay for supplies with hard currency?

Can Machado Ventura point to a tenant farmer who earns money from his land while having to submit to the absurdities of the distribution system? We agree that inefficiency has to be rooted out, but that requires transforming the legal system to guarantee property rights so that guajiros can actually own the land they farm and feel motivated to make it grow and prosper. But the communists are oblivious to this reality.

A food crisis is looming and there is only one option. Imports of grain and poultry from the United States must be purchased with cash. Without hard currency to pay for them, talk of food security — what the communists call “food sovereignty” — is just a lot of hot air. And worst of all, no one is making plans to deal with what is coming.

Farms are plagued by low productivity and the dictates of local communist councils. They lack fuel, raw materials, tools, supplies and fertilizer. Farmland is limited, with most of it under the control of the state. Tenant farmers do what they can with the land they lease but they can only do so much. Meanwhile, Machado Ventura continues with his harangues.

The communists are trying to fix the situation by offering guidance to farmers, who know much more than they do about the land, how to make it productive and how to use organic substitutes for hard-to-find fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.

They also know more about rotating crops, making better use of irrigation systems and tapping the entire supply of idle land, including land belonging to shuttered sugar cane refineries, for food production. It is hard to believe that these steps have not have already been taken but land leasing is what it is. It can only do so much.

Cuban farming veers between the impossible and the failure to meet expectations. Idle fields could be made productive if private land ownership was legally possible. Involving local municipalities in this issue is of no use. It is more important to Machado Ventura to “defend the revolution from the furrows” in hopes of providing “the five kilograms of protein a family requires.”

If, of course, that were how things worked. Providing protein without attending to consumer needs — so varied, so different, so complex — along with the collective farm system of the last century, explain the failure of the agricultural and livestock sectors. The latter’s serious failure in particular to meet its targets, both in terms of meat and dairy production, are well-known. Though the problems are by nature quite varied, the problem lies, once again, with the laws governing the sector.

What is Machado Ventura thinking of doing at this point to fix the failures of the agricultural sector? The answer is a slogan to be used by local municipal production and self-sufficiency councils. It involves creating “a broad mass movement of people working in agriculture to sow, clean and cultivate, among other things.” Is this déja vu? Are they once again going to send people out to work in the fields? If so, who, when and how?

A bad idea. It represents a return to the old way of doing things, like the sad days of the 1960s when a Cuban who wanted to leave the country had to first do forced labor in the fields or work as a guard on weekends. Sometimes his children had to do the same as part of the disastrous “school in the countryside” program.

Do Cuba’s officials never get tired of the same old thing? Is it that they have no new ideas? Do they never give any thought to progress or true well-being? Given Machado Ventura’s expressed concern about food shortages in Havana, it is very likely that communist pressure will be brought to bear on the agricultural sector in nearby provinces. But will it be enough?

The failure of the Revolution is all too obvious. Walking around the country like Machado Ventura, counting the acreage to be planted next season and replacing imported raw materials with domestically produced ones are indications of just how totally out of control things have become, and how incapable the Cuban agriculture and livestock sectors are of providing a solution to the nation’s food needs.

“Squeezing juice from the field,” as the veteran communist leader says, will not be achieved under the current communist system. Though the obstacles are great, the problem lies more in ideology and mindset than in reality. The time has come to do something, and the sooner the better.

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Biology and Rumors, the Exhausting Cycle of ‘Undeath’

Former President Raúl Castro, in his reappearance on Cuba’s Primetime News. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 8 October 2020 – Ever since I can remember I have been aware of cyclical rumors about the health of some figure of power in Cuba. The gossip always starts with a friend or neighbor who claims to have a well-connected relative, someone who is part of the network closest to a senior Party leader, a military man or a government minister whose health has become fragile, very fragile. Then, as the days go by, come the alleged testimonies of those who claim to know that the “great death” has already occurred, while the most daring even claim to have seen the rigid figure inside its coffin.

This cycle of rumors about the death of a public figure reached its paroxysm on this Island during the long period during which the course of the national ship responded to Fidel Castro’s will. The country was so defined by the designs of one man that the act of his breathing could determine everything from international relations to the direction of the economy, from the TV broadcast schedule to the content of school textbooks. This excessive prominence encouraged a thousand and one speculations about his health, and it was a rare year that dozens of whispers were not unleashed about a possible surgical intervention, the deterioration of one of his physical capacities and even his sudden death. continue reading

In the end, after days or weeks of the “rumor” growing to a huge size, he reappeared in his uniform, giving a speech for hours in the rain or crossing the country in a caravan of military jeeps to visit some of his delusional projects. The rumor died down, frustration spread, and the feeling that biology was playing the “joke of eternity” generated despair, annoyance and the desire to escape from so much immobility. Each rumor only brought disappointment and, when the news of his death finally arrived we had to wait to hear it through the official media and from the mouth of his own brother, at the specific moment those “up there” decided to tell us, and without, on that occasion, a single whisper having alerted us ahead of time.

Now, once again we have fallen back into the trap of linking our destiny and our plans to the fact that a one man’s heart keeps beating. In recent days there have been voices that have spoken of the supposed death throes of Raúl Castro and his imminent end. My phone rang several times during the week and on the other side there was always the voice of a friend who was inquiring, who wanted to know if it was true. I responded to all of them with the skepticism of someone who has heard the same story many times and warned them of the possible sudden reappearance of the presumed patient in the official press. “I think this gossip is generated by the powerful themselves, who start the rumor rolling so he can return like a Phoenix,” I remarked.

And I was not wrong.

Undoubtedly, one day the rumor will be true, because the resounding logic of life suggests that there is no other: we are all going to die, even those who have presented themselves to us as immortal and superior. But I refuse to accept that the future life of a nation and the plans of its millions of citizens depend on the continued circulation of blood through the veins of one individual. Betting on biology rather than rebellion or civility seems to me to be an easy and supreme act of social conformity. The question is not whether someone is walking, in bed, or in a coffin; the issue is what are we Cubans going to do to breathe life into a country that is dying in our hands.

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Raul Castro Reappears to Prepare for Cuban Communist Party 8th Congress

The former president wore his olive green suit and a surgical mask in the images on Primetime News. (Screen capture)

EFE (via 14ymedio) — The former president and leader of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), Raúl Castro, led a meeting of the political organization in which the preparations for its VIII congress, scheduled for April 2021, were addressed, according to a report this Wednesday in the island’s state media.

State television showed images of the meeting — which began on Tuesday and ended yesterday — in which General Raúl Castro, 89, is seen wearing his traditional olive green military uniform and wearing a surgical mask.

The next congress of the PCC is scheduled between April 16 and 19, 2021, as decided last December by the Party’s Central Committee.

The last conclave of Cuban communists was held in April 2016, when Raúl Castro inherited from his brother Fidel (who retired from power 2006 and died in November 2016) the role as first secretary of the party. continue reading

In this VIII Congress, General Castro is expected to pass the leadership of the almighty PCC to the current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

This was announced by the youngest of the Castros in April 2018, during his last speech as Cuba’s president before the National Assembly and it will be the first time since its creation that a civilian has led the political organization.

Since leaving the Presidency, Raúl Castro has spaced his public appearances and it is expected that, with the withdrawal from his position at the head of the PCC, he will withdraw from public life, as did his brother, the late Fidel Castro (1926 -2016).

During the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PCC, a proposal was also presented to update the plan of measures to confront the COVID-19 pandemic on the island, which so far has resulted in 5,898 cases and 123 deaths.

The agenda also included the analysis of several laws pending approval by the National Assembly, among them those relating to the president and vice president of the Republic, and other laws related to the revocation of those elected to the Organs of People’s Power and their organization and operation.

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The Free Hiring of Day Labor Does Not Solve Cuba’s Agricultural Problems

In recent months, Cuban authorities have repeatedly called for increased agricultural production. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana/Miami, 6 October 2020 — Private agricultural producers in Cuba can now legally employ workers who are not licensed as self-employed. This measure formalizes the old practice of hiring day laborers in the fields ‘under the table’ and does not solve the serious problems faced by farmers, according to testimonies collected by 14ymedio.

This type of contracting will be possible “at the peak of harvest, planting, and cultivating work or other activities of a similar nature,” according to a resolution from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security published on September 23 in the Official Gazette.

The measure seeks to “strengthen and improve agricultural production” at a time when the country urgently needs to strengthen agriculture and put more food in the markets. continue reading

“The new measure is correct, but insufficient,” Esteban Ajete, president of the League of Independent Farmers, told 14ymedio. The hiring of temporary labor in times of harvest, he says, has always been a reality and the requirement that day laborers be licensed to work in agriculture as self-employed individuals has almost never been met.

“Now, what was already a reality in the Cuban fields is being accepted as legal.” The activist insists that informal work has been a constant for decades due to the complexity of the previous hiring mechanisms. That, together with the inability of the State to deploy a body of inspectors to review compliance with the above requirements, made the regulations less than useless.

However, the current flexibility has left a bitter taste in the face of the farmers’ impatience to see the solution to other more decisive requirements for agricultural production.

“With this resolution, the contracted workers will no longer be forced to get self-employment licenses or pay personal income taxes and the farmers who hire them will not have to pay these costs either. It is not what we want, but it is something,” says Ajete, who recalls that the abolition of taxes on food producers and processors for ten years is one of the demands of the Without The Countryside There Is No Country campaign, which was initiated this April by the League of Independent Farmers and the Cuban chapter of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women (Flamur).

Among the requests was also that of granting freedom for the production and distribution of products, to set prices according to the market, to import and export directly, and the delivery of permanent property titles to all agricultural producers.

In recent months, Cuba’s national authorities have repeatedly called for increased agricultural production. With the pandemic, the shortage of fruits, vegetables and grains has worsened in a country that imports about 80% of its food needs annually.

The deficient state management of the fields has brought losses of crops that rot without transport to take them to the markets, as well as poor services for the sales of seeds and other inputs to the farmers. From the lack of adequate clothing to work in the fields to the impossibility of buying a tractor, the guajiros lament the neglect of the sector and the few resources they have.

Now, the new resolution indicates that “the employment contract can be concluded verbally for a period that does not exceed ninety days” and establishes that the agricultural producer must guarantee minimum working conditions, including an eight-hour working day, the remuneration cannot be lower than the minimum wage approved in the country in proportion to the actual working time, and the conditions of safety and health at work must be maintained.

But the measure has not been received in the same way by everyone. “Now that agricultural worker, who was already the most fragile link on Cuban farms because he does not have his own land and does the hardest work, will also be more unprotected,” economist Nara Manduley explains to 14ymedio. In her opinion, the farmer who hires a day laborer will be able to evade his salary obligations, as has happened until now.

“What is being done legalizes the job insecurity of a group of people who are vital for food production,” Manduley says. “That is not the way to increase production or to unlock the productive forces,” she adds.

Alfredo Pérez, a tobacco farmer from the La Isleña farm in San Juan y Martínez (Pinar del Río), believes that this measure “legalizes the blind eye they’ve had here going back a long time [because] they never applied the laws they established or imposed fines on those who hired workers without papers, so now everyone can work however they want.”

A farmer from San Antonio de los Baños, who preferred not to be identified, referred to the new regulation saying: “Doing it little by little, this way is not going to lead the the advances they need. They can’t be so timid. They know they have to open it up so they should do it all at once.”

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"It wasn’t a cow they killed. It was a girl they raped."

Sexual abuse against minors grew in Cuba by 24% between 2016 and May 2019. (EFE / Archive)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 6 October 2020 — While day after day they carry on about the arrests of re-sellers and “hoarders,” the official media maintain total silence on the rape of a 13-year-old girl by five men in Havana’s El Cotorro municipality.

Not only that, complains the victim’s mother: the Police have released three of the assailants who had been arrested. With the paralysis of many judicial processes due to the coronavirus, the case has not yet reached the courts and the detainees have not been held in pre-trial custody despite the seriousness of the alleged crime.

“It was not a cow that they killed, it was not a robbery from the State or a dealer who is in the street trying to earn for four pesos to eat,” laments the mother of the minor. “It was a girl who was raped, something that is a crime here and everywhere.” continue reading

The events occurred a month ago in that municipality in the province of Havana. According to the mother’s testimony, an adult reached his daughter through the ToDus App and threatened her, forcing her to have sex. “They were many and she was afraid that they would kill her,” the mother says.

It was the grandmother who realized, around midnight, that the girl was missing and went out to look for her. “On the way she saw some guards who were in a sentry box standing guard and she asked them,” she says, full of anger. The agents confirmed that they had seen the girl walking away with a boy. “My mother followed the path that they indicated until she reached a house where she heard music. She looked in and entered, but they hid the girl and pushed my mother out,” she says.

The girl’s grandmother immediately sought help. “I was very scared, because she came home screaming. My husband and my mother left for the scene again.”

There they met a man, whom the daughter indicated as the sixth of those who held her. “He pretended to be the person who rescued my daughter, but he is a shameless man who stared at what they did to her,” says the woman.

That same night, Legal Medicine examined the minor and the family filed a complaint. “They immediately caught three of them, but the other two, who are doing their military service and who were on the run from the unit that day, have not been touched.”

The indignation of the family was on the rise when they learned that a few days later, the three detainees were free. “I went to the Alamar Registry, where these cases are dealt with, to ask why these men are loose, and the instructor told me that they are now under a precautionary measure and that because of the Covid problem everything is paralyzed.”

“I just want justice to be done, because what they did to my daughter was a crime,” she angrily tells 14ymedio.

The mother also complains that her daughter was infected with bacteria during the attack and had to undergo a treatment with antibiotics. In addition, she has also needed psychological help. “To be calm and to be able to sleep, she has to be based on chlordiazepoxide for everything those criminals did to her.”

“I took her to the psychologist with my own resources and I took her to the doctor with my own resources as well, they have not concerned themselves about anything and those criminals are still on the street,” she insists, unable to contain her anger at the lack of interest of the authorities.

The official Cuban media seldom publish these type of crimes against women, but every day reports of this type of violence are denounced by civil society organizations and the independent press of the Island.

Just a few days ago, the Defense Network for Women’s Affairs (Redamu) denounced before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) the lack of specific legislation and reliable data on femicides in Cuba.

Sexual abuse against minors grew in Cuba by 24% between 2016 and May 2019, as confirmed by a government report on the prevention and confrontation of human trafficking and the protection of victims, which indicates that every four hours a minor in Cuba suffers a sex crime. In the last of the years analyzed, from June 2018 to May 2019, sexual crimes against children were 2,350.

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Cuban Authorities Blame the 17 People Injured for Crossing a Bridge That Collapsed

The bridge, which was in poor condition, fell when a group discharged from the isolation center was saying goodbye to the staff. (Provincial Government of People’s Power in Matanzas)

14ymedio, Havana, 7 October 2020 — The collapse of a pedestrian bridge in Matanzas left 17 injured on Tuesday, when they fell from a height of over 11 feet. The footbridge was located at the Las Cabañas recreational center (Paso del Medio), which was in use as a quarantine center for those potentially exposed to Covid-19.

The group was leaving to board a bus, after being discharged with negative PCR tests, and when the bridge collapsed they had to be transferred to the Comandante Faustino Pérez provincial hospital.

At least two patients were seriously injured according to the official press. Andrés Lamas, director of the hospital, indicated that one patient underwent emergency surgery for a thorax-abdominal trauma and another, who was hit by a beam, was admitted with trauma to the lower abdomen and lower limbs. continue reading

The rest of the injured were not seriously hurt, although a nurse from the isolation center was treated for a fractured elbow.

“The bridge split up with a great noise and we all fell into the river. We have received careful and prompt attention from firefighters, ambulances and the hospital,” a professor from the University of Matanzas told the State newspaper Juventud Rebelde.

Another of the witnesses told the official newspaper that “the bridge was bad, but nobody thought it might fall. We fell from a height of more than two meters, unexpectedly.”

The Provincial Government of the Popular Power of Matanzas published the news on its Facebook page. Among the comments, many of them wishing a speedy recovery to the injured, some highlighted the poor condition of the bridge, although the criticisms were not appreciated by the authorities.

“That bridge lasted long enough, ever since I can remember it was about to fall. But it is easier for them to let it fall and let there be injuries instead of fixing it, of course you cannot invest money in that, it is better to use it for shops and hotels,” commented one user.

Refusing to take any responsibility for the poor condition of the infrastructure, the Government responded: “There is also individual responsibility, if the pedestrian crossing shows obvious signs of deterioration, as you say, don’t use it. Seventeen people is a considerable burden for a flimsy structure, luckily we do not have to regret lives lost. Good evening.”

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The End of Quarantine, With Diplomas and the National Anthem

From the balconies and looking out through their window shutters, many residents did not want to miss the exact moment when a police officer cut the yellow tape. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 6 October 2020 – From the early hours of the morning, the entire building was focused on the yellow tape that has surrounded us since the 23^rd. Last night they knocked on each neighbor’s door to announce that at nine in the morning the municipal health authorities would come to lift the confinement imposed by the appearance of a positive case of Covid-19, which occurred in a relative of some of the neighbors, a person who didn’t even live in the building.

The clock struck 9:00 and then 10:00 and nothing, then just before 11:00 the authorities from the Ministry of Public Health, our delegate to the People’s Power, police officers and neighbors who served as volunteers during the confinement began to gather in the park. They chatted animatedly until suddenly they distanced themselves from each other, stood to attention and the national anthem began to play.

In a martial position, the officials in charge of carrying out the opening ceremony read words of gratitude to all those who offered their help to achieve order and coordinate the sales of food and supplies to people in the building, continue the surveillance on the property’s entrance, and ensure discipline in all areas, as well as maintain cleanliness during the 14-day quarantine. continue reading

The solemn act lasted half an hour and each of the volunteers was given a diploma while they received a sporting applause from those present. From the balconies and looking out through their window shutters, many residents did not want to miss the exact moment when a police officer cut the yellow tape and rolled it around his hands to remove it.

After being locked up for two weeks, the anxiety was great. Backlogged plans and dozens of sentences in mind that start with the words “when I get out of this, I’m going to …”

“We are free,” a neighbor shouted to another from balcony to balcony. A few minutes later, a grandfather was bringing his granddaughter down to ride her bicycle in the park and a young woman was taking her dog for a walk.

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