14ymedio – Page 333 – Translating Cuba

The Limits of Terminology

The cynical agreement that in Cuba the openings are not so open nor the closings so closed has a limit. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 22 August 2020 — In one of his most recent speeches, Miguel Díaz-Canel referred, among other issues, to “the Economic Strategy designed to face the crisis situation generated by the pandemic,” and saw the need to make it clear that “in its implementation it will be demonstrated that we do not abandon the bases of the Revolution, nor do we separate ourselves from its principles.”

In what has been described as “an important meeting,” by videoconference, with the highest authorities of the provinces and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, the president once again wielded the demand as a formula to solve problems with coleros (people whom others pay to stand in line for them), resellers and hoarders, He also referred to the energy situation, the pandemic and food production.

Accompanied by José Ramón Machado Ventura; the Vice President of the Republic, Salvador Valdés Mesa, and the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, from the Palace of the Revolution, Díaz-Canel announced that with the confrontation with coleros and resellers, which has occupied more than 23,000 people, more than 7,000 offenders have been prosecuted, especially in Havana, Granma, Holguín, Ciego de Ávila, Artemisa and Mayabeque. continue reading

Advertisements on internet sites to sell merchandise were defined as new methods in use by resellers, while criticism for the excesses committed was labeled “attempts by the enemy to discredit us, which shows that they have acted with hatred.”

After referring to the fragility of electrical energy supplies and urging savings against waste, the President of the Republic indicated, without noting the causes, that despite Cuba’s nature as an agricultural nation, this is one of the country’s most backward sectors.

One wonders to whom it will be necessary to demonstrate that the implementation of the measures demanded could imply an “abandonment of the bases of the Revolution, or a separation from its principles.”

Perhaps “working with more agility in the implementation of new forms of production” or creating “novel incentive systems for producers” may seem to someone an abandonment of the bases or a separation from principles, or the problem is that “all this it must be presented and implemented immediately “without so much gradual parsimony, turning on its head the Raulist motto of “Without haste but without pause,” giving us “In a great hurry and without any pause.”

Or is it that a “transformation of the production model” cannot be translated into Marxist terminology as a “change in the mode of production,” and the call to “break the criterion that everything is going to come from a national Plan” does not undermine the rigid dogma of socialist planning?

The principles that Díaz-Canel does not wish to separate from have nothing to do with what he learned at the National School of the Ñico López Party during the Political Economy of Socialism classes, but with the cardinal lesson of Fidelism, which consists in changing everything that must be changed in order to remain in power. The bases of the revolution that it cannot abandon are not related to the extreme protection of a supposed social justice, but to the maintenance of a repressive system that denies any alternative to political dissent.

But one can’t play irresponsibly with the words. The battered revolutionary terminology is not enough to cover the harsh reality. What is being discussed on the street is not when the Cuban peso will have value again, but when they will accept the dollar as a circulating currency. Nobody cares about how the coleros will be eliminated, they want to know how the markets will be filled.

The cynical agreement that in Cuba the openings are not so open nor the closings so closed has a limit. Through the next doors that are unlocked in order to survive, sooner or later the Trojan horse of the opening will enter.

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The Offensive Against ‘Hoarders’ Comes To The Hard Currency Stores

Line for a hard currency store in Havana (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, August 21, 2020 — In the middle of the pandemic and the social differences that the hard currency shops generate, a case of corruption related to these State businesses now comes to light.

Several citizens in Guantánamo, in confabulation with workers in the TRD Caribe chain, carried out “illicit actions” to obtain merchandise that later was sold on informal networks, according to the official Agencia Cubana de Noticias [Cuban News Agency].

The Ministry of the Interior (MININT) carried out a raid against several offenses and acts of corruption that occurred in this chain “in the present context of the Covid-19 pandemic”, the agency said.

The investigations discovered that those implicated hoarded articles for resale on the black market or charged exorbitant rates for letting third parties buy with their debit cards in hard currency. So far, the amount of money confiscated is more than 3,300 CUC (roughly 3,300 USD at pre-pandemic exchange rates), 74,500 CUP (roughly 3,00 USD at the same rates), and 150 USD. continue reading

The notice says that complaints from the residents of Guantánamo provoked the police operation and the investigation of the accused. During the search of the suspects’ homes, they found home appliances like freezers, scooters, and refrigerators.

Although there is no clear policy that regulates the amount and frequency of buying in these places, in order to avoid the actions of resellers, the Government has implemented mechanisms of control for the sake of eliminating coleros (people who stand in line for others for pay) and hoarders. In most cases in these shops you have to show your identity card, in order to keep the same client from buying several times.

In recent weeks, hoarders have been repeatedly blamed in the official discourse and by part of the population for causing the shortages.

“The problem isn’t what they buy; it’s that they buy it and don’t need it and get a profit from it. That’s the big problem we have today, and not only with home appliances but also with construction materials and hardware articles,” commented a reader in a note published in Cubadebate.

“If they carry out raids in other shops they’ll see similar results, because the lines last for days when they have home appliances, so many people run to Revolico — an on-line commerce site — and buy them at a higher price,” commented another person in the digital publication.

This newspaper reported, during the first day of the opening of hard currency shops with food and cleaning products, that when locals entered, the employees warned them about limitations on the number of products, especially for those that, in addition, sell home appliances and car parts.

Another person on the site asked a question on Friday: “If the State isn’t selling it in hard currency, why not let people who can sell it to other citizens do so, so they can buy things in the shops?”

A commentator on Cubadebate, resident of Havana, sums up the disagreement and complaints that the opening of these stores has caused in the population:

“Yesterday I went to 3rd and 70th for the first time, to buy some food for my sick wife. I left very disgusted since they had nothing. Only very expensive beef and without having clear prices,” he complained.

“It’s not possible by selling in hard currency to keep the markets supplied. I always thought that would be a solution. These stores aren’t finding a way. They can’t say now that they’d be wrong again about demand. What’s needed is to sell a lot in order to collect a lot, and to not limit sales,” he added.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Train From Havana to Santiago de Cuba Suspected of Bringing Covid-19 Contagion

So far, despite the inquiries, it has not been possible to clearly specify the reason for the arrival of the train in Santiago de Cuba. (Archive / TV)

14ymedio, Santiago de Cuba, 22 August 2020 — Residents of Santiago de Cuba continue to search for answers to an event that causes great concern: the arrival in the city of 463 passengers from Havana, among whom some initially showed symptoms of being infected by coronavirus.

The travelers arrived on a train just before noon on Wednesday, August 19, according to the official journalist Anolvis Cuscó Tarradell on his Facebook page.

Among the passengers, explains Cuscó Tarradell, there were three people with symptoms and two young men, ages 19 and 20, who were in a military unit in Havana before starting the trip. Both were positive in the rapid diagnostic test, but were negative in the subsequent PCR test. continue reading

Until now, and despite the inquiries carried out by 14ymedio, it has not been possible to clearly specify why the train went to Santiago de Cuba, who the passengers were, or if they were people stranded in Havana or in other provinces.

One of the travelers recounted her experience on Cuscó Tarradell’s Facebook wall: “I am a passenger on that train, what happened — and that is why we are suffering this sad nightmare — is it was the bungling of some leader,” she claimed. The woman regrets that the boarding was not suspended or that no information was given to customers about the possible risks.

Gudelis Vinent, according to her Facebook profile, is a native of Santiago de Cuba and a resident of that city. In her story she commented that she got on the train at 11 at night in Camagüey and it was already known then that people with suspected covid-19 were traveling, but the new travelers were not warned.

“We were only told: ’Car eight is coming with problems, we have to change the passengers.’ Twice we were changed and we did not know why. The sick people and the passengers of that car stayed in Camagüey. At that time I just wanted to know who was responsible for my being in isolation, and for them to enforce the constitution and charge that person with spreading disease,” said Vinent.

The official journalist’s report also clarifies that all the citizens who traveled, including the crew, were transferred to isolation centers: “None had contact with the population of Santiago de Cuba or the city,” he said.

However, the comments and doubts of the reporter’s followers were immediate: “But what was a train with 400 and more people doing going from Havana to Santiago if supposedly Havana is closed?” Marytere Marzán Regüeiferos asked.

“I am sure that 100% of those who arrived on that train are either from Santiago or Guantánamo, and had been stranded in the capital for days and days, not to mention months. If things are done well, with the evidence and the isolation… there don’t have to be problems,” Jorge Santander, another follower of the page, responded to Marytere.

“It is worse to have a fellow countryman sleeping in a park, a terminal, or you know where. It could happen to anyone, remember that many have to travel to specialized centers in Havana. Let us be in solidarity with ourselves first,” said Santander.

But the same journalist wrote among the comments that he did not know the causes of the arrival of the transport and although he was investigating it, there is no concrete answer on his part.

Regarding this event, Luis Ricardo Manet Lahera, director of the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, commented to the Sierra Maestra newspaper that “all the actions that had to be carried out from the health point of view were carried out, and there was a group of patients who turned out to be suspicious.”

“We did rapid tests on all passengers, including the crew, and of these there were three cases that were initially positive, which later were negative on the PCR test; however, they are still under surveillance, because we have to continue carrying out control actions on the entire population who traveled in that train,” explained Manet Lahera.

Imilce Tamayo experienced of being stranded in Havana and, in the same publication of the journalist Cuscó Tarradell, wrote that she spent almost five months in the capital and was able to travel to Santiago more than 20 days ago.

“I am a responsible person myself, I put myself in isolation for 14 days and asked my relatives not to visit me until my isolation ended. Thank God I did not have any contagion with the other passengers who came on the same bus. All of us who were traveling took hygienic sanitary measures and wore facemasks,” said Imilce.

Last Saturday, August 8, taking into account the epidemiological situation of Havana, Artemisa, Pinar del Río, Mayabeque and Matanzas, various measures came into force aimed at “reducing to the essential minimum mobility between those territories, as well as between these and the rest of the country,” says a note from the Transport Ministry published in Cubadebate.

“A call was made to the entire population, as well as to state entities, to postpone trips that are not essential.” In addition, “the suspension of interprovincial passenger services between these provinces, as well as of these with the rest of the country (national buses, railways, taxis and private porters)” was ordered.

“Anyone who believes that Havana is closed is wrong, people from there come here to Santiago every day… and who doesn’t know that? They don’t come by air,” Yari Castro asked when commenting on the Cuscó Tarradel post.

For her part, Adela Caridad Torres Angulo clarified in the publication that she was in the Santiago terminal waiting for a traveler on the train: “and I can tell you that the police acted in very good faith to protect the population, and the passengers were received by doctors who know how to do their job, exemplary.”

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Cubans are Among the Biggest Winners in the U.S. Visa Lottery

Cuba is the third country of the continent with a large representation among the winners of the 2021 diversity lottery. (U.S. Embassy in Lithuania)

14ymedio, Havana, August 20, 2020 — Cuba was the third country in Latin America with the largest number of winners of the well-known U.S. Visa Lottery, held each year.

Those chosen for the Program of Diversity DV-2021 were 1,872 Venezuelans, 1,559 Peruvians and 1,235 Cubans, who will have to do the paperwork for U.S. residence in the next fiscal year, which begins on October 1, 2020.

The other Latin American countries that participated had between 1 and 246 beneficiaries. The following countries were excluded this year: Bangladesh, Canada, China (born in the continental area), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica and Mexico. continue reading

The Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs said it offered 55,000 visas that granted green cards to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

The registered applicants for the DV-2021 program were selected randomly from 6,741,128 qualified entries, received during the application period of 35 days that extended from October 2, 2019 until November 6, 2019, they said.

“The visas have been distributed among six geographic regions with a maximum of 7% available for people born in any country,” said the note.

The Island has stood out in the last 10 years as one of the countries with a large number of citizens admitted in the Lottery. For this fiscal year, the participation of Cubans was marked by the incorporation of a new requirement in the draw: having a current and valid passport at the time of entry.

Although the demand can be made only by the applicant, not the dependents, not everyone on the Island can count on having this document of identity because of its high cost, so this new rule influenced some to try their luck later.

To that is added the uncertainty of not being able to count on the presence of a consular section in the United States Embassy on the Island, and they will have to travel to Guyana to request the visa and do other paperwork like that for family reunification. Thousands of people are worried about the migratory veto of the present administration, which is maintained until December.

The Department of State also clarified that in the visa interview, the principal applicant must provide proof of a secondary education or its equivalent, or show two years of work experience in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience in the last five years.

It was also announced that there will be visa lotteries for 2022, and the dates for the program’s registration period will be published in the coming months.

“Those interested in entering the DV-2022 program should consult the web page of the Department of State Visa in the next months,” the press release specified.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Government Official in Guines, Cuba, Celebrates Birthday with Pinata Filled with Dollars

Video: The party scene starts at 5:59. There is then additional commentary and the party scene resumes at 8:28, with the breaking of the piñata.

14ymedio/Mario J. Pentón, Havana/Miami, 20 August 2020 — The video lasts only a few seconds but its content shook the entire political class of the Güines municipality, south of Havana. It is the birthday celebration of Patricia Mafút Tejeda, an official who in the middle of the pandemic threw a party and broke a piñata with dollars inside.

“The level of corruption of the Government of Güines is impressive. My mother has been waiting for 19 years for them to deliver the materials to finish my house,” says José Luis Pedroso Piedra, the first to denounce the behavior of the leader.

Pedroso, who left Cuba two years ago, was also a leader in the Union of Young Communists. As he recounted by telephone from the south of the continent “he was disappointed” to see “so much corruption and so many lies” in the authorities.

“This weekend the entire staff of the Government of Güines was in a house on the beach with beers that they confiscated from the self-employed,” he denounced. continue reading

Pedroso created a YouTube channel to talk about the problems of his people and says he fears for the fate of his relatives who are still in Cuba.

“They have threatened my family and myself through false profiles on social networks. They want to shut me up but they will not succeed,” he said.

Patricia Mafút Tejeda works as Director of Infrastructure in the Council of the Municipal Administration of Güines. In a brief call to her office Wednesday, several of her colleagues said they knew about the controversial video but declined to comment on it.

“She is still working, attending meetings and on duty. She is not answering anything related to the video and will be out for the next five days because she is busy in meetings,” said an employee.

Mafút was not available to respond to a request for comment from El Nuevo Herald.

In the video, revealed by Pedroso, the leader is seen, beer in hand, dressed in white Fila brand clothing, breaking a piñata with her photograph on it. Instead of candy and sweets, which is customary at anniversary parties, the piñata contained dollars.

Party guests rush to grab the bills as the leader yells, “Dollars, dollars!”

Recently, the Cuban government opened 72 stores where customers can pay only in foreign currency, to alleviate the nation’s deep financial liquidity crisis. From the island, many activists have denounced that the authorities have moved the products that were traditionally available in CUC to the dollar-only stores, leaving the popular markets short of supplies.

For Margarita, a Güines resident who saw the birthday video on the Hola Otaola program, “the most worrying thing is not the dollars, but a party in the middle of a pandemic.”

“We don’t know where she got the dollars from. She is a leader but she also has family abroad. What left me cold is that a leader organized such a party with the epidemiological situation in the country, when they have asked all of us to” social distance and wear masks, he said.

The 36-year-old woman asked not to reveal her last name for fear of reprisals, but said she felt “happy” that these types of videos were released.

“The place is falling to pieces and nobody cares. They [the leaders] have everything, even dollars to buy in the convertible currency stores. We, those of us who work, only have the [ration book] quota and a miserable salary that it is not enough for anything,” she lamented.

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U.S. Suspends Private Charter Flights to Cuba to ‘Deny’ Resources to Havana

This measure affects flights on private planes that are rented or owned, not commercial charters. (JFI)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 August, 2020 — The United States decided on Thursday to interrupt private charter flights to Cuba, a new measure to put pressure on the Cuban Government. This measure affects flights on private planes that are rented or owned, not commercial charter flights.

“I asked the Transportation Department to suspend private flights to all the Cuban airports, including Havana,” Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, announced.

“This action will suspend all charter flights between the United States and Cuba over which the Department of Transportation exercises jurisdiction, excepting public charter flights authorized to and from Havana and other private charter flights for emergency doctors, search and rescue missions and other trips in function of U.S. interests,” said Pompeo. continue reading

The U.S. Secretary of State explained that the measure aims to “deny” resources to the Cuban Government and prevent it from using them “to commit abuses”.

For the same purpose, this last May, the U. S. Department of Transportation limited charter flights to the Island to 3,600 per year. “Maintaining and limiting charter flights to José Martí International Airport involves controlling the main access for travel from the United States for family visits or other legal ends, at the same time preventing charter operators from increasing service to Havana in response,” the Department said at the time.

These flights, used by Cuban Americans to travel from Miami to Havana since restrictions are imposed on regular airlines, are not affected by the measure announced on Thursday by Washington.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Hiding the Lines, a New Strategy to Conceal the Shortages in Cuba

The new directive now is for stores to ‘disguise’ their lines (14ymedio)14ymedio, Havana, 18 August 2020 — Lines continue to be the common denominator for the vast majority of Cubans. Line up for the bank, line up for the market, line up for the pharmacy, line up for everything. In front of each store there is a line. And now, as this newspaper was able to verify, the new strategy is to hide them.

“Now they are hiding the line, at a minimum three away. You pass by and you can’t see a line anywhere, you see the empty store with two or three people and it turns out that the line is around the corner, 1,000 feet away,” a young man waiting in line tells 14ymedio. “I have seen that in all of them, they say it is so that you do not see a crush at the door of the store. That is how they are in all the ones on Galiano street and also those on Reina. They say that is the directive they have been given.”

He also says that he has been standing there for more than four hours “in the sun” and that he has given up hope of buying chicken or ground meat. “I arrived at half past nine in the morning and I got number 36 for the second round, but everything goes very slow. The first 45 took two hours to enter and it is already noon, I do not think I will get in in time for anything that interests me,” he laments. continue reading

Daynier Acosta, a resident at 12th and 25th streets, in El Vedado, told this newspaper that the police pass through his street at night chasing away those who form lines. “The patrols pass with the reflectors pointing into the hallways and the stairs, looking for people who start making lists in the middle of the night to organize the lines.”

According to the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, 3,054 groups made up of 22,281 people have been created to persecute the coleros, hoarders and illegal sellers of currency. He also pointed out that the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Police and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution will be in charge of this task that is already underway but which began to be arranged since the end of July.

Line to buy chicken in Luyanó, Havana. (14ymedio)

Miguel Díaz-Canel said that the Government is acting “against people who stand in line to profit, promoting illicit economic activity,” a statement focused on insisting that it is not acting against the elderly or humble people, but against “crooks, those who take advantage of others.”

“Here in the corridor of my building they start in the middle of the night, I have seen it for months,” continues Daynier Acosta. “But I must clarify, there is everything: I see people who certainly stand in line for others and then they charge two or three CUC (Cuban convertible pesos) and I also see people who stand in line for themselves and their family and thus guarantee they’ll be able to buy what they need. If you wait to stand in line at the “normal” time, at the moment the store opens, it is very possible that you will not achieve anything and leave empty-handed. Nobody wants to waste their time.”

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With the ‘Portero’ App, Government Controls the Lines and the Private Lives of Cubans

In the lines at the doors of the stores, the majority of faces are female. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 11 August 2020 — “Yesterday you bought ground meat, today you can only buy tomato puree,” warns an employee after scanning the identity card of a woman who is waiting to enter a store in Centro Habana. With the Portero app — the word means ’doorkeeper’ — installed on their mobiles, hundreds of state workers are trying to organize the lines and detect possible hoarders.

In the lines at the doors of the stores, the majority are female faces, grandmothers and mothers who carry on their shoulders the responsibility of bringing food home amid the shortages exacerbated by the pandemic. The identity card is essential for them to access markets but it can also prevent access.

On August 2 the authorities began an offensive in Havana which they call “Operation to fight against coleros,” referring to those who supplement their income by standing in line for others. One of the main tools in this battle is an application created at the University of Informatics Sciences (UCI) that records what day a customer accessed a store and can warn if they are behaving like a reseller. continue reading

Despite the controls and health warnings, many of the lines to buy food and hygiene products continue to be crowded and chaotic, a potentially dangerous situation amid a rebound in positive cases due to Covid-19, which has forced the implementation in Havana of stricter measures to try to stop the contagion.

Although public transport is canceled, private businesses are closed and the police presence in the streets is notably greater, the authorities have not been able to reduce the lines. If anything, they try to organize them and intimidate those who make a modus vivendi out of the line, buying the same product several times and then selling it on the black market.

The Portero app is a line organizer that uses mobile terminals to read the QR code on identity cards. On displaying the document, the application stores the information in a database that is used to sort the line, but also gives clues to the authorities about the behavior of users: where they buy and how often.

“We decided to create this app to maintain order in the establishments that sell products. We wanted to provide a solution related to technology, but without making it too complicated, or inventing a cyber-ration card or requiring hardware resources (servers, networks, etc.),” explained Allan Pierra Fuentes, one of the engineers who created Portero, speaking to the official press last April.

A sign at the doors of the store known as “La Mía” (Mine), at Zanja and Belascoaín streets in Havana, lists the products sold in each line. (14ymedio)

However, the tool is being used for much more than just organizing the lines.

The new version of Portero is linked to the databases of the Ministry of the Interior where criminal activity is collected. The app “is already used at 135 stores to confront citizens who carry out the activity of coleros and other categories of interest” to the police, warned a note published on the local government website.

The scanning of the identity cards “made it possible to identify more than 949 people, 310 coleros, 81 control targets, 309 tax debtors, 152 fine debtors, 48 people being searched for, one whose document belonged to a deceased and another 48 who are on probation,” the text explains.

“They checked my card twice,” Javier, a 36-year-old from Havana, tells this newspaper on the weekend, when he decided to go buy some food at the La Puntilla foreign exchange market, in the municipality of Playa. “When I entered, they scanned my document and when I went to pay at the cashier the employee checked my card again.”

Javier fears that “now they know what day I went to which store and even what I bought; I don’t know what they are going to do with that information, but I don’t think anything good,” he believes. “If those stores sell only dollars and it is assumed that the merchandise is not rationed, why then do they control who enters and how many times a week they go.”

In other stores, the employee who scans the identity document keeps it and only hands it back to the customer when they are about to pay at the cash register.

The current Cuban Constitution, ratified in 2019, includes the right to respect personal and family privacy, image, voice, honor and personal identity, but in the midst of the crisis unleashed by Covid-19 on the island, many fear that private information is another of the many victims of the tightening of controls over society.

“The volume of information they are collecting is impressive,” warns computer engineer Pablo Domínguez, who has worked on the development of several applications for the private sector. “At the end of the day, the list of registered identity cards can be exported from each terminal,” he explains to this newspaper.

“If the person already bought in that store that same day, then an alarm goes off and the employee is warned that he may be facing a hoarder,” he adds. “But in Cuba the care and protection of personal data is a pending issue and we have the right to ask ourselves what will happen to all that information.”

Domínguez recalls that for years the database with the numbers, private addresses and full names of the clients of the state Telecommunications Company (Etecsa) has been leaked to the informal market. And she asks: “What is going to happen when this information is leaked and on the street people can know not only your identity card number and your full name, but also where you shop?”

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A New Contingent of Cuban Doctors Arrives in Venezuela

The Venezuelan Chancellor, Jorge Arreaza, receives the new contingent of Cuban doctors. (Twitter/@cancilleriaVE)

14ymedio, Havana, August 2020 — A new contingent of Cuban doctors arrived in Caracas on Sunday to join the Barrio Adentro mission, according to the Minister of Venezuelan Foreign Relations. This makes 230 health workers added to those already deployed in the Caribbean country to attend to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This was what Chávez and Fidel dreamed about and constructed. It’s up to us to continue carrying forward the dreams of our commandantes and show the North American imperialists that no one and nothing will divide us,” said the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Jorge Arreaza, in his statements on Twitter.

in his speech, Arreaza thanked the Cuban authorities for their support to Venezuela to combat coronavirus, qualifying the Cuban doctors as “heros and heroines who are risking their lives to work in our country”. continue reading

According to official data from the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, most of the COVID-19 positives entering the Island are coming from Venezuela. However, the Ministry has suppressed reports on the exact origin of 41 of the cases reported and where it said “traveler coming from Venezuela”, it now says “source of infection abroad”.

Last July, a group of 26 health workers arrived in Maracaibo, Venezuela, according to authorities, to reinforce efforts before an outbreak of coronavirus that was generated in the Las Pulgas market.

There are more than 20,000 Cuban health workers in Venezuela, including doctors, nurses and technicians, according to official data for 2019. Last April, the Government of Nicolás Maduro announced the importation of 1,200 professionals from the Island, justifying his decision by decreeing an emergency because of the pandemic.

For each health official, Venezuela pays Cuba more than $10,000 per month, in addition to supplying the country with fuel, although the opposition to chavismo has criticized this because of the shortages faced by Venezuela.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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New and Drastic Measures to Control the Pandemic in Havana, Camajuani and Pinar del Rio

Camajuaní returns to quarantine for the second time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. (Facebook/Dayron Pérez Urbano)

14ymedio, Havana, August 10, 2020 — The increase in Covid-19 cases in Cuba requires taking drastic measures not only in Havana but also in other zones of the Island that are affected by the resurgence, especially in Camajuaní, Artemisa and Pinar del Río.

The Cuban Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal, said on television Saturday during his daily report that “the forecast indicates that the situation is almost out of control,” especially in Havana.

Although the number of deaths remains the same at 88, health authorities confirmed on Sunday 65 new cases from the day before. Of these, 29 are in the province of Havana, where, since Monday, restrictive measures going back to Phase 1 of the reopening have been put into force. continue reading

The rules include the suspension of public transport, with the exception of buses for essential workers in production, health and services who continue to work, and the total closing of beaches, bars and parks.

Unlike the previous stage, the authorities decided to leave chains of stores and businesses open “to avoid concentrations in one single place”, they said. Restaurants and cafeterias will be allowed to serve food for takeout.

Because of the increase in cases, the Spanish Consulate in Havana announced on Sunday that it is suspending services until further notice. “A counter will still be open for emergencies and documents”, the Consulate states on Twitter.

In Artemisa, where an outbreak was detected after a religious event, there were 17 new cases.

In Camajuaní, Villa Clara Province, where a local transmission event had been detected, the authorities announced a quarantine on Sunday, for the second time since the pandemic began.

People’s Councils 1 and 2 are now isolated, and vacationers at Juan Francisco, a popular beach, were evacuated. Public transport has been eliminated between Camajuaní and Santa Clara, Placetas, Encrucijada and Remedios.

At the moment, health activists from other territories have been mobilized to determine the number of inhabitants in the areas at risk and then to proceed to disinfect State and private centers that receive the public. The authorities have ordered commercial centers to make their sales on tables placed at the door and not inside. In the previous quarantine, the motel La Cañada was used to house those suspected of infection, but now they’re moved to Placetas or Santa Clara because Camajuaní lacks a hospital.

The manager of the Ministry of Tourism in the province, Regla Dayamí Armenteros, told local media that a total of 220 workers on Cayo Santa María, many of them from Camajuaní, would not return to work while the quarantine lasts. Those installations belonging to the Gaviota corporation had been open to international tourism since July 1. She added that the money would be returned or the date rescheduled for nationals who had made reservations in the hotels and camping centers.

Librado Linares, leader of the opposition movement Cubano Reflexión, explained to 14ymedio that Independencia Street, at the center of the municipal capital, was cordoned off with tape, and the police were only allowing passage to those who were previously authorized.

“Camajuaní has been known in the last few years for having a booming private economy. During the previous quarantine, which lasted around four months, many private businesses were on the brink of bankruptcy, mainly because they didn’t have any kind of subsidy. Now, just when they seemed to be recovering, they have to go back to closing their companies,” said the dissident.

Apart from the local event of open transmission in this municipality, six others were found in the country: in the Havana municipalities of Habana del Este, La Lisa and Marianao. In Artemisa, three remain active: in the municipality of Bauta (center and Playa Baracoa) and in the Special Development Zone of Mariel.

In Pinar del Río, only one new case was reported on Sunday, but the provincial authorities decided to quarantine anyone who came into the province for 14 days. They also declared a curfew for the population between midnight and 6:00 am, the closing of commercial and recreation centers from 11:00 pm and beaches from 5:00 pm.

“We’re not prohibiting private cars from coming into Pinar del Río, but people who come in are going to be submitted to a period of vigilance for 14 days,” said the President of the Council of Provincial Defense, Julio César Rodríguez Pimentel.

The Minister of Health, who includes in his daily report the imported cases — almost all coming from the medical brigades — suppressed in his last report the exact origin of 41 of the cases reported. Where he used to say “traveler coming from Venezuela”, now he says “source of infection abroad”.

Venezuela recorded 795 new cases of COVID-19 and 7 deaths on Saturday. The total number went up to 24,961 positive cases and 215 deaths.

The new figures threaten still more the economic collapse of the Island, where the pandemic has been met with a shortage of food, medicine and other products and lengthened the lines to purchase these items.

The optimism that existed from the beginning of July, when the the next opening of the longed-for international tourism was anticipated, is, for the moment, history.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Police Fight Illegal Currency Trafficking

Exchanging hard currency at banks is not a viable option due to long lines and an almost constant need to fill out paperwork. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, August 12, 2020 — Along with hoarders and coleros — people paid to wait in line — unofficial money changers are on the police’s radar. They are after individuals who exchange dollars and other hard currency on the black market. Raids began after digital classifieds began appearing on internet portals, where foreign currencies are one of the most frequently listed types of merchandise.

A house in Central Havana and another in Playa were the scenes of raids carried out by the Ministry of the Interior in which agents found cash in a variety of currencies totaling almost 1.3 million Cuban pesos according to a nightly news report on Tuesday.

Maylén Díaz Porro, operational officer with the Department of Technical Investigations, pointed out on state television that one of the alleged perpetrators had used the Revolico online sales platform to promote the sale of euros and dollars. Díaz added that the individual had also been visiting shopping centers, offering to “change money.” continue reading

According to the report security forces siezed 20,215 dollars, 12,097 convertible pesos, 445,350 Cuban pesos and 1,450 euros in the operations. Government sources added that agents also found small quantities of bills in other currencies.

Another officer explained that, during a search of the house in Playa, police found thirty-nine hundred-dollar bills, which were determined to be counterfeit by an “expert examination” carried out in the laboratory.

The report points out that the persons under investigation “have no employment relationship with the Cuban state yet have a high quality of life.” During the search agents confiscated “some records that suggest smuggling of imported merchandise through the use of mules.” Indications are the goods were later resold on the island, which is experiencing a growing shortage of consumer goods.

Armando Torres Aguirre, deputy director general of the National Bank, believes underground currency exchange has an economic impact on the country. He points out that Legal Decree 362 defines which financial institutions are authorized to carry out currency trading activities. The law specificies only “universal banks” and exchange bureaus such as Cadecas.

Cadecas was founded in 1994, after the possession of dollars was decriminalized. In recent years the number of its branches throughout the country has declined. Those that have remained open often do not have cash.

Banks remain an alternative for exchanging hard currency but long lines to make deposits, apply for a debit card or use other services mean they are not a viable option for the many customers who prefer to avoid long waits by turning to the underground market despite the risk that this entails.

On Tuesday the state newspaper Juventud Rebelde reported that the district attorney’s office in Ciego de Ávila province is preparing to try three individuals for “illegal trafficking of foreign currency and national currency.” All three are allegedly repeat offenders.

There are ninety-seven groups made up of more than 800 workers who, together with officers from the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, are looking into eighty-four retail establishments that have been identified as “vulnerable.”

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Overcome By Reality

A line this Monday at the doors of a bank in Havana (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 17 August 2020 — The failure of the tests for the arrival of internet on mobile phones was the result of an “excess of demand,” according to statements at the time from Etecsa, Cuba’s telecommunications monopoly. The e-commerce platform TuEnvío collapsed shortly after the pandemic was declared due to an increase in purchases and, now, Fincimex cancels the delivery of magnetic cards to buy in foreign currency stores because a barrage of demands exhausted its supplies.

When we add the occasions on which state-owned companies justify their failures based on a surprising level of demand. We must conclude that the authorities are unaware of the national market, its needs and aspirations. Something difficult to believe in a centralized and planned economy, where – in theory – it would be easier to calculate the volume and intensity with which a product or service will be requested.

Such great business blindness is the daughter of multiple factors that continue to run rampant in the economy of this Island. One of them is the excess of triumphalism, which makes functionaries and ministers believe the pseudo-reality manufactured by the official discourse and media. From so much repeating “yes we can,” and from propagating the inflated figures for production or development, many of these leaders draw up plans that are more in sync with what should be than to what really is. continue reading

The difference between what is dreamed of and what is possible ends up breaking the chain at the weakest link, the customers of these state companies

The difference between what is dreamed of and what is possible ends up breaking the chain at the weakest link, the customers of those state companies, which have miscalculated their potential, at the same time that they underestimate the customer’s right to receive good treatment. Then come the complaints, the phones that ring for hours in the offices of these entities without being answered, the attempts to blame the citizens for their indiscipline or anxiety, and the repeated justification that “we did not imagine that there would be so many requests.”

The main cause for this bungling rests in the ignorance that the ruling class has about the people who walk the streets of this country. For them, from their vantage point of privileges and comforts, we Cubans should behave as humble beings, who accept what comes without demands or complaints. An individual with no desire for prosperity, no particular tastes, who does not criticize state management and waits in a disciplined way for what is his share through rationed distribution.

For ministers, soldiers, high officials and other subjects who receive perks, it is very difficult to imagine the agitation generated in families by any opportunity, however small, to improve their day-to-day activities. Those who take home an assortment of food and hygiene products free of charge cannot understand the mother who waits for weeks for a magnetic card that can be loaded with remittances from her son, so that she, after long hours in line, can buy tomato sauce and detergent in a store that accepts payments only in foreign exchange.

The problem is that those who design the economic policies and business plans of the country are precisely those who receive privileges and comforts for free. Hence, time and time again, they make the same mistake of underestimating people’s needs and calculating the demand that any new service will generate. With a full plate, a car with a full gas tank, and a free telephone service, they are light years away from that galaxy that is “the real Cuba.”

No, it is not the excess of requests that collapses the services, but the distance that separates the planners from the customers.

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Cuban Financial Institution Won’t Issue New Debit Cards Because of Shortages of Many Products

Debit cards are used to receive remittances and to make purchases in the hard-currency stores that have recently opened for the sale of food and personal hygiene and cleaning products.

14ymedio, Havana, August 16, 2020 — The financial institution Fincimex announced that beginning this Monday, it won’t accept new requests for AIS (American International Service) debit cards, used to receive remittances and make purchases in the hard-currency stores that were recently opened for the sale of food and personal hygiene and cleaning products.

“It’s reported that beginning this next Monday, August 17, we find it impossible to accept new requests for AIS cards. The rise in demand has surpassed our capacity to import certain consumables,” the company said on its official Facebook page. Fincimex belongs to the Cimex Group, which is managed by the Armed Forces.

Fincimex’ announcement contrasts with the company’s official statement four days ago, said a client on social media, who was worried about the delay in the delivery of his card. “They’re issuing 4,000 cards daily. Right now there isn’t any problem with the products.” continue reading

Last June, Fincimex, which was created as a company in Panamá 25 years ago, was sanctioned by Washington and included on the blacklist of firms with which the U.S. is prohibited from doing business.

The penalty from the U.S. Government heightened concern for many clients, but Fincimex said that “all the cards requested before August 6 are ready”. In the communication this week, the company explains that the cancellation of the service has given them incentive to “become better organized for the present high demand”.

“We are working to make the interruption as brief as possible. We shall return,” says the text.

However, complaints have leaked out about the cards, and many clients are upset about Fincimex’ inefficiency. “Why don’t they pick up the phone when you call? I need to know if I can get my card and not make an unnecessary trip,” asked Yami Romero in a comment. “The lines are dead,” was all the company answered.

“My husband spent days trying to request one for me and it was impossible. I wrote to them, called, and no one answered,” complained Dayanna Castillo.

The opening of hard-currency stores with food and personal hygiene and cleaning products forms part of the package of measures that the Government presented as a necessary decision before the economic crisis that the country is experiencing in the middle of the pandemic.

Before the controversy that this news generated, Government officials say that the income collected in these stores will allow them to improve the offers in the Cuban Convertible peso and Cuban peso markets, which are in constant crisis with the shortages.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cuban State “Is Intensifying Its War Against Farmers,” Farmers’ Groups Inform Bachelet

A Cuban farmer plows the land with his oxen. (CC)

14ymedio, Havana, August 13, 2020 — “We’re approaching a famine that can be avoided,” begins the letter that the League of Independent Cuban Farmers and the Latin American Federation of Rural Women (Flamur) delivered to the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.

The authors of the letter request an urgent intervention from the ex-President of Chile, in order to avoid starvation on the Island. “The cause is not external or related to a natural disaster. The famine that is appearing on the Cuban horizon is a consequence of the fierce internal blockade of our productivity by the national Government,” say the signatories, who have been launching the campaign for a few months: Without the countryside there’s no country. They are asking the authorities to eliminate the tax on farming, and they demand permanent title to their property.

“We can assure you that the U.S. embargo doesn’t prevent the Cuban Government from buying, every year, tons of food from that country that it later sells to the population at notably higher prices,” they continue. “Nor are medicines included in the sanctions. Cuba imports 80% of its food because of the State’s inability to produce it. If now the Cuban Government doesn’t have money, it’s because, in addition to their poor economic management and the impact of Covid-19 on tourism, it hasn’t complied with its commitments to pay the interest on the debts it assumed after its creditors forgave billions of dollars five years ago,” they argue. continue reading

In a telephone conversation, Esteban Ajete Abascal, leader of the League of Independent Farmers and one of the signers of the letter, together with Lisandra Orraca Guerra, President of the Cuba Chapter of Flamur, told 14ymedio that the letter was sent to Bachelet “through friends of good will who have a way to channel this request”, and she claims that there’s a “permanent system of surveillance” over her “on the part of the political police and its other mechanisms of control. They’re waiting for the right moment to do us harm,” she says

The document points out something “that many ignore”: private Cuban businesses “are not included in the sanctions, and any business in the United States can do business with and even invest in them, but the Cuban Government has never allowed it”.

Furthermore, they criticize the State system of Acopio, which “monopolizes” the production and commercialization of the farmers, who are “up to their eyes in taxes, harassed with continuous inspections and the confiscation of their harvests and farming equipment”.

Ajete told this newspaper that he doesn’t rely on statistics about the number of farmers who have had the fruit of their labor and their farming equipment confiscated. “It’s really hard for us to have access to the data, and we lack the necessary mobility to get these statistics, but we rely on brave people who dare to denounce the abuses,” he explained. “We’re speaking for those who aren’t allowed to go on television or other official media to tell their version of events.”

“They’ve declared an economic war against us, and special operatives from the Armed Forces and the police are taking part in it, and through their monopoly of the communications media they’re engaging in constant assassination campaigns against our reputation”, they say in the letter to the High Commissioner.

While the official press portrays the independent farmers as “selfish bandits”, they themselves say they’re the “bearers of the solution to avoiding a famine for the population”.

As for the number of field workers who don’t own the land they work on, Ajete tells 14ymedio that “right now there’s an insignificant number of farmers who own very small parcels of land, and most of their production is in tobacco”, and he remembers when his grandfather was offered a ridiculous amount of money to buy the land for a farming cooperative in San Juan y Martínez, in the province of Pinar del Río. “The cooperativization wasn’t exactly forced, but there was enormous political pressure. Only a few resisted; some others were allowed to leave the land to their children and grandchildren.”

At the end of the letter, the farmers tell Bachelet that their initiative Without the countryside there is no country has not received a response from the Government.

On the contrary, they say that it “has intensified the Government’s economic war of confiscations and arbitrary arrests against the farmers”, and they make a forceful comparison: “Their present methods aren’t any different from those of the militant communism — which Lenin had to rectify — or those of Stalin, when he induced a famine in the Ukraine, which cost the lives of millions of people”.

Finally, the farmers urge the Commissioner: “Invite the Cuban Government to find inspiration in the political power of the Vietnamese leaders who, after helping the international community to feed a starving population, took the path of reform that made them self-sufficient and the exporter of food in barely five years”. And they conclude: “You are not Walter Duranty, the New York Times correspondent in Moscow who was complicit with Stalin in hiding the horror of the Ukraine famine during the Holodomar. To speak loudly, clearly and opportunely to Power in the name of those who don’t have voices, that is your mission”.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Writer Angel Santiesteban Receives the Vaclav Havel Award for Creative Dissent

The opponent Ángel Santiesteban, recently awarded the Václav Havel prize. (Twitter / @ BlogAngelSP)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 August 2020 — The Václav Havel Library Foundation announced this Thursday that Cuban author Ángel Santiesteban Prats is the 2020 winner of the award given to a writer at risk.

“Because of his open opposition to the regime, Santiesteban has been the subject of continuous harassment and accusations,” says the New York-based foundation in its statement, which notes that, in 2012, he was sentenced to five years in prison for his opposition to the dictatorship of the Castros.

“The regime tried to hide him in a military hospital claiming a dermatological treatment, but his family and his lawyer said it was a ruse to deprive him of access to the Commission of National and International Journalists, which had permission to visit him in the prison where he was previously,” says the statement.

The award includes $5,000 in cash and a one-month residency at the Václav Havel Library in Prague. The Foundation announced that the award will be presented at an online gala on September 24.

Santiesteban was released from prison in November 2015, but since then he has continued to come under pressure from the authorities. A year later, he would be arrested again and released hours later.

The writer, who in 2016 won the Reinaldo Arenas de Narrativa prize for The Return of Mambrú, has been awarded for other titles such as The Children Nobody Wanted (Alejo Carpentier Prize 2001) or Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Casa de las Américas Prize 2006). In 2009, he started the blog The Children Nobody Wanted. He is also co-writer of the film Plantados, about to be released, about the political prisoners of the 60s in Cuba.

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