Di Tú Croquettes Are Of “Dubious Quality” Says Official Press

The official media have not said if the industrial croquettes made for state establishments are sold in illegal outlets. (guantanamocity.org)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 30 January 2018 — Despite a national inspection almost two years ago, the popular state food chain Di tú continues to illegally sell “homemade” croquettes of poor quality, according to a note published in the newspaper Granma on Tuesday.

The Communist Party’s newspaper reports that following complaints from consumers the Food Production Company (Prodal), the chain’s only supplier, did a study in mid-2016 and “it was found that 75% of the food sold came from other sources.”

These croquettes, sold at 10 cents CUC and usually made with chicken, are very popular on the Island, a situation that for administrators and employees of these state-owned stores is seen as an opportunity to obtain benefits. continue reading

“It is a sound business because the croquette is what sells best in these places, and taking advantage of that margin they sell them to other people who sell them privately, and everyone shares the profits,” Berta Gonzalez, resident of the municipality Diez de October, told Granma.

As a result of this manipulation, consumers claim that Di tú’s croquettes are now smaller and the dough’s taste and appearance is not the same as before, which leads them to suspect that they have been victims of a substitution.

The official press confirms the customers’ complaints and note that these products do not meet the sanitary requirements nor have the same size or flavor as the chain’s original croquettes. In the preparation of the croquettes a series of strict parameters must be followed that detail the ingredients and preparation of this product sold in state food stalls.

Despite the technical inspections carried out by the authorities, the official media have not said whether the industrial croquettes, destined for state establishments, are also sold in illegal outlets.

To correct the situation and meet the demand the Food Industry Business Group has made investments in recent months aimed at “increasing production capacities,” Iris Quiñones, president of Prodal, told the official press.

The state entity processes about 15,000 tons of meat, poultry, fish and shellfish a year for distribution to the hotel network and the domestic market in CUC. Its production is mainly focused on picadillo, croquettes, meatballs, steak and hamburger, which also end up on the dining tables of workplaces, schools and hospitals.

Granma not only laments the “illegal act of introducing merchandise” in the state circuit and thus obtaining “a profit that does not appear in any accounting book,” but also questions where the individuals get the infrastructure to make a “homemade croquette so similar to the one really produced industrially.”

Popular inventiveness has managed to manufacture machines that mimic the finish of a state-produced croquette. Recently, the digital site El Toque told the story of a resident of Placetas, in Villa Clara, who put together one of those devices from bicycle parts, a culinary meat grinder and a piece of a plastic soda bottle.

Previously, small domestic industries dedicated to the falsification of beers and soft drinks have also been detected. However, it is the first time that officialdom has acknowledged that the cooked food offered in its network of stores also suffers from adulteration.

A hand-crafted croquette maker. (eltoque.com)

_____________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Third ‘La Hora De Cuba’ Editor Charged With Illegally Practicing Journalism In Camaguey

Iris María Mariño García (left) with Sol García Basulto (right). (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 30 January 2018 — Iris Mariño García, a journalist from La Hora de Cuba (Cuba’s Hour), was charged on Monday with the crime of “usurpation of legal capacity” and is facing a sentence of up to one year in prison, the magazine’s director Henry Constantin told 14ymedio. Mariño is the third member of the editorial team of the independent publication to face prosecution.

On Sunday, Mariño received a verbal police summons at her home from an officer who told her to appear on Monday. The reporter presented herself to the First Police Unit in the city of Camagüey.

At the station, Captain Yanet Díaz informed Mariño of an accusation similar to that received received last year by Constantín himself, along with the reporter Sol García Basulto. The official, however, did not give her a copy. continue reading

“Supposedly someone is accusing her of having conducted an interview on the street, the same script they used with us,” says the director of La Hora de Cuba.

Mariño now faces the possibility that a judicial process will be opened against her, charging her with violating Article 149 of the Penal Code which makes it illegal for individuals to “perform acts proper to a profession which they are not properly authorized to exercise.”

The official did not specify which of Mariño’s articles will serve as evidence in a court but, Constantín reported, she mentioned “the interviews published in the magazine in a general manner and specifically the opinion polls which are published on the last page.”

The official reproached Mariño for engaging in journalism without authorization and warned her that they will meet “many more times.”  The reporter did not receive any information about possible precautionary measures that limit her freedom of movement.

Last year, following the accusation against Sol García and Henry Constantín, the Inter-American Press Association stated that the actions against the two journalists are contrary to international provisions that support “the right to seek, receive, and disseminate information and express opinions.”

__________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Pioneer Ruling in Cuba Grants Custody of Children to Grandmother With Lesbian Partner

Violeta Cardoso obtained legal custody of her three grandchildren, after their mother, daughter Karen Díaz, died of lymphatic cancer in March 2016. (Facebook)

14ymedio biggerEFE, via 14ymedio, 28 January 2018 — A Cuban court granted custody of three children to a grandmother who lives with her same sex partner, who was recognized as a key figure in the upbringing of the children, an unheralded event in a country where gay marriage is not legally recognized.

The October 2017 ruling in favor of 54-year-old Havanan Violeta Cardoso, was posted on the Facebook page of the Cuban community Accepto, which seeks to open a space for dialogue in favor of the legalization of equal union in the island. continue reading

Cardoso obtained legal custody of her three grandchildren after her daughter, their mother Karen Diaz, died of lymphatic cancer in March 2016.

According to the document, Karen Díaz gave birth to two girls and a boy during the time she was married to Guillermo Gómez, who “neglected his duties as a father,” including during the mother’s illness.

In that period, the grandmother of the children, Violeta Cardoso, “together with her partner, the children’s godmother, and the children’s mother, jointly assumed, among the three of them, the duties of feeding, caring for and educating the children,” says the ruling.

After the death of the mother, the de facto guardianship of the children was left in the hands of the grandmother “always helped by her partner,” the text of the ruling clarifies, which emphasizes that both women treat the children “as if they were their own children.”

The decision of the court is based on the Cuban Family Code, which, although it privileges the parents in matters of custody, allows other solutions for “special reasons.”

In this case, the value of the “extended family” formed by aunts, uncles and grandparents in the interest of the well-being of the children was recognized.

“The legal system must be compatible and consistent with the reality in which it develops, and ours does not fall below these expectations,” said the court.

The coordinator of Accepto, Lidia Romero, highlighted to EFE the significance of this “important precedent,” which the group sees as another “step forward” for the Cuban LGTBI community.

“The decision of the judges was praiseworthy, because it is evident that for them there was no possible solution other than granting custody to Violeta Cardoso, it is an acknowledgment of fact and of law,” she says.

Romero adds that in this case the formal guardianship is given to the grandmother, not to the couple, because the link between them is not a legally defined one; the community intends to consult with a family law specialist to understand the legal effects of this decision.

“Up to now it’s the first similar case we know of; we’ve put out a call on our Facebook page to see if there are any similar ones,” she said.

Violeta Cardoso and her partner, Isabel, were contacted by EFE, but declined to comment.

Accepto Cuba is an alternative community to the official voices that advocate for a legal change to recognize homosexual families in their right to formalize their unions, to adopt and, in the case of lesbians, to use assisted reproduction.

In Cuba official efforts on behalf of the LGTBI community are led by the state-run National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex), led by Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro.

Within Cenesex, Castro has promoted sex change operations for transsexuals, the labor rights of the LGBTI community and has presented before the Parliament a bill, still pending, that would modify the current Family Code, with aspects such as legal union between same-sex couples.

___________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Teachers Prefer To Work As Private Tutors In Villa Clara

In the last five years more than 450 teachers have left Villa Clara classrooms. (Telesur)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Carlos A. Torres Fleites, Santa Clara, 29 January 2018 — The constant trickle of teachers leaving the classrooms in Villa Clara province to work in another occupation or as private tutors does not cease. During the first four months of the 2017-2018 school year, 82 teachers left the classroom, increasing the deficit of professionals in the region, which in the last five years has seen the loss of more than 450 teachers throughout the province.

An official of the Ministry of Education (MINED), who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed to 14ymedio that professionals who decide to abandon teaching are mainly driven by the low salaries, and it is not uncommon for them to end up self-employed, working as private tutors. continue reading

Blanca Estévez Díaz, who works in the provincial labor department in Villa Clara, says that in the region there are some 70 private teachers in the provincial capital alone, and according to her they claim they have better working conditions and higher salaries than they did working in public education.

As of December of last year, a total of 322 teachers who at some time had been working in MINED educational institutions were self-employed in the province, where tourism, commerce or food service have also become sectors of refuge for those who decide leave teaching.

For Laura Martínez López, a former teacher at the Ernesto Guevara Vocational School in Santa Clara, exchanging her position as a teacher for her own food service business has been a relief that has solved multiple problems she faced in the 18 years in which he worked as a teacher.

Martínez received a monthly salary of 750 Cuban pesos (less than 30 dollars) without a benefit popularly called “stimulation” – i.e. a bonus – which is received by workers in other state sectors and which supplements the basic salary with a sum in cuban Convertible pesos, or with a bag of food and cleaning supplies.

In the opinion of several teachers consulted by this newspaper, the State must at least triple current salaries and improve conditions in schools to reverse the exodus of professionals seeking better economic and employment opportunities.

The authorities have tried to alleviate the deficit by accelerating the graduation of new teachers. Last year more than 3,800 teachers graduated nationally in the 24 schools of education across the country.

In the case of Villa Clara, more than 200 of these new teachers started in September teaching in pre-schools, primary schools and English education, after graduating from the Manuel Ascunce Domenech School of Education.

However, the shortage of teachers far exceeds in numbers those who arrive in the classroom from the pedagogical schools, along with the retired teachers who return to support their recently graduated colleagues and university students who teach some subjects. The current school year started with a deficit of 16,000 teachers throughout the country, as acknowledged by the Minister of Education, Ana Elsa Velázquez.

__________________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Tourists and New Rich, Magnets For Thieves in a Country Not That Safe

The most common crimes in Cuba are robbery with force, theft, injury, possession and illegal possession of weapons. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, 25 January 2018 — It’s 11:00 in the morning when two Germans show up at the Zanja y Dragones Police Station in Havana. A man has stolen their camera in the vicinity of Hamel alley, an area much visited by foreigners. The officer on duty seems to be accustomed to these cases and begins to fill out the complaint for “a robbery of tourists.”

“It’s like this every day, in this part of the city this is our daily bread,” says a uniformed officer who stands guard outside and is happy that the sun is not punishing him too much this week. “When I see a foreigner approaching, I know what is coming because here, in Centro Habana and La Habana Vieja, there is a lot of theft from tourists and scams.” continue reading

A short distance from the historic center, the area of the city most visited by tourists and the most densely populated place in the country, the Zanja y Dragones station is a good barometer to measure the most common crimes in a place where poverty, criminality and opportunity meet.

Near the Inglaterra Hotel, in front of Central Park, an independent tour guide “lays down the law” to his customers. “Do not go into any hallways or stairs with strangers, especially if they offer you cigars.” Before the attentive look of the foreigners he adds: “Do not exchange money except in the Cadecas (government currency exchanges), and hold on tight to your bags and backpacks.”

The lesson also includes other tips for less dangerous situations. “If someone tells you that today is their birthday and that’s why you should give them a gift or money for a party, demand his identity card to check the date of birth. Watch out for those who say they will take you to see where the Buena Vista Social Club is because that is a very common scam.”

The list of warnings is long and ends with advice to the bewildered tourists that they should go “as soon as possible” to the police station if they are victims of any of these events. “Do not try to confront anyone if they take your purse, do not chase anyone who has stolen from you inside a house or vacant lot, instead look for a police officer.”

These warnings contrast with the recent statement by the American journalist and specialized tourist planner in the Island, Christopher P. Baker, who considers Cuba among “the safest countries for tourists,” a classification Cuba also received last week during the 38th International Tourism Fair (Fitur), in Madrid, Spain.

“It is true that we do not have many cases of tourists wounded with knives, or firearms or murdered,” a police captain, who preferred anonymity, told 14ymedio, “but the rates of robbery and fraud have grown in recent years because more and more visitors are entering the country.”

The official believes that “more work should be done on awareness so that agencies and guides alert foreigners not to make certain mistakes such as going into neighborhoods that are not recommended at night, and not walking the streets with large sums of money or trusting the first person who smiles at them. They should not carry their passports, just a photocopy.”

The Germans at the police station had to go through a long interrogation separately. “What did the man look like, what clothes was he wearing, what model was the camera, why did you go to that place at that time, do you have any proof that you entered the country with that camera?” were some of the questions asked of the travelers. On the day of the robbery, it was already night when they left the  Zanja y Dragones Police Station after trying to identify a face from a book full of suspects.

When they returned to the rental house where they were staying in Centro Habana they breathed a sigh of relief when they noticed something they did not notice on the night of their arrival in the city: the bars and railings on the doors and windows, next to a double bolt at the entrance that the owner closed with zeal every time he entered or left.

The houses that rent rooms to tourists, the families that have a relative abroad, the more prosperous self-employed, the musicians who travel abroad and the new Cuban rich also suffer the pressure of robberies. The “emptying” of a house is one of the recurring nightmares of this emerging social class.

“They entered through the roof and took the video player, the flat screen TV and the rice cooker,” says Ricardo, a neighbor of a tall building in Nuevo Vedado who thought he would “be safe” because his apartment was more than 40 feet above street level.

“They were like ninjas and they risked their lives to steal those things,” the victim comments. Ricardo reported the theft, but a year later “they have not caught anyone.” When the police arrived at the house, after the crime was committed, the fingerprints of the thieves were found in several places because they got their hands dirty on the roof.

“When I told the cops to take the prints to check against the database, they laughed and told me I was watching a lot of CSI.” Shortly afterwards Ricardo withdrew the complaint because the police began to question the ownership of a computer that the thieves did not steal, which had been augmented with parts purchased on the black market.” They saw that and I immediately went from victim to victimizer.”

Last December, the president of the People’s Supreme Court, Rubén Remigio Ferro, confirmed to Parliament that the crimes most prosecuted on the island continue to be cases of “robbery with force, theft, injury, possession and illegal possession of weapons, among others.”

Remigio Ferro did not give figures, perhaps because he did not have them since the Government has hidden them for decades. In Cuba there are no official reports on crime levels and the official press lacks a police blotter, as if crime did not exist.

 ________________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Cuban Police Admonish Victim of Homophobic Attack for Speaking to Media

José Enrique Morales Besada, 21, was cited by the police for speaking to media about a homophobic attack he suffered. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 28 January 2018 — José Enrique Morales Besada, victim of a homophobic attack last June, was cited by the police on Friday for having called attention to his case by talking to “many media,” both independent and international, as well as for expressing himself on Facebook.

Morales Besada, 21, was summoned to the police station by a plainclothes officer who visited his grandfather at his workplace. “He told him that he had to go this afternoon to see the head of the National Revolutionary Police Department.” continue reading

The young man commented to 14ymedio that throughout the conversation they never told him the reason for the citation, but they emphasized the visibility of his case because of his statements to the press. The official media have not made any mention of the attack on him.

At another moment in the interview, the police officer promised him that his assailants would soon go to trial, and said they they were only waiting for the specialist in maxillofacial surgery who is treating him for the consequences of the beating to give him a medical discharge.

“I felt that their real objective was to show me that something was being done to make me be calm and quiet,” says Morales Besada. So far the young man has no news that his attackers have begun to be prosecuted.

“I do not believe a single word of those promises, they say it just so I won’t give more interviews,” laments the Avilanian. “Until I see the outcome of the trial, I won’t believe in the sudden interest they are showing in my case because they have not done their job well and their idleness toward my situation has been cruel.”

“I am convinced that they [the police] only work when demands and disagreements are made public; staying quiet will never help me,” he said in a telephone conversation.

“I am sure that my statements on Facebook about my case, bringing it to the cold light of day nationally, have resulted in someone from above bringing pressure on them and that’s why they called me in to tell me to calm down,” he explained.

In a video posted on his Facebook page on January 21, Morales Besada affirms that the greatest injuries that the aggression left him were “psychological.” Although he has not overcome the trauma he suffered, he says he feels “quite a bit better.”

In the video the young man criticizes the Cuban system. “Nothing is resolved. This is not going to change, no one does anything to change this,” he says with pessimism.

Morales Besada was attacked by a group of men when he went out to connect to the internet in a park with a Wi-Fi zone. In the middle of the street they hit him in the jaw with a bottle while insulting him with homophobic slurs.

The Cuban penal code does not include mention of “hate crimes” with regards to attacks due to ethnic origin, religion, race, gender, orientation and sexual identity. The latter are not detailed in the current legislation and are processed by the police and the courts like any other crime.

The young man, who had a career as a singer before being a victim of the attack, has asked through social networks for help from Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raul Castro and director of the National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex).

However, the victim confirmed to 14ymedio that so far he has not received any news, help or legal advice from Cenesex and has “not even received a call” from that organization, headquartered in Havana.

The official institutions do not publish statistics on murders or violent acts against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. This news only comes to light thanks to social networks, which allow the LGBTI community to make a record of the aggressions and hate crimes against members of this group.

________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

US and Cuba Address ‘Irregular’ Migration in New Meetings

A group of Cubans stranded in Panama who hope to continue their trip to the United States. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio (with information from agencies), 24 January 2018 — The United States and  Cuba addressed bilateral cooperation on the issues of irregular migration and drug trafficking in two new technical meetings held this Monday and Tuesday in Florida. The meetings coincided with the publication of figures from the US Department of Customs and Border Protection, showing that in the last three months of 2017, 1451 Cubans unsuccessfully tried to enter US territory.

The migrants were detained at US/Mexican border points such as El Paso, Laredo, San Diego and Tucson. In the last fiscal year (ending in September), 14,592 Cubans entered through these same entry points, a figure much lower than the 41,523 of the previous year, when the wet foot/dry foot policy was still in effect. continue reading

The end of that policy has not only reduced the entry of Cubans to the United States by land, but also decreased the number of rafters attempting to enter by sea. During the first six months of 2017, 322 Cubans were intercepted at sea, compared to 2,295 in the same period of 2016.

For the fiscal year as a whole — October 2016 through September 2017 — 1,934 Cubans tried to enter the country by sea through the Florida Straits. That figure is a huge reduction compared to the previous fiscal year, when 7,411 people were intercepted, and even with 2014-2015, where there were 4,473 detainees.

The technical meeting this week is the eighth between representatives of the Cuban Coast Guard and the United States Coast Guard, according to a brief statement issued by the Cuban Embassy in Washington on Wednesday.

In this round, the statement said, the two countries talked about “ways to increase bilateral cooperation in confronting irregular migration and drug trafficking, as well as search and rescue operations.”

The meeting “took place in a climate of respect and professionalism,” the statement continued, and both delegations “agreed on the importance of advancing cooperation in this area” and “agreed to continue these technical meetings in the future.”

In recent days, the Cuban government has reported several technical meetings in Washington with US officials on cybersecurity, drug trafficking and terrorism, meetings that the State Department has not commented on and which have been given a very low profile in the American capital.

Relations between the United States and  Cuba are going through a very delicate moment because the US government accuses Cuba of knowing who perpetrated the alleged acoustic attacks, between November 2016 and August 2017, on 24 of their officials on the island. The US believes that the Cuban government is refusing to say who the guilty party or parties are and, in addition, failed to protect US personnel from the attacks.

Although  Cuba denies these assertions, the United States reduced its embassy staff in Havana to a minimum last September because of this crisis, and expelled 17 officials from the Cuban legation from Washington.

This is in addition to measures to limit trade and travel of Americans to the island, all initiatives that have alienated the two countries after the hope that accompanied the thaw initiated by the former president Barack Obama.

The US announced on Monday the creation of a working group to expand Internet access and independent media in Cuba, one of the measures outlined in the memorandum that sets out President Donald Trump’s policy toward the island, which is intended to paralyze the opening without suspending diplomatic relations.

 _______________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Three of the Five Cuban Spies Are Out of Parliament

The five Cuban spies were arrested in 1998 in Florida when they engaged in intelligence work for Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 26 January 2018 — The recent publication of the list of deputies to Parliament has begun to generate controversy among the ranks of officialdom. The wife of one of the five Cuban spies who were convicted in the United States has lamented on her Facebook page that three of them have been left out of the National Assembly of People’s Power.

Olga Salanueva, wife of the Wasp Network spy René González, expressed her disagreement on the social network because her husband is not included in the list of 605 parliamentarians revealed on Wednesday by the official press. continue reading

“I do not see any reason for the five not to be deputies,” complained Salanueva, after discovering that only two of the spies had been included in the list of parliamentarians. “It has been like an explosion of opinions have come to us and I assure you that I have no answer to many of the questions,” she says.

In addition to Gonzalez, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero were excluded from the National Assembly, while the names of Fernando González and Gerardo Hernández do appear on the list of parliamentarians.

“Three of the five were ignored… Which represents, in my opinion, a new and great injustice against the five heroes,” criticized Salanueva, who believes that González, Labañino and Guerrero “deserve [to be parliamentarians]” because Cuba “needs them too.”

Salanueva’s post on Facebook expressing her displeasure is an unusual event in an electoral process that is characterized by unanimity, conformity and lack of surprises.

Of the 605 parliamentarians that make up the legislature, 50% are elected from among the delegates from the different districts across the country, while the other half are proposed by mass organizations through their candidacy commissions. Included in this share are figures from the spheres of culture, sports and the history of the Revolution.

The five Cuban spies were arrested in 1998 in Florida when they undertook intelligence work for Havana and, after their arrest, the government of former President Fidel Castro deployed an intense and costly propaganda campaign for their release.

For 15 years Cuban officialdom launched a full-scale crusade that included political acts, images of their faces placed in every school, songs, poems, collections of international signatures and a repetitive television advertising campaign for the return of the “Five Heroes.”

René González was released from prison in the United States in 2011 and three years later Fernando González also completed his sentence. Both returned to the Island.

In December 2014, following the diplomatic negotiations between the governments of Raúl Castro and Barack Obama, the three who continued to serve sentences in the US were released and deported to Cuba. In return, the Plaza of the Revolution handed over contractor Alan Gross imprisoned on the island for providing satellite connection devices to Cuba’s Jewish community.

When the released men returned to Cuba on 17 December of that year, they were received immediately by Raul Castro in his office, but Fidel Castro did not meet them until February of 2015, a fact that aroused many suspicions.

Salanueva revealed that her husband, who currently serves as vice president of the José Martí Cultural Society, received some forms to fill out with his details as part of the process to be a possible parliamentarian. After that moment he heard nothing more about the process to reach the National Assembly.

“He was never consulted again, nor called, nor did anyone approach him to ask for his opinion or anything else,” says his wife, who took the opportunity to lament that González’s current job responsibility “has nothing to do with his vocation” and “he can not even exercise the profession he loves.”

After they returned from the United States, each spy was placed in an official institution. Gerardo Hernández works as vice-rector of the Higher Institute of International Relations and Fernando González is president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples.  Ramón Labañino, meanwhile, is vice president of the National Association of Economists of Cuba and Antonio Guerrero is vice president of the Superior Organization of Business Management of Design and Construction Engineering.

Salanueva suggests that the decision to exclude three of them from Parliament came from the highest levels of power in Cuba. “I doubt that any candidacy committee has excluded them, because those commissions are made up of good people and I suppose there must be some other reason…”

The Cuban population has a very polarized view of the five men, whom some describe as heroes but others label as “agents” of the Ministry of the Interior or “informers.”

_______________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Authorities in Cabaiguan Suspend More than 50 Cart Vendor Licenses

The Municipal Administration Council (CAM) also encourages buyers to denounce operators who break the rules. (DC)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havna, 23 January 2018 — The local authorities in Cabaiguán, Sancti Spíritus Province, have become serious about sales from ambulatory cart vendors. Since the end of last year, more than 50 contracts with the carretilleros have been rescinded for violating the regulated prices imposed by the State, according to the official press. In addition, the carts that have remained have been moved away from the State’s “Red Tent” farm market, and an undetermined number of pounds of merchandise for sale (“not just a few,” according to the press) has been confiscated.

The newspaper Escambray put on the table, in its notice this Monday, the complaints of the carretilleros, who argue that it is impossible to sell at the regulated price if they want to earn something, contrary to the municipal authorities, who claim nonpayment to the State business, Acopio, for stolen produce or abuse of the consumer. continue reading

According to the local publication, in spite of efforts to control the imports of basic foods, the laws have been continually violated in the face of the laxness of the authorities and the citizens. For this reason, the Council of Municipal Administration (CAM) also encourages the buyers to denounce the carretilleros who break the rules.

“In December we made the decision, coordinated with Urban Agriculture, to not have any more contracts with the mobile points of this organism and to leave only the fixed points that have been a local investment. This was owing to price violations, fundamentally, and because they weren’t complying with the regulations of Urban Agriculture, which establish that they are mobile cart vendors, who can’t be within at least 200 meters of a State entity — and they were in front of the Red Tent — and that they should be linked to an organopónico*, because their purpose was to sell the production from those places,” Carlos Puentes Molina, Vice President of the CAM that manages the distribution of goods and consumption, told Escambray.

The text also said that they took measures against the ambulatory vendors who violated “the scope of the activity,” meaning that they cannot eastablish themselves in a fixed area. “Just in this area there were six who were reprimanded and preventive measures were taken,” says Elianni Silot López, municipal director of Work and Social Security.

The official press maintains that when the food was at the market in Cabaiguán, “at payable prices” (i.e. regulated), it sold in barely one hour. In addition, the police intervened in three stores and confiscated enough merchandise to fill two trucks.

The local police continue to monitor “every Sunday at the fair (…) to verify that it is selling in accord with the list of prices.”

In the whole province, the Integral Supervision Direction had imposed, at the end of 2017, 84 fines for price violations (a total of 9,000 pesos) and collected another 25,000 pesos in sanctions against cuentapropistas, self-employed persons, who were engaged in business without a license.

Since the end of 2016, the enforcement of controls on prices was extended from the province of Artemisa to the rest of the Island. Most consumers celebrated the much lower prices, but now they lament the decrease in quality and supply after the arrival of regulated prices in the markets.

The measure, which put producers and intermediaries on alert, was taken after a session of the National Assembly that took place in December 2016, in which the subject of the price of food provoked numerous discussions. In answer to the claim by several deputies, Raúl Castro said that measures would be taken to close the gap between prices and salaries.

Translator’s note:

*Cuban system of urban agriculure using organic gardens. It first arose as a community response to lack of food security during the Special Period after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Translated by Regina Anavy

__________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

‘Doctor Zhivago’, An Old Acquaintance Opens In Cuba

Screenshot of ‘Doctor Zhivago’, inspired by Boris Pasternak’s novel. (CC)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 25 January 2018 — The book was part of the private collection of a writer who went into exile and even though the title did not appeal I chanced it, bored in the midst of the publishing drought of the ‘90s. Its pages narrated a country I knew, but described a different place, convulsed, unjust and harsh. Doctor Zhivago came into my hands when the Soviet Union had disappeared and in it I found a part of the answers to explain that disaster.

A quarter of a century later, Cuban television finally broadcast the well-known film inspired by the novel, directed by British director David Lean. Released in that long ago 1965, the movie was absent from the screens of the island until 22 January of this year, though before the airing the program’s commentator warned about the picture’s ideological distortions. continue reading

An unnecessary clarification, because the story of Yuri Zhivago is well known on this island thanks to the infallible formula “there is nothing more attractive than the forbidden.” For decades, the work written by Boris Pasternak circulated from hand to hand – its cover wrapped in the boring state newspaper Granma to avoid indiscreet eyes – or, in recent years, in that elusive digital format that easily mocks the thought police.

Unlike George Orwell’s 1984Doctor Zhivago was not banned for predicting a totalitarian future that lined up along many points with our socialist Cuba, but because it described an uncomfortable past for those who wanted to present Russia as a country where the proletarians had achieved a Parnassian state of equality, comradeship and justice.

Instead of the Manichean vision taught in Cuban schools, Pasternak’s work focused on a tormented individual, shaken by social vagaries and more concerned with emerging unscathed from his circumstances than in sacrificing himself for a cause. He was an antihero far-removed from the “New Man” and the Soviet ideal.

The adventures the book had to circumvent also served as an argument to those who wielded the scissors at the Island’s publishers. Its publication in Italy 1957, the Nobel Prize it won Pasternak and the official pressures that forced him to reject the award contributed to the denial of Cubans’ right to read it.

The “camaraderie” in the Communist Bloc was filled such actions. An author censored in one of the countries that made up the vast red geography also made the blacklist in the other nations orbiting the Kremlin. Havana did not ignore that maxim and was faithful to its national stepmother, depriving its citizens of one of the twentieth century’s anthological works.

They censored it in Cuba not only out of ideological complicity with the country that economically sustained all the eccentricities of Fidel Castro, but because in its pages the Great October Socialist Revolution came out badly; it was a mass of informers, police, pressures of all kinds and lies. A suffocating scenario where the individual could barely protect her privacy and herself.

They say that when he was expelled from power, in 1964, Nikita Khrushchev read Pasternak’s novel. “We should not have banned it. I should have read it. There is nothing anti-Soviet in it,” he acknowledged then.

The Cuban censors, however, have not drafted an apology, nor is it necessary. History sounded the vigorous trumpet: the country they tried to protect from the supposed calumnies of the writer ceased to exist almost three decades ago; but Doctor Zhivago remains a vibrant and unforgettable novel.

______________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Cuba Harvested 200 Tons Of Cocoa In 2017, The Lowest Figure In 70 Years

Baracoa’s chocolate farmers expect to harvest 800 tons of the fruit this year. (EFE)

14ymedio biggerEFE via 14ymedio, Havana, 25 January 2018 — The cocoa harvest in Baracoa, the chocolate capital of Cuba on the eastern end of the island, fell “dramatically” in 2017. Only 200 tons of the fruit were collected, the worst result in more than 70 years, after the damage left in that area by the powerful hurricanes Matthew and Irma.

The current figures contrast with the 1,600 tons collected two years ago, when a historic peak was reached, subsequently affected by Matthew, the hurricane that devastated that portion of eastern Cuba in October 2016 and damaged the almost 9,000 acres dedicated to the crop, according to an article in the state newspaper Granma published on Thursday.

The hurricane spread its rage across the vegetation of the area, taking out the trees that gave shade to the cacao, a requirement for the optimal development of these plants. continue reading

The cocoa crops in Baracoa were beginning to recover slowly with the help of agricultural collectives from other territories, when Hurricane Irma arrived last September and “gave the coup de grace” to the 2017 harvest.

However, producers in the region expect to reach 800 tons this year and by 2020 to recover the level of production that existed prior to the hurricanes, says the official report.

Baracoa, the first village founded by the Spanish in Cuba, is located in the province of Guantanamo, about 600 miles east of Havana, and is the most isolated city in Cuba.

Known as the chocolate capital of Cuba, 85% of the cocoa that is consumed nationally comes from this area, which houses the only chocolate factory on the island, inaugurated by Ernesto Che Guevara in 1963.

Hurricane Matthew, the third most devastating hurricane to have passed through the island, hit that eastern territory on October 4, 2016 and caused damages worth 97.2 million dollars, especially in agriculture.

Almost a year later, in September of 2017, Hurricane Irma left 10 dead and great destruction as it passed along the northern coast of the country.

____________________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Alejandro Castro Espín Can Not Be President Of Cuba

Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín, son of Raúl Castro, is considered the true head of the Ministry of the Interior without holding the title. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 25 January 2018 — With the publication, on Wednesday, of the list of candidates for the National Assembly of People’s Power, one of the great unknowns of the transfer of power in Cuba was clarified: the current president’s son, Alejandro Castro Espín, is not on the list and thus is automatically unable to legally rise to the Presidency of the Republic.

Castro Espin was identified by numerous analysts and opponents as a possible successor to his father, Raul Castro, who will leave his position as head of State on April 19. However, only members of parliament may occupy the presidency. continue reading

The 605 candidates listed in the official newspaper Granma must still be ratified in an electoral process convened for March 11. At this stage in Cuban elections there is a single candidate for each seat and voters may only choose whether or not to approve them. No names may be added or deleted.

If Raul Castro decided to make his son his successor as president, he would be violating the Electoral Law, the reform of which, announced in February 2015, has not yet been undertaken. According to Article 10 in paragraph F of the current law, to be eligible for the Council of State it is necessary to have been “previously elected as a Deputy to the National Assembly of People’s Power.”

The most recurrent hypothesis among analysts is that Raul Castro’s son, Alejandro Castro Espín, exerts the power behind the throne, acting as a “gray eminence” who, without sitting in the nation’s highest position, controls the country from the shadows.

Castro Espín, 52, is a colonel of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) and is Raúl Castro’s only son. He is seen as a hard-liner and someone who would continue the politics practiced by his father. For the last five years he has been considered the true head of MININT, although he does not formally hold the title of Minister.

Speculation about the appointment of a “puppet president,” who will act in accordance with the interests of the family clan, has gained strength as the finalization of the new Parliament approaches.

One of the president’s daughters, sexologist Mariela Castro Espín, is included in the list of candidates for deputies of the National Assembly of People’s Power.

The list was published ten days after each province completed consultations on the proposed list of ‘pre-candidates’ for provincial delegates and deputies for each province. The national and provincial candidacy commissions previously prepared these lists, a method that allows them to politically filter the parliamentarians and to choose like-minded people who support the government.

The Electoral Law stipulates that roughly 50% of the 605 parliamentarians that make up the National Assembly are elected from among the constituency delegates, while the other half are proposed by mass organizations through their candidacy commissions.

___________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Rooftops That Look To The Sky

Havana’s rooftops are far from the intrusive stares in the streets below. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 25 January 2018 – Rooftops with flimsily-covered wooden ‘houses.’ Rooftops with improvised pigeon coops and the sound of fluttering throughout the day. Rooftops in litigation where the neighbors fight over a place to stretch their clotheslines. Rooftops with water tanks where the water floods when it comes at all and moss grows in the corners. Rooftops that extend Havana to the sky and seen from Google Earth reveal more than they hide.

The city grows upwards and not with new skyscrapers. Building on the roofs, extending our housing over our heads, has prevented more than one divorce in this capital where housing problems drive creativity and the opportune use of any space where a bed can be laid out, a kitchen can be set up, or a newborn’s cradle can be tucked away. Rooftops are also far from the prying eyes that haunt the street.

Private and discreet, they can become a solarium for lightly dressed tourists above the houses where rooms are rented to foreigners, a place for teenage love with the stars as a coverlet, or a territory where you can fire up certain forbidden cigarettes. If the rooftops of Havana could speak they would tell stories of survival and eroticism, of colossal fights and of mirahuecos (voyeurs) who peek out from above. They would betray the hidden life of this city.

____________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Three Priests Ask Raúl Castro For Real Elections To “Avoid Violent Changes”

The signatories recall that the the Government restricts the manner in which religion is practiced on the Island, and mentions by way of example that public processions or masses must have the express permission of the authorities (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 24 January 2018 — Three Catholic priests have addressed a letter to President Raul Castro in which they ask the president to let Cubans “choose in freedom,” not vote. In this way, the priests warn, the island will have “different” political options to “prevent that one day, given whatever circumstances, Cuba is submerged in violent changes.”

The signatories of the letter, written on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the “Mass of the Homeland” presided over by Pope John Paul II, and reproduced in full in a public letter, are Castor José Álvarez de Devesa, of Camagüey; José Conrado Rodríguez Alegre, from Trinidad, and Roque Nelvis Morales Fonseca, from Holguín.

“We want to choose in freedom. In Cuba there are votes, not elections. It is urgent to have elections where we can decide not only our future, but also our present. Now we are invited to ‘vote,’ to say ‘yes’ to what already exists and there is no willingness to change. Choosing implies, in itself, different options, choosing implies the possibility of taking several paths,” say the priests. continue reading

The three priests note that, “Since the institutionalization of the Communist Party as the only party authorized to exist, this people has never been allowed to raise a different voice,” and emphasize that all criticism has been silenced.

According to the authors of the letter, the political changes they defend must be accompanied by the creation of a “Rule of Law” in which there is a clear distinction between the executive, legislative and judicial powers, and their independence is guaranteed.

“We want our judges not to be pressured, for the law to be order, for illegality not to be a way of subsisting or a weapon of domination,” argues the letter, which at the same time demands that the Capitol be filled with legislators who represent the interests of their constituents.” The letter denounces “the lack of religious freedom” since “the Church is tolerated, but it is constantly monitored and controlled.”

The letter also states that the Government restricts the manner in which religion is practiced on the Island, and mentions by way of example that public processions or masses must have the express permission of the authorities, and if this is not granted no explanations are given.

The legalization of private and independent media is another of the demands of the letter, whose signatories note that the Church does not have free access to the mass media in Cuba and argue that the “monopoly and control of communication media means that nobody can access public media freely.”

“Cubans have the right to participate as investors in the economy and in our country’s negotiations,” demands the publication, which blames the “lamentable economic helplessness” that Cubans experience on the lack of opportunities for citizens to invest in the island on an equal basis with foreigners.

Nor has education been left out of the epistle, which notes that although education is a guaranteed right on the island and schooling is compulsory, there is a “teaching of a single way of thinking.” The letter defends young people’s right to “educational alternatives” and “options for the teaching of thought” and goes on to say that parents should have the right to choose “what kind of education they want for their children.”

In recent years several calls for attention from Catholic priests to the Government have had a great impact on national and international public opinion. In September of 1993, when the country was immersed in a deep economic crisis, the Cuban bishops released the pastoral “Love endures all things.”

Twenty years later, in 2013, another pastoral titled “Hope does not disappoint,” signed by 13 active bishops and Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, addressed 43 points of the national reality that, from the perspective of the Cuban Catholic Church, should be improved.

Now, the three priests have chosen to publish their letter on a date to pay tribute to Archbishop Pedro Meurice Estiú, of Santiago de Cuba, who on January 24, 1998 gave a homily during the visit of Pope John Paul II to the island, an event at which Raúl Castro, then Minister of the Armed Forces, was also present. During the mass the Pope defined the Cuban people in a memorable way.

A growing number of Cubans “have confused the homeland with a party, the nation with the historical process we have experienced in recent decades and the culture with an ideology,” said the Archbishop at that time.

_________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Prices are Prohibitive for Direct Flights from Cuba to Trinidad and Tobago

Caribbean Airlines will connect Cuba with the small Caribbean island twice a week. (EFETurAmerica)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 17 January 2018 — The new air route that connects Cuba with Trinidad and Tobago, inaugurated last Saturday, began while both countries are negotiating new immigration regulations for Cubans, who currently do not need visas to visit that country.

After the round of negotiations between the governments of both countries in the middle of last year, and with this new direct connection by air, the Cuban community on Trinidadian territory is worried that new requirements will be imposed on their relatives who wish to visit them. continue reading

For now, the new Caribbean Airlines schedule, with a frequency of twice a week, fills a vacuum of direct flights between both nations. Previously, travelers had to make a stopover on the small Dutch island of Aruba or in Panama City and fly the flagship company of that country, Copa Airlines, with fares over $500 per ticket.

“It is now possible that Copa will lower prices because previously it had no competition for travel to Cuba,” predicts Kenia Montes de Oca, a Cuban living in Port of Spain who is hoping to regularize her residence there with refugee status.

Although the authorities of Trinidad and Tobago do not require visas for Cubans, at the airport immigration officials can deport anyone they suspect of wanting to stay illegally, a practice that has been increasing after the immigration talks held in August of last year, according to complaints from travelers compiled by this newspaper.

Montes de Oca remembers that before the direct route existed, trips through Aruba or Panama sometimes presented problems, diversions or delays.

The new service will make the trip between Cuba and Trinidad and Tobago shorter and faster, although Caribbean Airlines fares are still high compared to other destinations in the region, 14ymedio was able to confirm.

A round-trip ticket with no additional baggage fees for trips before the end of January costs roughly $752, while making the reservation for a trip nine months in advance yields a savings of only $50.

Flights to Cancun or Miami from Havana can often be purchased for under $200, but with the drawback that both Mexico and the United States require arriving Cubans to have a visa.

“I traveled to Trinidad and Tobago for the first time at the end of last year,” says Pavel, a 28-year-old Cienfuegos resident who explores shopping malls for purchases that he later resells in Cuba. “I didn’t make any money because at that time there were no direct flights and the ticket was very expensive.”

Pavel also points out that the exchange rate (1 triniteño dollar is equivalent to 0.14 US dollar) “is not favorable.” In addition, in Cuba the dollar is subject to a 13% tax, which makes the operation even more expensive.

“Obtaining a Mexican visa is very complicated for me because I was once deported from that country when I was trying to reach the border with the United States,” the merchant says. “So I have to continue with this route even if I don’t get that much business,” he adds.

________________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.