14ymedio – Page 448 – Translating Cuba

Cuba’s First Black Bishop is a "Street" Priest

Father Silvano Pedroso (L) with Bishop Alfredo Víctor Petit Vergel in the Priests’ House of Havana. (Catholic Holguin)

14ymedio, Mario Penton, 7 April 2018 — “I’m surprised, I never would have imagined it.” The grave voice at the other end of the telephone line is that of Silvano Pedroso Montalvo, who seems not to have gotten over his astonishment a week after Pope Francis appointed him bishop of the diocese of Guantanamo-Baracoa.

About to turn 65, Pedroso Montalvo is the first black bishop of the Catholic Church in Cuba in its entire history. “In the Church, we are all brothers and equal, I have never felt superior or inferior to anyone because of the color of my skin, but I understand that many people may like having a black bishop because the Church is universal,” says the priest. He works in two of the most humble and ethnically mixed neighborhoods in the Cuban capital: El Cerro and Jesús María. continue reading

“Silvano is authentic, austere, close to the people, consistent, accurate, and a simple man. Perhaps, using the words of Pope Francis, he is a ‘stray’ who can be a ‘game changer’ for the community of believers in Cuba,” says a priest who is an expert in the history of the Cuban Church and who prefers to remain anonymous.

Father Silvano, as the parishioners know him, has worked as a spiritual advisor to young men who want to be priests. He has also been a parish priest in rural areas. It is common to see him walking through the streets of Jesús María and El Cerro, as well as helping organizations such as Caritas in solidarity with the needy.

According to an expert consulted by 14ymedio, the Pope is trying to renew the face, style and language of the Cuban Church “with pastors such as the Bishop of Havana Juan de la Caridad, Father Silvano and Manolo de Céspedes, among others.”

Having accepted the resignation of Havana’s Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the Cuban Bishops’ Conference is in a process of transition that some experts believe involves distancing the Church from power and bringing it closer to the people.

“This appointment seeks to emphasize that the Catholic Church on the island is not only white, although most of the faithful are,” he adds.

Pedroso (far right) concelebrating Mass in Guantanamo

Pedroso was born in Cárdenas, Matanzas, on 25 April 1953 and was baptized in 1961, during a time when there was a rupture between the Cuban Church, which initially supported Fidel Castro, and the Revolution, after it turned to the Soviet Union. He graduated in Geography from the University of Havana and practiced his profession from 1979 to 1982 at the Physical Planning Institute of Las Tunas.

Dagoberto Valdés, a lay Catholic from Pinar del Río, believes that Pedroso’s work experience can help him better understand the contemporary Cuban Church. On the island it is estimated that 60% of Cubans are baptized as Catholics, but no more than 10% attend Sunday Mass.

“The incorporation into the episcopate of men who grew up, were educated, worked and became priests at the time of the institutionalization of the socialist process is a wonderful experience for the pastors of the Church,” says Valdés. “Silvano is a man close to the people, a missionary in solidarity with them,” he added.

For Lenier González, former editor of one of the most important Catholic publications on the island, Espacio Laical (Lay Space), and current coordinator of Cuba Posible magazine, the appointment of Silvano is good news because “he addresses many challenges at once, almost all of them related to the links and historical actions of Catholicism with the Cuban black population.”

There is as yet no date for his episcopal consecration, which will be in Havana, but Silvano Pedroso is already very familiar with the work that is done in the diocese that has been assigned to him. “In Guantanamo, the Church has done a very nice job in terms of helping the most needy, especially after the hurricane,” he says.

After Hurricane Matthew, young Catholics organized weeks of help to rebuild the homes of the victims. Caritas distributed more than 60,000 pounds of aid from churches from neighboring countries, such as the United States.

The diocese of Guantánamo-Baracoa was created by John Paul II in 1998. Although the city of Guantánamo is home to the cathedral of Santa Catalina de Ricci, Baracoa (the first town founded in Cuba after the arrival of the Spaniards) is home to the co-cathedral church where the Cruz de la Parra (Cross of the Vine), brought by Columbus to the New World, is preserved.

The seat of the diocese has been vacant since 6 December 2016, when the previous bishop, Wilfredo Pino Estévez, was appointed to head the diocese of Camagüey.

Pedroso’s pastoral plan will be to follow the line of solidarity and human advancement that was underway in the diocese. “I try to accompany people in their reality, which is sometimes very hard,” he says.

Pedroso remembers that he was shocked the day a humble family in a Guantánamo town welcomed him into their home, giving him the best they had to eat and offering him rest. “Many times simple people are the ones who open themselves most to God and his message,” he explains.

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Building Collapses and Shelters in Cuba

Street in Havana blocked by the collapse of a building. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Mario Blanco. Montreal, 5 April 2018 — Within a month of assuming my position as mayor of the Plaza of the Revolution municipality in the City of Havana, in 1986, there was a partial collapse in one of the old buildings of the famous neighborhood of El Vedado. Several people were injured, although luckily no one lost their life.

We went to the site to talk to those affected and to try to convince them to go to one of our shelters in the city. In the municipality we had four, but all were full and so we wanted to assign people to space in another municipality. The unanimous answer was NO. For various reasons. continue reading

People knew that those who went to shelters were stranded there and lost their connection with the neighborhood in which many of them had lived all their lives, as well as the whole family’s work, transport and schools.

The next day I took on the task of touring our shelters, and the feeling of helplessness in the face of one of the most pressing problems of the country, housing, entered my soul like a major cancer. When I arrived at the first shelter, the people who were there approached me asking what were the chances, at the beginning of the newly inaugurated Government, for them to obtain a house with a minimum of amenities, either through a microbrigade (the work centers organized brigades to build houses with the objective of satisfying the demand of their own workers), or some other method. They were willing to repair housing by their own means.

One of the first people in a shelter who approached me told me that his house had collapsed and that for 19 years he had been in that shelter waiting for a solution. He asked me: What can you tell me about this? That question has been one of the most difficult I have ever heard, including during my studies at the University.

Unfortunately at that time not all work centers were able to raise a microbrigade. The reasons were several, sometimes it was simply due to the lack of construction materials and often the plans for the construction of new homes, implemented by the Government, for one reason or another were not met.

At the same time, the demand for housing was growing. The quality of life in the shelters was terrible, sometimes the cubicles were divided only by a sheet, some were for men and others for women with children, which implied the division of the family home with disastrous results. There were others in which one part or wing was for men and one for women, and there was no family life there either. To that was added the difficulty of having common bathrooms and kitchens.

The saddest thing about this story which I had to experience personally and which happened during the triennium 1986 – 1989, is that this problem still has not been solved. Far from it, it has worsened, even though demand has decreased, as a result of the emigration of Cubans, even though over two million individuals, that is, one fifth of Cuba’s total population, has left the country.

Every year fewer houses are built and, until only a couple of years ago, if the family emigrated, they lost the housing that the government supposedly had to grant to other people in need. However, this housing was not always delivered to the most needy people, but many times its allocation was determined by corruption, cronyism, or “political security,” which involved the so-called “frozen zones,” where only those who are not considered political dissidents are allowed to live.

Housing is and has been to this day, one of the greatest difficulties that the Cuban people have faced. After 60 years this government does not seem to have found any solution to this problem.

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Editor’s Note: this text was originally published in Viceversa Magazine and is reproduced here with the authorization of the author. Mario Blanco was born in Santiago de Cuba in 1949, although as of 1997 he has lived in Montreal, Canada. He is a naval engineer and between 1986 and 1989 he held the position of President of the People’s Power of the Plaza of the Revolution municipality, in Havana.

Latin American Youth Network Calls Out Cuban Intelligence’s Interference at the Summit of the Americas

Members of the Network delivered the letter to several institutions, such as the embassy of Peru. (Facebook)

EFE, via 14ymedio, Miami, 4 April 2018 — The Latin American Youth Network for Democracy sent a letter to Foreign Minister Néstor Francisco Popolizio and other Peruvian high officials, warning of the “grave danger” that they believe “interference from agents of the Cuban dictatorship” represents for the 8th Summit of the Americas.

The letter, which Efe had access to, is addressed to Popolizio, Antonio García Revilla, national coordinator for the Summit Process, and Marcio M. Bendezú Echevarría, regional prefect of Metropolitan Lima, and will also be delivered to the embassies of the countries participating in the Summit, which will take place in the capital of Peru on April 13 and 14. continue reading

The Network, made up of young people from 20 countries, reiterates that its members will participate in the Social Summit that will take place as a complement to the presidents’ meeting, and expresses its hope that “the Peruvian authorities will be able to guarantee the security” of its members and delegates from Cuban and Venezuelan civil society.

The president of the Network, Rosa María Payá, and the coordinator, Jatzel Roman González, urge the Peruvian authorities not to “tolerate” what they say happened at the previous Summit in Panama, in 2015, “the ‘neighborhood bully’ attitude of the Castro delegation.”

The letter emphasizes that in Panama “shock troops of the Castro regime, led at that time by the current Minister of Culture of the dictatorship, Abel Prieto, attacked with blows and shouts formally accredited members of civil society of the Americas.”

“Three years later, the goal of the Cuban regime remains the same: to prevent the Civil Society Summit from being held because a dictatorship cannot tolerate sharing space with those who peacefully oppose their repressive actions and dare to express it,” the letter adds.

The Latin American Youth Network and the delegation of independent Cuban civil society at the Social Summit are already suffering “aggressions by the Cuban regime,” they point out.

The letter mentions an episode with the Cuban ambassador at the Hemispheric Dialogue in Lima, who “lashed out against Jorge Vallejo, the Peruvian representative who served as spokesman for Coalition 26 and director of our Network.”

The letter also refers to a message on the official Twitter account of the Cuban Foreign Ministry in which it warns that “Cuba will not allow offenses, disrespect or provocation” from the Latin American Youth Network during the Summit.

“Given all the threats and aggressions launched from the institutions and the Castro media, we are obliged to hold the Government in Cuba and the Peruvian authorities responsible for the physical integrity of all of our members,” the signatories of the letter write.

Payá and González also warn of the “dangerous error and incoherence of extending an invitation [to the Summit] to the representatives of the Cuban dictatorship,” after praising the exclusion of representatives of the “Venezuelan dictatorship.”

At the end of the letter, the Network’s directors state: “Our young people are not controlled by fear, we will continue peacefully fighting dictatorships from one end of our region to the other.”

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Photo of the Day: Homemade Entertainment

Endlessly laughing and screaming, spreading their contagious joy at being young, teenagers revel in a day of joy on the beaches of eastern Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 April 2018 — Oblivious to any programs oriented toward recreation or culture conceived by official institutions, these young Cubans born at the beginning of the 21st century chose the beaches of eastern Havana’s coastline to make their own fun. As shown in this image, they danced for hours to the rhythm of reggaeton, laughing and shouting, their rejoicing at being teenagers completely contagious.

Their hips radiated a defiant sensuality, as if to say, “What’s it to me?!” It showed in the rhythmic shrug of their shoulders, in the desire with which they seemed to want to devour the present, and in the absolute certainty with which their thoughts of the future did not extend beyond the next minute. Their gestures and smiles aroused envy in more than one quiet swimmer.

In their midst, as an accomplice to their enormous joy, a portable speaker blasted the catchiest songs, and those with the jubilantly nastiest words, from this moment in time of that well-known urban music genre.

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Which One Is The Criminal?

The brothers Raul and Fidel Castro together with Lula (center) in 2010, when the former Brazilian president visited the island at the time of the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo. (Juventud Rebelde)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 6 April 2018 — In 2010, then Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva provoked a bitter controversy when he compared Cuban dissidents to common criminals. Those words, said a week after the death of the opponent Orlando Zapata Tamayo, take on a new meaning today, a few hours before the Brazilian leader goes to prison.

“I think hunger strikes cannot be used as a human rights pretext to free people,” said the former steelworker, eight years ago in March. “Imagine what would happen if all the bandits who are imprisoned in Sao Paulo went on hunger strike and asked for their freedom,” he remarked cheerfully. continue reading

For Lula, the dissident who agonized in his cell until he died was nothing more than a criminal who refused to eat for 86 days to pressure the authorities to release him from prison. Despite publicly lamenting his death, Brazil’s president believed the official version of Zapata’s death and insisted the Cuban bricklayer, born in Banes, was not a political prisoner.

Now it is the popular trade unionist who has been tried in the courts of justice and public opinion. He came to this point not because he protested police repression in the streets, as Zapata did, but because of corruption and money laundering. As president of his country he betrayed the voters’ trust by exchanging favors, receiving bribes and handing out contracts.

Under the image of a humble man who ascended to the highest position in an imposing nation like Brazil, Lula was in fact a “political animal” accustomed to prioritizing ideology and his old ‘comrades in the struggle’ over the welfare of his people. As soon as he settled into Planalto Palace he began to create his own robust network of perks and fidelities that ultimately blew up in his face.

In this network of favors were not only some of his old comrades from Brazil’s Workers Party, but also those from outdated regimes like Havana’s. Lula solicitously served the Castro brothers the entire time he was in office, an attitude inherited by Dilma Rousseff when she succeeded him in office.

For the Cuban Government the years during which the Workers Party led Brazil served as a panacea. Lula and Rousseff closed ranks to support the Plaza of the Revolution in international forums, kept their shock troops at the ready to attack any critics of the Castros, and financed the Port of Mariel Special Development Zone project, which involved the corrupt Brazilian transnational Odebrecht.

In the name of those old favors, on Thursday the Havana regime released a statement signed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in defense of the former president, calling his sentence an “unfair campaign against Lula, against the Workers Party and against the leftist and progressive forces in Brazil.” Some corruption is repaid with apartments, some with bribes, and much of the rest with political statements.

Lulu’s 12 year prison sentence could well be extended much longer, should the magistrates find him guilty in other pending cases. His time behind bars could be long, enough time to allow him to reflect on everything he has said and done.

Perhaps in the long days that await him looking through the thick bars, the former president can imagine what Zapata’s last days might have been like for the young black bricklayer born in a small town in the east of the island who refused to eat or drink water to demand his freedom. That man, unlike Lula, was innocent.

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Twelve Cuban Rafters Arrive in Florida Keys, a First for 2018

The makeshift raft in which 12 Cubans recently sailed from Punta Alegre to the Florida Keys. (US Border Patrol)

14ymedio, Havana, 3 April 2018 — Twelve Cuban rafters from Punta Alegre arrived at Florida’s Lower Matacumbe Key on Tuesday, becoming the first migrants to arrive in the Keys from the island so far this year, according to the digital media site FlKeysNews.

The ten men and two women who traveled in a makeshift boat made land at around 1:00 am local time, according to Adam Hoffner, an agent of the US border patrol.

The spokesman for the Monroe County Police Department added that the twelve people on board were “in good health.” continue reading

The coastal town from which the rafters left about seven days ago, located in the north of the island, is the same place where last March another group of 16 rafters reported to 14ymedio that their raft had been purposely sunk by Cuban border guards as they attempted to navigate to the United States.

Cubans arriving in the United States by raft has not been completely ended, despite then president Barack Obama’s decision, in January of 2017, to put an end to the wet foot/dry foot policy, which allowed Cubans who reache US soil to stay in the country and become legal immigrants after one year.

Some 58 Cuban immigrants have tried to enter the US illegally by sea since October 1, which contrasts with the same period last year when 1,934 Cubans were detained by the US authorities while doing the same thing.

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Despite the Government and Censorship, Cubans ’Resolve’ the Internet

Young people have a hard time getting a computer or a mobile phone in a country with a totally distorted economy, where the monthly salary barely exceeds the equivalent of $30. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 April 2018 — ‘FactorUV’ does not like his name spoken and prefers the pseudonym for which he is known in Cuban digital networks. He is 21 and has been glued to a computer screen since he was a child, although he lives in a country with one of the lowest Internet connectivity rates on the planet.

FactorUV’s generation are digital natives, but they face many difficulties in getting a computer or a cellphone in a country with a completely distorted economy, where the average monthly salary barely exceeds 30 dollars. continue reading

“Fortunately as a child I liked putting things together and taking them apart, so I assembled my first computer,” he recalls now. “At the beginning it was harder to get the pieces, but right now buying a hard drive, a memory, a processor or a cellphone is easier than buying a sofa,” he says ironically.

At the end of 2017 there were 4.5 million mobile lines in Cuba, a country with a little over 11 million inhabitants. Although the island continues to be at the bottom of the list in terms of cellphone access, the progress has been significant in recent years and has had a clear impact on daily life.

Internet access has been one of the demands most repeated in recent years by activists, opponents and citizens in general. Despite the limited advances in information and communication technologies, Cubans today are increasingly informed and aware of what is happening inside and outside their borders.

However, this slow transformation coexists with censorship, high prices and a lack of transparency on the part of state institutions.

In FactorUV’s family, the digital divide is evident. His grandmother, a retired woman who worked for decades in a ministry and still belongs to the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), refuses to even touch a cellphone. “She does not understand everything that can be done with these devices,” says the young computer expert.

FactorUV’s parents spent some years in China on an official mission and “that’s where they realized that you have to use technology,” explains the young man, who also says it makes their lives easier. The family has also allowed him access to devices that many Cubans of his age can only dream of.

Despite the material limitations, barter, exchanges and loans between friends are helping the digital experience reach many others. “When I’m going to connect in some Wi-Fi zone, we almost always go in a group and the one that doesn’t have money to buy a recharge uses a bit of someone else’s time.”

In 2015, the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (Etecsa), a state monopoly, installed the first Wi-Fi connection zones, a few dozen throughout the Island. There are currently a little more, half with wireless connection.

The rates, very high at the beginning, have been reduced little by little. An hour costs 1 CUC (1 dollar) but it is still expensive for those who live only on their salary. These limitations have strengthened an informal market where accounts or browsing time are shared.

Etecsa offers a speed of 1 Mbps (megabits per second), but in practice it remains, at most, around 125 KB/s (kilobytes of data per second) or even less when there is congestion in wireless zones, something that happens very often.

For gamers like Ramón Gómez, who is called Pocholo, the speed of connection to the web is often “frustrating.” Games “are blocked or do not run well and playing online is a headache,” he explains.

Through tools such as Connectify, which allow sharing the same connection, digital entrepreneurs who have appeared in plazas and parks sell browsing hours at half the Etecsa price, an offer closer to the pockets of many Cubans.

Despite all its failures, ranging from power outages to the difficulties of opening the user portal, the wireless connection has become an indispensable tool for the emerging private sector, which consists of only half a million people.

From rental houses advertised on tourist websites to popular classified sites like revolico.com, digital businesses have boosted creativity and expanded economic opportunities for many Cubans.

Young graduates of the University of Computer Science (UCI), who sell their services as programmers of mobile applications, or prostitutes who offer their favors to tourists through Tinder, all of them use the internet to promote their services.

The most visited sites continue to be social networks, chatrooms and dating sites. The information sites about visas and scholarships are also among the priorities for domestic Internet users.

“In the wifi zones, sitting on the ground in a park or on the sidewalk at the edge of the street while the cars pass and make noise or it starts to rain, you can’t have a complete experience as an Internet user,” laments Pocholo. “You also have to be careful with the technology because the thieves know that in the wifi areas, especially at night, it is easy to snatch a tablet or a phone.”

His dream is to be able to connect from his own home, but he must wait to fulfill it because the Havana municipality where he lives is not yet included among the first areas where this service has started, so common in the rest of the world.

Nauta Hogar (Home): step by step

In the first months of 2017 the first tests began on installing domestic internet service in 17 districts of the municipality of Old Havana, in the historic center of the capital. The initiative has been extended very slowly to other provinces and is intended exclusively for residents who have a fixed telephone line.

Etecsa modified the initial rate and connection speed. Initially, the user paid 15 CUC (15 dollars) for browsing with a bandwidth of 256 Kbps; now that same rate buys 1 Mbps. The prices are still well above the economic reach of the average wage earner, which explains why only 11,000 people have contracted for Nauta Hogar.

An annual index of world development in information and communication technologies places the Island in 166th place out of 176 countries in terms of access to the web. Cuba continues to be one of the countries with the lowest internet penetration rates in the world and until last year connection from the home was a privilege enjoyed only by high officials, and professionals such as doctors, lawyers and journalists.

However, official figures say that Cuba registered more than 4.5 million Internet users in 2016, which means 403 connected users per 1,000 inhabitants. Most of them connected from the Wi-Fi zones installed starting in 2015 or from the internet rooms managed by Etecsa with terminals belonging to the company.

These figures are questioned by experts, who say Raúl Castro’s government includes in these data users who connect to intranet services, national email and other sites hosted on local servers, such as the Infomed medical information site, available for workers in the sector without having to access the web.

Connected yes, but not free

Amnesty International’s most recent report, referring to 2017, says that in Cuba there are “undue restrictions” on access to the internet and cites at least 41 blocked websites, all critical of the Government of Havana. Among them are the digital newspaper 14ymedio and other websites such as Cubanet, Martinoticias and, recently, El Estornudo.

Censorship also refers to the filtering of words that circulate through national email (Nauta) and text-only messages (SMS).

A report published in 14ymedio reveals that messages containing words like “democracy” and “dictatorship,” or the names of the main opposition leaders of the island never reach their destination, despite the fact that the state communications monopoly charges the fee as if they had been delivered.

Self-censorship also affects how Cubans use the networks. For example, in the wireless networks of games or forums that have become very popular in the neighborhoods since the arrival of devices such as the NanoStation or Mikrotik (sold on the black market), virtual communities such as SNet have emerged, which has more than 50,000 users in Havana and extends to other provinces of the country.

These communities prohibit political, religious and pornography issues so as not to endanger a network that, without being expressly allowed, at least passes under the radar of the toughest censorship.

The blogs written from within the Island, which emerged starting in 2006, were mainly managed by citizens independent of institutions, activists and opponents. Over time, as has happened with social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, the government has placed its own bloggers in these spaces to defend the official discourse and, also, to denigrate and defame its opponents.

Currently, several of the founders of the “alternative” blogosphere have become media managers or political activists. Also, many of them have been exiled due to pressure and repression.

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Editor’s Note: Venecuba is a space created by journalist Andrés Cañizalez to share information and analysis on the presence and influence of Cuba in Venezuela.

The alliance of Venecuba with 14ymedio and the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional has supported the writing of this report.

"Kiss of the Tiger" and "Red Line" for Independent Reporter Rudy Cabrera

Rudy Cabrera’s work creating audiovisuals has been particularly outstanding, according to Cubanet. (Cubanet)

14ymedio, Havana, 4 April 2018 — Independent reporter Rudy Cabrera, a contributor to Cubanet, was released on Tuesday afternoon after a 48-hour arrest. “They told me that this arrest was just the ‘kiss of the tiger’,” the journalist told 14ymedio. He also said that he was subject to “different levels of threats” during his imprisonment.

Cabrera’s arrest came after a search of his home, last Sunday, by State Security and the National Revolutionary Police (PNR). They seized several external hard drives, a laptop, a desktop computer, a printer and other personal items. continue reading

That morning, two “patrol cars, four motorcycles and a civilian car,” arrived at Cabrera’s house to conduct the search, along with a photographer, five State Security agents and several police officers. “They had a search warrant to look for computer equipment and story boards,” he told this newspaper.

About three hours after the search of the house began, the reporter was taken to the police station in the municipality of Cerro. “The first day I did not eat anything because I did not have an appetite,” he says.

Cabrera was questioned several times at the station and State Security officials repeatedly threatened to send him to jail but also alluded to his professional training with phrases such as: “You are an educated person.”

An agent of the political police, who identified himself as Camilo, insists that the search of the house and the detention were only “the kiss of the tiger.” The officer suggested that they had found “something very irregular” in the house that could be legally “complicating” for Cabrera.

Another member of State Security warned the reporter that he should not cross the “red line” and told him that his work as a journalist had placed him “under the spotlight” of the authorities’ attention, threats that Cabrera believes are intended to intimidate him and to stop him from continuing with his work.

Rudy Cabrera work has been especially outstanding in the preparation of audiovisual reports for Cubanet, with on the street interviews and reports about the use of technology, housing problems and the work of groups opposed to the Government.

“I was allowed to leave the station after my mother paid the 3,000 Cuban peso fine they levied on me,” he explains. “According to the document, the fine was for illegal economic activity and now I have to consult with a lawyer, because everything has been very arbitrary,” he says.

Before leaving the police station, the reporter signed the official record with the list of the belongings seized in the search, which have not yet been returned.

The Cuban penal code sets a penalty of deprivation of liberty for from three months to one year, or a fine of 100 to 300 CUP, for the criminal offense of “without the corresponding license or despite the existence of an express legal or regulatory prohibition, working, for profit, to produce, transform or sell merchandise, or provide any service.”

Pressures against independent journalists have intensified in recent months and, along with arbitrary arrests, State Security has increased the number of searches in their homes and the confiscation of their tools of the trade.

At the beginning of this year the Freedom House organization gave Cuba a very low score of 14 points on a scale of 0 to 100 in rating freedom on the island. The report, which analyzes the situation of political rights and civil freedoms in the world, cataloged the country as “not free” with regards to freedom of the press and the internet.

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Cuban Young Filmmakers Exhibition Starts in the Midst of a Debate About Film Censorship

The first hours of the 17th edition of the Young Filmmakers Exhibition took place this Tuesday in an almost empty theater at the Chaplin cinema, in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 4 April 2018 — The first hours of the 17th edition of the Young Filmmakers Exhibition took place this Tuesday in an almost empty theater of the Chaplin cinema, in Havana. The event began in the midst of the scandal over the the exclusion of the film I Want to Make a Movie, from director Yimit Ramírez, an incident that continues to generate conflicting opinions among officials and filmmakers.

The Exhibition was inaugurated with the screening of The Two Princes, a short film inspired by the homonymous poem by José Martí. The choice of the film was interpreted by the audience as a response to Ramírez’s film, which the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) criticized for including “disrespectful” dialogue about the national hero. continue reading

The afternoon and evening session on this first day was enlivened a little more with the welcome offered by the organizing committee to the young filmmakers at their new headquarters on 23rd Street. Two exhibitions, Hair of the Wolf, by the artist collective Chambelon Network, and Vero de perro, by Manuel Almenares, completed the day’s program.

Also presented on the opening day was the feature film not part of the competition, The Wolves of the East, filmed in Japan and directed by Carlos Machado Quintela, known for his film The Work of the Century (2015)about the failed Cienfuegos Nuclear City project.

However, the main protagonists of the day were the absentee I Want to Make a Movie and its director, who were at the focus of the conversations among exhibition attendees, especially because, hours earlier, the Presidency of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) issued a harsh statement against the film.

UNEAC’s statement adds to an avalanche of articles and comments published in the official press and on the websites of institutions that criticized the words of a character in the film, who refers to José Martí with the terms “mojón” and “maricón” (turd and faggot). UNEAC believes that the exclusion of the film from the program is an incident that has been “magnified” by the “anti-Cuban press.”

“We share the indignation of youth who follow Martí in the face of this attempt to tarnish the memory of the Apostle,” said the Presidency of the pro-government association. The statement, however, did not mention the public solidarity shown by much of the film industry with Ramírez.

“To those who seek to undermine the founding values of the Cuban nation, we say: Don’t involve José Martí!” UNEAC said in its statement, in a tone that many filmmakers and film critics have considered threatening.

On Tuesday night, the Exhibition continued with the screening of the documentary short films Movies and Memory by Jorge Luis Sánchez and Notes on the Shore by Luis Alejandro Yero. In addition, the fiction short film Rocaman, by Marcos Díaz, and the animated Decomposition, by Jarol Cuellar, were screened.

Like last year, the Exhibition suffers from a shortage of works in the animation section, with just three this year. In addition to the films in the competition, the event also includes a Bonus section for non-competition pieces, known as the Moving Ideas space, along with the usual conferences and the pitching of movie themes in the Making Cinema section.

Among the most anticipated is the screening of Alejandro Alonso Estrella’s documentary, The Project, which presents the concept: “A filmmaker is forbidden to film an old school converted into housing. Years later, he decides to remake the Project.”

Also in the documentary category, the filmmaker Marcel Beltrán competed with the work The Music of the Spheres, inspired by a family history.

Despite the censorship applied to his latest film, Yimit Ramírez is represented with a short film from 2017, Eternal Glory, which tells the story of Julián, an “outstanding worker” worthy of an award he has always wanted, but “at the moment he is nominated, his mind is filled with great conflicts.”

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There Are No Menstrual Supplies Because Raw Materials Are Lacking," Justifies Cuban Manufacturer

Women line up at a pharmacy in Cuba for menstrual supplies. (Video Screen Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 March 2018 — The production of sanitary pads is paralyzed due to lack of raw materials and will only be resumed in May, according to Emma Hernández Ibarra, general director of the National Hygienic-Sanitary Materials Company, Mathisa, speaking to Cuba’s official press.

“The company suffered a delay in the arrival of the raw material that is used for the production of sanitary pads, and the purchase of cellulose, and for this reason production is paralyzed,” explained the official on the newscast on Wednesday. continue reading

“At this moment, this raw material is already on its way [to Cuba] and we have an estimated date of arrival of April 30 and in May we will began our production with a strategy of gradual recovery,” added Hernández.

According to the official, the aim is to “increase the production schedule” so that the monthly supply received by women of childbearing age can be met through the rationed market at the country’s pharmacies.

“It may be that during the month they will receive some pads and another part of their ration as cotton depending on the availability of that product in the logistics chain,” she said.

According to statements made by Hernández herself to the official press in 2017, this problem affected the production of pads in the three factories devoted to them at that time.

“Of the ten raw materials needed for sanitary pads (popularly known as ‘intimates’), eight are imported from countries such as Spain, Italy and China, and only the packaging material is obtained in the domestic market,” said the official.

In a report published in this newspaper in March, women’s opinions about this product were surveyed. Many complain about the poor quality of the product and that the 10 pads allowed for each monthly menstrual cycle are not enough, in addition to frequent shortages of even that number.

Outside the gynecological and obstetric hospital Gonzalez Coro a doctor explained to 14ymedio that “on average a woman uses three to four sanitary pads” on a day of menstruation, and a menstrual cycle lasts between five and seven days.

Given the shortage of the product, consumers shop in the hard currency markets for pads, and look for friends to bring tampons into the country, along with the lesser known silicone cup.

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Report Denounces Nine Physical Attacks by Cuban Secret Police in March

The document highlights the case of the former Prisoner of the Black Spring, Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, who claimed to have been “brutally assaulted” and fined by the police when he tried to prevent the arrest of his mother last month. (Twitter / @ivanlibre)

14ymedio, Havana, 3 April 2018 — During the month of March in Cuba, there were 319 arbitrary arrests against activists, a figure “slightly lower than the one recorded” in February, which was 347, according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN). The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), on the other hand, reported a higher figure for March, 340, with 202 women and 138 men.

The CCDHRN also denounced 33 cases of harassment and “outrages” against dissidents, in addition to nine physical aggressions “executed or instigated by the powerful secret political police or their agents,” according to a report published on Monday. continue reading

The document highlights the case of the former Prisoner of the Black Spring, Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, who claimed to have been “brutally assaulted” and fined by the police when he tried to prevent the arrest of his mother, the activist and Lady in White Asunción Carrillo, on 25 March.

Throughout the month, “systematic weekly arrests continued” against the women who make up this human rights movement and the arrests were carried out “under inhumane and degrading conditions.”

The CCDHRN also reported on the “arbitrary ban on travel abroad by opponents who tried to respond to invitations from various international NGOs,” a repressive practice that has become common over the last year against members of independent civil society groups.

“The number of political prisoners remains above a hundred,” says the Commission, which will soon publish the Partial List of Prisoners for Political Reasons in Cuba, as it does every year.

“The new political prisoners, imprisoned during the month of March were: Aracelis Fernández, Martha Sánchez, Freddy Martín Fraga and Edel Peralta Rus,” reports the CCDHRN.

During 2017, the Government of Raúl Castro carried out at least 5,155 “politically motivated arrests,” according to the year-end report drafted by the organization.

That figure was the lowest since 2011, when the CCDHRN reported 4,123 arrests for political reasons, and also falls far short of the reports of 2016, a year in which 9,940 arrests were recorded.

According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, the Ladies in White continue to be the center of the attacks by the Government, which every week “represses them when they try to participate in Sunday Mass and in other activities.”

The organization, based in Madrid, also denounced the travel restrictions suffered by opponents from within the island but especially highlighted the prohibitions on entry against foreigners, giving as an example what happened during the ceremony held to deliver the Oswaldo Payá Freedom and Life Award.

On that occasion, at the beginning of March, the authorities refused to allow the entry into Cuba of the former presidents of Bolivia and Colombia, Jorge Fernando Quiroga Ramírez and Andrés Pastrana Arango, and the Chilean deputy Jaime Bellolio. Miguel Calisto, a Chilean parliamentarian, was allowed to enter the island but was arrested and deported once he arrived at his hotel.

These actions show, according to the entity, “the intolerance of the Government in relation to the free exercise of universal rights.”

In addition, the Observatory foresees a similar climate in the coming days, coinciding with the transfer of power from Raúl Castro to his successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

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Cuba Prevents Activists From Traveling to Lima Summit

Adonis Milan (left) and Gorki Aguila (right)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 4 April 2018 — Two more activists were victims of restrictive measures that prevented them from leaving Cuba on Wednesday. They are the playwright Adonis Milan and the musician Gorki Águila, both of whom have been invited to attend the Forum of Civil Society and Social Actors that will be held in Lima, Peru, on the 10th and 11th of this month, an event parallel to the 8th Summit of the Americas also being held in Peru.

Milan, a member of Cuba Decides, was not allowed to not board the plane that would have taken him to Argentina. The immigration authorities cancelled his boarding pass and acknowledged that he was “regulated” by Cuban State Security Counterintelligence, he told 14ymedio. continue reading

The playwright, who has recently been expelled from the Hermanos Saíz Association and who suffers the permanent harassment from the political police, was intending to travel to Buenos Aires as a guest of the “cultural exchange of the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL).”

At the conclusion of that meeting, the activist had planned to travel from Argentina to Peru, without going through Havana, to attend this month’s events parallel to the 8th Summit of the Americas, as a guest of CADAL and the Center for Journalism and Technology Networks of Peru.

This morning, musician Gorki Águila, a member and leader of the punk rock band Porno para Ricardo, was also prevented from traveling, in his case to Miami. Once in the American city he also intended to travel to Peru to attend the Summit.

Theindependent civil society activists suspect that it is a strategy of the Government to prevent the arrival of the opponents in Lima.

“The government wants to avoid the meeting up of forces that occurred in Panama [in 2015] and therefore will not let any of the guests traveling to the Lima Summit leave the country,” the musician said, referring to the attacks against independent activists by of members of the official delegation that occurred that year.

In recent days, the vice president of the National Union of Jurists of Cuba, Yamila González Ferrer, said she would not share any space “with mercenary elements and organizations,” in reference to dissidents who have been accused of responding to the interests of “the empire.”

In the last year, State Security has increased the pressure against activists and dissidents, preventing them from traveling abroad. In most cases the refusal of the right to travel is not permanent, but arbitrary and circumstantial, which makes it difficult to report to international organizations. This strategy is in addition to the arrests, confiscations of personal belongings, the raids of homes and the imposition of legal charges.

In January 2013, Migration and Travel Reforms came into effect that eliminated the “exit permit” previously required for travel abroad. In the first ten months after the approval of the new measures, Cubans made more than 250,000 trips abroad, a record number compared with previous years.

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Hiring of Cuban Doctors Creates Controversy in Kenya

Signing of the Healthcare Agreement between Cuba and Kenya last year in Geneva with Minister Roberto Morales Ojeda on the Cuban side. (Minrex)

14ymedio, Mario Pentón, Miami, 4 April 2018 — The decision of the Government of Kenya to accelerate the hiring of 100 Cuban doctors has been badly received by the local Healthcare sector union, in a statement that denounces the situation of some 1,200 unemployed Kenyan doctors.

“This is not fair. [The government needs] to take advantage of these resources to update our medical skills, offer better working conditions, pay better salaries and then adjust the law that guides the provision of services [doctors]. [If this were done] we would not need imported doctors,” read a comment posted on the official Facebook page of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. continue reading

The Union of Physicians, Pharmacists and Dentists of Kenya (KMPDU), which brings together public employees in these sectors, made clear its disagreement with the measure. “Kenya has trained doctors who are now unemployed and have been waiting for their deployment since May 2017,” the organization tweeted, in response to the official announcement about the hiring of Cuban healthcare workers.

Since then, the KMPDU has promoted a campaign to give jobs to Kenyan doctors and posted a survey on Twitter what garnered 2,364 votes, with 78% supporting the solution of recruiting Kenyan doctors before turning to Cubans.

Samuel Oroko, president of the KMPDU, told local media that his country has more than 1,200 unemployed doctors and that there are only 4,300 doctors working in the public health system serving a population of more than 49 million Kenyans. According to statistics from the World Health Organization there is one doctor for every 5,000 inhabitants, considered very inadequate despite being Kenya’s being one of the best-equipped countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Oroko, however, believes that Cuban doctors are not the solution to the crisis in the healthcare system.

“There are no medicines and the laboratories do not work, so if they (Cubans) come, they will not be able to work,” said Oroko, who also asks where the money will come from to pay foreign doctors. According to official data, almost a quarter of Kenya’s healthcare expenses are paid by international organizations and private donors.

“Our advice is, and always has been, that Kenya improve its infrastructure and working conditions. Only then will we be able to attract and retain enough local specialists,” the head of the KMPDU told 14ymedio.

14ymedio was able to verify that the first doctors Cuba plans to send to Kenya are already receiving training in Havana. “The doctors who will provide their collaboration in Kenya are being trained at the Central Medical Cooperation Unit,” said a Cuban official on condition of anonymity. The doctors receive classes in English, local culture and the Kenyan public health system. The Cuban doctors still do not know what their salaries will be.

The first time that the Kenyan Government negotiated with Havana to send a group of doctors, it faced a one-hundred-day strike in its national health sector. Some 5,000 doctors stopped working because the Government failed to follow through on salary increases ranging from 150% to 200%, as it had previously agreed to do.

The strike ended with doctors receiving between 560 and 700 dollars a month in premiums, retroactive to January 2017. Cuban doctors were scheduled to travel to Kenya in October but at the last minute Nairobi suspended the contract due to pressure from the national healthcare sector, which opposed the bringing in of professionals from Cuba.

The monthly salary of a doctor in Kenya is at least a thousand dollars and can reach up to $5,000 in the private sector. In contrast, the average salary of Cuban doctors is about $60 US per month.

The president of Kenya made an official trip to Cuba last March where he was received by President Raúl Castro. The State visit focused on relaunching bilateral relations and negotiating the sending of doctors, sports technicians and biotechnological products.

Raúl Castro and the Kenyan President during his official visit to Cuba in March. (Minrex)

“I think I could summarize [the visit to Cuba] this way: I have seen the future and it works,” Kangumu County Governor Anyang ’Nyong’o, who accompanied the Kenyan president on his trip to the island, told African media.

“They have very good primary health care, they have excellent referral facilities, and I think that for us, who want to implement universal health care coverage, this is the place we should go and learn from,” he added.

The governor explained that the agreement seeks to bring two Cuban specialists to each of the counties of the African nation. The Kenyan Health Minister, Sicily Kariuki, said the agreement would last two years and asked that the discussion about bringing in Cuban doctors “not be politicized.”

14ymedio tried to communicate with Kenya’s Ministry of Health to learn the details of the contract for Cuban doctors (as of now unpublished) but did not get a response from the authorities.

Cuba promised the Kenyans vaccines against cattle ticks and technical support in the training of that nation’s boxing team. The cooperation planned with the Island is a part of the Big Four initiative with which President Kenyatta seeks “food security, affordable housing, industry and healthcare accessible to all.”

Havana bases a large part of its economy on the export of services, mainly health services, which provide the country an annual income of 11.5 billion dollars, according to official data not confirmed by independent means. The Cuban Government keeps more than half of the payment made for each doctor hired by foreign States or institutions.

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Cuban Government Asks for Calm in Face of Rumors About Imminent Monetary Unification

A woman in Havana showing Cuban convertible pesos and Cuban pesos. (Cubanet)

EFE via 14ymedio, Havana, 30 March 2018 — Cuba’s Central Bank, on Thursday, tried to calm the “false” rumors that one of the two currencies circulating in the country will be immediately withdrawn in the process of monetary reunification, which has led to a rush on banks and currency exchanges.

“This event is based on the false information that in the next few days the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) will be removed from circulation as part of the monetary unification process,” said a statement from the Central Bank, read tonight on the government channel’s primetime evening news.

Monetary unification is one of the primary pending reforms in Cuba, where two currencies currently circulate: the Cuban peso (CUP), in which state salaries are paid, and the Cuban convertible peso (CUC), the hard currency, with its value tied one-to-one with the US dollar and equivalent to 24 CUP, according to official exchange rates. continue reading

The persistent rumors about the imminent unification of the two currencies, reflecting the Cuban government’s plan to eliminate the CUC which it began working on in 2013, has caused hundreds of Cubans to go to banks and currency exchanges in recent weeks to get rid of Cuban convertible pesos and exchange them for Cuban pesos (also known as “national money”), dollars or euros.

The official statement insists that “the CUC will continue in circulation until such time as its withdrawal is decided on as a part of the monetary unification process, an event that will be officially announced.”

“The date for the beginning of the process of monetary unification has not been set,” stresses the agency, which also insists on the permanence of the current rate of exchange.

Finally, the Central Bank noted that during the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba there was “once again, the decision to guarantee deposits in bank accounts in foreign currencies, CUC and CUP, as well as the cash held by the population.”

Last December, during his most recent speech before the National Assembly, President Raúl Castro urged that the unification process be completed and described the elimination of the double currency as “the most important process” that needed to happen to advance his reforms.

“No one can calculate the high cost that the persistence of duality has meant for the state sector, which favors the unfair inverted pyramid: where there is greater responsibility, there is lower remuneration,” Castro said in his remarks.

He also warned that the situation promotes the migration of skilled workers to the non-state sector, which pays higher salaries and pays them in CUC.

Although the CUC is officially quoted at a value of 24 CUP, several official exchange rates coexist in the accounts of State enterprises in Cuba, which, according to some analysts, generates strong distortions that make it impossible to caculate the real state of the Centralized Cuban economy.

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"The Sea Does Not Stop Advancing," a Silent Fight on Havana’s Eastern Coast

The resident on the first line of Guanabo beach see how the sea is getting closer to their homes. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 2 April 2018 — The perimeter wall has a concrete reinforcement every two yards. “Even with this we can’t stop the sea,” says Elsa, a retiree who lives 50 yards from the coast, in La Conchita, east of Havana. “Here the fight is hard, either the waves destroy us or [Samuel] Rodiles destroys us,” she laments, referring to the president of the Institute of Physical Planning (IPF).

The town of Guanabo is the scene of a silent war being fought between three sides: the sea, the government and residents. At night, waves splash the windows of the buildings on the beachfront. At dawn a trail of debris represents the structures that failed to resist. continue reading

Every day that a front gate doesn’t end up under water or receive a demolition order is a victory for the residents of this tourist area, who fear both the advance of the tide and the IPF, led by General Samuel Rodiles Planas, a man of the old guard to whom Raúl Castro has entrusted the task of bringing order to the country’s urban and housing chaos.

Since Rodiles took office in 2012, he has waged a tough battle against homes located very close to the sea under the slogan of “restoring legality in the coastal zone.” On the beaches of eastern Havana new constructions, extensions or the remodeling of houses that are less than 200 feet from the edge of the sea are forbidden.

The denunciations and the inspectors have become a nightmare for those who live in that strip of coastline, with white sands, which begins in El Mégano, passing through the more elitist Santa María del Mar, the familiar Boca Ciega or the deteriorated Guanabo, until you reach the farthest Jibacoa.

The restrictions imposed by Rodiles seriously affect those residing in the area who make a living from renting rooms to domestic and international tourists. “They give us loans to buy construction materials, but then they do not give us permission to improve our homes,” explains Jorge Marrero, who holds a “self-employment” license allowing him to rent two rooms.

“What many residents are doing is remodeling in secret, little by little and without much notice, so the inspectors won’t show up,” he says. The landlord maintains that “there is an interest in moving all Cubans who live close to the water, to put those areas under state ownership,” he says.

In some ruins, like this state building, the damages caused by the proximity of the waters, join forces with neglect and vandalism. (14ymedio)

Cuba could lose over a thousand square miles of land and several thousand homes by the year 2050 due to the rise in sea level, which is expected to total over 10 inches by that time, according to statements to the official press by the director of the National Agency of Environment, Tomás Escobar.

This situation “will increase the vulnerability of coastal settlements, reduce forest and crop areas, and the quality and availability of water,” the specialist points out. Among the most affected areas are the north coast areas of the provinces of Matanzas, Havana, Mayabeque and Artemisa.

In Guanabo, east of the capital, Elsa has hired a team of masons who on Tuesday will reinforce the wall that separates her house from the sand, where the sargasso is piling up. “There are days that I’ve woken up with people sleeping in the doorway because they think this is a public part of the beach,” she says.

In 2017 the Council of Ministers approved a State Plan to confront climate change. The Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, Elba Rosa Pérez Montoya, warned that climate change “will aggravate environmental problems, becoming a determining factor in sustainable development.” But the package of official measures also has a dark side.

“They show up and tear down everything that is close to the coastline, it doesn’t matter if it is contained within a property,” Elsa says, complaining about the performance of the IPF. “When I was born the beach was much farther away and it is not our fault that now it’s in the patio,” she reflects. But every year, the waters have continued to enter the settlement at a speed difficult to ignore.

The IPF relocates people to other areas, but the task is complex because it is estimated that in the country there are more than 35,000 people in vulnerable conditions and more than 11,000 homes affected by the rise of the water.

In La Conchita, several residents who live with their doorways right on the beach have been pressured to move “inland,” a vendor of guava cakes in the area, who preferred anonymity, tells this newspaper. “They want to put us in buildings that look like matchboxes, but we were born and grew up with the sea in front of us.”

The areas of the streets closest to the sea are almost entirely covered with sand. (14ymedio)

The home of the small merchant shows serious effects on “the foundations and the walls closest to the water, but nobody in my family wants to move,” he says. “We are going to stay to pressure them and make them offer us something better, also near the sea.”

According to scientific studies, the climate of the island is warmer every year. In the last 17 years the country has suffered nine intense hurricanes and it is estimated that the sea level has risen rapidly. It doesn’t take a scientist to realize: “The water is coming into the living room of the house,” explains Rogelio, owner of a house that he rents tourists in the area of Boca Ciega.

“Years ago we lost the wooden bridge that joined Boca Ciega with Santa María because the sea destroyed it, but no state work brigade has come to repair it,” he complains. Rogelio believes that “the great disinterest in fixing the place is because they want to get us out and make all this the property of the State.” He believes that “they are going to give this to foreign firms to build hotels, as they did in Varadero.”

For many residents in the lower areas of this coast, there is “a coincidence between what the Government wants and what the sea wants: to get us out of here,” says Rogelio, who sees in the official neglect when it comes to repairing infrastructure like streets and sewers, a way to “push people to leave.”

The avenues of Guanabo are full of gaps at the corners, where there once was a sewer system, but the streets that run into the sea have been lost under the sand and the supply of brackish water is unstable.

The options for neighbors who choose to relocate are uncertain. “There are people who had mansions near the sea and now they’re suggesting that they live inland in buildings without many amenities,” says the retiree.

Some prefer to stay and resist. “Nothing can be made with iron because the saltpeter causes it to fail and damage everything around it,” says Geondys, a 28-year-old bricklayer who works on several of the houses in the area. “This, more than masonry is just makeup, because these houses have to be refurbished every month to be maintained.”

Some of the remains of houses or sidewalks have been integrated into the landscape of Guanabo, which the vacationers take advantage of to sunbathe or put their belongings safely above the water. (14ymedio)

Geondys’ specialties are the perimeter walls, the external showers for customers to clean the san off before entering the house and the installation of moderately hermetic windows that stop mosquitoes, saltpeter and the invasion of strangers that in the summer months become more reckless with the houses that are closer to the sea.

“I make a living from this, so what for many is a problem for me is a way to support my family,” says Geondys. “The sea puts food on our table.”

Others, like the owners of the restaurant Le Mare try to take advantage of the waves that get closer and closer. “Customers like to eat on our deck because it’s like they’re on a pier over the sea,” an employee told 14ymedio, from the premises with several tables facing the immense blue. “Hold onto your napkins,” he warns each diner to prevent them being blown away by an onslaught of the sea breeze.

A small fence separates Le Mare from the sand where three catamarans offer trips in the area to those who want to mix a lobster with maritime pastimes, or a beer with some adrenaline on the tide. The boats are private and charge around 5 CUC for a short ride. “The proximity of the water to the houses benefits us, because this way the clients are closer,” says one of the pilots.

The man, who defines himself as “catamaran champion and expert on the Havana coastline,” recalls a time when the terrace of Le Mare was not an arm’s length away. “There was a time when we were out of this, now we live surrounded by water.”

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