14ymedio – Page 462 – Translating Cuba

Ecuador’s Cuban Community is Involved in February 4th Referendum

At least 43,000 Cubans, many of them professionals, live in Ecuador. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 12 January 2018 — The division between correístas (supporters of former president Rafael Correa) and morenistas (supporters of current president Lenin Moreno) that runs through Ecuador, less than a month before the upcoming 7-issue referendum called by President Lenin Moreno is also reflected among Cubans residing in the country.

The polls maintain that the YES side, promoted by the current president who is asking voters to approve all seven measures, will win by a large majority, but among the Cubans consulted by 14ymedio opinions are not very clear.

“Among Cubans who reside here, there is a part of us who consider Moreno a traitor and would like to see the return of President Rafael Correa, but there is also a large group that wants change,” says Rolando Gallardo, one of the organizers of the National Alliance of Cubans in Ecuador, speaking from Quito. continue reading

The referendum called by the current president for Sunday, 4 February, includes five amendments to the constitution and seven proposals overall. Among these is the overturning the measure approved by the National Assembly at Correa’s request in 2015, which eliminated term limits for some offices, including that of president.

Among the other referendum measures are one to restructure the Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control, one of the central powers of the State, and one that would bar from public office and confiscate the assets of those who commit corruption offenses.

Good news at the beginning of they ear: @MashiRafael [Correa] comes to Ecuador this week and stays all month to “burn shoe leather”, to “go back to the grassroots working door to door” to overcome the betrayal and say NO to the cheating and unconstitutional consultation. We shall overcome! – Ricardo Patiño (@RicardoPatinoEC) January 2, 2018 [Tweet from Correa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, now Minister of National Defense]

Gallardo, a graduate in History from the University of Havana, does not hesitate to affirm that Correa “did a lot” for Ecuador, and took advantage of the oil boom to develop the country’s infrastructure. However, he rejects Correa’s authoritarianism and believes that his return to public office would do “a lot of damage to Ecuadorian democracy.”

“Having no term limits is for countries with a high level of political education, and in a nation like Ecuador, where the political views of the masses are emotional and ephemeral, it is a danger,” he says.

Some 13 million voters over the age of 16 are eligible to participate in the referendum, including foreigners with five years of legal residence in the country. At least 43,000 Cubans, many of them professionals, live in Ecuador but it is not known how many have the right to vote. They arrived starting in 2008 when Correa’s Government established the policy of universal citizenship and eliminated the visa requirement for people coming from most countries, including Cuba.

I am going to my homeland on January 4, to be with my colleagues in this fight against treason and partyocracy,’ Ever onward to victory! – Rafael Correa (@MashiRafael) January 2, 2018 [Tweet from Rafael Correa, who has been living in Belgium]

In 2015, Ecuador resumed the practice of requiring visas for Cuban citizens in response to the migration crisis that arose that year in Central America, when thousands of people left the island and headed to the United States by way of Quito, out of fear that the special migratory privileges enjoyed by Cubans under the US wet foot/dry foot policy would soon be terminated.

“Correa was the president who let us into this country and the one who cared most about Cubans. Ecuador was just a banana republic and ungovernable before he became president,” Jesus Curbelo says excitedly. Curbelo is a Cuban who has lived in Ecuador’s most populated city, Guayaquil, for five years.

“In Ecuador there is a lot of xenophobia, especially towards Cubans, because Ecuadorians believe that we have come to take away their jobs,” argues Curbelo, who graduated as a professor of mathematics on the island and who will vote against Lenin Moreno’s proposals.

“The social gains, the education and health programs that were achieved under Correa’s government will not be sustained if his legacy does not continue,” says Curbelo, who is close to the Association of Cuban Residents in Ecuador (ACURE), an organization sponsored by the Cuban Embassy in Quito.

Dr. Adrián Hernández Cruz, a Cuban living in Cuenca, believes that Moreno’s referendum provokes “sympathy among Cubans,” although he, personally, is not happy with the current president’s reforms.

“Lenin has maintained the same restrictions on Cubans as did the Correa government, such as the impossibility of achieving permanent legal status for many of those who came to Ecuador looking for work,” he explains. The doctor also distrusts the work of the Cuban ambassador, whom he accuses of interference in the internal affairs of the Andean country.

“Despite the fact that in the last few months there has been some opening to facilitate the process of legalization of immigrants, in the Cuban case the obstacles are maintained and, particularly in the case of professionals, they increase,” explains the doctor. “All this is just a political manipulation in order to gain popularity,” he says.

Michel Larrondo, another Cuban doctor who emigrated to Ecuador, believes that Correa supporters seek to “perpetuate themselves in power.”

“Even the former president came back from Belgium to campaign for the NO side,” he says. Although he is a supporter of the YES side, he regrets that the Cuban community “is apathetic in its great majority: many do not care about politics, it’s all the same to them whether it’s Correa or Moreno.”

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Two Spanish Women Diagnosed With Zika After Trip To Cuba

The ‘Aedes aegypti’ mosquito, responsible for the transmission of the Dengue and Zika viruses, is not present in Europe, and so far all infections detected there are the result of travel abroad. (James Gathany)

14ymedio (with information from agencies), Zaragoza, 12 January 2018 – Two women from Spain who traveled to Cuba together and suffered numerous insect bites were diagnosed with Zika, according to an announcement on Thursday from the Aragón Government.

Three days after their return from the island, the women, age 36 and 65, went to a clinic with joint pains and widespread itchy rashes, according to the Aragón weekly epidemiological bulletin. Serum and urine tests were positive for Zika but negative for Dengue and Chikungunya.

The women were told to use condoms and to avoid pregnancy for the next 6 months, as well as not to donate blood until 28 days after the symptoms had passed. A Zika epidemic in 2015 focused attention on this virus,which is associated with microcephaly in babies of infected mothers and in some cases with Guillain-Barré syndrome. continue reading

Since the beginning of the outbreak, the Spanish Ministry of Health confirmed 325 cases of Zika infection as of the middle of the previous year. In 2017, 12 cases were detected.

The Zika virus is not endemic to Spain, so the general recommendation for women who want to get pregnant is to avoid trips to areas where it is present. Other groups most vulnerable to the virus are young children and those chronically ill with other diseases, such as HIV.

In Europe there is no evidence of the presence of Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can be a carrier of the virus, but Aedes albopictus, known as the tiger mosquito and capable of transmitting Dengue, is endemic in the Mediterranean area. This mosquito is potentially also a vector of Zika. However, no cases acquired locally have been detected on the continent to date.

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Smiling is Required in Cuba’s Private Businesses

Private businesses require facial expressions that exude happiness or that, at least, avoid grimaces of disgust. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 12 January 2018 — Seeing an angry-faced waitress or an employee who snorts with annoyance while serving customers has been a regular occurrence for decades in state cafes and restaurants. Comics have made these smile-free faces a frequent subject of jokes and customers commonly couldn’t get over their astonishment when they were served with a kind gesture.

With the arrival of the self-employment, the panorama of gestures has changed radically. For the past two decades private businesses have offered their customers facial expressions that exude happiness, or at least that avoid grimaces of disgust. Smiling to the public, being cheerful and solicitous, has become an indispensable requirement to work in these businesses.

The owner of a pizza and hamburger stand in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood has told his employees: “Anyone who does not appear happy will leave.”

Extremes, as always, are dangerous. Now we see cardboard smiles, faces of false joviality and calculated enthusiasm, a delight that often does not fit the context.

However, we must be grateful that the annoyed faces have gone out of style and that the waiters are again those kind servers who smile while they carry trays loaded with dishes. They always smile.

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Cuba to Receive 2.1 Million Barrels of Oil From Algeria to Make Up for Cut in Venezuelan Oil

Sonatrach headquarters in Oran, Algeria. (Wikicommons)

14ymedio, (with information from agencies), Havana, 11 January 2018 — Cuba will receive 2.1 million barrels of oil from the state-owned Algerian company Sonatrach in 2018, the same amount it received last year. Since October 2016, when oil shipments from Venezuela dropped by 40%, this Algerian company has supplied crude oil to the island to make up for the loss.

“In 2017 we delivered a total of 2.1 million barrels of crude oil to Cuba,” Omar Maaliou, Sonatrach’s commercial and marketing VP, told Reuters. “We will do the same this coming year,” he said. continue reading

The good relations between both countries go back years. Raúl Castro visited the Arab country in May 2015, when he met with Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and President Buteflika, and the head of government was in Havana in 2016.

Cuba only produces 40% of the oil it consumes and imports between 200 and 300 million dollars each year in oil products from Algeria. In addition, it maintains an agreement with Venezuela to receive oil supplies, but production in that country has been dropping for more than a decade, both because of its economic situation as well as the drop in fuel prices on the world market.

Although there are no official figures, it is estimated that Cuba receives 55,000 barrels a day from Caracas, far below the 100,000 it received during the presidency of Hugo Chávez.

Havana had depended almost exclusively on Venezuela for its supply of crude oil in the framework of an assistance program that Caracas has had problems maintaining because power cuts, lack of investment and delays in payments have all decreased its oil production.

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Heavy Rains Cause Floods and Building Collapses in Baracoa

The heavy rains of recent days have flooded several regions in Baracoa. (Twitter: labaracoesa)

14ymedio, Havana, 8 January 2018 — Heavy rains and coastal flooding in recent days in Baracoa have caused the collapse of two homes and the isolation of several towns in the province of Guantánamo, as confirmed to 14ymedio by residents of the area.

“As of Thursday it has been raining torrentially and there are strong winds,” Emilio Almaguer, a resident of Baracoa, explained by telephone. The sea has entered the city in the area of the Malecón, “as far as Flor Crombet Street, about two hundred yards from the coast,” he said.

The intense rainfall of recent days also caused the the Macaguanigua, Duaba and Toa rivers to flood, which has isolated the villages of Cayo Güin, Nibujón and Quiviján. The last of these was cut off due to a landslide that buried two houses, although so far there have been no deaths reported. continue reading

Almaguer notes that when it rains this hard in Baracoa “everything is flooded” due to the proximity of numerous rivers. “The city is cut off because the bridge over the Toa River was lost when Hurricane Matthew struck in 2016 and has not yet been restored,” he adds.

Strong winds and waves of up to 3 meters are reported in Gibara. (Photo source: “Anita” – Twitter account: @Guajiritasoy, 8 January 2017. Click photo to access.)

The authorities had restored the river crossing where the bridge was lost by filling the riverbed with earth and stones, to allow cars and pedestrians to cross. But when the rain is heavy it causes the river to flood over the improvised crossing, according to Amaguer.

He fears that the weather situation will continue to worsen because “today it has rained hard all morning,” and even though it eased up a bit midday, “the cloudiness of the sky suggests it will continue to rain later on,” he added.

Magaguanigua river, Miel river and neighborhood of Cabacú, close to Miel. (Twitter: labaracoesa)

The presence of a trough (a low pressure area) and the stationary nature of the current winter season’s fifth cold front over the Paso de los Vientos (Windward Passage) between Cuba and the island of Hispaniola, further complicates the weather patterns in the area.

On Sunday it rained 3.2 inches in Baracoa, according to Raisa Rodríguez Ramírez, one of the specialists of the Forecast Department of the Provincial Meteorological Center, who warned that on Monday the weather conditions would be very similar. In a report from Baracoa it was reported that “the Duaba gravity-fed aqueduct is inoperable” as is the Miel river aquedcut. The note stated that the cause of the suspension in the services was not due to breakages, but “because the waters are cloudy.”

The official press reported that because numerous electric poles have fallen to the ground some customers are without electric service and that at several locations the city “is working on the unblocking of the sewers.”

The people of Baracoa fear that the rains and floods of these days will further damage an area that has not been able to fully recover from the effects on homes in the area as a result of Hurricane Matthew in October 2016, which also damaged facilities related to tourism and productive infrastructure.

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The Everglades: An Endangered Garden on the Doorstep of Miami

Scientists warn that, by the year 2100, the sea level will rise more than six feet, progressively flooding the wetlands of South Florida. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, January 3, 2018 — An immense grasslands with tones of yellow and green extends up to the horizon, and Miami’s skyscrapers can be glimpsed in the distance, like blue boulders. Far from the metropolis, where more than six million people live, one of the largest and most famous wetlands of the planet crosses to the west and south: the Everglades, an immense subtropical garden that is endangered by climate change and contamination.

On board a hovercraft, thousands of toursists every day cross only a small part of the subtropical national park, which is the largest in the U.S. With its nearly 1,500 square miles, the National Park of the Everglades is approximately the same size as the province of Guantánamo, or double the size of the state of New Jersey, on the northeast coast of the U.S.

It’s calculated that more than a million people visit these wetlands every year, and they are counted by the tens of thousands as they pass through the entrances. continue reading

“The main dangers we face are the increase in sea level and environmental contamination,” explains a tourist guide, who drives the airboat, which is a peculiar flat-bottom craft that uses an airplane propeller to avoid harming animals and the ecosystem.

Scientists warn that, by the year 2100, the sea level will rise more than six feet, progressively flooding the wetlands of South Florida. A report on Univision that quotes several experts from Florida International University indicates that the Everglades is being reduced to half its former size and receiving only one-third of the fresh water it used to receive.

Declared an International Biosphere in 1976, a World Heritage Site in 1979 and a Wetland of International Importance in 1987, the Everglades is the only place in the world where crocodiles, which can reach some five meters in length and weigh 1,100 pounds, live alongside alligators and caimans. In addition, hundreds of endemic animals like manatees, deer and pumas can be found, including invasive species such as pythons, which can reach almost 20 feet in length.

The heart of the South Florida wetlands is Lake Okeechobee. Rains from the wet season make it overflow, and the waters flow south, progressively flooding large areas of terrain.

“In the first half of the twentieth century, over 1,400 miles of canals were constructed with the aim of containing the flooding from Lake Okeechobee, and, thanks to this, cities like Miami were able to grow,” explains the guide. Beginning then, there was the desiccation of large quantities of land for urbanization and cattle ranches, as well as the construction of highways, affected the wetlands.

“The construction in 1928 of the Tamiami Trail highway caused a cut-off in the flow of water coming from the lake. There are plans to spend more than 10.5 billion dollars to raise part of the highway in order to restore that flow and to intervene for preserving the wetlands, but they are advancing slowly,” he explains.

Along the Tamiami Trail, a long road that links Miami with the west coast of the peninsula, work is underway on the constrction of bridges to permit the passage of water toward the south. It’s a project that, among other things, seeks to ensure the water sources for the city.

“If you drink a cup of tea in Miami, you’re consuming the same water that we have in the Everglades,” jokes the guide. Although his statement is an exaggeration, the flow of water in the South Florida wetlands is vital for sustaining the Bicayne aquifer, which supplies the water used in the largest city of Florida.

Owing to the porous nature of the rocks under the marsh, penetration of the sea or the contamination of particular areas has repercussions for the whole ecosystem.

The tourists protect their ears from the deafening noise of the airboat propeller by using earplugs. When the motor is turned off, there is a sepulchral silence. In the middle of the wetlands, you hear only the sound of the crickets or the buzzing of the innumerable insects that inhabit the area.

“Also living here are the American Indian Miccosukees, a tribe originally from Georgia that, with the passage of time, was displaced toward the wetlands and resisted any attempt to assimilate them for more than 100 years,” explains the guide.

The Micosukees or Mikazuki, as they also are known, were recognized throughout Cuba as a sovereign country inside the U.S., from the time a delegation of the tribe visited the island in 1959. Fidel Castro personally received the delegation and acknowledged their indigenous passport, which was later validated by other nations.

In 1962, the U.S. Government approved the tribe’s constitution, and recognized them officially as an automonous indigenous tribe to which important fiscal benefits were conceded. Today, the Miccosukees are considered one of the most prosperous indigenous groups in the U.S., with their empire of casinos, restaurants and hotels.

“The wetlands of the Everglades are a treasure for everyone, which we must protect,” said the guide upon ending the excursion near the Tamiami Trail, and he said that he dreams of making visitors aware of the importance of protecting this environment, on which his family and a good part of South Florida depend.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Departure Of Raúl Castro, The End Of An Era

The vice president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, listens to Raúl Castro (Havana, May 1, 2016). GETTY

14ymedio, Generation Y, (Politicaexterior.com), Yoani Sanchez, 9 January 2017 — “Six decades are a lifetime,” says Facundo, a Cuban retiree who sells the official press in Old Havana to supplement his low pension. Born shortly before Fidel Castro came to power, the man is suspicious of the appointment of a new president next April. “That’s going to be like learning to walk,” he says, while hawking the pro-government daily Granma.

Like Facundo, a good part of the Cubans residing on the island today were born under Castroism or barely remember the country before January 1959. Raúl Castro’s departure from the government [first announced for February 2018 and then postponed until April] for them has the connotations of the end of an era, regardless of the rupture or continuity shown by the successors installed in the national command room. continue reading

A few weeks before the presidential transfer becomes effective, indifference gains ground among the inhabitants of a nation that has the longest serving family dynasty in power in all of Latin America. A moment that should be a source of expectation and speculation is diluted by apathy and the island’s complicated economic situation.

Unlike other countries on the continent that have experienced regional or general elections in recent years, the Cuban electoral process does include polling to measure the electorate’s inclinations or to motivate media debates. The sensation is one of “follow the leader” with everyone working together to preserve control in the hands of one group.

The boredom also comes from the fact that the current electoral law prohibits political campaigns, nor are candidates allowed to present their programs, which might excite some or scandalizes others. Without this essential component, the process is one more of confirmation than selection; more of a tacit appointment than of a competition.

Only in April, when the new Council of State becomes public, will it be known who has been chosen for the highest office in the country. So far, the outcome is only a matter of speculation, that moves according to official attention focused on one person or another, as functionaries move in and out of the spotlight. Thus, political divination is a very inaccurate art in these parts.

On top of that, the candidates to sit in the presidential chair will enjoy their status as aspirants for an extremely short time, perhaps hours or minutes between the time the National Candidacy Commission reveals their names to the new Parliament that body’s vote to approve a candidate. The trajectory to the presidency could be no longer than a sigh.

This has been the case since the first National Assembly of People’s Power was constituted in 1976, when Fidel Castro proclaimed that the “provisional period of the Revolutionary Government” ceased and the socialist State adopted “definitive institutional forms.” In 1992, the new electoral law modified some details, but maintained the single-party essence of the system along with its armor against any kinds of surprises.

The end of a family dynasty

However, the novelty of the current elections does not lie in what may happen outside the script, but in the fact that for the first time the person occupying the presidential chair is very likely not to have the surname Castro. The possibilities that the office holder will belong to “the historical generation of the Revolution,” formed by a small group of octogenarians, are also minimal.

Along with the new president, figures that will replace the hard core of gerontocracy will come to sit on the Council of State. A cabal where the excess of years has been justified by the argument of accumulated experience, when in reality the permanence of these veterans is based on their proven loyalty to Fidel Castro, and now to his brother Raúl.

Biology, in its pragmatic task, seems to have imposed new rules and the time has come for the relief team, but there are no signs that the renewal of faces implies a political transition. In fact, anyone who has been projected as a reformer will not appear in the fleeting list of candidates that, in a predictably unanimous manner, will be approved by Parliament in April.

As was noted before focusing the cameras of the last century “anyone who moves does not appear in the photo”; anyone who has shown traits of thinking with his own head or wanting to mark his mandate with a new imprint will be out of the picture. This is what happened in 2009 with then Vice President Carlos Lage and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Felipe Pérez Roque, who had been seen as possible heirs but instead were unceremoniously ousted.

If this is the case, it is worth repeating Galileo Galilei’s mythical “and yet it moves.” After six decades of the country being governed by a regime that is not only totalitarian but also family based, those who assume leadership roles will have to do it in a collegiate way, in the absence of a figure that combines historical ancestry, command capacity and the consensus of the leadership to rule without supervision.

During the almost 50 years that Fidel Castro held power on the island, he did it based on his own will and caprice. At that time councils of ministers hardly existed and the country was governed from the door of a Soviet jeep from which the maximum leader appeared to impart his “clear guidelines.” His omnipotent power led him to decide everything from the fabric and cut of school uniforms to the way housewives cooked beans.

When he participated in the sessions of the Parliament, the only one who spoke was him and he did it relentlessly for hours, wasting in the practice the participation of the more than 600 deputies. He hoarded all the portfolios, imposed his desire in each sector and emptied the institutions of any possibility of decision making. Fidel Castro led the country with the tip of his index finger, without anyone else influencing the national course.

There are many testimonies that narrate the occasions in which he met with his immediate subordinates, where the curses and the threats would rain down if his designs were not fulfilled. His pounding the table buried every possible disagreement and assent or applause were the only possible answers. “Yes, Fidel.” “Of course, Chief.” “At your orders, Commander.”

When Fidel Castro fell ill and was forced to withdraw from public life, in July 2006, Raúl introduced the habit of consultation. During the 10 years that he has governed he held more meetings of the councils of ministers and summoned a greater number of plenary sessions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) than all of those held for the previous nearly half a century.

That proclivity to teamwork does not make the younger Castro a democrat, but at least he gave the impression that, although he did not renounce imposing his will, he was in the position to or in need of sharing decisions. His calls to make “incremental” and “gradual” changes to improve the country’s economy earned him a reputation contrary to that of his brother. The former was like an unreflecting hurricane, the latter a lackluster drizzle that was neither wet nor cool.

However, it fell to the younger Castro to lead the diplomatic thaw with the United States. The milestone of his mandate and the one for which he will go down in history was not — ironically — the long-awaited democratic transition on the island, but rather to have settled the problem with the great neighbor of the North. A conquest that dissolved in the last months with the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House and the outbreak of the scandal of the acoustic attacks supposedly suffered by US diplomats in Havana.

To make matters worse, the great Venezuelan ally has also clouded the final days of the Cuban president. The plummeting of oil imports to the island, along with the growing loss of prestige of the so-called “Bolivarian revolution” and the departure of several political allies in the region have made the scenario of the “farewell” very different from the one that was planned.

In the midst of this adverse context, the entire weight of Cuba’s future lies in the decision that will be taken when the moment comes to transfer power. Although the ruling party tries to show that it has everything “well under control,” a system so based on the will of a family clan has serious problems with new faces. A dynastic regime is not inherited by or delegated to others, it only survives if it remains anchored to a family tree.

Hence, speculation about the possible rise of Alejandro Castro Espín, son of the current president and a dark figure responsible for the police control of the country and the management of the feared State Security. Despite this possibility, his father is trapped in wanting to present an image of institutionality before genetics. He knows that a relief based on blood would protect him, but that also it would end up burying any narrative of the revolution in favor of emphasizing the character of a family dynasty.

Beyond the individual who will assume the highest office in the country, the person will be obliged to agree with others and to govern under the inquisitive gaze of third parties. He will have no choice but to argue to reach consensus, in a scenario where no one will have the right to pound the table with his fists or to throw a threatening look when asking if anyone disagrees with his opinion.

A future for Miguel Díaz-Canel?

The great unknown remains the name of the man – or woman – who will be graced with the position, although all bets point to Miguel Diaz-Canel, currently Cuba’s first vice-president. Born in 1960, the possible heir is a faithful product of the laboratory of political cadres, someone suckled on the udder of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and attached to the official script, with not a single mis-delivered line.

The Cuban dauphin can be considered a gray man, without charisma or a will of his own, someone who projects the image of continuity. He has come to where he is thanks to that projection and is unlikely to expose himself as a Mikhail Gorbachev or as a Lenin Moreno, once he reaches the presidential chair. Instead, his rise is surrounded by questions and suspicions that rain down on him from the opposition.

A sector of the outlawed dissidence maintains that “until what has to change has changed, nothing has changed” and that the transfer of power will be a theatrical representation to show the world, although nothing will move even a millimeter with regards political repression and the lack of freedoms.

This point of view is based on the fact that Raúl Castro will continue to be the first secretary of the PCC, which, according to the Constitution, “is the leading force of society and of the State.” Although biology suggests that it is unlikely that he will remain in that position until the eighth congress is held, in 2021, when he would be about to turn 90.

So, in order to continue the tradition of the socialist countries of concentrating in one person the highest governmental and partisan positions, it is more than foreseeable that before the end of his term at the head of the political organization he would convoke an extraordinary congress to unify the controls.

It may also happen that, for the first time in decades, the person appointed to head the PCC could be different from the person who holds the presidency. A bifurcation that weakens the system and will generate more than one collision of authority.

Between the slight optimism of a few, the distrust of the opposition and the indifference of most of the population, we just have to wait and see what is decided in April. Whether the date becomes a watershed or a new chapter of “more of the same.”

What is not discussed is how difficult it will be for the relief team to complete the pending tasks left by the current government. Perhaps the greatest difficulty is that of undertaking the essential reforms in the economy, while fulfilling the promises of continuity that, as a mandatory reverence, they will have to make when assuming their positions.

More complex will be to introduce political changes. Maybe they should wait for probable new elections in which, if everything works out, they will have to compete with the platforms of other candidates, of those possible presidents who remain hidden in the Cuban reality, waiting for a future legal framework that will allow them to emerge, waving their own government programs.

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Cubans in Search of Visas Overflow Columbian Consulates in Miami and Havana

View of the waiting room of the Colombian consulate in Miami. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 8 January 2018 — The Colombian consulates in Havana and Miami have been overwhelmed in recent weeks by the number of Cubans who hope for a visa to travel to Colombia due to the transfer of immigration procedures from the US consulate in Havana to its counterpart in Bogota

“Every day we are serving a number of people much higher than normal. They usually arrive without an appointment and ask to be seen in a very short period of time. We are facing a difficult situation,” an official of the Colombian consulate told 14ymedio.

To travel to Colombia, Cubans residing in South Florida (who do not have US citizenship) need to appear at the Colombian Consulate in Miami-Dade County and request an appointment to present documents such as a photocopy of the main page of their passport and another of current extensions, a photocopy of their permanent residence permit for the United States (green card) and their airline ticket to enter and leave Colombia. The consular authorities also request their hotel reservation in Colombia and their last six months’ bank statements, including the requirement to have a minimum balance of 700 dollars. continue reading

The charge for the “visa study” is $52, and if it is approved there is another $82 charge.

José Miguel Ramos shows a page with the requirements to obtain the Colombian visa. (14ymedio)

“We do not understand why so many Cubans want to travel to Colombia if their relatives on the island are the ones who must do it to complete their procedures at the US embassy,” said a diplomatic source who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.

José Miguel Ramos, one Cuban among the dozens who pass through the consular office on a daily basis, explained to this newspaper that although he lives in Miami, he is trying to travel to Bogotá to help his wife and their five-year-old son in the procedures that the interview requires.

“My family has never left Cuba. I need to travel to reconnect with them and accompany them throughout this process. In Colombia they will have to undergo medical examinations and several procedures for which they will surely need help,” he says.

For Ramos, originally from Pinar del Río, the attention and organization in the Colombian consulate has been “excellent,” an opinion that others of his compatriots do not share.

“Last week several people spent the whole day waiting to be served and they were not,” says Maria, a 54-year-old woman who waited for more than three hours at the consulate.

“It is abusive that we have to pay for visas to Colombia when we reside in the United States. We are not to blame for the Americans moving the officials [from the US embassy in Havana to the US embassy in Bogota] or for the Government of Cuba getting into that problem with the acoustic attacks,” complained the woman. She also said was on the verge of losing her job after being absent for several days.

“My child has the interview at the US embassy in Colombia on January 23 and at the Miami consulate they wanted to give me an appointment for the end of the month. There is a lot of lack of coordination,” she adds.

Consulate officials assured this newspaper that Colombia has “nothing to do” with the transfer of the activities of the US embassy in Havana. “We are not to blame for this happening. We are trying to help the greatest number of people but always on the basis of respect and communication,” they explained.

View of the Colombian consulate in Coral Gables, Miami-Dade County Forida. (14ymedio)

“The Colombian consulate in Miami has no obligation to grant a visa to Cubans who want to reunite with their family in Bogota. To obtain the visa there is a process with requirements that must be respected,” said the consular authorities.

At the end of September 2016, the United States withdrew more than half the staff of its embassy in Cuba and canceled the issuance of visas there indefinitely, in response to the alleged “acoustic attacks” against its diplomats. Subsequently, the State Department announced that it would process immigrant visas for Cubans at its embassy in Bogota, while those of nonimmigrants could be requested at any US consulate. The Family Reunification Program for Cubans has been suspended for months.

The avalanche of Cubans requesting visas to Colombia is also happening at Colombia’s consulate in Havana. Last week hundreds of people who had consular interviews scheduled between September and December were being summoned for interviews in Bogota.

“It is very difficult to get them to coordinate the appointments between the US Embassy and the Colombian Embassy. I do not have a visa for Colombia yet and I have to travel at the end of the month,” explains Félix González, a Cuban living in Havana.

The conditions for requesting the travel document in the Cuban capital are “extremely difficult,” González explains by telephone to this newspaper.

“They ask us to upload all the documents to the website of Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and doing that from here takes a lot of work,” he laments.

Cuban residents on the island must also prove that they have had at least $2,000 in a bank account for the last six months as proof of solvency, in order for the visa to be issued.

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Living in Cuba Without a Ration Book

A butcher shop for the ration market in Havana’s Plaza municipality, Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 9 January 2018 — “Did you buy the bread?” The shout comes from a balcony and is directed at a woman walking along a street in Havana.

“The bread,” “the rice” or “the coffee,” with the article in front, always refers to the products that are sold through the ration book, an institution that will turn 56 in 2018.

A few decades ago, the rationed market served all Cubans, but with the growing social differences that have emerged on the island, this scenario is changing. At least two social groups buy little or nothing through the little booklet with its listing of subsidized prices, groups that are on the opposite ends of the economic spectrum: the new rich and the ‘illegals’. continue reading

Last December, officialdom finally put number to the Cubans who live in “illegal” situations on the Island: 107,200, of which 52,800 have been doing so for more than two decades, according to comments from Samuel Rodiles Planas, the president of Physical Planning, speaking to the Cuban Parliament.

These illegals are people who reside in a dwelling different from the registered address that appears on their identity card; as a result, many have difficulties in qualifying for their quotas in the rationed market, especially when they are far from their province of origin, because each nuclear family is assigned to one and only one bodega.

Roberto Macías has been “illegal” in Havana for seven years. He arrived from the distant city of Guantánamo, the province that loses the greatest numberof inhabitants every year due to internal migration: 9.1 per 1,000 people. Since then he has lived “without a ration booklet,” although his mother, back in Guantánamo, collects sugar and rice from the rationed quota to send him every three months.

The majority of Cuban migrants within the island choose the capital as their destination – where an average of 15,000 new residents arrive each year – followed by Matanzas, Artemisa and Mayabeque, according to data from the 2015 Cuban Population Yearbook and published by the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI).

Not only must these internal migrants say goodbye to their homes and family members in search of opportunities, but many of them have to give up the products from the rationed market. “I have not managed to have an address in Havana that is not provisional, and without that I can’t transfer my ration book here,” laments Macias.

The Guantanameran was born in 1963, just one year after the creation of the Ration Book as a system of subsidies and food rationing intended to guarantee a basket of affordable basic products for all Cubans. It was almost an emergency measure, like the one that was taken in some European countries after the Second World War, but in the Cuban case it may soon become a system that has lasted for six decades.

At that time, the imposition of a rationed market was justified based on the “imperialist” threat of the United States and its trade embargo. However, economist and professor Carmelo Mesa-Lago, in his studies, also attributes it to the collectivization of the means of production and the freezing of the prices of consumer goods carried out by Fidel Castro’s government.

Macías has visited the Consumers Registry Office (OFICODA) in Havana’s Cerro neighborhood where he currently resides, but the answer is always the same: “If you do not have the address on your identity card we can not sign you up for the ration book,” they respond.

Although over the years the variety and quantity of products offered through rationing has been significantly decreasing, the State still spends more than one billion pesos a year in subsidies for these foods which are barely enough for a third of the month; in a country that imports about 80% of the food consumed, the cost figure is not negligible.

Each nuclear family is assigned to a specific bodega, which is why one’s registered residence is fundamental. (14ymedio)

With meager portions of rice, chicken, sugar, milk, oil, eggs, beans and the daily quota of bread provided on the ration book, it is difficult to survive, but many families use it as a basic support to which they add the products they must buy at high prices in hard currency stores, agricultural markets or through informal trading networks.

Macias, however, does not have even that base. “It’s very hard because every day I have to invent what my family is going to eat and when I can’t find a peso I’m totally at sea,” he says.

This week, he has to go and look for “the box” with the quarterly shipment that arrives for him by rail from Guantanamo with the quota of grains and rice that were allocated to him for October, November and December. His mother has warned him that on this occasion “she had to take a little for herself during the end of the year,” he says.

A few yards away from the place where the Guantanameran resides in Havana lives another family that does not buy the products on the ration book, but for a very different reason. The husband is a musician with a salsa orchestra, the wife is a nationalized Spanish citizen, and the couple has an economic affluence that allows them to dispense with subsidized food.

“Years ago I handed over to an aunt of mine the right to buy my shares on the ration book because she needs it much more,” says Katia Lucia, 48. Among the reasons she gives is that she doesn’t want to “keep standing in line to buy at the bodega” and “the quality has fallen a lot,” so she “spends a little more on food but eats better.”

La cubañola travels frequently to Cancun to stock up on products. “The ticket is cheap and I bring everything from concentrated tomato puree to small soup cubes, as well as cheese, butter and toilet paper.” With three trips a year, plus what her husband earns as a musician, she says they can “resolve” their needs “without appealing to the ration book.”

But the family of Katia Lucia and her husband continue to qualify for the same products every month as do the most destitute. A contradiction that Raul Castro himself lamented in 2010 when he said that “several of the problems we face today have their origin in this measure of distribution that (…) constitutes a manifest expression of egalitarianism that benefits equally those who work and those who do not.”

“What they give you, take it,” laughs Katia Lucia recalling a very popular phrase that reflects like no other the cronyism that rationed distribution has generated. “I’m not going to leave those foods in the bodega. What for? To be picked up by someone else?” she explains to 14ymedio. “I prefer to give it to my aunt or give it to the dogs, but if it ‘belongs’ to me I will not leave it behind.”

During the public debates on the Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy, in 2010 and 2011, the possible elimination of the ration book was the topic that provoked the most comments and fears.

Maintaining it is like dragging a weight that the stagnant economy can barely sustain due to the heavy subsidies involved in selling food at very low prices. Some experts suggest limiting access to the ration book to the people most in need so that everyone can have a greater amount of food.

The economist Pedro Monreal believes this is the way to go and he proposes in his blog “a shrewder budgetary redistribution.” For example, if the number of beneficiary households is reduced to 3 million instead of the current 3,853,000, the subsidy for each family increases by 28.5%. With 2.5 million households, the subsidy for each one grows by 54%, and with 2 million, the increase is 92.6%.

There remains a question in the air, which Monreal has not yet addressed in his blog: what will be the criteria to reduce the number of beneficiaries “without setting off an extended social unrest”?

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More Than 100,000 People Are ‘Illegal’ in Cuba

A woman looks out the window of an apartment in Havana. (El Nuevo Herald)

14ymedio, Miami, 21 December 2017 — The authorities have put a number on Cubans living in an “illegal” situation in their own country: there are 107,200, of whom 52,800 have been in this situation for more than 20 years. This was reported Thursday by the president of Physical Planning, Samuel Rodiles Planas, during the plenary session of the Parliament meeting this week in Havana.

The Cuban government considers people who reside somewhere other than at the address where they are registered in the Identity Card Office to be “illegal.” In cities such as Havana, completing an address transfer is a complex process that requires approval from the Municipal Administration Council, so many migrants from the elsewhere in the country reside in the capital city clandestinely. continue reading

Rodiles Planas also said that 127,000 urban illegalities were reported in 2017, of which the Cuban capital accounts for more than 40,000. Other cities with a high ‘crime’ rate in this regard are Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Artemisa and Matanzas, with more than 10,000 each.

Rodiles Planas, who is a Division General in the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), also attributed the problem to the “lack of demand, control and monitoring by the municipal governments’ confrontation group.” In addition, he highlighted the deficit of means of transport in the municipal physical planning headquarters.

Most of the urban illegalities are concentrated in the field of construction, according to the official press, which mentions new works and violations of licenses and projects as some of the main violations committed.

Cuba needs at least one million new homes, as recognized by the authorities. Construction plans have fallen dramatically since the 1980s and the deterioration of the existing building stock is plain to see.

During 2017, the State planned the construction of only 9,700 homes. Added to this is the damage caused by natural disasters such as Hurricane Irma, which destroyed 158,554 dwelling units, according to preliminary data.

In some provinces like Havana, the housing deficit has caused many people to settle in marginal neighborhoods popularly known as ‘llega y pon’ – literally ‘arrive and put (down)’ – that is, squatter settlements. The authorities raise all kinds of obstacles to internal migration, especially from the eastern part of the country, but fail to prevent it.

It is estimated that in Havana, with some 2.1 million inhabitants, there is a deficit of 206,000 homes, while in Santiago de Cuba, where half a million people live, 103,000 homes need to be built.

This week Raul Castro acknowledged the problem of housing and asked the plenary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party to give a “greater boost” to the housing situation in the country.

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Cuba’s 2018 Sugar Harvest At Risk Due to a Shortage of Cane in the Fields

Operators of the Case combines made in Brazil have been directed to cut the raw sugar cane two centimeters below the surface. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 9 January 2018 — The ravages of Hurricane Irma on Cuban agriculture have left a serious impact on the sugar sector that will influence the results of the upcoming harvest. With some 835,000 acres of cane fallen and broken, in addition to another 227,000 flooded, 45% of the sown cane was affected, according to official sources.

The lack of raw material has forced the directors of the state-owned Azcuba Azucarero Group to demand that “not a piece of cane can be lost in the fields,” and to guide the mechanized cutting as close to the ground as possible.

“The objective is to make the most of the cane we have today,” Azcuba’s director of Institutional Communication, Liobel Pérez, told the local press. The entity has not published a forecast for the tons that it expects to produce in this harvest, although the executive admitted that “it is very obvious that the plans will not be achieved.” continue reading

Pérez explained that he has directed the operators of the Case brand cane cutting machines, manufactured in Brazil, to cut the cane two centimeters below the surface. The Brazilian combines are used in 60% of the cuts on the Island and have an efficiency superior to the machines assembled in Cuba.

KTP combines, manufactured domestically, harvest 38% of the cane and the macheteros, who cut manually, account for the 2% remaining on the sugar plantations. In both cases, the Azcuba directs that the cane be cut “at ground level” for a higher yield.

When the cane is cut very low, the lower internodes which are very rich in sugar are harvested and that increases the production and the final yield. During the 1970 harvest, when Fidel Castro’s government failed to reach its declared ten million ton goal, one of the slogans was, to cut “Low and in one stroke.”

Perez pointed out that cutting below the ground with the Case combines does not harm the life of the plant in the cane fields, but only “if they have been planted correctly.” In the current sugar harvest, which began last November, a total of 53 sugar mills will participate, of which 30 are up and running with the rest expected to be incorporated throughout this month.

The ravages of the hurricane are not the only obstacles on the way to the harvest that has just begun. In recent years many sugar mills have been dismantled and of the 156 which the country had until the 1980s, now only 61 remain.

The area of fields planted with cane has also been drastically reduced from five million acres to about 1.8 million today. This fall in numbers has meant that the sugar trade now accounts for only 5% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

The sugar industry bottomed out during the 2009-2010 harvest when only 1.1 million tons of the product were produced, the lowest figure in 105 years. Since then the Government has proposed to relaunch the industry and take advantage of the rise in prices in the international market. However, in the last harvest only 85% of the plan was met and the official media had to lower the number of tons harvested, which analysts placed at 1.8 million gross tons of sugar.

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The Man of the Year and the Usual Vice

To avoid the sentence of 19 years in prison, Marcelo Odebrecht has betrayed his accomplices in his capacity as an “effective collaborator of justice.” (EFE)

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 31 December 2017 — Marcelo Odebrecht is the man of the year in Latin America. This Brazilian engineer born in 1968, grandson of the founder of a huge business conglomerate, is the prince of the planet’s bribe-mongers. To avoid a sentence of 19 years in prison, something he accomplished just a few days ago, he has betrayed his accomplices in his capacity as an “effective collaborator of justice,” destabilizing many of our countries, showing (much to their dismay) the miseries and cynicism of many politicians and officials.

The Odebrecht Organization was a huge civil engineering company, with almost 200,000 workers and a turnover of more than 40 billion dollars, of which it has already lost a third. It operated in a score of countries, some of them with a GDP lower than the company’s income, but the bulk of its operations and its bribes were carried out in Brazil.

It distributed a total of about one billion dollars. In absolute terms, the most corrupt country outside Brazil was Venezuela (98 million), something totally predictable, because its government is a kind of vile toilet, but the Latin American nations that received the most per capita in bribes were Panama (59 million) and the Dominican Republic (92 million). continue reading

The modus operandi was simple. The Odebrecht men detected a candidate with possibilities and began to negotiate. Brazil had large advertising and magnificent campaign cabinets. That great expertise was placed at the service of the person chosen together with important amounts to cover the cost of the operation.

All that the candidate had to do, once elected at the polls, was to approve the large budgets and entrust Odebrecht with the execution of the planned public works. The enormous amount was paid for by the taxes paid by the people or by loans that would have to be faced someday.

The Odebrecht Brazilians, on the other hand, did a good job on the roads, tunnels or whatever, and took care to pay seriously what was agreed to in Switzerland, in Andorra or in some other tax haven, carefully organizing the logistics of corruption. They kept their word. Theirs was not to deceive politicians or to rob the thieves, but to provide them with the famous secret slogan of “steal, but produce,” while increasing the turnover year after year.

You could trust the words of mobsters endowed with silk ties and five thousand dollar suits. They lacked ideological color. Without the slightest scruple they agreed with Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro or the Ecuadorian Jorge Glas, Rafael Correa’s vice president — apostles of 21st Century Socialism — natural enemies of the private market economy, of which the Odebrecht company was the quintessence.

The problem, of course, is not Odebrecht, but the mentality that prevails in Latin America. On a more modest scale, it is like this, through bribes, small or large, that most of our governments have worked since time immemorial, with a terrible aggravation: our societies do not care. Corruption appears at the end of the list of the evils that should be eradicated in most surveys. In Mexico they have come to affirm, seriously, that “corruption is just another way of distributing income.”

Why does this lack of principles happen in our world? Maybe, because most of the Ibero-Americans — including the Brazilians — do not perceive clearly that public money is contributed by all of us and corruption is as if they had put their hands in our pockets and stolen our wallets. What happens with the State does not concern us.

Perhaps, because the cynicism is total and we take for granted that the government is going to steal and it does not worry us, as long as it is “our own” that is enriched with the resources of others. We are victims of a clear moral anomie.

Undoubtedly, because patronage, that small bribe granted by the government, is a form of corruption, a type of harmful behavior, in which millions of Latin Americans are trained.

That is why it is not surprising that, despite Lava Jato (Wash the Calf), as the judicial operation against corruption was called in Brazil, once again they chose Lula da Silva, who today heads the polls despite his dirty business. Years ago the Peronists in neighboring Argentina said in a graffiti that time has not erased and that reveals the drama at the heart of it: “Sodomite or thief we want Perón.”

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Political Correctness and Moral Relativity

Sign: “Death to the Invader.” It is not politically correct to brag about wanting to achieve political power through violence.

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 8 January 2018 — In this century it is impossible to fit into the mold of the politically correct if one exhibits racist, homophobic, sexist or xenophobic attitudes, or when one boasts of wanting to achieve political power through violence. These criteria have been extended in recent years to a large number of states, institutions, the media, academic circles and citizens of the planet.

Thanks to this awareness, terrorism-like phenomena as a political weapon, the ablation of the clitoris, violence as a liberating resource and religious intolerance have all lost the prestige granted them by that moral relativism that justified them for centuries in the name of “cultural reasons” or ” sacred traditions” or “sovereignty of nations” or “historical circumstances.”

However, there is a serious danger in trying to translate these modern parameters into the past. When history is revised in a schematic way based on the rules of the present, very little can be saved from those years and few figures of the national “pantheon” would remain standing. continue reading

Under this prism, José Martí ends up being labeled as macho, he is disqualified due to violence and for the idea that “rights are not begged for, but conquered at the edge of a machete,” as is Antonio Maceo, for the intolerance represented by the phrase “you keep that document, we do not want to know about it,” which he said to the Spanish general Arsenio Martínez Campos in the Baraguá Protest.

In a review of the lyrics of the songs of the traditional trova there are “pearls” of impropriety such as the mockery of people with physical disabilities: “Simon, you can’t dance the cha cha chá because you have gimpy legs”; while racism makes itself at home on issues such as “They call me the little black guy from the batey because for me work is an enemy.”

The songs people fell in love with almost a century ago also encouraged and praised, many times, the excessive consumption of alcohol as a symbol of masculine gallantry: “Yesterday’s drunken bender is already over, this is another drunken bender I’m on today.” A proselytizing of drink and the local bar that, fortunately, today is frowned upon.

An excavation with the new moral tools could reach as far as the plastic arts and censorship of The Rape of the Mulatas, by the painter Carlos Enríquez, for having drawn on the face of women that slight smile that makes them seem to be provoking their kidnappings and making them the sweet accomplices of their captors. If this criterion is followed, most of the halls of the National Museum of Fine Arts should be closed immediately.

In the case of language, the same thing happens. The promulgators of strict inclusivity don’t care much for jokes. Like a young tourist guide from Havana who, thinking he was being nice, decided to assure a group of retired Germans that he considered himself a feminist because he only liked women. They nearly hit him before he could rectify it by saying it had been “just a joke.”

In the official media, orthodoxy regarding how to refer to Fidel Castro has fluctuated. For years the announcers were obliged to mention each of the hierarchies of his innumerable positions: “Maximum Leader of the Revolution, Commander in Chief, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, President of the Councils of State and of Ministers”…

Today, however, he is reduced to the epithets of “historical leader” or “eternal commander in chief,” but barely a millimeter separates him from those designations while calling him by name and surname can still lead to mistrust.

The desire to be more correct than others is usually nuanced by the ideological prism and does not escape the distortion that introduces moral relativism, which indistinctly leads to considering insults or adulation appropriate, as the case may be.

Hence, in certain environments of the political opposition, the same thing occurs. For many activists it is not “politically correct” to use the expression “the government” to refer to the authorities. If you do not say “the dictatorship” or better “the bloody tyranny of the Castro brothers” you can end up on the list of accomplices.

The vocabulary becomes more demanding when speaking directly of a public figure. According to the most strict dissident allowed terms, one cannot call the elder Castro brother “ex-president” when he only deserves to be mentioned as “the dictator” and the allusion to his younger brother must always be accompanied by the clarification of “heir of the dynasty,” as if it were not enough to hang on him the ironic stigma of “General President.”

When it comes to policing the militancy of language, there will always be a reductionist formula to appeal to that ends in a speech full of slogans. There are those who speak in blocks, they always say the same thing, they do not move even a millimeter away from the language coined for each thing, as if they feared being caught for having had “a linguistic weakness.” Once the words are read or heard, it is enough, because with such a small arsenal of words they repeat themselves until they yawn.

In the case of information-related work, the phenomenon becomes more complex. How should journalists report an arrest? “Agents of State Security led an opponent to jail,” or perhaps they should write, “The henchmen of ‘citizen insecurity’ kidnapped a democracy activist and locked him in a Castro dungeon.”

The problem is that so many adjectives end up confusing rather than informing. Something similar happened to a dissident on Twitter when he wrote: “The regime calls for the electoral simulation for next March 11.” Several of the clueless believed that it was a pilot test for the elections of the National Assembly, when in reality the reporting militant wanted to say that it was an electoral “farce.”

In the midst of so many rules of how to call each thing, it is worth noting that the very definition “independent journalism” should be considered a redundancy. Since the only honest way to practice this profession is without a mandate from the spheres of government, oblivious to any partisanship, without genuflections to terminology and liberated from the corsets of all extreme political correctness, be it oficialista or oppositional.

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More Than One Million US Tourists Visited Cuba in 2017

More than one million American tourists visited Cuba in 2017 (EFE)

EFE/14ymedio, 7 January 2018 — In 2017, more than 1.07 million travelers from the United States arrived in Cuba, which represents a 71% increase compared to the previous year. This data is deduced from the information provided by the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s General Director for the United States, Josefina Vidal, after correcting an error in official’s calculation; the official report made a mistake in simple addition and added 100,000 non-existent tourists.

Of these travelers, 453,905 are Cuban residents in the United States. The other visitors, 619,523, are other Americans, which represents an increase of 119% compared to the previous year (282,621) (not the 217% as stated by Josefina Vidal in her tweet).

This increase occurs despite the restrictions imposed by the United States embargo on its residents, who cannot travel freely to the Island. continue reading

Cuba and the United States reestablished relations in July 2015, after which the two former enemies entered a new stage of normalization within which commercial flights, cruises and resumption of travel were approved.

This bilateral approach resulted in a “boom” in the visits to the formerly “forbidden island,” which in 2017 registered a historical record of 4.7 million foreign tourists.

Currently both countries are experiencing a climate of renewed tension in their relations, due to the sudden turn in Washington’s policy promoted by the administration of President Donald Trump.

In September, Trump ordered the withdrawal of almost all the diplomats from the US Embassy in Havana due to the danger posed by the alleged sonic attacks directed at US personnel.

For that reason Washington issued an alert to its citizens not to travel to Cuba and last November approved new restrictions on individual trips to the island.

Yesterday Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez received Republican Senator Jeff Flake in the Cuban capital, one of the main promoters before Congress of a bill that proposes the elimination of restrictions on travel to Cuba by Americans.

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The Blindness Of Michelle Bachelet

Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile, has an old sentimental commitment to Castroism. (EFE)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 7 January 2018 — Nine years ago, Michelle Bachelet met with Fidel Castro during his convalescence. The Chilean president left that meeting stating that she had seen the former president lively and “handling a lot of information.” Her words were used by the Plaza of the Revolution to spread a lie: that the Commander in Chief was in good health.

This January, a new visit from Bachelet could lend itself to spreading another fallacy: that the Government of Raúl Castro still has numerous allies in the region beyond its unconditional supporters Nicolás Maduro, Daniel Ortega and Evo Morales, when in fact the circle of comrades in Latin America it is very diminished, like never before in the last decade.

A few weeks before delivering the presidential sash to Sebastián Piñera, the Chilean leader arrived in Cuba on Sunday to close a cycle of loyalty that rests more on emotional attachment than on political pragmatism. Her closeness to Havana is marked by an ideological nostalgia that clouds her view and her ability to recognize the lack of rights that mark the lives of Cubans. continue reading

Bachelet is a comfortable fellow traveler for the island’s authorities, because she has never made public any criticisms or democratic demands. One of the few flare-ups that occurred between the two governments was caused by Fidel Castro when, after the Bachelet’s visit in 2009, he criticized Chile’s position in the border dispute, dating back to the 19^th century, that blocked Bolivia’s access to the sea. At that time, the Chilean president expressed her annoyance over those statements.

In each of her two terms Bachelet avoided showing sympathy for the cause of Cuban dissidents and has declined any contact with the countless activists from the island who have visited her country in recent years. From her mouth, there has never been any condemnation of the political repression systematically carried out by Raúl Castro, even when the victims are women.

In his case, blindness and silence before the absence of freedoms in Cuba are not derived from ignorance. The Chilean press and the innumerable emigrants from the island in the southern country have let her know that her allies in Havana have been in power for almost six decades, forbidding other parties, repressing opponents and pushing their critics into exile.

The president, who a few weeks ago called her political adversary to congratulate him for having won in the second round of the presidential elections, knows that the lack of routine transfers of power sickens societies, impoverishes the solutions to any country’s problems, and entrenches one group in the highest spheres of power, a power that then ends up supplanting the name and will of the nation.

With her personal history, which includes the death of her father in prison, going underground and into exile, it is difficult to understand why the Chilean president does not face her Cuban counterpart and demand democratic changes, and much more so now that she herself is leaving power. That contradiction between her biography and her passivity before the Cuban dictatorship can only be understood from loyalty.

Bachelet has an old sentimental commitment to Castroism, although in her heart she knows that all that is left of the olive-green bearded ones, who once filled her dreams, is an immobilized gerontocracy. Calling on them publicly to respect the rights of their citizens would be like demolishing that utopia that she sighed for in her youth.

Like many other leftist politicians, the Chilean believes that if she points to the Plaza of the Revolution as a regime that violates human rights, it would be akin to going over to the side of the “right” and betraying her ideals. In order to maintain an ideological pose, she has been capable of choking back any signs and remaining silent before the acts of repudiation, arbitrary arrests and criminalization of thinking differently.

This Sunday began Bachelet’s last opportunity to amend her indifference and be consistent with her libertarian and democratic pedigree. One phrase, a few words, a meeting with activists, a tweet of commitment to the Cuban people and not to the Government, would be enough to repair her previous complicity.

Only with a gesture of this nature, will the visit of the Chilean president have been worth more than rubber stamping a memorandum of intention, closing some commercial agreement and serving Raul Castro to mask the growing loneliness that surrounds him in Latin America.

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