From Cuban To Cuban, National Solidarity After Hurricane Irma

Residents of the La Timba neighborhood in Havana collaborate to lift a tree trunk toppled by Hurricane Irma. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 27 September 2017 – Three families are now bathing in Bernardina’s shower. “Everyone brings their own soap but the water is for everyone,” says the 86-year-old woman at her house on Calle Campanario in Havana. After Hurricane Irma the retiree opened her doors to her most affected neighbors, a gesture that is repeated throughout the country.

The official press has been full of headlines about international donations and the state’s work to accelerate the recovery, but the most important aid is being offered by citizens themselves. From the first minute, neighbors, family members and activists turned their energies to helping the most damaged communities.

Since the first winds began to blow and some municipalities on the north coast were almost completely evacuated, civil and spontaneous relief meant the difference between life and death for thousands of people. More than 77% of those sheltered took refuge in the homes of relatives or acquaintances, according to official data. continue reading

The close neighborly relations that characterize most Cuban neighborhoods are even more intense in small settlements and were very effective in protecting private property and avoiding a greater number of deaths.

“They talk about the great hell of small towns, but here what saved us is that we all know each other well and we are like a family,” says Yania, who lives in the historic center of Caibarién and whose home was badly damaged by the winds.

“We went to the house next door and all that’s left of ours is only part of a room,” laments the young woman. Now, she is waiting for international donations and the aid promised by the government to subsidize 50% of the materials needed for the reconstruction of housing, but at least she already has assistance she can count on: “The neighbors will help us to raise the walls.”

In the East, the outlawed Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU) is looking for strategies to prevent its aid initiatives from being boycotted. “We suffered a lot of persecution when we wanted to help the victims of Hurricane Matthew in Baracoa,” remembers the leader of the organization, José Daniel Ferrer.

Now, with the passage of Irma, “we are looking for mechanisms, with the utmost discretion, to see how to channel our help to these people,” says the former political prisoner. “Steps have been taken, such as sending money to affected activists to buy batteries, potable water and other things.”

On Tuesday, the official media opened several bank accounts directed to residents on the island for “solidarity contributions to help victims of Irma.” Enabling this type of aid came ten days after the International Financial Bank did something similar to “channel donations” from abroad.

The rapidity in requesting cooperation from other nations and the delay in accepting local donations has generated displeasure among many. The state-run newspaper Granma recognizes this situation by suggesting between the lines that the opening of bank accounts was done after Cuban citizens “manifested their solidarity interest in making monetary contributions.”

The Catholic Church has also tried to channel these desires to help coming from regions where the inhabitants were not seriously affected. In the first 72 hours after the hurricane, Caritas Cuba set up an emergency network to provide relief to the most affected and disadvantaged people. To achieve this, countless volunteers, parishioners and residents have worked in those parts of the country.

In the Havana office of the organization it’s a hectic time. The phones don’t stop ringing with calls from people who have lost everything or almost everything. Julian Rigao tries to deal with all these requests and explains that in every neighborhood in the capital there is a chapel where people can “leave donations.” Then the parish priests and religious congregations “will send them to the Archbishopric.”

In Catholic parishes a survey has been distributed to uncover the most critical cases. Since Monday, September 18, some churches, such as the Sacred Heart on Linea Street, are preparing breakfasts and dinners to help the most unprotected people in their community, according to a report.

Protestants are also collecting donations. In the Upper Room Baptist temple on centrally located Carlos III street, help is received “until three-thirty in the afternoon,” says Svan, who works in the temple. “It may come in a bag, in a cardboard box or however they’ve packed it.”

Little by little, people are also coming to donate mainly clothing, footwear and household goods. On the other hand, the state’s mass organizations, such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and the Federation of Cuban Women, have not put out any appeals to raise donations.

“In my house we have prepared several bags with women’s and baby clothes”, says Lilian Bosque, a resident of Colon Street in the Plaza of the Revolution district. Now, she hopes to “put them together with what other neighbors have gathered and take them to the Santa Rosa de Lima chapel near here.”

Bosque is aware that “this is not going to solve the problem, but at least it will alleviate the situation of families who have been left with nothing,” and she points out that it is a silent gesture without the intention of receiving any recognition. “No one wants to earn a diploma with this or have it appear in Granma, it is the help that any human being in these situations needs.”

Two Referendums, Different Perspectives

Young Kurds line up to vote in the referendum. (@aminahekmet)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 29 September 2017 — In a country like Cuba, where regional conflicts don’t surpass the resounding insults during a ball game, secessionism sounds like a distant subject. However, the ruling party has not hesitated for more than half a century to support annexation or separatism efforts in other nations based on ideological convenience.

Right now, the national press is addressing two referendums: those of Kurdistan and Catalonia. Both processes, so different and distant, constitute an excellent opportunity to measure the political whims of the Cuban Government and its double standards in this area.

In both cases, the news coverage has been so contradictory that even the most indifferent viewers have noticed that in the local news the Catalans are called independentistas and the Kurds separatistas. Some “have every right to be a nation,” but the others “put at risk the stability of a convulsive zone.” continue reading

The same interests that salute the Catalonian government, raise their hands against the proposal of Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani. In the morning, the radio commentators clamor for Barcelona to disconnect itself from the Kingdom of Spain, but in the afternoon they support the words of the Turkish Government that consider the Kurdish plebiscite “null and void” and lacking a “legal basis.”

Behind this obvious contradiction in public discourse are the political pacts of the day, the complicities between regimes and, at worst, the objective to contribute to damaging the democratic governments of the world.

The enthusiastic official support for the Catalan referendum is not supported because of the connotations that this will have for the lives of millions of people, but by the blow that it means for the Spanish State. The Cuban Government is more concerned that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the Popular Party suffer a defeat in their own home than it is in the fate of the independentistas.

In addition to visits by senior officials and the anticipated visit of Spain’s King Felipe VI to the island early next year, Raul Castro’s government does not condone the Moncloa Palace’s criticism of human rights violations in Cuba. In addition, Spain belongs to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and strongly criticizes Nicolas Maduro, two of many profound differences.

The press controlled by Cuba’s Department of Revolutionary Orientation (DOR) also needs the Catalan conflict to show that democratic countries are shaken by instability, a way of emphasizing that only with the Revolution will the unity of the Cuban nation be maintained and that only socialism will prevent the dismemberment of the national territory.

However, in the case of the Kurdish plebiscite, Havana does not hide its suspicions of the process, which has origins more in political opportunism than in realpolitik.

When the High Electoral Commission of Iraqi Kurdistan announced on Wednesday that more than 92% of voters said ‘yes’ to independence, there were not many smiles on the island’s newscasts. The reason is not only that Iraq is opposed to the victory of the secessionists. So, also, are Iran, Syria and Turkey, all three of which are, to a greater or lesser extent, allies of President Raul Castro.

While the Turkish administration fears that Kurdish independence will infect Kurds living in its territory, Iran accuses Israel of supporting this week’s referendum and Syrian officials say it is the “result of US policies aimed at fragmenting the countries of the region,” despite the fact that the United States has declared itself against a plebiscite that has found international support only in Tel Aviv.

Aligned with its partners, with whom it shares positions and forms blocks in the United Nations to evade responsibilities or to avoid sanctions, Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution has preferred to distance itself from the “Yes” victory among the Kurds. These separatistas are not well regarded by Granma, Cuba’s official newspaper.

It matters little to the Cuban government whether or not, in both referendums, people vote for a legitimate demand that has roots in the history of a region. What is most worrisome is deciphering who is affected by secessionism. In its symbolic and simplified way of thinking, the Plaza of the Revolution believes that independence is a prize deserved only by its comrades.

Motorbikes to the Rescue in Cuba

In the city of Trinidad electric motorbikes can be rented by tourists who spend entertaining hours riding them around the city.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 28 September 2017 — Electric motorbikes, known as motorinas, continue to gain space on Cuban streets as an alternative to congested public transportation and the high prices of private taxis. This light vehicle has also become an ally for the home delivery food business, owners of homes for rents and illegal traders.

In the tourist city of Trinidad local entrepreneurs have added to the rental of rooms the rent of motorinas by the hour so that their customers can tour the colonial style streets. In Havana, pizza delivery companies deliver their orders on these vehicles whose price ranges from 1,900 to 2,500 CUC, depending on quality.

During the days of Hurricane Irma, these electric motorbikes were essential to evacuate everything from people to appliances. Given their small size and the ability to squeeze through almost any path – no matter how narrow – they were a great help in getting supplies from one place to another. The main problem was associated with their weak point, they run on electricity and the storm-induced blackout lasted for several days, during which motorbike owners could not charge the batteries.

“There was silence because you couldn’t hear a television of a motorina,” says Calixto, who lives in the center of Caibarién, describing those days. When the electricity returned, the motorinas once again continues their frantic action in the cities.

Home Internet Service to Expand to All of Cuba in December

”Nauta Hogar” (Nauta Home) will be marketed throughout the Island starting Friday, but prices are still very high. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 28 September 2017 — Cuba’s state telecommunications company ETECSA will expand its Nauta Hogar (Nauta Home) service beginning Friday, 29 September, and extend it “gradually through December to all the country’s provinces,” more than six months after the conclusion of the first tests of free home internet access.

Amarelys Rodríguez Sánchez, Director of the Havana Network Operations Division, explained to the official press that the service will begin in the provincial capitals of Pinar del Río, Las Tunas, Holguin, Granma, Guantanamo and some of the surrounding districts, where there are technical conditions in place to support it.

“Anyone who has a fixed home phone line will be a potential customer and will be contacted by telephone to arrange the appointment, if they are interested, to sign the service contract,” she explained. continue reading

The offer consists of an allowance of 30 hours per month for a price of 15 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC, roughly $15 USD), for the basic navigation speed and paid in advance. The customer must also pay an additional monthly fee depending on the speed requested in the contract.

To contract with Nauta Hogar the subscriber must have digitized telephone service and the conditions that support the configuration of the contracted speed, and in addition must acquira an ADSL modem from ETECSA at a price of 19 CUC.

The subscriber must also have a computer. The user will access the network through a Nauta account to which the 30 hours of navigation will be charged; the hours do not carry over and can only be used within each month.

The contracted navigation time is loaded when the service is enabled and, subsequently, on the first day of each month. If the contracted hours are exhausted, the account can be recharged through the prepaid vouchers that are already commonly used to connect to wifi services at public hotspots.

Rodríguez Sánchez, head of the Nauta Hogar project, clarified that if the customer contracts for a speed of 256 Kbps upload (.024 Kbps download) they will get the first month free and receive a 15 CUC bonus. Users who contract higher speeds will enjoy the same advantage and only have to pay the difference depending on the selected speed.

The price for the 512 Kbps package will continue to be 30 CUC, while the price for 1,024 Kbps will be 50 CUC and the price for a speed of 2,048 Kbps will be 70 CUC, prohibitive amounts for most Cubans, the majority of whom – those employed by the state – earn an average total monthly wage less then the 30 CUC price of the cheapest service.

Once the contract has been entered into, the service will be activated within 72 hours and the customers themselves must install the modem on their phone lines, for which they will be given a quick installation guide.

Last January, the state monopoly chose 2,000 users in the district of Catedral and Plaza Vieja in Havana for a pilot test of home web connectivity that ended on February 28. In the capital there are currently 600 active Nauta Hogar accounts.

The service will also be extended to other municipalities in Havana to the extent that each area has the technical conditions to support it. “The initial plan is for 38,000 connections,” said Domínguez.

A 2016 report by the US organization Freedom House regarding internet service on the island says that the penetration of the web in the country is between 5% and 31%. Meanwhile, dozens of web pages are blocked because of their content.

Another recent study published by Amnesty International reports that only 25% of the population can connect to the Internet and only 5% of households have access to the network. For years, a home connection was granted only to some professionals, doctors, journalists, intellectuals or academics with proven ideological fidelity to the ruling party.

 

Cienfuegos Left Without Food After Hurricane Irma

Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura (plaid shirt) tours agricultural areas in the province of Cienfuegos. (Cinco de septiembre)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Caridad Cruz, Cienfuegos/Miami, 28 September 2017 — A strong smell of urine permeates the Russian-style apartment while Margot cooks a couple of pork steaks. “They are boar [the male pig], that’s why the smell,” she explains. Getting food in Cienfuegos, a city that was only affected by the edges of Hurricane Irma, has become an odyssey, according to its residents.

“There’s a man who sells pork from a pushcart and we buy it. What are we going to do if every time we want to buy something in the market, the lines are gigantic?” says Margot as she tries to remove the bad smell from the meat with some basil and a little ‘complete seasoning’ that she scrapes out of a nearly empty jar.

“They deceived me, I spent my monthly pension on ten pounds of stinking meat that there is no choice but to eat it,” she laments. continue reading

The authorities of Cienfuegos have imposed a severe rationing after Hurrican Irma. Eggs, vegetables and meat are regulated and you can only buy a certain amount per person “to avoid speculation.”

“The unrationed eggs have all been taken to Villa Clara because there they don’t even have a pot to piss in,” says the clerk at a point of sale in Calzada de Dolores, one of the main arteries of the city.

The alternative to chicken eggs are duck and quail eggs, which are sold in the Ministry of Internal Commerce stores, but it’s enough to check the stores to confirm that in many of them there are no eggs of any kind.

“There are no eggs in the whole city. It’s because of the hurricane,” another shop assistant explains.

In order to buy fruits or vegetables, the situation is similar. In the markets where the prices are controlled by the state, people line up from early in the morning, while in the uncontrolled markets and from the pushcarts, prices are skyrocketing.

“The state is to blame for this situation,” says Margot. “Television announces that all the countries are sending aid, but they use it only for Havana, which is where people throw themselves into the streets [to protest],” she explains.

Although the official media did not make reference to the protest of 13 September in Havana sparked by the absence of electricity and water, the videos of the demonstration have gone viral through the ‘weekly packet’.

“As long as people remain silent, things are going to stay the same, but nobody wants to be cannon fodder,” he laments.

Although the damages in the province were minimal, compared to the north of Villa Clara, Ciego de Avila and Camagüey, the city was without electricity for more than 96 hours due to failures in the local thermo-electrical plant.

In the midst of this situation, Cuban Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, 86, along with the Communist Party’s staff in the territory, toured some of the province’s agricultural sites where, according to the local press, he got “the commitment” of the farmers to “produce more food.”

In the Hard Currency Collection Stores (TRD) – as the state chain of outlets is officially called – the availability of meat, poultry and cans of fish has been reduced in recent weeks. “Before the cyclone, there was almost nothing,” said Magalis, a customer at the La Casa Mimbre store. “What they have left is at exorbitant prices, which no worker can buy.”

Cuba reduced imports by more than 1.5 billion dollars in the first half of the year, which in the opinion of economists has had a direct effect on the worsening of shortages in state stores.

“They recently opened a market here near (La Casa Mimbre), but between the lines, the little assortment and the high prices it’s not worth going,” she says.

“There is an Italian cheese that I suppose is the worst of what’s available in the world’s markets, but here a single kilogram costs 20.05 CUC (roughly $20 US), more than an entire month’s salary,” she protests.

A ‘Marielito’ Will Be Deported After His Release From Prison After 37 Years In The US

Carlos Iván González painting next to its father just after arriving from Cuba with the Mariel Boatlift. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 22 September 2017 — Carlos Iván González arrived in Florida in 1980, during the Mariel Boatlift exodus, barely 14 years old. Now, at age 50 and after establishing a family in the United States, deportation is hanging over his head. In 2012, he was sentenced by a state judge to five years in prison for growing and selling marijuana, trafficking in cannabis and possession of narcotic drug, and as soon as he got out he was confined to a detention center in Wakulla, where he has already spent more than 200 days waiting for Cuban authorities to approve his return to the island.

González’s laziness toward obtaining US citizenship has led to his dangerous situation. The commission of the crime led to the loss of his ‘Green Card’ (permanent residence permit) and his family fears that he will join the list of 2,746 Marielitos that the Cuban government agreed to receive in 1984 as a result of an agreement between Fidel Castro and Ronald Reagan.

During that exodus, more than 125,000 people escaped from the island on a maritime bridge authorized by Fidel Castro; among these were some criminals to whom the United States refused to grant asylum. With the pact between the presidents, the members of a list drawn up by the US must return to Cuba, but the returns have come slowly, in groups of between 90 and 100 each year, according to journalist Alfonso Chardy. continue reading

As a result, some of the deportables have disappeared, died or their health prevents them from traveling. Aside from those Marielitos agreed to 33 years ago, Havana refused to receive its citizens residing in the US with a deportation order until the signing of an agreement with the Obama administration in January of last year. At that time it was agreed to fill that quota with criminals with deportation orders who entered during the Mariel Boatlift, people like Carlos Ivan Gonzalez.

“Alone, without family, without friends or money. This is how my son would have to return if Emigration sends him to Cuba,” says Sarah Gonzalez. Carlos Ivan’s mother, 71, resides in Cape Coral (South Florida) and now laments her son having been too lazy to get naturalized.

Gonzalez held a hunger strike last week in Wakulla, along with ten other Cubans in the same situation, but they had to abandon it because they were ill without achieving their goal of being released, according to his mother.

“I know that my son is not innocent, but he has already paid society for his crime with five years in jail. Now they are now talking about eliminating the US embassy in Havana. The politicians continue with their conflict, while my son wastes his life in a cell,” she complains.

Sarah Gonzalez argues that a detention center official told her that Cuba had rejected the repatriation proposal from the US authorities but her son may have been included in the quota of “substitute” Marielitos.

“There is something going on with those who came through Mariel, and Washington is pressuring Cuba to accept them, even after Cuba has refused,” adds Sarah Gonzalez.

Meanwhile, Carlos Iván, a mechanic by profession, father of a firefighter and grandfather of a girl he has not yet met, is constantly guarded by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

An ICE official told 14ymedio that the average time of a person in custody with a deportation order is between 30 and 35 days. However, when there is serious evidence that the subject can be deported, that period can be extended.

Usually, in the cases of Cubans in this situation, an alternative to detention is sought, since the island’s government decision whether to receive the immigrant can take years.

Among the solutions ICE provides to maintain control over the individual are electronic monitoring and supervision orders, which allow the person to lead a normal life provided that they meet from time to time in agency’s offices and give an account of their situation.

“When lawyers appeal the judge’s decision or request extensions of certain legal proceedings, when this happens and the judge does not allow bail, the subject must remain in custody, which lengthens the process,” the official adds.

Gonzalez’s family says he does not have enough money to bring the case to court, and the official lawyers do not deal with immigration issues. However, there are various institutions such as the Catholic Church and human rights groups that offer free or low-cost services to immigrants.

“We are a couple of elderly diabetics and over 70. We have to send money to him to communicate with us and to eat better, because prisons are bad everywhere,” adds Gonzalez’s mother.

The family has tried to get help through Senator Marco Rubio’s office and the governor of Florida, but claims to have gotten “nothing.”

“When I called the media they hang up on me because they say it has to be interesting. Does it have to be interesting for a man to die on a hunger strike or to deprive him of his freedom to be on the news?” she asks indignantly.

Chronicle Of A Failed Nomination

Roberto Santana Capdesuñer, independent candidate from Holguín. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 September 2017 — Located between two bays, the Holguin municipality of Antilla is among the smallest of Cuba. In District 3, young Roberto Miguel Santana Capdesuñer aspired to be a delegate at the Nominating Candidates Assembly, but a mixture of chance and likely bad intention prevented it.

Santana, 27, has been collaborating for two years with the platform #Otro18 (Another 2018) and has become coordinator of the initiative in the provinces of Granma and Holguín. In order to make a living, he obtained a license as a food seller, but the inspectors pursued him with the fines until they made his “life impossible.”

He then got a job at a state-run restaurant where he kept the accounts. However, they soon dismissed him on the grounds that he was not reliable because he was not revolutionary. Fed up with feeling segregated for not sharing the ideology of power, he decided to throw himself into activism. continue reading

Santana talks about the situation of his town with the same pain that he would recount his personal sufferings. “Our main problems are housing, food and lack of medications. In our pharmacy there is a list of 120 drugs which are missing,” he says.

The port of Antilla, which previously gave life to the place, is no longer operating and there is only one tobacco factory and a corn mill.

Like most Cubans linked to the political opposition, Santana has been the subject of police citations, arbitrary arrests, searches of the house where he lives, confiscation of his belongings, interrogations and, above all, a systematic campaign to discredit him.

Along with the risks, his attitude has also placed him in a leadership position among his neighbors. “Many people come to tell me their problems because they see in me an alternative, something different and that fills me with satisfaction,” he tells this newspaper. “There are more people who put their trust in me than those who see me as an enemy.”

In the current electoral process, the Nominating Assembly of his area was scheduled for September 7, but was suspended without fixing a new date due to Hurricane Irma. After a few days, the nomination process began again throughout the municipality, with the exception of District 3 where the activist resides.

Santana recalls that on Monday, September 18, he was advised that they could see his daughter at the pediatric hospital in Holguín. That same night he went there with his little four-year-old Lauren, and she was immediately admitted, he says.

The haste to hospitalize her came as a surprise to Santana, who on other occasions found that “there is a long wait for that.” At seven o’clock the next day he received an urgent call to inform him that the people in charge of calling the meeting were telling the voters that the Assembly would be held in an hour.

Trapped in the provincial capital, two hours from his village, the aspiring delegate saw his candidacy dissolve. The neighbors who were in a position to propose him thought that his absence was a sign that he had given up standing for election. The work he had done for more than two years and waiting for that moment came to nothing.

He later learned that no citation to come to the meeting was delivered to his mother-in-law’s house where he lives with his wife. “At that time there was no transport between Holguín and Antilla and even if I had had a car of my own it would have taken two hours to get there,” Santana laments.

Of the 200 voters in the district only 70 participated in the Assembly, according to what several residents told 14ymedio. An irregularity that contradicts the electoral rules, which require that “the massive presence of the voters of the area be verified beforehand,” before the meeting begins.

“They took advantage of the fact that I was facing a family problem to call the meeting just one hour ahead of time,” claims the activist. In his mind, the idea that State Security was behind such haste took shape. “It was unethical, a real trick,” he said.

Contingency and arbitrariness conspired against Santana that night to prevent his being chosen as a different delegate. “Not like others who want to serve as puppets to the government, sheltered behind the wall of the Communist Party, but as a counterpart in favor of the people of the neighborhood,” comments the frustrated candidate.

For the moment and under the current Electoral Law, the young activist will have to wait at least two and a half more years to try again.

The Intellectual and Power, More Than an Epistolary Relationship

’Love Letters to Stalin’, by Juan Mayorga, is being performed at the Argos Theater in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 25 September 2017 — When leaving the Argos Theater after the performance of Love Letters to Stalin, a good part of the audience needs to shake their heads. Like someone waking from a nightmare, there will be those who, for long minutes, fear that the monsters from the dream might appear around the next corner.

The play, with the original text by Spaniard Juan Mayorga, brings to the stage the drama experienced by the writer Mikhail Bulgakov (born Kiev, 1891) given his tense relationship with the Soviet Government. The author of novels such as The White Guard became known on the Island thanks to his book The Master and Margarita (1926), which could only be published 26 years after his death.

The piece, directed by Abel González Melo, tackles the thorny issue of the interaction between intellectuals and power, a bond that is stretched thin when rulers exercise strict censorship and the freedom of the artist is mired in the marshes of politics. continue reading

Although complacent art, which sings praises to tyrants, rarely survives the fall of dictatorships, the script suggests that the irreverent pay a high personal and editorial cost to transcend the sterilizing whims of power. In the words of the protagonist in Love Letters to Stalin: “An artist who is silent is not a real artist … How can I write songs to a country that for me is like a prison?”

In the small theater on Ayestaran Street the audience watches the scenes in which Bulgakov writes letters to the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) denouncing that performances of the play The Purple Island have been prohibited. The writer also complains that the play The Days of the Turbins was barred and that Zoe’s Apartment was removed from the listings.

“I do not have the courage to live in a country where I can neither represent nor publish my works. I am writing to you so that you will return to me my freedom as a writer or expel me from the Soviet Union with my wife,” he cries in his letter.

According to Bulgakov’s biographers, Stalin responded to this letter in 1930 with a telephone call. In the scene in which the sound of the ringing phone is heard, the actor Alberto Corona – who represents the writer – jumps for joy and embraces his wife, played by Liliana Lam. Full of glee he shouts: “Comrade Stalin has called me!”

Desperation leads Bulgakov to the delirium of imagining, standing in his living room, the unmistakable figure of the dictator, who is given life by the actor Pancho Garcia, winner of the 2012 National Theater Award. (14ymedio)

However, the communication remains unfinished due to technical problems at the moment when Stalin was about to schedule a personal encounter with the artist. From that moment, the novelist and playwright does nothing more than write new missives and stay home waiting for the phone to ring again. “All I have written is a child’s play if I compare it with a letter to Stalin,” he says.

Desperation leads Bulgakov to the delirium of imagining that he sees, standing in the middle of his living room, the unmistakable figure of the dictator, brought to life by the actor Pancho Garcia, winner of the 2012 National Theater Award.

The specter of Stalin that dialogues with the writer is not only that iron man who orders the death of his fellow combatants, but also the magnanimous chief who feels “surrounded by the incompetent” and who wishes to sit down and converse with an uncomfortable intellectual to hear his views about the future of the country.

A Stalin who, at the same time, shows his darker side. A rogue who “has almost driven our friend Zamiatin crazy, and has succeeded in getting Maiakosvki to commit suicide,” says Bulgakov. The innocent idealization of that Stalin also represents the writer’s last hope of becoming accepted without having to give up himself.

The need to prove that he is not on the side of enemies, his love of the country where his writing is nourished, and growing unease because his work is pushed aside, weave the fall of the Russian writer. A descent into the abyss of ostracism, from which only a pact with the censor could save him.

“I suspect that in Cuba in 2017, some of his phrases and situations will be heard and observed as they have not been anywhere else,” said the author, Juan Mayorga. Comparisons between that USSR and a Cuba where, for years, critical authors were penalized with an exclusion from the catalogs of published books, a ban on travel and the execution of their reputations.

The staging of Love Letters to Stalin in a theater in Havana reopens the debate on the consequences of decades of censorship and control over cultural production and over the island’s intellectuals. From Fidel Castro’s Words to the Intellectuals, to the arrest of graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado, all the stories of exclusion or submission of an artist parade in the minds of the spectators.

Thus, Bulgakov becomes at times Virgilio Piñera, Heberto Padilla and Maria Elena Cruz Varela. For moments he also longed to be closer to the authorities and enjoy the status of a novelist pampered by institutions, in the style of Manuel Cofiño, Miguel Barnet or Abel Prieto. Only to finally discover in his own experience that authoritarians do not seek writers but propagandists; they prefer slogans over literature.

Irma Reconfigures Cuba’s Tourist Map

When the powerful hurricane Irma touched land, there were about 50,000 tourists on the island, according to calculations by the Ministry of Tourism. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar and Zunilda Mata, Havana/Varadero, 21 September 2017 — “This is what’s left of the gardens of the Blue Lagoon,” says an employee while looking at a cellphone photo of fallen palm trees and tangled vegetation. The bus in which he is traveling is responsible for distributing staff to the hotels in Varadero, Cuba’s main resort, which is trying to recover after Hurricane Irma.

The Hicacos peninsula, where the famous beach is located, is wrapped up in a recovery effort operating at different speeds. A land of contrasts, alternating luxurious resorts, mansions and fragile private houses with gabled roofs, the main tourist center of the Island is binding up its wounds on the eve of the high season. continue reading

On Tuesday, the streets were clear of the logs and debris left by the storm, but inside the hotels the damages range from light to serious. However, Varadero again has that air of a “tourist nation” – one with no flag or local flavor – that can be found anywhere on the planet where there is sun and sand.

“This beach feeds a lot of people,” Rigoberto told 14ymedio; he is an artisan by profession licensed to sell seed and pearl necklaces in the town’s most important artisan fair. “On the days we couldn’t sell, people were crazy because they lost a lot of money,” he says.

On a small table Rigoberto sets out ceramic ashtrays, carved wooden images of sensual women, and tiny clay turtles. “The worst has been for the homeowners who have suffered damages but who don’t have the resources available to the hotel managers and the state,” he says.

After days of anguish, an urgency to close the wounds has overtaken the residents and the resort employees. “We’ll all be ruined if the tourists decide to go to Cancun,” Rigoberto explains. The Mexican beach is Cuba’s main rival at a time when the Greater and Lesser Antilles have been battered by several hurricanes.

Three young men speaking Russian pass near Rigoberto wearing wrist-bands confirming their “all-inclusive” status at the resort. “Those are the first who have returned,” says the artisan. “They don’t care that much that the hotels aren’t a hundred percent ready, because what they are looking for is sun,” he opines.

Irma hit Cuba just before the high season, in a year when the authorities expected to reach the longed-for figure of five million tourists. When the powerful hurricane hit land, there were about 50,000 travelers in the entire island according to the calculations of the Ministry of Tourism.

After the weather disaster the official information has talked of devastation to describe the situation in the keys area. But at the same time a recovery in record time seems destined to appease the fears of travelers.

Wednesday’s primetime news warned of “an international campaign against Cuban tourism” that “is attempting to magnify the damages.” Tourism Minister, Manuel Marrero assured that “there is no hotel that has suffered structural problems.”

However, complaints about substandard services are being felt and reported at hotel reception desks and in internet travelers’ forums. At the Royalton Hotel Hicacos about 40 guests are trying to make their vacation holiday not end in nightmare, but the conditions are not the best.

Joseph and his wife did not want to cancel the reservation they made six months ago to visit Varadero and “get a rest from so much work,” they tell this newspaper. Coming from Germany, they followed the course of the hurricane, fearing that the agency would postpone the trip or send them to another part of Cuba.

“We were scared to arrive but outside of some broken glassware in the hotel we found no major damage to the infrastructure,” says the German, although he acknowledges that the food is not good because he came looking for local flavors and even the butter is imported.

“The employees are very nervous and the hot water service still isn’t working very well.” Among the problems most lamented by the guests is that “there is no peppermint for the mojitos” and “there are few fruits at breakfast despite being in the tropics.”

For Andrés, a Colombian who spent his honeymoon in Cuba during and after Irma’s passage, the most difficult thing to deal with was what he calls “the fall in quality.” Staying at the Varadero Meliá hotel he lamented that the menu was bad. “Although they say they have two buffet restaurants, it’s not true,” he complains, and notes that the water sports services are not yet working again.

“We had to pay for the extra nights we stayed at the hotel because our flight was canceled and they didn’t give us any rebates even though the pools aren’t open and they didn’t change the sheets for more than three days,” he protests. Now, he hopes to make a claim to demand a refund of some of the money he spent.

At the moment, the management of the hotel has sent him a message stating its “total willingness to favor you with the best conditions if you return to the Varadero Meliá.”

Some hotels in the area are still closed, such as the Meliá chain’s Varadero Paradisus, which suffered severe damages. An employee of the Cubatur agency explained via telephone to this newspaper that the area known as Family Concierge was “devastated” and there were also damages to the main building and to the restaurant that was built near the beach.

Some hotels in the area are still closed like the Meliá chain’s Varadero Paradisus, which suffered severe damages. (Courtesy)

A spokesman for the Mallorcan chain, which owns a total of 27 hotels on the island, 11 of them in the keys, told the Spanish media that their accommodations in the famous resort have suffered minor damages and are re-establishing their services. In addition, he specified that the closure of the Varadero Paradisus is because of improvements being made before the high season arrives.

The head of the sales department of the Sol Palmeras hotel proudly said that on Wednesday about 200 tourists were staying at their facility. “Given how the area was left, we have recovered quickly,” he emphasized.

Dana, an employee of the exclusive Royalton Hicacos, acknowledges that conditions are still not optimal. The main damages are in “the buffet service restaurant and beach gazebo, still closed,” after Irma.

Despite this, private and government-controlled hotel authorities have not decreed any special reduction in room costs, according to a Cubanacan travel agency specialist.

Only during the hurricane itself “tourists who came here and booked directly at the hotel reception received a 40% discount,” says Dana. This rebate was offered only to clients who arrived at the accommodation relocated from the keys of the north of the Island, who were compensated for the fact that their new accommodation had no electricity.

To avoid distress, many are choosing another destination within the island where the hurricane did less damage. The largest beneficiaries are the town of Viñales, the María la Gorda beach, also in the west, and the city of Trinidad in the south.

“There is a lot of demand for the hotels in the historical center of Havana as well,” says an employee who offers tour packages in the Cubatur office in the Habana Libre Hotel. “What is totally closed is accommodation in the northern keys,” she explains to a Cuban client.

National tourism has been increasing since 2008, when Raúl Castro’s government allowed Cubans living on the island to go to the country’s hotels, from which they had been banned for decade. In 2014, about 1.2 million nationals stayed in these facilities and spent 147.3 million Cuban convertible pesos (roughly the same in US dollars), according to official data.

The trend has continued to increase and “most of the packages sold here are intended for Cubans,” says the Cubatur employee. She notes, however, that “right now international tourism is being prioritized, for those who made reservations weeks ago.”

Rebeca Monzó, who lives in Havana’s Nuevo Vedado neighborhood and rents a room through Airbnb, has not suffered serious damage to her business. So far she has not had reservation cancellations and is waiting for a new customer who is arriving this week.

During the hurricane she hosted two Spaniards “who fled from the province of Sancti Spíritus” when the first winds began to blow. Her guests “experienced the hurricane from another perspective,” says Monzó.

“They helped us to store water, lined up to buy bread and experienced their days in Havana as a great adventure.” The hostess acknowledges that they survived “thanks to the pasta we had because in those days there was nothing to eat.” Her home was five days without water and electricity.

Shortages are one of the most negative side effects left by the hurricane.

In Varadero, the extensive informal market network that nourishes a good part of the area’s private businesses is also trying to recover. “In this area it was very easy to buy shrimp and lobster,” says Rigoberto, while taking some canvases painted with coconut motifs and reddish sunsets out of boxes.

“The hurricane has been a serious blow to the seafood vendors because apart from cutting off several access roads and leaving a lot of people without refrigeration, there is now more police control in the area,” he says.

The sale of these raw products is forbidden to private individuals and is strictly punished by the authorities, as is the black market in cheese and milk, also prominent in the area.

At the corners of the main street, parallel to the beach, are uniformed police officers and some state brigades cleaning the area. “Until all this goes away we have to stay quiet,” recommends the artisan. “Irma has stirred everything up and it will take time until the waters find their level,” says a Spaniard.

Absence Means Forgetting

Even if Castro were to leave for Esmeralda, Punta Alegre, or Corralillo today, he could not escape the doubt that his visit was more fruit of the pressures than of his own desires. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 25 September 2017 — Most active politicians like to have their photos taken while greeting children, talking to factory workers, or visiting a disaster area. These images, seen on countless occasions, do not translate into better government performance, or even real concern, but at least they are consistent with a formal and public ritual.

More than two weeks ago, Hurricane Irma devastated countless towns in central Cuba, affected communities near the north coast and left the coastal areas of the city of Havana under water. Since then, Raúl Castro has not been to any of the affected sites and has not been seen near the houses that lost their roofs, the sidewalks filled with the furniture drying in the sun or the places sheltering some who  have no homes to return to. continue reading

In the first days of his absence, speculations focused on the octogenarian’s health and a possible indisposition making him unable to travel to the most affected areas. However, Castro had enough physical energy to go and receive Nicolás Maduro at the airport. He has chosen to take a photo with the Venezuelan president rather than with the population battered by the meteoric winds.

The feelings left by this distancing are contradictory. His most ardent supporters speculate that he does not want to add expenses to the national budget with a visit more symbolic than effective. Others say he is letting younger officials take his place before the cameras so that they can gain visibility before 24 February of next year, when he will step down from the presidency of the country.

His critics, however, speak of the weariness that has gripped the General after a sequence of defeats, among them not being able to end the island’s dual currency system, or to reduce corruption, or to offer Cuban workers dignified wages that can become their primary source of economic support, or to attract foreign investment. Exhaustion has taken over the leader of the Communist Party a few months before he leaves power.

Now it is too late for the photo next to the victims. Even if Castro were to leave for Esmeralda, Punta Alegre, or Corralillo today, he could not escape the doubt that his visit was more the fruit of pressures than of his own desires. A snapshot next to an old woman whose house is nothing more than the foundation would seem to be a resounding act of gimmicky populism, but the lack of that image makes him look as distant and indifferent.

If he goes where Irma left a trail of pain he loses; if he stays in his palace he also loses.

Havana Biennial Postponed to 2019 Because of “Serious Damages” from Hurricane Irma

An art installation on the Malecon during the 12th Havana Biennial (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 25 September 2019 – The Promotion Division of Cuba’s National Council of the Arts and the Wifredo Lam Center for Contemporary Art announced that the 13th Havana Biennial, scheduled to be held next year, will be postponed until 2019.

A press release on the Council’s website it explains that due “the extremely serious damages caused by Hurricane Irma on the country’s system of cultural institutions,” they have “rescheduled several events” planned for the country.

The announcement does not give an exact date for the more important visual arts event in the country, although it says that “detailed information” is forthcoming.

The last edition of the Biennial was held between May and June of 2015, under the theme “Between The Idea And The Experience,” focused on a search for an artistic perspective beyond the museums and galleries.

Participating in the last Biennial were more than 120 guest artists, individuals and collectives who took advantage of their own spaces to install their works. The exhibition also included group projects conceived as an “artistic quarry” because they offered space for recently graduated young artists.

Over its 30 years, the Biennial has passed through different moments, some marked by artistic effervescence and others by apathy, affected by the economic crisis and the censorship of uncomfortable artists.

In its most recent edition the artist Tania Bruguera, who did not have an official invitation, presented a session of more than 100 hours of consecutive reading, analysis and discussion of Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” at the independent International Institute of Artivism, which took the name of the famous German philosopher.

Two officials from State Security visited Bruguera to dissuade her from continuing her artistic action and blocking several activists from being able to access the site where she performed the reading.

Hurricane Victims Along Havana’s Coastline Wait for Help That Never Comes

A group of neighbors puts their belongings out in the sun after the storm. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 23 September 2017 – Hope is fading these days in Havana’s San Lázaro Street due to the closing of the Malecón, after the damages left by Hurricane Irma. The lives of the residents along the coastline are stalled, waiting for humanitarian aid that has never arrived.

The San Leopoldo neighborhood and the areas from Maceo Park to the mouth of the Almendares River are the most affected. Two weeks after Hurricane Irma the residents are still trying to salvage their furniture and belongings damaged by the sea which flooded the area.

Mattresses have taken possession of the sidewalks, and some sofas and armchairs that show the watermarks from the floodwaters are musty with the small of salt and dampness. The most affected cling to the idea of rescuing everything they can, because they fear aid will be delayed or doled out in dribs and drabs. continue reading

“Ours is the only working TV on the block,” says Georgina, a resident of Perseverance Street. Every night when the primetime news comes on, dozens of neighbors gather around the screen. “People come to find out when they’re going to start distributing things.”

Reports in the official media show the arrival in the country of numerous donations from Panama, Venezuela, China, Bolivia, Colombia, Suriname or Japan. However, “not even a tablespoon of rice has reached this neighborhood,” laments Georgina.

A few yards from Belascoaín Street, a kiosk installed by the State for the sale of prepared food only offers a watery stew that few deign to buy. (14ymedio)

Expectations grew among those most affected on hearing of the arrival of a Dominican Navy ship last Monday, with 90 tons of construction materials such as wood, doors, aluminum window frames, nails, metal roofing, wire, in addition to mattresses and portable generators.

“People thought they were going to start distributing all of that right away,” a young man explains to 14ymedio, as he helps his father move some sacks of cement to raise a more than three-foot high wall and stairs at the entrance of his home, which faces the sea. “We had one but it fell short,” he explains.

The Government allocated part of the national budget to finance 50% of the price of construction materials that will be sold to victims with total or partial damage to their properties.

Although Irma seriously damaged the electrical wiring, took part of the kitchen tiles, removed the toilet bowl and contaminated the water tank, the young Habanero considers that “the most urgent need is food because there isn’t any.”

Mattresses have taken up permanent residence on the sidewalks, as people wait for them to dry. (14ymedio)

A few yards from Belascoaín Street, a kiosk installed by the State for the sale of prepared food only offers a watery stew that few deign to buy. So far no free rations have been distributed in the area and potable water is also on sale in containers of various types.

The World Food Program (WFP) has allocated 1,606 tonnes of food and $5.7 million to cover the food needs of 664,000 people in affected areas for four months, but only one ration has been delivered to Centro Habana.

A resolution passed Tuesday said that the delivery of “products received as a donation (internal or external)” will be made “at no cost.” However, along with free distribution, victims are also demanding greater speed along with controls to avoid the ‘diversion’ (i.e. stealing) of resources.

“Food is the main thing because many people are left without money,” explains Heriberto, a retiree who lives on a second floor in San Lázaro Street. “I had no direct affects in my apartment but the refrigerator is empty and I have nothing to put in my mouth.”

Nearby, the broad portal of the Immaculate Church has just been repaired after the floods, with hinges and everything. Humanitarian aid for the most affected residents has been collected through a side entrance for days. The donations arrive in small quantities but they provide some relief.

State Security Blocks Independent Candidate Yusniel Pupo Carralero

Weeks before Yusniel Pupo Carralero was detained, members of the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, retired officers of the Armed Forces and militants of the Communist Party tried to discredit his candidacy. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 20 September 2017 — The independent candidate Yusniel Pupo Carralero denounced on Wednesday that he had been detained by State Security to prevent him from participating in the People’s Power Nominating Assembly for his district in the municipality of San Juan y Martinez in Pinar del Río.

Once communications were restored in his town after Hurricane Irma, the 34-year-old activist explained by phone to 14ymedio that two officers with the rank of captain, known as Orestes Ayala and Juan Perez, intercepted him while he was walking from his house to the area outside La Estrella bodega, where he was planning to go to the meeting, last Wednesday at 8 PM.

“I was kidnapped in a green car with a private plates,” he says. The vehicle “circled for about two hours and after that time I was released about 8 miles from town, on the road to Punta de Carta,” he says. continue reading

A few months ago, Pupo Carralero was motivated by the #Otro18 (Another 2018) campaign for independent candidates to represent their communities. In the event that he was elected as a delegate, he proposed to “act in the interests of the people and to try to find solutions.”

Even before aspiring to that position, many in his district nicknamed him Delegate because when there is a problem the neighbors come to him. “They know that I am the counterpart of the Delegate [of People’s Power], that I am always on him, demanding that he perform,” he says.

In the weeks prior to his detention, the activist learned that Captain Ayala met with several members of the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, retired officers of the Armed Forces and members of the Communist Party of the Celia Sánchez neighborhood to discredit his candidacy.

The participants in that meeting with the State Security were warned that Pupo Carralero, a tobacco grower, has also been the president of the peasant committee of the Independent and Democratic Cuba opposition organization for five years.

The same situation has been experienced by other independent candidates, who in a recent declaration denounced “the discrediting campaigns” coming from the authorities that aim to prevent them from becoming nominated as delegates in the municipal elections.

In the Assembly, while Pupo Carralero was being held by State Security, a resident named Rodolfo Pérez Mena “started talking to other voters to encourage them” to propose him as a candidate, but the police sector chief, Lieutenant Brito, “intimidated him by telling him to shut up,” he told this newspaper.

Since that incident several residents have avoided greeting the activist when they see him on the street. “Even my family feels afraid,” he reflects. “Sometimes life becomes a little complicated in the neighborhood in the face of so much harassment, but we have to keep fighting.”

Manuel Cuesta Morúa, the main promoter of the #Otro18 platform, believes that events of this nature are “complete violations of the Electoral Law.” The government “seems determined to prevent citizens, polls and ballots from being the ones who choose the representatives,” he denounces to 14ymedio.

Cuesta Morúa warned that “in all cases where the government tries to prevent the presentation of independent candidates, the result will be the establishment of municipal assemblies tainted by lack of legitimacy.”

Cuban Economist Karina Gálvez Sentenced To Three Years In Prison

The case against Karina Galvez, of the Center for Coexistence Studies, began on 11 January when she was detained for a week at the Technical Directorate of Criminal Investigation of Pinar del Río. (Screen Capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 21 September 2017 — Economist Karina Gálvez was sentenced Thursday by the Municipal Court of the city of Pinar del Rio to three years of deprivation of liberty and the confiscation of her home for the crime of tax evasion, a member of the Center for Coexistence Studies CEC) confirmed 14ymedio. A court decision that ensures that it does not surprise him and that he was waiting.

“Although after the trial, which was clearly won by the defense lawyers, we had hoped that the penalty would decrease somewhat with respect to the prosecutor’s request,” explains the economist. continue reading

Ultimately, “the court accepted the requests for sanctions proposed by the prosecution,” the CEC said in a statement. This does not mean, however, that the economist must go to prison, since the sentence contemplates that the sentence of deprivation of freedom can be replaced by three years of house arrest.

The trial against Gálvez began on 11 January when she was detained for a week at the province’s Technical Department of Criminal Investigation and her house was sealed.

Karina Gálvez’s house was also the headquarters of the Center for Coexistence studies (CEC) and with its seizure the independent project lost its meeting place for the second time. In 2009, the yard of the house of Galvez’s parents, where their members met, was also confiscated and closed.

The property is now at the disposition of the Municipal Housing Department, subordinate to the Council of the Administration of the Municipality of Pinar del Río.

The court ruling says that the conviction seeks to “make the defendant understand” the seriousness of the crime and also “serve to education the people in general.”

In addition, Gálvez has been banned from exercising the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in electoral processes, as well as lost “the right to hold management positions in the organs corresponding to the political-administrative activity of the State.”

She is also prohibited “from being issued a passport and leaving from the national territory until the penalties imposed have been completed,” says the document that the court sent to her on Thursday through her defense lawyer.

The sentence states that this type of punishment is applied individually and in “its type and extent” is for the purpose of “repressing, re-educating and preventing the commission of new offenses.”

As of this Thursday Gálvez has ten days to appeal. After that time the sentence will be signed against her and she must wait for the appointment with an implementation judge.

“I still have not decided if I’m going to appeal, I’m thinking about it,” says the economist. “The person who presided over my trial is the president of the Provincial Court, so I would have to appeal to a judge who is subordinate to him,” and that “would be a formality.”

Gálvez has denounced, in recent months, an escalation of pressure by the authorities, which includes numerous interrogations in the provincial Immigration and Aliens Department, where they inquired about the motivations of her trips off the island.

Other members of the CEC have been summoned by the police and have received warnings, including the director of the publication, Dagoberto Valdés, who was told by an official last October that from that moment his life will be “very difficult.”

The CEC organizes training courses for citizens and civil society and, in a recent public statement, its members assured that they will not leave Cuba or the Church and that they will continue to “work for the country.”

A Hurricane Called Communism

An old woman sitting in front of her home waits for the electricity to return in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 17 September 2017 — In the middle of the hurricane I received a mysterious photo of Fidel Castro. At the top it said: “Fidel resurrected.” Below the portrait the mystery was clarified: “His name is Irma.” The Commander was reincarnated as a ferocious hurricane.

The joke has a serious basis Juan Manuel Cao, one of America TeVe’s leading journalists, explained it to me. Communism and hurricanes have many things in common. They leave society that suffers them without electricity, without food, without medicines, without clothes, without gasoline. The drinking water becomes an elusive trickle that fades with skill of Houdini. They are magicians. Everything disappears. Socialism is like this.

But both catastrophes differ in one key detail: hurricanes last only a few days and people look forward to the end of the water and the wind. Communism, on the other hand, lasts an eternity and, little by little, hopes of seeing the end vanish. We Cubans have been suffering for 58 years. Venezuelans, although they have not yet reached the sea of ​​happiness, as announced by Hugo Chávez, began the journey almost 20 years ago. They are already close to the goal. May God take them confessed. continue reading

The Cuban Human Rights Foundation, chaired by Tony Costa, in a bulletin written by the historian Juan Antonio Blanco, adds a forceful denunciation in response to statements by dictator Raul Castro. The general explained that almost all the resources available to Cuba in the last quarter of 2017 will be used to rebuild the hotel infrastructure destroyed by Hurricane Irma.

The companies, almost all foreign, co-directed by Cuban generals, will have priority. If a street or a building has to be fixed, a power line or telephone has to be fixed, it will not be the Cubans, but the foreigners. It has always been like this. It is the government, without consulting the citizens, who will decide how it will spend the resources generated by the work of Cubans.

When these catastrophes occur, the cruel absurdity of the systems in which the government, owner of all property, of all resources, and of all decision-making mechanisms, chooses the certain bad luck of its subjects.

In societies in which private property prevails, citizens protect their assets through insurance, and if they do not have it, they acquire loans to repair their homes or estates. They do not expect the State to solve their most urgent needs because they know, as Ronald Reagan used to say, that there is no more dangerous creature than the one who tells us: “I am a representative of the government and I have come to solve your problems.”

In Cuba there are thousands of victims of hurricanes that happened six, seven or ten years ago, and who continue to live in temporary shelters that are falling apart. Often the aid that comes from abroad is then sold in dollars in special stores.

I remember a shocking revelation made me by Jaime Ortega, very upset, who was then bishop and soon cardinal, in the nineties, at my house in Madrid: when Germany, already reunited, tried to give thousands of tons of powdered milk, to be distributed by the Catholic charity Caritas, and their diplomats in Havana learned that the government sold these coveted gifts, the indignant representative of the Cuban government, a deputy foreign trade minister named Raul Taladrid, on the instructions of Fidel Castro, uttered a tremendous sentence that should pass to the universal history of infamy: “Cuban children will drink water with ashes before milk distributed by the Church.”

Now it was Irma’s turn. Little by little the country will erode sharply, from hurricane to hurricane, from storm to storm, until it becomes an incomprehensible ruin, as long as the current system continues. I am not surprised by the bitter joke. Fidel reincarnated in “Irma.” Tomorrow it will be as “Manuel” or “Carmen.” Until Cuba is a fuzzy memory, or until this chastened society can get rid of the heavy chain and take the long road to national reconstruction away from the socialist utopia.