Panama Will Deport Almost 500 Cubans in the Coming Weeks / 14ymedio, Mario Penton

Video: Lajas Blancas Camp Where Almost 100 Cubans Are Living

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 2 March 2017 – In the next few weeks Panama will deport almost 500 Cubans who remain undocumented in the country, after being stranded by the end of the United States’ wet foot/dry foot policy in January, which had previously allowed Cubans who stepped foot on American soil to remain in the country.

According to reports to 14ymedio by sources from Panama’s National Immigration Service, the deportations could begin when the Service’s director, Javier Carrillo returns; currently he is in Havana in the fourth round of migration talks between the two countries.

“The deportations depend on the agreement between the two nations, but we can confirm that all undocumented migrants who are currently in the country will be returned to Cuba,” said the official source.

“The Memorandum of Understanding for the deportations has been signed but the details have not yet been made known,” he said.

In Panama, 383 Cubans remain in the care of Caritas Panama, 92 in Lajas Blancas and another 24 in the shelter of the National Migration Service. For the migrants who are in the shelter set up by Caritas the news was disconcerting.

“They are very worried they did not expect something like this,” says Victor Luis Berrio, permanent deacon in charge of the Catholic institution.

Last week two Cubans attempted suicide by taking sleeping pills due to the uncertainty of their fate, they said

“At the moment we are making every possible effort to avoid the massive deportation of these Cubans,” he adds.

According to Berrío, his organization has sent a letter to the president of the nation explaining that all the humanitarian work of the Government could be jeopardized if they proceed with the deportation.

Hundreds of Cubans stranded by the end of the United States’ wet foot/dry foot policy in January. (Courtesy image)

According to Deacon Barrios, who follows the message of Pope Francis to shelter refugees, “the authorities’ intention has always been deportation.” He thinks, however, that it will not come to pass, “without a fight.”

“We are going to open our doors so that Cubans in Lajas Blancas can come to Caritas and we will continue to protect these defenseless people,” says the deacon.

“The decision of Caritas is to defend all the migrants that are in its care,” he says.

Last week two Cubans attempted suicide by taking sleeping pills due to the uncertainty of their fate, they said. They were in a Cuban migrant camp in the village of Lajas Blanca, near the western Panama border. Many crossed the Darien Gap jungle to get there.

 

Otto Rivero’s March 2nd / 14ymedio, Zunilda Mata

Otto Rivero seated behind Fidel Castro (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 2 March 2017 — Otto Rivero directed the most powerful entity in Cuba at the beginning of this century, the Battle of Ideas, but was ousted by Raúl Castro a few months after the latter assumed the presidency. Now, the former youth leader has emerged from his “pajama plan” – as such forced retirements are referred to in Cuba – to be a producer for the Covarrubias National Theater, a few yards from the Plaza of the Revolution.

Reserved and with psychological scars from his purging, Rivero navigates behind the scenes of the well-known theater. Those who do not remember his glory days cannot even imagine that the silent employee who coordinates the events was once one of the most powerful men on the island. continue reading

Behind his discreet appearance hides the man who controlled the immense resources of a “supra-ministry” with omnipotent powers, arising from the campaign for the return of the child rafter Elian Gonzalez to Cuba. A supra-ministry with the capacity to oversee gas stations, distribute air conditioners or call forth the shock troops in repudiation rallies against dissidents.

On March 2nd, but eight years ago, a brief note published in the official press gave accounts of its end

On the second day of March, but eight years ago, a brief note published in the official press gave notice of his end. The Council of State had decided to “free compañero Otto Rivero Torres of his responsibilities as vice president of the Council of Ministers.” A phrase which, for connoisseurs of the official grammar, confirmed his fall into disgrace.

Rivero’s exclusion from the “family photo” had been foreshadowed since Fidel Castro was sidelined by health problems in mid-2006. The former secretary general of the Young Communists Union (UJC) had been part of the entourage of the “Comandante’s men” and his dismissal was only a matter of time.

In the purges carried out by Raul Castro against the team loyal to his brother, others who fell included vice president Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. But unlike in their cases, Rivero’s ousting was not the subject of an acidic public diatribe; no column by the former president in the Party newspaper accusing him of addiction to “the honey of power.”

Close witnesses report that after his dismissal, Rivero went through a real ordeal. He was detained in the cells of the dreaded Villa Marista, State Security’s headquarters in Havana. He was accused of having allowed and participated in an enormous embezzlement that sucked funds out of the Battle of Ideas. The losses totaled millions in an era when Venezuelan oil allowed every kind of excess.

Police investigators blamed his lack of control over the entity and his having allowed its resources to be squandered on luxuries, foreign travel and gifts. Embezzled products circulated in the informal market: white, red and blue shirts; refrigerators made in China; and air conditioners.

“He was interrogated endlessly and his head could not resist,” a close family source says. “When he returned home he was a zombie, he could not even speak”

“He was interrogated endlessly and his head couldn’t resist,” a close family source told 14ymedio. “When he returned home he was a zombie, he couldn’t even speak.” His mental state deteriorated to the point that he attempted suicide, but “that didn’t go well,” the relative commented.

The former vice president’s family fell into a precarious economic state. The car and chauffeur were taken away as was the supply of luxury foods. As a punishment, the authorities sent Rivero to work at the Frederick Engels printers among the ink and printing presses. But he spent weeks before showing up for work the first time, where he became a mute automaton keeping his head down.

Rivero does not give statements or respond to questions about his past. All attempts to make him talk about the subject crash into the wall of his silence. But a nervous tic in his hands appears in response to the sound of certain names. His co-workers describe him as someone “affected” who has been “under psychiatric treatment.”

Of the confidence with which he wove slogans from the dais, nothing remains. “He is very careful and avoids being seen,” a singer-songwriter who has organized several events at Covarrubias Theater tells this newspaper. “He has changed a lot physically and most of the people who pass by him do not recognize him,” says the artist, who prefers anonymity.

Before the crash, his trajectory had been meteoric. At the age of 38, he was appointed Vice-President of the Council of Ministers after leading the UJC for seven years. With a degree in Economics and a seat in the National Assembly of People’s Power, the young man ascended the power structure at full speed to stand at the right hand of the Commander-in-Chief.

At the 7th UJC Congress of the, Fidel Castro defined Rivero and his team as “an avant-garde army, an elite troop of the Revolution.” Four years later, he had become a pariah

At the 7th UJC Congress, Fidel Castro defined Rivero and his team as “an avant-garde army, an elite troop of the Revolution” for being at the forefront of the Battle of Ideas. Four years after those words, the brand-new official had become a pariah.

To accommodate the Battle of Ideas, he began to refurbish a luxurious mansion on the central corner of 23 and B in Havana’s Vedado district. Here the promising leader would spend his glory days. The arrival of Raúl Castro stopped that dream and now the property hosts the Comptroller General of the Republic. A cruel irony.

Otto Rivero’s biography has also been removed from EcuRed, a Wikipedia substitute made to measure by the ruling party. For many Cubans, that youth leader no longer exists or has been forgotten. But very close to the Council of State he was once a part of, a gray employee ruminates his fate of banishment in the dim light of a theatrical hall.

The Private Sector Consolidates Its Presence in Gastronomy and Services / 14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez

La Herradura Paladar (private restaurant). (Ignacio de la Paz / 14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 1 March 2017 — The corner of Galiano and Zanja is a hive of people at noon. The area’s private cafes sell everything from bread with croquettes to a complex meat lasagna, but the nearest state places only sell cigarettes. A third of the food services in Cuba are managed privately or by cooperatives, a sector that is attracting a larger and larger clientele.

According to public statements in Monday’s official press from Interior Minister Mari Blanca Ortega, 32% of food, personal and technical services operating on the island “have moved to non-state forms of management.” This formula now seeks to “achieve more quality and efficiency,” says the official. continue reading

In the last two decades, the scene in the nation’s streets has been transformed with the appearance of timbiriches – tiny private businesses – sales counters in the doorways of houses, all the way to restaurant complexes serving Creole and international food. But the sector is still burdened by the absence of a wholesale market and a strong tax policy.

32% of the food, personal and technical services operating on the Island “have moved to forms of non-state management”

“The taxes are very high,” says Dario, who manages a small fruit and snack store near the Military Hospital in Havana. “The account doesn’t balance because the products have gone up a lot of price and I have to pay the Office of the Tax Administration (ONAT) almost half of what I earn in a year,” he complains.

Right now, more than 200,000 workers, of whom at least 170,000 are self-employed, must submit their formal declarations of accounts. Those who have annual incomes in excess of 50,000 Cuban pesos (about US $2,000) must pay the Treasury up to 50% of the total earned.

Darío says that in the area where he works “many small businesses have closed because they have not been able to maintain a stable supply.” However, at the national level the numbers have grown, albeit slowly in recent years. By the end of 2016, the country had 535,000 self-employed workers, according to data from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

The most common activities are the preparation and sale of food, the transport of cargo and passengers, the rental of dwellings, rooms or spaces and telecommunications agents.

Cases of tax evasion are common. Recently ONAT indicted 223 of these entrepreneurs in court. If found guilty they could face sentences of up to eight years in prison, ONAT’s legal director, Sonia Fernández, told the official media.

Outside a bakery on Carlos III Avenue, several of the self-employed were waiting Monday to supply their businesses. “I come every day and buy about 30 flautas, but sometimes I have to wait up to two hours to get goods,” says Migdalia, a cafeteria employee at nearby Calle Reina.

The bakery belongs to the retail network and the line alternates entrepreneurs and customers who only want to buy for home consumption. “If behind me someone buys wholesale, I’m left with nothing,” protests a retiree who considers that “the normal consumer is affected” when he must stand in line with small businesspeople.

Due to shortages affecting domestic markets, other products must be imported directly from abroad. “All the olive oil and Parmesan cheese we use we have to bring in from the outside,” said the administrator of a busy Italian restaurant in Havana’s Chinatown, insisting on anonymity.

In September 2014, new resolutions of the General Customs of the Republic attempted to restrict shipments of goods for commercial purposes by air, sea or postal. But the flow of products to the private sector has not stopped.

“I can not tell a customer that we are not making a dish because there is no nutmeg in the country or because I ran out of sesame”

“I cannot tell a customer that we are not making a dish because there is no nutmeg in the country or because I ran out of sesame,” complains the manager of the Italian restaurant. “When people come here they want to see that everything on the menu is being served; to guarantee that, you have to import many ingredients,” he says.

A report published a few days ago from the Economic and Trade Office of Spain in Havana says “the lack of stable access to raw materials and supplies necessary for their activity” as one of the greatest difficulties that the self-employed and cooperatives must face.

The lack of legal status is also at the root of most of the problems in this sector.

In spite of the rapid growth in numbers, and the contribution to the gross domestic product made by entrepreneurs and cooperatives, these forms of management have not been able “to squeeze into the productive fabric with sufficient force, due to the strong regulation and legal obstacles they encounter.”

Cuba Announces Exorbitant Rates for Limited Home Internet / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar

”Telepunto” office of the Telecommunications Company in Obispo Street, where an Wednesday rates for home internet were announced (14ymedio)

14ymedio biggerLuz Escobar, Havana, 1 March 2017 — After a two month free trial, the fees for government-run home internet service, known as “Nauta Hogar,” were announced on Wednesday. The Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) will charge between 15 and 115 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) for packages of 30 hours, depending on the connection speed, which varies 128 kilobytes and 2 megabytes. Thus, Cubans will pay, depending on the speed, the equivalent of roughly three weeks to five months wages in a state enterprise for one hour of internet a day.

Last January, the state monopoly chose 2,000 users in the Catedral and Plaza Vieja popular council areas for a pilot test of home web connectivity. Today, March 1, users have been informed of the ongoing costs for the service, but are not able to set up contracts because the computer system “is not working yet,” according to an employee of the Obispo Street Telepoint office who spoke to 14ymedio. continue reading

The worker explained that the new rates must be paid “within a period of seven days and if they are not the service will be cut.” Once interrupted, “the user has 30 days to pay and restore it.” Otherwise it will be disconnected.

After consuming the 30 hours of the initial package, customers can recharge their Nauta accounts under the same bonus terms used for wifi connections; users will be able to purchase more than one 30-hour package per month.

Until now, surfing the internet from home was a privilege reserved for senior officials, the most trustworthy professionals, and foreigners living in Cuba

Until now, surfing the internet from home was a privilege reserved for senior officials, the most trustworthy professionals, and foreigners living in Cuba. Most connections were made through the antiquated dial-up method, but the new connections will be served by faster ADSL lines.

Cuba is among the countries in the world with the lowest rate of internet access. Since July 2015, the state telecommunications monopoly has enabled public wifi hotspots, which now number more than 200 throughout the country. According to official figures, around 250,000 daily users are connected in these zones.

In recent weeks antennas for wireless connection have also been installed in several places along Havana’s Malecon, and the company is planning to extend the service to the entire perimeter of the coastal strip. For now, wifi is active along the Malecon at Hola Ola, La Piragua, 12 and Malecón, 3rd and B and Fuente de la Juventud.

Havana Mobilizes For The Liberation Of The Spy Ana Belén Montes

Campaign image for the liberation of Ana Belén Montes. “Everyone is one country. In that ‘global country’ the principle of loving thy neighbor as much as thyself turns out to be an essential guide.”

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana 27 February 2017 – This Tuesday, a campaign launches in Cuba for the liberation of Ana Belén Montes, a former intelligence analyst for the United States Defense Intelligence Agency, condemned for espionage and considered a “prisoner of conscience” by the government of Havana. The initiative includes concerts, conversations, and publications on social networks with the hashtag #FreeAnaBelenMontes.

The governing party seeks to revitalize the case of the spy, who was not included on the list of prisoners pardoned by Barack Obama at the end of his term. Now, efforts are focused on “getting her released through diplomatic negotiations,” according to official sources consulted by this newspaper. continue reading

Montes was arrested in September 2001 in Washington and sentenced to 25 years in prison for espionage assisting the Havana government. Currently, after her cancer diagnosis and mastectomy, she remains imprisoned in the Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Carswell, located on a U.S. Navy Air Station in Fort Worth, Texas.

For many years, the analyst provided substantial information to the Cuban Intelligence Agency, including military data following a visit to El Salvador, which Havana passed on to the FMLN guerillas (Marabundo Martî Front for National Liberation). That information served to inform an attack on a barracks in 1987 in which 65 soldiers perished, including an American.

The analyst provided substantial information to the Cuban Intelligence Agency, including military data following a visit to El Salvador, which Havana passed on to the FMLN guerillas.

The cause for the liberation of the ex-official maintains a low profile in comparison to the media coverage that surrounded the campaign for the five Cuban spies belonging to the Red Avispa (Wasp Network). In recent months, however, a photograph of Montes has appeared in various events organized by the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the People (ICAP) and other official entities.

Last year, the life of the Pentagon spy came to the screens through an episode of ‘Declassified,’ a documentary series released on CNN. The presenter of the program, Mike Rogers, former chair of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, guided spectators through the evidence that led to Montes’ arrest.

Like a fast-paced thriller, the documentary included the clue of a purchased Toshiba laptop, which led the FBI right to the spy, found in her apartment with information revealing her connection with the Island’s intelligence services; a code table found in her bag completed part of the investigative jigsaw puzzle.

The promoters of her release rely on International Amnesty’s definition of “prisoner of conscience,” considered as an “individual that has been imprisoned for their race, religion, skin color, language, sexual orientation or beliefs, as long as they have not propagated or practiced violence.” Her Cuban defenders argue that Montes did not receive payments from the Cuban government for her services nor was she recruited through “sordid blackmail.” They define her as someone that faced risks “for love of justice and honorary solidarity for the cause of the Cuban revolution.”

In October 2015 the Cuban Committee for the Liberation of Ana Belén Montes was created in Havana. The organization relies on various global affiliates and for months its objective was to demand a “presidential pardon” for the ex-official. The members systematically sent letters to the American government seeking her liberation.

A rumor about the possible exchange of Montes for Joanne Chesimard, alias Assata Shakur, who is a refugee in Cuba and wanted for the murder of a police officer in New Jersey, faded away without it being confirmed. The fugitive, who is on the Ten Most Wanted List in the United States and for whose capture there is a posted reward of 2 million dollars, continues to live out her days in Havana.

In October 2015 the Cuban Committee for the Liberation of Ana Belén Montes was created, which relies on various global affiliates.

In the weeks leading up to Obama’s White House departure, demands for the liberation of Montes rose to new heights. “She deserves now, more than ever, a presidential pardon, now that the U.S. speaks of normalizing relations with Cuba,” declared organizers of the committee.

This Tuesday Belén Montes turns 60 years old. Her release date is anticipated to be in 2023 and nothing points to her being released before that time. 

Translated by Chavely Garcia.

Revolutionary ‘Justice’ / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

Two women board a shared taxi (almendrón) in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, 28 February 2018 — The distance between the Havana Capitol and the Ciudad Deportiva (Sport City) remains the same and yet it seems to have changed. With the capped prices imposed by local government on the private taxi routes, this journey has become immense and difficult to complete. Where before a person needed to wait between 5 and 15 minutes, now they have to wait up to an hour to climb into an almendrón*.

At this point, those who were rubbing their hands at the reduced prices for private transport, must have realized that the hand of the state has broken a fragile network ruled by supply and demand. The taxi drivers cut their trips in a sign of protest, and many are staying home weighing whether it is worth spending so many hours behind the steering wheel for ever smaller profits. continue reading

The victims of these reductions are all of us. One of the new rich who manages a restaurant, the doctor who needs to get to the hospital, the old man who has a medical appointment, or the student who is counting his centavos to make it to the end of the month. It has not been a blow to the social class that can pay between 10 and 20 Cuban pesos for a trip, but a blow to all those who on some occasion, even if only sporadically, use this type of transportation.

Official propaganda is now unleashed against the workers of the private sector, but it is silent before the exploitive state that pays for such misery

Like many restrictive measures of this “Revolutionary” process, it has also surrounded itself with a whiff of false justice, with an aura of supposed egalitarianism. Official propaganda is now unleashed against private sector workers who charge half a day’s wages for a trip, but it is silent before the exploitive state that pays for such misery.

The television reports approach the passengers to capture the moment when they say, “that was an abuse that could not continue,” or, “now prices are more in line with our pockets.” But they are silent about those shelves in the state stores where a liter of oil cost two days’ pay and two pounds of chicken can mean a week’s hard work.

Will prices also rise in those markets? Will the Havana Administrative Council unleash itself against the retail network where a father has to pay two week’s wages for a pair of shoes for his son? The Revolutionary “justice” is one-eyed in these cases, only looking in the direction that suits it.

*Translator’s note: “Almendrón” means “almond” and refers to the shape of the classic American cars often used in shared, fixed-route taxi service.

The Cuban Exile in Havana / 14ymedio, Regina Coyula

”Departure” is a performance by the company The Enchanted Deer that tackles the drama of those who left Cuba. (The Enchanted Deer)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Regina Coyula, Havana, 27 February 2017 — From the beginning you feel that something is missing, you shift awkwardly in the seat in the small room at The Enchanted Deer, although you want to seem calm. After a long version of Amazing Grace, you will be detached enough to take in what follows. The stage is lit, before us, almost like a mirror, and other rows of seats appear, occupied by photographs and a woman. The actress Mariela Brito leads us through a national memory that is not spoken of but that is among us, we Cubans, with an almost physical presence.

Mariela, in a colloquial tone, tells us why many of those who left went away, stories very similar to those we tell of our own families, between friends and acquaintances. But beyond the stories told, float others like empty rafts, those who didn’t live to tell and who are, somehow, the protagonists. This is the absence that the audience can fill with its own memories.

The staging, deliberately slow, allows us to digest, metabolize facts, moments that mark one of the great dramas of our country: the family and social fracture. As if that were not enough, a screen runs through the successive departures of the last 58 years. Scars that we carry and that – the performance is here to remind us – do not end.

The audience interacts with the performance ‘Departure’. (The Enchanted Deer)

At the end of the performance, the audience is invited to approach the proscenium and interact with the photos, read the texts in the form of short letters that accompany many of the images, confirm, now closer, that they are indeed Celia Cruz, Jorge Valls, Cabrera Infante or Ana Mendieta, along with Maria, Juan or Manuel. The empty seats seem to tell us: Do not forget. Do not forget, with that dangerous selective oblivion that does so much damage to society and that history needs to reconstruct.

Inevitably, the site acts as an emetic. The accounting of this period, begun in 1959, raises the question of whether a project built at the cost of such sacrifice, the exile and death of those who are beyond the performance on the stage of The Enchanted Deer, of those who are absent, was worth it. But this is a brief chronicle. That would be a very long reflection.

Police In Havana Deploy In Response To Taxi Driver Strike / 14ymedio

Police officer engaged in the deployment started Monday in reaction to the taxi drivers’ strike. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 27 February 2017 — Residents of Havana woke up on Monday morning to a strong police deployment, motivated by the announcement of a strike by private taxi drivers. In response to a question from 14ymedio, a uniformed officer said that it was “an operation due to the overcharging by the taxi drivers.”

“As of Monday, 27 February, we drivers all over Cuba are going to strike. We will simply stay home and not wok on those days,” said a text that circulated several days earlier on the alternative media. However, many drivers were unaware of the initiative or declined to participate,” according to what 14ymedio was able to confirm.

The drivers’ discontent has been growing since the beginning of this month when the authorities of the capital set fixed rates for the portions of the routes of private taxi drivers. This decision has put an end to the law of supply and demand that regulated the private transportation of passengers for more than two decades. continue reading

“They are afraid that we will go to the Plaza of the Revolution like the pedicab drivers did last year,” a driver who preferred anonymity and decided not to work on Monday told 14ymedio. “I’m going to stay home all week, even if I lose money, it’s my right,” he said.

Faced with the pressures of the authorities many drivers have reacted by no longer serving the intermediate stops or selecting only those customers who make the complete route

Others have gone out to drive like any other day. “This ‘ship’ is the food for my family, I can’t give myself the luxury of not working,” explains Reinier, a young driver who works in a car he rents from its owner. For those who work in this way it is more difficult to join in any initiative to stop work or protest.

The passengers are complaining abut the delays. “I spent an hour and couldn’t move from this corner,” said a customer who was at the intersection of Infanta and Neptune waiting for a taxi to go to to Playa. “The transport situation was much worse today,” he added.

Faced with the pressures of the authorities many drivers have reacted by no longer serving the intermediate stops or selecting only those customers who make the complete route. The response of the carriers has been fewer taxis on the streets, a way to pressure the authorities to take a step back.

The call for a strike this Monday circulated anonymously and several drivers expressed to 14ymedio their doubts about the authenticity of the call. Nevertheless, all those consulted were aware of the proposal that was made known in blogs, news sites and television programs that are seen through the illegal antennas.

“We are victims of a daily siege by police agents, state inspectors and other entities,” the text warned. Those calling for a strike are demanding access to a wholesale market (for fuel and other needs), the reduction of taxes, and the right to create an independent trade union.

According to the latest data from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, more than 535,000 people are self-employed, of whom 54,350 are engaged in freight and passenger transport.

 

Imported Clothing, An Illegal and Profitable Business / 14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada

A woman sells clothes at the profitable business ‘Paris Viena’ on Monte Street. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, Havana, 27 February 2017 – Regla has spent years working in a prohibited business. She used to do it in doorways on Monte Street in Old Havana, but when the government changed the law to block the trade in clothes and shoes, in December 2013, she had to find an even more discrete method. Now she maintains a point of sale in a state-owned place that rents spaces to private workers, but her little countertop that displays manufactured parts, only serves as a cover to attract customers who then trade in the merchandise that comes from countries Cubans can visit without a visa.

In the past, Regla made the clothes with raw materials “subtracted” from the state Wajay towel factory in Boyeros, and sold them through her self-employment license as a dressmaker. continue reading

“With that trick Regla also avoids paying a good part of the payment of taxes on her personal income. Of the 535,000 self-employed in the county, right now 170,000 of them must present their their affidavit, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

Among her ample catalog, Lycra pants printed with an American flag are a stand out.

“Everything I have is better quality than in the store,” the saleswoman explains with pride. This week she has again whispered to customers to look at her merchandise in the doorways, because the building where she has her stand is closed for repairs.

Among her ample catalog, Lycra pants printed with an American flag are a stand out. The official media have railed against this garment on repeated occasions, but its presence in the streets continues to grow.

The police control the areas where these sellers frequently offer their merchandise. The penalty for illegal sales includes the confiscation of all the products and a fine of 1,500 pesos. However, the informal sellers continue to dominate a good part of the market for clothing and shoes to the detriment of state owned “Hard Currency Collection” stores, as the state stores are formally named.

Yulia offers her products on Infanta Street. Mot of them come from Russia, Guyana and Haiti. “I started traveling to countries that did not require a visa, but for months I also bought in Haiti.” She thinks that the Caribbean country is a good destination to be supplied from because of the low prices of plane tickets.

This illegal market has also found its own ways of protecting itself

“I go to the home of relatives in Santiago de Cuba and I fly from there,” she explains. “I take clothes twice as big.” This is because the investment is lower than in the case of more distant trips, such as the distant Moscow.

Obtaining a visa for Haiti is relatively easy for Cubans, and Yulia recently also got the Haitian residency. Her new legal status will allow her to expand her business. “Everyone wants pretty clothes from outside the country,” says the saleswoman who has been in the trade for seven years.

This illegal market has also found its own ways of protecting itself. To the cry of “water!” the informal sellers of Monte Street hide their goods or vanish on some stairs. It’s the code to warn that the police are coming. When the authorities withdraw, they all return to their places. Until the next warning.

Rafael Correa and the Populist Syndrome / 14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner

Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador (Archive image / EFE)

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, 25 February 2017 — On May 24, Rafael Correa will leave the presidency of Ecuador. Not long now. Don’t despair. I understand; the wait has been long and painful. He has spent a decade in power. On that day, whoever wins the April 2 runoff will take over the government. If the opposition democrats remain united, Guillermo Lasso should succeed him in the post.

Who is Rafael Correa, this contradictory personage who calls himself a neo-developer, a 21st-Century socialist, a Catholic supporter of Liberation Theology, a left-wing nationalist and who, on top of all that, sings and plays the guitar? continue reading

Are we in the presence of a communist disguised, as Fidel Castro was until he confessed his true militancy in 1961 after denying it half a dozen times?

I don’t think that Correa was a communist. It’s something else. Although he is a mediocre economist without original thinking, he knows enough to realize that Marx’s ideas are harebrained.

Despite his speech before the Comandante’s ashes in November 2016, filled with admiration and radicalism, Correa is the quintessential Latin American populist. How do we know this? We know it by a study of his symptoms. Populism is a syndrome.

There’s not the slightest contradiction here. The Castros and Rafael Correa are brothers in populist devotion, authoritarianism and histrionics. Correa is a Fidelista by reason of being a populist. Perón also sympathized with Fidel and vice versa, as did Mussolini and Lenin. They loved each other in secret, like bolero lyrics used to say.

Naturally, you can be a populist and a communist or fascist. Makes no difference. There are populists to the right and left of the political spectrum. Populism consists of government measures to seize power and hold on to it. It’s related to the deep psychology of the man in charge. In addition, there’s no dearth of democratic leaders and parties that, lamentably, exhibit some populist elements.

It’s a question of parallel forms of governance that include several defining features:

Strongman-ism with all its defects, such as narcissism.

Exclusivism (the others are always a bunch of scoundrels.)

Patronage, through the abundant use of subsidies.

An exacerbated nationalism that is mistaken for chauvinism.

“Adamism” (they believe that the nation’s real history began with them.)

Statism, given that they mistrust private enterprise.

Excessive public spending to hold on to their political clients, which usually results in kickbacks and other forms of corruption in addition to total ruination.

A rejection of the market and international commerce (Correa — like Trump, although on the opposite end — was an enemy of the North American Free Trade Agreement).

Caustic language and a total absence of any vestige of civic cordiality.

No question about it. Rafael Correa is more akin to the fascists than to the Marxist-Leninists. He shares much with Perón and Velasco Alvarado, that ignorant Peruvian general who destroyed his country’s economy with populist measures.

Correa is a strongman convinced that he holds all the truths and that his adversaries are despicable people. Whosoever holds or expresses a different idea is a rascal who must be insulted and — if he doesn’t escape, like journalists Emilio Palacio and Fernando Villavicencio did — locked away.

A populist has not the slightest respect for institutions, the law or the adversary, but demands to be treated with reverence. When a ragamuffin once “gave the finger” to Correa from a sidewalk, the president stopped his motorcade and had him arrested.

The opposition has tallied several dozen insults and slanders spouted in Correa’s “Saturday chats,” radio programs that someday will be used as study readings in courses on the psychopathology of power.

Correa does not believe in tolerance or freedom of speech or in those who posit, as did Thomas Jefferson, that a society without an independent government but with a free press is preferable to the alternative.

He mocks or pursues those who criticize him and tries to ruin them, as he did with the owners of El Universo, a major newspaper in Guayaquil, because the rich — unless they’re on his side — are his natural enemies.

Anyway, in the first round of voting on February 19 the Ecuadoreans earned the right to be free. Bravo. They earned it in the days after the election, through their determination not to be cheated out of a victory. Now they’ll have to win in the April 2 runoff to finish the task. If they don’t, Correa will be back. He’s already threatening it.

English Translation from Carlos Alberto Montaner’s blog

Weakness, Fear And Inability Erode The Cuban Government / 14ymedio, Pedro Campos

The empty chair with the Oswaldo Payá prize “Freedom and Life” that the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro could not come to Cuba to receive. (Networks)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Pedro Campos, Miami, 23 February 2017 — The recent “diplomatic” action by the Cuban Government to try to prevent the presence of foreign personalities in a private event in Havana to receive a symbolic prize bearing the name of the late regime opponent Oswaldo Payá, denotes the weakness, fear and incapacity that characterize its actions since the visit of Barack Obama to Cuba and the subsequent death of Fidel Castro.

According to the declaration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) in the newspaper Granma, the plan was to mount an open and serious provocation against the Cuban government in Havana, generate internal instability, damage the international image of the country and, at the same time, affect the good progress of Cuba’s diplomatic relations with other states. continue reading

According to MINREX, Almagro himself and some other right-wing individuals had the connivance and support of other organizations with thick anti-Cuban credentials, such as the Democracy and Community Center, the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL), the Inter-American Institute for Democracy, and a person they call a CIA terrorist and agent, Carlos Alberto Montaner.

In addition, says MINREX, since 2015 there has been a link between these groups and the National Foundation for Democracy in the United States (NED), which receives funding from the US government to implement its subversive programs against Cuba.

The dictatorship of the proletariat, which prevailed in Cuba 57 years ago, has thus invented an “anti-Cuban” (against Cuba or against themselves?), “imperialist”, “counterrevolutionary” and “CIA” hoax behind what could have been a small and simple limited ceremony; in short, if they had been allowed to hold it without the presence of foreign guests it would have served the Government to improve its image with respect to the rights of Cubans as citizens and shown some tolerance.

If they were a little bit capable they could have “stolen the show,” but we already know that in Cuba ‘counterintelligence’ dominates in its broadest sense.

Their response to this assessment is given by the MINREX note: “Perhaps some misjudged and thought that Cuba would sacrifice its essence to appearances,” as if appearances are not an example of essence. It is the ignorance of the dialectic relationship between form and content.

But in short, not one step back. According to MINREX the military state is in danger from this provocation, without arms, without masses, without leaders who enjoy wide support among Cubans on the island. We cannot give ground to the “counterrevolution,” — they say — as if it were not precisely the defenders of the indefensible regime themselves who prevented the revolutionary changes that would lead us to prosperous, democratic Cuba, free of authoritarian hegemonies, with all and for the good of all.

It is weakness, fear and incapacity that led the government to put its repressive character on full display and to miss the opportunity to have been hospitable to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States and to have discussed with him the conditions for possible ties to that Inter-American body.

If they were a little bit capable they could have “stolen the show,” but we already know that in Cuba ‘counterintelligence’ dominates in its broadest sense.

The organizations and individuals who prepared the event have a vision different from the government’s on the ways in which politics and the economy should be conducted in Cuba and, of course, it was an opportune moment to promote the positions of change previously promoted by the Leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Payá, who died in circumstances demanding further explanation.

The actions of the Cuban government favored what the organizers of the event ultimately wanted to demonstrate: the absence of space in Cuba for different thinking

But if something like this can destabilize the regime, it should do the same!

The government’s actions provoked exactly what it was trying to avoid, creating more interest among Cubans and international opinion in the Varela Project and in how Oswaldo Paya died, a man who might not have been to the liking of the government and other cities, but who lived on the island, worked there and from from within promoted a peaceful and democratic change of the system, with all his rights as a Cuban citizen. Something to respect.

The Cuban government’s action, vitiated by extremism, Manichaeism, intolerance and repression, favored what the organizers of the event ultimately wanted to demonstrate: the absence of space in Cuba for different thinking, the existence of a tyrannical regime that impedes freedom of expression and association, and that it intends to continue to govern based on jails, police and repressive security agents.

The repression of the opposition, socialist dissent and different thinking, pressures against the self-employed, the stagnation of the reforms proposed by the Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba itself, the voluntary efforts to try to control the widespread corruption generated by statist wage system, in short, everything that is being done by the senior bureaucratic hierarchy is generating chaos that undermines and will burst the system from within from ignorance of the laws of economic-social development.

They don’t know where they stand! Don’t try to put the blame on others later.

This service against a “socialism” that has never existed will perhaps be the best historical legacy left to us by these 60 years of voluntarism, populism and authoritarianism of Fidel Castro communism, such that the most retrograde forces of international reaction will eternally thank the “Cuban leadership.”

Cuban Activist Juan Goberna Arrested / 14ymedio

Activist Juan Goberna in a file image. (Cubanet)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 25 February 2017 — Human rights activist Juan Goberna Hernández was arrested around 9 am this Saturday when he left home to attend a meeting of the Inclusive Culture Network, a project to defend the rights of people with disabilities.

On Friday night Goberna, who is blind, was visited by two State Security agents to warn him that they would not allow him to attend the meeting. Two other agents named Brayan and Nacho were posted in a car from early Saturday to stop him if he persisted in his decision to go to the meeting. continue reading

In Aguada de Pasajeros, Goberna was taken from a bus on which he panned to travel to Havana to attend the meeting.

Minutes before his arrest Goberna told 14ymedio by phone that it was his “duty” and his “right” to participate in the activity.

So far it has not been possible to determine where he was taken.

The Network of Inclusive Culture tries to promote a greater sensitivity towards the treatment of people with disabilities, working to make visible the difficulties that such individuals face on a daily basis.

In addition to conducting workshops and seminars, members of the Network provide support and advice in cases of violations of rights to anyone in situations of vulnerability.

Brothers To The Rescue: A Crime That Hurts “Like The First Day”/ 14ymedio, Mario Penton

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 24 February 2017 – Members of the Cuban exile remembered the anniversary of the death of four Cuban Americans after the shooting down of two planes of the humanitarian NGO Brothers to the Rescue by the Cuban Air Force in 1996.

The commemorative activities began with an act of homage to Manuel de la Peña, Carlos Acosta, Armando Alejandre and Pablo Morales, at the monument in Opa-locka that reminds them of the 21st anniversary of the tragedy.

“Every year when we remember them, we feel immense pain,” says Ana Ciereszko, sister of Armando Alejandre, one of those murdered. continue reading

“When President Obama returned the spy responsible for the murder of our relatives it was very hard because they gave their lives to save the lives of others, Cuban rafters, many of whom have disappeared at sea,” she added.

Cuban-American Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen also recalled those killed and lashed out at the Obama administration for the release of spy Gerardo Hernandez, convicted of providing information to the Cuban government that allowed the perpetration of the crime.

“Our nation must defend these murdered Americans and ensure that justice prevails so that the families of these victims can have the final peace they so deeply deserve,” said the congresswoman.

A third plane was able to escape and asked for help from the US authorities, who never delivered it

Brothers to the Rescue emerged as an initiative of civilian aviators of various nationalities and Cubans interested in assisting the rafters who escaped from the island in fragile vessels during the migratory crisis in the early 1990s. The collapse of the Soviet Union caused the greatest economic crisis in the country’s history and thousands of migrants threw themselves into the sea in the hope of reaching the United States.

The two Cessna 337 Skymaster aircraft, from Miami, were shot down with air-to-air missiles by a MiG-29UB 900 fighter and a MiG-23 fighter. A third plane escaped and called for help from the US authorities, who never gave it to them.

The Cuban government accused the organization of having “terrorist purposes” and defended the demolition of light aircraft on the grounds that they were over Cuban waters. Brothers to the Rescue, however, says that the shooting down took place in international waters.

“There has been no justice because there was no clarification of the truth. The facts were carefully hidden under the presidencies of Clinton and Castro,” says Jose Basulto, 76, president of Brothers to the Rescue and one of the survivors of the tragedy.

“It was a joint action, complicit, because they wanted to resume relations between both countries,” he says. He adds that on the Island there practice runs for shooting down the planes and that it was suggested to American officials what was going to happen. “We were exposed to the enemy fire and nobody helped us,” he adds.

According to Basulto, the days before each commemoration of the demolition are filled with memories and are “very sad.”

The gathering has become a tradition to remember the four Cuban-American youth

“Brothers to the Rescue was an example of human solidarity with the people of Cuba and to teach the world the harshness of the suffering of the people, capable of committing suicide at sea in order to escape from that dictatorship,” he recalls.

At Florida International University (FIU) a commemorative event was held with relatives of the victims and a broad representation of the exile. The meeting has become a tradition to remember the four Cuban-American youth and, as every year, silence was held between 3:21 pm and 3:28 pm, the time at which the planes were shot down.

“My brother was my first baby. He was just a boy when he was killed,” says Mirtha Costa, sister of Carlos Alberto Costa.

“He loved being together with everyone in the family. He was also a very cheerful person and always looked for how to make jokes to others,” he recalls.

Both Costa and the other relatives are responsible for the CAMP Foundation, named after the initials of each of the victims of the shooting down.

The foundation supports diverse organizations that promote youth education, such as Miami Dade College and the University of Miami.

The families of the victims will honor their memory with a Eucharist at St. Agatha Church at 7:00 pm this Friday.

 

‘Little Old Communists’ / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

An old man poses next to a series of portraits of Cuban leaders. Left to right: Celia Sanchez, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, Fidel Castro. Far right, Raul Castro. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 25 February 2017 — Many of those who experienced the first moments of the Revolution when they were between the ages of 14 and 20, became literacy teachers, young rebels, militiamen, cederistas (supporters of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution) and federadas ( ‘federated’, i.e. supporters and activists of the Revolution). They overachieved every challenge and climbing five peaks or walking 62 kilometers ended up being credentials of high social value.

It was common to see them with a pistol at their belts bragging about their exploits at the Bay of Pigs or cleaning up the Revolution’s opponents in the Escambray Mountains. It was the time of the Schools of Revolutionary Instruction, of a Marxism manual tucked under one arm and simplified atheism. In those prodigious years of the 1960s they embodied the true fervor of youth and, consequently, an ideological prejudice against the elderly took root. continue reading

A poet, then (and still) unknown, would write fiery verses under the provocative title of If the old woman in front took power where he described in the purest colloquial style the retrograde measures that would be dictated by this hypothetical lady, probably bourgeois and resentful, in a word: a gusana, a worm. In fact the term “old worm” already seemed a redundancy in the mouth of those tropical Red Guards… But time passed and many vultures flew over monument in the Plaza of the Revolution.

A new generation, with very different goals, today launches its prejudicial darts against anyone over 70

A new generation, with very different goals, today launches its prejudicial darts against anyone over 70. But they no longer use the expletive “old worm,” instead they choose its diametrical opposite: “little old communist.”

A diminutive, as any good linguist knows, can be loaded with tenderness or contempt. It is not the same to say “granny” as it is to say “little teacher.” And this epithet of “little old man,” or woman, wrapped in a false commiseration falls with its full weight of impairment on the line of retirees who get in line early in the morning to buy the newspaper Granma, or on any gray-haired person always ready to utter some admonition to the teenagers who saunter out of the high schools with their shirts untucked.

Old people in an old age center in the city of Cienfuegos. (EFE)

Destiny has these intrinsic twists. For a boy who spends most of his day thinking about how to leave the country, anyone who passed up a historic opportunity to leave this shipwrecked island must be an accomplice, if not the one personally responsibly for all his angst.

If there is a space for a smile after the macabre grimace of death, those “old worms” must be amusing themselves in the face of the painful spectacle offered by their former dentists, who no longer dread the future, but rather ruminate on a defeat they do not want to recognize.

The Countdown Begins For Raul Castro’s Departure From Power / 14ymedio

Raúl Castro announced that he would leave power in 2018, ten years after assuming it. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 24 February 2017 — On February 24 of next year Raul Castro must leave the presidency of Cuba if he is to fulfill the promise he has made several times. His announced departure from power is looked on with suspicion by some and seen as an inescapable fact by others, but hardly anyone argues that his departure will put an end to six decades of the so-called historical generation.

For the first time, the political process begun in January 1959 will have a leader who did not participate in the struggle against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Nevertheless, Raul Castro can maintain the control of the Communist Party until 2021, a position with powers higher than the executive’s and enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic. continue reading

In the 365 days that remain in his position as president of the Councils of State and of Ministers, the 85-year-old ruler is expected to push several measures forward. Among them is the Electoral Law, which he announced two years ago and that will determine the political landscape he leaves behind after his retirement.

In the 365 days that remain in his position as president of the Councils of State and of Ministers, the 85-year-old ruler is expected to push several measures forward. Among them is the Electoral Law

In the coming months the relations between Havana and Washington will be defined in the context of the new presidency of Donald Trump and, in internal terms, by the economy. Low wages, the dual currency system, housing shortages and shortages of products are some of the most pressing problems for which Cubans expects solutions.

Raul Castro formally assumed the presidency in February of 2008, although in mid-2006 he took over Fidel Castro’s responsibilities on a provisional basis due to a health crisis affecting his older brother that forced him from public life. And now, given the proximity of the date he set for himself to leave the presidency, the leader is obliged to accelerate the progress of his decisions and define the succession.

In 2013 Castro was confirmed as president for a second term. At that time he limited the political positions to a maximum of ten years and emphasized the need to give space to younger figures. One of those faces was Miguel Díaz-Canel, a 56-year-old politician who climbed through the party structure and now holds the vice presidency.

In the second tier of power in the Party is Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, an octogenarian with a reputation as an orthodox who in recent months has featured prominently in the national media. A division of power between Díaz-Canel and Machado Ventura (one as president of the Councils of State and of Ministers and the other as secretary general of the Party) would be an unprecedented situation for millions of Cubans who only know the authority being concentrated in a single man.

However, many suspect that behind the faces that hold public office, the family clan will continue to manipulate through pulling the strings of Alejandro Castro Espín. But the president’s son, promoted to national security adviser, is not yet a member of the Party Central Committee, the Council of State or even a Member of Parliament.

Many suspect that behind the faces that hold public office, the family clan will continue to manipulate the strings of Alejandro Castro Espín

For Dagoberto Valdés, director of the Center for Coexistence Studies, Raúl Castro leaves without doing his work. “There were many promises, many pauses and little haste,” he summarizes. He said that many hoped that the “much-announced reforms would move from the superficial to the depth of the model, the only way to update the Cuban economy, politics and society.”

Raul Castro should “at least, push until the National Assembly passes an Electoral Law” that allows “plural participation of citizens,” says Valdés. He also believes that he should give “legal status to private companies” and “also give legal status to other organizations of civil society.”

The American academic Ted Henken does not believe that the current president will leave his position at the head of the Party. For Henken,a professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Baruch College in New York, Castro’s management has been successful in “maintaining the power of historic [generation] of the Revolution under the authoritarian and vertical model installed more than half a century ago” and “having established a potentially more beneficial new relationship with the US and embarking on some significant economic reforms. ”

However, Henken sees as “a great irony that the government has been more willing to sit down and talk with the supposed enemy than with its own people” and points out “the lack of fundamental political rights and basic civil liberties” as “a black stain on the legacy of the Castro brothers.”

Blogger Regina Coyula, who worked from 1972 to 1989 for the Counterintelligence Directorate of the Interior Ministry, predicts that Raul Castro will be remembered as someone “who could and did not dare.” At first she saw him as “a man more sensible than the brother and much more pragmatic” but over time “by not doing what he had to do, nothing turned out as it should have turned out.”

Perhaps “he came with certain ideas and when it came to reality he realized that introducing certain changes would inevitably bring a transformation of the country’s political system,” says Coyula

Perhaps “he came with certain ideas and when it came to reality he realized that introducing certain changes would inevitably bring a transformation of the country’s political system,” says Coyula. That is something he “is not willing to assume. He does not want to be the one who goes down in history with that note in his biography.”

Independent journalist Miriam Celaya recalls that “the glass of milk he promised is still pending” and also “all the impetus he wanted to give to the self-employment sector.” She says that in the last year there has been “a step back, a retreat, an excess of control” for the private sector.

With the death of Fidel Castro, his brother “has his hands untied to be to total reformist that some believed he was going to be,” Celaya reflects. “In this last year he should release a little what the Marxists call the productive forces,” although she is “convinced… he won’t do it.”

As for a successor, Celaya believes that the Cuban system is “very cryptic and everything arrives in a sign language, we must be focusing on every important public act to see who is who and who is not.”

“The worst thing in the whole panorama is the uncertainty, the worst legacy that Raul Castro leaves us is the magnification of the uncertainty,” she points out. “There is no direction, there is no horizon, there is nothing.” He will be remembered as “the man who lost the opportunity to amend the course of the Revolution.”

“He will not be seen as the man who knew, in the midst of turbulence, how to redirect the nation,” laments Manuel Cuesta Morua. Cuesta Morua, a regime opponent, who belongs to the Democratic Action Roundtable (MUAD) and to the citizen platform #Otro18 (Another 2018), reproaches Raúl Castro for not having made the “political reforms that the country needs to advance economically: he neither opens or closes [the country] to capital and is unable to articulate another response to the autonomy of society other than flight or repression.”

Iliana Hernández, director of the independent Cuban Lens, acknowledges that in recent years Raúl Castro has returned to Cubans “some rights” such as “buying and selling houses, cars, increasing private business and the right to travel.” The activist believes that this year the president should “call a free election, legalize [multiple] parties and stop repressing the population.”

As for the opposition, Hernandez believes that he is “doing things that were not done before and were unthinkable to do.”

Dissident Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello is very critical of Raul Castro’s management and says she did not even fulfill his promise of ending the dual currency system. “He spoke of a new Constitution, a new economic system, which aren’t even mentioned in the Party Guidelines,” he says.

“To try to make up for the bad they’ve done, in the first place he should release all those who are imprisoned simply for thinking differently under different types of sanctions”

“To try to make up for the bad they’ve done, in the first place he should release all those who are imprisoned simply for thinking differently under different types of sanctions,” reflects Roque Cabello. She also suggests that he sit down and talk to the opposition so that it can tell him “how to run the country’s economy, which is distorted.”

Although she sees differences between Fidel’s and Raul Castro’s styles of government, “he is as dictator like his brother,” she said. The dissident, convicted during the Black Spring of 2003, does not consider Diaz-Canel as the successor. “He is a person who has been used, I do not think he’s the relief,” and points to Alejandro Castro Espín or Raul Castro’s former son-in-law, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Callejas, as possible substitutes.

This newspaper tried to contact people close to the ruling party to obtain their opinion about Raúl Castro’s legacy, his succession and the challenges he faces for the future, but all refused to respond. Rafael Hernández, director of the magazine Temas, told the Diario de las Américas in an interview: “There must be a renewal that includes all those who have spent time like that [10 years].” However, not all members of the Council of State have been there 10 years, not even all the ministers have been there 10 years.”

This is the most that the supporters of the Government dare to say.