14ymedio – Page 523 – Translating Cuba

‘Coffee, Three Cents’ / 14ymedio, Pedro Campos

An independent seller of peanuts and sweets on the streets of Havana. (Luz Escobar)

14ymedio, Pedro Campos, Havana, 23 August 2016 – Self-employed Cubans are tossed out of places where they’ve contracted with the State to work, without consideration of the consequences for them and violating what is established in their “contracts.” Recently this happened in Pinar del Rio, according to various reports, thanks to the redevelopment of the city boulevard. But this happens commonly all over Cuba.

An emblematic case happened in a Havana park when it was closed to the public for repairs and two dozen self-employed individuals, among them food vendors, sellers of toys, balloons and baby things, photographers, parking attendants and others, were left without work and without any ability to demand redress, although they had one year contracts and their licenses, payments and other documents were in order. continue reading

Months later, having finished some light painting and other things that could have been done between Monday and Friday without closing the park, which was mainly used on Saturdays and Sundays, this important recreation area was reopened, but under another administration.

The protests of the self-employed were ignored. The new administration had no “responsibility to the old contracts,” they told those who tried to reestablish themselves there. They needed new contracts for which they had to present all new documentation, photographs, self-employment licenses, tax payments, letters of good conduct from their local Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and other things.

About twenty self-employed people were out of work for months, and had no recourse. The new administration set up new contracts with other self-employed people and some of the previous ones who had learned about it in time when they reopened the park. Others weren’t able to get new contracts. The opportunities were limited. And the previous contracts? Fine, and you?

In Cuba it is very normal that when the management of a company, a factory, a municipality or a province change, many other things also change.

It comes from the genesis of the top-down statist system introduced in Cuba by Fidel Castro, in the name of a socialism that has never existed other than in the dreams of many Cubans.

With the new administrations there are always changes among the most important positions, in the relationships between bosses and subordinates, in the old and new privileges granted by the boss, and in the way a business works in general.

And for this model – top-down, directed, bureaucratic, paternalist and populist – “the cadre is the backbone of the Revolution,” as Che Guevara said in one of his programmatic writings, not institutions nor their arrangements. According to this philosophy, present in Cuba at every step, when the cadre, that is the backbone, doesn’t exist, the whole body collapses.

This philosophy on leadership and management is very typical of Stalinist regimes, where the central figure, the leader, and his decisions are everything for his political subordinates. It happened in the USSR and other “socialist” countries: the bureaucracy, the so-called “unforeseen class,” according to some scholars, quickly adapted to the changes and went from socialist bureaucracy to capitalist bureaucracy, or from virtual owners in “socialism” to real owners in the new private capitalist model.

It is like one of those historical regularities of state-socialism, which invariably is found in the system at all levels and everywhere.

So it was not surprising that the fall of a leader changes many things, because these personality-focused governments are not capable of generating structures or institutions that serve the interests of the majority and the communist parties themselves, in reality, have been nothing more than political armies loyal to their founding bosses.

Today we see the Cuban Communist Party is incapable to presenting a program of consistent, comprehensive development for the Cuban nation and where, backwards and forwards, exclusions, designations, impositions, contradictions and failures are our daily bread.

Thus, those who think that the general rules that govern the country won’t change until there is a change in our administrator in chief are not mistaken, the same as always, and then, when other winds blow through Cuba, the loyal bureaucracy will act like the coffee seller who was walking along the wall of the Malecon in Havana in 1961, when the Bay of Pigs invasion happened. As he hawked his little cups of coffee he called out, “Cafeeé, … Cafeeé tres centavos, tres centavos” and when he heard that the American boats could already be seen approaching the coast, he quickly revised his come on: “Coffeee, three cents … Coffeee, three cents.”

Camagüey Has No Water Despite a 40 Million Dollar Loan from Saudi Arabia / 14ymedio, Ignacio de La Paz

Water supply truck, last April, in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Ignacio de la Paz, Camagüey, 23 August 2016 — The water supply crisis suffered by Camaguey, the third largest city in Cuba, worsened this August despite the spring and summer rains. Although the supply in some areas of the city presents no difficulties, in the historical district the situation is truly critical and citizens must resolve it as they can.

“I get water every day, clean and with good pressure,” said Luis, a resident of the Avenue of the Martyrs, in the neighborhood of La Vigia, in the north of the city. “I boil the water, treat it with sodium hypochlorite and we drink it.” Quite another thing happens to Roberto, who lives on Calle San Pablo, in the city center. continue reading

“I haven’t had water for three days. The water here comes very irregularly. Sometimes there’s no water for a week, and I’ve spent a whole month without water. I don’t have the strength to carry water. I was operated on for a hernia, but I still have to carry buckets of water from the tanks at workplaces. I live on a corner, I can’t dig a well, or install a tank, because the sewer pipe runs under the house. Nor can I install a “water thief” (a makeshift pump that “steals” water) because there is almost never water in the tap.

“Here in the higher area almost no one has water, and it’s the same in Hermanos Agüero and Principe Streets,” complains Heriberto, a resident of Cisneros Street. “The little that comes is taken by the Marquis and La Sevillana tourist hotels, which have huge tanks.” A resident of Havana Plaza, Hilda says that the water supply in the area is irregular and the greatest problem “is that it is very dirty.” She adds, “You have to let it sit for several days before you can use it. I don’t know why the water problem hasn’t been solved, when there was a big hullabaloo in the press about Saudi Arabia providing a loan to solve Camagüey’s water problem and now we don’t hear anything more about it.”

The official newspaper Adelante, in its issue of 20 August 2016, addressed the problem of water with a series of justifications based on lack of resources and investments. However, it omits mention of the soft loan of 40 million dollars from Saudi Arabia, granted in December 2014, to improve Camagüey’s water and sewer systems.

In an interview with Radio Camagüey on 13 April 2016, Luis Palacios Hidalgo, director of the Aqueduct Rehabilitation Project, and an official of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources Delegation, promised that starting in June of this year the province would have – thanks to the credits granted – the “technological equipment and devices necessary for the aqueduct, guaranteeing the quantity and stability of water for the people.” To do this, he detailed, 1.8 million pesos will be dedicated to a water treatment plant.

These promises have not only not been fulfilled, but the situation has gotten worse. As for the Saudi credit, there has been no information about where the 40 million dollars is, how much of it has been used and how and why the project has been so delayed. Meanwhile, Roberto, Heriberto and so many other Camagüeyans continue to carry buckets of water in the afternoon for bathing and cooking.

Raul Castro Tells Intellectuals That Cuban Culture is Threatened / EFE, 14ymedio

Cuban Writers and Artists Union President Miguel Barnet. (UNEAC)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 23 August 2016 – Cuban President Raul Castro warned in a message to the island’s intellectuals and artists that the country’s culture is threatened by “subversive projects” and a “global wave of colonization,” although he is confident that they can confront the challenge, according to an article in the official media published this Tuesday.

The letter, read last night during the celebration of 55 years of the official Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC), congratulates an institution “that was born in a decisive stage of the Cuban Revolution” and has been “at the service of culture, considered by Fidel as ‘the nation’s shield and sword’.” continue reading

“Today we are doubly threatened in the field of culture: by subversive projects that aim to divide us and by the global wave of colonization. UNEAC will continue to face these complex challenges with with courage, revolutionary commitment and intelligence,” says the statement, read by the president of the organization, Miguel Barnet.

Castro’s statement made reference to the 1961 Words To The Intellectuals of his brother, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, among other events that preceded the creation of UNEAC, and mentioned its first president, the “great” Nicolas Guillen, Cuba’s national poet.

“On getting to this day my congratulations go to the founders and the generations that have given continuity to the work begun in August 1961,” concludes the message, which appears in newspapers above the signature of Raul Castro.

In recent months, after the formal restoration of relations with the United States with the reopening of the embassies in both countries in July 2015, Cuba has become a fashionable destination among artists and intellectuals of all kinds, who have seen something of a thaw in the culture.

Havana has served as the backdrop for the filming of TV shows and movies such as House of Lies and the most recent episodes of the cinematic sagas Fast and Furious and Transformers, while celebrities such as Katy Perry, Rihanna and Madonna have walked its streets.

In a display never before seen in the country, The Rolling Stones gave a free concert in March in Havana, an unthinkable event in previous decades.

A month later, important figures from the United States in all fields of art and intellectuality formed a delegation of over 50 members and guests of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, which arrived in Havana with the support of the US President to strengthen cultural ties.

In May, couturier Karl Lagerfeld and Chanel staged a milestone in the history of the island by bringing together celebrities and supermodels in an unprecedented parade of the prestigious French fashion house’s haute couture, which disembarked for the first time in Latin America with its Cruise Collection.

However, last July Cuba’s Council of State, at the proposal of President Raul Castro, ousted Minister of Culture Julian Gonzalez, who was provisionally replaced by Abel Prieto, who had previously held that responsibility for 15 years until 2012.

The dismissal was announced in a terse official note published in the official media, in which, as is common in Cuba, the reasons for the ouster were not mentioned.

Foreigner For One Day, Foreigner Forever: Diary of a Returnee, Part 2 / 14ymedio, Dominique Deloy

A foreigner can pay up to 12 times more than a Cuban to enter cultural events such as the La Rampa Art Fair. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Dominique Deloy, Havana, 22 August 2016 — How do Cubans to know I’m not from here? I wear the same clothes as Cubans (shorts, shirt and sandals) and my skin is not that white in this scorching summer. Also, I flatter myself I speak pretty good “Cuban”… So why do I still feel like a perpetual stigma like I’m being “délit de faciès” (racially profiled) as we would say in France to refer to those who control the streets and target immigrants with no other motive than their physical appearance. Why am I forced to hear continued calls in the street of “Hello my friend?” in English. Followed in Spanish by “Do you want a taxi, a good private restaurant, where are you from? What language do you speak? Do you want to go to the beach?”

Why can’t I just seem normal, like the rest of the citizens, and not an almost extraterrestrial being? Why is the label of tourist stuck to my forehead, as if I was suffering from an obsession that consists of touring the island over and over? Ten years from now will they still be offering me wooden statues of Che berets? Why doesn’t anyone think I live here, and even work here, in exchange for a Cuban salary? continue reading

But that is not all. A few days ago, at the La Rampa Art Fair, I had to pay 2 CUC to get in (just to have the right to buy things inside!). My partner, nowever, was only charged 4 Cuban pesos, that is twelve times less than me.

What bothers me most is that everything is implicit, natural, wordless, without explanations, just from looking at my face. And so it is at any cultural event, except the movies, thank God: 2 Cuban pesos for everyone, the only time I become a normal person.

I think that over a long time, despite globalization, an invisible barrier has been raised between Cuba and normal people, between normal Cubans, and the “strange” foreigners. I hardly know if my status as a foreigner is more a positive or a negative from the perspective of Cubans, who generally seem to be well disposed toward me. There is an invisible but unalterable barrier, and I can’t figure out if it’s because Cubans appreciate foreigners. Happily, I left behind the era when my future husband had no right to sleep with me in a hotel or a private B&B, much less swim with me in the crystalline waters that bathe this island, when – at that time, yes – I really was a tourist.

Preparing For The New School Year Amid Economic Constraints And Teacher Shortages/ 14ymedio, Luz Escobar

A primary school in Candelaria, Pinar del Río. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 20 August 2016 – The 2016-2017 school year starts in just two weeks and the authorities of the Ministry of Education are calling on people to take good care of school supplies given “the economic limitations of the country.” Department head Ena Elsa Velaquez Cobiella, also acknowledged the lack of teachers in several territories, a problem that last year amounted to a deficit of 10,300 teachers island-wide.

For the upcoming school year, among the provinces with the most significant lack of teachers are Ciego de Avila, where an exodus to other lines of work has caused a shortage of 663 education professionals. These positions will be covered, according to Barbara Rodriguez Milian, Provincial Director of Education, with “personnel contracted for on a hourly basis, a university contingent, and methodologists and the boards of directors of the schools,” as the official told the local press. continue reading

In Villa Clara, meanwhile, Director of Education Esperanza González Barceló recently acknowledged that there is “a deficit of over 1,000 teachers” in that territory. The official said that it was necessary to “seek alternatives” to cover the deficit, and said she will appeal to “professionals and college students, whether or not that have teaching degrees,” so work under contract.

The limited number of staff is a problem compounded by the physical state of the schools because, according to Gonzalez Barcelo, more than 60% of the schools in the province are in critical condition.

Santiago de Cuba province is one of the few that is in good shape, and according to local media has “filled all the positions” and created “a reserve of 620 teachers” for primary education. The department head said that the territory has “met the needs for pencils, notebooks and crayons” despite “the economic limitations of the country.

Education authorities have tried to play down serious deficit of teachers in the media as September approaches, and during an appearance in Camagüey, Velázquez Cobiella said that “more than 5,000 new teachers” just graduated from the School of Education and will take their places in front of classrooms nationwide in a few days, but that number fails to cover the accumulated shortages.

In a measure to accelerate the training of teachers, for the next school year, a teaching degree program will last only four years, not five as it had been up until the last school year.

New scenarios, such as the restoration of relations between Cuba and the United States have introduced some issues in the training of teachers, a detail that was not absent from the preparatory workshops for the new school year. Now teachers should emphasize during their classes on topics related “to the teaching of history, the prospects of relations between Cuba and the United States, the ideological and political subversion,” among others.

Since the fall of the socialist camp in Eastern Europe Cuban education has been undergoing an accelerated process deterioration, affecting materials and educators. The complaints of the population over the poor quality of teacher preparation, the reduction in the number of classes and the excesses of ideology when teaching certain subjects, have grown in proportion to the collapse of the sector.

The exodus of teachers into other employment sectors and emigration led the authorities to implement a teacher training program at the beginning of this century called “emerging teachers” – that is starting students not yet out of high school in teacher training programs and placing them in front of classrooms with as little as two years of preparation – as well as the introduction of classes taught by TV and videotape. These measures failed and are currently being reversed.

FANTU Activists Ask Obama to “Save the Life” of Guillermo Farinas / 14ymedio

Guillermo Farinas on hunger and thirst strike. (Courtesy)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 August 2016 — A group of activists from the Anti-Totalitarian Forum (FANTU) have sent an open letter to President Barack Obama, asking him to “save the life of Guillermo Fariñas Hernández” who, as of Sunday, has been on a hunger strike for 32 days. The missive is addressed to the leader as “president of the country which is a beacon of human rights in the world.”

Seven members of the opposition organization which is led by Fariñas, winner of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, are asking Obama to “use his political wisdom to take any action” that would avoid the death of the dissident. However, they clarify that the letter is not asking the US president to do “something tied to politics.” continue reading

The opponents explain that “Fariñas Hernández’s strike is against violence, he has not called for the overthrow of the government.” Instead of them, with his prolonged fasting the activist from Santa Clara is demanding “the end to the oppression by some against others because of the way they think or how they choose to honestly obtain their income.”

Which, according to the signers, “is not to risk a life on a hunger strike, because it is the very essence of the democratic governments of all countries in the world.”

Guillermo Fariñas has been very critical of the process of normalization of relations between the governments of Cuba and the United States that began during the administration of Barack Obama.

Since December 17, 2014, when the diplomatic thaw was publicly announced, Fariñas has labeled the actions of the US president as a betrayal of Cuban dissidents.

Social Networks Respond To Randy Alonso: I-Am-Not-Ex-Cuban / 14ymedio, Mario Penton

#YoNoSoyExCubano: Milkos Danilo Sosa Molina, a young Cuban resident in Miami responds to Randy Alonso. (Courtesy)

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 19 August 2016 — A recent comment by official journalist Randy Alonso has generated a number of protests on social networks.

The well-known Cuban TV host questioned the nationality of the Cuban athlete Orlando Ortega, who won silver medal competing for Spain at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

On the Roundtable program, which he moderates on Cuban State TV, Alonso dedicated a segment to Cuba’s performance in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and spoke about the “controversial elements” in that sporting event, mentioning the case of “the ex-Cuban Orlando Ortega who is going to compete for Spain, and other cases of athletes who have jumped from one country to another.” The journalist placed his speech in the context of a supposed controversy “that today animates the international sports scene, tempered by the growing influence of money.” continue reading

In conversation with14ymedio, Milkos Danilo Sosa Molina, a young Cuban who lives in Miami, said he was “outraged” by the moderator’s words. “Nobody has the right to deny the nationality of a single person because they do not want to live in their own country,” he said.

Molina calls on young Cubans abroad to use the hashtag #YoNoSoyExcubano (I Am Not Ex-Cuban) in response to what her considers Randy Alonso’s “unacceptable attitude.”

“They consider us to be Cubans for some things and not for others. They want Cubans to be only those who think like them and live in Cuba, but the odd thing is that to enter your country they consider you a Cuban and demand that you use a national passport. In this way they get hundreds of dollars out of you,” he comments.

Other social network users on Facebook, such as Norges Rodriguez, following the logic of Randy Alonso, have questioned the nationality of Henry Reeve and Maximo Gomez for having left their country and fought with foreign armies for the freedom of other countries. Fernando Alvarez wrote #YoNoSoyExCubano, I was born in Cuba, I am and will be 100% Cuban wherever I am!”

The Roundtable is a television program that began in December 1999 amid the Cuban government’s campaign for the repatriation of Elian Gonzalez. It airs Monday through Friday and was a favorite of Cuban president Fidel Castro, who regularly spoke for hours on the program.

This newspaper tried to access the program mentioned in the official website of the Roundtable, but it has been removed from the YouTube platform in the United States at the request of the International Olympic Committee for violating copyright. Cuban television commonly uses audiovisual content belonging to third parties without paying for the services.

Why Did I Get Myself Into This Mess? Diary Of A Foreign Returnee Part 1 / 14ymedio, Dominique Deloy

About 10 million people eat the same thing at the same time in Cuba, the few products available in the market. (EFE)

14ymedio, Dominique Deloy, Havana, 18 August 2016 – My situation is like that of the majority of mixed couples where one of the two had the good fortune to be born in a democratic country – indeed, a country with a free press and a multi-party political system, where a person can express an opinion without fear of being denounced by their neighbors or reprimanded by the police. It is useful to remember this in these difficult times, with a certain tendency, on the other side of the Atlantic, to forget or deny the achievements and advantages of democracy even though, of course, it is far from perfect and is always an ideal to that is being striven for.

In these cases, sometimes, the Cuban man or woman, who remains deeply attached to their island, convinced their partner to initiate the “repatriation,” full of hopes for change after the famous handshake with the former enemy and potential invader. continue reading

Then comes the tricky part of the papers to formalize the return. “Give me your PRE (Foreign Residence Permit) and I will give you back your permanent residence,” says the official to the Cuban citizen. As for the one with foreign nationality, they can “arrange” their stay in Cuba but only after a great deal of paperwork and a good-sized handful of bills.

As the saying goes, “Who has a husband has a country.” So, here we are, although not without a certain trepidation. How can we adapt, find professional work, rebuild ties with friends lost after two decades of living in France? Also, you have to resume old habits: standing in line for hours under the burning sun (“Who’s last?” we ask, on joining the line, to mark our place in it), eating the same thing and at the same time as 10 million other people (right now in the markets there are: cabbages, beans and avocados) and, for me, being addressed on every corner in English (“mafrende” as a Cuban version of “my friend”) because of my skin, too pale, and my clothes, undoubtedly too Parisian.

In addition, you have to climb eight flights of stairs to get home most days because the elevator isn’t working and, worst of all, swallow your words, think less and keep your mouth shut. How to take pleasure in this island when it has already passed, too long ago, that state of rapture caused by fine sand beaches, salsa and old American cars? When did Cuba stop being a postcard? Suddenly, when my friends ask me why I made such an absurd choice, I can only tell them, “Love, of course, love!” But I feel, without admitting it, that a certain consternation is growing in me and I ask myself: Why did I have to get myself into such a mess?

Jorgito, The New Revolutionary Icon / 14ymedio, Ignacio de la Paz

Jorgito debuted in his public life on the occasion of the Fourth Pioneers Congress, when he caught the attention of Raul Castro

14ymedio, Ignacio de la Paz, Camagüey, 19 August 2016 — The Revolution needs to constantly reinvent new ideological struggles, constructing new heroes that meet the demands of the so-called ideological work with the masses. Thus, after the stage of the founding epic there was the release in 1988 of Orlando Cardoso Villavicencio, who had been held for nearly 12 years by Eritrean rebels, later there was the ideological battle for the return of Elian Gonzalez and finally, the struggle began for the return of the Five Heroes imprisoned by the “empire.” The saga of revolutionary heroes could not be finalized once and for all, and now a new one is being constructed, Jorge Enrique Jerez Belisario, otherwise known as Jorgito the Disabled.

At his birth in the Provincial Maternity Hospital of Camagüey on March 8, 1993, in the toughest year of the Special Period, Jorgito suffered physiological jaundice complicated by symptoms of a generalized infection by the bacterium Klebsiella and was finally diagnosed with Infantile Cerebral Palsy. This information is public, taken from Ecured, Cuba’s official on-line encyclopedia. However, we Camagüeyanos who knew the Ana Betancourt Maternal Hospital in those years knew that it was a time of every man for himself, and suspect there could have been poor medical practices caused by the lack of hospital resources. continue reading

Jorgito’s parents, professor of Marxism Maria Julia Belisario and then prosecutor Jorge Jerez, moved heaven and earth to raise their son, receiving every possible support. The mother stopped working, receiving full pay, to care for the child at home, and Julio Diaz Hospital in Havana took care of his rehabilitation for four years. When Jorgito needed a computer to write because of fine motor skills problems, he was assigned one. He was prescribed botulinum toxin, dispensed free of charge although the cost for the medication according to Jorgito himself is $400. In addition he received specialized classes targeted to his disability with teachers to see to his needs.

Jorgito displayed a strong will and perseverance, partially rehabilitating himself, and soon expressed his revolutionary political vocation. In 2006, Jorgito debuted in his public life on the occasion of the Fourth Pioneers Congress, where he attended as a delegate and made an emotional speech of thanks, drawing the attention of Raul Castro who presided over the event due to Fidel’s illness. Thereafter, began the ascendance of the rising star of the new Cuban ideological hero. Later on he joined the campaign for the return of the five “prisoners of the empire,” developing personal friendships with them and their families. This produced an umbrella effect, with Jorgito being associated from that moment with “The Five.”

The young man studied journalist and discussed his thesis on the case of the Five Heroes in the presence of Gerardo Hernandez, one of the released prisoners, and his wife. His blog, JorgitoXCuba, achieved national popularity with the premiere of a documentary based on his life on the Roundtable TV program, entitled The Power of the Weak, by German director Tobias Kriele. Thus, Jorgito became a roving ambassador of the Cuban Revolution, traveling through many countries in the Americas and Europe.

He was at the 18th World Festival of Youth and Students in Ecuador, at the Summit of the Americas in Panama, at the 2nd Day Against the Blockade in the United States, and toured 13 German cities and now Switzerland and other European countries on the old continent.

Jorgito is enjoying his honeymoon with the Cuban government. He has free Internet in his lovely apartment, receives special work permits and constantly travels abroad with his family, receiving gifts. He does not suffer the miseries of ordinary Cubans, much less those of many disabled who do not have the same luck and do not receive any attention or help.

ETECSA Restores Internet Service in Navigation Rooms and Wifi Hotspots / 14ymedio

A group of young people connect to the internet in a wifi hotspot in Havana. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 August 2016 — The Cuban Telecommunications Company SA (ETECSA) said Thursday that “internet access from navigation rooms and wifi hotspots was restored in 17 August, along with access to ENET.” The disruption led to a flood of complaints from customers of the telephone monopoly.

Etecsa apologized for the inconvenience caused by service failures, problems that have become common in recent months. In mid-July, the company announced problems with Nauta e-mail access from cellphones due to maintenance work.

In November 2015 users were unable to send or receive e-mails for six days, a problem that was repeated a month later and resolved after a delay of more than 24 hours.

The wireless network known as WIFI_ETECSA began operations on 1 July 2015, and now counts more than 80 navigation hotspots in the country. Each day about 200,000 people use this infrastructure to access the vast World Wide Web.

Oblivion Awaits The New Party Guidelines / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

Guidelines of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 18 August 2016 — The tabloid with the updates of the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party Guidelines, is distributed lately without fanfare. The few copies on sale in the newsstands and the majority of people’s lack of interest in official documents, suggest that very soon they will be forgotten. However, to not analyze or question them would be another form of meekly accepting their principles.

From the opposition sector voices are heard describing these new party directives as “tricks and traps from a caste that maintains itself in power.” The foreign press, for its part, has been quick to draw conclusions after a sidelong glance at them, but few have plunged into othe274 points plagued with grandiloquent propositions, commitments that seem to be dreams, and a syntax that is difficult to understand. continue reading

A question as basic as whether the stage between 2016 and 2021 will be characterized by an economy that leans toward the market or toward centralized planning can only be answered after determining what is missing and what is included, and weighing the nuances of the new wording that has been introduced in each concept.

After reconstructing the loose pieces, it is clear that the State will maintain majority control over production and services. The only positive innovation introduced in this edition is the appearance of “second degree cooperatives,” the characteristics of which are not explained, but which seem like the boldest step the Party is willing to take.

Some presences are easier to detect looking at the 16 pages of the brochure, such as the inclusion of the word “wealth” in the third point in the chapter on the economy. Not content with having determined at the 6^th Congress to prohibit “the concentration of ownership” for non-state forms of production, the new version from the 7^th Congress adds that neither will the concentration of wealth be accepted.

In a country where no one has ever made a formal declaration of their possessions there is no way to calculate what each person has, either in goods or in cash. The absence of regulatory mechanisms with regards to the possession of wealth, especially among natural persons, makes the control of assets a real mission impossible.

Such an alarming addition is nothing more than a potential threat, and even a formula of commitment to satisfy those most concerned about the growing inequality which has worsened in the country over the last two decades. Perhaps it is a crumb to please the hardliners within the Party, a wink and a nod to the old guard.

The disappearance of some guidelines, the rewording of others and the inclusion of new ones, makes it difficult to research which of the guidelines are in the 21% the authorities claim to have met, and which are in the 79% that are “in the implementation phase.” As if reshuffling the dominoes makes the readers unable to detect which tiles are missing.

As the artist Arturo Cuenca said one say, “the takes can be more important than the puts,” especially when the points that are missing or reduced in some of their essential aspects, don’t appear on the list of things accomplished, but in the sub-paragraphs of the problems, of those objectives that have been set aside.”

The first guideline to disappear is number 4 which mentions the idea that structural, functional, organizational and economic changes will be made “informing workers and listening to their opinions.”

Another striking and highly provocative example is the evaporation of an objective reflected in Guideline 57 of the chapter on fiscal policy, which in 2011 proposed to establish “higher taxes for higher incomes, to contribute, also in this way, to mitigating inequalities among citizens.”

Has the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) met this objective with the taxes imposed by the Office of Tax Administration (ONAT) or has it just abandoned tempering inequalities through the treasury?

The text is not without its absurdities, like the commitment outline in the change on economic integration of “giving priority to the participation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the People’s of Our America (ALBA),” a regional organization that has lost prominence since the death of Hugo Chavez and seems doomed to an early demise.

A new chapter entitled Demographic Dynamics is reduced to the issue of the aging of the population and efforts to stimulate fertility, but omits the most serious problem facing the country today: the uncontrolled emigration that robs it of its human capital.

In other parts of the document, the inclusion of a concept reveals the pressures of certain sectors, such as the demand to “comply with medical ethics” in the chapter regarding healthcare, or the unexpected appearance in the section on culture of a point for the implementation of “the policy regarding the transformation of Cuban cinema.” A clear response to the demands of the numerous artists who joined together in the so-called G-20 group that is demanding a new Film Law.

When we contrast the wording of the 6^th Congress guidelines with those now updated, details such as “attention to cruise ships” jump out. Along with more subtle references like changing the proposal to delete the ration book by “the orderly and gradual elimination of products in the ration book,” a way of making the subsidized market languish, instead of eradicating it all of a sudden.

The warning regarding “progressively decreasing the levels of subsidies” runs through a good part of the document like a thin strand of steel, like that emphasized in point 58 focused on achieving the principle of “subsiding people and not products.”

The update of the Party Guidelines is far from meeting the expectations of those who want to see in its pages a clear path to the dismantling of the centralized economy and the freeing up of the productive forces in Cuba. But also to distance itself from the paternalistic tone that once characterized the five-year plans on the island.

One step forward and two steps back? Or simply a Party that seems to be running in place

“Upgrading” Effort Paralyzes ETECSA Internet Service / 14ymedio

Nauta internet service continues among the worst in the state communications monopoly. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 August 2016 – Connecting to the internet from state WiFi rooms and hotspots, became more complicated this morning after the interruption suffered by the web browsing service provided by the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA). The interruption has left a trail of frustrated users and thousands of calls of complaints against state monopoly.

The service outage is also being felt in navigation rooms with the company’s own terminals, as confirmed by this newspaper through a phone call to the 118 repair number and a tour of several of the internet rooms in the Cuban capital. According to an employee, the company is undertaking “upgrading work on the network to improve service,” but she was unable to say when the service would be restored. continue reading

In a note posted by ETECSA on its Facebook page, the company reported that is “had been necessary to stop the service” because “since the early morning hours” there had been “failures in the equipment that supports internet access.”

The company explained that “specialists are working on solving the problem,” and that users “will be informed in a timely manner about the reestablishment of service.”

The note, signed by ETECSA’s Communications Board, offered apologies to the company’s clients “for the inconvenience this disruption may cause.”

Problems access the internet from WiFi hotspots and navigation rooms add to those of a difficult week in the functioning of email service on mobile phones. As of last Monday, users of this service complained about congestion blocking access to their mailboxes, which increases the difficulties of downloading and sending messages.

Previously, ETECSA has announced failures in the Nauta service for cellphones cell in the early hours of July 14 because of maintenance work.

The cut in the e-mail service is one more event added to what happened in of last year, when customers were unable to send or receive e-mails for six days. In January of this year the problem was repeated for more than 24 hours.

The Cradle Of Illegal Lobster / 14ymedio

Surgidero de Batabanó is a fishing port with a little more than 5,000 inhabitants. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 August 2016 – The Surgidero de Batabanó, a fishing port with a little over 5,000 inhabitants, seems a place forgotten by modernity and development. However, among its humble homes and deteriorating streets lies one of the main centers of the illegal lobster trade that supplies Havana.

With an abundance of shellfish on the seabed, the economy of this coastal area, belonging to the province of Mayabeque, centers around the Industrial Fish Company and the Seafood Factory, but also the illegal capture of the queen of Cuban tables, the demand for which has grown with the increase in tourism and the expansion of private restaurants. continue reading

While glamorous dining locales have given rise in recent years to a lobster dish that never costs less than 15 Cuban convertible pesos, in Surgidero de Batabanó it is a common food on the tables of the poorest inhabitants. Most of their streets may be unpaved and at night the town is boring and dark, but the sea guards the greatest wealth all the residents there possess.

From their humble houses, hidden in suitcases under clothing, camouflaged with ingenious covers and pursued by the police who control the roads, travel the lobster tails that end up on the menu of the finest Havana paladares, the capital city’s private restaurants.

Cuban Migrants Trapped In Panama Have Nowhere To Go / 14ymedio, Mario Penton

Cubanos-atraviesan-Darien-Panama-Cortesia_CYMIMA20160818_0001_13 — Cubans crossing the Darien jungle to get to Panama. (Courtesy to ’14ymedio’)

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 18 August 2016 — After escaping deportation in Colombia, some 650 Cubans managed to cross the border through the Darien jungle area and are now in the Panamanian town of La Miel. They have been assisted by the Panamanian government’s “Controlled Flow” operation, and may continue their journey but face an uncertain route affected by the decision of the countries of the region to deny them passage.

“Costa Rica is a supportive country, but it has no ability to receive more migrants,” Maurice Hererra Ulloa, the nation’s Minister of Communications told 14ymedio. “Some 66 Cubans have been returned to Panama. Our message is clear: Costa Rica is not going to receive them. The border with Nicaragua remains absolutely closed and there will be no way to get to the United States.” continue reading

Herrera made it clear that his country would not provide transportation of any kind for these Cubans and would not make efforts to get them to the United States. The same applies for transcontinental and Haitian migrants. “If they reach the border of Costa Rica they will be turned back immediately,” he says.

Panama’s Minister of Security Alexis Betancourt told this newspaper that his country’s border with Colombia remains closed, but it is permitted to shelter those who have penetrated the jungle because “we will not let anyone die.”

“They are illegal in Panama, in Colombia and throughout the Central American corridor. Those who come to our borders by normal means are not allowed to pass. In our country migration is not a crime, but they should not be here. For those who come through the jungle and run that risk, we will offer humanitarian aid,” he explains.

The minister also reported that the flow of Cubans right now is relatively low compared to the number seen during the first months of the year. So far this year, Panama has undertaken two humanitarian operations to transfer more than 5,000 Cubans who were stranded in their territory.

“We want to make it clear that we recommend that they do not go through the Darien jungle where there are dangerous animals, violence and disease,” says Betancourt.

“We are investigating the matter of the bodies that have been found. It could be that there are some in the lowlands of the mountain range, but those that have been documented are on the rise, which is an area belonging to Colombia,” he adds.

With regards to the 72 hours granted to Cubans to leave Panamanian territory, the minister said that “it would be advisable not to come” and that his government is not responsible for people who decide to go into the jungle.

“Those Cubans we find are taken to one of three camps that we have set up,” where they are provided with medical care, food and water. “We then explain to them the conditions of the camp, where they can bathe and rest. We take their fingerprints, and interview them and they pay their own passage to the border.”

Ubernel Cruz, one of the Cubans in the village of La Miel, said that the situation there “is getting ugly.”

“Most of these people do not have money and those who do have are afraid of getting into contact with the coyotes. Nobody knows exactly what will happen to us, although 75 a day are leaving.”

On the opposite border, the Costa Rican side, is Cuban Yunior Peñate. He is in the village of Peñas Altas, hidden along with six other migrants.

According to Peñate’s account, he sent friends in the United States more than $2,000, the result of seven years of work in Ecuador, with the aim that they would help him during the trip, sending money for each segment of the journey. But once the money was in the hands of his “friends” they never wrote him again.

He has suffered two assaults while trying to cross Nicaragua.

“I had to return here (Costa Rica). A family took us in and thanks to them we have food and shelter. In gratitude we work on everything they need done here. We do not know how long this situation is going to last,” he explains.

“If Costa Rica finds you in their territory they deport you to Panama, where you can’t be either. Nicaragua doesn’t let us pass. The only option is cross in hiding, but there is a lot of fear,” explains the young migrant whose destination is the United States.

The blockade on the borders of Central America to prevent the passage of Cuban, Haitian and transcontinental immigrants is feeding the underground networks of human trafficking. Several countries have asked the United States to eliminate the privileges enjoyed by migrants from Cuba, who are immediately welcomed when they step onto American soil.

The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba and other exile groups have said that such statements “reflect a significant ignorance” of the true causes of Cuban emigration. “They focus their attention on the differential treatment of these migrants in the destination country, ignoring the incredible and exceptional disadvantages of these citizens in the country of departure,” the foundation explains.

Six Cuban Boat People Still Missing In The Gulf Of Mexico / 14ymedio, Mario Penton

Rafters missing along the Mexican coast. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 17 August 2016 — Thirteen men were determined to leave the misery, despair and weariness of lives filled with official propaganda. For months they crafted a boat on the cost of the Isle of Youth, off Cuba’s southern coast. In absolute secrecy to avoid being betrayed, they prepared a catamaran and stocked it with food and water. They wanted to get to Central America or Mexico, to continue their journey overland to the United States, an ever more frequented route, but a month and a half later they are still missing at sea.

Noyri Muñoz, a Cuban, 47, who is the sister of one of the rafters, explains that, of the 13, only seven have returned to Cuba, deported from Mexico a month ago. On returning to their own country, they do not want to talk to the press nor with the families of the missing. Their silence is more eloquent. Of then other six, there is no news. “The sea is so vast, perhaps it swallowed them,” she commented from Spain, where she lives. continue reading

The weeks pass and the fear grows that the worst has happened. “They left at dawn. They were from different towns on the Isle of Youth. They bought a good quality engine and set sail for Mexico,” explained Muñoz, so said that for 15 days they “didn’t see land anywhere” and decided to separate into two groups to increase their chances of being found.

When the engine gave out they continued to paddle and use the sail they carried, but they didn’t seem to make much headway, so they decided to separate, according to the version of one of the young boys who was on the boat,” added the sister.

“Three days after we separated a boat found us,” explained one of the rafters in Mexico to a family member of the missing. According to this testimony, half of the group left with eight inner tubes, in search of better luck. They divided the biscuits and the water. Since then, they don’t know anything more about them.

The same rafter explained in Mexico that at least four boats passed them and didn’t help them. The drifting boaters were finally rescued by the supply vessel MV Fugro Vasilis, 130 miles from Arrecife Alacranes, north of the Yucatan Peninsula.

“My brother was an economist for a state enterprise. He was a fighter, intelligent, a man always looking for solutions to problems. He was very creative. We are desperate, because we don’t have any information. We have tried to communicate with the Navy and the Mexican Army and US but without success,” says Muñoz.

The lives of the rafters could have been seriously threatened by Hurricane Earl in early August in the Western Caribbean. The number of rafters has significantly increased this year. According to the United States Coast Guard, from 1 October 2015 to 15 July 2014, 5,241 Cuban rafters have tried to reach the coast of the United States.

The names of the missing are José Armando Muñoz López, Luis Velásquez Osorio, Rafael Rives Rives, Yoendry Rives del Campo, Amauri Pupo Pupo and Juan Antonio Pupo Pupo.

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