Photo of Marita Lorenz and Fidel Castro on the cover of the book “I Was the Spy Loved by the Comandante” published by Peninsula
14ymedio, Madrid, 5 September 2016 — Marita Lorenz’s first kiss (1939) came from Fidel Castro. Daughter of a ship’s captain, she met the leader of the Revolution at age 20, at a dock at the port of Havana. After she showed him around the ship, the leader asked her where her cabin was and, once they were there he pushed her inside and kissed her. But Lorenz didn’t feel intimidated, “I was enthralled. Fidel gave off an enormous seductive power!” she said, in an interview with the French weekly Paris-Match, subsequently translated by YoDona, a magazine belonging to the Spanish daily El Mundo. In the interview, Fidel Castro’s ex-lover offers every kind of detail about the relationship they maintained in 1959, before she joined the anti-Castro ranks.
Almost six decades later, Lorenz says that Fidel Castro was the great love of her life, despite her claim that he wasn’t a good lover. “He was more interested during the caresses than during the sexual act itself. But dictators are all like that,” she says from experience, having also had a relationship with the Venezuelan dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez. continue reading
“Fidel was a narcissist. He loved to look at himself in the mirror while he stroked his beard. He lacked self-confidence, or rather, he needed adulation and pampering, like a little boy,” she told YoDona, denying that she feels any resentment toward the leader of the Cuban Revolution.
Lorenz lived in Suite 2408 in the Havana Hilton (the hotel where Fidel, Raul and Ernesto Che Guevara were also living) between March and November of 1959, a time when Fidel Castro still had not broken off relations with the United States nor become linked with the USSR.
“Fidel was a narcissist. He loved to look in the mirror as he stroked his beard. He lacked self-confidence, or rather, needed to be flattered and pampered, like a little boy”
Castro’s lover was aware that the relationship would not end in marriage. “I’m married to Cuba,” he told her. However, she was soon pregnant, and although her son was supposedly taken away from her, she met him in 1981: “I saw him when I visited Fidel the last time, after 20 years of separation,” she said. “They told me I’d undergone an abortion, but the gynecologist in New York told me I had given birth. What they said about an abortion was false. My pregnancy was almost full-term and my son was born when I was in a coma in Cuba. He is a boy. He grew up there and is called Andres Vazquez.”
It was during her pregnancy when she came into contact with the CIA indirectly through Frank Sturgis, an American who presented himself as an ally of Fidel, although in reality he was allied with Batista and defending the interests of the mafia in Cuban casinos.
“He said he could help me and, in return, asked me many things. To get rid of him, I ended up giving him documents that Fidel threw in the trash and that, in my opinion, were of no interest. But that seemed to satisfy him,” she recalls.
In October 1959, after a poisoning attempt she gave birth to her son and after a few months hospitalized in the United States she returned to the island at the end of the same year, having already become a spy.
During her convalescence, she joined the anti-Castro side motivated by her conversations with the FBI, which supposedly asked her to assassinate Castro in 1961. “Oh, my little German,” Fidel greeted her, knowing she was going to kill him. “He handed me his gun and I took it. Then, looking into my eyes, he said to me… ‘No one can kill me’ He was right I dropped the gun and I felt liberated.”
Despite not meeting their expectations – “They explained that if he had been killed would not have had to launch the Bay of Pigs operation” – Lorenz remained linked for years to espionage: “I came to know in Miami, at a meeting of those anti-Castro, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was implicated in the Kennedy assassination. But he was not alone, I’m sure there was someone else. In my view there was a plot to kill the president,” she believes.
At 76 years, the former spy lives in Queens (New York) in a semi-basement and wants to return to Germany to reunite with her son Mark, from her relationship with the Venezuelan dictator Perez Jimenez. “He has a job there, because he is going to run a museum devoted to the secret services.”
A foreigner may have to pay five CUC to enter the Museum of Fine Arts, while a Cuban disburses 1/24th of that in local currency. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Dominique Deloy, Havana, 5 September 2016 — Sometimes I have the impression I’m talking to myself inside an aquarium: I can’t open my mouth without fear of drowning, no one wants to listen to me, my questions are never answered. Some, of course, consider me indiscreet, daring, even a comemierda (literally “shiteater”) as they say here, although I don’t know what this word is really meant to convey, untranslatable in French but pleasing to my ears: stupid, timid, naïve?
It is a fact that asking too many questions is frowned upon here. They often reply to me, “I don’t know, I haven’t asked,” implying that one has to be very strange to ask about such things, almost suspicious. continue reading
And it is not just when it comes to politics. Politics? Who talks about politics here? The word itself is… suspicious! How many people have said to me, “I don’t like to get into politics, it is of absolutely no interest to me.” To even talk about this here is like something obscene, unseemly. Pity the French returnee, who adores politics and likes to remake the world over and over talking with her friends! Almost a national sport! Shut your mouth, poor little fish-returned-to-her-native-waters, comemierda!
Politics? Who talks about politics here? The word itself is… suspicious!
But that’s how it is. The French returnee wants to know everything. Not only why the monthly salary of her aunt Candita, architect and head of Housing Services, isn’t enough to buy a pair of shoes. Also why Cuba still has two currencies: one called “national” and the other… what to call it, then? “Foreign” perhaps? And how to know when to pull out which one (when both the bills and coins are very similar)? Why is it that sometimes you can pay with either, making the conversion, and sometimes you can’t: when there are two different prices for the different currencies, one for real Cubans and the other for tourists, or “fake Cubans,” like me?
Yesterday I had to pay five CUC (Cuban convertible pesos, the “foreign” currency) to enter the Museum of Fine Arts – even though its magnificent roof is on the point of collapsing on the works of Courbet and Degas, and you can see the sky through it – while my companion paid one-twenty-fourth as much in national currency (CUP); with no explanation, as if the teller was deaf, looking at me in silence when I asked him why. Why, yes indeed, why? A real brainteaser.
It is fortunate that they do not charge me for my bread ration in CUCs, but I always go to the bakery with apprehension and a little shame, as if I was thief trying to steal bread out of the mouths of real Cubans. I feel the same when I travel alone in one of those fascinating machines, my hair blowing in the wind, my nose filled with the smell of gasoline and reggaeton thundering in my ears. I pay like the rest: 10 pesos in national money, but I feel “clandestine, illegal,” to quote Manu Chao’s song.
Yes, the French returnee wants to know everything. She likes unambiguous explanations, rational, direct words, clear
But it is not only the money, although this is the main topic of conversation (along with finding out where you can get yogurt or chicken today). I also want to know why the border between legality and illegality is so thin here. For example, why, in front of everyone, in a bakery with a French name, do they give me an open, half-empty package of cookies, and especially why, when I ask for an explanation, do they sneer at me instead of apologizing? It is the same for bottles of water and packages of pasta, where the eye can discern the subtle and clever slits used to remove a third of the product from its container while the price remains the same.
Yes, the French returnee wants to know everything. She likes unambiguous explanations, rational, direct words, clear.
Furthermore, in her aquarium, the returnee is deaf: there is no internet here or very little. A few incredibly expensive minutes in a wifi zone, as long as it hasn’t crashed, in which case you can never know for how long or why. It’s clear you can’t use the internet to be informed. And don’t even talk about the press… which says whatever it wants whenever it feels like it. There’s nothing left but Radio Bemba – Big Lip Radio – word of mouth. So here you never know anything. The returnee is obliged, therefore, to ask without any answers, to open and close her mouth in her aquarium. With no results.
Denise Rodriguez Cedeño with one of her granddaughters, says she would rather sleep in the street for fear that the roof of her house will fall in. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Larada, Havana, 4 September 2016 – After the heavy rains that have hit western Cuba in recent days, many residents of the capital fear an increase in the number of building collapses. Denise Rodriguez Cedeño, 54, a resident Luz Street, between Egido and Curacao, in Old Havana, placed her family’s belongings in the street after part of the roof of her house caved in on Saturday.
Those who pass through the busy street, in the heart of the historic center, can see the bundles with clothes piled up outside the building, along with kitchenware and a fan. The Rodriguez Cedeño family made the decision to spend their hours outdoors, in protest against the lack of response from the institutions charged with distributing materials for home repairs. continue reading
The already poor state of her home worsened with the storm that brought heavy rains, linked to the ninth tropical depression of the hurricane season, a weather phenomenon that caused intense rains in the west and center of the island and moderate flooding in the coastal town of Surgidero of Batabanó.
Rodriguez Cedeño works for Community Services and has lived in her home for more than 35 years. The resident told 14ymedio that her housing problems began in 2003, but she has not yet received a reply from anyone. Right now her situation is desperate.
“For 13 years I have been asking for repairs to my house, but but always tell me there are no building materials”
The anguish has led her to also pressure the authorities with the warning that she is not going to send her grandchildren to school this Monday, when the new school year begins nationwide, because she does not have the conditions to guarantee them a “home.”
“For thirteen years I have been asking through a technical report for repairs to my house, but they always tell me there are no building materials,” she says. On other occasions, Rodriguez Cedeño has chosen to “make repairs with my own resources,” but the deteriorating economic status of the family, made up of “four women and two little girls who have chronic asthma,” has prevented her from being able to make the arrangements to do it herself.
Denise Rodríguez Cedeño shows the deterioration of her home exacerbated by heavy rains in recent days.(14ymedio)
After several hours in which the women stayed with their belongings in the open street, the authorities of the Council of the Municipal Administration (CAM) of Old Havana arrived, to learn what damage occurred in the house and to call for calm. Dozens of people, especially foreigners passing through the city, were filming what was happening.
The directors of CAM explained that the family would be located in a Transit Community (a shelter) for about seven days and then taken to inhabitable housing in another community for people whose homes have been declared uninhabitable or have collapsed.
Rodriguez Cedeño had spent the whole night between the street and the half-ruined house, waiting for the authorities keep their word this Sunday. She warned that they would “plant themselves in the street again” if they didn’t provide a permanent solution to her case.
These residents of the Old Havana have become part of the 33,889 families across the country who need a home
In their current situation, these residents of the Old Havana neighborhood have become part of the 33,889 families (132,699 people) across the country who need a home, many of whom have spent decades living in shelters for victims. The population census of 2012 showed that 60% of the 3.9 million existing housing units on the island are in poor condition.
During the last session of the National Assembly of People’s Power, in July, the deputies met in the Standing Committee on Industry, Construction and Energy, and agreed that “the housing problem is the number one social need in Cuba.” The parliamentarians criticized “lack of coordination, integration and priority” at the municipal level in managing the demands of the population in terms of applications for materials and construction permits.
In the first half of this year, at least 90,652 people who have received subsidies for construction work have gone to the stores selling materials. However, only 52,000 have been able to buy all of the materials they were assigned, due to shortages of key products such as steel, cement blocks, bathroom fixtures, tiles and roofing.
Protests in Chile against the AFP have been underway for several days throughout the country (Twitter/@mariseka)
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Santiago de Chile, 28 August 2016 – I have arrived in the country in the middle of a cacophony, fortunately peaceful and civilized. It is Sunday, and tens of thousands of people are protesting against the AFPs.
They complain about the “Pension Fund Administrators,” a retirement system founded on individual capital accounts, more or less like the 401(k) and the American IRA. One contributes a part of his salary to an account that belongs to him, and thus, after a certain age, he can dispose of his resources or leave them to his heirs when he dies. The money is his. It does not come from the benevolence of other workers. continue reading
The AFPs are private financial companies that invest the money that the workers entrust to them in reasonably safe instruments, so that the risks are minimal. They charge about 1.5% to manage these resources. There are a few so that competition exists in price and services.
Since the economist Jose Pinera created the AFPs at the beginning of the 1980’s, the average annual return has been 8.4%. The government merely establishes strict rules and carefully monitors the financial entities. So far, in 35 years, there has been no collapse or scandal.
Today the mass of savings generated by the AFPs is approximately 167 billion dollars. That is very convenient for the stability of the country. A third of these funds comes from workers’ direct deposits. Two-thirds, the rest, are interest generated by these deposits. Without doubt, it has been a great business for the prospective retirees.
Until the creation of the AFPs, the distributed funds model prevailed in Chile, as in almost the whole world. The worker’s investment went to a general fund that was used to pay the pensions of retirees or finance the fixed expenses of the growing public workforce. In many countries, often, the money of elderly retired people ends up in the pockets of devious politicians and officials or is dedicated to other purposes.
As happens in Europe and the United States, the relationship between the number of workers and retirees is more problematic with each passing year. Fewer people are born, especially in developed or developing countries, and they live many more years.
Hence the retirement systems based on the distribution model are in crisis or heading towards it. They tank just as “Ponzi Schemes” always end badly; named for Charles Ponzi, a creative scammer who paid good dividends to investors … as long as there were new investors to meet the commitments.
When the capitalization system began, there were seven workers in Chile for every retiree. Today there are fewer than five. By mid-21st Century there will be two. The individual capitalization system, rather than a maniacal predilection of liberals dictated by ideological convictions, is the only possible model of retirement in the medium term. It is much safer for a worker to have control of his savings than to leave that sensitive task to intergenerational solidarity or the decisions of politicians.
What has happened in Chile? Why are they complaining? Half of Chilean workers, especially women, do not regularly save, or they have not done so in a long time, and since they have not saved enough, the pensions they receive, consequently, are small, and they are not enough for them to survive. That is why they protest and want the state to assume responsibility for their old age and give them a “dignified” pension, without stopping to think that the supposed right that they are angrily soliciting consists of an obligation for others: those who work must give them part of their wealth.
At the same time, students passionately demand free university studies, while many Chileans demand the “decent” living promised by politicians in the electoral fracas, to which are added modern and effective medical services, also “free,” proper to a middle class country like Chile currently is. It is not well understood why, by the same reasoning, they do not seek free food, water, clothes, electricity, and telephones, all items of absolute necessity.
It is a shame. A few years ago it appeared that Chile, after a 20th Century of populism from the right and left, with a population dominated by an incompetent and greedy government that had bogged down in underdevelopment and poverty, finally had discovered the correct road of individual responsibility, the market, the opening up and the empowerment of civil society as a great entrepreneurial player and the only wealth creator.
There was enthusiastic talk of the “Chilean model” as the Latin American road to reaching the First World. With 23,500 dollars per capita GDP (measured in purchasing power), Chile has put itself at the head of Latin America and boasts a low crime rate, honest administration and respect for institutions. It would not take long to reach that development threshold that economists set at about 28 to 30 thousand dollars per capita GDP.
It may never happen. A recent survey shows the growing irresponsibility of many Chileans convinced that society is obliged to transfer to them the resources that they demand from the state, which means from other Chileans.
It is a pity. A substantial part of the population has returned to populist ways typified by claiming rights and evading responsibilities. If Chile again sinks into the populist quagmire, we Latin Americans all will lose a lot. Prosperity and, who knows, even liberty. We will be left without a model, aimless, and in some sense, without a destination.
On the streets of Yangon there are no motorcycles. (E. Avila)
14ymedio, Eliecer Avila, Yangon, Myanmar, 2 September 2016 — During his visit to Cuba, US President Barack Obama mentioned the changes in Burma (now Myanmar) as an example of the most recent democratic transition from a fierce military dictatorship that lasted over half a century.
Since then, the idea of an exchange between the opposition and Cuban civil society and their counterparts in Myanmar was developed. Today this political and cultural contact is a reality full of very valuable lessons that can only be appreciated by seeing how changes take place and are managed in real time, the interactions between contending forces and their interests, the pros and cons, the alliances and the ruptures, the shared joys and disappointments of a frustrating process, which many say, is just beginning. continue reading
From the air, the tremendous difference in infrastructure and development in Myanmar and, for example, its neighbor Thailand, is remarkable. It is like when you leave Miami and then fly over Cuba. It is clear that this country was left out of the democratic, educational and technological changes that catapulted the so-called Asian Tigers.
At a time when those countries focused on global integration with millions of young people ready to conquer the art of creating products and services on a grand scale, Myanmar’s military dictatorship chose total ostracism, shutting off the country like a strongbox to avoid any “foreign influence.” It always tried to keep the county semi-enslaved in the service of an army that, like an octopus, controlled the social, economic and spiritual life of this nation, located exactly on the other side of the world.
Going through immigration is somewhat tense because the military is not yet entirely accustomed to looking at tourists as ordinary people.
At the airport, going through immigration is somewhat tense because the military is not yet entirely accustomed to looking at tourists as ordinary people. To alleviate this problem they have thoroughly replaced all possible customs and immigration clerks, placing in these positions young people who are a lot more open and unprejudiced, and who even smile.
Myanmar currently receives just over a million tourists a year, an insignificant figure not only compared to its neighbors, but in proportion to its nearly 60 million inhabitants. This figure, however, is growing due to democratic changes, which in turn attract many investors.
Currency exchange offices accept the US dollar, the euro and the Singapore dollar, but in order to pay for anything in any one of these currencies, you have to be sure the bill is not the least bit wrinkled, because they won’t accept it. And don’t panic if you see people spitting out a red substance on the street. It is not blood, but rather a pigment that comes from a mix of herbs and is constantly chewed, as in Bolivia.
On the streets of Yangon there are no motorbikes. Here superstitions are very important even when making policy decisions. In a nearby country it happened that there was a wave of crime in which the criminals used motorbikes to move around and perpetuate attacks, so the military junta completely banned them in the capital “just in case.”
Myanmar currently receives just over a million tourists a year, an insignificant figure not only compared to its neighbors, but in proportion to its nearly 60 million inhabitants
In Myanmar men wear a kind of wide skirt that is adjusted through a knot just below the navel, without underwear. Women are often seen adjusting the typical costume that covers them from the ankles to the neck, an elegant garment emphasizing the sensuous curves of a perfect waist, as described by George Orwell in his novel Burmese Days.
They are as thin “as sticks” with shapely legs and smooth hair that falls in perfect shapes… no thanks to the gym or expensive treatments, but from a traditional diet based on vegetables, plus genetics and a life marked from childhood by hard work.
Incredibly decent and helpful, one and all, the citizens of Myanmar grab your heart with their extraordinary mixture of simplicity and nobility, probably a reflection of the basic teachings of Buddhism, among which one stands out in particular: “We must live to give love, not only to our friends, but also to our enemies.”
Although the country is an infinite melting pot of ethnicities and religions, Buddhism predominates as a belief, significantly influencing the moral base and value system that rules society. The presence of the monks and their temples (pagodas) is everywhere. You cannot touch the monks and much less can they touch a woman. They, however, can touch you at will.
The monks are greatly venerated and were the protagonists in several of the largest protests against the abuses of the military power and in support of changing the terrible economic situation of the country. The majority of these demonstrations were held in the late eighties and were called the Saffron Revolution, after the color of the monks’ clothing. Many of them were sent to prison and served long sentences as political prisoners.
In general, those who were young students in 1988 are called “Generation 88,” in memory of the heroic attitude that many of these boys, some of them mere children, assumed in defense of their country and their rights, paying a high cost in innocent lives at the hands of the armed forces.
That sacrifice laid the foundation for the process that is happening today in the country, overthrowing for the first time the one-party military rule in that year. There then emerged 235 political parties, which were more or less consolidated into 91 ahead of the 1990 elections, the first competitive elections since 1948.
Although the country is an infinite melting pot of ethnicities and religions, Buddhism as a belief prevails. (E. Avila)
The National League for Democracy (LND), which already had more than three million members (of which, one million are women), swept the elections getting a historic triumph that gave them the capacity to govern, but the defeated military didn’t go along, they broke the rules, ignored the election results and imprisoned the leaders of the winning party, among them its leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
With this coup, the military frustrated the aspirations of the whole nation for freedom and progress, but that would be temporary.
In 2011, after the release of Aung San and thousands of political prisoners, new elections were called, but several of the most influential parties chose not to participate, citing the obvious lack of confidence in the military and demanding a change in the Constitution to offer real guarantees to civil parties.
The constitution is the legal instrument that guarantees the supremacy of the military class, still today. The constitution establishes that 25% of the seats in parliament are reserved for the military, regardless of the results of the election. The trap closes completely with the provision, in addition, that the constitution can only be changed with more than 75% of the votes, so it is mathematically impossible to modify anything, no matter how small, without the consent of the military.
Not satisfied with this, the constitution gives the military permanent control of the country’s most important ministries: Borders, Armed Forces and the most strategic, Interior. This latter entity, in addition to the usual functions of controlling order, in Myanmar also controls all public administration, a great part of the economy, and also education. The decisions of the military in these institutions are virtually autonomous and unquestionable.
For these reasons, although the country is very happy with the second victory of the NLD in 2015 and the rise to power of Aung San, many believe that as long as the military holds on to all that power they will not have a true democracy.
It is mathematically impossible to modify anything, no matter how small, without the consent of the military.
Aung San and her party assumed from the beginning a conciliatory attitude, trying to reach agreements with the military leadership that will directly benefit citizens, and working so that the country can begin to emerge from its deep poverty, making it easier and offering guarantees for both foreign investment and internal trade.
These negotiations have been possible in part because the current top leader of the military and Aung San have a certain personal empathy and have maintained a constructive dialogue. This aspect was strongly criticized by other political parties and many civil society organizations, who demand clarifications and that the military take responsibility for its crimes, as well as the release of political prisoners who remain in jail.
Many of these prisoners were sanctioned for “resistance” against attempts of certain members of military or their associates to take away all or part of their land.
Beyond these issues, thorny and inconclusive, there are hundreds of examples of positive transformations that quickly began to empower people, especially young people. In 2012, a SIM card for a cellphone cost about $1,000. Today you can buy one for just $1.50 and it provides completely free access to the internet, creating overnight more than 10 million internet users ravenously exploring the web, creating new ways to organize and discuss issues that previously didn’t exist. In Myanmar, as in Cuba, meeting with others without permission from the military junta was prohibited.
Another important change was to eliminate the tax demanded by the military of 100% on the purchase value from anyone who acquired a vehicle. This was reduced to between 3% and 5%, which has facilitated the importation of millions of light trucks and buses for public transport. This measure represents an accelerator for the growing economy that is trying to flourish, but which in turn poses great challenges of infrastructure, because at certain times the city collapses in traffic jams of a size never expected or imagined.
Impressive and positive is also the great work being done in the country through hundreds of supportive organizations and NGOs
Impressive and positive is also the great work being done in the country through hundreds of supportive organizations and NGOs which, along with the new authorities, are contributing their experience on issues of all kinds: entrepreneurship, agriculture, digital commerce, the broad-based development of women, political participation, mediation in ethnic conflicts, issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, water purification and conservation, etc., through training in systems provided not only in the capital but in the most remote villages of the 14 states that make up the vast territory of the country.
All this cooperation has also contributed to statistical studies, surveys and research to bring to light for the first time in history the true picture of the country in very sensitive areas such as human trafficking, the sex trade of children, drugs, discrimination, recruitment of children by ethnic guerrillas, etc., so that from this information the state can implement programs and make decisions to improve the situation.
The media, now much more free, foster discussions of all these issues and put pressure on the authorities from their platforms, both physical and digital. The young people working on a Yangon newspaper talk about the official media after the change, saying “nobody recognizes them,” because “they changed their stale and censored discourse for another kind of more dynamic journalism, objective and real; they are now becoming real competitors for us.”
This shows that journalism’s heart was always beating, but it was subjugated by a regime that annulled it and appeared more before the people.
The young Burmese man who acted as my translator said, “For me, the most important thing is that people are no longer afraid, they laugh now, before they were serious, now they dream of work and prosperity; before, most young people regretted being born here… For myself, I’m not going anywhere now!”
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, 3 September 2016 — It may have been the largest march in Venezuela’s history. Did it serve for anything? We’ll get to that. I begin my analysis with a view of the government.
Maduro and the Cuban DGI agents, who actually rule the country, faced a dilemma: in the face of a giant demonstration, should they remove the fragile democratic mask they still wear sporadically, declare martial law, suspend constitutional guarantees and dissolve the National Assembly on the pretext they were impeding a coup planned by Washington’s perfidy, or should they obstruct the demonstrators, arrest the leaders and cause the demonstration to abort by disrupting the march at various spots in its course?
They opted for the second. They believed that they could do it. That’s what the authorities do in Cuba. They arrest, disperse, infiltrate, harass the opponents, pit them one against another with a thousand intrigues and prevent them from seizing the streets. The streets belong to Fidel. That’s the task of the vast and secret body of Cuba’s counterintelligence (55,000 to 60,000 people), the regular police (80,000), plus the rough-and-tumble mob of the Communist Party, while the three regular armies remain on standby in case they need to join combat. Total: 350,000 rabid dogs, not counting the Communist Party, to bring to bay 11 million terrified lambs. continue reading
They were wrong. The social control is not the same. In Cuba, the opposition was liquidated by gunfire in the first five years of the dictatorship. There was resistance, but the authorities killed some 7,000 people and jailed more than 100,000. Two decades later, in the late 1970s, when the cage had been hermetically shut, they began to release them. The Castros have held Cuban society in their fist for half a century now. The Soviet KGB and the East German Stasi taught them how to lock the padlock. Today, Raúl has perfected his repressive strategy. It was the one the Chavists futilely tried to use in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan opposition holds on precariously in a virtual zone of the state apparatus. They are mayors, governors or deputies. They hold posts but neither power nor a budget. Chavism has deprived them of resources and authority, although, because Chavism emerged from a democratic setup, it has not been easy for it to build a cage. According to surveys, the Chavists are opposing 80 percent of the population, including a good portion of the D and E sectors — that is, the poorest.
They are an undisguised gang of inept caretakers engaged in larceny. To hide and disguise reality, they bought, confiscated or neutralized the media, except for a couple of heroic newspapers, but the country’s situation is so catastrophic that there’s no human way they can hide the disaster.
Nevertheless, the opposition lacks the muscle needed to force Maduro’s overthrow and the system’s replacement. In general, the oppositionists are peaceful people, trained for 40 years in the sweet exercise of electoral democracy. What could they do? They could march. Bang on pots and pans. Stage peaceful protests. It was the only way to express their opposition in the desperate situation in which they found themselves.
They could fill the public squares in the manner of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, but against an adversary much more unscrupulous than the Anglo-Saxons. They have done so, dozens of times. It was a civilized way to confront totalitarian harassment. The people who kill, the scoundrels, the organized criminals are on the side of Chavism. The armed forces have been taken over by the Cubans and the top leaders are knee-deep in drug trafficking. Letting the army brass dirty their hands was a clever and vile way to tie them. Today they are not united by patriotism but by crime and the fear of the United States’ Drug Enforcement Administration.
In the end, do marches and peaceful protests serve a purpose? Of course they do. The Poles and the Ukrainians demolished their dictatorships marching and shouting slogans. It’s a matter of persistence. He who tires, loses. But there is a very important physiological factor. Participating in a common cause that expresses itself physically — marches, slogans — provokes an exceptional secretion of oxytocin, the hormone of affective linkage produced by the pituitary gland.
That’s the feeling of unity, of bonding, experienced during military marches, sports competitions or the innocent crowd gatherings to listen to popular musicians. That’s the substance that generates “esprit de corps” and permanent loyalties.
The opposition feels fraternally united in these street demonstrations. There’s a burst of trust in the coreligionist and hope in the resurrection of the homeland. That’s all that Venezuelans desperately need to find themselves again in a close and brotherly embrace, because their country in fact is dying. It’s being killed by Chavism.
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez/Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 3 September 2016 — If you are considering sending a text message to a friend to wish him a “happy coexistence” with his family or to suggest that he not give in to “the dictatorship of work,” it is very likely that the phrase will never reach its destination. A filter implemented by the Telecommunications Company of Cuba S.A. (ETECSA) blocks certain words from flowing through the cellular network. (See below for the list.)
For years, users of the only cellphone company in the country have suffered from congestion on the lines and areas of poor coverage, but few have noticed that there is also a strict blockade on the use of key terms and phrases in mobile messaging.
The discovery of this list has happened almost by chance. Several users, upset that their messages were charged for but not delivered, exchanged experiences. This week they connected the dots and found that texts containing the following references never reached their destinations: “human rights,” “hunger strike,” “José Daniel Ferrer,” or the name of the independent magazine “Coexistence.” continue reading
Texts with references to “human rights,” “hunger strike,” “José Daniel Ferrer,” or the name of the independent magazine “Coexistence” never arrive
Over several days and at different points in the national geography, this newspaper has run tests from terminals with very different owners, ranging from opponents and activists to people without any links to independent movements. In all cases, messages containing certain expressions “were lost on the way.”
Cubacel is ETECSA’s cellular network and the contract that each user signs to get a mobile line makes clear that the among causes for which the service will be terminated are uses “prejudicial to morality, public order, state security or that serve as support in carrying out criminal activities.”
The customer is never warned that their messages will be subjected to a content filter or that a part of their correspondence will be blocked if it alludes to opponents, concepts that are uncomfortable for officialdom such as “human rights” or to blogs critical of the government in the style of “Generation Y.”
Arnulfo Marrero, deputy chief of the ETECSA branch at 19 and B in Vedado, Havana, was surprised on Friday morning by a complaint presented to his office about the censorship. “We have nothing to do with this, you should contact the Ministry of Communications (MICOM),” the official explained to the bearer of the complaint.
“MICOM governs communications policy, because we don’t make any decisions here. All I can do is report it,” said Marrero.
Censorship, however, is not yet activated on messages that are sent to foreign countries, perhaps because of their high cost: 1 Cuban convertible peso (about $1 US) per 160 characters. Blocking them would provoke more complaints from disgruntled customers and would have set off alarm bells much earlier. However, in text messages received from abroad the same censorship applied to domestic text messaging is also applied.
In the Cuban case it is not morality that guides the scissors of censorship. Cubans can narrate an entire orgy in 160 characters, but cannot send the word “democracy”
In late 2001, Pakistan implemented a similar filter on cellphone text messages. The telecommunications authorities of that Asian country created a list of more than 1,600 prohibited terms in English and Urdu, which included obscene and insulting words, as well as words such as “condom” and “homosexual.”
In the Cuban case it is not morality that guides the scissors of censorship, because all the words in the popular argot alluding to sexuality can be sent freely. Cubans can narrate an entire orgy in 160 characters, but cannot send the word “democracia” to their recipients, not even when they try the trick of changing the “i” to a “1” and try to sneak in “democrac1a.”
The difference with Pakistan lies not only in the reason for blocking certain phrases or words, but also in the secrecy with which this censorship has operated for months, perhaps years, in Cuba. Few have noticed the relationship between certain expressions and communication problems, because they attribute it to the chronic problems of congestion and Cubacel’s bad service.
With more than three million cell phone users, the Cuban authorities have bet on few people associating errors in receiving messages with a desire to prevent the transmission of concepts and words.
The meticulous choice of what terms to block has not been random. Despite the high prices for mobile phone service, where one domestic call can cost as much as half a day’s wages, the presence of cellphones in the hands of Cubans has changed ways of interacting and people find parallel paths to avoid the excessive controls the government impose on all areas of activity.
“I didn’t know this was happening, although now that I read the list of censored words I’m sure I’ve used one of them at least once,” says Leo, 21, who was waiting outside the Cubacell office on Obispo Street in Havana this Thursday.
“I watch the news with breakfast,” said an astonished young man next to him, who said he had not noticed blocked terms, “although ETECSA works so badly that nothing should surprise us any more.” During special days, Christmas or Mother’s Day, communicating becomes a real ordeal.
At the University of Computer Sciences, as part of Operation Truth, a group monitored the internet and created matrices of opinions favorable to the Government
During his students years at the University of Information Sciences (UCI), the engineer Eliecer Avila worked on the so-called Operation Truth. His group monitored the internet and created matrices of opinion favorable to the government in forums, blogs and digital diaries. At present, Avila leads the independent Somos+ (We Are More) Movement, which is also on the long list of terms blocked by Cubacel messaging.
“We implemented algorithm projects that, given certain phrases or words entered by a user into their browser, they would appear preferentially in official pages,” Avila recalled for this newspaper. “We tried to invisibilize alternative proposals or criticisms.”
The presence of an intelligent filter is obvious in this case. If you type in the text “cacerolazo” – a word meaning the banging and pots and pans as a form of protest – your message will take much longer to arrive than some other text. A similar slowdown occurs if you write the names of Fidel Castro or Raúl Castro, and it is true in the latter case with or without the accented letter U.
How many dissident meetings have been frustrated because the invitation message never reached the invitees’ inboxes? How many misunderstandings between couples, domestic squabbles, and uncompleted professional tasks result from the filtering of messages that include last names such as Biscet and terms such as plebiscite?
Telecommunications censorship is not a new tool for the Plaza of the Revolution. Activist frequently denounce the blocking of their cellphones on December 10th, Human Rights Day, or other times when they want to gather together.
During the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the island in September of 2012, more than 100 opponents reported the suspension of their cellphone service, along with house arrests and arbitrary detentions.
A blockade of uncomfortable digital sites has also been a common practice for officialdom. On the list of inaccessible sites are portals set up from abroad such as Cubaencuentro, as well as local newspapers like 14ymedio. More than a few users manage to circumvent the censorship by sending news via email or sending offline copies of pages that pass from hand to hand thanks to technological devices like USB flash drives and external hard drives.
China has transferred to Cuba its experience with the so-called Golden Shield Project, known as the Great Firewall, which employs more than 30,000 censors
In March of this year, Amnesty International noted that “only 25% of the Cuban population uses the internet and only 5% of households have a connection.” This situation has strengthened the use of mobile phones, especially texting, as a way of using “the internet without internet.”
Only since 2008 were Cubans legally allowed to have a cellphone contract and Cubacel currently has over three million users. Last year 800,000 new lines were established throughout the island, despite the high cost of a national call, the equivalent of half the salary of a working day.
In July 2014, the governments of Cuba and China signed an agreement on “cooperation in cyberspace.” China has transferred to the island its experience in monitoring and blocking content on the web, especially what they have learned from their launch in 1998 of the so-called Golden Shield Project, known worldwide as the Great Firewall, which employs more than 30,000 censors.
Raul Castro’s government has not only copied China’s content filtering strategy, but also the creation of its own social networks to discourage Cubans from using Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus. To achieve this an ersatz Wikipedia, called Ecured, was created, along with a platform-style Facebook dubbed La Tendera (The Shopkeeper) and an unpopular substitute for Twitter known as El Pitazo (The Whistle), all with little success.
We now know that the Cuban Government wants to go beyond such crude imitations and aspires to follow in the footsteps of its Great Chinese Brother, which has a long history of censoring text messaging through a “keyword list.” A user can have their entire messaging function disabled if their content does not pass the filter of the censors. In the city of Shanghai alone, the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily reports, messaging has been blocked for some 70,000 users.
List of Words and Phrases Known to be Blocked by Cubacel
14 y medio
14ymedio
Antunez
Antúnez
Berta Soler
Biscet
Carlos Amel
Coco Farinas
Coco Fariñas
Convivencia
Cuba Posible
Cubanet
Damas de Blanco
Democracia
Democrac1a
DDHH
Derechos humanos
Dictadura
Disidente
Elecciones libres
Generacion Y
Generación Y
Guillermo Farinas
Guillermo Fariñas
Hablemos Press
Huelga de hambre
Jose Daniel Ferrer
José Daniel Ferrer
Oscar Elias Biscet
Óscar Elías Biscet
Plebiscito
Policía Política
Policia Politica
Primavera Negra
Represión
Represion
Seguridad del Estado
Somos+
Todos Marchamos
Unpacu
Yoani Sanchez
Yoani Sánchez
Meet Cuba can be used without internet connection.
14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 31 August 2016 – The daughter of necessity and ingenuity, the application Conoce Cuba (Meet Cuba) has been gaining ground on Android phones throughout the island. With an intuitive design, well made and functional, it stands out among other tools that also seek to provide information about private services and places to eat or be entertained.
Conoce Cuba is distributed free in the weekly packet. Its developers, the young engineers Eliecer Cabrera and Pablo Casas Rodríguez Yordi, come from Camagüey and two years ago wrote the tool’s first lines of program code. Today, it is the work of their lives of which they feel most proud. continue reading
The two young men have designed versions with similar characteristics for other provinces, but the capital city is where they have the most complete inventory of restaurants, scenic places, clubs, cafes and homes for rent. “In the future we want to offer new services,” says Cabrera Casas, but they prefer to move forward in careful steps and consolidate what has been achieved.
The tool can be used without an internet connection, a trait shared by many of the apps created on the island. Some of them were demonstrated and exchanged during the first meeting of the Cuban Android Community, which was held last Saturday at the studio of the artist Alexis Leyva (Kcho), under the slogan “For a technological culture available to all.”
The creation of these two camagüeyanos is “useful for visitors to the island,” they explain and they say they have focused “on the private sector from the beginning.” The app only provides “information on places that offer different services, but doesn’t include prices or ratings, so users have the freedom to choose,” says one of the creators.
The long-held dream of the student was taking shape in Cabrera Casas’ mind and when he graduated he made the decision. “If it doesn’t exist, we’re going to do it,” and he turned his hand to the work with an obsession that knows no bounds.
Totally free, the developers are careful not to include any license or restriction that would impede the massive use of Conoce Cuba.
To distribute it, they based their strategy on visiting cellphone repairers and developed an advantageous collaboration with their owners. At first, they walked around the city knocking on doors of the self-employed to offer their product.
The proprietor of the Ultracell workshop in Havana was one of the many who learned of the existence of Conoce Cuba on the street. After offering the tool as a part of the installation package he loads on the phones that come his way, he believes it has increased his numbers of clients and their satisfaction.
Currently the two engineers have also developed a way for business owners to contact them via email so they can request changes and updates in the tab associated with their business.
They acknowledge, however, they have had to overcome many obstacles to pursue their dream. Technological limitations hinder any work of this kind, but above all they are held back by the restricted internet access afflicting the country.
Cuba is one of the nations with the lowest rate of connectivity in the world, with only 5% of the population on-line, a percentage that is reduced to 1% in the case of broadband.
During the first months of work, the young engineers relied on the internet rooms operated by the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA), or on friends who copied for them “some tools” they didn’t have, said Cabrera Casas.
Today, competitors abound, such as the app Isladentro (Island Within) one of the most popular in Cuba. This tool also offers a guide for travelers, is available for free, and in addition it not only shows private services, but also state services and is organized by province.
“That people can find a great deal of information no further away than their pocket” was the objective guiding the two engineers who created Conoce Cuba, and so far they seem to have succeeded.
The newly restored Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba. (D. Deloy)
14ymedio, Dominique Deloy, Santiago de Cuba, 2 September 2016 — It had been years since I’d seen my husband’s family. So we traveled to Santiago de Cuba, where many of them live. Upon arrival, after 17 hours by bus with a broken suspension, a pleasant surprise awaited me: the city seemed more flirtatious than ten years ago.
“Thanks to [hurricane] Sandy,” say the santiagueros with the black humor that characterizes them, the city has been beautified: a new public transit station, some gaily painted houses, the cathedral restored and its angel re-clothed in golden garments. They also told me that Sandy has cleaned the beaches, in fact we were able to enjoy one of them, a wonder of trash-free white sand, as we had never seen before. continue reading
We also saw, although this has nothing to do with the terrible hurricane of 2012 – works of art decorating the streets, paintings, sculptures, lamps of pretty colors and, above all, a maritime promenade that doesn’t make you want to cry like before, where now you can really walk, and even connect to the internet! In addition, you can take a boat ride on the magnificent bay, for a low price in Cuban pesos.
Unfortunately, when it came time to visit the family, a bitter disappointment awaited me with the other side of the postcard: everyone seemed to live in the same conditions as before, and the young people thought of nothing but escaping to another country at any cost, so as not to have to live like their elders.
My aunt Candita, 59, an architect and Head of Service at the Housing Institute, continues to earn the same salary as before: it doesn’t exceed 18 CUC (roughly $18 US) a month. My niece Glaydis got a big promotion: now she is the manager of a very famous candy store in the city, where she works seven days a week for 13 CUC a month. And she’s lucky because she can bring home cakes! Although she must pay for them of course. My cousin Juan, who also completed his higher education, is the head of a large furniture company. He is 53 and has worked there for forever: he is the most fortunate of all these professionals, earning 20 CUC a month.
I was pensive and on my return to Havana I went to the supermarket near my house to note down some prices, because sometimes my friends in France don’t believe me. How can a person live on a salary ten times lower than those in some countries in Africa? Perhaps the prices of basic products are significantly lower? No way! They are as high or higher than in France. You don’t have to be a great mathematician to realize that Glaydis, over the space of a month, cannot purchase any more than a pound of cheese, two quarts of juice and bottle of detergent.
Sometimes I feel that everyone is being punished here. But what did they do?
Decades of shortages and economic hardships have led us to a plane of survival where food is the center, obsession and goal of millions of people who inhabit this island. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 2 September 2016 – At the dining room table the grandparents are playing with their two granddaughters. They ask them what they would ask the genie for if they happened to stumble on a magic lamp in the corner. “I want a plate full of chicken and French fries,” the littlest one said immediately, while the older said she wanted it to rain candy. Their second wish included ice cream by the ton and the third wish concentrated on endless cheeseburgers.
National television broadcasts a report about a popular camping site that has been renovated and reopened to the public this summer. One customer smiles at the camera and says, “The food is good.” The administrator of the recreation spot enumerates the dining options and promises that culinary offerings “suited to all pocketbooks and well prepared” await whose who book one of the cabins scattered in the countryside. continue reading
Education Minister Ena Elsa Velázquez, calls for moral and material respect for teachers to avoid the exodus that profession is suffering as teachers quit for other—more lucrative—jobs in other areas. The official recommended holding agricultural fairs next to school buildings, with sales of pork and produce, so the educators can buy food after work.
An opponent of the Castros visiting a market in Miami recorded a video in which he says the only way his compatriots would be willing to “overthrow the dictatorship” would be if they were promised that the shelves would then be full of the same variety of beers on offer in Miami. The well-known dissident lists the prices, the quantity of food available in pounds and the high quality of the products that star in his video.
A nouveau riche couple books two nights all-inclusive at a Varadero hotel. They manage to polish off a lunch with two pork steaks each, a serving of fried beef, several helpings of rice and beans, along with a pile of succulent shrimp and lobster. Returning home they fail to describe a single example of the scenery they admired during their trip.
When was it that we Cubans came to be ruled by our stomachs? At what moment were we conquered by a mouth that swallows and a brain that thinks only of food? Can our dreams and desires be reduced to filling our bellies, whetting our appetites and cleaning our plates?
Unfortunately, yes. Decades of shortages and economic hardships have brought us to a plane of survival where food is the center, obsession and goal of millions of people who inhabit this island. That obfuscation often does not allow us to see beyond, because “with an empty belly, who will think about politics,” as any materialistic philosopher would say.
The problem is that “hungry once, always hungry.” When a tongue of flame rises into the esophagus, when a few grains of rice are at the center of wet dreams and some crumbs of bread are the be-all and end-all, it is immoral to talk about something beyond whetting the appetite.
We have been condemned, as a people, to mastication, gastric juices and digestion. In the process we have lost what makes us human and become creatures of the feedlot, more focused on the dinner bell than on our rights of free association or expression.
We are like Pavlov’s dog, whoever brings us a plate of food will make us react and salivate. How sad!
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 1 September 2016 — The workers of more than 94% of Cuba’s state enterprises will have to pay personal income taxes and a special contribution to social security starting on October 1, Cuba’s official media reported Thursday.
Deputy Minister of Finance and Prices, Meisi Bolaños, said that both taxes will be collected in state enterprises if they pay workers bonuses on top of the basic salary for performance and for the distribution of benefits, according to the state-run Cuban News Agency.
The tax on personal income will be fixed when the monthly salary exceeds 2,500 Cuban pesos (about $100 US), with a tax of 3% on income up to 5,000 Cuban pesos, and 5% on income above this figure. continue reading
The companies themselves are responsible to withhold or deduct taxes from workers, the report said.
The official also said the tax rates will be set according to business results generated at the end of September, according to the provisions of the 2016 Law on the State Budget.
Meanwhile, the Director of Income in the Ministry of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro, said the workers would pay the charges if they receive additional compensation payments for improvements in performance or efficiencies or the distribution of earnings as an incentive for collective efficiency.
He also clarified that the special contribution to social security will be from those who receive remuneration above 500 Cuban pesos (about $20 US) in monthly income, and the tax will be 5% of the total.
At the end of the first trimester of this year, 1,306 Cuban state enterprises paid monthly wages of more than 500 Cuban pesos, including 403 that paid more than 1,000 Cuban pesos, and 25 with an average salary of 2,500 Cuban pesos, according to data from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.
The Finance and Prices management noted that these taxes are targeted to “support the economic development of the country and public expenditure.”
The new Tax System Law, which entered into force in Cuba in 2013, provides for the gradual and flexible application of taxes.
Currently workers in private businesses, agricultural and non-agricultural cooperatives and artists, creators, support staff in the cultural sector, designers, employees working in foreign enterprises, owners of land transport and boats and businesses and corporations are required to pay taxes on earnings.
Translator’s note: While in the past Cuba’s state workers have not had taxes deducted directly from their pay, the government effectively “deducts taxes” before it pays the workers, who historically have received a pittance for their labor.
Arrested, handcuffed and forcibly deported to Havana — This is what happened to Reinaldo Escobar yesterday at the arrival of the JetBlue [flight in Santa Clara, Cuba, which he was covering as a journalist for 14ymedio.]My phone service was cut off so I couldn’t report the arrest of my husband Reinaldo Escobar when he was covering the arrival of the JetBlue flight.
A Cuban girl plays among the makeshift shelters in the village of La Miel, Panama. (Courtesy)
14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 1 September 2016 — Fernanda and Fabio do not know why they are far from home. They are six and three, but eleven months ago they left their kindergarten in Holguin, in eastern Cuba. They have suffered the rigors of the altitude of the Andes, and the humidity of the tropical forests. They are two children, like dozens of others, stranded with their parents in Panama, after escaping from a warehouse in the coastal area of Colombia.
“When we arrived at the airport in Panama, with $20 in our pockets, a lady gave the children a chocolate and a peanut candy. I remember she told us, “Some day you have to write down everything you went through to reach freedom,” recounts the children’s father, Johans Tamayo Molina, 38. continue reading
Tamayo is one of the more than 500 Cubans who are within Panamanian territory as part of an operation that the government of that country implemented to assist migrants who managed to get through the jungle or to enter informally from the sea. Now they are refugees in the shelters set up for the humanitarian emergency by Caritas Panama, an organization of the Catholic Church.
“We do not divulge the numbers or locations of the Cubans, because we fear for their safety. Several have been arrested by Panama Immigration when they leave the Caritas facilities,” explains Iris, a secretary for Caritas in the country’s capital.
So far, through donations, the NGO offers food, water and clothing to the migrants. In addition, they arrange baths and distribute the people among various churches. The Red Cross and the Panamanian Health Service have also collaborated to assist those stranded. After being in areas prone to tropical diseases some Cubans have become ill, as is the case with Ubernel Cruz, who is hospitalized with malaria. There are also reports of deaths in the jungle crossing, such as that of Carmen Issel Navarro Olazabel, 49, who died on August 20.
According to Tamayo, the journey to the Panamanian city has been one of the most difficult times of his life. “My wife and I came with the children from Ecuador. We arrived in Turbo, where an elderly lady took us into her home. She had nothing of value, even the floor was just dirt. There we shared in her misery, and we ate the little she had. This affected us strongly,” he says.
Following the decision of Columbia’s Foreign Ministry and Immigration to intervene in the warehouse and surroundings, where more than 1,400 Cubans were taking refuge in Turbo, the Tamayo family embarked for Sapzurro, a village on the border from where they though they could enter Panama.
“We crossed by sea, fearing that the Panamanian Coast Guard would shoot us, because those were the rumors we heard. There were moments of great tension in boats crammed with immigrants.” Tamayo remembers how, in the middle of the crossing, the tiny son of Aderelys Ofarril, the baby whose birth in the Turbo shelter made news, was covered by a wave and “miraculously” saved from drowning.
“When we though the worst was over, the Colombian sailors explained to us they couldn’t take us to the beach because it was Panamanian territory. They left us on the reefs, with water up to our chests. We had to carry the children and let the luggage get wet. Everything was soaked, including our documents.”
Yanela Vilche with her husband, Johans Tamayo, and their children, Fernanda and Fabio, in Quito, Ecuador.(Courtesy)
Once at the Panamanian border area they had to find the town of La Miel, where Cubans were gathering. “Some told us it was three days away, others that it was right there. We finally found the town and afterwards they let us continue toward Panama,” he explains.
“The problem now is that we have nowhere to go and no way to get there,” he says, troubled by the decision of the countries in the area to not allow the passage of “irregular” migrants, among whom are Cubans.
In an interview with 14ymedio, Costa Rica’s Minister of Communication, Mauricio Herrera Ulloa, explained that his government had not changed its policy toward irregular Cuban migrants. “In essence, the policy continues. We are not going to receive irregular migrants.”
Herrera explained that as of this week 173 Cubans had been administratively rejected and three were apprehended trying to enter the country surreptitiously. “Those who are arrested by the Police have several possibilities, which range from deportation to their country of origin to the granting of asylum, on a case by case basis.”
The minister was emphatic in stressing that his country would not negotiate a new airlift with Mexico. The Costa Rican government has asked the United States to repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act (1966), and Washington has refused to do so. In response to a question from this newspaper regarding whether his government had discussed with Cuba the conditions that cause thousands of Cubans to try to escape the country every year, the minister said, ”There is no prospect that the existing situation is going to change.”
Panama’s Foreign Ministry declined to answer the same question. Panama Immigration explained that more and more migrants have been coming, but they are being dealt with in a controlled way, with between 100 and 150 taken to the capital. In statements to this newspaper, the director general of Panama Immigration, Javier Carrillo, explained that if migrants enter the country in an irregular manner, the law is clear. “We are not going to allow anyone to remain in our territory without having documents. We will initiate the process for deportation to the country of origin, to Colombia or to the country they came from on leaving their own.”
At the same time, Carrillo explained the Controlled Flow program: “A humanitarian operation for people continue their journey to the north, as the Haitians do. In the case of Cubans they want to stay and exert pressure for an airlift, something that isn’t going to happen.”
With regards to Costa Rica’s policy on returning migrants, the official explained that “this is not Panama’s issue.”
“They have to know how to continue, because when they started this journey they knew they would have to pass through many countries irregularly,” he added.
It is Wednesday. The temperature in the capital of Panama is close to 85 degrees. Fernanda and Fabio are playing on the floor, thousands of miles from home. Along with their parents, they dream of stepping on US soil “to reach freedom.”
“If they refuse to let us pass in Tapachula and return us to Cuba, at least we have done our best so that our children can live in a free world.”
Cubans crossing the Darien jungle to get to Panama. (Courtesy to ’14ymedio’)
EFE (14ymedio), Panama, 29 August 2016 – About 300 Cubans took refuge in several churches in the Panama capital and at the site of Pastoral Caritas in hopes that the governments of the region will again reach an agreement for a special operation and they will be transferred to Mexico to get to the United States.
“At the Caritas headquarters we have about 80 Cubans, but our parishes are looking after 300 people in total,” Denia Manguelis, a representative of Caritas Panama told EFE.
The situation, he added, highlights the migrant crisis, which erupted in November of last year when Nicaragua decided to close its borders on the grounds of national security, which still has not been solved. continue reading
“Our obligation as Catholics is to welcome them. Every day new Cubans arrive, but last Wednesday there was a massive influx,” said Manguelis.
The headquarters of the Catholic organization, located in the capital neighborhood of Ancon, is flooded with mattresses where Cubans rest and await news from local authorities.
“We are waiting for the president (of Panama, Juan Carlos Varela,) to help us to fulfill our dream and reach the United States,” Odiky Hernandez, who left Havana at the end of the year when things were still “the same” on the island, admitted to EFE.
The migrants receive food but also health care, as many have skin infections and foot ailments from walking, said the Caritas worker.
“My wife is eight months pregnant, it is a risky pregnancy. We crossed part of the Darien jungle (on the border with Colombia), but she became ill and the authorities of Panama decided to bring her to the city. I stayed behind and we rejoined each other a few days ago,” said Hernandez.
The decision of the Nicaraguan government to close its border caused, late last year, about 8,000 migrants, mostly Cubans, to pile up in Costa Rica and Panama and both countries came to an agreement with Mexico for a special operation of direct flights to various Mexican cities.
But the flow of migrants has not ceased and both countries decided to close their borders and prevent the passage of illegal immigrants. First it was Costa Rica in December 2015 and later Panama, on 9 May of this year.
The passage of Cubans through Central America and through countries like Brazil, Ecuador, Guyana and Colombia is a phenomenon that has grown in recent years but has intensified with the restoration of relations between the United States and Cuba.
Cubans fear that after normalization the Cuban Adjustment Act (1961), which awards them many advantages in getting US residence, will be eliminated.
The Aubergine Restaurant in the town of Viñales, Pinar del Río. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Viñales, 28 August 2016 — The tastes of visitors shape the menu of the restaurants located in tourist areas of the country. While menus targeted to Cuban customers prioritize pork, fried foods and the always-popular pizzas, places with a more foreign clientele focus on the Mediterranean diet and vegetarian dishes.
In the town of Viñales, in Pinar del Rio, the Aubergine Restaurant is a clear example of how demand affects culinary options. The tourists come to the place looking for salads, plates with a predominance of vegetables and natural juices. The proprietors found this market niche in the midst of an area where the majority of private restaurants offer seafood and meat.
Tomatoes, avocado, yucca, rice pilaf and eggplant rule the premises, a few yards from a state restaurant which does not reach beyond fried chicken and steak. Experimentation and gastronomic innovation, in these parts, belongs to the sector of the self-employed.
At the end of the last century vegetarian restaurants flourished throughout the island in a campaign for a healthier diet that the official press was quick to identify as “Fidel Castro’s idea.” Of those premises, with subsidized prices, none remain and now only the most select places, designed for tourists, put the flavors of the Cuban countryside on their tables.
14ymedio, Madrid, 5 September 2016 — Marita Lorenz’s first kiss (1939) came from Fidel Castro. Daughter of a ship’s captain, she met the leader of the Revolution at age 20, at a dock at the port of Havana. After she showed him around the ship, the leader asked her where her cabin was and, once they were there he pushed her inside and kissed her. But Lorenz didn’t feel intimidated, “I was enthralled. Fidel gave off an enormous seductive power!” she said, in an interview with the French weekly Paris-Match, subsequently translated by YoDona, a magazine belonging to the Spanish daily El Mundo. In the interview, Fidel Castro’s ex-lover offers every kind of detail about the relationship they maintained in 1959, before she joined the anti-Castro ranks.
