Private Kindergartens Are Growing In Numbers / 14ymedio Yosmany Mayeta Labrada

2016 marks the 55 years since the founding of Day Care Centers. (14ymedio)
2016 marks 55 years since the founding of Day Care Centers. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, Havana, 28 April 2016 — Kids play in the living room with pieces of legos, wooden toys and some soft toys. The place is bright and two specialized assistants keep each infant under their watchful eyes. Behind the door, the license of the self-employed owner hangs in a frame. Due to the deterioration of state-owned day care centers, private kindergartens are growing in number, supported by the new law.

The Government proposed to reverse this situation at the 55th anniversary of the founding of children’s day care centers. To achieve this, it not only seeks to significantly expand the capacity, but also totally renovate many of the sites and raise the quality of staff training working in such a sensitive sector.
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At the end of 2014, 1,078 private kindergarten were running under state control with an enrollment of 139,878 children. As of the middle of last year, at least 49,000 families who had applied for an opening at one of these centers still had not gotten a response, according to insight provided by the National Director of Preschool Education for the Ministry of Education, Maria de los Angeles Gallo Sanchez.

The official, however, said that each year the enrollment for day care centers increases with more than 2,000 openings, although she acknowledged that there is insufficient growth to meet demand in the country. Various specialists consulted by this newspaper believe that issue is also one cause of the country’s low birth rate.

In 1978, the global rate of fertility in Cuba fell below the 2.1 children per woman and in 2012 reached a worrying rate of 1.69, a figure that it threatens to turn Cuba into the ninth most aged country in the world. But even that fall in the birth rate has not eased the problems for families seeking to access a place in the day care centers.

In order to be enrolled at this level of education, a child needs as an indispensable requirement that her mother is actively working. However, complying with that requirement does not guarantee a space. Municipal commissions charged with allocating spaces analyze each case and grant the opening in correspondence with the demand for economic and social development of the territory.

Once the opening is obtained, the family must pay an almost symbolic monthly fee for the service, which in the case of very low-income households may be practically null.

Carmen, the electric company worker, is one of the cases of mothers who have not yet succeeded in getting access for her daughter to one of these state-own centers. “I filled out the application when the baby girl was six months old, so that she would be able walk, feed herself, and say a few words at the time of admission, but so far I have not received a response.”

With a salary that barely exceeds 500 Cuban pesos a month (about $20 US), Carmen is thinking of opting for a place at a private house dedicated to the care of infants. It would be a significant economic sacrifice but she says she will feel “more calm” because “there are many well-prepared people that have left the State sector because of poor conditions and have built their own child care businesses.”

At the end of June 2015 there were 1,726 people devoted to work as “child care assistants” in the non-state sector in the country, and 34% of them are in Havana. They range from more modest places, like that of Juana Núñez, a retired teacher who has opened one of these private day care centers in her home.

“I’m retired and now I care for 12 children,” comments the lady, who lives in Arroyo Naranjo. “Here I teach them how to walk, talk, eat alone, in addition to the basic school subjects for their age,” she explains while showing some books with illustrations, learning games and colored crayons she has for the children to use.

The monthly fee for hiring the Juana’s services is a 20 convertible pesos ($20 US), the monthly salary of a professional. Despite the high price, the caretaker says that she does not have enough room to respond to the high demand. “Sometimes parents arrive and assure me that they can pay more, but I have no space,” says the educator.

The more expensive places are also almost full. A private kindergarten under the direction of Cárdenas Yaquelin is located on the central 23rd street in Havana. On-site employees have degrees in their respective specialties and give courses in language, theatre, and other skills. In addition to that they are proud of their nursing services.

The place is divided into three rooms according to the age. “Each area can have up to 10 to 12 children with their caretaker and their assistant. The infant room is air-conditioned and has an educator with 3 certified nannies. We take infants from their first month,” details Cardenas.

The prices for a service like that can reach up to 80 convertible pesos a month, according to the service agreement, which may include lunch, snacks, uniforms and transportation.

However, Cardenas is not accepting new candidates until she does some renovation to expand the place. “The only thing I am hoping for is that after the end of my investment there will be a baby boom and clients will come in abundance,” she speculates. But in the Cuban case, the stork seems to be unreliable. The most popular nest–the State-owned day care centers–lack the space and conditions to respond to an eventual increase in births.

Translated by Alberto

Rights Commission Counts 1,380 Political Arrests in Cuba in April / 14ymedio

A police operation outside the home of a regime opponent. (Lazaro Yuri Valle Roca)
A police operation outside the home of a regime opponent. (Lazaro Yuri Valle Roca)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 3 May 2016 – A report released on Tuesday by the Cuban National Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) announced that during the April there were “at least 1,380 arbitrary arrests for political reasons” in Cuba. A situation that “confirms the ultra repressive policy adopted at the highest level of the government of the island,” says the document.

The independent entity questioned the attitude of the authorities which is “aimed at trying to silence dissenting voices and any form of peaceful public demonstrations of discontent.” In the introduction to the report an estimate for politically motivated arrests during the first four months of the year is provided: “At least 5.351.” continue reading

The CCDHRN comments on “the inability to quality the acts of repression and the climate of intimidation against all society, a victim, also, of massive campaigns of disinformation and diversionary propaganda.” A situation that keeps the Cuban people “in a state of complete defenselessness and hopelessness” it says.

On 25 April, the CCDHRN published its most recent partial list of prisoners currently incarcerated for political reasons, which included the names of 82 Cubans imprisoned for so-called “crimes against the state.” However, in the report released Tuesday, it is reported that a few days later that figure “had increased with four other women,” members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) found in “provisional detention.”

The four activists added to the list are Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda, Yunet Cairo Reigada, Yaquelin Heredia Morales and Marieta Martínez Aguilera.

Two of them “are also members of the harshly repressed Ladies in White movement,” says the text.

The CCDHRN submitted a request for opposition detainees to receive an “international recognition as prisoners of conscience.” A request that will extend also to “at least 20 peaceful political prisoners.”

The Commission, chaired by dissident Elizardo Sanchez, will continue demanding the “release, for purely humanitarian reasons, of 22 other prisoners classified as counterrevolutionary who have been in the Castro regime’s prisons for between 24 and 13 years.” The text details that these prisoners are being held “under inhuman and degrading conditions.”

Jose Antonio Torres: “Only International Pressure Will Get Me Out Of Jail” / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

The United States Department of State selected Cuban journalist Jose Antonio Torres to begin the campaign for the World Press Freedom Day.(14ymedio)
The United States Department of State selected Cuban journalist Jose Antonio Torres to begin the campaign for the World Press Freedom Day.(14ymedio)

For background on this interview read: The Spy Who Never Wanted to Be One

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 3 May 2016 — Last week the United States Department of State chose Cuban journalist Jose Antonio Torres to lead off the campaign for International Press Freedom Day, this May 3rd. The initiative denounces the crimes and abuse against information workers in several countries. The reporter was sentenced in 2011 to 14 years in prison for the crime of espionage, and this week spoke from prison by phone with 14ymedio.

Yoani Sanchez: Did you know that your name was included on the list of journalists who have suffered an attack on freedom of the press?

Jose Antonio Torres: I did not know, but I know now. I want to thank those who have made this effort to help me here in prison, where I have spent five years and two months. The inclusion of my name in this campaign is proof that the Cuban press, especially the critical press [i.e. non-Party], is doing everything possible about the injustices, to resolve them and to resolve them immediately I am very grateful, as a journalist and as a human being, because what has happened to me and my family is inhumane. continue reading

YS. Does a gesture of this nature from the US government benefit you or complicate your situation?

JAT. I can’t be any more complicated that I already am. Being a journalist with the leading newspaper in the country, with work considered excellent and even being congratulated by Raul Castro himself, what happened to me makes no sense. Having a contrary opinion in this country is, at times, very difficult, but there has to be space for all opinions. In Cuba we have to resolve our differences.

YS. Have you experienced difficult moments in prison?

JAT. I never should have been in prison with people who have nothing to do with my conduct, with kleptomaniacs, traffickers, assasins and murderers. I should never be with those people, because I have not committed any crime.

YS. What prison are you in at the moment?

JAT.  I’m in the so – called “trusted program” in Santiago de Cuba, which is on the road to Mar Verde. It is called Mar Verde Trusted Work-Study Center Work – Study Center.

Jose Antonio Torres journalist convicted of espionage in 2011. (14ymedio)
Jose Antonio Torres journalist convicted of espionage in 2011. (14ymedio)

YS. What is your prison regimen today?

JAT. It is a regimen of low severity and I stay here for two months, between 45 and 60 days, then I have a pass for 72 hours to spend at home. I have been held under these conditions since April of last year, when Barack Obama and Raul Castro spoke at the Summit of the Americas [in Panama].

YS. Do you harbor hopes for a reduction in the sentence?

JAT. A reduction in the sentence is very difficult, I do not think they will do it. Only international pressure will bring me out of jail. It is precisely the press, my colleagues, who so far have been silent, those who could do it, those who hold the key against intolerance.

YS. Are you still maintaining your innocence?

JAT. Absolutely. Here they have said many times that there are no political prisoners. But if there are no political prisoners in Cuba, what am I doing as a prisoner here?

YS. Have you kept doing journalism?

JAT. I have a long article titled The Weight Of Hope that I would like to send to the American press. Also other texts from prison on various topics such as the rapprochement between the United States and Cuba, from the perspective of a journalist who is captive.

YS. Do you still consider yourself a man faithful to the Cuban government?

JAT. I consider myself loyal to my country. Cubans have been talking in Miami, Washington, Madrid and France because they do not let us discuss the issues we have to discuss in Santiago, Santa Clara, Camagüey and Havana. To the Government I have nothing to say, there is a phrase: decent people can not accept a government that ignores them.

YS. What journalistic media would you like to work in in the future?

JAT. (laughs) Maybe 14ymedio would be a good space. Anyway I have an additional sanction that says I can not practice journalism… at least in the official press. I would like to work as a correspondent for a foreign press, I have no other choice. To publish in The New York Times, El Nuevo Herald or Spain’s El País, that is among my aspirations.

YS. Do you plan to leave Cuba once they release you?

JAT. Where we have to live our life is here in Cuba. I have a lot of pressure on me, but I will do everything possible because it is right here in Cuba where one can put up a fight.

Cubans Cheer the First Cruise Ship From Miami / 14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada

The Carnival Lines cruise ship 'Adonia' arriving at the port of Havana. (14ymedio)
The Carnival Lines cruise ship ‘Adonia’ arriving at the port of Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, Havana, 2 May 2016 — The clock struck nine as the cruise ship Adonia entered the bay of Havana. Dozens of people enthusiastically welcomed the first pleasure boat to come to the island from Miami in the last 50 years. The government did not need to issue an official call for citizens to gather there, Cubans showed up spontaneously to welcome the boat.

Traveling on the ship was Univision journalist Tony Dandrades, and the crowd welcomed him with cheers. They shouted out his name and called out in chorus “we love you.” The greeting was a show of admiration for his work which comes to Cuba by way of “the antenna” (satellite dishes) and “the weekly packet.” Dandrades shared a few minutes with the public and said he was “very happy” to be here. He then assumed his role as a journalist and said, “Now I’m going to interview you,” and gathered impressions of the day from those present. continue reading

Ana, a CubanAmerican who had been in the US for 48 years without visiting the island, told 14ymedio she was “very emotional.” With tears in her eyes she repeated, “I am Cuban,” and was received by dozens of Cubans to whom she said, “I am optimistic about the future of Cuba and its people.”

Mily Gonzalez Martinez said she left Cuba when she was four. Born in Ciego de Avila, she has been living in the United States for 46 years. Also in tears, she said: “I am very excited, very happy and glad to be here in Cuba.” And then she said: “Although I live in Miami, I grew up Cuban, my mother would not let us speak English at home.” On the changes that have recently taken place between the two countries, she said: “We have a lot of hope that these changes are good for the future and that this means they are beginning to open more doors for the people of Cuba.”

The United States firm Carnival carried about 700 people on the cruise, including some dozen CubanAmericans. This is an unprecedented event. In 1999, the government decreed a ban on Cubans entering or leaving the national territory by sea, with the aim of avoiding and preventing “terrorist actions” of which “Cuba has been a victim on numerous occasions since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.”

The arrival of the cruise ship on the island has been marked by controversy. Members of the Cuban exile community in Miami filed a lawsuit for discrimination against the cruise company Carnival, the world’s largest, when it announced that on its new route to Cuba tickets would not be sold to Cuban Americans.

The protests against the giant of recreational ocean travel led it to reverse its decision, and on April 18 it was announced that there would be no distinctions, all passengers would be welcome regardless of national origin. The Cuban government also relented and allowed Cuban Americans to arrive by sea to the island.

Travelers on the Adonia requested visas for cultural, sporting, religious or academic purposes, given the existing restrictions in the United States on tourist trips to the island. The cruise will also visit the Bay of Cienfuegos, on the southern coast of the country, and Santiago de Cuba in the east of the island.

The spontaneous welcome of the cruise passengers this Monday occurs 24 hours after the May Day parade of “confirmation and commitment” to the Revolution, held in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution.

Monday morning the story came to a happy ending when a crowd cheered the 'Adonia' entering the port of Havana with Cuban and US flags. (14ymedio)
Monday morning the story came to a happy ending when a crowd cheered the ‘Adonia’ entering the port of Havana with Cuban and US flags. (14ymedio)

On the newly opened floating dock at Paseo de Paula, there were handshakes and tears of emotions. It is an event that marks a before and after in the long separation of the Cuban family.

An individual with an American flag was removed from the crowd by a group of people who appeared to be members of State Security, according to what this newspaper was able to verify

People also swarmed around the area from the Muelle de Caballeria to the San Jose warehouses, where there is currently a huge artisan and souvenir market. From there, many shouted with joy, captured the historic image on their digital cameras and cellphones, and waved Cuban and American flags.

The cruise ship 'Adonia' entering the port of Havana. (14ymedio)
The cruise ship ‘Adonia’ entering the port of Havana. (14ymedio)

The ship was escorted by several boats with 590 people on board, of which about half were representatives of media, according to the newspaper El País.

Passengers aboard the cruise ship disembarked after noon, facilitated by a worker from Cuban Customs. The employee said that the “Cubans and crew members” would be subjected to “rigorous control” to verify their visas.

 

Nobody Is Welcome At The Hotel New York / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar

The bricked-up entrance to the Hotel New York, a few yards from the Capitol Building in Havana Capitol. (14ymedio)
The bricked-up entrance to the Hotel New York, a few yards from the Capitol Building in Havana Capitol. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 2 May 2016 – The roots of a bush have grown up between the stairs and weeds hang over the marquee. The Hotel New York, a few yards from the Capitol Building in Havana, is the very picture of abandonment. For more than a decade its doors have been closed to the public and since then no strains of orchestra music are heard, no sounds of glasses clinking in the bar, no smooth sliding of suitcase wheels across a polished floor. The “Big Apple” in the heart of the capital city is rotten.

Until a few years ago, brass letters told passersby on Dragones Street, between Amistad and Aguila, that the air-conditioned accommodations had been built in 1919. The building was originally the property of Jose H. Martines, a rich rancher who spared no expense in its design, while the project was carried out by the firm Tella y Cuento, Architects and Engineers. The building was leased to Jose A. Morgado to manage as a hotel. continue reading

That story can barely be glimpsed in the ruins that remain, although some of the lost glamor remains in the memories of the hotel’s oldest neighbors. Eduardo, a retiree who proudly shows his ID identifying him as a “combatant,” has lived in the area since 1959. He tells how, when they closed the hotel at the end of the last century, “there were many who took away the bathroom fixtures and even the tiles.”

According to the old man, it was for that reason that the authorities in the area “bricked up all the entrances with cement and blocks.” But the incursions have continued and now, “it has been converted into a public restroom.” Barely a single Venetian blind remains, the metal railings around the interior balconies have been torn off, and not a single piece of glass that used to crown the doors is left.

There is a rumor in the neighborhood that the City of Havana Historian, Eusebio Leal, rejected several offers from European companies to repair the Hotel New York. (14ymedio)
There is a rumor in the neighborhood that the City of Havana Historian, Eusebio Leal, rejected several offers from European companies to repair the Hotel New York. (14ymedio)

To the left of the building, where before there was a recreational area for guests, there is now one of those cafes where the underworld reigns. Some tourists approach attracted by the music and end up as “prey” for the agile denizens who populate the place. The offers can range from an out-of-tune bolero, to a round of beers paid for by the naïve visitor, to the most sophisticated sexual acrobats.

From that hovel one can see almost 100 rooms that sheltered the guests staying there, arranged around two parallel courtyards. The press of the era reported on the luxurious furnishings and an elegant ground floor restaurant, in the style of the grand American hotels.

At the entrance, embedded in the granite floor that has resisted the neglect, you can barely make out the initials of New York. On some of the stairs of the stately entrance the complete name remains, standing out amid the grime.

Across the street a modest café sells juices and snacks. The employee says the building “is about to fall down and it could kill someone.” She remembers when it closed “several men came in trucks and took away everything of value inside.” Later, it waited to be restored by the Office of the Historian of the City, but it was delayed so long that “there’s no longer anything to save,” opines the lady.

There is a rumor in the neighborhood that the City Historian, Eusebio Leal, rejected several offers from European companies to repair the Hotel New York. However, despite several calls to his office, it was not possible to confirm this information. “No one was willing to pay the amount he was asking for,” says Eduardo, an elderly combatant whose wrinkled face resembles the cracks in the wall in the hotel. “They wanted so much that no one was interested,” he says.

The façade, which is still impressive despite the deterioration, has four rows of windows and independent balconies. Five large Corinthian pilasters give the exterior wall a touch of grandeur, and a ledge on the 4th story was built when the building was expanded. The whole place seems like a little scale model of its gigantic cousins in Manhattan.

Gone is the time when you had to book in advance to spend a night in the Hotel New York. Today, only the rats fight over the space with the tramps, who have managed to introduce several holes in order to spend the nights in its dark interior.

At all the “Accountability Meetings” held in the area – a routine of taking stock of the achievements of the Revolution – residents argue that the building has become a focus of disease and a danger to health. Nothing that makes the People’s Power delegate flinch in an area filled with buildings on the point of collapse.

Scattered around the city, objects that were part of the Hotel New York adorn the room of an apartment, are resold in the informal market or end up in the trash. An old custodian of the place keeps a screen and an antique grandfather clock that he claims he saved from the looting. “One day when they reopen the hotel, I will return them,” he says with a sly smile, but nobody believes that music will once again echo within those walls.

“Venezuela Is Worse Than Cuba” / 14ymedio, Henry Constantin

Delsa Solórzano opposition lawmaker (c), with Mr. Angel Medina (r) and Richard Blanco (l) in the "Perspectives of the Opposition" forum in the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington DC, United States. (EFE)
Delsa Solórzano opposition lawmaker (c), with Mr. Angel Medina (r) and Richard Blanco (l) in the “Perspectives of the Opposition” forum in the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington DC, United States. (EFE)

14ymedio, Henry Constantin, Washington, 2 May 2016 — “There is nothing: No power, no water, no supplies in hospitals, there is no aspirin, no food, no security,” said Venezuelan Deputy Angel Medina in a debate on Venezuela organized last week by the Inter-American Dialogue Center of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

“Venezuela is worse than Cuba,” added Delsa Solorzano, another of the six deputies from different parties grouped within the Democratic Unity Roundtable, which won an absolute majority in the last general elections but which does not control the executive power in Caracas. These parliamentarians are participating in a tour to seek solidarity for the release of political prisoners and for the desperate situation Venezuela is experiencing.
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“In one of the neighborhoods where we went to campaign, I visited fifty houses, and all of them I asked to look, first of all, in the refrigerator. All had empty fridges. One lady told me she had only a piece of sausage, and six children to feed, ‘How do I do that?’ she said,” recounted one of the deputies present.

“In some places the government has threatened people that if they sign for the recall [of Maduro], they will take away the things they received.” And people tell them, “But we don’t have anything, what are you going to take?” said another of the deputies present.

Included in this tour, undertaken by opponents of the Maduro government, is a meeting scheduled with Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States—who has also been critical of the anti-democratic stance of Maduro’s government—as well as a meeting with the Washington Post, which has published strong editorials against the Venezuelan government.

“We believe in diversity [of opinion] and in Venezuela we want diversity of opinion to no longer be a crime. Right now we have people who are political prisoners simply for writing a tweet,” said deputy Solorzano, who at the end of the event was very warmly by many of the Venezuelan émigrés present.

“Venezuela needs everything. Right now, if you can participate in donating medications that would be very good. And also, those of you who are bilingual, you can translate our messages to that more people can learn what we are experiencing and support us. This is very important,” commented Solorzano, who is also the vice-president of the Domestic Policy Committee of the National Assembly and a member of the opposition party A New Time, which receive the most votes in the last election.

“You have to stay united,” urged members of the audience, mostly made up of young professionals and students. “We are and we will be after the victory, it is not enough to win an election. We must rebuild Venezuela. We make decisions unanimously and discuss all our differences, but we always make it clear that we must act together.”

“But you have to have a strategy, what is your strategy?” protested a lady in the audience, to whom Delsa Solorzano responded, “We have a strategy, and every step that has been taken as been thought through very carefully. What we do not want to do is announce our strategy. And stay tuned, because in peace, without violence, in the coming months very good things are going to happen.”

Living Near A Wifi Area Is Like Winning The Lottery / 14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada

Santa Amalia Park in Arroyo Naranjo, Havana, one of the wifi areas enabled in the Cuban capital. (14ymedio)
Santa Amalia Park in Arroyo Naranjo, Havana, one of the wifi areas enabled in the Cuban capital. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, Havana, 30 April 2016 – Like an arbitrary lottery, Havanans dream of having a WiFi zone installed near their homes. These outdoor places to connect raise the price per square foot of real estate in the immediate vicinity and help local businesses flourish. Speculations about where the new wireless antennas will be placed absorb everyone’s interest.

The local division of the Cuban Telecommunications Company SA (ETECSA) told local media on Thursday that they are currently working in different districts in the capital to open ten new public WiFi areas, in a first step to meet the commitments for this year. continue reading

Engineer Iris M. Duran Fonseca, a specialist in ETECSA’s Marketing, Communication and Business Management Support division, said the new service will benefit the municipalities of Plaza de la Revolucion, La Lisa, Centro Habana, Habana del Este, Arroyo Naranjo, Boyeros and 10 de Octubre.

Arroyo Naranjo currently has one of these areas in Santa Amalia Park, where hundreds of people connect to the internet daily to communicate through social networks or by Imo, an application that lets you chat in real time with family abroad.

Alejandro, a young student in high school, told 14ymedio the advantages offered by this connectivity, despite the high price, which is 2.25 CUC (about $2.25 US) per hour of navigation. “I come every day,” he claimed, since he discovered that he could connect near his house. “Always in the evenings, because I go to school in the mornings and then I communicate with la pura (his mother) who lives in Spain,” he said.

The Mantilla Council in Arroyo Naranjo has been one of the outlying areas visited by ETECSA’s WiFi implementation specialists. El Parque de la Leche, on Caballero Street, between Pizarro and Ponce de Leon, is where the new technology will be installed. To that end, the park is in the first phase of a total refurbishment.

Yolanda, a retired teacher and resident of the area, says that since they put the first WiFi antennas in the capital she has been able to communicate with her son who lives in the United States. “Now with this Samsung phone he sent me I can see and talk to him; he left in 1994 and since then has not come over to the island,” she explains.

Neighbors near the park highlighted the need to rescue this completely abandoned place. “This may be a better option,” said Sergio Mendez, who feels happy because the “area is coming alive.”

“They will have to light the place well and also fix the access roads, because they are in poor condition,” insisted Elena, an executive member of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).

The custodian of Mantilla park criticized the instability of the builders in this first phase. “They come one day then don’t come the next, and so the work scheduled to be completed later this year will never be completed. If they aren’t consistent in their work, the effort will be in vain,” he said.

Food vendors see the WiFi zone as a chance to improve their businesses. “There will be more people here, so soft drinks, food and the navigation cards will be in greater demand,” said Rosi, who sells sandwiches and milkshakes a few yards from the park.

The ETECSA communication specialist said it was necessary to “evaluate a set of elements according to the Board of Management of each territory and other agencies such as the National Police, the Electric Basic Organization and local representatives of Communal Services.” However, she said that neighboring towns have been included, some rural, in order to improve the communication services of their residents.

A director of the Arroyo Naranjo Council of the Municipal Administration told this newspaper that Mantilla Park was selected because it was located in a marginal area and has considered very dangerous. “Now we have to take steps to eliminate crime a little, lighting the area, putting surveillance cameras and constant control of the police in the area, which will reduce the tragic reports quite a bit,” he said.

So far, in Havana there are 17 public WiFi areas already equipped with lighting and with improved amenities. In early February, the newspaper Granma reported that the capital will have 30 new WiFi areas this year, two more for each municipality.

ETECSA also announced that in the coming months it will enable connectivity in at least three parks for each province and in other sites with a large influx of people, such as recreational and cultural centers. However, managers clarify that it will be done when the conditions exist to install the necessary technology and when they can guarantee both the comfort and security of Internet users.

May Day In Cuba: Many Commitments, No Demands / 14ymedio, Zunilda Mata

From the early hours of the morning thousands of people gathered around the Plaza de la Revolution in Havana for the parade on Labor Day.(14ymedio)
From the early hours of the morning thousands of people gathered around the Plaza de la Revolution in Havana for the parade on Labor Day.(14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 1 May 2016 — With the slogan “For Cuba: Unity and Commitment,” massive Labor Day parades were held across Cuba. The march in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution started at 7:30 in the morning, with the presence of some 600,000 people and was marked by references to the recently concluded 7th Communist Party Congress and ex-president Fidel Castro’s 90th birthday, coming up in August.

Among the thousands of posters on display, none addressed workers’ demands or wage increases. A peculiarity of the May Day parades that have taken place on the island for the last half century has been that their principle motivation was to show the commitment of professionals and workers to the political system. continue reading

On the podium greeting participants in the parade, which lasted about an hour and a half, were Cuban president Raul Castro, recently re-ratified in position as first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC); first vice-president Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez; Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, second secretary of the PCC Central Committee; and Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, director of the Cuban Workers Center (CTC), the only union organization permitted in the country, with a membership of 3.4 million state, private and retired workers.

In the speech that began the parade, Guilarte de Naciemiento, also a member of the Politburo, described as “maneuvers” the problems threatening several of the leftist governments of Latin America. In particular, the protests or legal processes challenging the executives in Venezuela and Brazil, as well as Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

The union leader also referred to the process of normalization between the governments of Cuba and the United States, which he said could not be completed as long as “the economic, commercial and financial blockade against our country continues,” and as long as there is a US presence at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

From the early hours of the morning, Havana workers from the city’s various districts and areas close to the Cuban capital began to gather. The majority of them were brought on buses belonging to their workplaces and some 3,257 vehicles that serve urban transport routes in the city.

References to the upcoming 90th birthday of former President Fidel Castro also marked the day. (14ymedio)
References to the upcoming 90th birthday of former President Fidel Castro also marked the day. (14ymedio)

The march was opened by a representation of 40,000 teachers in reminder of the Literacy Campaign which is celebrating its 55th anniversary this year. According to the official Cuban press, also participating were 1,600 guests representing 68 countries and 209 trade union organizations. However, unlike previous years the event was not attended by any foreign leader and on the foreign grandstand the highest ranking figure was a deputy of the Venezuelan ruling party, Elias Jaua.

“We will not forget history,” different speakers repeated at several moments to encourage the parade, a direct reference to Barack Obama’s speech in the Gran Teatro de La Habana, when the US president said he knew the history between Cuba and the United States but refused to be “trapped by it.” A reference that especially bothered the Cuban officialdom.

The parade proceeded as planned at the close of Party Congress last April 19, when Raul Castro called on workers to show “the world” through an “enthusiastic and massive participation,” their “unity and support for” the agreements reached at the Congress and “the socialist and independent course of the Fatherland.”

The Bridge / 14ymedio, Pedro Junco Lopez

Barack Obama greets the Cuban people after his speech at Havana’s Gran Teatro.
Barack Obama greets the Cuban people after his speech at Havana’s Gran Teatro.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Pedro Junco Lopez, Camaguey, 27 April 2016 – Some have suggested I write about US President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Cuba. A great challenge after so much criticism about it. However, despite the blockade I’ve suffered in international research, I lean to two very attractive topics—and as far as my information sources permit me to know—two that have been hardly discussed: first, the oratory style of the American president who, according to what they are saying here, “has the Cuban people in his pocket”; and second, “the bridge” between the two systems and societies, which both presidents brought up. continue reading

With regards to oratory, I will not dwell too long on that of the general-president, considering his having always been in the military, his extreme longevity, and his usual approach of reading his texts. Whether or not a man is an excellent orator has nothing to do with his other aptitudes. Oratory is an art, an art that isn’t learned, but that one is born with and perfects or doesn’t. But I propose to compliment Obama’s rhetoric, offering as a counterpart that of some contemporary Cubans speaking live.

I don’t think it was at Harvard where the American learned to launch these clear and precise parliamentary arrows in the form of short sentences; then he stops, tightens his lips and puts a brake on the overflowing words, giving the audience time to digest his ideas and then one phrase after another, repeats the pauses, often with a smile playing on his lips and without losing the thread of his exposition, without even looking at the script that guides him in his discursive ascent and ending with the clear solidity of a prophet.

How different is the style of some Cubans who speak haltingly, breaking their phrases as one who walks along a path strewn with large boulders that must be leaped over, taking a breath in the middle of well known phrases, seeking respite from the terror of making a mistake and expounding something that could upset whoever dictated the script.

We appreciate the serene movement of President Obama’s hands, always in a lilting rhythm in sync with the idea of the phrasing. How different from the immoderate flapping of other local speakers for whom the podium must be cleared of ornamental objects, lest one of their swipes knock the microphone to the floor or any other instrument on the set where they are talking.

The people of Cuba saw a president in the flesh who proposes and convinces, not the god who taught them to listen with meekness half a century ago: powerful, imposing, unanswerably humbling and always threatening.

But let’s address the detail of the bridge. Nothing in the theme surprises us, when many years ago the young Guatemalan singer Ricardo Arjona wrote and performed a song with this name; watching the video brings tears to the eyes of Cubans who have suffered a separation from their loved ones. This time the initiative came from the Cuban president: it is easy to destroy a bridge; it is difficult to build it back again; a straightforward simile, but concise.

So the naiveté of the general-president in “mentioning the rope in the house of the hanged man” surprises; and the condescension of the northern president in seeking a convergence between the two governments and not taking the bull by the horns and telling a story that surely he knows.

The first foundations of that bridge were built by the Americans and the mambises – Cuban independence fighters – at the end of the 19th century, when they fought together to free Cuba from Spanish colonialism. Today very subjective concepts are put forward about what led the United States to invade Cuba, drumming on “the ripe apple” concept. It would be good to detail when this apple ripened, with the two principals killed in combat and the stubborn position of the Spaniards not to abandon the island. In Spain to this day, when something goes badly for a citizen, they seek solace in the classic phrase: “More was lost in Cuba.” The Spaniards were so attached to our native land that no one was able to predict how many more years of fighting and how many human lives independence would cost.

The first foundations for the bridge were built on solid ground after the emancipation of the metropolis, and its horizontal beams were laid when industrialized sugar cane production, the great electricity and telephone companies and many others were brought to Cuba. Because on 20 May 1902, they lowered the American flag and raised that of Miguel Tourbe Tolon and Narciso Lopez—names that barely appear in our schools’ current history books—and the Cuban nation had 10 people for every square kilometer of the homeland.

Republican governments, despite the tyrannies of Machado and Batista, thanks to close negotiations with the neighbor to the north, paved the bridge with the building of the Capitol, the central highway and the walls of the Havana Malecon, despite the aberration of the Model Prison on the Isle of Pines.

They built hospitals, highways, local roads, and made our currency equal to the dollar, and Cuba was the most developed country in Latin America, thanks to a sugar quota with privileged pricing worked out with the United States.

Projects for a 96-mile highway between Havana and Key West had already begun: a physical bridge that would link the island to the continent. Had this project been completed, the tens of thousands of compatriots drowned in the Florida Straits would have completed their journeys with greater safety and comfort.

But who broke the bridge? Who led to Washington establishing a “blockade” against the revolutionary government for having confiscated without compensation the billions of dollars the Americans invested in the island during the Republican period?

Who destroyed the agricultural and urban infrastructure of this unhappy country that today will have no other pillar to lean on if Venezuela ceases to be socialist?

Who clings to refusing to see that without fundamental changes toward industrial capitalism and development today’s young people will continue the exodus and we will be left in this beloved land with only feeble old people, unable even to dig the graves of those who die first?

________

Editor ‘s note: This text has been published on the blog Fury of the Winds and is reproduced here with the author’s consent.

Cuba Will Lose One Million People In Next Decade / 14ymedio, Abel Fernandez, Mario Penton

Cuba will continue to have the oldest population in Latin America. (14ymedio / Luz Escobar)
Cuba will continue to have the oldest population in Latin America. (14ymedio / Luz Escobar)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Abel Fernandez and Mario Penton, Miami, 29 April 2016 — By 2025, the Cuban population will be reduced to 10 million. The dramatic demographic change on the island—from 11 million to 10 million inhabitants—is propelled by the low rates of fertility and birth, and an elevated emigration, a group of experts recently explained at Florida International University.

In addition, Cuba will continue to have the oldest population in Latin America. Currently, 19% of its inhabitants are over 60, and forecasts indicated that this figure will reach 30% in less than a decade. continue reading

“Life expectancy is not the same as aging,” said Dr. Antonio Aja Diaz from the Center for Demographic Studies at the University of Havana. In Cuba, life expectancy is high and infant mortality is low. But birth and fertility are also low. These demographic characteristics, Aja said, “are processes that occur in highly developed countries.”

“In developed countries, mortality, birth and fertility are low, but they do not lose population because they receive immigration,” said Aja. “But that is not the case for Cuba.”

Until the late 1930s, the island was receiving immigrants. Since that decade, emigration has been sustained, with large fluctuations during mass exoduses of the past century—the Mariel Boatlift in the 1980s, the Rafter Crisis of the 1990s—and most recently, the exodus through South America that still continues.

According to Aja, “Cuba could not even compete from the point of view of in-migration with the Dominican Republic,” with regards to attracting migrants. One of the main problems of the island is that people who migrate are generally younger and in the fullest years of their productive and reproductive capacity.

According to Dr. Sergio Diaz Brioquets, another panelist, emigration from Cuba is a phenomenon that will continue. “The Cuban government has for decades promoted emigration of the political opposition,” he said.

As for fertility, between 2010 and 2015 Cuba had an average of 1.63 children per woman, the lowest fertility rate in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The early years of the republic were years of high fertility and population growth, a trend that continued until 1930. Then began a process of decline until the years 1959-1960. In 1978, Cuba fell below replacement level, which is usually established as an average of 2.1 children per woman. On the island, the downward trend has continued to the present.

According to experts, the composition of the 10 million Cubans who will remain on the island in 2015 will bring a number of challenges, among them ethical values and interpersonal relationship. With regards to the family, and in particular Cuban women, they will face a series of responsibilities that will worsen with the aging population. “In Cuba, the job of caring for the elderly falls mainly on the woman,” explained Aja.

On the other hand, wages in the island have decreased to 73% of their real value, said Dr. Carmela Mesa Lago, a renowned expert on the Cuban economy. In addition, self-employed workers, a growing sector of the economy, are at risk of not accumulating pensions and not receiving social assistance.

Panama Prepares The Final Transfer Of Cubans To Mexico / 14ymedio, Mario Penton

Cuban children remain with their parents in Panama to wait to continue the route to the US. (Silvio Enrique Campos, a Cuban immigrant in Panama)
Cuban children remain with their parents in Panama to wait to continue the route to the US. (Silvio Enrique Campos, a Cuban immigrant in Panama)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 29 April 2016 — The Panamanian Foreign Ministry has begun to take a census of more than 670 Cuban migrants in the hostel of Los Planes in the province of Chiriqui, in anticipation of their transfer to Mexico in the coming days. Another three thousand Cubans, most stranded on the border with Costa Rica, will also benefit from this operation, the last of its type, according to the Panamanian president, Juan Carlos Varela on Thursday.

“Starting from the completion of transfer operation of the Cubans counted in the census, those who enter later will have to make a decision about what country they want to return to; we can’t become a permanent logistical support for the trafficking of migrants,” warned the Panamanian president. continue reading

According to the regional director of migration, commissioner Alfredo Cordoba, the transfer of more than 200 migrants in various shelters to the Los Planes encampment began yesterday afternoon. “This mainly involved pregnant women and families with children, who need to be brought to a place with the attentions they deserve,” he said.

The official told this newspaper that the purpose of this measure is to “concentrate all the migrants in one area where their basic needs can be met, taking into account their rights as people.”

Cordoba said that right now there are 3,704 Cuban migrants in the Republic of Panama, who should be gradually transferred to Gualaca, where a joint task force–which includes the National Civil Protection System (SINAPROC), the Panama National Migration Service, the State Border Service (SENAFRONT), and the National Police–have mobilized to address the humanitarian crisis.

“I believe we are in the final stretch, at least they are already making photocopies of our passports, and that’s something,” said Angel Chale, one of the stranded who came through Ecuador. Chale decided to abandon the old Bond warehouse, in San Isidro, a mile from the Costa Rican frontier, where she shared the floor with 400 other Cubans in the most precarious conditions.

Both Angel and Leslie Jesus Barrera have spent a week at the Los Planes shelter. “This place where we are now is pretty fun. Usually we play baseball, dominoes or we dance,” says Barrera. “We help when they ask us to collaborate with some chore and for the rest, it’s like camping.” He added that he is very grateful for the treatment he has received from the Panama government, which right now includes free medical care.

The godmother of Cubans

Angela Buendia is the director of community organizing for SINAPROC, but migrants have dubbed her “the godmother.” As she herself says, “They call me that because I identify with their needs and all the pain they have gone through.”

Buendia says she learned to deal with migrants from the island in the last crisis and since then sympathizes with the plight of “these thousands of people who have to leave their land and often go through very intense trauma.” She stresses that, even after spending weeks in Panama, many still live in fear.

According to her, the migratory flow does not seem to stop, although official statistics indicate a decline. “Every day we receive between 20 and 60 Cuban migrants in Chiriqui. This is why we decided to prepare this camp.”

Buendia explained that Los Planes was originally built to shelter Swiss workers who worked on a local dam. “It’s a ten acre site with a fresh landscape and all amenities,” she added. She also stressed that “the only prohibition is not to leave at night, and this is for their own security.” She said they will have free WiFi, but right now they can use data connections on a local network.

“The biggest problem I’ve had with the Cuban people is that when they come here, having come from a place without freedom, they feel completely free and clear, sometimes confusing liberty with license,” she said.

Not everyone wants to be in the shelter

But not everyone wants to go to the shelter in Los Planes. “The problem that I see to this place is that it is very far away. From the Milennium one can at least work ‘under the table’ and earn a few bucks,” said Dariel, who prefers to omit his last name for fear of discovery. His work as a carpenter, a trade he learned in Cuba, allows him to cover his expenses and at the same time, he confesses, save something “for the end of the journey.”

“Here there were even Cubans who were whoring and charge less than the Panamanians. Those were the smart ones, because in the end, they managed to get together the money and now they’re in the [United States],” says the migrant.

In overcrowded rooms, hallways, or simply in tents put up at dusk in the doorways of neighboring houses, hundreds of Cubans have preferred to stay near the Costa Rican border.

“It’s a problem that affects communities that often find themselves overwhelmed by the number of migrants arriving,” says Commissioner Cordoba.

Many of the local inhabitants, from Puerto Obaldia to Paso Canoas, have seen a business opportunity in the Cubans. With the flow of migrants, businesses have flourished from hostels to simple restaurants where the prices are usually double for inhabitants of the island.

“I don’t want to go to the Gualaca shelter because it’s very far away, I prefer to stay here because I’m in a village and at least I can fend for myself,” says Yanieris, a 35-year-old Cuban woman who arrived in Panama from Guyana. “It’s hard, sure, but if I want to go with a coyote tomorrow, there will be no one to stop me.”

The coyotes prowl…

Juan Ramon is one of those Cubans stranded in Panama who decided not to wait any longer to reach the United States. After collecting $1,400 from family and friends in Miami, he left one night sneaking across the Costa Rican border, along with six other companions under the guidance of a coyote. “In each country a coyote handed us off to another, and we have gone all the way: through the jungles, rivers, lakes… it is very hard,” he said.

The worst thing for the young man was the moment they ran into a military checkpoint in Nicaragua, where “a thug assaulted us, sent by the same guide, who robbed us of everything we had. He even took our cellphone. It was a terrible experience because it could have cost our lives and nobody would have known about it,” he told this newspaper.

After more than 12 days on the road, Juan Ramon found himself at the border crossing station of El Paso, Texas, hoping they would process his documents to enter the United States under the “parole” program.

To try to circumvent the army and police control on the borders of Costa Rica and Nicaragua the migrants use unique measures such as hiding themselves in a water pipe or hiding in a boat to pass through the dangerous coastal regions of the Pacific Ocean.

In November of last year, Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government closed the borders of his country to Cuban migrants using Central America as a path to the United States.

The measure worked like a plug, leaving 8,000 people stranded in Costa Rica, which in turn also closed its border transferring the problem to Panama. Following an agreement with Mexico, both countries managed to build a humanitarian bridge that allowed the orderly exit of a great part of the migrants.

The coyotes, or human traffickers, have turned the migration to the north into a huge business that generates millions of dollars. From October of 2014, almost 132,000 Central Americans and around 75,000 Cubans reached the southern border of the United States.

The Cuban government has reiterated that all the migrants have left Cuba legally and so can return to the country.

Central Bank Denies Rumor About Devaluation Of Cuban Convertible Peso / 14ymedio

A line outside a currency exchange (Cadeca) Friday, amid rumors of a reduction in the value of Cuban convertible pesos CUC. (14ymedio)
A line outside a currency exchange (Cadeca) Friday, amid rumors of a reduction in the value of Cuban convertible pesos CUC. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, 29 April 2016 — The Central Bank of Cuba on Friday denied a possible reduction in the value of the Cuban convertible pesos. State financial institution reported that “the exchange rate remains at 24 Cuban pesos per one Cuban convertible peso for sales of CUC by the population at banks and Cadeca (currency exchanges).”

For several days the lines in front of currency exchanges had been lengthening due to the growing rumors of a fall in the value of the CUC. However, the Central Bank says the rumor as “false information about the reduction in the exchange rage that is currently applied.”

The explanatory note published in the official press notes that “the report to the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party confirmed, once more, the decision to guarantee bank deposits in foreign currency, Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) and Cuban pesos (CUP, as well as cash held by the population.”

Why Is the Official Press Crying Over the Fall in Oil Prices? / 14ymedio, Eliecer Avila

Nicolas Maduro enters the SAAC (South America and Arab countries) Summit on Wednesday in Riyadh. (Presidential press)
Nicolas Maduro enters the SAAC (South America and Arab countries) Summit on Wednesday in Riyadh. (Presidential press)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Eliecer Avila, Havana, 26 April 2016 — All of my life I’ve heard from mouth of the main leaders of the country that the high prices for many of the products sold in Cuba are caused, among other variables, by the “high cost of fuel on the world market.” This, according to them, raises the price of production processes inside and outside the country, creating an upward spiral that affects the price of goods and services.

“What small and underdeveloped economy can grow with prices of 126 dollars barrel of oil? Only rich countries can pay that, those who want the world to continue to be the same so that the South can’t develop. The imperialists are like this, they want to dominate the world according to their own desires.” Phrases like these were heard everyday on TV programs like The Roundtable.

Today, oil prices have fallen by nearly 75 percent, and the newspaper Granma acknowledges that this affected the recently announced “price adjustments” of certain products the government sells in Cuban convertible pesos (CUC).

Then, I wonder: What are Oliver Zamora Oria and all official Cuban journalists who speak on the subject doing accusing U.S. and Saudi Arabia of “not cooperating” with the intention of some OPEC members to increase prices ? Isn’t Cuba, a net importer of fuels, greatly benefited, like most of the planet, by the current prices?

In my opinion, we should be jumping for joy, because I assume that if we can afford cheaper crude oil, then the agricultural sectors , transport, energy, industry etc. will be stimulated… What is the point of the strange anger of the Cuban Government press about the failure of the last meeting held in Doha, Qatar?

Many can be the interests that move the editorial decisions of the media monopoly in Cuba. But, definitely, the general interests of the nation and a greater benefit for the public are not part of them.

Translated by Alberto

‘The World and my Cuba in El Diario’ by Uva de Aragon / 14ymedio, Jose Gabriel Barrenechea

Cover of "The World and My Cuba in 'El Diario' " by Uva de Aragon
Cover of “The World and My Cuba in ‘El Diario’ ” by Uva de Aragon

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, José Gabriel Barrenechea Jose, Santa Clara, Cuba, 28 April 2016 – The World and My Cuba in ‘El Diario’ is a very difficult book to read, not for its style, which could not be more direct and comprehensive, but for the heavy emotional weight concentrated in each of its brief articles. The reader can do nothing more than take long breaks after reading them, in hopes that at some point this fiber that resonates through us finally stops, so that we can finally assimilate the sledgehammer of feelings and ideas with which the author has confronted us. I confess, for example, that after reading My Father and the Moon and My Mother and the Candy I had to put down the book I had just started reading for another day. continue reading

In choosing this small selection of the author’s columns in Diario de las Américas, Vitalina Acuna, its compiler, has managed to give Cubans on the island an introductory view of Uva de Aragon’s life, work, and dreams. The book is structured into nine chapters, combining Family Stories, reviews, or small essays investigating the lives and circumstances of people such as Max Aub, Gregorio Maranon, Charles Dickens and Mark Chagall, memories of the Mariel boatlift, far from complacent views on the political life of the United States, heartfelt defenses of personalities from the world of culture—like that dedicated to Domingo del Monte—travel and a very great deal about Cuba…

So much that, on writing about Gerald Ford and his political sacrifice to restore confidence in democracy in the United States, we clearly see the well-known Cuban inability to value the kinds of acts she talks about. Not forgetting the man she calls her “second father,” Carlos Marquez Sterling, who carried out a similar sacrifice when, at the end of 1958, he tried to remove the Batista dictatorship by running against him at the polls.

With regards to the physical separation that has failed to break the spiritual unity of the Cuban nation, the reception of this book on the island is a good example. The book is now in a print run of 2,000 copies from Holguin Publishing. In fact, one of the reasons that it took me almost a month to finish it is that, before I could start the book I had to wait for all the women in my family, and even my super leftist Old Man to read it before me.

Former Political Prisoners Say US Failed on Promise To Bring Their Families From Cuba / 14ymedio, Abel Fernandez, Mario Penton

Former Cuban political prisoners Niorvis Rivera (left) Aracelio Riviaux and Jorge Ramirez (right) speak with staff for Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. (Courtesy)
Former Cuban political prisoners Niorvis Rivera (left) Aracelio Riviaux and Jorge Ramirez (right) speak with staff for Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Abel Fernandez and Mario Penton, Miami, 28 April 2016 – Former Cuban political prisoners Niorvis Rivera, Aracelio Riviaux and Jorge Ramirezmet Thursday in Miami with staff for Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for help in bringing their relatives from Cuba.

The three were part of the group of 53 dissidents released as part of negotiations between Cuba and the United States that allowed the return to the island of the Cuban spies still in American prisons. But shortly after their release, the opposition members had been returned to prison. continue reading

Days before US president Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba on 20 March, they were released and taken to US territory in less than 72 hours, which some interpret as a goodwill gesture by Raul Castro’s government, and others as an attempt to hide the presence of political prisoners in Cuban jails.

According to the dissidents, US officials who mediated their release promised them that their families would also leave for the United States in less than a week. But to date, they remain in Cuba.

The opponents are threatening to return to the island “on a raft” if the process of reunification is not accelerated.

“We feel betrayed,” said Jorge Ramirez, an independent labor unionist from Villa Clara who claimed that the American embassy in Havana, the Catholic Church and the Cuban government had all gone back on their word.

“The American staff told us that our families would be here in a week,” commented Riviaux, a member of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), who spent nine years in prison charged with the crimes of assault, contempt and dangerousness.

“It’s been a month since our relatives went to Havana, and this is good. If we do not see any progress, we will be the next rafters, but heading in the direction of Cuba,” he said.

For Jorge Ramirez it’s “a trick” which they played on them to get them to leave the island. According to him, “possibly it involved officials of the American government and even the Vatican.”

According to Ramirez, the main problem is that while the Cuban government is putting obstacles in the way of the families leaving Cuba, they have no way to help them economically.

“Some exile groups have helped us modestly, but this support doesn’t reach our families. We have no official documents that allows us to send money to Cuba. We don’t have permission to work,” he commented.

Ramirez’s wife, Nelida Lima Conde, is also a human rights activist in Cuba, and was self-employed when the release came through. As she told this newspaper, officials at the US embassy promised that she would be with her husband in a week, so she quit her job and took her children out of school.

According to the activist, fifteen days after her husband left for the United Stated she was notified that she should ask the Cuban immigration authorities for her passport, but because she was under sanction by the courts, they didn’t give her one. After the annulment of the sentence, the next obstacle was that her husband had to send permission for the children to leave the island. The document has to be stamped by the Cuban consulate to allow the minors to emigrate.

According to Ramirez, the government is putting these obstacles in their way “in revenge.”

Yudislady Travieso, the wife of Rivera, confirmed that she is in the same situation and that she feels “deceived.”

“What they really wanted was to get them to leave Cuba. They never said anything to us about the permits they’re asking for now,” she added.

Travieso and her four daughters, who live in Guantanamo, spent almost a month in Havana, where they have no family, while making arrangements for the trip, but did not resolve anything.

“They are going from home to home,” Rivera said, adding that the situation is very difficult for his family, who are “humble people.”