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An Imprisoned Cuban Poet is the Image for PEN International for March 8th Women’s Day

The Cuban poet, storyteller and activist María Cristina Garrido, imprisoned in Cuba for participating in the popular protests on July 11, 2021. (Facebook)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami/Havana/Barcelona, 8 March 2023 — PEN International, the world association of writers, has chosen the Cuban poet, narrator and activist María Cristina Garrido, imprisoned in Cuba for participating the popular protests of 11 July 2021, as its image for the International Women’s Day.

“We need international and everyone’s support to demand freedom for the writer, sentenced to 7 years in prison,” requests PEN International in a statement released this Wednesday.

“On International Women’s Day, as we embrace the theme of equity, let us not forget the case of Cuban poet and activist Maria Cristina Garrido Rodríguez,” Zoe Rodríguez, President of the International Organization’s Women Writers Committee, said in the statement.

“Her unwavering courage in the face of unjust persecution serves as a reminder of the urgent need for equitable action in every society. Let us work towards a world where every woman is free to express herself without fear of punishment or persecution,” added Rodríguez. continue reading

“PEN International chooses figures from different parts of the world, imprisoned people, and campaigns for their freedom, which sometimes have results and other times do not,” the poet Luis de la Paz, president of the PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile, told EFE.

“Because it is Women’s Day, they took up the case of María Cristina Garrido to ask people to show solidarity with her, disseminate the information they have about this unjust imprisonment and write to figures of the apparatus of power in Cuba to get her released,” De la Paz commented.

“She is a very young writer (she was born in 1982), a lover of freedom like every writer, whom the Cuban government imprisoned after the protest that took place on the island in more than 48 cities. She was sentenced to seven years,” he said. the poet and also Cuban activist.

The writer María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez and her sister Angélica, who demonstrated on July 11, 2021 in San José de las Lajas (Mayabeque), were sentenced to 7 and 3 years in prison, respectively.

After her arrest, Garrido was beaten several times by the Cuban political police and subjected to forced disappearance for 18 days. Currently, she is incarcerated in the Guatao women’s prison, where “she has been subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, such as isolation and beatings, and has been denied adequate food, water and sanitary conditions, as well as visits and family calls at some times.”

Last October, during the 88th congress of the organization held in Sweden, María Cristina Garrido “was visualized” with an empty chair in her name, noted De la Paz.

For their part, independent feminist activists in Cuba reiterated this Wednesday their demands regarding gender equality. Yo Sí Te Creo [Yes I Do Believe You] in Cuba (YSTC) demanded, for example, to have access to official figures on femicides – there are no official data – and a comprehensive law against gender violence.

The platforms reiterated on social networks the need to have shelters for victims of violence, to implement comprehensive protocols to care for them, as well as “the release of women and sexual dissidents detained for political reasons.”

The independent observatory Alas Tensas, in turn, reported the day before that it has verified 134 gender murders since it began recording these events in 2019.

The joint work between this platform and others that collect data on sexist violence made it possible to verify 14 femicides in 2019, 32 the following year, 36 in 2021 and a similar number last year.

For this reason they demand “the declaration of the State of Emergency due to Gender Violence” and condemn that they have not been heard.

A group of Cuban feminists demonstrated this March 8 in front of the Cuban Consulate in Barcelona against sexist violence and to demand the release of political prisoners on the Island.

Cuban feminist organizations have scheduled “international marches” in New York, Madrid, Uruguay and Barcelona to demand their rights and give voice to what they consider to be an alarming rise in cases of gender violence in the country.

“These marches on March 8 are intended to sensitize women in the international community about the real and unknown situation of Cuban women and to achieve solidarity at all levels,” the president of the Cuban Women’s Network, Elena Larrinaga de Luis, told EFE, gathered together with a group of women in front of the Cuban consulate, located in the center of Barcelona.

Cuban women will not be able to participate in the International Women’s Day event since they have been prohibited from demonstrating to demand their legitimate rights due to the absence of political freedoms in Cuba, explained Larrinaga de Luis.

They demand more state intervention and transparency since the government does not present official figures of the victims of gender violence. “Make a complaint to the world and show solidarity with the entire Cuban people,” argued one of the protesters, Kenia Hernández Barrera.

So far in 2023, Cuba has already suffered 16 femicides, almost two cases per week, according to the independent observatories Yo si te creo Cuba (YSTC) and Alas Tensas (OAT), in addition to the “increase” in disappearances and kidnappings of women and girls in the country.

Cuban women have also marched this March 8^th (8M) due to the increase in “political persecution” in the country, with 992 political prisoners of which 136 are women, imprisoned for their ideas, according to data provided by the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights.

The protesters denounce the political repression and demand immediate freedom for all those imprisoned since the protests of 11 July 2021 (11J), when Cubans came out to demand respect for human rights, better living conditions and greater freedom of expression.

Cuban feminist organizations argue that the massive protests against the government marked a before and after in the country, increasing persecution and harassment against activists, journalists and relatives of political prisoners and the prohibition of any form of public dissent.

Teresa Rodríguez, one of the protesters and the mother of three young people imprisoned for 11J, explained to EFE: “I am here in front of the consulate to demonstrate against the dictatorship and in favor of the freedom of political prisoners in Cuba.”

“The great struggle from exile is to explain what it means to take up the dictates of a single party and the danger that dissenting implies for a person, and to understand that one lives in a country where violence is perpetrated against women from the public sphere and private,” Larrinaga de Luis pointed out.

Cuba is the only country in the Western Hemisphere that has not classified gender violence as a crime, and any social demand is understood as a challenge to the State, the activist added.

“The dictatorship has not created a law, not one, that is capable of defending women, the rights of women and the rights of girls,” said Kenia Hernández.

The great struggle of Cuban feminism, in addition to eliminating institutional and gender violence, is the “real recognition of the woman as such, as a natural person and subject of law,” highlighted the president of the Cuban Women’s Network.

Cuban feminist organizations have taken to the streets this Wednesday and have gathered in different cities to fight and give a voice to all those women residing in Cuba who have not been able to exercise their right to demonstrate on March 8.

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The Leaders who Benefited from Chavez’s Extravagance Come Together in Caracas

Meeting of politicians related to chavismo in Caracas, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of the Venezuelan commander. (EFE/ Prensa Miraflores)

14ymedio/EFE, Madrid, 6 March 2023 — “Chávez and his compañeros in the struggle shook our continent and impacted the contemporary history of our America,” claimed General Raúl Castro this Sunday at the closing ceremony for the tenth anniversary of the death of Hugo Chávez. The former Cuban president knew how to thank the generosity of the deceased, from which the Island continues to consume at the rate of about 50,000 barrels of oil per month on average, and he praised the favorite son of the Cuban Revolution in Venezuela.

“His departure was very painful for us. Chávez was our brother in the struggle, who instantly won the sympathy of our people. (…) Very early Fidel saw in him a revolutionary leader and foresaw his political future, when many still did not even know him,” Raúl said at the event, held under the bombastic name of “World Meeting: Validity of the Bolivarian Thought of Commander Hugo Chávez in the 21st century.”

Castro, who traveled to Caracas, as did Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, Daniel Ortega, Manuel Zelaya and Luis Arce, among others, referred at length to the friendship between his brother Fidel and the “eternal commander,” who shared, he said, the idea “that victory exists as long as you fight for it.”

“They didn’t stop planning how to turn their dreams into reality. (…) Fidel and Chávez linked their ideas with that colossal ability to think big,” he added. He also explained that Maduro and Chávez himself frequently visited his older brother, giving him “love and affection” during his illness, which was reciprocated by the leader of the Revolution during Chávez’s medical treatment in Havana. continue reading

“He set goals that also point the way for us,” Castro insisted in his speech. We have been marked by Chávez.” There was no lack among the general’s words of the always-present reproach against the United States for “the continuous imperialist aggressions against the Bolivarian Revolution, to overthrow it,” although he praised the “ability of the people and the Bolivarian leadership to resist.”

The event was headed by Nicolás Maduro who requested that they maintain the political, ideological, moral union and ward off any “divisionist force.”

“There are always destructive forces (…) that intend to blur the path of resistance of the revolution, that intend to take advantage of the difficulties (…). The people have to say No very clearly to these forces (…) and take care of the political union, the ideological union, the spiritual union, the moral union of our people,” he said.

The current Venezuelan leader said that, despite the ten years without the physical presence of his predecessor, “there has been a permanent presence of his ideal, his revolutionary drive and the sworn commitment to advance in the construction of the free, independent, sovereign, socialist homeland.”

“Who knows about the difficulties our people have, the threats, aggressions, criminal sanctions, and they believed, the American empire, that they could impose their colonial model on our country. But we have said very clearly, colonial model no, free homeland yes (…) that’s how we are shaping the path for the years to come,” he added.

Earlier, the ruling party paid another tribute to Hugo Chávez in the barracks from which he led the 1992 coup d’état against then Venezuelan president, Carlos Andrés Pérez.

In the Cuartel de la Montaña, an old military museum renamed Fourth of February in honor of the date in 1992 when, from its premises, Chávez led the coup d’état, members of the Government and sympathizers of the man who governed the destinies of Venezuela until 2013 remembered his legacy.

“We have the enormous commitment, 10 years after the physical departure of our commander, (to) continue strengthening popular unity, the vanguard of the revolution in Venezuela and beyond, because this is an internationalist project,” said the Venezuelan ambassador to Cuba, Adán Chávez, brother of the deceased president.

Thousands of Chávez supporters attended the event. “Today I come here to honor our eternal commander Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, the man who woke up the Venezuelan people, the man who told the people that yes, there is love here,” said Francisco Morillo, a Venezuelan interviewed by the EFE agency who was grateful to Chávez for “waking up the Venezuelan people” and ratified his support for the current president, Nicolás Maduro.

The last ten years, said María Eugenia Barrios, another attendee, have been “a very hard battle,” but Maduro “has been overcoming each of the difficulties to benefit us, to continue with the legacy and responsibility that Commander Chávez left him.”

Chávez died on March 5, 2013 at the age of 58, a victim of a cancer for which he was treated for months in Cuba.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Putin ‘Directly and Personally Supervises’ Everything Related to Cuba

Igor Sechin, Executive Director of the Russian oil company Rosneft, along with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. (Cubadebate)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 5 March 2023 — This Saturday Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel received the executive director of the Russian oil company Rosneft, Igor Sechin, and thanked him for Moscow’s efforts to help the Island.

Díaz-Canel expressed his gratitude “to all the parties that have made an effort, first to understand the situation in Cuba and now to help us move forward,” the Cuban Presidency reported on Twitter.

At the meeting at the Palace of the Revolution, Sechin said that the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, “directly and personally supervises” everything related to bilateral relations.

“First of all, I would like to convey the best wishes of our President (Putin) for you,” said the businessman, who will travel from Havana to Caracas to attend the events for the tenth anniversary of the death of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. continue reading

This is the second public visit of a senior Russian official to Cuba in the last three days, after Wednesday’s meeting between Díaz-Canel and former President Raúl Castro with the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev.

In November 2022, the Cuban president met with Putin during a visit to Moscow, where he analyzed the situation and the prospects for the development of a bilateral strategic partnership in several spheres.

In that context, he also held conversations with Sechin and thanked him for “the gestures he has made towards Cuba, which have shaped solutions in difficult times,” according to official sources.

That visit to Russia was part of a tour of other countries, such as China and Algeria, to look for solutions in the face of the serious crisis that Cuba is going through, especially in the economic, energy and food areas.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba’s Demographic Crossroads: No Young People of Working Age in Sight

Cuba’s population is aging rapidly, and the Island does not have enough young people able to produce. (EFE)

EFE (via) 14ymedio, Laura Becquer, Havana, 26 February 2023 — Cuba faces a crossroads in the midst of one of its biggest economic crises in history: how to recover when its society ages rapidly and does not have enough young people able to produce.

The Island now has the oldest population in Latin America and the Caribbean. Two out of ten Cubans (21.9%) are at least 60 years old, the director of the Center for Demographic Studies of the University of Havana (Cedem), Antonio Ajá, told EFE.

This means that of the 11.1 million Cubans, about 2.4 million exceed the barrier of six decades of life.

The academic emphasizes that this is the result of social policies implemented decades ago that have extended life expectancy (approximately 79 years for both sexes).

However, this brings with it a problem from an economic and social point of view.

“The economically active population that is smaller is a challenge for the social security systems, healthcare and the protection of the elderly,” he said.

Which means that there are more and more elderly and fewer young people of working age to sustain the economic activity of the country. And, in the long run, to finance the pension system. continue reading

Data from the National Office of Statistics and Information show that 99,096 births and 167,645 deaths occurred in 2021.

“Cuba has a demographic behavior similar to that of developed nations (low fertility, high life expectancy), but the difference is that they are countries that receive immigrants and also counteract demographic aging with their economic development,” he said.

Cuban economist Tamarys Bahamonde says that the number of “dependent” people who live on their pensions is increasing on the Island. (Image Capture)

“Dependent” people are also increasing: those who do not produce and live on their pensions after having contributed to the economy, Cuban economist Tamarys Bahamonde explained to EFE.

The retirement age in Cuba is 60 years (women) and 65 years (men) with a minimum monthly pension of 1,528 Cuban pesos (12 dollars at the official exchange rate and the equivalent of $8.70 in the extended informal market).

The loss of young people of productive age is explained, in large part, by the unprecedented migratory exodus that the country is experiencing.

Last year alone, more than 313,000 Cubans were intercepted by the United States at the southern border with Mexico. This represents 3% of Cuba’s total population.

The figure does not include the thousands who went to other destinations such as Mexico, Spain or South America.

This phenomenon was recognized a few days ago by Ángel Luis Ríos, general director of Productive Links of the state sugar agency, Azcuba.

Ríos assured the official newspaper Granma that the sugar mills — another engine of the economy — have a reduced and aged staff due to “the effect of migration,” and that this has translated into a deficit in the harvest.

“Cuba has a negative migratory balance since 1930 that was reinforced beginning in 1959 (when the Revolution triumphed), so it has lost population in full reproductive and productive capacity,” Professor Ajá said.

Internal migration is also negative with “depopulated and aged” rural areas, a “worrying” issue for example when it comes to producing food because there are no people to work the land, according to the expert.

Another reason for the labor flight is the lack of incentives. Cuba’s average salary is about 4,000 Cuban pesos ($32 at the official exchange rate).

The fertility rate in Cuba is 1.4 children per woman, one of the lowest in the region, for which the rate around 1.85 in 2022, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

To maintain the level of replacement in the population, a woman must have two children and one of them must be a girl, explained Ajá, who highlighted that “Cuba has been below that indicator since 1978, with extremely low values in recent years.”

The loss of young people of productive age is explained, in large part, by the unprecedented migratory exodus in Cuba. (EFE)

For Bahamonde, meanwhile, “the very low birth rate has its cause in the economic crises that have been chaotic for society, especially for women because they have the responsibility to take care of the elderly.”

By 2030, elderly Cubans will represent 30% of a population that will not exceed 10 million, according to Professor Ajá.

Among the measures adopted by the Government to address the situation is the construction and maintenance of childcare centers, nursing homes and maternal homes, as well as supporting fertility programs and care for mothers with more than three children.

However, for Bahamonde, “the first thing is to respond to the serious economic situation and then think about the implementation of complementary policies that stimulate the birth rate.”

In the same vein, Ajá considers that “we must work to improve the economy and reflect its growth in increased income for families.”

“That has to be accompanied by policies that benefit the construction of housing, guarantee a solution to the problem of caring for the elderly and children and attract the Cuban population abroad,” added the director of Cedem.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Exiles Ask the US to Designate Organizations on the Island as Terrorists

A group of repressors of the Cuban Government during the protests against the electricity cuts of October 2022. (Collage)

EFE (via 14ymedio) Miami, 21 February 2023 — The Assembly of Cuban Resistance (ARC), which consists of 35 civil entities on and off the Island, sent a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this Tuesday, asking that Cuban Government institutions be included on the list of terrorist organizations.

The coordinator of the ARC, Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, announced at a press conference that the letter was sent to Blinken to “unmask” organizations that include: the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (Icap); the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR); the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC); the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP); and the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba (CTC).

Gutiérrez Boronat told EFE that these organizations are dedicated to “promoting subversion in Latin America,” in addition to noting that “it is internationally documented” that they promote terrorism.

The letter details that in 2021, the US already sanctioned officials of the Cuban Ministry of the Interior and the Prevention Troops (TDP) of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces Ministry.

On July 30, 2021, President Joe Biden, the letter continues, declared that new sanctions would be imposed against repressive Cuban institutions if they “continued to violate human rights.” continue reading

The ARC emphasizes in the letter that since the protests of July 11, 2021, “the regime has used local nuclei of the CDR, FMC, ANAP and CTC to identify and repress protesters” in Cuba.

The letter highlights that the role of these organizations “in the recent waves of repression” extends to the trials against the protesters of July 11, 2021, since their members, along with law enforcement officers, are the only citizens who have been allowed to be witnesses for the prosecution. And the ARC denounces that hundreds of peaceful demonstrators have been sentenced by virtue of false testimonies.

In addition, the letter states that Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, who served a 16-year sentence in the US for espionage, is the current coordinator of the CDRs, while ICAP is led by Fernando González Llort, sentenced to 15 years for the same charge.

It denounces that ICAP often organizes meetings with representatives of the Syrian, Iranian and Russian governments and coordinates activities with organizations from these countries.

“We are concerned about the growing presence of Russia in Cuba, which threatens the security of the United States and Cuban citizens. Since 2014, the Castro regime and the Russian Security Council have maintained a Security Cooperation Memorandum,” it says.

It recalls that “the Castro regime” has supported the war in Ukraine and has renegotiated a debt of 2.3 billion dollars with Russia.

Gutiérrez Boronat also announced the celebration, next Saturday, of the ARC National Convention in which a National Salvation Program will be announced that will lead to a political transition within 2 years.

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The United States Prepares a Regulation That Will Make it Difficult for Cuban Immigrants to Apply for Asylum

A group of migrants at the southern US border. (Marlene Guzmán/Univision Network/Facebook)

EFE/14ymedio, Washington/Havana, 21 February 2023 — The US Government is preparing a regulation that would make it difficult for thousands of people to apply for asylum, including Cuban migrants, as it would prevent those who cross the border illegally or who don’t apply for protection in other nations from entering the country.

The regulations, created jointly by the Department of National Security and the Justice Department, would make it easier for the Government to deport people who cross the border and ask for asylum, since, by doing so illegally, they would lose the right to benefit from this protection.

White House sources explained on Tuesday that the regulations are intended to “fill the legal gap” that will arise after the possible end of Title 42 next May, since Congress has not taken “any measure to guarantee the safe and humane management of migrants.”

“This Administration will simply not allow mass chaos and disorder at the border due to the lack of action by Congress,” said these sources, after the regulations were published in the Federal Registry on Tuesday and a 30-day period of arguments was opened. continue reading

Although these sources did not explain when the regulations will be applied or what will happen if Title 42 is extended again (as has happened previously), they did point out that “the intention is for the regulations to take effect when Title 42 expires and not before.”

If it enters into force, this would be one of the most restrictive immigration regulations in the entire Administration of Joe Biden, who, upon assuming the presidency in January 2021, eliminated many of the exclusionary immigration measures of the Donald Trump Administration (2017-2021).

Among them, he eliminated the controversial Asylum Cooperation Agreement (ACA) with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, known as the “safe third country” agreement, which allowed the United States to deport refugees who arrived in its territory and had not asked for asylum in the first country they stepped on when they left their home country.

However, official sources of the Biden Administration wanted to distance themselves from this rule and assured that the new one is not the same.

“It is definitely different in the sense that we are offering a refutable presumption and not prohibiting access to asylum, as the previous Administration did,” they pointed out. Thus, the regulations “would allow people to apply for asylum in the United States whenever they enter through legal means,” they insisted.

Title 42 is part of the Public Health Law of 1944 and temporarily authorizes the expulsion of foreigners for health reasons.

The government of then-President Trump resorted to that rule in March 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Biden decided to extend it on several occasions when it was about to expire.

However, with the pandemic already over, it is likely that this rule will be lifted next May, a situation that could trigger an unprecedented crisis on the southern border.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘No One Can Be Forced to Leave Cuba as a Condition for Release’

Three mothers of 11J prisoners demanding their release. (Facebook)

EFE (via 14ymedio) Madrid, 21 February 2023 — The release of detainees in Cuba due to protests such as those of the July 2021 protests should not lead to a “forced expatriation” as in Nicaragua, several Cuban human rights organizations warned on Monday.

The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, Justice 11J and Cubalex stated that “the recent release of 222 political prisoners from Nicaragua and their immediate deportation to the United States has raised an alert in Cuban civil society about a similar ’solution’ in the current context of the Island.”

“The alert is motivated by the talks between the Cuban State and agencies such as the Catholic Church, the European Union (EU) and the Government of the United States, which have expressed positions in favor of the unconditional release of political prisoners,” says the statement, disseminated by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, based in Madrid.

The release of the demonstrators has become a key political issue in Cuba after Nicaragua’s precedent and the insistence on this matter by the United States, the European Union and the Vatican.

The possibility of prisoners being released for protests against the Cuban government is on the table in the context of a potential negotiation with the United States.

In this regard, these organizations recalled “antecedents” such as the release and exile in 2010 of “the majority of the political prisoners of the Black Spring” from 2003 as part of a negotiation process in the EU, and continue reading

in 2015 the release of 53 others imprisoned in this case in negotiations for the restoration of relations between Cuba and the United States.

The signatories of the statement cited that the UN Human Rights Council has denounced these “forced expatriations,” which they describe as “a systematic practice in repressive governments,” and they stated that “the Nicaraguan political prisoners did not participate in the negotiation process either” nor “were they informed that the condition for their release was forced exit from their country.”

“No person, much less in the inhumane conditions of deprivation of liberty in Cuban prisons, can be forced to leave the country as a condition of their release or of definitive freedom,” they claimed.

“Whoever negotiates with the Cuban State should request guarantees that the person deprived of his liberty will make the decision to leave the country without pressure from the organs of State Security,” they added.

In addition, they demanded “the participation of people deprived of liberty and their families in the process of negotiating the exit,” along with “minimum guarantees for those who freely and voluntarily decide to leave the country, such as facilities in the relocation process to access the legalization of their immigration status.”

“We oppose laudatory pronouncements such as those issued by the US State Department, in which a human rights violation act is presented as a ’positive success’ for the consolidation of relations between countries and the path to democracy,” they stressed.

“However, we receive with hope the idea that they will be released, in any of the possible ways,” they concluded.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A List of 20 Alleged Cuban Repressors is Published in the United States

The director and president of the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, Tony Costa, during the ceremony this Thursday in Miami, Florida (USA). (EFE / Ana Mengotti)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 16 February 2023 –On Thursday, in Miami, the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC) released a list of “20 repressors of the Cuban dictatorship” who are in the United States, in order to contribute to the end of impunity and not, it says, to encourage “hate crimes.”

Among those included in the list, all of them arrived in the US in the last year and a half, there are several identified as participants in the repression unleashed as a result of the peaceful protests of July 11, 2021 in Cuba, as announced in a press conference.

The foundation’s investigation has so far led to four formal complaints before the courts, the last one made by Idael Ramos Rodríguez who, on Thrusday, signed the sworn statement required to denounce these individuals and encouraged others to do so, although he said that he does not rule out that they could suffer retaliation.

The person denounced by this young man, who arrived in the US in May 2022, is a former police officer, Daniel Alejandro Gutiérrez Cruz, known as El Perrero and who arrived in the US last month on a raft, according to the complaint. continue reading

Curiously, he is accused of chasing with dogs those who tried to leave the country illegally at night along the beaches of Corralillo, on the north coast of Cuba.

The accusation that will be brought against him in the Miami courts will be for an alleged immigration crime, not for the crimes against human rights that he allegedly committed in Cuba, the Foundation’s spokespersons specified.

Pedro Rodríguez and Tony Costa, director and president of the Foundation, respectively, pointed out that in order to obtain permission to enter the United States, a questionnaire must be answered that contains at least four questions, including one about belonging to a communist party, to which the 20 must have responded with “lies” if they were given the “green light.”

The list presented includes former prosecutors, police officers, jailers and Interior Ministry officials, as well as former coordinators of medical missions abroad and other “white glove” repressors, according to former Cuban politician and journalist Rolando Cartaya, who leads the “Cuban Repressors” effort.

Each piece of information they receive about the presence of an alleged repressor in the United States is investigated and, if it is not just “gossip” and is proven, the members of the program contact the person.

Names on the list include Daniel Alejandro Gutiérrez Cruz, Yaima Camba Rodríguez, Maray Suárez Rodríguez, Iran (or Iram) Septiem Suárez, Bruce Iam González Marrero, Yosbel Nieves Regalado, Raúl Omar Rodríguez Gracia and Yerandy Martín González.

Also on the list are, Celaida Gil Villarreal, Manuel Santos Rodríguez, Raudel Moreno Bergolla, Susel Álvarez Tasses, Reiner Dueñas Noda, Adrián Rodríguez Santana, Yoel Vázquez Ortiz, Yaíma Salomón Torres, Orlando Nápoles Sánchez, Lyomaris Vara Fuentes, María Antonia Guerrero Tellería and Lester Amaury Martínez Quintana.

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Cuban Government Fires the President of the Central Bank Without Explanations

The recently dismissed president of the Central Bank of Cuba, Martha Wilson González, on television together with the official journalist Randy Alonso. (Cuban Presidency)

14ymedio/EFE, Madrid, 16 February 2023 — On Wednesday, the Cuban government dismissed the president of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), Martha Wilson González, after four years in office. Her position will be occupied by Joaquín Alonso Vázquez, until now president of the state Exchange Houses (Cadeca).

Without giving explanations about this movement, which takes place while awaiting a ruling by a London court on a debt of 72 million dollars from the Cuban State, the official site Cubadebate praises the figure of Alonso Vázquez, age 59, saying that “during his career he received postgraduate preparation, which technically and professionally qualify him to hold this position.”

Before starting to preside over Cadeca, in 2017, the official served in different positions in the state banking sector, from provincial deputy director of Banco Popular de Ahorro in Havana to vice president of Banco Popular de Ahorro.

In addition, he has held political positions, as a delegate of the National Assembly of People’s Power and vice president of the National Association of Economists and Accountants of Cuba in Havana, “with positive results,” reports Cubadebate.

As for Wilson González, who was appointed president of the Central Bank of Cuba in 2019, the official media outlet limited itself to saying that “the effort made was recognized and, consequently, other activities will be assigned to her.” continue reading

She is the second minister president of the BCC since the election as president of Cuba of Miguel Díaz-Canel, who this 2023 concludes the five years of his first term and is eligible for a second.

Joaquín Alonso Vázquez was, until now, president of Cadeca. (Havana Tribune)

Dismissals of ministers are not common in Cuba. Parliamentary elections will be held this March and the new Legislature will nominate a president who will in turn form a new Council of Ministers.

Last October, the Energy and Mines Minister was replaced after months of long daily blackouts in much of the country. Liván Arronte then left office and Vicente de la O Levy took over.

At the beginning of the year, it came to light in an article in Cubadebate that the country’s international reserves had fallen by 2.55 billion dollars in two years (2019 and 2020), while international reserves amounted to 11.528 billion in 2018. The figures from the International Bank for Payments indicate that the deposits of Cuban banks, including the Central Bank, fell by 1.95 billion dollars between 2018 and 2020, a figure close to that disclosed in the official press.

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Cuba Receives 25,000 Tons of Wheat Donated by Russia

In the last two years, Cuba received several donations from Russia, the United States, Japan, Nicaragua and Vietnam. (Prensa Latina)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 15 February 2023 — On Wednesday, Cuba received 25,000 tons of wheat donated by the Russian Government for food production on the Island, which is going through a serious economic crisis.

The Cuban Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Ana Teresita González, thanked Russia for the donation, which arrived in Cuba by ship and joined other shipments from Moscow in recent months.

“This donation is a demonstration of the Russian nation’s historic support for the Cuban people in complex moments like the one our country is experiencing today,” González said in an act of gratitude at the port terminal located in Regla (Havana).

She added that the aid “reaffirms the bonds of brotherhood and the mutual commitment to strengthen economic and cooperative relations.”

Meanwhile, Russia’s ambassador to Cuba, Andrei Guskov, stressed that his country continues to “support the brotherly people of this heroic country in the extremely complex situation it is facing.” continue reading

“I am sure that this wheat, in addition to being a symbolic gesture, will be a support for many people in Cuba,” he said.

The Russian diplomat mentioned in the reception of the cargo that “the unprecedented resurgence of the inhuman and criminal blockade (embargo) imposed by Washington” is one of the causes of the crisis.

“Another negative factor is the global food and energy crisis largely caused by the unilateral and illegitimate sanctions of the West against Moscow,” he said, referring to the measures taken in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine.

Guskov stressed that “despite everything, Russia and Cuba continue to develop their strategic relationship based on the historic foundation of friendship, solidarity and mutual sympathy.”

In this regard, he said that “Russian companies will continue to participate in bilateral projects that contribute to the fulfillment of the Island’s national economic and social development plan until 2030.”

In the last two years, Cuba received several donations from Russia, the United States, Japan, Nicaragua and Vietnam, among other countries, from both the governments of those countries and from private groups.

The island has been going through a serious crisis for more than two years due to the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tightening of the US embargo and failures in national macroeconomic management.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Mexican Friend of the Regime Sees a ‘Disconnection’ Between the Official Press and the Common Cuban

The writer and director of the Mexican publishing house Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE), Paco Ignacio Taibo II, in Mexico City (Mexico). (EFE/José Méndez/Archive)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, February 15, 2023 — The director of the emblematic Mexican state publisher Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE), Paco Ignacio Taibo II, gave an interview to EFE in which he asked the official journalism of the Island to “increase the critical level that expresses what people say on the street.”

The writer, a militant of the Mexican left, who is in the Cuban capital within the framework of the Havana International Book Fair, considered that there is a “disconnection” between the discourse related to the Government and the vision of the common Cuban.

“We have to lose fear of critical capacity,” continued the journalist, who gave value to “the criticism to the left from the left.”

For Taibo II, author of titles such as Ernesto Guevara, también conocido como el Che [Ernesto Guevara, also known as Che], the digital transition of Island magazines, books and newspapers “has stopped” the “critical spirit” that “unfolded, for example, in the eighties.”

The Cuban Constitution establishes that the media of the Island can only be of “socialist property” and its Criminal Code punishes with up to three years in prison “whoever disseminates false news” for the purpose of “disturing international peace or endangering the prestige or credit of the Cuban State.”

Regarding the economic situation in Cuba, a country he has visited numerous times, the director of the FCE believes that it will be “very difficult to get out of” the crisis, which he directly links to the blockade (the US economic embargo) and the pandemic.

“As much as I look and see initiatives, it’s not easy at all. And I lack the Cuban perspective, which I don’t have. After all, I am a Mexican who comes to Cuba,” he told EFE. continue reading

Taibo II inaugurated last August the Tuxpan bookstore of the Economic Culture Fund in the well-known Havana area of Vedado. Originally, the opening was going to be in April, after the closing of the last Havana Book Fair, in which Mexico was the guest country of honor, but an inexplicable delay in the works also delayed the inauguration.

The director of the FCE sees the operation of the branch in the Cuban capital as a “success,” although he admits that “the only problem is to maintain it with those prices.” Unlike other foreign publishers, the Fund decided to sell its copies at affordable prices for Cubans.

This Tuesday, the writer led a talk in Old Havana about the “Vientos del Pueblo” collection, with short books with an average price of 40 Cuban pesos ($0.32 at the official exchange rate).

“I can’t see the Cuban branch as a branch to produce money. I have to find ways (to compensate for the losses),” he told EFE, the precise reasons for which previous Mexican administrations did not finish opening a Fondo bookstore in Cuba. Taibo added that for this he is looking for agreements such as the purchase of copyright translations made on the Island of books in Eastern Europe. “We are bartering, imagine,” he says, laughing.

The writer also took the opportunity to criticize foreign publishers present at this year’s Fair, such as those in Colombia — a guest of honor this time — with prices that most Cubans cannot access, even in foreign exchange. “Compadre, that’s not worth it. Do you work for buyers or for readers?” he asked.

Last Saturday, López Obrador decorated his counterpart Miguel Díaz-Canel with the order of the Aztec Eagle, the Mexican State’s highest recognition of a foreigner, during the Cuban’s visit to Campeche.

The opposition National Action Party (PAN), as well as other politicians and intellectuals from the democratic left, criticized the decoration of the Cuban president, whom they described as a dictator.

“The act is deplorable and denigrating for Mexicans and Cuban citizens who live under a regime that keeps them in oppression,” said the right-wing party.

Regarding this controversy, Taibo II said that “the Mexican right no longer knows what to say.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Falls in the Caribbean Series: Causes of an Historic Crisis

EFE (via 14ymedio), Juan Carlos Espinosa, Havana, 9 February 2023 — The Agricultores, Cuba’s card in the Caribbean Series, ended their participation in last place this Wednesday and with the memory of the 20-3 beating against Venezuela, leaving in question the current level of a historic country in this sport.

The plummet of the ninth, led by veteran Carlos Martí, has stunned fans and specialists alike. However, for not a few it was the consummation of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“(The result) was expected, but perhaps not its magnitude. But it was certainly expected. It is the result of many years of bad work,” said journalist Daniel de Malas, CEO of the specialized media outlet Swing Completo, in an interview with EFE.

The Agricultores team was the product of an experiment that the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) launched last year: the Elite League, a winter tournament that brought together the best players from the National Series and merged teams from different provinces.

The championship failed to connect with the fans and the images of empty stadiums were a constant, with the honorable exception of the finals.

Despite being the champion team of a league that, in theory, has a better level than the local tournament, Agricultores only managed one victory in their seven games: 3-1 against Curaçao.

Then they lost 3-1 to the Dominican Republic; 20-3 with Venezuela; 6-5 with Mexico; 5-4 with Colombia; 4-3 with Puerto Rico and 10-4 with Panama. continue reading

The role of the team unleashed introspection among the experts and left a question in the air: what does it say about the level of baseball in Cuba that the winning team of an elite tournament does not find any bandwidth in the Caribbean Series?

To the journalist Alejandro Rodríguez Cuervo, a sports presenter on state television, the Elite League is a good idea but it needs to be reformed.

“The Cuban player only plays with Cubans, and very few (have) experience abroad (…) That (Elite) league needs to be addressed in some way so that it can grow economically, including inserting players from various latitudes who can give it much more quality,” he points out in a telephone interview with EFE.

However, De Malas goes further on this point and insists that there is a fundamental problem – above all, a systemic one – in the organization. “There is a lot of politics. (This) is a political problem, (the FCB) does not have the power to make decisions,” he believes.

Swing Completo’s CEO recalled that, unlike the other leagues in the Caribbean Series, the Cuban one is not 100% professional and depends directly on the Government.

“There have been many years of ostracism, of refusing to open up to the world. The FCB needs to be independent and really professionalize,” he adds.

Rodríguez Cuervo does not entirely agree on this point and defends that Cuban baseball players are professionals – since they receive a salary for their work – although he admits that the Elite should become even more professional with players from abroad.

According to Swing Completo, the island players of the Elite League receive a monthly salary of about 3,500 Cuban pesos (about 28 dollars, at the official exchange rate).

Despite its structural problems, Cuba won the 2015 Caribbean Series. Pinar del Río defeated the Tomateros de Culiacán, one of the most iconic teams in Mexico, in the final.

But for the journalist Francys Romero, author of the reference book The Dream and the Reality. Histories of the Emigration of Cuban Baseball (1960-2018), the title can be explained with a bit of context.

The year 2015, Romero recalls in an interview with EFE, was the “prelude to what began to be a systemic exodus of players.” In that year alone, 200 Cuban baseball players emigrated, according to his records.

“The level of the league dropped completely,” he says. “From 2014 to 2016 the teams (the Cubans in the Caribbean Series) were a dream team compared to the ones now,” he stresses.

Since 2017, an average of 80 to 100 Cuban baseball players have left the island to pursue their dream of playing in the US Major Leagues and earn a much higher salary.

In fact, in 2016 Yuli Gurriel – star of the Houston Astros, MLB champions – deserted along with his brother Lourdes when they were concentrating on a Caribbean Series.

The FCB bet this year is the World Classic, which starts in March. Cuba will have three active players in the MLB for the first time. Although the illusions within the organization are high, De Malas and Romero have doubts that the team can go far in the competition.

“I have my doubts that they can get past the first phase,” says De Malas.

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US Returns 21 Rafters to Cuba, Making 1,621 Already in 2023

The US Coast Guard has already made 18 repatriations so far this year. (Twitter/@USCGSoutheast)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 10 February 2023 — The United States Coast Guard Service (SGC) returned a group of 21 irregular migrants to Cuba this Thursday through the port of Orozco, reported the Island’s Ministry of the Interior.

This new group of returned rafters, made up of 17 men and four women, had carried out an “illegal exit” by sea, a criminal offense in Cuba, the statement details.

This is the eighteenth return from the United States so far this year, for a total of 1,621 Cuban migrants returned to the island by the Coast Guard in 2023.

Last Tuesday, the US Coastguard Service handed over to the Cuban authorities another group of 16 rafters, who had been intercepted at sea after two illegal departures.

Cuba insists that it maintains its commitment “to a regular, safe and orderly migration” and insists on “the danger and life risking conditions that illegal departures from the country by sea represent.” continue reading

For several months now, the United States has seen record numbers of migrants trying to cross irregularly at its southern border, motivated, for the most part, by a new unprecedented migratory exodus from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

In the case of Cuba, a total of 224,607 citizens arrived at the southern border of the United States in fiscal year 2022 – October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022 – according to the US Customs and Border Protection Office.

At the beginning of the year Washington implemented a policy to welcome 30,000 migrants per month from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua.

In parallel, the United States will immediately expel to Mexico migrants from those countries who try to cross into its territory irregularly.

Mexico, for its part, agreed to admit 30,000 migrants a month who are expelled from US territory.

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Cuban Artist Michel Mirabal Takes the Immigration Issue to the Venice Biennale

Mirabal goes to the Venice Biennale solo for the first time. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 8 February 2023 — On Tuesday, Cuban plastic artist Michel Mirabal presented his exhibition project at the National Museum of Havana, on a very current theme: “migrations in the world.” He will attend the next Venice Architecture Biennial with this same project.

Mirabal, known as the painter of hands and flags, will display six large installations, six works of painting and two sculptures, in the rooms and the outdoor space of the Loredan palace, an 18th-century building located in front of the Grand Canal of the Italian city of canals.

The project of the exhibition “Architecture of a System” is based on Cuban emigration from all over the world, the artist explained to EFE.

“In recent years due to wars, the displaced have become a very strong phenomenon, and I wanted to draw attention to that. I also want it to be as raw and real as possible, without half measures,” he said.

Mirabal (b. 1974), considered one of the most important current plastic artists in Cuba, is more famous outside the Island than inside, which he says is his source of artistic inspiration, especially its problems. continue reading

In this exhibition, which is accompanied by the art video “Exoduses, causes and consequences,” Mirabal addresses an issue that also concerns his country, where there is “a brutal exodus, more than half a million people who are not there, including many friends, family and my eldest daughter. So I experience it very closely,” he says.

His return to Venice — the city that hosted him with a scholarship between 1999 and 2002 — will be, from May 16 to July 23, the first time he exhibits a solo show at the biennial.

After the exhibit, Mirabal plans a four-year journey through museums, galleries and foundations of countries in Europe, China and Israel, and he also will bring this exhibition to the National Museum of Fine Arts of the Cuban capital, produced by the Spanish company Art Logistics.

Nelson Herrera Ysla, an experienced Cuban art critic, is the curator of this project, which he described as “very complex,” especially because of the requirements of the old Loredan palace, which “has interiors that cannot be touched. This makes it very difficult to place works there.”

He says that at the entrance of the building there will be a metal sculpture made from vehicle exhaust pipes, and in the interior there will be scarecrows, white sheets hanging on barbed wire. There will also be a work that addresses the constant Cuban migration with a group of passports incorporated into paintings by the artist.

Herrera Ysla said that the video art, made by Alejandro Pérez with a soundtrack by composer and pianist Frank Fernández, brings “the image in motion and music” to the exhibition.

About what he expects from this project, Mirabal tells EFE: “I do what I like to do. I’m happy with the result of my work and my colleagues.”

His presence in this Biennial “can be a breakthrough, because I never had the opportunity to be at an event like this. All artists would love to be in Venice, and I think it’s going to be epic,” he says.

Born into a family of artists, Mirabal is a graduate of the School of Design. He studied painting at the renowned Academy of San Alejandro and began painting 20 years ago.

He has participated in more than 50 personal and collective exhibitions in Argentina, Canada, Cuba, China, the Dominican Republic, the United States, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, Jamaica, Haiti, Mexico, Panama and Portugal.

His works integrate collections of important cultural institutions and private exhibitions, including the Rockefeller museums; those of Fine Arts of Medellín and Bogotá, in Colombia; the Martin Luther King and Afro-American foundations of New York, and the collections of Gabriel García Márquez, Mohamed Alí, Donald Trump, Danny Glover, Quincy Jones and Carlos Santana, among others.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Activists Denounce ‘Political Violence’ in a Letter to Colombian Vice President Francia Marquez

Her visit represents an “invaluable opportunity” to “strengthen the ties of friendship” in “the new era of political relations” between the two countries, Márquez said. (Cubadebate)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 9 February 2023 — The Citizens Committee for Racial Intergration (CIR) denounced the “political violence” against independent activists in a letter directed to the vice president of Colombia, Francia Márque, who began a visit to Cuba this Thursday.

“A considerable part of the activists today deprived of liberty are women and Afro-descendants, marked by political violence,” said the letter published on the committee’s social networks.

The anti-racist organization also recognized the “high commitment in the defense of human rights” of Marqué, who serves in the Government of Colombian president Gustavo Petro.

“We appeal to your social sensitivity and your high commitment to the defense of human rights, and to the eradication of structural inequalities, in order to convey our concerns to the Cuban authorities,” the CIR indicated.

“Here, like you in our sister nation (Colombia), we risk our lives every day, until dignity becomes customary, for the common good,” they added.

Márquez traveled to Cuba this Thursday to inaugurate the Havana International Book Fair, dedicated this year to Colombia.

Her visit represents an “invaluable opportunity” to “strengthen the ties of friendship” in “the new era of political relations” between the two countries, the Colombian Vice Presidency explained in a statement.

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