EFE – Page 26 – Translating Cuba

Billboard with the Cuban Telephone Company Etecsa’s Logo is Removed in Miami

The billboard advertised phone recharges in Cuba, but this Thursday it was removed after pressure from opponents in Miami. (Collage)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 15 July 2022 — A billboard announcing telephone recharges with the logo of the Cuban state telecommunications monopoly Etecsa was removed from a Miami highway due to pressure from activists and exiles, local media reported this Friday.

The removal occurred this Thursday after a campaign on social networks in which the content of the billboard placed on one of the busiest highways in Miami and Hialeah, a city populated mostly by people of Cuban origin.

“It is incredible that this has happened in the cradle of the exile,” Esteban Rodríguez, an exile, told the Telemundo channel. Several users published photos of the billboard today on social networks without warning of the controversy, in which the actress Tahimí Alvariño, the advertising face of the Katapulk company, which sells telephone recharges to Cuba with the Etecsa logo, was seen.

“Cubans respect each other, they removed the advertising of the Castro regime,” wrote Ileana Leiva Reveron to accompany the billboard without advertising content. “Don’t be amazed at the poster, be amazed at your fellow citizens in that city who make this announcement possible,” wrote a Cuban resident in Israel on Twitter. continue reading

The owner of Katapulk, the Cuban-American businessman Hugo Cancio, responded to the controversy in a written statement sent to the Telemundo channel, in which he stressed that Etecsa is not sanctioned by the US Government: “This is an activity authorized by the regulations from OFAC (an office of the US Treasury),” he said.

“Etecsa is the Cuban telecommunications company where all Cubans inside and outside the island process their recharges and buy their data packages for internet use and other services,” he said. “The idea is not to cause attention or controversy. We decided to offer this much-needed service to our clients and being new, we wanted to give legitimacy to this management,” he added.

Activist Esteban Rodríguez declared before the Telemundo cameras that the fence was “an insult to the people, to exile and Cubans” and stressed that “with pressure” anything can be achieved.

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Cuba and Mexico Seal Business Forum With the Signing of 12 Agreements

Mexico has been a historic trading partner for Cuba, especially due to its geographical proximity. (ACN)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 16 July 2022 — Cuba and Mexico closed a bilateral business forum this Friday in Havana with the signing of 12 agreements, after the business rounds held in the last two days in Havana with the main objective of expanding Mexico’s investments on the island.

The more than 80 Mexican and 150 Cuban companies examined the possibilities of relationships in the textile, food, information technology, renewable energy, biopharmaceutical, transportation, and tourism sectors, among others.

On this last day of the meeting, a group of Mexican businessmen visited the Mariel Special Development Zone, the business center and merchant port where the Cuban Government plans to locate a large part of technological innovation projects and industrial concentration, with a view to increasing exports.

The opening of the event on Thursday was attended by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, along with First Vice President Ricardo Cabrisas and the Ministers of Economy, Alejandro Gil, and of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca.

The Mexican delegation was headed by Héctor Guerrero, Undersecretary of Industry and Commerce of Mexico and the ambassador in Havana, Miguel Díaz Reynoso.

Currently, 11 Mexican firms — mixed ownership and private — operate in Cuba, among which there are three companies based in the Mariel Zone. continue reading

Mexico has been a historic trading partner for Cuba, especially due to its geographical proximity and the historical links between the two countries.

Both nations have an economic complementation agreement in force, through which tariff preferences were granted to the import of various goods.

According to 2019 data from the National Office of Statistics and Information of the Island (Onei), Mexico is among the 10 main trading partners of Havana, but far from Venezuela, China and Spain.

This business meeting has coincided with the celebrations for the almost 120 years of establishment of uninterrupted diplomatic relations between the two countries — which will be fulfilled in 2023 — and which included the visit of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the beginning of May.

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Leonardo Padura: ‘I Don’t Escape Censorship, I Look for it’

Leonardo Padura offered a press conference this Tuesday in the Canary Islands. (Angel Medina/EFE).

EFE (via 14ymedio), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain), 14 July 2022 — On Tuesday, the Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, literary father of the detective Mario Conde and winner of 2021’s Princess of Asturias Award for Letters, said that throughout his career he has never had the feeling of escaping from censorship, but rather rather of looking for it.

“I don’t escape censorship, but rather I look for it,” said Padura at a press conference in Las Palmas (Canary Islands), where he is participating in the “Literature from the Islands” meeting at the Maspalomas Summer University.

He addressed the publication of his next novel, Gentes decentes, in which he reprises detective Conde, which will hit bookstores at the end of August.

Padura said that the situation in Cuba is “economically very tense and socially very complicated,” because added to the effects of the pandemic on economic assets such as tourism, there is a series of economic deficiencies “carried over for years.”

The writer, who has Cuban and Spanish nationality and resides in Havana, was critical of the “severe trials” of people who demonstrated to protest against the Cuban government just a year ago in Havana.

“I believe that the judicial extreme of such high sentences should not have been reached for many of these people. The Government had the possibility of having a much more humanistic gesture,” he said, and insisted on the “fight for survival” that the most people on the island. continue reading

“I have the sense that the themes and manners of Cuban society have an international projection, but always starting from Cuba and returning to Cuba. I need to hear people speak in Cuba, to be able to know their hopes and frustrations and that is a process that is always in progress,” reflected the author.

For Padura, the best place to follow these processes of transformation of society and assimilate social changes is his neighborhood in Havana, where he has lived since he was born, surrounded by people “who are not even interested or care that he is a writer.”

On why he chose the noir novel as a mode of expression, he said that it seems to him a “generous genre” that allows a lot of freedom.

“I think that the most radical political documents that have circulated in Cuba are probably my novels. There has always been a critical look and I have touched on very deep, very complicated issues. I am interested in everything related to the search for utopia,” he assured.

Regarding the difficulty in finding his novels in Cuba, he believes that it relates — more than to censorship — to the economic situation since, in general, the books in his country “circulate little and poorly… there is a policy of not promoting them and not making my work visible,” he said, although he does not consider himself politically persecuted.

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Cuban Opponent Ariel Ruiz Urquiola Hospitalized on the Eighth Day of His Hunger Strike

The biologist and Cuban activist Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, this Monday in front of the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

EFE (via 14ymedio), Geneva, 11 July 2022 — On Monday, the Cuban biologist Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, an environmental and LGTBI activist, completed eight days on a hunger strike in front of the headquarters of the UN Office for Human Rights in Geneva, which he is demanding intervene to stop the harassment suffered by his family in Cuba.

“The only thing left for me is to ask the high commissioner (Michelle Bachelet) to adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has been violated against my sister [Omara Ruiz Urquiola] and me through medical torture and crimes against humanity,” the Cuban activist, resident in Switzerland since 2019, told EFE.

Ruiz Urquiola accuses the Cuban regime of having expelled him and his sister from the University of Havana for their political activism, of trying to confiscate the land they work, after not being able to dedicate themselves to teaching, and now of preventing his sister from returning to Cuba after traveling to the US to treat breast cancer.

In addition, the activist affirms that Cuban authorities inoculated him with the HIV virus in 2019, when he was on another hunger strike, and that they have given his sister placebo treatments on several occasions instead of the medicines she needs against her cancer. continue reading

“Now that my sister is prohibited from entering Cuba, my mother is left alone and they are going for her: they want to confiscate our farm,” said Ruiz Urquiola, who has been sleeping outdoors in a Geneva square since July 4, and assured that it will remain there “as long as the body lasts.”

“The Geneva medical services and the police have been very concerned about my health, but my choice is to continue,” he said, and blamed the UN Office for the medical consequences that the current strike, the fifth it has carried out in almost 20 years of activism.

The Cuban expert added that just one person in charge from the office headed by Bachelet has been interested in his health these days, for which he considered “disastrous” the response of an institution before which he had already done a shorter strike hunger in 2020.

Translated by Andrea Libre

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A Report Warns of Possible Rebellions ‘Of Magnitude’ in Cuba in the Short Term

Protests motivated by economic and social rights predominated for the second time, totaling 175. (Screen capture)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, July 6, 2022 — Cuba may be the scene of many rebellions in the short-term, according to a report by the Cuban Observatory of Conflicts (OCC) released on Tuesday, which points out that the 258 protests of last June exceeded by 11 those of the same period in 2021.

The June report considers that the possibility of “one or more rebellions of considerable magnitude is extremely high in the short term, whether or not they occur this July.”

The OCC report, an autonomous civil society project supported by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, based in the United States, emphasizes that Havana continues to believe that “without solving the hell of daily life it will prevent new rebellions by cutting off communications among potential rebels.”

In June, protests motivated by economic and social rights predominated for the second time, totaling 175 (68%), while 83 (32%) focused on political and civil rights.

The OCC indicates that, in fact, the largest increase occurred in protests for economic and social rights, 62% more than the previous month. This can be attributed to the deterioration of living conditions, which the OCC classifies as “daily death.”

In addition to the protests against product shortages, inflation and the collapse of the health system, 39 caused by power outages were added.

The report points out that since July 11, 2021, when Cuba witnessed the largest anti-government protests in its recent history, the Government “has demonstrated with its immobility that it didn’t understand that popular consent to the system had been exhausted.” continue reading

“These circumstances, together with the sudden death of General (Luis Alberto Rodríguez) López-Calleja and the ever closer eventuality of the death of Raúl Castro, mean that new scenarios of social rebellions can open up in the coming months,” it warns.

The report says that rebellions can have “violent tonalities in the increasingly deteriorated Cuban reality,” creating conditions for a rupture in the chain of command of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior if there are units that refuse to repress them.

It indicates that the threats to governance in Cuba go beyond the conflict between the population and power, since there are other factors such as the social distance between generals associated with the Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A (Gaesa) and officers exclusively in charge of military tasks.

The OCC claims to know that there is a growing malaise within Gaesa in the active and retired officers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), a multisectoral complex with more than fifty companies that is not accountable to the National Assembly.

’There are indications that this was the factor associated with the abrupt dismissal of General Leopoldo Cintra Frías” in 2021, it emphasizes.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘The Only Thing Taken to Cuba Were Che’s Hands,’ Says the Man Who Captured Him

Cuban-American Félix Rodríguez, the CIA agent who led the operation in Bolivia to capture Guevara. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Jorge I. Pérez, Miami, 7 July 2022 –Cuban-American Félix Rodríguez, the CIA agent who led the operation in Bolivia to capture Ernesto Che Guevara that culminated in his execution in 1967, told Efe on Wednesday that “the only thing that could be buried in Cuba” are the hands of the guerrilla.

“The body was never where they say they found it,” he stresses in a telephone conversation. According to Rodríguez emphatically, the Argentine guerrilla “was not buried at the side of the runway with seven other bodies as Fidel (Castro) said; Che was buried at the head of the runway with two more corpses, there were only three.”

A few days before the 25th anniversary of the discovery of Che’s body at the Vallegrande airport (Bolivia), the 81-year-old former CIA agent, retired in Miami, denies the official version of what happened on 28 June 1997.

According to the official Cuban version, the body of the revolutionary leader was found that day in a mass grave at the Vallegrande airport and, after being identified in a hospital in Bolivia, his remains were sent to Cuba, where a mausoleum was erected in his honor in Santa Clara.

According to the media outlet Cubavisión Internacional, the remains of the Argentine guerrilla were found on an abandoned runway in Vallegrande. There, says the media, a group of Cuban experts found the grave where seven guerrilla men were buried, including their leader Ernesto Che Guevara.

“Obviously, if he (Fidel Castro) buried his hands, then there is a part of Che in the Santa Clara monument, because the hands were taken there by the (then) Minister of the Interior (Antonio) Arguedas,” along with a copy of the guerrilla’s diary in Bolivia, says Rodríguez.

According to the former CIA agent, “at dawn a Bolivian doctor went with my partner, (Gustavo) Villoldo, and then they cut off his hands, put them in formalin and put them in a volqueta (dump truck), as they call the pickups, they took Che to the end of the runway where there was a bulldozer that was widening the runway for larger planes to land. continue reading

“And there they buried him, at the end of the runway next to two corpses and Fidel says they found him to one side with seven more. That was not Che Guevara,” he says.

On how it became known that Che was in Bolivia, Rodríguez, whose mission was to save his life, although he now says that his execution was “the best thing that could happen,” recalls that it had to do with the French philosopher and writer Régis Debray.

“It was confirmed when they took (Argentine intellectual Ciro) Busto and Régis Debray prisoner; they went to visit Che and when they were taken prisoner they confirmed that the person was Che Guevara. If it wasn’t for them, it wouldn’t have been known that Che was in Bolivia,” he says.

On October 9, 1967, Rodríguez landed in Bolivia to capture Che and later saw him “tied hand and foot.”

“My mission was to save his life at the request of the US government. It was very important to keep him alive, killing him was a decision of the Bolivian president, General René Barrientos,” he said. It was the Bolivian sergeant Mario Terán who executed Guevara in La Higuera that same day.

According to Rodríguez, the burial of the body “was not a military secret, they simply did not tell anyone.”

“They took a driver that day and buried him at the end of the runway, and gave out the news that he had been cremated and that the ashes had been thrown from a helicopter into the air, which was not true,” he says.

And he adds: “That was the official news that was given to the Bolivian people: that (Che) was cremated and his ashes scattered over the Bolivian jungle, but the truth is that he was buried at the head of the runway, you can put it to bed,” he asserted.

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Independent Cuban Feminists Confirm Four Gender-based Murders in the Last Week

Arletty Reyes Batista was on her way to college when she was allegedly murdered by a neighbor. (Facebook)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 4 July 2022 — The feminist platforms YoSíTeCreo (YSTCC — I Do Believe You) in Cuba and the Observatory of the Alas Tensas magazine reported on a gender-based murder in the eastern province of Holguín, bringing the total to four femicides documented in the last week, although they occurred on different dates.

The latest victim of gender violence is “Arletty Reyes Batista, 24 years old, who lived in a rural area of the Urbano Noris municipality (Holguín). The incident occurred on June 25 when the young woman left her house to go to the university,” relates the note from Alas Tensas published on Facebook.

Reyes was studying engineering in agro-industrial processes at the central university of the municipality where she lived, she has a 4-year-old daughter, and it is presumed that the person who attacked her was a neighbor, adds the feminist platform.

This new complaint is added to those made by the activists who during this week communicated the case of Daniela Hernández Terrero, which happened at the hands of her ex-partner and father of her two children — who committed suicide after committing the murder — on June 25 in the neighborhood of Centro Habana.

They also documented the femicide of Tania González, on June 27, at the hands of her husband and in the presence of her daughter and grandchildren, in her home in the Diezmero neighborhood, in the Havana municipality of San Miguel del Padrón. continue reading

Another similar event, the case of the young Claudia Montes, who was missing for two weeks and was finally found dead in the Martí municipality of Matanzas, was confirmed by the activists as a “sexual femicide.”

In their most recent publication they point out that “to date and only in the year 2022” their observatory “has registered 18 femicides.”

Likewise, they recall that in the face of the increase in these events of sexist violence in recent days, the independent platforms and observatories Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba, Red Femenina de Cuba, Alianza Cubana por la Inclusión and Alas Tensas, jointly launched an “urgent call” to the Cuban government to declare a “state of emergency” due to sexist violence.

“Cuba cannot continue without carrying out the standard mechanisms to confront femicide violence: we must declare states of emergency, create shelters, have specific protocols for the disappearance of people and have a specialized system,” the feminists pointed out.

They maintain that “cases of femicide continue to be reported and there is no state response” and ask “how many more must die unnecessarily?” They also criticize the fact that the new Cuban Penal Code does not define the different types of femicides.

The Penal Code approved by the National Assembly of People’s Power of Cuba on May 15 contemplates gender-based violence, but does not classify the crime of femicide.

“When we talk about femicide violence, we make a call to face a problem that mainly affects women, but also children and even men, as evidenced in this case,” expressed Alas Tensas and YSTCC.

Both platforms that collaborate in the support and accompaniment of people in situations of sexist violence, ensure that their reports of these cases are verified by their respective observatories.

A report by Alas Tensas reported that at least 36 women died violently last year in Cuba, allegedly when they were assaulted by their romantic partners, and another 32 had a similar fate in 2020.

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Only One of the Children Injured in the Saratoga Hotel Remains Hospitalized in Cuba

This is what the Saratoga hotel looks like almost a month after the explosion that left 46 dead. (14ymedio)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 4 June 2022 — The Cuban Ministry of Public Health reported this Friday that only one child of those injured in the explosion at the Saratoga Hotel on May 6 remains hospitalized and with a care report.

The daily report of the Ministry of Health on the state of convalescents after the explosion specifies that there are six admitted to health centers, 99 injured, 47 medical discharges and 46 deceased.

The accident was attributed to a liquefied gas leak that occurred when a truck was recharging a tank at the tourist facility located in the historic center of the Cuban capital.

In addition to the destruction of much of the building, the impact of the blast wave damaged another 17 adjoining buildings. continue reading

The explosion occurred, May 6, around 10:50 in the morning, and caused a commotion throughout Havana. That day, the hotel was conducting interviews for the reopening scheduled for May 10, hence the presence of employees from the Human Resources area and several of the job candidates.

Six days after the tragedy and after pressure on social networks, the Cuban government decreed an official mourning from 6:00 a.m. on May 13 until 12:00 p.m. on May 14.

The Saratoga was built in 1880 and from 1911 it functioned as a hotel. Its last restoration took place in 2005, when the building was extensively renovated.

The luxury accommodation, with a five-star category, is located on the iconic Paseo del Prado avenue, in the historic center of the Cuban capital, the area most visited by tourists who come to the Island.

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About 32,000 People in Havana Have Problems Accessing Water

Thousands of people from Havana currently have problems with the water supply due to two breakdowns. (14ymedio)

EFE (via 14ymedio) Havana, 31 May 2022 — Almost 32,000 people in Havana have problems with the water supply due to breakdowns in two pieces of equipment in the system, local media reported on Monday.

The effects, which are focused on at least four municipalities in the capital province, have led the Havana authorities to ask the residents for a “rational use.”

Manuel Paneque Gómez, delegate of Hydraulic Resources in the capital, pointed out that the affected areas are in the capital’s municipalities of Diez de Octubre, Regla, San Miguel del Padrón and Guanabacoa.

In an intervention on state television on May 10, Antonio Rodríguez, president of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH), warned that the drought the island is going through has affected supply.

“Our reservoirs today accumulate 44% of their capacity and we have 731 million cubic meters less than the average for this stage,” he said in statements released by the official site Cubadebate.cu.

Since last March, Cuba has undertaken a series of measures to improve supply, including the execution of 206 hydraulic works.

However, Rodríguez acknowledged that around 300,000 people in the country are affected by a break. continue reading

“We are working with the national industry and with non-state forms, producing parts and accessories to be able to solve the leaks and undertake the works and investments,” he said.

Until last April, 360 pumping stations had presented difficulties due to low water availability, especially in the eastern provinces of Holguín, Las Tunas, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and Camagüey, according to data from the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources of Cuba.

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A Report Details ‘Cuba’s Oversized Influence’ in the World

The Cuban consulate in Barcelona is located at the beginning of Paseo de Gràcia, the second most expensive street in the city, and coexists with luxury shops. (Facebook/Consulate General of Cuba in Barcelona)

14ymedio/EFE, Madrid/Miami, 9 June 2022 — While Cubans inside the country suffer from food shortages, and basic services and infrastructures are collapsing, the government – which usually blames the United States embargo for all this – hides that it spends fortunes on its external image, according to a report on ’’ the oversized influence of Cuba’, published this Wednesday by the Miami based NGO Cuba Archive, which is led by Maria Werlau.

It is one of the reasons, according to Cuba Archive, that the Cuban regime has enjoyed not only “historical impunity” despite the systematic abuse of human rights, but also that it has numerous defenders around the world and that has managed to boycott the Summit of the Americas “thanks to his accomplices.”

Even after the demonstrations of July 11 and 12, 2021, which were followed by systematic repression, Cuba was chosen, as the NGO points out, to participate “in three subsidiary bodies of the United Nations Economic and Social Council Nations and has received many millions in direct assistance from dozens of governments, including democracies such as Switzerland and France, as well as small island nations,” some hard hit by the covid-19 pandemic.

“The big question is always how Cuba can have such great influence and how it has been able to go beyond international law. That [Mexican President Andrés Manuel] López Obrador dares not to go to the Summit of the Americas is because Cuba has a oversized influence,” Werlau told EFE.

“I went every year to the United Nations and looked in the directory [of the organization] who are the diplomats of each country,” adds Werlau. “I counted the diplomats one by one” in the bluebook, which has the list of diplomats by countries accredited to the UN.

Cuba Archive also notes in its report that the island generates its main source of income with the “export of its slave labor” in collusion with many governments and international organizations, such as the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization. continue reading

In March 2021, the NGO points out, “Cuba reported 29,954 temporary workers in 74 countries” and during the pandemic it managed to increase these exports: “In September 2021 it reported 57 brigades made up of 4,982 ’collaborators’ in 40 nations.”

The Government of Cuba “devotes colossal resources to maintain an enormous police state, a gigantic propaganda apparatus and an intelligence service that is among the best in the world,” says Cuba Archive.

In this regard, it cites the “numerous and extremely expensive network of official international representations,” which includes 126 embassies, 20 consulates and 43 diplomats in the permanent mission to the United Nations in New York. This, according to Werlau, offers a measure of how “unwarranted” the Cuban presence is even “in remote islands.”

“Cuba has more embassies and more diplomats in New York than many much larger and more powerful countries, including Spain, Italy, Canada, Thailand, the Philippines, Mexico, Colombia, Poland and Peru,” cites the organization, which also indicates that nations with a population similar to Cuba in Latin America, such as the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Bolivia, “have between three and four times fewer embassies and about six times fewer diplomats at the UN in New York.” Belgium, the Czech Republic and Greece, whose population is also similar, Cuba Archive also compares, have between 40 and 43 fewer embassies in the world than Havana despite the fact that their GDP is much higher than that of Cuba, as are their exports.

These embassies around the planet not only promote Cuba’s “geopolitical and economic objectives”, but are also “intelligence centers dedicated to recruiting a great world army of spies, collaborators and propagandists among diplomats, government officials, intellectuals, academics, artists, scientists, businessmen and others,” whose purpose is “to sow and nurture networks of solidarity in the most remote points of the planet.”

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The United States Restricts Entry to Five Cuban Officials Due to the 11J Protests

The sentences of the 11J (July 11th) protesters in La Güinera are still among the most severe. (Capture)

EFE (vía 14ymedio), Washington/Havana, 17 June 2022 — The United States Government announced on Thursday that it has taken measures to impose restrictions on the visas of five unidentified Cuban officials due to their links to the trials and imprisonment of demonstrators who took part in the protests of July 11, 2021 (11J) on the island.

In a statement, the State Department headed by Antony Blinken announced the sanctions, which respond to Presidential Proclamation 5377, by which the United States can suspend the entry into the country of Cuban government officials and employees.

According to the statement, these five officials are linked to “unfair trials” and the sentences and imprisonment of Cuban protestors who took to the streets on July 11, 2021.

The U.S. Government claimed that the Cuban authorities “deny citizens their basic human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

The incident occurred almost at the same time that the Attorney General’s Office issued a new statement reporting four final judgments against 33 11J participants who had appealed.

Of these, “30 were punished with prison sentences (20 are between five and ten years, and 10 are between ten and 18 years), while two were sentenced to correctional work without internment and one to limitation of liberty.”

The sentences were handed down on June 14 and 15 for people convicted of sedition, sabotage and public disorder in Havana and Mayabeque. continue reading

One of the judicial appeals reduced the sentences to up to 15 years in prison for 17 people who demonstrated in the Havana neighborhood of La Güinera, but the sentences were so harsh that they still face a high number of years in prison, a total of 206, with individual cases of up to 17 years.

As reported by the Prosecutor’s Office three days ago, the country’s courts have issued 76 final sentences against 381 people for the protests, not counting those it announced on Thursday.

The NGO Prisoners Defenders pointed out on June 8 that a total of 168 protesters have been prosecuted for the crime of sedition alone, and 246 have final prison sentences of 10 years or more.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Athletics Champion Juan Miguel Echevarria Leaves the National Team

Juan Miguel Echevarría during the athletics men’s long jump qualifying rounds at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. (EFE /Juan Ignacio Roncoroni)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 18 June 2022 — The Cuban pole vault champions, Yarisley Silva, and long jump champions, Juan Miguel Echevarría, left the national teams of their respective disciplines, the Athletics Commission officially reported this Friday.

When presenting the 35th edition of the Barrientos Memorial this weekend, an event that traditionally brings together the most outstanding figures of Cuban athletics, the commissioner of the specialty, Yipsy Moreno, confirmed the absences of Silva and Echevarría.

Moreno said that the long jumper Echevarría will not compete in this event because “due to personal problems, he requested his withdrawal from the national team,” according to a report in the official sports newspaper Jit.

A silver medalist at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Echevarría, 23, is considered the most successful Cuban long jumper in recent times.

After suffering several injuries, Echevarría’s trainers had indicated that he was preparing for future competitions.

Regarding pole vaulter Yarisley Silva, 35, the commissioner reported that she “determined to put an end to her sports career.” However, Silva’s abandonment had already been made known at the beginning of April by the independent press. continue reading

“The issue is not what could happen with regards to sports with Yarita in the future, but that her reasons for her departure include her dissatisfaction with the way in which the Federation has carried out many logistical and other movements related to her and Navas [her coach Alexander Navas ],” said SwingCompleto journalist Yasel Porto.

“That is another personal decision, it is a sad moment that all world champions have to go through and it tears us apart, we recognize her athlete lineage and for us she will continue to be our warrior,” Moreno justified this time.

Silve has had an outstanding sports career with a silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics, as well as outdoor and indoor world titles. She was also three times Pan American champion.

In March, she decided not to participate in the world indoor athletics championships in Serbia, because her pole vaults had not arrived on time.

“Why did I decide not to compete? Because, even if they looked for poles that were as similar as possible, they weren’t going to be mine. It was the third time this had happened to me,” Silva told the state publication Cubadebate.

She also said then that her goal was to “finish big” and that is why she did not want to say goodbye to athletics “below” her results, so she said she planned to participate in the next Central American and Caribbean Games.

The retirement of these outstanding figures of Cuban sports adds to a series of abandonments registered in recent months, mainly by young people in disciplines such as baseball, karate, wrestling, athletics and canoeing.

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Spanish Consulate in Havana Will Charge for its Services in Euros and Cash

Several people carry out procedures at the Consulate of Spain, in Havana (Cuba), in a file photograph. (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa)

EFE (14ymedio), Havana, 17 June 2022 — The Spanish Consulate in Havana reported this Friday that as of July 1 it will begin charging its consular services in euros, only in cash and with the exact amount.

The legation detailed in its Twitter account the price of services such as the preparation of passports (30 euros), visas (80) or legalizations (10), among others.

The Spanish diplomatic representation did not explain the reason for the decision, which happened a week after several Latin American embassies in Cuba announced the suspension of their consular services following a directive from the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC).

Instruction 1/2022 of the BCC establishes that countries can charge for their consular services “in foreign currency or in Cuban pesos,” according to what they themselves establish.

But this measure does not allow them to exchange the income from consular procedures invoiced in Cuban pesos, which cannot be converted in other countries, into international currencies. continue reading

The embassies and consulates that determine to charge consular services in pesos will only be able to “deposit the funds in an account in that currency,” the instruction warned, putting an end to a practice common until now.

The BCC also indicated that “from the accounts in Cuban pesos of the embassies and consulates” it will not be possible to make “transfers to accounts in freely convertible currency, nor payments abroad.”

The freely convertible currency (MLC) is a virtual currency valid only in Cuba and referenced to currencies. It has been used in the country since the end of 2019 and is valid in a network of food and appliance stores.

The BCC’s decision was received critically by some embassies because it prevents them from transferring to their countries, in foreign currency, the money they received in Cuban pesos in paymen for the consular services they provide.

The measure is related, according to various sources, to the difference between the official rate – from one dollar to 24 pesos – and the exchange rate in the informal market, where the US bill currently costs around 100 pesos. Meanwhile, the euro is officially exchanged at 27 pesos and in the informal market it fetches 115 pesos.

The exchange of national to foreign currency at the official rate and the exporting of these currencies from the country was disadvantageous for Cuba, these sources added.

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Cuban Authorities Prevent the Mothers of Two July 11th (11J) Prisoners from Boarding a Flight to Madrid

Marta Perdomo, mother of Jorge and Nadir Martín, at her home in 2020. (Facebook)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 17 June 2022 — This Thursday, Cuban authorities prevented the mothers of three men imprisoned for the July 11 (11J) protests from boarding a flight on the Spanish airline Iberia in Havana bound for Madrid, according to the NGO Cuban Observatory of Human Rights.

Liset Fonseca and Marta Perdomo, mothers of Roberto Pérez Fonseca , and of Jorge and Nadir Martín Perdomo, were scheduled to meet with representatives of the European Parliament, the European Union External Action Service (EEAS), and UN Human Rights organizations, in Madrid, Brussels and Geneva.

“As part of the abuse, they allowed them to obtain their boarding pass, in order to eliminate the possibility of a flight change or a refund of the Iberia ticket,” the organization said in a statement.

It also condemned this action as a “clear violation of human rights” by the Government of Cuba.

Fonseca told the Cubanet newspaper that an Immigration official took the documentation from both of them when they had already dispatched their bags and made them wait about 30 minutes before informing them that they could not travel.

“She only told us that we were regulated* and that she didn’t know why,” said the mother, whose youngest son, Alberto Ortega Fonseca, was traveling from Canada – where he lives – and was hoping to meet her in Madrid for the first time in eight years. continue reading

“We are exhausted and enduring one more blow. Add to that that the luggage does not appear and they beat us up,” added Fonseca. According to Cubanet, late at night, the two women were still waiting for their bags to be returned.

Roberto Pérez Fonseca, 38 years old, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, for the crimes of contempt, attack, incitement to commit a crime and public disorder, which were charged to him for his participation in the protest in San Jose de Las Lajas.

In the cases of Jorge and Nadir Martín Perdomo, 28 and 37 years old, also imprisoned for the 11J demonstrations in San José de las Lajas, they were sentenced to eight and six years in prison, respectively, both accused of the crimes of “instigation to commit crimes, public disorder, contempt and spread of epidemics.”

“The human rights situation in Cuba is becoming more serious every day. Society is suffocated by so much injustice and lack of future,” added the NGO, based in Spain, posting on its Twitter account.

The Attorney General of the Republic of Cuba (FGR) reported on Monday that so far the courts have issued 76 final sentences against 381 people “who attacked the constitutional order and stability” of the socialist state. The FGR statement indicated that 78% of those sanctioned (297) received sentences of up to 25 years in prison.

Most of the crimes for which they were accused are sedition, sabotage, robbery with force and violence, attack, contempt and public disorder. A total of 36 protesters were convicted of the most serious and sentenced to terms ranging from 5 to 25 years in prison.

Relatives of those convicted and non-governmental organizations have criticized the processes, to which the international press has not had access, alleging lack of guarantees, fabrication of evidence and long sentences.

The NGO Prisoners Defenders points out that at least 842 people were in prison on the island at the end of 2021 for political reasons, mostly for the events of July 11.

*Translator’s note: “Regulated” is the euphemism used by the Cuban government to refer to those who have been forbidden to leave the country.

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Cuba and Venezuela Advocate Accelerating Procedures for the use of Russian Bank Cards

The authorities expect the Russian MIR payment system to start operating in Cuba before the end of the year. (14ymedio)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Moscow, 16 June 2022 — This Thursday in St. Petersburg, leaders of the central banks of Cuba and Venezuela advocated the acceleration of procedures for the use of Russian MIR bank cards in their countries, after the American Visa and MasterCard suspended their operations in Russia and thus prevented Russians from paying with their cards abroad.

“We are working now for the acceptance of MIR cards in our country,” said Alberto Quiñones, general director of Systems, Technologies and Development of the Central Bank of Cuba during the Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg.

Quiñones, who attended the debate “New forms of international cooperation; What will the payment be like,” trusted that in the coming weeks the necessary steps will be taken so that the MIR payment system begins to function in Cuba before the end of the year. continue reading

MIR cards are currently accepted in Turkey, Vietnam and six former Soviet republics.

Calixto José Ortega Sánchez, president of the Central Bank of Venezuela, also spoke in favor of the acceptance of the Russian payment system in that Latin American country, along with the systems of other countries, such as Turkey.

“We can no longer delay it any longer,” said Ortega, who added that otherwise the Western “monopoly” will win, which could be used as a “weapon” when the time comes.

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