EFE – Page 8 – Translating Cuba

Justice 11J Denounces That 17 Cubans Are Still Imprisoned for the Protests in Nuevitas a Year Ago

Images of the protests in Nuevitas in 2022, in the middle of a blackout. (Screen capture)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 7 September 2023 — At least 17 people who participated in the protests in the town of Nuevitas, Camagüey, in August 2022 remain in prison waiting to be tried, the NGO Justicia 11J said on Thursday.

After protesting the blackouts and shortages, the prisoners have been accused of “public disorder, attacks, damage, contempt, resistance and incitement to commit crimes,” and therefore remain “in precarious condition” awaiting trial.

The organization mentioned the specific case of 21-year-old Mayelín Rodríguez, arrested for recording and disseminating images of the protest on social networks.

“In Nuevitas it was possible to observe a repressive strategy that would be applied in subsequent protests: arresting demonstrators or alleged leaders of the marches both during the events and after them, as part of operations and raids, or after they appeared in response to summonses for interrogations,” the organization said, although Cuban counterintelligence had already used similar methods with the participants in the protests of July 11, 2021. continue reading

Months after the protests, the regime was still looking for the “guilty” of the demonstrations in Nuevitas

Months after the protests, the regime was still looking for the “guilty ones” of the demonstrations in Nuevitas because, despite the fact that it “understood the inconvenience and difficulties of the people due to the frequent blackouts,” nothing “justifies” the protests.

Justice 11J added that “from the beginning of 2022 to date there have been at least 254 public protests of different types and scale.”

It indicated that it has registered “the arrest of 241 people in connection with protests, even if the victim had not participated in protest events in the public space.”

Justice 11J is a working group that records “the government’s response to public demonstrations of different types, in public space and in detention centers,” after the 11J protests.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba’s Candidacy for the UN Human Rights Council Is Being Challenged

Triptych of the exhibition, “Cuba, a sustained commitment to human rights for all,” with which the regime promotes its re-election to the Human Rights Council. (@GerardoPPortal)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 8 September 2023 — About 20 Cuban opposition organizations and 30 individual dissidents, mostly based abroad, signed a statement that rejects the recently announced candidacy for the re-election of Cuba to the UN Human Rights Council for the period 2024-2026. The document, published this Thursday, states that the Cuban State “does not comply with its human rights obligations, as highlighted in several reports presented this year within the framework of the Universal Periodic Review of the Republic of Cuba.”

They consider that this “non-compliance” has caused “an extreme setback” in the effective exercise of human rights on the Island.

The letter is signed by organizations such as the opposition platform D’Frente, the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba, Cuba Próxima and the Institute of Artivism Hannah Arendt

The letter is signed by organizations such as the opposition platform D’Frente, the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba, Cuba Próxima and the Institute of Artivism Hannah Arendt (INSTAR), among others, to which are added the signatures of the plastic artist Tania Bruguera and the opponents Carolina Barrero and Elena Larrinaga.

The group emphasizes that in the Cuban Constitution approved in 2019, “the one-party system is maintained and free elections are not allowed,” and emphasizes that Cuba has not ratified international pacts on civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights, nor their optional protocols.

“This prevents the binding effect of the decisions and pronouncements of the treaty bodies and those derived from the visits of independent experts to verify the real situation of the country in terms of human rights,” adds the statement, disseminated by the Argentine initiative Demo Amlat. continue reading

As another reason for their rejection, they cite the increase in repression after the anti-government protests of July 2021 on the Island, the largest in decades, in which more than 1,000 people were arrested and 700 convicted.

They point out that the people arrested for political reasons “were tried and sanctioned without due process, as a result of the lack of independence of the courts.”

In announcing its candidacy, the Cuban Government said that it “is committed to advocating for full respect for the principles of universality, indivisibility, objectivity, non-politicization and non-selectivity,” and it promotes “the strengthening of international cooperation.”

The Cuban Foreign Ministry announced on September 1 that it will seek re-election on October 10 and began an online campaign to promote its candidacy and appeal to the vote

The Cuban Foreign Ministry announced on September 1 that it will seek re-election on October 10 and started an online campaign to promote its candidacy and appeal to the vote.

Various independent groups, NGOs such as Human Rights and Amnesty International and some States have criticized the Cuban government by accusing it of repeated human rights violations.

They have denounced, among other things, “arbitrary detentions,” “trials without minimum guarantees” and arrests and convictions “for exercising the right to freedom of expression.” They have also demanded the release of those convicted for political reasons, who, according to NGOs such as Prisoners Defenders, total more than 1,000 people.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Russia Will Help Cuba Build ‘New Generating Capacities’ in Its Power Plants

Unit 2 of the Lidio Ramón thermoelectric plant, known as Felton, is one of those that are out of operation this Thursday. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana/Moscow, 7 September 2023 — Russia and Cuba addressed, on Thursday, the construction of new generating capacities for power plants on the Island, as reported by the Russian Ministry of Energy in a statement echoed by the Spanish agency EFE. “Electric energy plays a decisive role in the economy of the Republic of Cuba and must become the basis for the development of all industries,” said the Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, Yevgeny Grabchaka, during a meeting with the Cuban Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy.

According to the report, both officials also discussed bilateral cooperation in the oil and gas sector, including issues related to crude oil extraction.

At the end of last month, De la O Levy met in Moscow with the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Riabkov, to discuss energy cooperation between the parties.

According to the statement released by the Russian Government, “during the meeting, which took place in the atmosphere of friendship and mutual understanding inherent in the Russian-Cuban dialogue, the strengthening of bilateral cooperation was addressed, particularly in the field of energy, in a spirit of strategic cooperation.” continue reading

Both officials also discussed bilateral cooperation in the oil and gas sector, including issues related to crude oil extraction

Russian aid in the field of energy is essential in the midst of the current crisis, which does not subside, taking into account, in addition, the frequent breakdowns suffered by Cuban power plants. This same Thursday, according to the Electric Union of Cuba, unit 2 of the Felton (in Holguín), unit 6 of Energas Boca de Jaruco (in Mayabeque), unit 1 of Santa Cruz (in Matanzas) and unit 6 of the Renté (in Santiago de Cuba) are out of service.

Nor do the refineries have an encouraging outlook. This Tuesday, the Ñico López stopped working again, in the Havana municipality of Regla, put into operation on August 25 after being stopped for a year and responsible for the smell of gas spread throughout the capital last week.

According to 14ymedio, Professor Jorge Piñón, a specialist in the oil sector at the University of Texas (USA), Ñico López’s problem “is not a lack of crude oil to process” but rather “it seems to be technical.”

The plant is “the most sophisticated of the three Cuban refineries,” says the expert, for being “the only one with a catalytic cracking unit, a leading unit in gasoline production. Like the thermoelectric ones,” it shows signs of aging “after its 67 years of operation with a low level of capital maintenance.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Legacy of Cuban Artist Nicolas Landrian Resurfaces in Venice

Still from the documentary Landrián by Ernesto Daranas.

EFE (via 14ymedio), Gonzalo Sánchez, Venice, 3 September 2023 — Nicolás Landrián was a visionary of Cuban cinema but post-revolutionary censorship ultimately marginalized his work. His films have now been taken out of storage, giving the general public access to his legacy thanks to a documentary, which recently premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, that bears his last name.

“In his time, he was probably Cuba’s best-known filmmaker after Tomas Gutierrez, Alea Titón and Humberto Solás but he remains unknown to the general public,” says the producer of Landrián, Ernesto Daranas Serrano.

The documentary, which was presented as part of the festival’s Venice Classics series, follows the search through Havana’s film archives for cans of footage shot by the director, who was Cuba’s first black filmmaker and whose work was largely forgotten due to censorship.

Landrián (1938-2003) was the nephew of the poet Nicolás Guillén. Though he actively opposed the Batista dictatorship, after the revolution he was accused of having a “licentious attitude” and for comments “not in keeping with a young revolutionary” according to files shown in the documentary.

His camera captured the folklore and idiosyncrasies of Cuban society while questioning the widespread propaganda and fervor following the triumph of Fidel Castro’s Revolution in 1959. (His 1968 documentary Coffea Árabiga even satirized coffee production.) continue reading

Landrián (1938-2003), was the nephew of the poet Nicolás Guillén. Though he actively opposed the Batista dictatorship, he was accused of having a “licentious attitude” after the 1959 Revolution

“I have never fit in anywhere except in my work,” he often said.

Thus, “ideological deviation” became his cross to bear and a permanent part of his record. He was subjected to perennial incarceration, then to electric shock in psychiatric clinics, until he managed, along with many others, to go into exile in Miami.

It was there that he would die of pancreatic cancer in 2002. Meanwhile, back on the island, the public’s memory of him began to fade as his films rotted away on archive shelves.

But two decades later, the idea of restoring his legacy came about almost by accident. In 2019 Daranas was snooping around the Cinemateca de Cuba while working on another project and noticed the “unfortunate” state of conservation of the film heritage he found stored in its archives.

One of Landrián’s films that came to have great sentimental value for Daranas was Ociel del Toa (1965). During his childhood he saw this film, a story about people living along the Toa River, countless times in movie theaters because it was used as filler during screening interruptions.

“Half the film was lost and the other half very badly damaged. I wondered about the rest of Landrián’s works. All of them were more or less in the same condition and no one knew where some of them were,” he said.

With a go-ahead from the president of the Cuban Institute of Cinemagraphic Art and Industry (ICAIC), Daranas began searching for the negatives in hopes of restoring them.

Daranas is critical of the role censorship plays in Cuban cinema, a hot topic among Cuban filmmakers, who are currently demanding government officials meet with them to discuss it.

“I am not the only one to condemn censorship in Cuban cinema. It’s an issue for all the members of the union of Cuban filmmakers, who right now are demanding our government have discussions with us about censorship,” says Ernesto Daranas

Little by little, ten of these lost films were found. They include Los del Baile (The Dancers, 1965); En un Barrio Viejo (In an Old Neighborhood, 1963), winner of the Krakow Film Festival; and Ociel del Toa itself, which won an award at SEMINCI, the Valladolid Film Festival.

Daranas’ documentary recounts efforts to first recover the lost films in Havana and then to send them to Madrid for restoration.

Ladrián comes across as a Christ-like figure who was said to have been born “with his eyes wide open.” He is described in film by those who knew him, such as his wife, Gretel Alfonso Fuentes, and his director of photograph, Livio Delgado.

“With the ten films we have restored and with this documentary, we are hoping to introduce this exceptional filmmaker to a wider audience. He faced a problem that unfortunately many Cuban filmmakers are still facing today, which is censorship,” says Daranas.

“Censorship still hangs like a sword of Damocles over Cuban cinema,” he adds.

The screening of his documentary at the prestigious Venice Festival is doubly valuable for Cuban filmmakers like Daranas.

First, it recognizes an “exceptional and virtually unknown” filmmaker like Landrián, says Daranas, who won the King of Spain Journalism Award for his documentary The Last Pipers of Havana. Second, it is validates “the struggle that Cuban filmmakers are still waging today against censorship and exclusion.”

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Bill Richardson, the Man Who Freed Cuban Prisoners but Couldn’t Help Alan Gross, Has Died

Bill Richardson at a press conference in Havana, in 2011, when he failed in his attempt to obtain the release of Alan Gross. (EFE)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 3 September 2023 — Former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, of Hispanic origin, was U.S. ambassador to the UN and Secretary of Energy under the presidency of Bill Clinton. He passed away at the age of 75 at his home, the Richardson Center for Global Commitment reported on Saturday.

“He lived his entire life in the service of others, including his time in the Government and his subsequent career helping to release people taken hostage or unjustly detained abroad,” Mickey Bergman, vice president of the Richardson Center, said in a statement.

Richardson died while sleeping in his summer home in Massachusetts, as reported by CNN and other American media. The Democrat, after completing his political career, devoted himself to working to free Americans detained abroad.

Throughout his career, Richardson interceded for the release of hostages and prisoners in places such as Cuba, North Korea, Iraq, Russia and Sudan. In the 1990s, he had a rapprochement with Havana on several occasions.

In 1996, as a Democratic congressman, Richardson obtained the release of the political prisoners, Carmen Arias Iglesias, Luis Grave Peralta Morell and Eduardo Ramón Prida, after holding a two-hour meeting in Havana with Fidel Castro. According to the Spanish newspaper El País, the American politician sought the release of 12 people. continue reading

Richardson returned to the Island as governor of New Mexico in 2009 to promote commercial and cultural exchange. The Democrat, close to Barack Obama, took advantage of the fact that in 2001, commercial operations of American companies in Cuba had resumed after Washington excluded food and medicines from the financial and commercial embargo that had been applied to the Island since 1962.

As part of that trip, which Richardson himself paid for, he met with Deputy Chancellor Dagoberto Rodríguez and the then-president of the Cuban Parliament, Ricardo Alarcón, according to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

In 2010, he returned to the Island to promote commercial and cultural exchanges and, in addition, to act as an intermediary in the release of contractor Alan Gross, imprisoned in Cuba. The following year, in September, a new attempt at liberation was thwarted. “My feeling is that there are some elements in your government [the one in Cuba] that do not want to improve relations with the United States,” Richardson said at the time.

“Cuba’s action seemed to be an extraordinary snub towards the prominent Spanish-speaking Democrat and former UN ambassador who has had cordial relations with the government of the Island. There was no information from the Cuban government about why Richardson could not see Gross, who had usually received visits from diplomats and members of the US Congress,” The Washington Post published.

In this same newspaper, Richardson published an article in 2013 in which he highlighted the Havana fiasco. “I learned this lesson in the worst way,” he wrote, “in 2011, when the Cuban authorities initially refused to release and hand over to me USAID worker Alan Gross, and I said that I would not leave Cuba without him.”

“My public complaint made Cubans less willing to negotiate; they were clearly upset that I had tried to embarrass them. Gross is s till in a Cuban prison today,” he added then.

In 2010 he returned to the Island to promote commercial and cultural exchanges and, in addition, to act as an intermediary in the release of contractor Alan Gross, imprisoned in Cuba

Gross was finally released on December 17, 2014, simultaneously with the five Cuban agents of the so-called Wasp Network, imprisoned in the United States.

Bill Richardson’s name appeared on several occasions among the candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. Just a few days ago it was known that this year he was nominated again, this time by four Democratic senators, Bob Menéndez, Joe Manchin, Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján.

“Needless to say, I am honored by this nomination for a prestigious award, knowing that it is a remote possibility,” Richardson told The Hill newspaper on August 25. His nomination was backed by 14 letters from former hostages and their families, praising his role in their release.

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, lamented the death of the former governor of New Mexico on Friday. “He was a patriot and truly genuine, and he will not be forgotten,” the President said in a statement in which he reviewed the many milestones in Richardson’s life.

“Bill Richardson carried many heavyweight titles during his life,” Biden said in his message. “Few have served our nation in so many ways or with so much insistence, creativity and good cheer,” he added.

Former US President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also mourned Richardson’s death with a message in which they referred to the politician as “a masterful and persistent negotiator. He helped make our world a safer place and managed to free many people unjustly detained abroad,” the Clintons stated.

Bill Richardson was born in Pasadena, California, although he grew up in the Coyoacán neighborhood of the Mexican capital since his father, a banking executive of Anglo-American and Mexican descent, was stationed there. His mother was Mexican of Spanish origin.

As a child he was sent to study in the United States and later graduated in Political Science at Tufts University in 1970. From a very young age he began his political career as a Republican congressman. He also worked in the State Department with Henry Kissinger during the Richard Nixon Administration (1969-1974).

In 1982 he was elected congressman of the House of Representatives for New Mexico. He spent 14 years in Congress, where he met Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and began to get involved, circumstantially, in the negotiations to release hostages.

It was in 1994 when Clinton asked him to participate in the release of two American pilots whose helicopter was shot down in North Korean airspace, since Richardson was casually visiting the country.

In 1997, Clinton appointed him United States ambassador to the UN (1997-1998), and a year later, he was elected Secretary of Energy until the end of the Democratic president’s second term. He was the Hispanic politician who reached the highest position in those years.

Among the last tasks he performed, Richardson acted as a mediator in several prisoner exchanges between the United States and Russia, including basketball player Brittney Griner and American student Trevor Reed

At that time he also participated in several foreign policy missions, including a negotiation in Baghdad with Saddam Hussein to ensure the release of two American aerospace workers who had been captured by the Iraqis.

After the end of the Clinton Administration, in 2002, Richardson became the only Hispanic governor of the United States at that time and the fifth in the history of New Mexico, the state with the highest percentage of the country’s Latino population.

He was governor for two terms, and in 2008 he sought the Democratic candidacy for the Presidency but abandoned his campaign after the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries.

Married to his childhood friend Barbara Flavin, with whom he had a daughter, he is also the author of three books, including How to Sweet-Talk a Shark: Strategies and Stories from a Master Negotiator, and his participation as a commentator on different television channels such as CNN or Fox News was frequent.

In addition to the Richardson Center for Global Commitment, Richardson created the New Mexico Wildlife Preservation Foundation with actor Robert Redford, to protect wild horses.

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuba’s Political Prisoners and the People of Ukraine, Winners of the Pedro Luis Boitel 2023 Freedom Prize

A person looks at banners with photos of Cuban prisoners during a press conference in Miami, Florida, on May 16, 2023. (EFE/EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 29 August 2023 — The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance (ARC), which includes opposition organizations from inside and outside Cuba, announced this Tuesday that the Pedro Luis Boitel 2023 Freedom Prize was awarded to the 137 Cuban political prisoners and the Ukrainian people for defending their sovereignty against “Russian aggression.”

Established in 2001, the Boitel Prize is awarded every year by an international panel to an outstanding figure in the fight for freedom in Cuba or in the world.

The announcement of the winners was made in Kiev as part of the visit of a delegation from the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance and the Hemispheric Front for Freedom to express their solidarity with the cause of Ukrainian freedom and their rejection of “the participation of the Castroite Black Berets in the Russian aggression” against that country.

The award honors the memory of Pedro Luis Boitel, who fought against the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and then against the regime of Fidel Castro and died in 1972 after a 53-day hunger strike in a Cuban jail.

According to a statement from ARC, Alexander Merezhko, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Ukrainian Parliament, and MP Maryan Zablotsky participated in the announcement of the Boitel Prize winners. continue reading

“We support political prisoners in Cuba, especially women political prisoners, and we are happy that this year the Boitel award goes to women political prisoners in Cuba. We admire your courage and demand your release,” said Merezhko.

Zablotsky said that Ukrainians know well that communism, “an ideology that should not have existed,” “only leads to repression” and regretted that it persists in Cuba and other countries.

“You should know that we share your pain and your values. And I am sure that freedom always wins over darkness,” added the deputy, according to an ARC statement.

Salvadoran congressman Ricardo Godoy and Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, ARC coordinator, also addressed the announcement.

Gutiérrez recalled that in Kiev’s Maidan square “the recovery of sovereignty by the people of Ukraine began in the critical year of 2014,” with popular demonstrations and the action of the Armed Forces that prevented Russia from dominating Ukraine again and consolidated the democracy of the country.

“Maidan is a cry for freedom and a symbol of freedom for the entire world and it should also be for Cuba. It is in this alliance between the people and the patriotic Armed Forces that the hope for the liberation of Cuba lies,” he stressed.

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In Addition to Deepening Energy Cooperation With Cuba, Russia Will Sell It Meat and Dairy Products

Vicente de la O Levy, Minister of Energy and Mines of Cuba. (September 5)

14ymedio/EFE, Moscow, 30 August 2023 — Russia and Cuba will deepen bilateral cooperation, especially in the field of energy, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported today after a meeting held between the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Riabkov, and the Minister of Energy and Mines of the Island, Vicente de la O Levy.

According to the statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry, “during the meeting, which took place in an atmosphere of friendship and mutual understanding inherent in the Russian-Cuban dialogue, the strengthening of bilateral cooperation was addressed, particularly in the field of energy, in the spirit of establishing a strategic alliance.”

Moscow once again recognized Havana by confirming the “consistent position regarding the need for the immediate cessation of the commercial, economic and financial blockade of Cuba by the United States.”

The rest of the Russian industries that were already operating in the country were granted extensions for their operations

Last Tuesday, the Sputnik newscast agency announced the certification of nine Russian livestock companies, for a total of 23, that will be able to operate in Cuba. After inspection by the National Agricultural Health Center of the Island, three pork companies, two dairy and another four of meat products — pork, poultry and beef — will be able to market their continue reading

products in the Cuban market. The rest of the Russian industries that were already operating in the country were granted extensions for their operations.

The traditional relations between Russia and Cuba received a new impetus last May, after both countries endorsed the desire to strengthen the Russian financial and business presence on the Island with exemption from tariffs, land concessions and ties between their banking systems.

One of the most controversial measures was the delivery in usufruct, for 30 years, of land to Russian businessmen who wish to exploit it. The president of the Cuba-Russia Business Council, Boris Titov, then explained that among the concessions were “both the long-term lease of land and the tax-free import of agricultural machinery, the granting of the right to transfer profits in foreign currency and much more.

A high percentage of state land, for example 90%, should be sold to the national private sector

The Cuban economist Pedro Monreal then published on his X account (formerly known as Twitter) a critique of the strategic meaning of the package of measures for the national economy. “If it is about promoting entrepreneurs, then the game should be leveled for nationals,” he said, explaining that national production and support for Cuban entrepreneurs should be favored over foreign investors.

“A high percentage of state land, for example 90%, should be sold to the national private sector — independent owners and companies. In this way, “the private sector would have the possibility of negotiating directly with foreign entrepreneurs about the management of those lands,” rather than the State.

Despite the close political ties, in 2022 the bilateral trade exchange between Moscow and Havana was only 451 million dollars, a figure that the Russians want to improve.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Less Than 40 Percent of Havana’s Garbage Collection Teams Are Operational

Photos of the Lawton neighborhood in Havana, a few meters from the 30 de Noviembre polyclinic. (Cortesía)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 23 August 2023 — Less than 40% of Havana’s garbage collection equipment is currently operational, the official Cuban newspaper Granma reported Wednesday, an issue that has been the subject of criticism in recent months.

The governor of Havana, Yanet Hernández Pérez, offered this and other data in a meeting with representatives of the Government, in which she explained that only 39% of the 440 community service teams “keep working,” and that their “technical availability” is reduced to 40% due to the lack of “tires, rims and batteries” for the garbage collection vehicles.

She also indicated that 11 of the 29 garbage trucks of the Provincial Community Services Company are currently paralyzed.

Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, who chaired this meeting, urged the audience to “not leave Havana alone,” recalling its “complexity and magnitude” as the capital, and he asked “all municipalities” to “look for alternative solutions,” because in his opinion there is a lack of organizations, companies and economic actors to support these services.

According to Granma, Marrero insisted on “extreme organizational measures” for the collection of solid waste, because “in a city like Havana there has to be planning.”

The capital, with about two million inhabitants, generates around 23,814 cubic meters of waste daily, according to official data, of which more than two-thirds correspond to the activity of “home services and waste.” continue reading

The accumulation of garbage in the streets and the irregularity of the collection services have been reported on multiple occasions in recent months, mainly on social networks and in the independent media.

The frequency of collection has also been reduced, and sometimes, given the accumulated volume, it is carried out with excavators or cargo vehicles that allow waste to be dumped.

Cuba has been suffering a serious crisis for more than two years due to errors in national economic policy, which the State insists on attributing to the COVID-19 pandemic and the U.S. “blockade.”

Independent experts also point to bureaucratic problems, management failures, neglect and lack of human capital due to the heavy emigration experienced by the country.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Expansion of the BRICS: The Dawn of a New World Order?

Poster of the BRICS summit in South Africa. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Johannesburg, 26 August 2023 — BRICS, the group of emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), enjoyed the spotlight this week when announcing in Johannesburg the accession to the bloc of six countries, including Argentina, and left an unknown in the air: will that expansion mark the beginning of a new world order?

In the midst of enormous anticipation, the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, broke the news last Thursday to hundreds of journalists who crowded into a room at the Sandton Convention Center, in Johannesburg’s financial district, where the last day of the group’s XV Summit of Heads of State and Government took place.

The leaders of the bloc had approved access to the club of Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, which will become “full members” beginning on January 1, 2024, the president revealed.

Without clarifying the accession criteria, Ramaphosa specified that there is “a consensus on the first phase of this expansion process, and other phases will follow.”

Some forty countries had expressed the desire to join the bloc, according to South Africa, which this year holds the rotating presidency of the bloc, with formal requests received from 23 nations, including Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras and Venezuela. continue reading

Brazil, Russia, India and China created the BRICS in 2006, an informal club that was joined by South Africa (the S of the acronym) in 2010.

These countries represent more than 42% of the world’s population and 30% of the planet’s territory, as well as 23% of gross domestic product (GDP) and 18% of world trade.

Since then, the group, a champion of the Global South and scourge of the western global hegemony, had not opened its doors to anyone due to disagreements among its members.

China, the second global economy, bet very strongly on expanding the BRICS – which are eager for more weight in international institutions, dominated by the United States and Europe – because Beijing is looking for more geopolitical muscle against Washington, the world’s first economy.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, could not contain his euphoria and called the expansion “historic,” and his colleagues in the bloc joined in, although with more temperate assessments.

The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who bid for the entry of neighboring Argentina, welcomed the new members and said that “the BRICS will continue to be the engine of a more just world order.”

But, EFE asked, what does the expansion mean for that world order? “This is a historic moment (…) that can completely change the relationship of what we saw so far; that is, a unipolar world is passing very quickly to a multipolar world,” replied the famous Uruguayan journalist Jorge Gestoso, who has interviewed numerous international leaders in his long career.

Gestoso believes that the planet is heading towards a new international order but warns that the “unipolar world” is not going “to stand idly by (…), and we might see bumps in the road ahead.”

An expert in international policy, Sanusha Naidu, of the Institute for Global Dialogue of South Africa, was more cautious in statements to EFE. She does not necessarily see a new world order but does admit that the expansion of the BRICS alters “the dynamics of that world order by breaking down barriers.”

Although there is no doubt that the enlargement offers the bloc greater economic and political influence, it could also provoke new tensions between the members and the West, given the inclusion, for example, of Iran, a staunch enemy of the United States.

It should be remembered in this regard that Russia and Iran share a common cause in their fight against sanctions and the diplomatic isolation against them led by Washington, and that they deepened their economic ties after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The entry of Argentina, in addition, could generate problems in the group “because there is still the possibility of a change of government” in the country, Brazilian analyst Gustavo de Carvalho, of the South African Institute of International Affairs, told EFE.

The presidential candidate of the opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio [Together for Change], Patricia Bullrich, expressed on Thursday her “opposition position” to the entry of Argentina.

“Argentina, under our government, will not be in the BRICS,” Bullrich warned in a speech, referring to the general elections on October 22.

On the economic and commercial terrain, Gestoso pointed out that the expansion, which includes three major oil producers (Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates), could lead to a “tectonic movement” in the development of “a new financial architecture that can change the rules of the world’s game.”

In fact, this is where the BRICS have achieved their greatest success so far: the establishment of the New Development Bank, an organization inspired by the World Bank to finance infrastructure projects.

While the West digests the expansion of the BRICS, UN Secretary General António Guterres recalled on Thursday at the bloc summit that “today’s global governance structures reflect yesterday’s world,” and, therefore, “they must be reformed to reflect the current power and economic realities.”

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuban Baseball Player Jaider Suarez, 14, Flees to the Dominican Republic

At just 14 years old, Jaider Suárez connected three home runs and was the leader in stolen bases in the last U-15 National Championship. (@francysromeroFR)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 16 August 2023 — The home run leader of the last Cuban Under-15 National Championship, Jaider Miguel Suárez, took a flight to the Dominican Republic this week. According to journalist Francys Romero, he is already training at the Javier Rodríguez Academy and is preparing to be recruited by a U.S. Major League team in the international period of 2025.

At just 14 years old, the young man hit three home runs and was the leader in stolen bases in the last championship by getting 17, in addition to finishing with a batting average of 0.33%. “He produces (results) with consistency for any part of the terrain and is aggressive and competitive when he should be,” Romero characterized him.

The journalist also stressed that with the departure of Suárez there are 15 players who have emigrated from the team of 20 players from the Island who participated in the U-15 World Cup in 2022, which represents a new record.

Before Suárez, Alex Santiago, Pedro Danguillecourt, Dulieski Ferrán, Ernest Machado, Yosniel Menéndez, Roberto Peña, Segian Pérez, Alejandro Prieto, Danel Reyes, Ronald Terrero, Jonathan Valle, Yunior Villavicencio and Cristian Zamora left the Island. All under 15 years of age. continue reading

The constant flight of baseball players has had an impact on the quality of Cuban baseball. Last March, just after the World Classic, the Island’s team was in seventh place with 3,151 points from a list of 36 teams that was led by Japan (with 5,323 points), the United States (4,402) and Mexico (4,130).

This Tuesday, according to the ranking of the World Baseball and Softball Confederation, Cuba fell one place. With 2,880 points, it is now in eighth place, following the Netherlands (3,87) and Venezuela (3,744).

The sports authorities reported last Tuesday that Cuba will attend the 2023 Baseball Champions League of the Americas, to be held in Mérida (Yucatán, Mexico) from September 28 to October 1, with a selection of 25 players.

The Island’s team will participate in the event organized by the World Baseball Confederation (WBSC) along with three other league champion teams in the 2022 season: Mexico, Colombia and the United States.

The Island’s selection will be made up of players from the Alazanes team, from Granma province, winner of last year’s National Baseball Series title. It will have 15 reinforcement players from other teams, including some players who belong to the Leñadores de Las Tunas team, which last week won the crown of the 2023 national baseball championship.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Hope and Suspicion in Southern Mexico Over the New Migration Center Accord With the United States

Migrants remain hopeful of regularizing their documentation in the municipality of Tapachula, in the state of Chiapas (Mexico). (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Juan Manuel Blanco, Tapachula, 6 August 2023 — Restlessness and hope grow on Mexico’s border with Central America a week after Washington’s announcement about a new space in southern Mexico to process applications for asylum and employment of migrants seeking to go to the United States.

While some migrants hope to achieve the goal of reaching the United States, activists reject the next “multipurpose international space” of the Mexican Government in Tapachula, on the southern border, because it “denigrates” migrants with new bureaucratic burdens.

The Cuban Dadier Hernández Morfin told EFE that he hopes this center will help migrants reach the United States through legal channels and put an end to the risks and drama that they go through in their exodus.

“Through that we could fulfill our goals and dreams and know that all the sacrifice is not in vain, because it will help us a lot to easily reach the United States,” he said.

“Likewise, it would reduce the risks of migrants losing their lives, being kidnapped, being killed, having their money taken on the way and being tortured,” he added. continue reading

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed on Tuesday an agreement with the United States for that government to accept asylum applications from migrants who are already in Mexico, which in turn will install a “multipurpose international space” in the south of the country to serve migrants.

The United States announced last week that it will accept asylum requests from citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who are already in Mexico waiting to cross into the United States, according to an agreement after a meeting in Mexico City between an American delegation and López Obrador.

Despite the novelty, activist Luis Rey García Villagrán, director of the Center for Human Dignity (CDH), argued that the shelters are “denigrating,” and he questioned the usefulness of the new center, which he considered an imposition by the United States.

“The federal (Mexican) government has not yet defined whether this is true or not. We believe that the immigration policy of the United States is domineering. They always want to impose, and the only thing the federal government can do is give work to those who want to work,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rafael Alegría López, defender of the rights of migrants, remarked that a center of this magnitude must be a priority because Tapachula has become “an immigration prison” of corruption and violation of human rights suffered by migrants.

“The migratory flow that the city is experiencing is growing day by day. Three hundred, 400, 800, 2000, 3,000 or 4,000 of various nationalities arrive, so there should be a control when they enter the country,” he added.

The activist asked López Obrador’s government to fulfill its promise to employ migrants, as the president reiterated this week.

“This shelter could show good intention by the Government, but on the other hand it is worrying that, as the greater migratory flow is concentrated, services may become more expensive,” he considered.

The Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Bárcena, visited Tapachula on Thursday and warned that there are still no definitive details about the site, and she also awaits the collaboration of the UN and other international organizations to treat migrants in a dignified manner.

But García Villagrán commented that, with the new center, they put “let the foxes in the chicken coop,” in reference to the fact that human traffickers [polleros] and organized crime will use it to take advantage of migrants.

The Guatemalan Douglas Brayan Velázquez, whom the United States has deported four times, said that he will try to cross again, despite the risks.

“I would ask the United States Government to behave better with us because they treat us like criminals when we turn ourselves in to Migration. For them we are not emigrants, but criminals, and it’s really hard for us to take,” he complained.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Projectiles from the Spanish-Cuban-American War of 1898 are Recovered from Matanzas Bay in Cuba

Fresco depicting the naval battle that ended Spanish rule over Cuba in 1898. (Twitter)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, August 3, 2023 — Three projectiles related to the operations of the Spanish-Cuban-North American War* of 1898 that remained submerged in the waters of the Matanzas Bay (western Cuba) were recently rescued and submitted to a conservation process, Cuban state media revealed this Wednesday.

The vice president of the Cuban Speleological Society, Esteban Grau, explained that in order to extract the patrimonial projectiles, a “complex and extremely cautious” process had to be followed.

During the operations, innovative techniques such as photogrammetry were used to reconstruct and create virtual models of the marine space that allow detailed documentation of the place where each element was found, the specialist reported, quoted by the Cuban News Agency (ACN).

GPS was also used in conjunction with other digital devices to pinpoint the exact moment and time of the discovery.

The work was organized in two teams, one with the divers dedicated to marine activities and the other with land support for the assembly of ropes that allowed the extraction of the projectiles. It was also supported by the advice of specialists in the field of explosives from the Ministry of the Interior and the Revolutionary Armed Forces, according to the team member Judith Rodríguez. continue reading

The studies, carried out since 2022, determined that there were at least five of the explosives used in the battle reported on April 27, 1898, in the Matanzas Bay, during the contest between the US forces and the Spanish colonial defenses, according to archaeologist Odlanyer Hernández de Lara.

After remaining under the sea for 125 years, the projectiles will be subjected to a treatment for their conservation in order to avoid an increase in corrosion and to be able to exhibit them in museums, added the researcher.

The Spanish-Cuban-North American War was a warlike conflict that pitted the United States against Spain – from April to August 1898 – together with Spains overseas possessions in America and Asia, mainly Cuba and the Philippines.

This conflagration ended with the defeat of Spain and the loss of a large part of its colonies: Cuba and Puerto Rico (in the Caribbean Sea) and the Philippine Islands and the Micronesian Islands (in the Pacific Ocean).

*Translator’s note: US history books generally refer to this conflict as the “Spanish-American War.”

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Juan Pin: ‘The Fact That There Are No Tomatoes in Cuba Has Nothing To Do With the Blockade’

Pin Vilar speaks out against the decisions made by the cultural authorities and warns that this could even lead the country to lose a lot of money in court. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Juan Carlos Espinosa, Havana, August 2, 2023 — The unauthorized broadcast of the documentary La Habana de Fito, by director Juan Pin Vilar (Havana, 1963), in a Cuban state television program this June it has raised a storm inside and outside Cuba and provoked a closing of ranks of filmmakers against the Ministry of Culture.

The presentation of the most recent film by Pin Vilar – its filmmakers warn that it was not the definitive version – based on a series of interviews with the Argentine rocker Fito Páez, did not come out of nowhere.

In the program that published the documentary – in which the musician touched on sensitive issues such as the death penalty on the island – state television commentators criticized the artist’s words and insisted that he is “misinformed” about the country. Months before, the screening was canceled without prior notice in a Havana theater.

In an interview with EFE, Pin Vilar railed against the decisions made by the cultural authorities – “they have made a mess” – warning that this could even lead the country to lose a lot of money in the courts (the film still does not have permission from Sony) and regretted the censorship to which the sector is subjected.

According to Pin Vilar, Cuba’s Vice Minister of Culture, Fernando Rojas, “called him an hour before” to inform him of the broadcast of the program, despite the fact that the director had not given him permission in a previous phone call with the then director. of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), Ramón Samada, now dismissed.

“I told him that he had to consult (…) my producer, who is in Buenos Aires, and the distributors (also in the Argentine capital) said no (…) (I) explained to them that this could interrupt the route [of the tape] at festivals (…) However, they, in their heads like little and abusive children, said: “We’re going to put it on anyway,” the filmmaker condemned.

This episode was the seed that led to the creation of an independent assembly of filmmakers, whose first manifesto was signed by hundreds of people – among them Fernando Pérez and Jorge Perugorría – and the tacit support of cultural figures historically linked to the Cuban Government, like Silvio Rodríguez. continue reading

The assembly has sought since then to dialogue with the Ministry and has pushed an agenda that aims to end censorship, give filmmakers greater creative freedom and establish a film law.

However, this did not stop a pro-government barrage against Páez – and Pin Vilar – for having been critical of the island’s leaders and, among other things, insisting in the media that the Cuban state cannot blame the US economic embargo for all its ills.

“What astonishes me is not the censorship, [but] what liars they are (…) They begin to create a narrative trying to mix me with the counterrevolution, saying that the ideas that I use in the documentary coincide with a campaign against Cuba,” he says in an ironic tone.

Pin Vilar would not take even one comma away from the critics of the author of iconic songs like El amor después del amor [Love after love] against the Government.

“I am one of the people, like Fito, who thinks that the blockade is a damage that really exists. There is a financial persecution against Cuba… but the fact that there are no tomatoes or that three idiots make that decision (to censor the documentary) It has nothing to do with the blockade,” he concludes.

Nor does he understand those who, from the pro-government circles, justify decisions like the one made with his tape, arguing that Cuba is at war with the US: “It is unacceptable for a young man with half a brain to think that we are at war.”

What happened with La Habana de Fito, as well as the reaction it has provoked from the government – in recent weeks a working group was created to meet the union’s demands – does not give Pin Vilar much hope of change.

“Revolutions are made so that there are freedoms. That is why they triumph (…) Why you do it. It doesn’t matter if it’s the French, the Mexican, the Cuban, anyone. So, to the extent that those revolutions are becoming conservative, they are drifting into dictatorial States, because there is nothing more dictatorial than the conservative,” he argues.

The filmmaker also lamented the brain drain in Cuba, among other things, motivated by actions like the one he suffered with his feature film.

“The most brilliant of my generation are gone, like the most brilliant of this one. Instead of making a critical cinema and a cinema that mentions reality, [they try to make] a contemplative, silly cinema that doesn’t get anywhere,” he says.

The director is not afraid of possible reprisals for saying what he says without mincing words. Though he does admit that he has “concern” and “uncertainty.”

What leaves him calmer and more satisfied is the avalanche of solidarity that has overwhelmed him in recent weeks, especially from young people he doesn’t even know.

“It does excite me because that tells me that the solution to the problems or that the change, as some call it, is possible and probable from Cuba. Not from agendas induced from anywhere in the world, but from Cuba,” he concludes.

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Cuban Playwright Carlos Celdran’s Play About an ‘Intimate, Hidden and Transgressive’ Jose Marti Arrives in Miami

Scene from the play ’Hierro’ [Iron], by Carlos Celdrán, with actors Caleb Casas and Rachel Pastor. (EFE/Arca Images)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Ana Mengotti, Miami, 27 July 2023 – The Cuban playwright Carlos Celdrán, 2016 National Prizewinner for Theatre in his own country and currently resident in Spain, presents his play Hierro in Miami – a work centred on the Cuban war of independence hero José Martí (1853-1895), different from his “edited” biography but not demythologised.

“I’m not attempting to dismantle or criticise Martí, I love Martí. Hierro comes from a love for and identification with him; what I’m trying to do is present his human contradictions in order to understand him better”, Celdrán tells EFE, in the Miami Dade County Auditorium where the play, produced by Arca Images, has its U.S premiere next Thursday.

Hierro, is the title of a poem by Martí, Cuba’s “apostle and martyr”. Martí was a poet and essayist and the play centres on Martí’s private life, which has “not been seen on the stage nor is it discussed in school” – the life of a “great” but “ordinary” man who argues with his wife and even faces up to a possible affair.

Everything that takes place in the play happened in the United States, where Martí lived in exile, apart from interspersed scenes of journeys to other countries – from the beginning of the 1880’s until his return to Cuba in 1895, the year he was killed in combat, fighting against the Spanish military.

Celdrán first premiered this play in Havana in 2020 but performances were interrupted by the Covid pandemic. When Arca Images suggested he take it to Miami he didn’t think twice. continue reading

In the cast, headed by Caleb Casas, Daniel Romero, Claudia Valdés and Rachel Pastor, there are a number of actors from the original Cuban production.

Asked by EFE whether he thought that the Cubans in Miami and those on the island felt the same about Martí he said that the hero continues to be a unifying force. “I think that Marti’s ideology touches all Cubans wherever they are and whatever ideology they have”, he said, and remembers that Martí proposed a republic in which all Cubans would have a place, wherever they were and whatever politics they had.

In Hierro we shall see an “unedited and hidden” Martí, as previously his official biography has been “laundered and edited”, he says.

Though Hierro is performed in Spanish, English speaking audiences will also be able to enjoy the play, through simultaneous translation via wireless headphones.

This is not the first time that Celdrán (who founded Argos Teatro in Cuba in 1996 and has produced his own plays as well as those by Brecht, Beckett, Ibsen, Strindberg and other classical playwrights) has presented work in Miami.

His award winning play Diez millones [Ten Million] was also performed in this city, as well as in other U.S cities, whilst the playwright still lived in Cuba.

Now he is based in Madrid, where he has already presented another of his works, Discurso de agradecimiento [Expression of Gratitude], and is trying to make his mark in a city which, he says, is these days an “international theatre capital”.

The grandson of Spanish grandparents and a Spanish national, Celdrán is trying “not to move away” from his hallmark theatrical style. “What I try to do is work from the human perspective, but there is always a political and social backdrop”, he says.

He is working on a text that may possibly be performed next year in Miami and Spain – a country in which there are, he says, “a lot of stereotypical views” about Cuba, as well as extreme views about the revolution and the daily life of Cubans.

“Spanish people always have either a utopian view of Cuba or a critical one”, says Celdrán, who says that what interests him is that there is “empathy from the audience towards the characters”.

Stereotypes, says the playwright – “the first one would be the island of love, of good sex – they have prejudiced us a lot”.

I show the soul of the Cuban people, I fight against that obvious stereotype and sometimes people are surprised because they expect Cuba to be comical, to be lightweight, to be friendly”, he stresses.

Speaking of recent times in his country, he says that “it’s not easy making theatre in Cuba”, and not only because of the lack of economic resources.

“You’re always in a complicated dialogue with what’s censurable, with the limits of what you can say. And you evade it, you get over it, you go a little further in order to make theatre where you can escape from that confrontation”, he concludes.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Cuba Receives 58 Migrants Deported from the US, for a Total of 4,183 From Different Countries in 2023

The returned Cubans were received by the authorities in the port of Orozco, Bahía Honda (Artemisa). (@minint_cuba)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 29 June 2023 — On Friday, Cuba received a total of 58 nationals deported by the United States Coast Guard (USCG), for a total of 4,183 returns from different countries so far in 2023.

The deported Cubans – 49 men and nine women – participated in “three illegal exits from the country and were intercepted at sea,” according to a statement from the Ministry of the Interior. The deported Cubans were received by the island’s authorities in the port of Orozco (Bahía Honda, western province of Artemisa).

Two of the returned citizens were on probation serving criminal sanctions at the time of leaving the country and will be put before the corresponding courts for the revocation of that benefit.

Cuba and the US have a bilateral agreement so that all migrants who arrive by sea are returned to the island.

As of last November those arriving by air are also subject to return. Both countries agreed to resume deportation flights for “inadmissible” people held at the border with Mexico.

Returns by air between Cuba and the US had been suspended since December 2020.

During the current fiscal year, which began on 1 October 2022, more than 6,800 Cubans have been intercepted by the USCG on trips to the Florida coast.

The United States government announced this Friday that it will accept asylum requests from nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who are already in Mexico waiting to cross into US territory, in an attempt to clear the border on the Mexican side.

To apply for asylum in the United States, a person must show that they face persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a specific social or ethnic group.

Another program created by the administration of Democrat Joe Biden allows nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to apply for an immigration permit to enter the United States, but it only applies to those who arrive in the United States by plane and who have a sponsor who can prove they qualify, and who will help them in their adaptation to the country.

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