EFE – Page 9 – Translating Cuba

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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Portugal Will Contract for 200 to 300 Latin American Doctors and Says Their Rights Will be Respected

The medical brigades are one of the main sources of foreign currency for the Cuban government, despite being frequently pointed to as systems of forced labor. (EFE)

EFE/14ymedio, Lisbon, July 26, 2023 — The Portuguese government plans to hire between 200 and 300 doctors from different Latin American countries to perform functions in health centers and ensures that all the rights of professionals will be respected.

The Portuguese Minister of Health, Manuel Pizarro, confirmed these contracts today in an appearance in Parliament, where he clarified that the doctors contracted for will not only be from Cuba, as local media had previously published.

They will also come from Colombia and other countries that have the capacity to export healthcare workers, said the head of Health, who explained that their academic training will be recognized by a Portuguese university and they will enroll in the Portuguese College of Physicians.

Pizarro went to Parliament at the request of the Liberal Initiative, which wanted to question the minister about the hiring of Cuban professionals, since this party alleges that they work abroad in “slavery” conditions, through a Cuban state company that only gives them a part of the salary they receive from the Portuguese State. continue reading

“There are hundreds of companies of this type that operate in Portugal,” replied the minister, who pointed out that the Portuguese State will remunerate foreign doctors the same as Portuguese ones, but admitted that the Government does not control what these companies pay professionals.

And he assured that “human rights will be scrupulously respected.”

During Miguel Díaz-Canel’s visit to Portugal in mid-July, the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, had revealed his interest in hiring Cuban doctors after verifying the work that one of these contingents is doing in Italy. Initially, the service would be exercised for a period of three years.

According to the Portuguese outlet Jornal de Noticias , Rebelo de Sousa explained that the Cubans would collect their money without intervention from the Havana regime. The president said he had asked Cuba for a “different agreement than usual” to also pay those hired directly*. Supposedly, he managed to get the Cuban government to accept it, although the exact terms of the agreement are still unknown.

In addition, the Portuguese Government has already started procedures for these professionals to join the public system as soon as possible, taking into account the various steps that foreigners must go through outside the territory of the European Union before being considered fit.

To be authorized, doctors who come from third countries must undergo several tests, not only in medicine, but also in Portuguese, for example.

It is not the first time that Portugal has resorted to Cuban healthcare workers; in 2009 it welcomed 58 to reinforce the public network in the regions of Ribatejo (center), Alentejo and Algarve (south).

Some sources from the Portuguese Ministry of Health, consulted by the EFE news agency, indicated that the hiring of foreign health professionals is “complementary and transitory” and its objective is “to contribute to the adequate provision of human resources and response capacity” of the National Health Service.

In this sense, “joint work is underway between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education.”

According to the data provided by the portfolio, the Portuguese public system had 1,270 foreign doctors in 2022. Local media, for their part, reported that the total number of foreign health workers registered with the College of Physicians was 4,503.

Health is one of the sectors that has caused the most complaints in the last year, marked by a crisis in emergencies, especially in maternity and obstetrics, due to the lack of resources. Faced with pressure from the sector, the Portuguese Government has found an alternative in health contingents.

For the Cuban government, medical brigades sent abroad are one of the main sources of foreign currency for the, despite being frequently pointed to as systems of forced labor by international organizations such as Human Rights Watch or Prisoners Defenders. The United States also included Cuba in the list of countries that violate human rights.

The Cuban government has also been accused of using the contingents to maintain its influence in allied countries, such as Mexico, Italy, Qatar, Brazil, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei) calculated that, in 2021, the Cuban State collected 4.349 billion dollars for the export of health services to foreign governments.

In contrast, on the island, health services are deteriorating, not only due to a lack of health professionals, but also due to the shortage of basic medicines, which the government in Havana attributes to financing problems and the international supply of raw materials. On the other hand, infrastructure modernization investments are focused on tourist complexes, the bet to activate the compressed economy, while complaints about the precarious conditions in hospitals are increasingly frequent on social networks.

*Translator’s note: The common arrangement to date has been for foreign governments to pay the Cuban government directly for each worker, and from this the Cuban government pays each worker only a portion of the total — in some cases as little as 10% — and retains the rest.

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Cuban Opponent Otero Alcantara Confirms he Lifted His Hunger Strike After Weeks Incommunicado

The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara in a file image. (EFE)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, July 26, 2023 — Cuban opponent Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, in prison since 2021, lifted the hunger and thirst strike that began on July 6, sources close to the artist confirmed this Tuesday.

Otero Alcántara himself confirmed the news to his relatives through a telephone call from the Guanajay prison, where he is serving the sentence imposed on him in 2022 for the crimes of outrage against national symbols, public disorder and contempt.

It was the first time that the artist had communicated with his loved ones since July 6, which had caused concern about his state of health.

The art curator Yanelys Núñez told Diario de Cuba that, in her call, Otero Alcántara told her that he had been eating again for days, but that he still did not feel well physically or mentally .

“They were difficult days because he felt that his body was spiraling out of control with the strike,” said Núñez, who added that the opponent is already together with the other prisoners.

This is the sixth strike by the leader of the San Isidro Movement, who has been imprisoned since 11 July 2021 (11J), when he tried to join the anti-government protests that broke out that day in the country, the largest in decades.

In a previous protest, in April 2021, Otero Alcántara, 35, spent more than five days on a hunger and thirst strike, for which he was admitted to a Havana hospital.

Time Magazine included him among the 100 most influential people of 2021, while Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience.

In an interview with EFE published this Sunday, the art curator Claudia Genlui spoke about the conditions in which Otero Alcántara lives in prison. “There are days when he is in a better mood and there are days when it is difficult to accept this whole situation, especially when it is known that he is innocent,” said the activist.

In addition, she denounced the “constant psychological pressure” suffered by the opponent by State Security and the added “health problems” he suffers from prison conditions.

“Luis is a very strong person. He has incredible resistance and that keeps him afloat. He clings to art a lot, he is always creating,” he said.

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Anamely Ramos and Claudia Genlui, the Voices from Exile of the Cubans Otero Alcantara and Osorbo

Otero Alcántara (back) and Maykel Castillo (front) in Havana, when they were still free. (Anamely Ramos)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Juan Palop, Havana, July 24, 2023 — They talk about the exhaustion, the psychological damage, the pain of their exile, but also the need to remain strong for Cuban artists and activists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Osorbo, both in prison in Cuba.

In an interview with EFE, Cuban human rights defenders and art curators Anamely Ramos and Claudia Genlui explain the ups and downs of their situation – between frustration, uncertainty and hope – forced to live outside the island during the imprisonment of two close friends, colleagues in the dissident San Isidro Movement, who are considered “prisoners of conscience” by Amnesty International.

“We survive one day at a time, one week at a time, and one call at a time. And more than anything, try to stay strong, because something is clear: they see us as support and the least I feel that I can do is be strong for when he calls or for when he falls, to be there,” confesses Genlui.

This Cuban, who left her country almost two years ago, speaks twice a week with Otero Alcántara. The artist was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022, for insulting the symbols of the homeland, contempt and public disorder, although he was taken to prison when he tried to join the antigovernment protests of 11 July 2021 (11J). continue reading

Osorbo, who had been arrested two months earlier, was sentenced to nine years in prison for contempt, assault, public disorder and defamation of institutions and organizations, and heroes and martyrs, in a process questioned by human rights NGOs.

He is one of the authors of Patria y vida [Homeland and Life], the song critical of the Cuban system that paraphrases Fidel Castro’s slogan “Patria o muerte” [Homeland or Death]. Patria y vida became the slogan of the opposition and the 11J protests.

Juan Pappier, acting deputy director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch (HRW), applauds that Ramos and Genlui have “bravely raised their voices” for their colleagues. “If it weren’t for them, we would know much less about the humiliation to which these political prisoners have been subjected,” he adds.

Otero Alcántara and Osorbo, he continues, played a “leading” and “crucial” role in the protests in favor of democracy. “The regime has them imprisoned because it fears that with their art and music they can mobilize more Cubans to demand freedom,” he points out.

Ramos left for Mexico to study for a master’s degree after 11J and, when she tried to return to the island, she was denied entry without explanation, despite being within her rights as a Cuban citizen. She has been stranded in the United States ever since.

“I am still trying to adapt to being here. It has been a very hard process for me, because it was a forced exile, practically a banishment. Cuba is not giving in, it simply wants us out, as far as possible from the space of action and internal influence,” she says.

Ramos and Genlui agree when recounting the mood swings of Otero Alcántara and Osorbo in prison and how they influence them.

“There are days when he is in a better mood and there are days when it is difficult to take on this whole situation, especially when it is known that he is innocent,” says Genlui speaking of Otero Alcántara, and she denounces the “constant psychological pressure” from Security of the State and “health problems” due to prison conditions.

“Luis is a very strong person. He has incredible resistance and that keeps him afloat. He clings to art a lot, he is always creating,” she says.

Ramos, in a similar way, sees how the spirits of Osorbo –who a few days ago sewed his mouth shut in protest against ill-treatment in prison — “are changing all the time,” weighed down at times by illnesses, the “violence” in prison and “state security visits to humiliate him.”

Sometimes impotence appears. “When Maykel calls one day and tells you: ’Record this audio for me and keep it in case something happens’. ’But hey, what can happen?’ ’No, no: now I can’t explain it to you. Keep it there in case something happens ’ And when you hear him recording it, it’s a terrible scenario and you can’t do anything,” explains Ramos.

Going forward, everything is uncertainty. According to Ramos, there is the possibility that they will be released on the condition that they leave the country. Or that they remain in prison indefinitely, even beyond their sentences.

Genlui stresses that accepting freedom with exile, with the “psychological damage” it entails, “has been very difficult” for Otero Alcántara: “It is something that he still finds difficult to assimilate, beyond the fact that he sees it as the only alternative.”

“I really don’t know how Maykel is going to survive exile. It is to take the person completely out of the only comfort zone they have managed to have, from the affections they want to maintain and where they want to live. And take them out of the destiny that has been built. It is removing the person from the meaning of life that he has managed to find,” explains Ramos.

From abroad, both continue to disseminate the work of Otero Alcántara and Osorbo, and engage in activism in online networks so that the situation of the prisoners does not fall into oblivion, although they are aware of the difficulties of keeping their condemnation alive.

They consider that Cuba is “a factory for political prisoners” and fears that these prisoners could end up being used as a bargaining chip in some kind of international agreement. “The repression has not stopped,” they warn: “11J is not over. 11J is not history. 11J is happening. And if there is a protest again, the violence could be much greater.”

Ramos also refers to the problems to connect, from abroad, “with those who are inside” in Cuba and warns of the risk of exile “idealizing, even the evil.”

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President Diaz-Canel Denounces the ‘Dirty Campaign’ by the US Against Cuban Medical Missions

Cuban doctors stationed in Mexico, as part of the Henry Reeve Brigade. (Minrex)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, July 23, 2023 — On Saturday, Cuba President Miguel Díaz-Canel defended before the (unicameral) Parliament the missions of Cuban doctors abroad, despite the “dirty campaign” of the United States.

“Cuba’s international cooperation continues to develop as a legitimate and altruistic activity that we maintain despite the dirty campaign of the United States,” said the president when closing the parliamentary session.

In his speech, he did not offer more details about the criticism of the work of Cuban health personnel, but insisted that the critics’ purpose is to “deprive thousands of people in the world of quality medical services” offered by the islanders.

Previously, the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, spoke out against a call from the US government that “allocates millions in funds to promote a campaign against medical collaboration.”

“Without arguments, (the United States) once again resorts to slander to discredit the noble humanitarian and solidarity work of Cuba in support of the health of other peoples,” the foreign minister said on Twitter. continue reading

Rodríguez added on that social network that the neighboring country thus tries to “continue depriving Cuba of sources of economic income and encourages the theft of medical personnel trained by our country, with clearly subversive purposes.”

He considers the medical collaboration programs that the Island maintains in several countries “totally legitimate,” while he stressed that Washington “commits a crime by trying to deny or hinder it for political reasons.”

Official data put the number of Cubans in the health sector currently working in 56 nations at 23,792.

The US Department of State considers that Cuban medical missions abroad are “an indisputable case of forced labor.”

That is why on June 15 it announced that it was keeping Cuba on its “blacklist” of countries that do not meet the minimum standards in the fight against human trafficking.

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Eight Times More Cubans Applied for Asylum in Germany in the First Half of the Year

Cubans commonly buy ticked to places where they don’t need a visa and then ask for asylum in a different country on a stopover. (14ymedio)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Berlin, 23 July 2023 — The number of Cubans seeking asylum in Germany multiplied by eight during the first half of the year compared to the same period of 2022. “The number of asylum applications from Cuban nationals this year, as of July 2, 2023, has increased compared to the same period last year, from 73 to 607,” a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior confirmed to the newspaper Bild.

According to the media, Cubans use a mechanism that consists of buying a plane ticket to a destination for which they do not need a visa, for example Belgrade or Dubai, with a stopover in the German city of Frankfurt.

There, where transiting passengers do not need a visa, they appear at the Federal Police and apply for asylum.

According to the spokesman, in 2022, 302 Cubans were identified who mainly used this transiting privilege to apply for asylum. continue reading

He added that “not even half” of these Cubans follow the law; that is, they do not later show up at the corresponding center of the immigration office “after expressing their desire for asylum with the Federal Police” at the airport and registering their data.

The newspaper points out that about 300 Cubans have disappeared in this way.

“It is unacceptable that the Schengen border code can be undermined by a simple trick, with a stopover flight. The right of asylum and Schengen rights must be urgently reviewed,” demanded the head of the German police union, Heiko Teggatz, in statements to Bild.

The newspaper points out that about 95% of asylum applications submitted by Cuban citizens are rejected. In 2021, 38 asylum requests from Cubans were registered; last year, 187.

Bild also recounts the case of the González family — father, mother, and two children — and two other Cubans who had left Havana on May 27 on the Condor airline bound for Dubai via Frankfurt, where they were intercepted in the transiting area by the Police.

In statements to the Police, the woman confessed that they wanted to emigrate illegally to Spain, for which they had to seek asylum first in Germany. Then they would be picked up at the reception center by smugglers who would take them to Madrid by car, and who had charged them 25,000 euros (27,750 dollars) for the service.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Activist Maykel Osorbo Sews His Mouth Shut in Protest of Mistreatment in Jail

Cuban rapper Maykel Castillo “Osorbo”. (Facebook)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 18 July 2023 — Cuban artist and dissident, Maykel Castillo aka Osorbo, sentenced to nine years in prison, sewed his mouth last week as a sign of protest against his mistreatment in prison, according to statements made to EFE on Tuesday by sources close to the opponent.

The coauthor of Patria y Vida — anthem of the July 2021 antigovernment protests and winner of two Latin Grammies — sutured his lips last Wednesday. A nurse removed the sutures the next day, according to the same sources.

Similarly, they reported that the dissident was sent to a punishment cell after sharing graphic materials related to his protest.

Last week, Cuban activist Anamely Ramos, exiled in the U.S. had shared on her Facebook profile that Osorbo had tattooed “Patria y Vida” on his forearm and was threatening to sew his mouth shut as a gesture of protest against the mistreatment he’s suffered in the Kilo 5 y Medio prison in Pinar del Río, where he has been held for two years.

“If on Friday you don’t hear from me, you know what happened: plantado in a cell, with my mouth sewn. That is war!” warned the musician during a phone call he had with Ramos, who stated that up until that point Castillo had approached prison as a career in “resistence” and had focused on reinventing himself, reading and “connection” with his people, but now he demands “respect”. continue reading

Ramos reminded us that for months she has been informing on Castillo’s situation in prison, where he has suffered “all kinds of abuses” and recurring violations of his rights.

It isn’t the first time the rapper has sewn his mouth shut in protest against the government, he also did so in August 2020.

In June of last year, artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Osorbo were convicted and sentenced to five and nine years in prison, respectively.

Otero Alcántara and Castillo were punished for crimes of disrespecting national symbols, contempt, public disorder in the former’s case, and contempt, assault, public disorder and defamation of institutions and organizations, heroes and martyrs, in Osorbo’s case.

The court proceedings were not linked to the 2021 antigovernment protests, but rather to events that occurred on April 4, 2021. On that day, according to the prosecutor, Castillo clashed with some agents, apparently because his companion was not wearing a mask.

According to what has been shared on social media by several activists, Castillo ended his statement during the trial telling the magistrate: “I expect that the sentence you decide, your honor, be that of your conscience.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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The State BioCubaFarma Group Recognizes a Deficit of 40 Percent of Medicines in Cuba

A pharmacy on Enramadas Street in Santiago de Cuba. (14ymedio)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 18 July 2023 — The State Group of the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries (BioCubaFarma) recognized, on Tuesday, a deficit of 40% in the basic table of medicines in Cuba.

The president of the business group, Eduardo Martínez, explained in a session in the Cuban Parliament that the deficit currently includes 251 drugs, according to the Prensa Latina news agency.

Martínez said that the insufficiency covers imported and domestically produced medicines and pointed out problems with access to financing due to the direct effects of the United States economic embargo.

He mentioned in this regard that the usual suppliers stopped supplying due to the embargo, to which is added the global deficit of some raw materials and materials for pharmaceutical use.

There are no raw materials or the materials necessary for production, said the director of the pharmaceutical group in charge of supplying 369 basic medicines to the national health system. continue reading

Last May, the director of Operations and Technology of BioCubaFarma, Rita María García, told the official press that the plant – which is allocated 60% of the production of basic medicines at the national level – managed to reactivate some drug production lines of medications in high-demand among the population, with the arrival of inputs purchased by the Government and other “managements,” without specifying whether they corresponded to donations.

Among the drugs that were to be manufactured again are the injectables of aminophylline, labetalol, fenoterol and morphine of 10 and 20 milligrams (mg), of wide hospital use for patients in intensive care. The laboratories dedicated to the manufacture of these drugs were paralyzed for almost four months because they did not have containers — such as ampules, plungers or casings — due to the shortage of glass.

BioCubaFarma has 46 companies, 115 production lines and more than 19,000 workers, according to Prensa Latina.

The shortage of basic products, such as food and medicines, was one of the main economic elements in the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021, the largest in decades.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cristina Vives, Independent Art Curator in Cuba: ‘What We Do Is Seen With Suspicion’

Vives reports that in 2014 they realized that they had to be more “aggressive” publicly and decided to position themselves on social networks. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Laura Becquer, Havana, 16 July 2023 — – Promoting art independently and privately in Cuba continues to be seen with “suspicion” and leaves those who are dedicated to that activity in a certain situation of “vulnerability,” says curator Cristina Vives, with 30 years of experience in the sector, speaking in an interview with EFE.

“Thirty years after being independent and successful, what we do is viewed with suspicion, and that is directly proportional to being controlled, observed and questioned all the time,” says Vives from her studio in Havana, a magnet in the country’s art world.

This family project, which began with Vives and her husband, the renowned Cuban photographer José Alberto Figueroa, arose in the midst of the deep crisis of the Special Period of the 90s in Cuba. Now it also includes their daughter, Cristina Figueroa.

For Vives, going beyond the framework of state institutions at that time, with the collapse of the socialist bloc in Europe and the economic, political and social bewilderment that it meant for Cuba, was a “suicidal leap.” But she has “never” regretted the decision.

“Since the end of the 80s there was a galloping crisis of cultural institutions in which many of the most prominent artists left the country looking for other paths, avoiding censorship and creative limitations. Everything was in decline,” she recalls. continue reading

It is in that panorama that Vives and Figueroa set up a studio in their apartment in the Havana neighborhood of Vedado, an initiative that is currently a benchmark for the private management of contemporary art on the Island.

“We surround ourselves with the most outstanding, novel, groundbreaking and curious of Cuban art of the 90s, and we fill the space with works of young creators such as Tania Bruguera, Belkys Ayón and Raúl Cordero, among others, who left the Art Institute between 1992 and 1994,” Vives says.

She emphasizes that the studio, later named Figueroa-Vives, also arose from the “frustration of a great attempt to collaborate with the cultural institutions. That’s when we said, ’no more’.”

“The years have passed, and it’s no surprise how we think and act. We can be uncomfortable, but now they’re used to it; there is more tolerance,” she continues.

Her trajectory, with a dozen exhibitions in Cuba and other countries, several explorations and a network of collaborators, does not guarantee anything. “We continue to walk a tightrope,” says this Cuban curator.

“We will always be vulnerable, as long as we are not a recognized, legally respected and supported institution,” laments Vives, who, even so, specifies that “if there is something to defend, it is the ability not to be afraid.”

Despite the three decades that have passed, Vives establishes comparisons between the current situation and that of its beginnings. Now, she points out, there are “sensitive loopholes in cultural leadership and in the strength of the institutions,” something that, together with the “almost massive exodus of a lot of artistic talent,” reminds her of the Special Period.

“Second acts (of a crisis) are impossible to resist,” comments the curator, who talks about the need to reinvent herself and the feeling of continuing to move in a “space of vulnerability.”

Vives feels that now “it is easier” for them to dialogue with the new generations who run some cultural institutions of the Cuban State because “they come with a spirit where ideological guilt does not touch them.”

They are not so contaminated,” says her daughter, who is in charge of the online shows of the family art studio.

In 2014 they realized that they had to be more “aggressive” publicly and decided to position themselves on social networks and manage a website so that their message reached many more people and could connect with more galleries on and off the Island.

“If you believe in art, you support it. And we have done that by trying to unite our ability to curate exhibitions with the help of entities like the Embassy of Norway and that of Spain, which have supported us a lot,” she explains.

This collaboration has allowed them to achieve visibility even outside Cuba and also to maintain the projects, says Figueroa, who points out the recent joint exhibitions between artists from the Island and the Spanish studio Nave Oporto.

Both have a very clear purpose 30 years after throwing themselves into this “suicide”: “To get the (artists) who are (in Cuba) to breathe and produce, and those who have left to return.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Panama Will Give Two-Year Residence Permits to Cubans and Other Irregular Migrants

A crowd of Cubans planted in front of the Embassy of Panama in Havana, in March 2022. (14ymedio)

14ymedio/EFE, Madrid, July 17, 2023 — Cubans who have been living in Panama irregularly for at least a year can, like other foreigners in the same situation, obtain a “temporary protection permit” beginning on Monday.

As announced by the Panamanian National Migration Service (SNM) on Friday, the permit will give immigration status for a period of no longer than two years.

“This temporary permit is intended to provide protection to the irregular migrant population that is in a vulnerable condition, subject to risks and dangers from the smuggling of migrants and the different forms of human trafficking,” said the SNM.

All foreigners, without distinction of nationality, who have remained in the country for a period of not less than one year will be eligible. Appointments to start the procedure can be requested from this Monday, July 17, through the SNM website.

“People benefiting from this permit will be able to reside in Panama for two years, complying with the tax, social security, health and legal obligations required,” said the official statement, which does not specify the cost of this visa. continue reading

Before the expiration of this temporary permit, beneficiaries must make the change of status for one of the migratory categories in force in the country, the letter added.

The official information also clarified that “every foreigner who maintains a valid passport and meets the requirements required by the rule will be able to opt” for the new permit.

Panama has 4.2 million inhabitants, and there are 249,000 foreigners, about 6% of the population, according to the results of the national census carried out in 2023.

The Central American country, economically strong in the last decade, received thousands of foreigners, especially Venezuelans fleeing the crisis in their country, who were able to obtain a temporary migratory status through the Crisol de Razas program, highly criticized by xenophobic nationalist sectors.

The country allowed the free transit of Cuban travelers until March 2022, when it announced the establishment of visas. In those days, the migratory exodus was beginning its peak, and Panama was one of the trampolines for the citizens of the Island on their route to the United States via Nicaragua, which four months earlier had announced a visa waiver.

Panama’s decision caused strong protests from those who already had purchased their tickets and could not change them without losing their money. After three days planted in front of the Panamanian embassy in Havana, hundreds of them who were traveling up to March 16 managed to be exempted from the visa requirement.

The cost of the visa is 50 dollars and allows a stay of 24 hours in transit.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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