Juan Izquierdo – Translating Cuba

Poor, Abandoned and Unable To Emigrate to the US, the ‘Palestinians’ Survive in Havana

Without housing, formal employment, and a ration book, these internal migrants are “illegal” in their own country.

Many arrive in the capital, where they are required to meet legalization requirements which, in most cases, the eastern migrants cannot meet. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 17 July 2025 — Tens of thousands of Cubans are “illegal” in their own country, according to Government parameters, above all in Havana, the last stop for migrants who arrive from the east of the Island to escape extreme poverty and who don’t have the means to emigrate to the US or any other destination. Until yesterday, before the dismissal of the Minister of Labor, Marta Elena Feitó, they were also invisible or “disguised” as beggars.

Officialdom attributes the recent intensification of this migratory phenomenon “to a greater urbanization of society,” as stated by Antonio Ajas, director of the Center for Demographic Studies at the University of Havana, in comments reported by the State newspaper Granma on July 13. According to the expert, this is a natural trend in the country’s development process, where more and more people leave rural areas to settle in cities, especially in Havana, the main receiver of these displacements.

At first glance, Ajas’ explanation may seem reasonable: as cities grow, villages are emptied, and the countryside population gets older. However, attributing this phenomenon to “growing urbanization” ignores the social, economic and political context that gives rise to it. This is not a desired migration, a planned one or the product of progress, but the impoverishment and lack of prospects that push many Cubans to leave their places of origin in search of the minimum indispensable for survival. What Ajas describes as a process of urbanization is actually a desperate escape from poverty.

This reality has a face and a name, although not official. In popular Cuban language, especially in the capital, those who emigrate from the eastern provinces are called, in a derogatory way, Palestinians. The term — inherited from the idea of a displaced people, without land and without rights — has acquired a stigmatizing character. As a publication Acento notes, this phenomenon “is the result of institutional fragility in the countryside and the abandonment of rural areas, which push its inhabitants to wander around the country in a kind of contemporary nomadism.” continue reading

Unlike international displacements, these Cubans migrate within their own borders but suffer similar restrictions.

Unlike international displacements, these Cubans migrate within their own borders but suffer similar restrictions: discrimination, lack of access to housing, legal insecurity and almost total invisibility in public policies. Many arrive in Havana without a place to live, without formal employment, without a ration book, and in many cases, without being able to legalize their stay because of the still-existing restrictions of the home registration system. They are citizens of their own country but are treated as intruders.

To this situation is added a legal obstacle that further aggravates the vulnerability of internal migrants: regulations that prevent provincial Cubans from settling legally in Havana without express authorization. Decree 217 of 1997 imposes restrictions on moving to the capital, requiring a series of steps that, in most cases, eastern migrants cannot meet. This special permit system, inherited from a territorial control scheme, makes Havana a sort of restricted enclave within the country where not all citizens can legally reside.

In a 2016 article, the journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa managed to collect statements from several deported Palestinians: “I am your brother-in-law. Look, yesterday at noon they took Junior. But calm down, he did nothing. He was with me having lunch at the gate of Alfredo’s house, and a police car parked in front of us and asked for our identity cards. They saw that he was from Santiago de Cuba and arrested him.” Two buses leave Havana every Friday, each with 45 seats plus a monthly train, returning those people to their provinces of origin.

Decree 217, still in force in practice but not always applied with the same severity, contradicts the Cuban Constitution itself. Article 52 of the Constitution recognizes the right of every citizen to reside anywhere in the national territory. The paradox between constitutional letter and decreed regulations reveals a state that, instead of facilitating integration and equitable access to rights, imposes barriers that fuel exclusion.

The birth rate continues to fall, and population aging increases; more than 25% of Cubans are over 60 years old

Official figures confirm the extent of the phenomenon. According to recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (ONEI), the population of Cuba decreased by 307,961 people between 2023 and 2024, reaching 9,748,007 inhabitants, although the renowned economist and demographer Campos believes it has actually dropped to 8 million. The birth rate continues to fall, and the aging population increases; more than 25% of Cubans are over 60 years old. In parallel, more than 250,000 people emigrated abroad in 2024 alone. But what is not discussed enough is what happens inside the country: a massive internal movement from the provinces of the East and the Center to the West, with Havana as an almost obligatory destination.

Although it is also the main point of exit, the capital concentrates the bulk of internal migration. According to the ONEI, only Havana and its metropolitan area maintain positive population growth figures, precisely because of this constant flow of internal migrants. Meanwhile, provinces such as Las Tunas, Granma, Holguín and Guantánamo are losing inhabitants at an accelerated rate. In many of them, the loss of young people is alarming and threatens to render unviable local economic and social projects, already fragile after years of state divestment.

However, this forced migration is not limited to the movement from the countryside to the city. As Ajas himself points out, there is also displacement between rural areas: farmers who leave unproductive land in their municipality to settle in another where more land is available or better conditions. This movement, although less visible, reveals a logic of economic survival which has nothing to do with urban growth or modernization. It is simply the need to find a space where one can work and live with a minimum of stability.

There are no specific programs to accommodate, legalize and guarantee basic services for these people.

But the state still does not design a clear policy towards these internal migrants. The official discourse prefers to speak of “circularity,” “return” or a “rapprochement with the diaspora,” while ignoring those who, without leaving the country, are in a legal and social limbo. There are no specific programs to accommodate, legalize and guarantee basic services for these people. Access to the rationed market, children’s school enrollment, jobs and even health care for pregnant women becomes cumbersome for Palestinians. Nor is there a serious strategy to revitalize the countryside beyond slogans about “food sovereignty.”

The case of the Palestinians shows a double abandonment: that of their places of origin, emptied of opportunities, and that of their new destinations, where they are treated as second-class citizens. Rather than taking this reality seriously, the authorities present it as a “technical challenge” or a “natural process.”

But there is nothing natural about tens of thousands of Cubans being forced to leave everything to start from scratch, without state support, without minimum guarantees and bearing the burden of stigma. This is not urbanization. It is simply forced displacement.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The Cuban Regime Imposes a Leader on Freemasonry and Will Freeze Their Bank Accounts if They Reject Him

Cuba’s Ministry of Justice replaces the unruly José Ramón Viñas with the ‘babalawo’ Lázaro Cuesta

José Ramón Viñas and Lázaro Cuesta, during a Masonic act in Havana / Facebook / Gran Logia de Cuba

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, May 29, 2025 — The man that the Ministry of Justice wants to command the Supreme Council for the 33rd Degree – the highest authority of Freemasonry in Cuba, next to the Grand Lodge – is Lázaro Cuesta Valdés. The play is unsettling. This is a veteran Masonic leader, used to getting along with the government, who is also the head of the independent Cuban Yorubas.

The proposal that the Babalawo (High Priest) Freemason take over the reins of the Supreme Council is only a side effect of the letter signed on 27 May by the Association Directorate of the Ministry. Its declared objective is to revoke the re-election of José Ramón Viñas, who has been critical of the regime and monitored by State Security for years.

The schism between the Supreme Council and the Grand Lodge has been the great internal consequence of the crisis in which, since January last year, Freemasonry has been immersed on the island. It was Viñas who blamed Mario Urquía Carreño, former leader of the Grand Lodge, for stealing $19,000 from his own institution and allowing political police interference. After a year and a half, the fraternity is still divided, the scandal remains active, and “excommunications” have not been lacking on either side. continue reading

Recently arrived at the fraternity, Cuesta seems to agree with the proposal of the Ministry of Justice

Recently arrived at the fraternity, Cuesta seems to agree with the proposal of the Ministry of Justice. A letter with his signature – the same one that usually initiates the Letter of the Year of the Miguel Febles Commission – also circulates among the Cuban Masons. If the Masons obey this external directive, the Supreme Council will have a leader willing to get on well with the regime. If they do not, the Ministry threatens to revoke their official recognition as an association and freeze their bank accounts.

The reaction of Cuesta, of total compliance with the Ministry, is surprising, given that last January – in connection with the publication of the Letter of the Year – he refused to answer CiberCuba’s questions about the Masonic crisis. “The Letter of the Year Organizing Commission does not have among its purposes the ability to deal with issues arising in institutions or organizations outside our faith. I think it would be disrespectful of me to generate criteria or opinions,” he said at the time.

On the horns of a dilemma, several members of the Supreme Council have protested. The writer and independent journalist Ángel Santiesteban, recently expelled from the Grand Lodge, attributed the move to State Security and summarized the most recent attempts by the Government to interfere in the order: the protection of Urquía Carreño after the robbery; the controversial appointment of Mayker Filema, now also in dispute, as his successor; the infiltration of numerous agents into the Masonic ranks and now the decision to recognize Cuesta as leader of the Supreme Council.

“Freemasonry has been unable to stabilize for two years because of the constant violations of laws that state agencies ignore and others get around or misinterpret, blatantly, as if Masons do not have the capacity for intelligence,” he said.

Santiesteban demanded respect for the two recent elections held by the Masons, in an attempt to resolve the schism

Santiesteban demanded respect for the two recent elections held by the Masons, in an attempt to resolve the schism: that of Alberto Kessel, on May 25, as Grand Master – a decision that Filema rejected in a statement – and that of Viñas as Commander of the Supreme Council.

Other Masons have expressed themselves, sometimes anonymously, to say that Cuesta has been a man of the regime and an “active member of the Ministry of the Interior since 1990.” Others accuse him of corruption and suspect that the same person who already leads the Miguel Febles Commission of the Yorubas aspires to lead a high Masonic body.

The Commission, initially opposed to the ruling Yoruba Cultural Association, has been dropping its critical tone under Cuesta’s leadership, and two years ago it waited for Cubadebate to publish the official Letter of the Year before releasing its own. Many have attributed the delay to complicity between the two groups.

For his part, Viñas maintains his usual public silence on matters concerning Freemasonry. As explained last year to 14ymedio, he prefers not to make statements to the independent press about a crisis whose solution he considers the province of the Masons, not suitable for “profane” debate.

The current Commander has been in office for nine years, a term that the Ministry of Justice considers excessive and illegal, so leadership must fall back, they argue, to the Masonic leader who occupied the post before Viñas, meaning Cuesta.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

The Cuban Revolution Celebrates Its Agony This May 1st With a Lackluster Display

Tens of thousands of disaffected citizens were herded into a parade in front of Raúl Castro and President Díaz-Canel.

Decrepit, Raúl Castro and José Ramón Machado Ventura escort Miguel Díaz-Canel, wearing his tight-fitting national flag sweater. / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo/Juan Diego Rodríguez/José Lassa, Havana, 1 May 2025 — In a city drowned in garbage, like Havana, you can march on all sorts of things this May Day. Papers, shells, cans, and even Cuban flags scatter beneath your feet. They are the best symbol of a parade where apathy is as common as the slogans, and whose zero coordinate is the giant “abrasion” in Revolution Square.

On the platform, at the feet of JoséMartí, in a Masonic pose—as designed by Batista’s architects—the regime’s top brass also wave small flags. Decrepit, Raúl Castro and José Ramón Machado Ventura escort Miguel Díaz-Canel, in his overly-tight national flag sweater. Manuel Marrero in garish red, generals in a dry olive green, sweaty guayaberas: the colors of Castroism.

A crowd that the official press estimates at “almost a million” also passes by, poses for a photo, and continues walking under the Havana sun. The nearly 30 degrees of steamy heat that plagues the capital today hasn’t stopped a small group of elderly military personnel, displaying a sort of vest covered in medals, from enthusiastically waving their portraits of Fidel.

A “worker” parades alongside a solemn poster of Fidel, but his shorts feature rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine. / 14ymedio

If May Day is good for anything, it’s for creating picturesque symbolic convergences: a “worker” parades alongside a solemn poster of Fidel, but his shorts feature rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine—a great friend of the Revolution—making an obscene gesture. A clean-shaven man in running shoes rests next to a ragged beggar. Upside down and already forgotten next to the curb, a banner: “Together we create Cuba.”

14ymedio never misses the parade, but not to demand rights—the independent press doesn’t have them in a dictatorship—but to report in great detail on the carnival of reaffirmation of a regime that calls its workers together out of obligation, and that turns May Day into an event of pure pathos. continue reading

Early in the morning, Havana even resembles a city with electricity. “There was no blackout last night!” is repeated insistently by the crowd, like another slogan. The avenues leading to the “abrasion” were momentarily spared from the power outage so that drones from the Armed Forces, Cubadebate, and Granma could take photos of the umpteenth “historic occasion.”

Members of the police and the FAR [Army] spill onto the sidewalk, exhausted even before the march begins. / 14ymedio

The Cuban Television cameras—directed by the voiceover of Froilán Arencibia, the regime’s master of ceremonies—relentlessly focus on the section of the stands where the “friendly” diplomats are sheltering from the sun. Standing out among them are Hua Xin, the Chinese ambassador, and a large group of North Korean soldiers, for whom the atmosphere could not be more familiar.

On the street, the parade is seen in its true form: buses miraculously “appearing” to transport the participants, legs tired from a walk of several kilometers, half-asleep “proletarians” taking a nap on the curb, and garbage that is only a harbinger of the tons of waste that will remain in the streets after the event.

The trucks packed with “unionists” start rolling off, with a picture or banner plastered on their noses. The buses start rolling off with stickers designed and printed by the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department, which recently boasted on television that May Day was its time of plenty. The protocol cars, with tinted windows, start rolling off with the “high-class” leaders inside.

The trucks and buses carrying their “haul” heading to the parade. / 14ymedio

Since Wednesday, the Red Cross and other institutions have deployed medical tents and command posts. “We need to provide a lot of stretchers,” says a staff member. “With the number of people who will be arriving without breakfast, fainting spells will be common.”

This year is special, Cubadebate warns, because 25 years ago, an ailing Fidel Castro pronounced the “concept of Revolution,” an apostolic creed that officials repeat and canonically fail to fulfill: “change what must be changed” in the country of immobility; “full equality and freedom” with hundreds of political prisoners in the cells; “defend values” when those who express a dissenting opinion are imprisoned; “never lie” when corruption, violence, drug addiction, and despair are the order of the day.

Foreigners wait excitedly in the Plaza. They are the Revolution’s groupies, invited by the Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, headed by former spy Fernando González Llort. Americans, Latin Americans, Africans, Europeans… all shout slogans in support of a regime they don’t understand, yet support.

From early morning, after a night without a blackout, the main avenue was filled with thousands of people heading to the Plaza. / Cubadebate

Cubans are also marching—in large numbers, of course—but they know what awaits them when they return home: blackouts and hardships, which won’t be erased no matter how many signs and flags they wave, regardless of whether they’re Cuban, Palestinian, or from any “brother country.” Many wouldn’t know how to find Palestine or Vietnam on a map, but the order to support causes aligned with the regime has been given.<

There’s no shortage of Armed Forces cadets and Interior Ministry agents, cordoned off along the street in case any proletarian gets out of control and shouts the wrong slogan. They, too, are human and spill onto the sidewalk, exhausted even before the march begins. Others gamble, flirt with a female captain, or grab a cigarette from someone lucky enough to have a pack in their jacket.

When the event ends, another parade begins: that of the street sweepers. / 14ymedio

The march ends, and the soldiers look irritably at the contingent of foreigners. Even they don’t understand the outpouring. “Comrade,” a soldier says to a groupie leader, not sure if he understands, “thank you for your solidarity, but you need to leave.”

Now comes the next parade: that of the street sweepers, who throw their brooms at the holy cards of Díaz-Canel and Fidel that have been left on the ground. They gather the banners, gather the slogans, and mix them with the dust of the Plaza. They are little bundles of the Revolution that belong in the trash.

____________

‘Che’ Guevara Was Not at the Bay of Pigs and Nor Was Kennedy

The Argentine was injured in a strange incident in Pinar del Río, and the US president rejected the CIA’s plans.

A group of Cuban air defense soldiers. / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 19 April 2025 — The Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 is celebrated with reluctance on one side and remembered with disappointment on the other. This year has been an exception. Several events—the most powerful of which was the declassification of the “JFK Papers” in the Unites States—have fueled rumors about what really happened during those days when, for many, Fidel Castro consolidated his absolute authority.

Old historical issues have returned to public conversation: the strange absence of Ernesto Che Guevara in the defense against the 2506 Assault Brigade; the degree of responsibility of John F. Kennedy in the defeat of the invaders, who still call him a “traitor” to the Cuban cause; the initial disagreements and disputes within the regime’s high command; and, finally, the campaign of interference —discreet, though not secret—carried out by Castro in the region.

Luis Hernández Serrano, a heavyweight in pro-government journalism, came out this week to defend the official explanation for Guevara’s absence at Girón. The story couldn’t be more far-fetched, but it appears in several Cuban and foreign biographies, such as that of American Jon Lee Anderson.

Supposedly, Che Guevara shot himself accidentally on the eve of the attack, using his Soviet Stechkin pistol. The bullet hit him in the face. “I don’t know how it happened, but I dropped the pistol and it went off, that’s the absolute truth,” he explained to the surgeon who treated him, Orlando Fernández. continue reading

The fact that José Arigbay, the second-in-command in Pinar del Río, gave the doctors the news suggests that the incident took place somewhere in that province. According to Hernández Serrano, the emergency operation was also performed at the provincial hospital in Pinar del Río.

“The lead entered through his left cheek. They were going to examine the wound with a scalpel to determine its possible trajectory,” the surgeon said at the time. “There is no paralysis. There are no signs of neurological disorders. Nor has the duct that carries saliva from the parotid gland to the mouth been injured; not even the jawbone has been touched. The lead traveled the small stretch inside his face.”

Guevara in 1966, completely shaved, before traveling clandestinely to Bolivia. / Cubadebate

A 1966 photograph of Guevara, completely shaved, shows that if the shot actually occurred, it barely grazed him. The portrait suggests a wound, which is inconsistent with Hernández Serrano’s account of the gunshot wound. Anderson confirms that the incident took place, although he emphasizes that the real damage was not caused by the bullet, but by an antihistamine injection that caused toxic shock.

Hernández Serrano argues that this story should be retold because “false arguments have been said, written, and published on the subject, out of ignorance or malicious intent.” In reality, no one has published anything about it in recent weeks. The Bay of Pigs received extensive but chaotic media coverage, and even the surviving photos of the Cuban leadership barely show who is there and who is missing.

However, the author reacts against the “enemies of our socialist process” who claim that it was some kind of dispute with Fidel or Raúl Castro that caused Guevara, in a fit of anger, to disappear from the scene.

Artificial intelligence has its own explanation for the incident. When this newspaper asked Hernández Serrano the same question as the GPT Chat—”Why didn’t Che fight at Girón?”—it was clearer than the journalist.

“At that time, Che Guevara was in the Pinar del Río area, in western Cuba, leading a diversionary operation following a false landing warning in that region. During that deployment, there was an accident involving a Cuban patrol, in which several men were killed by friendly fire, an incident he later regretted.”

Needless to say, Hernández Serrano never alludes to this hunt for this “false lead” or to the accident in western Cuba. It wasn’t until April 20, when the fighting was already over, that Che went to the Bay of Pigs. Why? The official response is another reduction to absurdity: “He traveled to the arenas of combat just because.”

Using the guerrilla fighter who died in 1967 as a myth of the perfect revolutionary has been a constant practice, despite the ambiguity and confusion that characterize these “anecdotes.” The circumstances of the supposed discovery of his remains in Bolivia, for example, provide many reasons to doubt that the bones buried in the Santa Clara mausoleum are actually Guevara’s.

Several independent media outlets have taken the opportunity to return to another classic topic when discussing the Bay of Pigs: Kennedy’s “betrayal.”

But the anniversary hasn’t only been a topic of discussion on the island. Several independent media outlets have taken the opportunity to return to another classic topic when discussing the Bay of Pigs: Kennedy’s “betrayal” of the exiles.

The Democrat’s pusillanimity and his “manifest lack of audacity and leadership”—in the words of an exiled Cuban historian—have been the standard opinion of Kennedy among veterans of the invasion. However, a memo from presidential advisor Arthur Schlesinger, dated June 30, 1961, and published as part of the “Papers,” blames the CIA for the failure.

In 17 pages, Schlesinger offers a picture of the disorganization and failures of the military operation, denounces its complete lack of coordination with Washington’s policies, and urgently demands that its agents be called to account. These factors fatally damaged the invasion, since the CIA’s vision of the plan—excessively influenced by the opinions of the exiles—differed from that of the White House.

The agency claimed that Cuban support for Castro was low and that it would not be difficult to provoke an internal uprising. History proved them wrong, as at that time the leader’s popularity was at its highest.

“We have become prisoners of our own agents,” Schlesinger lamented.

“We have become prisoners of our own agents,” Schlesinger lamented, referring to the CIA’s pressure to get Washington to authorize its plans, despite disagreeing with them. Furthermore, while praising its top brass, he described its agents in the field—specifically those in contact with the invasion organizers—as “rough and even vicious” men whose actions provoked diplomatic consequences at the highest levels.

Cuba’s history took a radical turn in April 1961. Kennedy was assassinated two years later in Texas; Guevara was killed in Bolivia six years after that, thanks in part to the abandonment of Havana. It was just the beginning of an era in which Fidel Castro cleared his path of friends and enemies in his quest to become one of the most powerful men on the continent.

____________

New Revelations About Cuban Interference in Venezuela

According to a former Maduro bodyguard, Havana “eliminates any Venezuelan presence in the immediate surroundings” of the president.

Maduro, following the tradition of Cuban leaders, practices witchcraft rituals. / X/Nicolás Maduro

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 12 April 2025 — The revelations about Nicolás Maduro’s intimate life revealed this Friday by one of his bodyguards, Gustavo Graterol, are comparable to those published in 2014 by former Cuban military officer Juan Reinaldo Sánchez about Fidel Castro. Luxuries, Santeria practices, secret bunkers, and obsessive surveillance keep the heir to Chavismo alive, all under the diligent control of Havana.

This is what Graterol calls “the role of the Cubans” in Venezuela, referring to the military intelligence corps that monitors every move of Maduro and his lieutenants. The instructions of the Cuban nomenklatura not only guide the dictator’s movements in this world, but also—the former sergeant asserts—in the next.

During an interview with the newspaper El Nacional, Graterol confirmed what other sources had stated. Maduro, following the tradition of Cuban leaders, performs rituals that the former military officer couldn’t define, but which have all the characteristics of Yoruba rituals : “They killed chickens, drank blood, birds, dogs,” he lists.

The “Cuban witch doctors” who work for Caracas are in a computerized “database”

These practices “are common” in Miraflores, Graterol asserts—not without excitement—every Tuesday and Thursday. Maduro, his wife, Cilia Flores, generals, and ministers of the regime participate in them. The “Cuban witch doctors” who work for Caracas are in a computerized “database.” They are, he claims, responsible for removing bones from cemeteries, a requirement of the rituals of Palo Monte, another Afro-Cuban religion. continue reading

But Maduro doesn’t need the orishas that much to maintain his surveillance of Venezuelans. A “secret spy room,” equipped with 20 giant 76-inch screens and a modern communications system, in addition to the human component, keeps an eye on three targets: the Venezuelan people, “suspicious” members of the hierarchy, and Maduro himself.

Graterol defines the place as a “brain,” which is also controlled by Cuban soldiers dressed in Venezuelan uniforms. Also present—with voice but almost no vote—are the Minister of Defense and other members of the Army’s top brass. “They monitor all military and civilian personnel of the State,” he notes.

Cubans dominate Maduro’s inner circle—the successive “rings” of protection are similar to Castro’s—and their surveillance determines “every aspect of his life,” including his diet and sleeping arrangements. His cooks, nurses, and doctors are Cuban, Graterol warns, and “they eliminate any Venezuelan presence in his immediate surroundings.”

“They were put there because they had instructions from Cuba to monitor and spy on people and military personnel who say anything contrary to the government.”

“There is a Cuban official in each general command,” he explains. They are responsible for detecting and silencing high-ranking officials who “mutter” against Maduro. “They were placed there because they have instructions from Cuba to monitor and spy on people and military personnel who say anything against the government,” he summarizes.

The impregnability of Cuban management is even more evident, according to the former bodyguard, at Los Pinos, a secret residence that replaces the traditional presidential mansion. Undetectable, partly underground, surrounded by vegetation and mountains, it is supposedly hidden from any radar or satellite.

“You can search for it on Google and it won’t give you the location because it’s inside a mountain,” the former soldier claims. Six escape tunnels lead from it, with camouflaged entrances from a military hospital, the Bolívar Battalion headquarters, and other exits that no one knows about, “except for the soldiers in the first ring and the Cubans.”

Graterol has promised to continue speaking about Maduro in the future. A previously unknown figure, with an illustrious surname in Venezuela—and one of the oldest in the Americas—he has not revealed, however, how he escaped, and under what conditions, one of the key points of Chavismo’s security.

____________

The Expulsion of Writer Ángel Santiesteban Opens a New Crisis in Cuban Masonry

The case documents show the high level of politicization in the accusations.

Santiesteban has been on the front line of criticism about the infiltration of State Security in Masonry / Facebook/Ángel Santiesteban

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 10 April 2025 — A number of crimes against Freemasonry appear in the indictment of Ángel Santiesteban Prats before the Supreme Court of Masonic Justice. Writer, opponent, screenwriter and high-ranking Freemason, Santiesteban has been one of the most critical voices against the Regime and its historic infiltration into the brotherhood, a stance that places him back in the center of the storm.

After a period of suspension and a criminal session held on 20 March, the 58-year-old writer has just been expelled from the Grand Lodge. For the decision to be effective it must be approved by the High Masonic Chamber, something that Santiesteban – in a telephone conversation with this newspaper – hopes will not happen.

“Betrayal of the fraternity,” “violation of the dogmas,””contempt for the Grand Lodge,” “insulting a Freemason in a manner of contempt, disrepute and discredit,” “abuse of confidence”: the list goes on. The victim, the document claims, is the current Grand Master of the Cuban Masons, Maykel Filema, whom Santiesteban described to the independent press as “handpicked” by his predecessor.

“I said that Filema had been ’handpicked’ by Mario Urquía Carreño. He says it is a contemptuous way of treating the Grandmaster”

“I said that Filema had been “handpicked” by Mario Urquía Carreño. He says it is a contemptuous way of treating the Grand Master,” says Santiesteban. On the Island, the expression is also used to characterize Miguel Díaz-Canel, “handpicked” by Raul Castro, which gives it a particularly offensive connotation.

Filema was appointed by Urquía Carreño, the man who almost destroyed Cuban Freemasonry in 2024. After a year of tension and interventions by State Security, the unpopular Grand Master left office, putting Filema in continue reading

charge. Filema’s brief tenure has been equally unpopular and has been characterized by an apparent docility to the government.

Santiesteban has been on the front line of the criticism against Filema. He assures 14ymedio that the Grand Master does nothing but repeat the authoritarian attitudes of his predecessor, and that this led to a schism between the two grand instances of Cuban Freemasonry: the Grand Lodge and the Supreme Council of Degree 33, where both Santiesteban and José Ramón Viñas, a person of great interest for counterintelligence, hold managerial positions.

The present Masonic situation of Santiesteban is unusual: he is expelled from the so-called symbolic degrees – the hierarchy that includes Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason – but not from degrees 4 to 33, the highest rank.

A reading of the case documents, provided by Santiesteban to this newspaper, gives the measure of the high level of politicization in the accusations. The indictment mentions a meeting between the writer, along with his partner, freelance journalist Camila Acosta, and the US Embassy’s Business Manager in Cuba, Mike Hammer, last January. The document alleges that this meeting was Santiesteban’s pretext for not going to one of the oral hearings in order to defend himself against the accusations of the Grand Lodge.

Also, the Grand Lodge is not pleased that Santiesteban presents himself as a “masonic leader” to 14ymedio, Cubanet and Diario de Cuba, and serves as an occasional source for these media on the situation of the brotherhood. Santiesteban’s defense had argued before the Supreme Court that all opinions expressed in these media outlets were personal and motivated by the best of intentions. It was in vain.

Last year, both the Ministry of Justice and State Security took an interest in the conflict

Santiesteban’s case threatens to open a new episode of crisis in Cuban Freemasonry. Last year, both the Ministry of Justice and State Security were interested in the internal conflict of the order and knew how to exploit the schism between the Grand Lodge and the Supreme Council.

Santiesteban’s defense argued that the writer had every right, as a high-ranking official and member of Masonry, to be alert to the harassment and infiltration of counterintelligence and to denounce it, if necessary, in the profane sphere, as the Masons who do not belong to the brotherhood call it.

Meanwhile, the government has done nothing but strengthen its institutional dominance and surround Freemasonry, not just symbolically. Last January, a document signed by the Cuban prime minister, Manuel Marrero, reaffirmed the State’s ownership of several floors of the building of the Grand Lodge of Cuba, located on Carlos III Avenue in Havana.

The floors, confiscated by Fidel Castro in 1961 and now in the possession of the State telecommunications company Etecsa, are a strategic point to control the Masons: at all times, thanks to employees and officials, the communications and surveillance monopoly knows who enters and leaves the Grand Lodge, and with what intentions.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

‘Let There Be Light!: And the Light… (Went Out)’

The Garden of Passions, a museum of odds and ends created by a Cuban barber turned diplomat and spy

Wise sayings, reflections, commentary, fragments, doubts: all written upon a sheet of tin. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, José Lassa/Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 29 March 2025 – “An interesting and different kind of museum, created from throwaway objects transformed into beautiful sculptures that transmit messages full of moral lessons”. EcuRed’s [’Cuba’s Wikipedia’] perhaps rather simple definition, is, in a way, less eloquent than the unofficial names for the place it describes: The Museum of Junk, or Garden of the Passions. Also, we have: The Scrap Metal Gallery, or Gallo’s [’Cockerel’s’] Henhouse, along with many other variations on the name for the place created by Héctor Pascual Gallo, in the Alamar neighbourhood of Havana.

What’s significant is that EcuRed doesn’t even tell its readers who Gallo was – they have deleted the page which described the man who informed Fidel Castro – or at least so the legend goes – where Cuban exiles were going to land during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Born in eastern Havana in 1924, he was a barber, a diplomat, a spy and an artist, and he died in 2020.

After a whole lifetime – or several lifetimes, as he used to say – Gallo turned up in Alamar and began, aged over 80, a career in culture. One enormous and somewhat ghostly portrait of him is hung above the terrace inside the Garden. Another, signed by the Belgian artist Denis Meyer in 2019, is similarly fantasmagorical. Both represent Gallo as a sort of god of the place. And, in effect, it is his moral lessons – his passions – which populate the place.

A portrait signed by Belgian artist Denis Meyer in 2019 decorates the entrance. / 14ymedio

“I love white coffee more than anything else. Anything? Yes!”, says one of his commandments. “It’s good to know how to, and to be able to feed yourself”; “With time, beauty fades, but charm is accentuated”; “Putting something off doesn’t resolve it”; “Doing silly things doesn’t make you silly, unless it’s for more than 24 times a second (I was free for a minute)”. Wisdom, reflections, commentary, fragments, doubts: all written on bits of tin or wood and accompanied by arrows to keep you reading.

The most important thing about the Garden, however, is that it has the power to silence. In the land of rubbish tips, Gallo is the great organiser of rubbish, to which he attributes meaning, and history. The history of Cuba, no less. A mountain of cash registers, destroyed by rust, is the best symbol of the economic sinking of the country. A kind of Nganga cauldron, complete with forks and shells, recalls the incurable hunger of the Cuban people. One sign reads: “A verb most often used: resolve it. An expression most often heard: it’s not easy”.

A mountain of cash registers, destroyed by rust, is the best symbol of the economic sinking of the country. / 14ymedio

Picturesque and with an overall rusty brown hue, the Garden bursts its way into the daily life of Alamar. It’s impossible not to see it or hold an opinion about Gallo and his legend. No one knows exactly what to call the place, says Gertrudis, who lives close to the building with the giant portrait of the artist.

“They used to call it the Park of Junk. Perhaps it was after Gallo died that they named it Garden of the Passions. People know this street as Junk Street and everyone knows where it is”, she explains.

Ricardo, another person who grew up amongst Gallo’s trash, confirmed Gertrudis’s geographic reference: “Yes, they’d say ’Junk Street’. It’s part of his garden, where he turned all of his rubbish into a kind of love. Rubbish into Art. His granddaughter was at school with me actually. This part here is the old stock. Then it gets more organised as more objects were found. He was a journalist as well. A supercool old guy”.

’Brut Art’ by Cubans such as Gallo is currently on exhibition in a museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. / 14ymedio

For Gertrudis, a teacher who has lived in Alamar for years but has never actually been inside the Garden, the installation is connected with the so-called ’brut’ or ’deviant’ art movement. In fact, a number of works by Cubans who identify themselves as practitioners of this movement (one which might be defined as art created by people who aren’t, strictly speaking, artists), among them various works by Gallo, are being shown in Lausanne, Switzerland, this month.

“I find this kind of art quite interesting”, says Gertrudis. “I don’t know to what extent the people who create it have any artistic training, but yeah, it seems a pretty genuine movement to me. The materials they use are almost always re-used or recycled”.

On the question of what the Garden actually represents, its neighbours sum it up in one expression: “Daily objects which hold in themselves a sense of art”. / 14ymedio

On the question of what the Garden actually represents, Gertrudis sums it up in one expression: “Daily objects which hold in themselves a sense of art”. “Gallo transformed a space which, in itself, is quite boring. Alamar as a place is rather monotonous at times, and the idea of breaking with this physicality, with this architecturally ordered space – where, above all, there aren’t even any parks or other outstanding places either – is a great proposition, and its courage is rooted precisely in this”.

“Let there be light!: And the light… (went out)”, wrote Gallo on a signboard from 1993. More than 30 years have passed and the work appears just as fresh now as it did in the Special Period. At that time, forgotten by the regime which he had served, and apparently under Castro’s radar, Gallo made a place of creation out of poverty itself.

The goal is: to survive in this life, and in the next. “The difference between Goya and Gallo is just spelling”, says one of his aphorisms. “One is immortal, and the other is unmortal”.

Forgotten by the regime which he had served, and apparently under Castro’s radar, Gallo made a place of creation out of poverty itself. / 14ymedio

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

____________

The Garbage Has Destroyed Guanabacoa’s Great Treasure, Its Waters and Springs

In the midst of disaster and plague, a graffiti: “I am Fidel. Thank you for the country you left us.”

The scene of the garbage is so depressing that Yuliet prefers to keep the window closed, day and night. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, José Lassa / Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 6 April 2025 — What appeared first? The “I am Fidel” sign on a battered wall in Guanabacoa or the garbage dump located next to it? The hand that painted the slogan, popularized by the regime after the leader’s death in 2016, perhaps didn’t suspect that a rubbish pile and Castro could converge on that corner of the Havana municipality. Blurry, another message completes the irony: “Thank you for the country you left us.”

Guanabacoa is full of such signs, next to a pile of garbage or a sewage ditch. In some scenes, the vultures—with their wings spread out in a cross, like a child’s game—are exploring the waste or pecking at cans in the stream.

“Please dispose of waste in the water,” reads another sign near the Santa Rita Baths, once one of Havana’s most popular spas. One wonders whether such an absurd request had actually been erased by the damp on the wall. Thirty-nine-year-old Yuliet’s window overlooks one of the tributaries that lead to the place. The stench, at any time of day, is unbearable.

Graffiti — “I Am Fidel” — and trash in Guanabacoa, Havana. / 14ymedio

It’s enough to glance over it to see how the vultures and rats scratch among the puddles. The panorama is so depressing that Yuliet prefers to keep the window closed, day and night. “I keep it closed not only because of the smell, which in the end we get used to, but because the mosquitos are coming out of the toilet.”

Water, once clean and abundant, characterized Guanabacoa since time immemorial. Both the native people who gave the settlement its name and the settlers who arrived later decided that its baths and streams were the area’s greatest treasure. Before the Revolution, 11 of Cuba’s 27 water continue reading

bottling plants were located in Guanabacoa.

With its main resource contaminated beyond words, what was once its strength is now its weakness. Every stream, every well, every creek is an existing or potential source of disease. Garbage is taking over the land from Loma de la Cruz to Baños de Santa Rita, from the fields to the very center of the city.

A glance is enough to see how the vultures and rats dig through the puddles. / 14ymedio

“I love you, Yanisleidy,” reads the umpteenth graffiti next to a garbage dump. Fidel isn’t immune to the stench, but neither are declarations of love. The dump doesn’t believe in ideologies or feelings, and moves along with the increasingly turbid current that surrounds the hamlets and hills.

“People here don’t just go out and throw out the trash,” laments Juan, who arrived in the Mambí neighborhood from Las Tunas a decade ago. “They throw bags or whatever out the window, and it accumulates there until a good rain falls and washes away all the garbage.”

It’s a macabre sport that, with each “throw,” costs the city what little sanitation it has left. In defense of the residents, Juan claims the nearest trash container is six blocks away. “I used to use it,” he corrects himself: “It’s not there anymore. One day the Municipal Police came and took it away.”

In the residents’ minds there are two option: burn the trash or throw it in the stream, with the second considered ‘more hygienic.’ A cloudburst is the city’s only remaining ‘cleaning agent.’ When the rains come, the vultures hide under the trees, the rats drown or find a crack, and the trash floats away.

Guanabacoa is full of signs like this — ‘Please don’t throw the trash in the water’ — next to a pile of garbage or a sewage ditch. / 14ymedio

Caridad knows better than anyone that the downpour can wash away debris, but it’s deadly for those with low-lying yards. Less than a meter above the river level, the back of her house becomes a pool of rot when the current overflows. “It’s impossible to explain everything to my husband and I had to take out the patio,” she says.

“Some doctors came here to the neighborhood once, tested a couple of families, and left. No one else has come to check on our hygiene,” she says. Throughout the city, the feeling of helplessness is similar, fueled by the problems of drinking water shortages affecting all of Cuba.

The stench, at any time, is unbearable. / 14ymedio

A zinc sheet acts as a dike against the river. It doesn’t stop the dirty water or the diseases it brings, but at least it prevents the stink bombs from crossing the line into Caridad’s house.

When the rain subsides, she and her husband pile up the waste that has washed up on the patio. Loose or in bags, like the “paper boat” the children also play with, they throw all the rotten stuff back into the river. It’s a vicious cycle and also, the woman admits, a kind of revenge against the trash. Now it’ll be someone else’s problem.

____________

‘Collapse,’ the Ubiquitous Sign in Guanabacoa, a Town of Movie Theaters, Patriots, and Santeros

The Carral cinema-theater is one of the buildings that illustrates the town’s decline.

Painted green and blue on a lime background, the Carral Theater in Guanabacoa has closed its doors. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo / José Lassa, Havana, 30 March 2024 — Guanabacoa, the Havana town that gave the strongest battle to the English invaders in 1762, has not survived the neglect inflicted by the Revolution or the ravages of time. Home to Santería, famous for its history and its ancient nightlife, and the setting for vibrant, tropical novels, walking its streets today is despairing: the heat and poverty erode every wall.

The Carral cinema/theater is one of the buildings that illustrates the town’s decline. Its striking arches, somewhere between Baroque and Moorish, innocently mimic the grand buildings of the neighboring capital. Now, painted green and blue against a lime background, the building’s doors are closed.

The wide-open balconies on the second floor offer a certain sign of life. Like other buildings, the Carral is prime territory for another invasion, not of the English, but of what the prose of the state newspaper Granma calls “homeless” or “destitute.” Until very recently, however, films were shown inside.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 14ymedio (@14ymedio)

In front of the facade, Jenny recalls that it had been almost 15 years since she last entered El Carral. It was 2011, and Habanastation was premiering, a film that illustrated the differences between rich and poor Cuban children. The widespread poverty that has engulfed the country has quickly rendered the film outdated. “The theater was packed, and there were even people continue reading

sitting on the floor,” she recalls.

Carral and cinema are synonymous in her head. Jenny saw almost every Cuban film of the last 30 or 40 years there. Entre ciclones [Between Cyclones], Zafiros: locura azul [Zafiros: Blue Madness], El Benny, and Amor Vertical, she lists. And others she can’t even remember, plus clown shows, children’s matinees, and all kinds of screenings. “There were no DVDs back then,” she jokes.

There is a painful memory: the day in 1993 when the usher blocked her and a friend’s entrance. A huge line formed in front of the Carral Theater to see the movie. When it was finally their turn to enter, the man pointed to a sign: “Suitable for those over 16 only.” It was the premiere of Fresa y chocolate [Strawberry and Chocolate].

When it was finally their turn to enter, the man pointed to a sign: “Suitable for those over 16 only.” It was the premiere of Fresa y chocolate [Strawberry and Chocolate].

As a young woman in her twenties, Jenny says, she saw the Carral theater gradually lose its “capacity.” The projector, worn out by the years, began to fail. One day, the air conditioning also broke down. “They gave you a piece of cardboard at the entrance, and people would watch the movie, cooling off with the makeshift fan.”

El Carral is one of many buildings crushed by time. In similar conditions are the Casa de las Cadenas—a miniature of Havana’s mansions; the Fausto Theater, of which only the façade remains; and the Santo Domingo Convent, famous for an 18th-century anecdote: a drunken Englishman, during the invasion, tried to despoil the image of Saint Francis Xavier and steal a gold ring from his hand. He tried to climb onto the altar, but the saint stumbled and fell on the thief. The people of Guanabacoa celebrated his death as divine revenge for the desecration.

The only things that survive in the town are the government headquarters—the old Municipal Palace—the Casa Grande currency exchange store, and a new dollar store belonging to the Caribe chain. Gone are also the days when Guanabacoa was a sort of Vatican for Cuban santeros, like Palmira (Cienfuegos) or Cárdenas (Matanzas). The great Yoruba priests resided there, to whose authority all practitioners on the island submitted.

In 1958, when Fulgencio Batista called upon all human and divine powers to get rid of Fidel Castro, he called for a grand ceremony at the Guanabacoa stadium. His intention: for all the country’s santeros to unite in a common ritual. It was “a great egbó,” Guillermo Cabrera Infante, the best chronicler of this desperate ceremony, would later say. He was there accompanied by filmmaker Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

“The three dictators that republican Cuba has endured were or are witches,” the novelist commented, referring to Gerardo Machado, Batista, and Castro. It has been the same, with frequent consultations with their “godfathers” in Guanabacoa, for countless Cuban leaders, including the current ones.

But neither the orishas, nor Saint Francis Xavier, nor the mythical Pepe Antonio—an authoritarian leader who resisted the British—have saved Guanabacoa. The most devastating aspect of the site is not the decline of its main buildings, but of the other, no less historic, buildings where the architecture of the 18th and 19th centuries is still visible to Cubans today.

Ruins of the House of Chains, in Guanabacoa, a miniature of Havana’s mansions. / 14ymedio

These mansions, whose walls are now completely gray, covered in mold, scraped by scavengers, covered in graffiti and vines, are the true tragedy of the town. A young José Martí slept in one of them when he worked—unpaid—for the lawyer Miguel Francisco Viondi, who had been mayor of the town in 1879. “Danger,” reads a whitewashed sign next to the doorway which the patriot, exiled shortly after, crossed many times.

Other signs, on dozens of walls, send a message to passersby that could serve the entire city: “Collapse. Do not stand here.”

____________

Nicaraguan Freemasonry Follows in the Footsteps of the Cuban by Bending to the Ortega Regime

It is a small fraternity, but the Sandinista leaders want to dismantle it

Nicaraguan Freemasonry has not had an easy history / Grand Lodge of Nicaragua / Facebook

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 2 March 2025 — Cuba is not the only country where the relationship between Freemasonry and the Government is problematic. In Nicaragua, where the regime of Daniel Ortega has withdrawn the legal identity of more than 5,600 organizations, including Freemasonry, the fraternity has begun a laborious rapprochement with the Government. Its strategy: bend, allow former Sandinista politicians to occupy high positions and criticize the Freemasons who ask for “full democracy” for the continent.

The last episode of the controversy occurred on February 17, when the Inter-American Masonic Confederation (CMI) – a historic coalition of 94 fraternal organizations in 26 countries – met with the secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS) to discuss the deterioration of democracy in the region.

Rather than ingratiating themselves with Ortega, an ally of Nicolás Maduro and defender of his legitimacy after the 2024 elections, the highest Masonic authorities in Nicaragua expressed their indignation and resigned “unilaterally and irrevocably” from their membership in the IAMC.

“Breaking with the CMI is very serious: Nicaraguan Freemasonry has just harmed itself.” This is the assessment of Hiram, a Mason based in Managua who talks with 14ymedio about the schism, the State infiltration in Freemasonry and the regional situation – including the Cuban ups and downs – of the fraternity.

“Every Freemasonry is like a country: the Grand Master is the president; he has a secretary, chancellor, provincial and municipal lodges that are like departments and ministries. To break with the CMI is to isolate yourself, even for a small masonry.” continue reading

According to Hiram, Nicaraguan Freemasonry, burdened by exile, has fewer than 200 members. “And of those, many continue to leave.” The figure is minimal when compared to that of regional Masonic powers, such as Cuba, which currently has about 20,000 initiates and which, almost 10 years ago, had more than 27,000.

The letter of the Nicaraguan Masons, spread through internal channels of the fraternity, was initialed by the leaders of the Grand Lodge and the 33 degree Supreme Council – the two highest authorities in the country – and the Chapter of Freemasons of the Royal Arch, another high institution.

They protested against the “dangerous” meeting of the CMI with Luis Almagro, secretary of the OAS, “an organization that has long lost regional credibility.” According to the text, the CMI carried out an illegal and anti-Masonic act by asking the OAS “to intervene in the sovereign Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”

Maduro is the “constituted authority,” they argued, and not recognizing him shows a “lack of vision,” encouraged by the OAS. This organization, in turn, serves “the imperial interests of the United States of America,” they insisted, unravelling in concrete insults against the “tentacles” of Donald Trump’s Administration.

The decision was made to “cut all ties” and abandon its membership status. Indeed, the Grand Lodge of Nicaragua is no longer on the official membership list of the CMI, although the Nicaraguan flag remains on the logo.

In reality, the Open Letter to the Society – published by the CMI on its social networks and signed in Washington on February 14 – was limited to demanding “unity, action and commitment” towards Venezuela. They demanded “dialogue and joint action” from the Masons and the OAS to guarantee the restoration of democracy in the country.

None of the Nicaraguan or Venezuelan Masons signed the letter. Nor did any Cuban Mason.

“The CMI letter was born in the heat of the Venezuelan elections, in July of last year,” Hiram explains. “Venezuela’s Freemasons – some opponents of Maduro and others not – were going to demonstrate against the result, and the CMI asked them not to risk it and to write their own statement. At that time the Nicaraguan Masons also protested.”

In 2023, Ortega declared that Nicaragua was leaving the OAS, which the Foreign Ministry called “an interference organization of the decadent unipolar and hegemonic government” of the United States. Relations with the organization had been soured since 2018, when the regime repressed popular protests and imprisoned hundreds of demonstrators.

“What do the Masons demonstrate in this whole story? Why do they ingratiate themselves with the dictatorship?” asks Hiram

“What do the Masons demonstrate in this whole story? Why do they ingratiate themselves with the dictatorship?” asks Hiram. “The Government doesn’t care about Freemasonry. Last year, both the Grand Lodge and the Supreme Council were left without legal identity. Despite that, those who go along with it, including several former Sandinista politicians, are all trying to get closer to Ortega.”

Nicaraguan Freemasonry has not had an easy history. Many Freemasons, Hiram reflects, continue to talk about “Somoza’s Masonic betrayal of Sandino.” Both leaders, the revolutionary Augusto César Sandino – who died in an ambush in 1934 – and Anastasio Somoza, dictator for several terms, were Freemasons.

It was the National Guard, led by Somoza, that was responsible for Sandino’s death. Since a Mason is forbidden to kill another Mason, Sandino’s death violated the ethics of the order. “That’s why the Government has always alluded to Somoza’s ’masonic betrayal’ of Sandino,” says Hiram. It is a symbolic stain on the order that Ortega’s propaganda has been able to take advantage of.

“In my opinion, the Government has never launched a large-scale infiltration of Freemasonry,” he says. “But there are senior officials, such as the signatories of that letter, who try to hijack it for the Government. There are the historical toads (snitchers). There are few opponents left, but there are some of Ortega’s boot lickers. They want to convert the Lodge into a [political] party.

“But there are high officials, like the signatories of that letter, who try to hijack it for the Government”

The recent crisis of Cuban Freemasonry – still active – after the theft of 19,000 dollars from the office of the Grand Master, who tried at all costs to remain in power, was commented on in the Nicaraguan lodges. “We said, What is happening in Cuba? Why did a Grand Master leave the country in 2023? Why was that money lost? It was embarrassing, it seems incredible. But there was never a larger debate, just hallway comments,” says Hiram.

Due to its secret character in the 19th century, Freemasonry contributed to forging independence movements and fighting against dictatorships on the continent. Aware of that organizational power, regimes such as the Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan have done everything possible to dismantle it, or at least keep it at bay.

For Hiram, this libertarian sense is the DNA of the fraternity, which has been immune to all dictatorships, both external and internal.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Million-Dollar Waltz at the Habanos Festival, Supposedly for the Cuban Health System

The humidor auction that closed the event raised $17 million

The closing gala was enlivened by the legendary group Earth, Wind & Fire. / EFE

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo. Havana, 1 March 2025 — Two cedar drawers one atop the other, a giant Indian head – the Cohiba Behíke logo – and white squares on black varnish: this is the humidor auctioned this Friday for 4.6 million euros (4.7 million dollars) during the closing gala of the Habanos Festival. Never before had so much been paid for a cigar storage unit, whose exclusivity is based on a detail that the official press did not mention: the signature of Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Six other humidors – valuable but not signed by the president, a tradition established by Fidel Castro – were auctioned off during the dinner, for a total of 16.41 million euros (17 million dollars). They represented the major cigar brands: Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann, Partagás and Hoyo de Monterrey. According to some media the buyer, who was not identified, is Chinese.

The money, the official press insists goes to the island’s health system. In light of the Cuban health debacle and the total crisis in the country, few can believe this mantra that is repeated at each Festival.

Díaz-Canel was at the dinner, but unlike last year, there were hardly any photos circulating of him smoking among the guests or signing the humidor, gestures that caused great controversy at the last edition of the Festival. Also at the dinner were the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, and other members of the top brass of the regime. continue reading

The auctioned piece of furniture was not the only record broken by Habanos SA – the Cuban tobacco monopoly, shared by Cuba and Spain – which announced at the beginning of the week that it had had revenues of 827 million dollars in 2024, 106 million more than the previous year.

The auction which, in the past, Castro served as host of millionaires and sometimes served as auctioneer, is the most eagerly awaited event of the Festival, attended by tycoons and fans from around the world. Some of its participants were the first, albeit very discreet, guests of the new luxury hotel Iberostar, in the 42-story K Tower on 23rd Street, opposite the decaying Coppelia.

The closing gala – with entertainment by the legendary group Earth, Wind & Fire – was overshadowed, however, by the “intermediate” dinner that Habanos organized at the Capitol on Wednesday to present another luxury vitola, the H. Upmann Magnum 50. The adjectives that the company used to describe the event left no doubt about its character: “exclusive, refined, exquisite.”

The Salon of Lost Steps, once a place of debate and reflection on the Republic, was filled with 600 guests in tuxedos, overwhelmed by the play of light. No colored lights were spared on the dome of the Capitol, nor on the also gold-plated statue of the Republic, cast in 1928 by the Italian sculptor Angelo Zanelli.

“The place is the seat of our Parliament and is now used in images that resemble some kind of brothel from the 1950s”

The pro-government journalist and professor at the Faculty of Communication at the University of Havana, Ana Teresa Badía, harshly criticized the display. “What was the intention this Habanos Festival meant to convey? In a world in which the construction of public opinion is increasingly symbolic, this is very wrong. A serious error in political communication that buries the ideology that Cuba has defended. The place is the headquarters of our Parliament and now it is used in images that resemble a kind of brothel from the 1950s,” she wrote on her Facebook profile.

The painter Hermes Entenza, for his part, wrote: “The Habanos Festival, where glamour becomes ridiculous and extravagant, where the working people, who look at the building in dismay, do not even have cigarettes to smoke. Cuba in the Capitol, Cuba imprisoned by itself, moaning in the dark and feeling the walls of the beautiful building rumble to the sound of the empowered who have raised this movie to the level of a horror film… You have to have a very perverse mind to applaud this revelry.”

The immoderation marked both the making of the humidors and the vitolas. This was underlined by David Savona, director of Cigar Aficionado – the most recognized magazine in the sector – who was present at the Festival, who described step by step the hours it took him to finish the Cohiba Behíke BHK 58, the star of the night.

While the cigars and lights were lit in the Capitol, the country’s electricity deficit was 1,641 megawatts (MW). On Friday, while the multimillion-dollar auction was taking place in Pabexpo, west of the capital, the shortage was 1,625 MW. This Saturday, when the guests announced their return home with “cigars as gifts,” they left an Island submerged in blackout and with a deficit of 1,575 MW.

____________

Power Cuts and Rationed Sales of Books Spoil the Havana Book Fair

’Cuentos negros de Cuba’, by Lydia Cabrera, will be presented two days before the closing ceremony

A group of soldiers in different uniforms participate in an event at the Fair. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, José Lassa/Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 15 February 2025 — Dozens of soldiers from the Armed Forces, in everyday uniform, entered this Saturday through the great gate of the Morro-Cabaña complex together with hundreds of Havana readers. The two colonial fortresses, whose walls were used for three centuries by firing squads and as a prison, serve every February as the venue for the Book Fair, held this year in the midst of a crippling energy crisis.

The most important cultural event of the year was inaugurated despite the total paralysis of the country this weekend. With several days of blackouts lasting more than 24 hours, climbing both castles was for Havana residents an escape from reality, rather than a love of reading. However, the fair has made mediocrity a habit and the sun, which reverberates off the pavement with a heat typical of August, makes the trip a torture.

The Fair’s directors were clear: to fill the pavilions, they had to “scrape” the warehouses of the Cuban Book Institute in search of copies printed even decades ago. New releases, only those that – thanks to the work and grace of the mules – are sold by individuals, with titles of dubious quality and always at exorbitant prices.

In the central pavilion, readers look for news under a warm blue canvas. / 14ymedio

For those who do want a book to take home, disappointment has been the rule for years. The pavilions have also been subject to rationing and only one copy per person can be taken home. The “star” of the event, the relaunch of the so-called Biblioteca del Pueblo, is for sale in a limited-edition: for 50 pesos, after much jostling and displeasure, one could buy a single copy of La Edad de Oro or Winnie the Pooh. continue reading

“It looks like a Spanish-Literature book from high school,” said a young woman who managed to “hunt down” Cuentos negros de Cuba by Lydia Cabrera, the most sought-after book at the event because it is by an author that Fidel Castro censored for decades.

Cabrera’s book is one of the 10 books on sale from the Biblioteca del Pueblo. Some will have presentations, like this one –on Friday, February 21, two days before the closing ceremony– at the José Martí Memorial, one of the sub-venues of the fair. “It is a book with special treatment,” commented the employee of Editorial Oriente.

It has become a habit to go to the Fair to get the school supplies that the children need. / 14ymedio

“This is nothing like what it used to be,” said an elderly woman who was leaving La Cabaña at full speed, with two school notebooks under her arm, at 11 in the morning. On the old drawbridge, others were waiting their turn to enter. “This is torture,” cried a woman who had already been waiting for 50 minutes in line under the overwhelming sun.

The guards are not bothered by the ever-increasing number of people gathering around the castle. Ready to withstand the siege, in uniform and immune to any pleas, they manage the line in dribs and drabs.

In the central tent – where, in theory, the few new releases from the People’s Library are found – “there are only two cashiers, the others have not arrived due to transport.” That is the explanation that runs from voice to voice under the no less agonizing blue light of the canvas. Everyone wonders how a book industry can be financed whose most valuable opportunity to sell the product is wasted with little staff and few resources.

Nobody looks at what are jokingly known as “template copies,” those books that no one wants to buy because of their content – generally memoirs of generals or anthologies of Fidel Castro.

The other “permanent” books are those brought by the embassies or the guest country of this years fair, South Africa, which are almost decorative or at prices that Cubans automatically discard. There were also pavilions for Venezuela, Guatemala, Vietnam, Iran and the Sahrawi Arab Republic.

To get to any stationery store you have to beat the lines and be patient. / 14ymedio

It has also become a habit to go to the Fair to get the school supplies that the children need and a box of crayons to pamper them. This year you can buy 10 notebooks at 250 pesos each. Erasers are 200 pesos. To get any of these stationery items you have to withstand the lines and be patient.

Readers feel the only place they can be at a book fair in the best-sellers pavilion. The language spoken there is the dollar. A novel by the American Stephen King or a Harry Potter volume – as well as countless self-help pamphlets – can cost almost 40 dollars. “13,000 pesos for a book!” translates one reader, bringing the price down to the humble national currency.

“It would have to be a special edition or hardcover to cost that much,” said a young woman, familiar with the book market abroad. “They sell you Stephen King books as if it were his latest success, and those books they are selling are 40 years old.”

When the tours of the castle esplanade are over, readers face the last challenge of the Fair: returning to Havana. The operation is, in fact, worthy of a King horror novel, and cannot be resolved even with all the magic of Harry Potter.

Returning to Havana from the Morro-Cabaña complex can become an overwhelming “adventure”. / 14ymedio

____________

The Official Press Highlights the Forecasts of the Yoruba Association, Close to the Regime

With several Letters of the Year at their disposal, Cubans no longer know which ’orisha’ to trust

With official support, the Yoruba Culture Association holds numerous religious and cultural activities throughout the year. / Facebook/Yoruba Cultural Association

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 2 January 2025 — Cuban Santeros will have to decide this 2025, as in past years, which Letter of the Year they prefer to believe in. Forced by chance and probability, it is impossible for the snails thrown in Havana to offer the same prophecies as those consulted in Miami; or for the babalawos in exile, without the “theological” pressure of the Communist Party, to reveal the same truths as those who stayed on the Island.

The differences between the Letters of various groups of diviners are notable and will become even more pronounced when the “dissident” commissions, both in Cuba and abroad, publish their results. Suspiciously cautious, many babalawos hope that the first move will always be made by the Yoruba Cultural Association, and then accepted by the government and supported by the official press.

As happened last year, the Association spoke first – the meeting was held at dawn at its Havana headquarters, at Prado 615 – and Cubadebate was quick to spread the prophecies on Thursday. The year will be ruled by Changó, the warrior orisha who is associated with Santa Barbara, they say. There will be a season of “sadness and melancholy” and “vandalism and delinquency,” two almost unnecessary warnings: they are the continuation of a black year for Cubans. One of the symbols they use to sum up 2025 is eloquent: the “mass grave.”

One of the symbols they use to sum up 2025 is eloquent: the “mass grave”

The Recommendations, which tend to be the most politicized section of the Letter – and where the “retouches” demanded by the government are most evident – seem to give the orishas the go-ahead for increased surveillance and police activity. “Measures must be taken due to the intensification of continue reading

criminal acts,” they ask, in addition to “eliminating the accumulation of garbage and breeding grounds that facilitate the proliferation of epidemic diseases.”

As if it were a call for state economic caution, the Letter demands “a careful analysis of economic investments and their consequences.” They also urge greater attention to adolescents and young people, and to “care for and respect the integrity of marriage and family.” The babalawos emphasize that “because of a jar, the grave is opened.”

As if it were a call for state economic caution, the Letter demands “a careful analysis of economic investments and their consequences.

There are other details that do not invite optimism either. All kinds of diseases are predicted, particularly venereal and stomach diseases. There is a warning against eating pork – this meat “is indigestible: respect it” – and there is also a request not to steal money intended for the orishas, to reduce the consumption of alcohol and drugs, to be careful when speaking in front of children and to ask “for world peace.”

The babalawos who created the Letter, headed by the senior priest Antonio Sevilla, reminded believers that they have the support of the Board of Directors of the Association and the Councils of Senior Priests of the Republic of Cuba in all provinces and abroad, since the entity has small groups in several countries in the region, such as Mexico. The message is clear: their Letter is the legitimate one.

In a declared schism with the Association, the Miguel Febles Commission revealed this Wednesday an advance of the Letter that – as has become customary – will be published on January 4. In a handwritten page and published on their networks, they indicate that the year will be ruled not by Changó but by Odua, a powerful but lesser-known deity, who is syncretized with Jesus Christ himself.

The accompanying deity, which for the Association is Oshún, here is her antipode: Yewa, the goddess of cemeteries and the personification of death in Santeria. Despite these two ominous orishas, the Commission assures that 2025 will be a year of “advancement.”

For the exiled santeros, the regency of 2025 will not be in the hands of Changó or Odua, but of Oggún

Meanwhile, in Miami, the Kola Ifá Ocha Commission also published a preview of its Letter. For the exiled santeros, the regency of 2025 will not be in the hands of Changó or Odua, but of Oggún – the blacksmith orisha and rival of Santa Bárbara – and of Oyá, associated with the Virgin of Candelaria, and who, in Yoruba mythology, abandons Oggún for Changó.

Given such a variety of prophecies and recommendations, it will be up to each religious person to be guided by the group of priests to whom they confer the greatest authority. For Cubadebate and other official media, the bet is clear and the strategy is effective: by publishing the Letter of the Yoruba Association first, they put the others in check and take the first step in a confusion that has been repeated for years.

At the end of the day, the Cuban regime cares little about who makes the prophecy as long as it suits them. Cubadebate, which does not discriminate between religions and divination systems, also offers recommendations for the Chinese New Year on Thursday. Anyone who has lost faith in Changó, Oggún or Odua can always turn to the Wooden Snake, which predicts “creativity and adaptability”: qualities that, regardless of what they believe in, Cubans will have a great need of to get through 2025.

____________

The Independent Yorubas Dare To Foresee Dismissals ‘At the Highest Levels’ in Cuba

“The attachment to the past does not let us see present solutions, nor future plans,” warns the Miguel Febles Padrón Commission

The Miguel Febles Padrón Commission meets at its headquarters at 1509 Diez de Octubre Avenue, in Havana

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 3 January 2025 — Two predictions for 2025 – both political and social – stand out in the Letter of the Year prepared by the Cuban independent Yorubas this Thursday. The first, that there will be dismissals “at the highest levels”; the second, that crimes related to children and infant mortality will increase.

The Miguel Febles Padrón Commission, which meets at its headquarters on Avenida de Diez de Octubre 1509, in Havana, offered its Letter one day after the official Yoruba Cultural Association published its own. Both religious institutions, with similar prestige and seniority, are – after a brief period of union a few years ago – in full schism. The reason: the Government’s preference for the Association, which is totally loyal to it and whose Letter even mimics the official press.

More critical in other times, Miguel Febles has gradually lowered the tone of its “Events of social interest” and its “Recommendations” – the two sections that usually contain warnings against bad government and descriptions of the Cuban crisis.

More critical in other times, Miguel Febles has gradually lowered the tone of its “Events of social interest” and its “Recommendations”

The letter published this Thursday predicts that in 2025 – under the protection of two ominous orishas, Odua and Yewa, respectively incarnations of the divine king and death – there will be a drop in the birth rate and an increase in the abandonment of children. In addition, it foresees continue reading

no loss of jobs and says that violence will continue to rise in the country.

Coinciding with the Association, which asked this Wednesday to “eliminate the agglomeration of garbage and outbreaks that facilitate the proliferation of epidemic diseases,” Miguel Febles demands a total “sanitation” of the cities.

The Letter, which many exiled Cubans consider legitimate – because their babalawos have not been pressured by the Party when writing it – indicates that it will be a year of “new wars.” Other fragments, which could be interpreted as critical allusions to the Cuban leadership, are: “Do not repeat procedures that have turned out to be obsolete” and “The attachment to the past does not let us see present solutions, nor future plans.”

The election of the governing deities of the year also has a certain political connotation. Odua, a divinized ancient Yoruba king, is credited with the unification of several African kingdoms. Therefore, it is the orisha that grants authority to the rulers, without whose approval every mandate is doomed to failure.

Odua is the ’orisha’ that grants authority to the rulers, without whose approval every mandate is doomed to failure

Yewa, on the other hand, is a goddess of cemeteries and destiny. For the Yorubas, she is the one who “governs existence” and provides at a symbolic level – for believers – a powerful counterpoint to the power of Odua. In the message offered by the Letter, power and death go irretrievably together.

This Wednesday, the message of the Yoruba Association also had, against all odds, a certain critical flavor. They predicted a year of “sadness and melancholy” and “vandalism and crime,” two attributes of Cuban society so obvious that you don’t need fortune tellers to see them coming. The symbol that summarized the year – protected by Changó, according to this group – is the “common grave.”

“Measures must be taken for the intensification of criminal acts,” they asked, in addition to “analyzing well the economic investments and their consequences.” Like Miguel Febles, they urged paying more attention to adolescents and young people, and to “take care of and respect marital and family integrity.”

For its part, in Miami, the Kola Ifá Ocha Commission also published a preview of its Letter. For the exiled Santeros, the reign of 2025 will not be in the hands of Changó or Odua, but of Oggún – the orisha blacksmith and rival of Santa Barbara – and by Oyá, associated with the Virgen de la Candelaria, who in Yoruba mythology abandons Oggún for Changó.

Despite the variety of predictions, the Kola Ifá Ocha, the Yoruba Association and the Miguel Febles all have the same aspiration: to send a message urbi et orbi, “for Cuba and the world,” which is still the charter of behavior for hundreds of Cubans, no matter where they are.

Translated by Regina Anavy

________________

Faced With the Terrible Crisis That the Country Is Suffering, Cuban Bishops Choose Silence

The Catholic hierarchy has lost the moral authority it had before the Revolution and in the years that followed.

Bishops Juan Gabriel Diaz, Juan Garcia, Dionisio Garcia, Marcos Piran and Arturo Gonzalez, current president of the Conference. / Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 21 December 2024 — The Christmas message published this Thursday by the Cuban Episcopal Conference gives an indication of how much the tone has been lowered when it comes to questioning the government. An undisputed moral authority in times past, a bastion of freedom of expression in a country that has progressively become submerged in censorship, the Catholic Church now only dares to allude – with extreme timidity – to Cuba’s “difficult realities.”

Allegory and long circumlocutions, as well as never directly addressing the authorities, mark every message from the Cuban bishops since the protests of 11 July 2021. This Thursday, the text barely dared to regret the “too many” difficulties and warn that the Church can only provide one “service”: prayer, in addition to promoting “charitable and solidarity initiatives.”

Not confronting the government – which could complicate or suspend the entry of aid and money for the Church, take away the clergy’s import licenses for certain supplies, as well as their allocation of materials and fuel, and hinder the development of public celebrations – seems to be the code of conduct of the Catholic hierarchy on the Island. The cautious tone that defines each communication and the docility of some high-ranking ecclesiastical officials, such as the secretary of the Conference, Ariel Suárez, when meeting with officials of the Communist Party, demonstrate this.

The difference is notable if one compares a message like the one on Thursday with, for example, the Christmas message from the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Enrique Pérez Serantes, on December 24, 1958. This prelate, born in Spain in 1883, was the one who protected Fidel Castro after the attack on the Moncada barracks and ensured that his life and rights were respected.

Pérez Serantes, guided by another priest, during the National Catholic Congress of 1959, which Castro attended. / Ernesto Fernández/On Cuba

“In this province of Oriente we have been enduring the horrors of a civil war for a long time, without our brothers in a large part of the national territory apparently being properly informed, despite the fact that Oriente is home to a third of Cuba’s population,” Pérez Serantes’ message stated. “Let no one continue to have fun carefree, while millions of Cubans writhe and moan in anguish of intense pain and misery.”

The bishop, who openly criticized Fulgencio Batista, later became one of the fiercest opponents of the revolutionary regime. He was accompanied in the Episcopal Conference by other prelates who were no less “inconvenient” for the new authorities, such as Evelio Díaz, Eduardo Boza Masvidal – arrested and exiled in 1961 – and Adolfo Rodríguez.

In the face of the first steps of the Castro regime, Pérez Serantes and his companions quickly understood the direction the country would take and tried to warn about the loss of democratic values and the dismantling of the free society. continue reading

There were clashes and controversies on all the major issues of the time: agrarian reform, the nationalization of education, the confiscation of property and assets, and the communist turn of the Revolution, which caused the bishops to multiply their diatribes against Castro. The circulars and pastoral letters of the time, with titles as suggestive as “Rome or Moscow,” “Neither traitors nor pariahs” and “Problems of the moment,” were compiled during the Special Period in The Voice of the Church in Cuba, 100 Episcopal Documents, published in Mexico and distributed in Cuban parishes.

A phrase from Pérez Serantes encapsulates the atmosphere in the churches in the 1960s: “With communism, nothing, absolutely nothing.”

A phrase from Pérez Serantes encapsulates the atmosphere in the churches in the 1960s: “With communism, nothing, absolutely nothing.” Even then, the Episcopal Conference – which identified itself with “the Revolution that cost so much” – asked the Government for dialogue and not the imposition of an ideology.

The government did not sit idly by. In November 1960, in the letter Let us Live in Peace, the bishops lamented the “lack of civility” of some revolutionary groups, who burst into churches to shout slogans if a priest read a circular against communism.

By 1961, and despite protests directed at government institutions and Castro himself, the bishops were considered – in the words of Pérez Serantes – as “shepherds of those conspiring against the people” and protectors of “agents of counterrevolution and pillage.” This open letter is the last episcopal document included in The Voice of the Church in Cuba until 1969.

Harassed by State Security and with no media outlets to publish his letters, Pérez Serantes had died the previous year.

In the 1970s, a new generation of bishops began to arrive – most of whom were mentors to those who now hold the office – which changed the tone of the already all-powerful personal government of Castro. The rules of the game had changed definitively and the new prelates had understood, as priests, how far the political police were prepared to go.

Cardinal Jaime Ortega presiding over the funeral of Oswaldo Payá along with other high dignitaries of the Church in Havana. / EFE

The Christmas message in 1969 – very similar in tone to the one published this Thursday – is a sign of mistrust towards free speech. It called for “better understanding between different generations and between different ways of thinking.” That was all.

Having become accustomed to silence when it came to dealing with political issues, the bishops only referred to the country in 1973, with a condemnation – No to Terrorism – of the attack against the so-called Barbados Plane Flight 455. At that time, Pope Paul VI also sent his condolences to the families of the victims.

In 1978, they supported The Dialogue with the Cuban Community Abroad, a government initiative to attract those who had fled the Revolution and were willing to return to the Island. At that time, the bishops took the opportunity to ask Castro to release political prisoners and improve the situation of those released from prison, who had been marginalized from society even after serving their sentences.

A private note from the archbishop of Santiago – at that time, Pedro Meurice, no less combative than his predecessor and teacher – recommended in 1980 that priests and nuns support families who decided to emigrate through the port of Mariel.

The entire Special Period was spent in the search for a “climate” that was not free of tensions or difficulties.

Since 1990, and in particular since the middle of that decade – with the appointment of the Havana archbishop Jaime Ortega as cardinal – the tone of relations has consolidated its diplomatic nature. The entire Special Period has been spent in the search for a “climate” not free of tensions or difficulties.

In 1989, Castro told Prensa Latina that he was willing to receive Pope John Paul II, who was proud – always in “humble” terms – to have made his pontificate a war to the death against communism in his native Poland and the Soviet Union.

The test of fire for the Episcopal Conference in recent decades was the execution of Arnaldo Ochoa and three other soldiers. At that time, Ortega was the one who was calling the shots and could speak in his personal capacity. His condemnation of the death penalty was total and uncomfortable.

Requested in the late 1980s, Pope John Paul II’s visit to Cuba had to wait a decade. / Archbishopric of Santiago de Cuba.

They would return to the charge in 1992, regarding the irruption of the Rapid Response Brigades in liturgical celebrations in which opponents participated. El amor todo lo espera [Love hopes all things], the great pastoral letter of the time, in 1993, was also the last criticism of the general structure of the country. Accused of calling for a “bloodbath,” the letter earned them “a strong dose of aggressiveness” in the State newspaper Granma, they lamented.

In this “climate,” the long-awaited visit of the Pope had to wait almost ten years, until 1998.

“What should we do then? Raise our voices? Will they be heard?” asked the Cuban bishops in the 1980s. Their response: not to remain silent. Relatively immune – due to its international character – to a large-scale attack by the regime, the Episcopal Conference acted with aplomb and knew it had a voice. Now, to remain silent is to survive.

____________

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: