Category: Juan Juan Almeida

According to the constitution currently in force on the island, the Cuban state guarantees free medical attention to the population as one of the fundamental social paradigms; but the Healthcare system is suffering the restrictive effects of lack of resources because of the economic crisis, neglect, corruption and negligence, which among other things is a consequence of political mistakes.

“The politics of the country stipulate that the attention of every dental clinic should be free from payment; but then there is what we experience,” explains a professor of the fames institutions, who prefers to remain incognito, because to survive he has, at home, an old dental chair, a light and a pedal machine.

“Unless it’s an emergency, getting a regular appointment is very complicated and the receptionists charge for facilitating it. We have to live,” he breathes deeply and recites his price list. “For a mouth exam, prophylaxis, a light filling and a clinic diagnosis — 15 CUC. We visit many patients, the majority with chewing problems, gingivitis, periodontal disease. These conditions require long treatments, and this case they cost 2 to 10 CUC per visit. There are more expensive ones that require complex operations that in some other country would cost around $10,000 or more. Of course, the difficulties of the country force us to tell patients that to avoid problems they should bring their own anesthesia and the braces should they need orthodontic treatment.”

“Our prices,” concludes the professional, “vary depending on the patient. If it’s a Cuban living in Cuba, a Cuban living abroad, or a foreigner.”

“According to our documents, there are several ongoing investigations. On the one hand, those presumed guilty remain silent for fear of reprisals. On the other hand, the victims being questioned — people willing to assist in the investigation — allege they consented to bribery by CNAE officials in order to emigrate safely. Everything points to the government as the sole culprit because it has not been able to provide them with the opportunity to have a decent life or a decent job.”

“Passing judgement should not be a political issue and we aren’t even at that stage yet. The question is: Did the people who committed these crimes do so in every case with the consent and for the benefit of those affected? Does it make sense to continue exploring the causes of the problem when we all know what the solution is? Whom does it harm? The law will have to wait but I imagine that in the end the case will be dismissed.”

Founded on April 1, 1989, the National Council of the Performing Arts is a legally recognized, financially independent cultural institution whose mission is to promote the development of theater, dance, pantomime, humor and the circus. All these categories were used as a ruse by non-artists to escape the fiefdom. For the time being, CNEA’s practice of issuing exit visas is “on hold” and the documents are in the possession of the state prosecutor after being seized as evidence.

Some members of the council have been temporarily suspended from their jobs. All of them are under investigation, accused of issuing visas and emigration documents to people with no formal connection to the institution who paid 90 to 300 CUC to secure a safe and guaranteed escape.

A former employee of the Ministry of the Interior — someone fired for political reasons who is now self-employed — notes with no small degree of irony, “Investigators are doing everything possible to keep news like this away from people like you because the consequences could be wide ranging.”

These post-trial developments are at odds with normal legal procedures. Though accused on May 9 of high treason, theft and sale of classified material to foreign governments, encouraging desertion and disobedience among senior officials, spreading malicious rumors intended to cause discontent among senior military commanders, personal enrichment, bribery and abuse of office, none of the defendants have been sent to prison. They are being detained in three houses in Havana’s Siboney neighborhood, where family members have been allowed to visit some of them.

“Look, Colonel Carlos Emilio Monsanto was sentenced to thirty-seven years in prison. Major Ernesto Villamontes was sentenced to thirty, Jorge Emilio Pérez to thirty, Román to twenty-two and the rest got similar sentences. Do you think they are going to serve those sentences in houses that are now serving as prisons? People like that are dangerous whether they are free or locked up. I don’t think they are going to serve those sentences under house arrest and I don’t think they are going to go to prison. Based on available information, it is logical to believe they will suffer some accident or come down with a sudden illness as happened to General Abrantes,” says a relative of one of the convicted men with resignation. This person requested anonymity, citing a non-disclosure agreement that family members were forced to sign in order to be able to visit their relatives.

“The one thing that is clear is that Ernesto (Villamontes) and the other defendants were sending money out of country and that they had been authorized to do so by the former directors of MININT and the country’s top leadership with the goal of investing in businesses and buying property. The documents were not taken from the ministry’s Building A in order to sell them; they were to be used as protection. And that is unforgivable.”

What keeps them safe?

“Corporations like Financiera Ricamar, Financiera Eurolatina and Financiera Bescanvi Occidental laundered money. Some of these corporations belong to Panamanian businessmen, including former president Martinelli. The Panamanian government is currently investigating the matter. That’s why they haven’t been sent to prison yet. On the contrary, the plan is to use them as scapegoats in a possible prosecution against the former Panamanian president. For better or worse, this could be significant in a political, media or international context and would go a long way in covering the tracks of the Cuban government, just as happened with Cause I and Cause II in 1989.”*

*Translator’s note: Cause I and Cause II refer to two famous trials of multiple Cuban military officials. In the first, General of the Western Army Arnaldo Ochoa was tried and executed by firing squad on charges including drug trafficking and treason. In a second related trial, former Minister of the Interior General José Abrantes, was sentenced to twenty years in prison but died in custody, allegedly of a heart attack, in 1991.

Laso paid it, assuming this type of extortion was normal procedure and because he needed the paperwork. Four years later he needed another permit, this time to be a soloist. Reinaldo Almeira, the director of a music group named for Cuban singer Benny Moré, told him the fee would be 1,000 CUC, 700 of which would go to Vistel for the right to a new audition. Though Laso paid it, his application was turned down.

Thus began the rapper’s painful odyssey. He filed complaints with the police and the attorney general. He sent letters to Raúl Castro, to Orlando Vistel, to Reinaldo Almeida, to the director of Tumbao Mayor Orchestra and to Conrado, a colonel from the Ministry of the Interior assigned to handle musical affairs at the Ministry of Culture. When none of them responded, Laso became radicalized.

“I had posters put up, I had young people screaming. They saw that I had followers behind me and young people supporting my cause. That was when the authorities, who were clearly outnumbered, decided to call it quits, that I was right and that all I wanted to do was work. It’s unfortunate but that’s the way it was. I won but I wonder what would have happened if I was an unknown. If instead of being an artist, I was a laborer,” says the urban musician.

An audition was finally scheduled for February 1. On that date he performed in front of a panel of judges as a solo singer from Cienfuego’s Rafael Lay orchestra.

“Five people decide whether I can sing or not. It makes no sense but I did get legal status. They filmed the recording session and they are now processing the paperwork at the Institute of Music in Havana. It then goes to Orlando Vistel for his signature,” says Laso.

“Today I want to thank all the friends and the media who supported me in demonstrating that there was a group of corrupt officials here. In the midst of my crusade, I had the honor of meeting Pablo Milanés* who told me, ’Fight, and when you get your work back, you will have to confront the things that are wrong, even if they don’t affect you.’ I was impressed, Pablo is a man who, when he is not happy with things, criticizes them publicly. He is a person who helps artists a lot, who supported my cause and was indignant at the injustice to which they subjected me,” he adds.

“First, with respect to my future work, I will rescue the word love but, once in awhile, I will shake things up. I will always tell the truth. Of course, if they want to censor me, I will continue the fight because I am no longer afraid. I have more than fifty reasons to tell anyone the truth to his face,” says the singer.

“I am an artist committed to the society in which I live. I will make songs but I will not remain silent while a bunch of scumbags damages the careers of other artists,” he adds.

“I solved part of the problem. Now I have to work to help my family but I will never forget the cause. I wanted to show that a citizen can take action and I did. And I am taking the opportunity to publicly promise that I will fight to end this fraudulent system of auditions, that my voice will be a constant call to abolish a bureaucracy whose only purpose is to sell paperwork, enrich dishonest officials and destroy the dream of a lot of young people,” he concludes.

*Translator’s note: One of Cuba’s most popular and famous singer/songwriters. Though a longtime a supporter of the Cuban revolution, in recent years Milanés has been publicly critical of it.

The Castro regime has instructed its ambassador in Bogota to announce that it is awarding up to one thousand scholarships to the demobilized members of the FARC guerrilla group and the victims of its armed conflict to study medicine in Cuba.

The communiqué notes that the 200 scholarships to be awarded annually over a five-year period — 100 for FARC soldiers and 100 for its executive council — will be Cuba’s contribution to the implementation of the peace accords reached in Havana and to a lasting peace in Columbia. Students may access their scholarships beginning in the 2017-2018 school year. The Cuban embassy will submit a document to the Columbian government and the FARC outlining the details which, even at the last minute, was still being finalized by Cuban authorities.

This “goodwill gesture” on Cuba’s part — a followup to the final resolution of the conflict — seems more about publicity than plausibility. The war went on for so many years that any attempt to avoid death and violence is noteworthy. Cuba wants not only to promote itself as a champion of peace in the region but also to profit from the naivety of some democratic voices who applaud any action that might help end the long conflict. But above all — and this is very important — it wants to influence the underdogs, the FARC, with aid and support in order to achieve a fundamental objective: to mask their image as crude terrorists by treating them as a legitimate political organization.

Let’s not forget that a significant portion of the two billion dollars that the FARC made from kidnapping and drug trafficking in its own country is now safely stashed away. Having been well laundered, it is used to buy sophisticated, modern equipment for humanitarian purposes at CIMEQ and the Cira Garcia Clinic.* Or it has been invested as Cuba’s contribution to joint venture projects that the government has with business consortiums and large hotel chains operating both inside and outside the country.

Cuban ambassador José Luis Ponce publicly announced the program alongside members of the CSIVI, the commission which oversees the implementation and verification of the peace accord. He addressed his remarks to FARC secretariat member Iván Márquez, who used his Twitter account to stress that “this contribution by Cuba to the implementation of the Havana Agreement and to the postwar period in Colombia is a pure humanitarian gesture.”

Curiously, Piedad Córdoba — a Columbian attorney, politician and leader of the Citizen Power XXI Century movement — used her own Twitter account minutes later to state, “In spite of being under embargo, Cuba not only has the best medicine in the world, it is also among the most supportive.”

Such Twitter coincidences are not exactly a fitting prelude to support for the end of the conflict. Why don’t any of the parties involved mention that, in addition to the one-thousand scholarships to study medicine, the Cuban government is offering as many as five-hundred scholarships to study journalism on the island?

Cuba is well-known for the high-quality training it provides to its health care professionals as well as for the benefits it receives from its program of exporting doctors.

This lab coat diplomacy, which includes training foreigners on the island to be physicians, currently generates more income than tourism, family remittances, nickel or sugar.

Besides operating a well-oiled financial machine, the Cuban government’s main goal is to create an army of grateful people, spread across the globe, who are influential in the social circles. They remain committed and invisible, ever ready to take immediate action in support of medicine and the Cuban revolution.

Let us take this to the exercise of journalism, taking into account the fluidity, or freedom of information that exists today in the world, where even some democratic governments are becoming more and more controlling. A host of indoctrinated journalists is a weapon of significant influence and an effective tool for spreading ideas and ideologies.

*Translator’s note: The hospital and clinic mentioned here were established to treat foreigners and foreign dignitaries as well as members of the Cuban government, the military and their families. Their facilities, equipment and provisions are known for being of a much higher quality than those for ordinary Cubans.

“But Fidel is water under the bridge, he’s dead, and although Raul has chosen not to call himself Commander in Chief out of respect for the memory of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, the reality is that when he inherited the post of head of state, he also inherited that ’honorific rank.’ So now, that he is the Commander in Chief should he change the Order? Not necessarily.”

“The Order One,” he continues, “obliges all the military, among other things, not to have relations with foreigners, counterrevolutionaries or emigres, and to endure with stoicism the rigors of service. That has to change, not because the Commander died, it is transformed because the operative situation changed, the world scenario and the sociopolitical conditions of Cuba.

“We see,” he reflects, “Today, there are fewer trees among the so-called Amazons, family and friends of Cuban leaders, officials, military and revolutionaries living outside this country. Some are coming back,that’s great; but it is not fair, nor ethical, nor moral, that so long as it is forbidden for many, some, I among them, have an exemption to engage with our exiled relatives, which, to a large extent, I must admit, left because of us. That is why the law changes, by the force that, with great dignity, some officers are doing that which we don’t want to call attention to.”

“The other reason is more obvious,” he adds. “At the time that mandate arose, back in the 60s, there was no economic conglomerate of Cuban soldiers with the force today held by the military run GAESA Group (Business Administration Group SA).  The negotiations of this group, or of the Universal Stores, the Mariel Special Economic Zone, or ANTEX, ALMEST, GEOCUBA, GAVIOTA, TECNOTEX, any of the 57 companies owned by the Armed Forces or other civilian companies run by the military are carried out with foreigners, or with emigrant Cubans who now reside abroad. The order fell into obscurity, so that, following it closely, even Luis Alberto Rodríguez Lopez-Callejas [Raul Castro’s son-in-law] should be tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment for violating the regulations.”

“We have to change things,” he tells me like a punch line, “but modifying Order One is only one part of an integrated agenda that includes repealing outdated laws and instituting others that don’t hinder the transition to a more democratic, more participate and open society, without abandoning our principles.”

Alejandro Castro Espín, youngest child of Raúl Castro, is an advisor to the National Commission for Defense and National Security.

Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja — former son-in-law of Raúl Castro and father of two of the general’s grandchildren — is CEO of the Business Administration Group and head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Department V.

Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz — the son of Isidoro Malmierca Peoli, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs — is the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment in Cuba.

Ernesto Daniel Plasencia — son of Colonel Santiago Plasencia and close friend of Raúl Castro — is a diplomat who recently concluded a stint as the Cuban ambassador to Qatar.

Leopoldo Cintra González — son of Army General and Revolutionary Armed Forces Minister Leopoldo Cintras Frías — is the commercial vice-president of the Habanos Corporation.

Listing every member of this fraternity would be impossible. However, the case of Rosales Aguirreurreta — daughter of General Ulises Rosales del Toro, vice-president of the Council of Ministers, founder of the Communist Party of Cuba and member of the Politburo — stands out not only for being the most recent example but also for being among the most significant.

It seemed at first that the Office of the Historian would be exempt from the hostile and ruthless takeover of Habanaguanex and Havana’s historic city center by the Cuban military.*

But the distrustful people who control the reigns of power in the country leave nothing to chance.

The talented and very hard-working Leal, who was recently awarded an honorary doctorate by Mexico’s Casa Lamm, held an enviable position which has now been turned over to the daughter of one of the dictatorship’s longtime generals. She is a successor with strong genetic ties to both the party and military.

At this point it is worth remembering that in December 1988 a trilateral accord was signed between Angola, South Africa and Cuba in which all parties agreed  to accept Namibian independence, recognize South Africa, halt support to the UNITA rebels and pull Cuban troops out of Angola.

Three days later, General Rosales del Toro, a career military officer — one unsuited to his career — who was not convinced of the effectiveness of dialogue to achieve reliable results, took a proposal back to Cuba that called for negotiations with the United States and an end to years of hostility. Instead of receiving a response, he was ordered under pressure to preside over the 1989 military trial of General Arnaldo Ochoa.**

“Perla, who is also known by a pseudonym I shouldn’t repeat, studied in the former Soviet Union and spent time working there. She started off in the investment department and moved up the ladder until she evenutally became deputy director. When Leal fell ill, she automatically took over,” says a longtime restorer from the Office of the Historian who, for obvious reasons, prefers to remain anonymous.

“She appears to be a woman who is prepared. But she doesn’t travel alone. A few days ago, we had an emergency meeting in which we were introduced to a new twenty-something Perla: a civil engineer who is Perla’s daughter and General Rosales’ granddaughter. It seems, so we were told, that she is a very intelligent young woman who is emerging as another future head of this institution, which already practically levitates on a kind of forgetfulness,” says the worker in an observation that mixes jest and resignation.

*Translator’s note: The Office of the Historian is a governmental agency dedicated to the preservation of historic buildings in Old Havana, several of them now profitable tourist hotels. In 2016 the agency and its restored properties were taken over by Habaguanex, a hotel chain company operated by the Cuban military, in what some saw as a hostile land grab.

**Arnaldo T. Ochoa Sánchez was a prominent Cuban general who was executed by the government of Fidel Castro after being found guilty of a variety of crimes including drug smuggling and treason.

In this document you can read, and I quote:

“At present, the use and presence of social networks has become a fundamental factor in the process of socialization, exchange and dissemination of our achievements, our results. Also it has become a symbol of belonging and sites where people and businesses share interests in common such as the news, images, and music among others.

“It is a new space of combat, where the spreading of news happens at great speed with the reach and impact that other means do not have.

“A global university where information is a decisive recourse in the political struggle, and becomes a matter of national security and it is necessary that to achieve a competitive advantage in these spaces to give visibility and credibility to our points of view and our values.

“They constitute privileged channels for the information offensive, counterattack campaigns and to construct alternatives for political expansion and to offer a unprecedented opportunity to activate and multiply the power of the Revolution.

“It is the mission of the activists and cyber combatants to be alert to the spread of news that could affect the Revolution and others that lie about it and denigrate it, so it is NOT prohibited to visit these counterrevolutionary sites, niches where the opportunists are entrenched to wage battle in the Social Networks.

“It is good to know what they are saying, how they think and how the enemy acts in order to be able to combat it. We know that lies are posted there; but there are also truths and we have to know their weaknesses to be able to fight them and where we still have failures. We do not have to fear knowing where we have cancer to be able to fight and eliminate it.”

The document in question includes a list of objectives that are listed under the honorable title of cyber-enemies, and there we find 14ymedio, Cubaenmiami, El Nuevo Herald, Caféfuerte.com, yusnaby.com, Cubanet, Martinoticias y Diariodecuba; and an extensive list of electronic addresses. Almost all well-known.

All this framework, this sniffing around the networks, is a common practice, so it should come as no surprise. The subversive if the maneuver.

Located on Third Avenue between C Street and Final Street in the Miramar district, Río Mar has become a favorite of local and international customers who consider it one of the best of its kind in Cuba. Opened in 2012, the restaurant maintains an unbeatable offering that combines gastronomic quality, superb service and a delightful environment in just the right amount. It also offers a fabulous view of Havana and its seaside promenade.

In this case, it is not the total subordination to military authority that exists on the island that is so troubling. Rather it is the astonishingly placid acceptance of how the judicial and legislative branches serve as a private law firm for the executive — a branch which in Cuba is synonymous with the Castros — and how this hinders the performance of the private sector and society as a whole.

Neighbors indicate that Río Mar is not violating rules covering legal hours of operation for this type of business or regulations governing noise levels. It cannot be accused of fraudulently transferring ownership because the building has always been in the family. Instead, sources close to the investigation indicate the business’s problem is not with the agency that regulates all private-sector work, nor with the courts, nor with the police, much less with the Provincial Administrative Council.

The investigation was launched by the Committee for Defense and National Security** — an unsettling and highly visible organization with no legal standing — and ordered by the office of the Attorney General of the Republic of Cuba. This office was set up to oversee the organs of government, administer state assets, and prevent and prosecute administrative corruption, not to waste its resources investigating small privately owned businesses.

“It’s really despicable. Look, I’m not an inspector or an owner. I don’t have access to the information the comptroller has… not by a long shot. The only information I have is from working in this restaurant and that tells me they are not doing anything illegal here. They obey all the self-employment regulations because they know better than anyone that their surname constantly keeps them under the watchful eyes of the government and its henchmen,” says an employee with real bitterness.

Translator’s notes:

*Tony de la Guardia was a colonel in the Cuban Interior Ministry who was executed after being convicted of cocaine trafficking. His twin brother Patricio was sentenced to thirty years in prison.

** In a previous post, the author described the Committee for Defense and National Security, an organization headed by General Raúl Castro’s son Alejandro, as an unofficial agency unrecognized by the Cuban constitution but which nonetheless plays a role in government.

We will have to wait. Certainly, no one will talk about individual rights nor civil liberties. It seems that to govern is to assume contrdictions. It is a vulgar script for a discordant dramaturgy where fiction predominated. It is ridiculous to accept that, for example, in terms of health, in each locality, throughout the island, the assembled citizens will feel the “spontaneous” need to express opinions only on how to reduce teen pregnancy, and to strengthen control over pregnant women who go into maternity homes.

The most striking feature of this document is the prediction it makes about a group of citizens who, voluntarily, will express concern about the issue of domestic violence and, in particular, the phenomenon that doesn’t appear in the current penal code as a criminal figure and that begins to gain space as antisocial conduct. Cases of Cuban fathers who don’t conform to the role of the divorced, and kidnap their kids to hurt their former wives.

It is not divination, it is simple state inefficiency very eary to predict because yesterday’s problems were never solved and are the same ones that will be there tomorrow.

Almost all of the deputies to the Peoples Power Assembly session, be they national, provincial or municipal, are fed up and exceedingly apathetic, along with the compulsion, attend to kill time and eat the snacks; listen to the pre-prepared program, vote in favor of everything and reaffirm their commitment with something that they neither understand no care about.

Cubans who want to debate and express opinions, suggestions and demands; but they know well that in Cuba, the Peoples Power is the power of an entelechy.

Located at the intersection of 7th Avenue and 70th Street in Miramar, the former Italian restaurant is now a fashionable discotheque, a place where an elite young crowd enjoys Havana’s nightlife with no concern for the hour of day, the day of the month, or how much alcohol or other substances are consumed. The establishment, which reserves the right to admit whomever it chooses, has a maximum legal occupancy of ninety people, far beyond the limit set by law for seats in private restaurants.

The restaurant sector grew out of a governmental self-employment initiative known as cuentapropismo, which was an intended as a palliative solution to families’ economic problems. As a result, there are now more than 1,700 private restaurants throughout the island. These small businesses have benefitted from Raul Castro’s modest reforms, the noticeable boom in tourism and the rapprochement with the United States.

“If you like what’s cool, what’s exclusive, and you like rubbing elbows with celebrities, Fantasy has what you’re looking for. It offers different environments, good music and a demanding clientele. The interiors aren’t anything great but it’s the perfect place to organize an event. Once inside, you are protected while at the same time you are beyond the law. It’s heaven for party-goers,” says a young regular. “In a country where everything is controlled, it’s uncontrolled,” he adds.

Another Cuban youth, who lives in Miami but was recently visiting the island, says he has been to the discotheque a couple of times and claims that the requirement for getting in is “looking like you have enough dollars to pay. If not, you are not well received.”

“You have to make a reservation beforehand but, if someone gets there and offers them more money, you run the risk of losing your table. Individual drinks cost an average three or four dollars and a bottle can go for as much as eighty-five dollars,” adds the young visitor from Miami.

Faced with such blatant chicanery, Havana started reissuing licenses for new private restaurants on October 24, although it continues to warn owners that they must comply with regulations on noise and closing times (3:00 AM) as well as prohibitions against hiring artists, on the consumption and sale of drugs, and on prostitution and pimping.

It also announced that there would be routine quarterly inspections of new and established businesses in which “different factors” — a euphemism for the regime’s various agencies of repression — would oversee compliance with regulations. It also set up groups in every region to monitor this new form on non-governmental management.

But Fantasy manages to evade any oversight. It defies easy categorization. By day it is a pizzeria and by night a nightclub. This combination leads to a certain “ambiguity” in terms of its actual use and purpose.

“Where the captain rules, the soldiers have no say. No one can go against the son of Alexis Castro Soto del Valle. It’s a scandal; it’s unbearable. They play music at full volume. Boys come and get into fist fights. Trucks make deliveries at all hours of the day and night. The police are here but they don’t do anything. Miramar is a residential area. We have sent a ton of letters complaining to authorities but they  don’t dare take any action. Sandro is one of Fidel’s grandsons and that’s all that matters,” says a neighbor who, like others, prefers to remain anonymous.

 *Translator’s note: A reference to the children of Fidel and Raul Castro respectively.