Category: Luz Escobar

Speculations that the Constitutional reform now in progress will open the door to marriage between people of the same sex, and statements “especially by Mariela Castro,” specifies the pastor, are the reason for this fast. And he asks: “Do you imagine that when our children go to school and study Civics, our children are told blatantly and openly: you have a penis but you can figure out if, instead of being a man you want to be a woman, can you imagine a class like that?” Everyone responds “Nooooo,” and again applauds.

Fernandez said that in several countries in Europe laws have been passed to regulate unions between people of the same sex, which he attributed to a supposed weakness of the Church in those places. “Thanks to the Lord, our churches in Cuba are not like that and the Lord has prepared us for this moment, today more than ever, because we are a well-defined Church and the sin that is abhorred, we abhor,” he said.

On June 28, five Christian denominations issued a statement in which they expressed their rejection of a constitutional reform that would allow for equal marriage. Since then, opinions for and against have appeared in the independent press and social networks. “There are people who have confused what we are saying. There are people who believe that we are getting into politics or we are going to get into politics because we are going to hold a demonstration against the government. Today the Party is very nervous. We have people from State Security and independent journalists who are recording us but I am not afraid,” he tells his audience.

The pastor asked those who were present to “make it clear to the Government” that they were not afraid of them “because the Church is not going to depreciate itself, that our getting into politics is depreciating us.” He also said that they were not going to “sit idly by” in this matter, which, he said, will be solved with “fasting and prayer.”

Fernandez placed the number of people attending the fast at 800 — though this newspaper calculates it was about 500 — and said it was the largest congregation ever in the church.

It is still unknown how unions between same-sex couples will be regulated, but Mariela Castro, director of the National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex) and daughter of Raúl Castro, said that the issue would be promoted in the debates of the National Assembly, as a part of the constitutional reform.

The pastor explained that “more than 3,000 churches” prayed that day in their temples because they did not get permission to march on La Rampa. “How about if we pray for the National Assembly, How about if we pray for Raúl Castro, How about if we pray for Díaz-Canel and for Lazo? And even for Mariela Castro we are going to pray,” he encouraged the congregation. Fernandez asked the Cenesex director to “instead of what she is defending today, defend the true family bond.”

The march, called by the Assemblies of God, the Eastern and Western Baptist Conventions, the Evangelical League and the Methodist Church, was suspended, they said in a statement, because it overlapped with other activities. Although they said they are also working “with government leaders” to find a date and place for another “massive event” in the future.

“At this moment the churches in Cuba are carrying out this fast in favor of the family” closing the doors “before any attempt and every intention to make homosexualism and lesbianism (sic) formalized or legalized in Cuba,” he affirms. The pastor quoted passages from the Old Testament asking for a death sentence for homosexual relationships.

The pastor called on the faithful between the ages of 17 and 31 to go to La Rampa, the area of the capital in which, in his opinion there are more homosexuals, and to distribute bibles for free. “The young girls are given one of the pink ones and give the men the black ones,” he exhorted, while through a side door two boys left with several boxes full of Bibles of both colors.

The convocation took place minutes later when dozens of young people walked throughout La Rampa to fulfill the pastor’s request. Under the summer sun that embraced the city, at noon, some of the passers-by directly said that they did not want to know anything about the word of God, others listened with lowered heads and almost none showed the slightest enthusiasm.

The fast was copied in other municipalities of Havana and in several provinces of the country. In Holguin, dozens of faithful gathered at the entrance of a church to shout “viva!” while waving posters with a picture of what for them represents “the original family.” Similar scenes were repeated in Guantánamo and Pinar de Río.

Designer Roberto Ramos Mori feels that the posters that have appeared stuck on some electric posts and bus stops and that were displayed this Saturday in some churches, are “inciters of hatred and discrimination.” He asks, “If they [the government levies a] fine on me for doing it, shouldn’t the same thing happen to them?”

The Facebook page of the Afro-Cuban Alliance, an independent organization that fights against LGBTI discrimination, published some images of these posters warning that the intention of this campaign is “to go against the legalization of equal marriage in the constitutional reform.”

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Tourists walk through the neighborhood, oblivious to the scene of a row of families who use the street as if it were communal housing, where a baby sleeps in his cradle while a little coffee is brewed using an extension cord run from the interior of a building whose neighbors are offering solidarity.

“It’s dangerous to enter the building, that’s why we’re here to protect you from being crushed,” one of the officers explained to 14ymedio, while playing with his nightstick. The warning has little effect because inside the building are all the belongings of the families and some take risks to recover them.

“If we do not take our things they will be lost, explains a resident who initially told this newspaper his name, but a few minutes later he asks for anonymity to avoid “suffering repression after the article comes out on the internet.” Nobody wants to put at risk their chance that their complaint will get them a safe roof.

However, the disagreement is source of great stress. “We are on the street, no one has come from either the Government or the Housing Institute, the only response we have received is that we must wait and that there is no capacity in the shelters,” the resident adds.

At the end of last year, after the damage in the Cuban capital left by Hurricane Irma, the availability of spaces to house those who lost their homes was exhausted in the shelters, collective temporary locations where families can wait up to two decades for a house.

The authorities recognize that the housing problem is the primary social need in Cuba, with a deficit of more than 800,000 homes. This problem is aggravated because in the last decade the construction of new houses has fallen by 20%. At the end of 2015, it barely exceeded 23,000, more than half raised through private management.

Outside the semi-ruined building on Cuba Street, a young woman says that the building was “declared uninhabitable” in 1980 and although they have lived through hell all this time “luckily on the day of the collapse no one was hurt.”

The woman is pessimistic and believes that nothing will be resolved because “the people are not united,” she explains. “No one wants to talk to the press because they are afraid and then the police come to ask who was talking to the journalists.”

The protest that they are carrying out supposes a push with the Government and the Office of the Historian of the City, that manages the entire zone from a heritage perspective. What’s more, in the midst of the planning for the celebrations for Havana’s 500th anniversary in 2019, which is coming at a time of the celebrations for the 500 years of Havana that are fulfilled in 2019 and that come at a time of decline and difficult straits for the capital.

This week the historian of the city, Eusebio Leal, called for recovering “the dignity” of Havana and “not humiliating it” by painting “her in colors she doesn’t know,” throwing garbage in its streets or urinating in its corners. “Dignity begins with the people, through the homes,” a resident claims as he fans himself outside 662 Cuba Street.

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It includes scenes “that, for many, can be complicated,” affirms Yeandro Tamayo, but he is satisfied that he was able to show the freedom he intended.

The video expresses, through dance and elegant photographic work, the stories of three couples: one between a man and a woman, another between two men and a third between two women. All of the stories, after approaches and caresses, end in a kiss.

“In times like these, when government is defending diversity, I wanted to put it in this video,” he explains in an interview with 14ymedio. He said that the dancers who performed worked without fear of speaking up about “the sexuality of human beings” and the plurality that is shown in the video.

The video is presented on social networks as “a celebration of love, a song of the right to express our feelings, and a critique of short-sightedness and the barriers imposed on us by human beings.”

With not everyone behind him, the director said there is a second version of the video, not yet released, in which the kisses do not happen. Tamayo explained at the press conference that due to the schedule on which the Lucas program is broadcast (five in the afternoon) an alternative was made.

“In the version for the television they are almost on the verge of kissing,” the director told this newspaper.

“As it is not a short film but rather promotional material I made the two versions, because I was afraid that Yissy would not be able to release her video. With this they [TV] are opening up a bit, although they are still very careful [despite the fact that] there is no policy that these images should not be shown,” stresses the director.

“That’s always a rule of thumb, you’re taking your risks, I think it’s the first time that this topic is treated so openly and I can assure you that in the world of the videoclip this is the first time this issue is treated as freely as seen in the video,” he says.

Yeandro Tamayo, who has won numerous Lucas Awards, believes that the video can help promote tolerance towards the LGBT community because “it shows [their relationships] without prejudice, as something natural that is expressed as something free, open.”

Tamayo is optimistic about the fate of Universe and is confident that despite having images that are “difficult” for many it will continue to be shown. “I think the video will remain in theaters because these are times when, even from the Government, there is an interest in promoting tolerant behaviors” towards this community, says the filmmaker, referring to Cenesex (the National Center for Sex Education).

The premiere of the video comes at a time when the government has expressed its decision to carry out a constitutional reform which, among other things, has among its purposes to bring legality “in tune with” reality. From the LGBT community, independent groups have launched proposals ranging from “freedom of association” under the protection of the law, to the “legal recognition of same sex parent families.”

Cuban television has taken great care to show, explicitly, homosexual relations both in its dramatized spaces and in the musical productions made on the Island. The only kiss between a homosexual couple that Cubans have seen on national TV occurred recently, to stupor of many, in the broadcast of a chapter of the Brazilian telenovela Rastros de mentiras (Traces of Lies). The scene, which shows Felix (Thiago Neves) Fragoso and (Niko) Mateus Solano kissing, was shown in Brazil in the 2013-2014 season.

The group Yissy & Bandancha premiered the single Universe last April as a preview of what will be their next album, integrating the voice of Dj Jigüe into the band’s usual sound. In the theme, this group, one of the most representative of the avant-garde of Cuban jazz, delves into the sounds of hip hop and electronic music.

*Translator’s note: “Without pause but without haste” is connonly referenced phrase from a speech by Raul Castro where he was talking about “updating” the Cuban model. 

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La gloria eres tú  by the Cuban composer José Antonio Méndez, and  Contigo en la distancia by César Portillo de la Luz were some of the songs performed. The singer also did justice to some Mexican boleros including Se te olvida by Álvaro Carrillo or Esta tarde vi llover from Armando Manzanero.

Special tribute was offered to Marta Valdés, a woman whom she already considers of her family and who “life and the universe” put in her way to change her destiny. “I will not say anything about her songs because they speak for themselves,” said Milanés, who asked for applause that the audience offered with gusto and intensity.

From her father, Pablo Milanés, she played two compositions that were not widely disseminated in the media, Todos los ojos te miran and Requiem por un amor, with the piano accompaniement of Cucurucho Valdés, a friend from her time as a student at the conservatory.

Milanés is usually accompanied by three musicians in her concerts, but that night the orchestra grew as some of the best musicians of the national scene paraded on stage. Enrique Plá on the drums, Raúl Verdecia and Dayron Ortiz on the guitars, Roberto García on the trumpet and Edgar Martínez on the percussion, while the young Samuel Burgos alternated on the bass with the renowned Fabián García Caturla.

The artist dedicated the concert to La Habana, “a woman I love with all the strength of my soul, a very special woman who will be celebrating 500 years next year.” At the beginning of the concert, the public received a postcard with an ecological message on the back: “I invite you to take care of your Havana.”

The vocalist, invited to the event by maestro Guido López Gavilán, said she felt honored and confessed that for her it was always an dream to participate.

Before she closed, she performed a song by Cuban singer-songwriter Frank Domínguez, Tú me acostumbraste, and after a long ovation she closed with Palabras, by Marta Valdés.

The Boleros de Oro International Festival began with a concert by Beatriz Márquez accompanied by Alejandro Falcón and his Grupo Cubadentro, among other guests, and ends on June 24.

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When they show up pregnant at the OB-GYN clinics they are called “elderly” and talked to about risks and problems. Because along with social prejudices that see motherhood as something exclusive to young women, they must also face a public health system that has a hard time adapting to a global phenomenon: the postponement of pregnancies.

Grisell Rodríguez Gómez, a psychologist and researcher at the Center for Demographic Studies of the University of Havana, has studied this trend on the island. “The fertility of women over 30 years of age began to rise” explains the specialist, who says there is currently “a greater presence of mothers in these ages,” in Cuba. The Cuban health system considers any woman who is expecting a baby after the age of 35 as a “high risk” patient, although it is not contraindicated to conceive a child at this stage of life. “My doctor at the Family Clinic cried to high heaven and predicted a rather dark picture for me,” says Marcel’s mother. 

“I was the first pregnant woman in her 40s she had cared for and she was very nervous, because doctors are very demanding when it comes to a baby that is coming… There is still a very narrow mentality about motherhood at this age and they see us as a phenomenon, an abnormality, sick mothers,” she emphasized.

Little by little, society has had to get used to the presence of these mature women who push a baby stroller and are not grandmothers. The economic crisis of the 90s has been one of the triggers causing the postponement of motherhood, because many women preferred to wait for better times, according to several specialists consulted by this newspaper.

While the fertility rates in Cuba decrease in each age group, the downward trend does not occur among women between 35 and 39 and between 40 to 44 years old, who have steadily shown an increase in motherhood in recent decades, as proven by data collected by the National Statistics Office.

At 39, Ariadna López is preparing to enter her fourth decade of life with a newborn baby in her arms. She is now seven months along and one day she woke up with the suspicion that her second son was coming ten years after she had her first. A new relationship had started and her husband was happy with the announcement.

“The family doctor was scared at first,” recalls Lopez. “When I gave her the news, she raised his eyebrows in concern,” especially because now the Public Health authorities in the municipality of Habana del Este where she resides, “are in a tizzy because they have an old pregnant woman, which is a headache.” Lopez immediately began a strict plan of prenatal vitamins and folic acid. If it had been a planned pregnancy it would have been better to start with this regimen even before conceiving the baby to ensure the correct development and functioning of the brain of the fetus. 

The feminist activist Marta María Ramírez recently announced her pregnancy on social networks. At 42, each consultation has been a battle to stop them from treating her “with fear because of the risks involved in pregnancy” at her age. She is tired of hearing phrases like “let’s have a look at your problem” and she prefers not to know the biological sex of the baby until the delivery, something difficult for the medical staff to understand and accept.

According to a study conducted by several specialists and published in the Cuban Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, “a woman in good health” and “with adequate prenatal care” is very likely “to have a happy delivery and a healthy child” although they clarify that the health system of the Island must prepare itself to deal with the tendency to become pregnant later in life.

“Many of these pregnancies are not spontaneous but occur in mothers who have had fertility treatment for many years,” explains Kenia Ferrán, a Cuban obstetrician who worked for years in the public health system until in 2017 she emigrated to Ecuador. of these pregnancies begin from the beginning because there is a high rate of spontaneous abortions among women over 40.”

If they manage to overcome the first trimester of pregnancy,”they still face the high possibility of suffering from gestational diabetes and hypertension, problems that affect not only the health of the pregnant woman but also the baby,” Ferrán said. “Genetic risks are also high, such as the presence of chromosomal alterations such as Down syndrome.” 

However, Ferran says that in her professional life she has treated “many women who decided to become mothers after 40 and in most cases everything has gone very well. The most important thing is the follow-up and above all, ethically, to respect the decision that the woman has made. We are here to accompany her on that trip, not to criticize her.”

Some of the women she cared for in her clinic “waited to have a place to have a child, because the housing difficulties force many of them to postpone the moment.” The economic situation and “dreams of emigrating” also influence the decision, along with “the desire to take more advantage of professional opportunities in the 20s and 30s,” she says.

Beatriz Medina, 41, has two children from a first marriage and this week she visited the Ramón González Coro Gynecology-Obstetric Hospital in Havana to ask for advice about a new pregnancy. “Among the problems they told me is the chance that the child will beborn underweight or that I deliver early,” she says, and immediately says that she is not afraid.

Medina, however, does not feel so confident about what will come next. “I estimate that at 60 I will still be taking care of a young man and the generational abyss will be tremendous.” The mother is concerned “that she she won’t live to see him develop his professional life, be an adult, have his own children,” although she believes that she will have “more maturity to educate him and more resources to support him.”

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Those who inquired about possible additional compensation for the complications resulting from the flight cancellations were informed clearly that the services for the airline’s national customers are “subsidized” and they can only be guaranteed a refund for the value of the ticket. “Not one cent more.”

Cubana de Aviación is going through “an unprecedented situation in the number of returns and there is no liquidity to face these expenses,” explains an official consulted by this newspaper and who preferred anonymity. “We have no money coming in because our domestic flights are canceled and most of the international ones are too.”

The planes of the state airline that regularly fly to destinations such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic or Venezuela are not covering those routes, a situation that has forced the company to relocate customers or host them in hotels while looking for seats to travel on other airlines.

As of last Friday, the company also ruled out the possibility of transporting its customers by bus as a way to compensate them for the cancellation of flights and now offers only the reimbursement of the value of the air ticket.

“I came yesterday at ten o’clock and it was full of very upset people,” Enrique, a young college student, tells 14ymedio; he was among the first group of customers this morning at the agency on Infanta Street.

“Yesterday I had to leave because there were a lot of people in line and they have only been able to return the money to the first ones in line, almost at dawn,” he says. “That’s why I came early today but the situation is worse and today nobody has been able to collect even a peso.”

For Eloísa, a woman from Santiago de Cuba who has been stranded in Havana due to the cancellations, the delay in recovering her money is a source of trouble. “Without that money I can not buy a bus ticket, so I have no choice but to keep coming to see when Cubana can pay again.”

National customers must buy their plane ticket three months in advance at the Cubana de Aviación offices. For this reason most of those now seeking refunds purchased a ticket to travel during school holidays, coming up in July and August.

Cubana de Aviación domestic flights were suspended after the accident on May 18 and will not resume “until at least September” an employee of the state airline told 14ymedio last Friday.

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The comings and goings through the covered walkway is incessant in a densely populated area of Old Havana, near the Central Railway Station. The family — the mother, grandmother and older daughter — spends the night in a bed covered with a brightly colored blanket, right in the middle of the covered walkway.

Nights in the portico can also be dangerous. When, at dawn, a person keeps approaching them, the worried grandmother thinks that they want to steal from her and tells this newspaper, “you can’t sleep with such a fright.”

“On Thursday I woke up because there was a person in front of me shooting pictures of me,” says the woman. “It doesn’t bother me that the press comes because I want to tell what is happening to me, but waking up like this at three in the morning is terrible.”

“This building has already had 23 partial collapses, eight families live upstairs in our house, although some have gone to shelters,” she tells 14ymedio, in a worried voice. Iraida Alberto, grandmother of a four-year-old girl and another two-month-old who was born prematurely, laments the indifference of the state institutions.

The police, in the form of two motorized officers, show up in the portico, which is blocked by appliances and bundles. They are joined by some patrol cars and a dozen uniformed people who seem to understand the precariousness of the situation. Nevertheless, they demand that Iraida Alberto not disturb the peace by living in the walkway and “blocking the traffic.” Then they leave.

“Neither the Government nor the (Communist) Party have come here,” she explains. The only representatives of some official entity that have passed through the place are those in charge of hostels in Havana, the temporary shelters for victims of hurricanes and building collapses. However, Iraida Alberto knows that moving to these places is a dead end in many cases.

Cuba has a housing deficit of more than 800,000 homes. Of the 3.8 million residential properties on the island, at least a third of them are in a physical state classified as regular or bad, according to official data.

When a family suffers the loss or collapse of their home, they are often relocated to a shelter. The length of stay in these sites averages 20 years and in the 120 shelters located in the capital, most of which are in old inns or industrial warehouses, more than 126,000 people are crowded, while another 34,000 struggle to find a place within them.

Iraida Alberto spent fifteen years of her life in one of those places. “They tricked me into moving here two years ago, after living for fifteen years in a shelter with my children,” she recalls. The lack of privacy and the poor conditions of that accommodation increased the family’s desperation to leave the place.

“When I arrived at the building, there was no scaffolding and officials told me to sign [the papers to accept the housing] before going inside because another family wanted to sneak in.” The woman did not think twice.

“After a few days and when I spoke with the neighbors I knew that they had already suffered eight partial collapses and that the property was declared uninhabitable. Nevertheless, they had given it to us as if it were a final solution,” she complained.

The hardest thing for the woman to accept is the helplessness she feels. “The government has not given us any support, not even some food for the children. Sometimes I have to go inside the house despite the danger of collapse to be able to cook,” says Iraida Alberto.

Some of the neighbors have become aware of the family’s situation and help by letting the baby, who still has some health problems due to her premature birth, spend the night in their homes.

In an interview published this Sunday, the Historian of Havana, Eusebio Leal Spengler warned that “it is as important to recover the social fabric as [it is to recover] the city itself.” On Monday, the official press focused on the matter, stating president Miguel Díaz-Canel has urged that the housing program be given priority. Cases like that of Iraida Alberto continue to wait for those words to come true.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Most of the events of the #00Bienal have been held in artist Tania Brughera’s Instar space in Old Havana, but there have also been events in other Havana municipalities including Marianao, El Vedado, Habana del Este and Santa Cruz del Norte.

In the neighborhood of Alamar, artists Iris Ruiz and Amaury Pacheco have also suffered reprisals for participating in the event. Authorities of the Housing Institute and local government authorities pressured them to stop the painting of several graffiti by the artist Yasser Castellanos, inside and outside their home.

“If we did not stop the work they told us they were going to bring a shock brigade to erase it,” Ruiz tells this newspaper.

However, the employees who arrived to undertake the erasure could not enter the house because the neighbors and friends of the artists supported them “to avoid the outrage.  After a while security agents arrived and said that Physical Planning would give us permission to paint,” Ruiz concluded.

“Three months ago everyone thought it would be impossible to stage the #00Bienal,” recalls Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, one of its main organizers. Among other reasons because “in the Cuban intelligentsia there is a lot of commitment to the system that gives them perks, but also many artists find themselves in a comfort zone that they do not want to leave.”

Despite the wide variety of exhibitions and artistic actions that took place, Otero Alcántara recognizes that “some of the artists announced in the catalog reconsidered a little and have not appeared” due to the harsh accusations that the official institutions launched at the event.

“I’m not a superhero or anything like that,” says the artist, who in recent years has become known for performances like those he held around the luxury hotel Manzana Kempinski, in Old Havana. His artistic actions have aimed to point out the economic gap between nationals and tourists.

“Being an artist is a life position,” confesses the artist, whose greatest current fear is that “the #00Bienal will be shelved within the historical passages” of recent years. “We would like the young filmmakers who recently published a statement to also do an independent film event.”

Threats and interrogations by State Security have been another technique in the attempts made to restrain the participants. Among those affected was the painter Luis Trápaga, removed from the National Artists Registry in retaliation for his involvement in the independent artistic event. The authorities of the National Council of the Plastic Arts, which manage the registry, informed him that the measure was taken because of his position “contrary to the cultural policy of the country.”

The artist José Ernesto Alonso participated in the #00Bienal with a survey that he drew from surveys conducted by international institutions that measure elements such as happiness, satisfaction and well-being in different parts of the world. “I created a guide that allows us to quantify the level of satisfaction that each Cuban has with respect to the current situation of the country.”

Alonso clarifies that “the greatest fear that an artist can have about being part of the #00Bienal is that it all ends up black and white,” and later “they come from the institution and they tell you: if you supported the independent biennial you can not participate in any more of the events we organize.”

Cuban artists such as Hamlet Lavastida and Sandra Ceballos are participate in the event. Ceballos’s independent gallery, Aglutinador, which opened in 1994, is one of the most important venues of the event. The curator Gerardo Mosquera, founder of the Havana Biennial in 1984, has also joined the independent event.

“Some foreign artists, such as the Spaniard Diego Gil, have been summoned by Immigration and they have been told that they can not appear in the Biennial,” says Cuban-American curator and artist Coco Fusco.

Fusco was also prevented on May 3 from entering the country after arriving at the Havana airport. A day later, the artist Gean Moreno, linked to the Institute of Contemporary Art of Miami (ICA), was held for 10 hours in Cuban Customs. Although he was finally able to enter the country, the authorities confiscated the piece with which he intended to participate in the #00Bienal.

The Brazilian artist Thiago Morandi was one of those summoned by the Identification, Migration and Immigration Directorate (DIIE), which demanded that he leave the event, but the photographer and audiovisual producer ignored the threats and continued to appear in the activities of the alternative event.

Ulises Valdés, a Mexican, was also summoned by immigration officials and told to cancel his presence at #00Biennial, but he told the uniformed officers to communicate directly with the consul of his country if there was any irregularity with regards to his presence in Cuba. The officers told him that to be eligible to participate in the event, he would have had to enter the country with a cultural visa.

State Security officials and DIIE members warned foreign participants that they were part of an “unofficial” event that is “financed by the Miami mafia.”

That assertion conflicts with the information provided by the organizers of #00Biennial, who say that all the funding that sustains the event “comes from crowdfunding, which is very transparent” through digital platforms, according to the independent biennial’s curator and organizer, Yanelis Nuñez.

Nuñez and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the main organizers of the event, received important help from the artist Reynier Leyva ‘El Chino’ Novo, who contributed 3,800 CUC from the sale of one of his works to the National Council of the Arts.

The alternative event, which arose after the Ministry of Culture’s announcement that it would postpone the XIII Havana Biennial until 2019, has achieved its initial objective of granting visibility to younger artists, as well as creating a space that promotes debate in an environment of freedom.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

“I am going to write to the Council of State, to Granma newspaper and to the foreign press agencies so that they know that I want to recover my flag,” he says.

The waving of the American flag in front of the platform where Raul Castro awaited the start of the parade became the event of the day for the most important international media, which had convened to cover an event that the ruling party traditionally uses to show popular support for its management.

“They did not give me any document that says I’m free and there was no trial nor I was convicted, everything was very arbitrary,” the dissident explains.

“The doctor who treated me in Mazorra always recognized that I did not have any type of psychiatric problems and even the director of the hospital told me that he couldn’t do anything because it was State Security that determined everything about my case.” 

Llorente says that the year he spent in detention was in fact a kidnapping “by orders of Raúl Castro and State Security, in coordination with the State Council and with the complicity of Public Health and the Ministry of Justice… I had not committed any crime nor did I have psychiatric problems. What was I doing there?”

Llorente wants to remain an independent activist and insists on distrusting opposition groups “because without a doubt State Security has infiltrated many of them.”

“I want to deal with things in such a way that it’s always respectful of the law, without provocations, because against them you have to use their own laws,” he recommends.

“The State Security officials I talked to told me that when I had a problem I could call them and to do nothing without calling.”

From that 1 May 2017, he remembers all the obstacles he faced getting to the Plaza of the Revolution, the warnings he received from the police and the emotional moment when he slipped under the banner that was at the front of the parade. “When I saw myself running with the flag I could not believe it, it was very exciting.”

He was immediately approached by several men who took him down to the ground him and beat him. “I did not have time to see their faces and I was shouting: ‘I accuse Raúl Castro of mistreating the people of Cuba and the workers’.” He could barely breathe and one of his captors told him angrily: “You have to die.”

“They threw me to the pavement and tied my hands with the belt they took off me, I asked a doctor who was nearby to help me but she left,” says Llorente. Then he was taken to a vehicle and moved out of the Plaza. His ordeal was just beginning.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

This explosion of journalistic spaces contrasts, however, with the censorship of the official media maintained by officialdom. By law, any attempt to disseminate news or promote opinions different from those of the Government can be considered a crime of “enemy propaganda.”

Cuba has many of the most restrictive laws over journalism in Latin America. The Constitution prohibits private ownership of the media while the exercise of journalism is only allowed if it “maintains the objectives of the socialist society,” according to a report released in 2016 by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Defamation of institutions, political organizations and “heroes or martyrs of the Republic” is sanctioned by up to one year in prison. Those who commit slander, defamation, insult, injury “or any other form of contemptuous or offensive expression” against public officials may also go to jail.

This has been the case for decades, although at first it seemed that the relationship between information and the Revolution was going to be a honeymoon.

In 1959, when Fidel Castro arrived in Havana with his olive green caravan, the press enthusiastically welcomed the bearded men descended from the Sierra Maestra. Optimistic headlines, photos of the crowds cheering the passage of the guerrillas and the harsh images of the outrages of Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship filled the front pages.

That idyll was short-lived. Castro undertook the extermination of all media, both national and provincial. Throughout the year 1960, newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television channels passed into the hands of the Government and five years later the press was under the absolute control of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC).

Since then the PCC has taken on the role of appointing the directors, providing equipment and supplies, and, above all, designating the editorial line of each medium. The training of journalists in university faculties begins with a rigorous process of ideological selection and in the classrooms there are frequent purges and expulsions for political reasons.

In March 2003, Fidel Castro’s government unleashed a fierce offensive against dissent and the independent press, known as the Black Spring. There were 75 opponents sentenced, among whom at least 25 were reporters who collaborated with international media or had founded their own press agencies.

That repressive blow was carried out under the legal protection of Law 88, popularly known as the Gag Law, the application of which generated a wave of international repudiation. After the scandal erupted, Castroism sought new ways to intimidate independent reporters, ways that last to this day.

In 2017 the map of press freedom in the world was tinted black and Cuba remained among its darkest areas. The Island ranked 172 out of 180 countries, in a classification prepared by Reporters Without Borders that analyzes the level of freedom of the press in the world. No other nation in Latin America was that low on the index.

Along with several colleagues, José Antonio Fornaris founded a union some years ago to represent the professionals of the press and their principal demands. The Association for Press Freedom (APLP) is one of the many organizations the Government does not permit, but it operates on the island with a low profile and under many pressures.

The confiscations of work equipment and supplies stands out among the complaints that arrive every day at the headquarters of the APLP. In 2016, alone, at least 18 cases were recorded in which the State Security seized a reporter’s camera, mobile phone, laptop, hard drive, or a simple USB memory with information.

Since 2017, the repression against the sector has included a new tactic: accusing independent journalists of “usurpation of legal capacity” and prosecuting them for practicing a profession without holding a diploma issued by one of the country’s centers of higher education. Educational institutions where the maxim “the university is for the revolutionaries.”

A ban on leaving the country is also part of the reprisals against these reporters. Recently, José Antonio Fornaris  had his passport cancelled and can not leave the country. “This type of regime is very afraid of press freedom, that is why it is up to independent journalists, every day, to make known the reality of the country,” he says.

In the center of the Island the landscape is very similar. In the city of Camagüey, journalist Henry Constantín has been unable to travel, even to another province, for months. The political police closely control Constantin, editor of La Hora de Cuba magazine, and the rest of his team. “There is a lot of surveillance especially when it comes to engaging in journalism on the public right-of-way,” he says.

Sol García Basulto, a designer and collaborator on the publication, has also experienced official outrages. In the middle of last year the reporter suffered restrictions of movement after the police imposed “a precautionary measure of house arrest” on her for interviewing people in Camagüey. Unable to move from her province, Basulto uses the social networks as a platform to channel her complaints.

Against this background, Henry Constantin believes that the first step to approach freedom of the press is ensuring that the independent media can count on the “right to have a legal existence with guarantees.” The possibility of “protecting sources, expressing all kinds of opinions and interviewing public officials” is also essential.

The media belong to the State according to the 1976 Constitution but the absence of a Media Law has allowed the independent press to flourish. A loophole that dozens of reporters throughout the country have taken advantage of.

“The chance to do internships in other countries has helped to raise the quality of journalism that is done within the island,” says Constantín, regional vice president of the Inter-American Press Association. An improvement that is perceived “both in audiovisual work and in the written press.”

Quality, despite the fragile conditions in which they work, is an obsession for many of the emerging media reporters, editors and directors.

Carlos Manuel Álvarez, writer and journalist, leads the team of El Estornudo magazine and insists that the journalistic profession goes beyond ideological color or political positions, but that “rigor” is the only thing that differentiates it from propaganda.

The digital site that Álvarez runs has recently been blocked on national servers, like so many other websites. It is a decision “with a strong political weight, which can work as a stigma, cause more caution or suspicion towards the magazine by sources or possible new collaborators,” laments the reporter.

Mistrust between journalists in the official and independent media is a difficult obstacle to overcome in order to work together. The accusations fly between one side and the other.

Alvarez believes that this distrust “for the time being, will not disappear, since it is the direct result, within the media ecosystem in Cuba, of a political system that fosters ideological division and the fracture of public opinion in allies and enemies alike.”

In 2016, in an unprecedented gesture, a group of young journalists signed a letter, published by the local newspaper Vanguardia, in Villa Clara, claiming their right to collaborate with other media, especially the independent magazines and newspapers that had been born at the time, outside officialdom, but without setting themselves up as open opponents. The demand fell apart among the pressures and an official authorization never came to fruition.

The experience of Reinaldo Escobar, editor-in-chief of 14ymedio, is an interesting precedent. The reporter worked for two decades in the official press until he was expelled. “I decided to publish a series of opinion columns that criticized some issues that were still taboo at the end of the 1980s, such as opportunism, inefficiency and excessive prohibitions,” he recalls.

In Juventud Rebelde , the country’s second newspaper, Escobar’s most critical texts coincided with the years of glasnost in the Soviet Union. “Some colleagues in the news room looked at me as if I had gone crazy and others as if my journalistic funeral was just around the corner.”

In 1988 a decision of the then Department of Revolutionary Guidance (DOR), attached to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, expelled Escobar from his job and prevented him from returning to practice his profession in the official media. “At first I thought that my life had been destroyed but a short time later I realized that I had been made a free man and, since then, I have not suffered self-censorship again.”

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

In Punta Alegre, in the Chambas municipality, winds and coastal floods toppled 645 homes while another 1,054 partially collapsed. Although the government turned to repairing the area’s infrastructure and credits were granted to rebuild the houses, the economic life of the town has not recovered.

“The situation has gotten worse, I would like to stay with my family, with my wife and have a steady job here, but nothing comes up,” explains Buchillon just a few hours after arriving home after spending a month away from the island, a part of that time at sea and the rest in a prison in the Bahamas, from where he was repatriated.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics for 2016, 17.3% of young people in the country of working age do not study or work, although more than a third of these unemployed (37%) say they are not looking for work either, figure that totals 78,778 young people throughout the country.

The numbers could be higher since many do not report their situation, in the absence of unemployment insurance that would allow them to collect a minimum amount while looking for a job. In rural areas the problem is more serious and a good part of the young people only find informal and illegal tasks to support themselves.

“Before the hurricane I had messenger work in a cafe, but it was illegal, without a contract,” says Yoandy Rojas, another young resident of Punta Alegre who has tried to leave the country illegally three times. “Since September, this town has been taken over by the police so even a fly can’t move outside the law,” he explains.

The area, with little agriculture, depends mainly on the sea and the visits of tourists who go to the keys, north of Ciego de Ávila. “There are towns where people live mostly off the tourism business, but foreigners don’t come here much and also in recent months tourism has dropped,” he says.

“Here tourism is the center of everything,” explains Dielsy Hechevarría, who works as an informal guide and rents out two rooms with her mother. “If there are no foreigners there is no work,” says the young woman who is now hoping to move to Havana in search of other opportunities. “This town has no future,” he concludes.

In Punta Alegre, Buchillón made a living as a fisherman and illegally sold his products to residents and businesses in the area. The National Revolutionary Police (PNR) killed that opportunity with an increase in operations on the coast. “They harass fishermen and do not let them live,” says his mother, María de Los Ángeles García León.

Last summer, Buchillón was hired to repair the floats of the popular festivities. “They paid me 150 Cuban pesos, about 7 Convertible pesos, for all the work and it was only enough to buy shoes for my daughter who started school,” he recalls. Since then, he has not returned to work with the State or in any private business.

García León has said goodbye to her son four times, at every attempt to leave the country. The last time was barely a month ago, when he left with 12 other friends to try to reach the coast of the United States. “There is a lot of misery here, and the young people have no life because they have a rope around their necks,” the woman says.

The rafters built a craft with a sail but without a motor, known popularly as a chapín, and launched themselves on the water. “We spent five days in the sea and there were a lot of waves,” recalled Buchillon, still suffering from a throat infection and the tousled hair of the shipwrecked.

On March 30, the US Coast Guard intercepted the raft and moved its occupants to a migrant detention center in the coastal town of Flipper in the Bahamas. After being prosecuted, the 13 rafters were taken to Nassau where they were imprisoned for 22 days until their return to Cuba.

Buchillón says that 34 Cubans from different groups came together and received degrading treatment, a situation that led them to start a hunger strike. A few hours after the fasting began, the ambassador of Cuba in the Bahamas, Ismara Mercedes Vargas Walter, visited to urge them to end the protest.

This Monday, finally, they set foot on Cuban soil and two days later Buchillón was back in Punta Alegre. “For now, I’m not thinking about trying to leave again,” he reflects, but he knows that he has a difficult task ahead of him, as difficult as evading the coastguard or surviving the waves: finding a job.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

The Exhibition awarded the prize for Best Documentary to two films “on equal terms”: The Dogs of Amundsen, by Rafael Ramírez, which also won for Best Director and the Best Original Music, and Music of the Spheres, by director Marcel Beltrán.

The mentions in that category were awarded to the directors Daniela Muñoz for What Remedy? The Parranda, and Adriana Castellanos for Two Islands.

The Special Jury Prize went to Alejandro Alonso for his documentary work The Project, which is a nod to “cinema within cinema.” The peculiar script, through pure photography and without a single word of dialogue, narrates a story that mixes fiction and reality and begins when the young director tries to film inside high schools and boarding schools in the countryside but the authorities deny him access.

With the thread of the prohibitions and obstacles that appear in the way of any film project, Alonso manages to convey the states of uneasiness, doubt and commitment that the filmmaker goes through in order to complete his dream.

With that same work, Lisandra López won for best script, while the Best Animation award recognized the work Mamiya CR7, by Danny de León and Eisman Sánchez.

Parallel to the exhibition, the Cuban Association of Cinematographic Press award went to The Dominant Species, by Carolina Fernández-Vega. The National Center for Sexual Education and the Oscar Arnulfo Romero Reflection and Solidarity Center awarded the work I Love Papuchi, by Rosa María Rodríguez; the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños awarded its prize to Cosplayer, by Orlando Mora Cabrera; and the Faculty of Art of the Audiovisual Media chose The Project.

The documentary Two Islands, by Adriana F. Castellanos, also won an award from the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation of Nature and Man, while the Sara GómezNetwork of Cuban Performers and Televisión Serrana awarded What Remedy? The Parranda. The Audience Award went to Human Thirst, by Danilo C. París and Gabriel Alemán, a film that also won the award for Best Photography.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

The afternoon and evening session on this first day was enlivened a little more with the welcome offered by the organizing committee to the young filmmakers at their new headquarters on 23rd Street. Two exhibitions, Hair of the Wolf, by the artist collective Chambelon Network, and Vero de perro, by Manuel Almenares, completed the day’s program.

Also presented on the opening day was the feature film not part of the competition, The Wolves of the East, filmed in Japan and directed by Carlos Machado Quintela, known for his film The Work of the Century (2015)about the failed Cienfuegos Nuclear City project.

However, the main protagonists of the day were the absentee I Want to Make a Movie and its director, who were at the focus of the conversations among exhibition attendees, especially because, hours earlier, the Presidency of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) issued a harsh statement against the film.

UNEAC’s statement adds to an avalanche of articles and comments published in the official press and on the websites of institutions that criticized the words of a character in the film, who refers to José Martí with the terms “mojón” and “maricón” (turd and faggot). UNEAC believes that the exclusion of the film from the program is an incident that has been “magnified” by the “anti-Cuban press.”

“We share the indignation of youth who follow Martí in the face of this attempt to tarnish the memory of the Apostle,” said the Presidency of the pro-government association. The statement, however, did not mention the public solidarity shown by much of the film industry with Ramírez.

“To those who seek to undermine the founding values ​​of the Cuban nation, we say: Don’t involve José Martí!” UNEAC said in its statement, in a tone that many filmmakers and film critics have considered threatening.

On Tuesday night, the Exhibition continued with the screening of the documentary short films Movies and Memory by Jorge Luis Sánchez and Notes on the Shore by Luis Alejandro Yero. In addition, the fiction short film Rocaman, by Marcos Díaz, and the animated Decomposition, by Jarol Cuellar, were screened.

Like last year, the Exhibition suffers from a shortage of works in the animation section, with just three this year. In addition to the films in the competition, the event also includes a Bonus section for non-competition pieces, known as the Moving Ideas space, along with the usual conferences and the pitching of movie themes in the Making Cinema section.

Among the most anticipated is the screening of Alejandro Alonso Estrella’s documentary, The Project, which presents the concept: “A filmmaker is forbidden to film an old school converted into housing. Years later, he decides to remake the Project.”

Also in the documentary category, the filmmaker Marcel Beltrán competed with the work The Music of the Spheres, inspired by a family history.

Despite the censorship applied to his latest film, Yimit Ramírez is represented with a short film from 2017, Eternal Glory, which tells the story of Julián, an “outstanding worker” worthy of an award he has always wanted, but “at the moment he is nominated, his mind is filled with great conflicts.”

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.