Category: Luz Escobar

According to this version, he has been seen walking into the hospital on his own, guarded by several doctors, talking to his doctor, and walking through a courtyard at Calixto Garcia Hospital. During all this time, he has not had access to his cell phone or to a hospital phone to call his relatives. He has been kidnapped, his friends and colleagues inform us.

In the last video, released last Wednesday night, the artist looked much more physically damaged than in the previous ones. He looked thin, very thin, his hands between his thighs, his laughter was nervous, and a tray full of food on his lap, although he could not be seen eating anything. This was part of a macabre scene that State Security insists on showing before our eyes.

In the last video that was released last Wednesday night, the artist looked much more physically deteriorated than in the previous ones

Those of us who know Luisma know of his overwhelming strength and what we have seen here, although he resembles himself at times, is far from the friend, the creator who is Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. What are they doing with him? What do they want to accomplish with those videos? What treatment is he receiving that he isn’t already out of the hospital?

His captors say that he is in good health but they do not yet explain why they have him hospitalized. They say that they are complying with what’s established, but they display him without shame, even giving details of his medical files in the official media and lying.

They already tried to take Luis Manuel to jail under the accusation of having committed alleged crimes of outrage to national symbols and damage to property but they could not prove it. They released him after 13 days. On that occasion, the authorities pointed out his disrespect for the flag for his Drapeau performance, in which he proposed to carry, like a second skin, the Cuban flag over his shoulders for a whole month, 24 hours a day. He did not soil the flag, he did not throw it to the ground, he did not “outrage” the national symbol as the authorities claim in their smear campaigns.

At 33 years of age, the artist is the most visible face of the San Isidro Movement (MSI). For this reason, the government’s propaganda apparatus has not stopped campaigning to discredit his image, accusing him of leading a “political manipulation” and of receiving instructions and financial support from abroad.

But the government’s boundary on Alcántara has been tightened even more since last November. The problem is no longer whether he uses national symbols or public space for his performances, now they go into his house, tear off the works that the artist has on the walls and take him away by force. In this violent way it was how they prevented him from continuing with the performance that consisted of being in his living room for eight hours and five days, sitting on a vile garrote, which was also taken from him by the authorities.

This time he was not harassed for making unconventional works of art in public spaces, outside the conventional frameworks of art, such as his actions questioning the removal of a bust of the communist leader Julio Antonio Mella from the ground floor of the luxurious Manzana Kempinski Hotel. This time he has been punished with never-before-seen brutality for doing what is supposed to be art within established limits.

This time he has been punished with never-before-seen brutality for doing what is supposed to be art within established limits

After that arrest, when Alcántara returned home he did nothing but go out every day to demand that the surveillance fence surrounding his home be lifted since November 2020 be lifted, that the confiscated works of art be returned to him or that he be compensated for the damages and that the authorities respect the full exercise of artistic freedom for all creators.

The government not only ignored his demands but also ordered him to be detained every time he went out on the street, until he received death threats from another prisoner in the dungeon. That was why he did not come out anymore to continue demanding his rights.

Alone in his home, completely incommunicado and surrounded by State Security, it was then that the hunger and thirst strike began on April 25^th until dawn on May 2^nd, when he was taken to Calixto García Hospital against his will.

That is how we got to this point, 20 days in which the only news that has been had from Alcántara is filtered through State Security, a macabre filter that, far from alleviating fears, returns an image that is so disturbing it seems designed solely to instill terror and panic.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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It seems that Cruzata had previously been informed of the video, because when they viewed it then, they told me that they did not see anything wrong with it, but that the censorship comes from the channel’s management”

The composer assures us that Havana Noticiario was going to talk about the video on the 17^th, but finally they claimed they didn’t have time. “I guess someone didn’t like the idea of being independent.”

The ban seems to be aimed at the video clip, since the song continues to be broadcast normally on the radio. “It premiered on the radio in position 46 of the Top 100 in Cuba and now it is already in third position,” according to the ratings from the Pista Cubana website.

Kiriam Gutiérrez, audiovisual director, regrets that this censorship episode coincides with the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia.

“I always thought of the video for our community, for all our struggles, for a diverse Cuba, an inclusive Cuba. I never had the idea that it was a commercial video, I did it for people. When Papushi proposed presenting it to Lucas, I was in favor of it. I agreed because it was an opportunity for me to reach more people, but later they told me that the video could not be broadcast on television, without further explanation. I felt very sad.”

Gutiérrez points out that it was precisely agreed to be broadcast on television to achieve visibility that in Cuba is very complicated, since not everyone has the opportunity of connecting to the internet and downloading videos.

“I would have liked very much for it to be aired on television, to reach those people who right now have homosexual, bisexual or lesbian people in their family who are misunderstood”

“I would have liked very much for it to be put on television, to reach those people who right now have homosexual, bisexual or lesbian people in their family who are misunderstood.”  These are people who feel violence against trans and bisexuals, and many would have changed their way a little to think and react to situations like these,” explains the artist.

For this video clip, released on May 17^th on her YouTube channel, the director also invited Pupushi Soto and other singers who showed their enthusiasm for participating, such as Giselle Ferrer, Tony Lugones, Vania Borges and Arlenys Rodríguez. Transformistas such as veteran Orianna Sharon, “la Cher de Cuba” also collaborated.

“How many children, how many misunderstood adolescents at this time. It would have been nice to provide a little love, that’s what the video is about. The love of life, the freedom to choose your gender identity, the free choice of our life. It would have been very nice for those minutes of love to come to the family, love with respect for all forms of life, all identities, I do not lose hope,” she says.

As the artist explained to this newspaper, the video was made independently, and the filming was possible thanks to many people’s collaboration, both inside and outside Cuba. Filming ‘Es mi Vida‘ was a pending dream since in 2001 when she filmed the video clip ‘Lola’, from the group Moneda Dura, which was banned on national television because of its having her as the protagonist.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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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.

Landy Fernández was seen by the investigator who was handling his brother’s case several days after his arrest in Villa Marista, the State Security operations center in the Cuban capital.

The last time they put him in the punishment cell was when Humberto López said on the news that they had called a demonstration to be held at the Plaza de la Revolución for March 12^th. Out of that demonstration, Luis came out with all his skin in shreds

The official explained that Robles was fined 1,000 pesos, but that even he did not understand why, he insists. From that moment, Fernández tried to get the file number and the case of the judicial process, which he managed to obtain a week later.

When reviewing the documents, he realized that his brother was accused of “other acts against State Security”, although this changed later.

During that time, he also filed a habeas corpus petition that was denied, and after receiving many rejections from lawyers to take up the case, he was able to get one, who asked him not to make his name public.

Luz Escobar. What does your brother say about his stay in jail?

Landy Fernández. Due to the COVID issue, I have not been able to see him, not even when he was in Villa Marista (the central prison of State Security in Cuba). As soon as he arrived at the Combinado del Este prison, in the first days of January, we were able to speak on the phone and he began to tell me about the experiences he was having there, of the mistreatment, the threats, the repression.

One day they beat him, stripped him, got him wet and moved him every two hours from one cell to another. At the time of that call, I was at the Prison Directorate’s office at 15^th and K Streets with my mother, who came from Guantánamo to see if she could do something which I, as his brother, could not. We were meeting with a ‘population service’ employee and when Luis confirmed these tortures, I had the opportunity to speak with that woman and put my brother’s call through with his complaint so that she could hear it directly in his own voice.

She told me that they were going to order an investigation to find out if it was true, but that never went anywhere. I went to the Attorney General’s Office, they told me to write a letter making the complaint and that they would give me an answer in 60 days, but that date has already passed and I have not received a response yet.

The last time they put him in the punishment cell was when Humberto López said on the news that they had called a demonstration for March 12^th in the Plaza de la Revolución. From there Luis came out with all his skin in shreds due to an allergic reaction. Liquid was oozing from the entire surface of his skin.

Everything become complicated at work too, they began to visit the owner of the workshop, my other brother, and we thought that the best thing to do was for me to leave and stop working

Luz Escobar. How has all this impacted your life?

Landy Fernández. On the day of the supposed demonstration, March 12^th, my house was also under surveillance by State Security officers, who did not allow me to go anywhere. My internet service also gets cut off. Recently two agents came to ask me to stop my publications on the networks because the same thing that happened to my brother could happen to me, a direct threat. But I do not care because I am not afraid, I will not stop asking for freedom for my brother. My father called me from Guantánamo to try to stop me, but I told him that these are different times, that in his time he did what seemed convenient and that I am now going to do what I should.

Everything became complicated at work too, they began to visit the owner of the workshop, my other brother, and we thought that the best thing to do was for me to leave and stop working until everything about Luis was resolved.

Luz Escobar. What has the lawyer explained to you about where the case of your brother stands?

Landy Fernández. Luis’s investigative file has already closed, that is where the prosecution accuses him of “enemy propaganda” and “resistance” and asks for a six-year sentence. The lawyer advised me to stop the process now until he can meet with my brother again and prepare a proper defense, including the testimony of everyone about the mistreatment that he has received in prison. I agreed, because otherwise he would go straight out of the Combinado prison to a court trial without us knowing well what they are accusing him of. He has partial knowledge, thanks to my conversations with some of his colleagues, but, since April, I have not been able to speak with him again and he does not know all the details.

He has told me that he has seen a lot of abuse by the officers against the prisoners, that they are handcuffed and beaten until they cry. These are 40- and 50-year-olds crying like little children from the blows they are given

 Luz Escobar. How has the call system in prison been up to now?

Landy Fernández. I imagine that they interrupt his calls to punish him. He has told me that he has seen a lot of abuse by the officers against the prisoners, that they are handcuffed and beaten until they cry. These are 40- and 50-year-olds crying like little children from the blows they are given. He also tells me that, in the beginning, the other prisoners took things from him as if to provoke him, but he told me that he had no interest in responding to those provocations, that he wanted to be calm. After he called me and asked me to make public that State Security wanted to recruit him in exchange for parole, I lost all communication with him.

Another prisoner has called me to tell me that Luis is fine and wants to know how we are, how his son is, how his mother is, but others have also called me and told me that they have not seen my brother for days or in the yard. Since I don’t know any of them, I don’t know if they are calling me from a street corner or if they are lying.

I told the Directorate of Prisons that I needed to regain communication with my brother and they told me that Luis had done something and his calls had been suspended as punishment. They did not tell me what he did wrong but I think it was because of that call: I published the audio where he says that State Security wanted to recruit him, that he is not willing to negotiate his principles in exchange for anything, and that he will be imprisoned for whatever time is necessary.

The lawyer has done a very good job so far, he instills faith in me, especially in the way he talks to me. He tells me that he is going to try to use all the legal tools in favor of Luis and I’d like to believe him because my brother has not committed any crime. Peacefully holding a poster in public is not a crime anywhere in the world.

Translated by Norma Whiting

The 2020 revenues are an achievement “despite the circumstances of the pandemic and the ban on selling their products in the United States due to the laws of the economic blockade”

José Liván Font Bravo, first vice president of the Tabacuba Business Group, declared then that a portion of the plantations will not receive fertilizer “due to the brakes imposed by the ‘roadblock’,” in clear reference to the embargo.

However, far from the focal point of the propaganda provided by the festival, in which the State media declared that more than 5,000 companies from more than 120 countries around the world participate, and the justifications of the authorities, the peasants are clear that the main problems of tobacco production are rather the consequence of economic “mismanagement” and the implementation of the so-called Ordering Task*.

So thinks Nestor Pérez, from the Plantation La Isleña, founded at the end of the 19th century in San Juan y Martínez, in Vueltabajo** (Pinar del Río).

In a conversation with 14ymedio, Pérez explains that they have not had problems with fertilizer in his territory, and that the doses they have bought have allowed them and many producers to “develop the operation.” But in addition, the producer, who is 37 years old and has been working in the fields since he was 15, details: “The United States is not the supplier of fertilizer.” In his farm, for example, they use fertilizers from other countries, such as China or the Netherlands.

The producer concedes that Covid 19 and the weather had “adverse effects” on the operation. “In Río Seco, which is part of the tobacco chain that was quarantined for a long time,” he says, “entire plantations were lost.” Also, in November, “there was heavy rainfall” when the seeds were planted. However, these were not the primary pitfalls.

“There are a growing number of cooperatives in Vueltabajo that have been incurring debts from past periods, due to their mismanagement or company demands, something that affects the running of the same cooperatives with their resources and supplies,” he explains to this publication.

Added to the debts, he says, “is the deficient management of the seedbeds by the State,” a task that, though the producers are taking it on, “is still in the hands of the State, for the most part.”

In the midst of all this, he continues, comes the ‘Ordering Task’, which, for him, “is the most important point.” He says, “For the farmers, the so-called Day Zero was not Day Zero; we had not gotten a price ready, and a price was decreed without having the token cost” — that is the model where the data necessary to calculate the planned unit cost of a product or service provision is collected.

“For the farmers, the so-called Day Zero was not Day Zero; we had not gotten a price ready, and a price was decreed without having the token cost”

Pérez says that they were assured that prices would be established in about two months, but in January and February, when the peak of the harvest occurs, they were hit with them “without a token cost, without an extension of credit.” The main consequence was that the producers could not pay the workers “because they did not have the credit extension until the beginning of April.”

When they finally had the cost card, they saw that the credits were increased, but that the dry tobacco prices doubled, from 2,560 to 5,700 per metric quintal [one metric quintal is about 220 pounds].

The generalized increase in prices from the Ordering Task, he insists, was of great importance for the farmers. “There are the inputs, which increased 10 and 15 times their value and that cost was like a shock for the producers. They [the company] said they were going to make a new price proposal, but still nothing, it continues the same as they established at the beginning of the year,” he complains.

“In my opinion and that of many in this area,” he summarizes, the Ordering Task has been “disastrous” and “catastrophic,” since “it has led us to face the peak of the operation with credit based on previous prices, and 70% deficient.” He concludes that, as a result, “People were left without money, that is the biggest obstacle, not the blockade [US embargo].”

Translator’s notes:

*The so-called ‘Ordering Task’ (Tarea ordenamiento), is a collection of measures that includes eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and other actions. 

*Vueltabajo: Literally, the downward curve. Geographically situated at the westernmost end of Cuba, in the Pinar del Río province, it is the most important and best known of the five tobacco producing regions in Cuba.

Translated by Norma Whiting
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“Homeland and life”, “down with the dictatorship”, “Luis Manuel is dying”, “there are no medicines”, “there is no food”, were some of the demands that Franco Benítez shouted, to which a whole chorus responded “Homeland and life! Homeland and life!”, the title of the song by Yotuel Romero, Gente de Zona, Descemer Bueno, Maykel Castillo and El Funky, which has become the motto of the opposition inside and outside Cuba. 

The police, unlike during other occasions where they acted by beating activists, were visibly fearful of executing the arrest operation with violence in front of the cell phones that were recording

The activists also shouted “down with repression” and “down with communism”, while the police and State Security agents became increasingly violent against the activists while trying to take them away. The protesters’ demands were chanted by dozens of Cubans who gathered around them.

During Ares’s live broadcast, the moment when the activists held each other’s arms, to avoid being taken away, was recorded.

The police, unlike during other occasions where they acted by beating activists, were visibly fearful of executing the arrest operation with violence that cell phones were recording and transmitting live.

Neither were there rapid response brigades in the crowd, shouting slogans in favor of the Government, and only one woman exclaimed: “Viva Canel!”, a shout that was extinguished by the chorus of “Patria y Vida”.

People were able to recognize “Lieutenant Colonel Camilo”, a well-known repressor who led an operation against Yoani Sánchez and Reinaldo Escobar a decade ago and has been singled out by activists, such as the Ladies in White. He had been absent for a few years.

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the most visible face of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), is still surrounded by a police cordon, preventing his friends and some religious authorities who have tried to enter from getting through.

This Friday morning, he told 14ymedio that he was unable to speak. “I’m exhausted, I don’t even have the strength to talk,” he texted to this newspaper via SMS.

Poet Amaury Pacheco, a member of the MSI, stated on his Facebook wall that Otero Alcántara’s uncle, Enix Berrio Sarda, was able to visit the artist in Old Havana and report on his health. “He can no longer stand up, his skin and mouth are cracked, he no longer urinates and cannot speak, his throat is swollen,” said Berrio. He further said that he “is maintaining his demands and will continue his hunger strike until the end”.

“He can no longer stand up, his skin and mouth are cracked, he no longer urinates and does not speak, his throat is swollen”

According to a report this Friday afternoon by journalist José Raúl Gallego, a resident of Mexico, several people, including members of the Catholic Church, are gathered in front of the Infanta and Manglar police station, in the El Cerro neighborhood, to get news of the detainees during the protest.

The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) expressed disapproval of “the repression by the Government of Miguel Díaz-Canel and General Luis Alberto Lopez-Calleja” against protesters, and it pointed at them as responsible for the “physical integrity of the detainees”.

“We urgently call on the European Union and Michelle Bachelet, High Commissioner for Human Rights, to condemn the repressive escalation, and to abandon their complacency with the Cuban Communist Party, which not only represses those who exercise their rights, but has also plunged the entire Cuban people in misery”, added the OCDH.

La protesta de hoy en la Calle Obispo, una de las más concurridas de la ciudad de La Habana, fue acompañada del gritó de libertad que hace semanas acompaña a los cubanos: #PatriaYVida pic.twitter.com/XW2t0xusSp

— Norges Rodríguez (@norges14) April 30, 2021

Translated by Norma Whiting

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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.

A few months later I voluntarily decided to drop out of school because I felt like I wasn’t learning much.

14ymedio: Then, one day you decided not to return.

Novo: I had been in Mexico for a whole year. I visited the great murals of David Alfaro Siqueiros while I was there, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, I had seen the colors, the monumentality of those stimulating works, I had been in their presence. Well, one day I came to a Latin American Art class at ISA and they were teaching Mexican muralism. They began to show these works through faded slides, projected small on the wall. I realized that this had nothing to do with reality and I said to myself: “If this is the case with this subject, it must be more or less similar with everything. Maybe when they teach me some philosophy it will be at this same level”. I made a horizontal parallel line of all the degree subjects and I understood that they were teaching us in a distorted way. I said to myself: ‘I have to get out of here’.

14ymedio: Do you think that Cuban art academies try to impose a pattern of what it is to be an artist?

Novo: There is a part of the school that is very repetitive, you imitate great teachers and nature a lot. In that process there really is not much creativity. I began to create personally around the third year of San Alejandro thanks to a teacher named Rolando Vázquez who gave us more conceptual exercises. In attempting to solve these exercises I began to have ideas of my own. This is how I started in the world of sculpture, to work with space and that type of dynamics, something that was later strengthened at the ISA with research and the theoretical study of creative processes.

There is always a guide, because in the end everything has to do with success. Everyone does something to get to places and people create formulas. In my case, I was quite radical, intuitive. I was a bad student, at that time I was already living in Párraga and I was missing school, I was absent, super late, and it was very difficult for me to get into that rigid space where certain things had to be done. Many times, I would start to go to school and would stray with members of the neighborhood, and I would play rumba as well as talk garbage. That space was also stimulating and creative for me, I always went to drink more from the sources of life itself than from art.

14ymedio: At that time you had already gone through the Tania Bruguera’s Cátedra de Arte de Conducta (Behavior Art School). What did that space mean at that time?

Novo: I was there for two years and it was parallel to my first courses at ISA. The Cátedra was a time of great expansion. Now I see it and compare it with the moment when I opened up to social networks for the first time, when I became a Facebook member, for example, which was a huge expansion, suddenly finding many people who I thought were lost. People who are in other countries are suddenly by your side. Your social body expands because you post a photo, which could be in your wallet or at home, but if you post it on social networks it expands, and the Cátedra de Arte de Conducta was that for me. It was like fragmenting the mind into thousands of pieces, like dynamite, with people coming from all over the world to teach us. That program is most likely one of the best that has taken place in Cuba at the level of artistic education. The environment was completely different from the school, although it was born as an academic project within the ISA.

14ymedio: Throughout your career you have encountered censorship several times.

Novo: I think the moment where I experienced censorship firsthand, raw and frontally, was at the 50th Anniversary Collection exhibition at the Visual Arts Development Center in 2009. Sachie Hernández ran the place at that time. The exhibition was a series of T-shirts, posters, collages with clippings from the Granma newspaper, a commemorative baseball, a collection of stamps, a book; a kind of ideological advertising campaign of about 50 years of the Cuban Revolution.

The wording on the T-shirts and the iconography of the posters had a lot to do with the editorial aesthetics of Granma at that time. The signs I generated with the collages were really strong, politically strident, very confrontational. I remember that on inauguration day, a demonstration for non-violence was held, that Yoani Sánchez was not allowed to get there, and music acts were invented to extinguish any type of demonstration. That day, the Development Center got hot, because people from the march began to arrive and communicated what was happening. Amaury Pacheco and Adrián Monzón were among other artists who were already, in some way, connected with the dissent. The days were warm, the atmosphere was tense. 

They brought an order that said that Los Aldeanos could not sing at State cultural institutions, and I could not do anything

14ymedio: But at what point did the censorship arrive?

Novo: I wanted everything to be a multimedia show, we did visual projections and we had invited several rappers to sing, Los Aldeanos, Silvito el Libre, Maykel Xtremo and Danay Suárez. Everyone but Los Aldeanos was able to participate. It was an explicit censure. I remember several meetings with Sachie and the National Council of Plastic Arts. They brought an order saying that Los Aldeanos could not sing in State cultural institutions and there was nothing I could do.

I tried so that the part that was being censored did not sacrifice the whole of the entire exhibition, although it had already been mutilated. Some posters and collages had to be taken down from the wall, but even so, there was still a majority that wanted them to be displayed. Later, I learned that the pressure on the director of the Center had been enormous and that the State Security had summoned her several times, in addition to some anonymous ones who sent tor her questioning the exhibition. Within a few months, she was officially separated from her position. That was the first chapter of censorship that I experienced.

14ymedio: You were among the artists who protested against Decree 349 and among those who were in front of the Ministry of Culture on November 27^th. What leads you to get involved in these causes?

Novo: I have always looked for trouble, perhaps because I raise my voice when I have to because of my sense of justice. In the historic moment that we are living, to ignore what happens is to be part of the problem and I want to be part of the solution. I want things to change because they don’t have to be this way, we live in a country where everything has to be done in a specific way and it doesn’t have to be that way. I think the wrong side is not raising your voice. I feel like I’m in the right place doing what I have to do.

14ymedio: Do you think that this has resulted in a deterioration of your relationship with the country’s cultural institutions?

Novo: My relationship with the Ministry of Culture and with the authorities in power has changed radically, the thing is that I am not interested. I continue to greet all the officials in the same way. I feel that my position is not against them, but against the institution they represent. For some time now, I have not been interested in using Cuban institutions for anything, although they are there for a reason and they could accomplish a completely different job, I think they have closed the doors to me. However, I feel that I can be an institution, and that all of us, together, my group of friends, for example, generate spaces as legitimate as the institutions themselves.

For some time now, I have not been interested in using Cuban institutions for anything, although they are there for a reason and they could accomplish a completely different job, I think they have closed the doors to me

14ymedio: Since launching the song Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life] a wave of much official controversy has been generated. How do you see the concept of “homeland”?

Novo: The homeland is full of death, because we have built that concept based on sacrifice and heroism, but homeland can also be something else completely different. The concept that has been followed since 1959 has a dark meaning of sacrifice. That is what the Cuban State asks of the people, to sacrifice themselves, that one has to die for the country, but in reality, if you die, the country ends for you, therefore, it is better to live for it.

There is also a very great vice of following things literally and it has a lot to do with the lyrics of the Cuban National Anthem, when it says that “to die for the homeland is to live”. Things must be seen at the time and according to the historical context that was taking place. The Bayamo anthem is from 1867, Cuba was under an iron colonial system and it must be understood that, at that time, Cubans who fought for independence were able to think that way and were willing to give their lives for that independence. They interpreted the motherland as the need to die for her.

Now it doesn’t have to be this way, we are in the 21st century and we have the ability to see things differently. The problem that has been generated with Patria y Vida is because they cannot accept the content and the truths in the song, palpable truths. They do not want a break in their rhetoric brought by people who do not currently live in Cuba, such as some of those musicians who created the musical theme. The homeland space has been circumscribed to the national territory, so if you are outside the Island, you are no longer recognized as part of this homeland, however, this is not so. The homeland is a transnational entity that surpasses the country’s borders, it is within us all the time. The controversy that has been generated around such a beautiful song that promotes something so human is meaningless.

The homeland is a transnational entity that surpasses the country’s borders, it is within us all the time

14ymedio: Many artists of your generation have gone to live abroad, did you choose to stay in Cuba to fight for freedom?

Novo: The Cuban nation owes a debt to peace and freedom. From our small projection space and with our own tools we are fighting for freedom. The mambises had machetes and we have telephones, computers, and paintbrushes. Each one of us, in the circuit of friends we are connected to, is thinking of a prosperous Cuba with freedoms, democratic and open. That Cuba we dream of, the one that should be, and that I believe that in some way we are achieving. I don’t like to think about it all the time because it is like doing a historiography of the present. Sometimes one solves more by washing a plate than by thinking that the plate can be washed in one way or another. The important thing is to get things done, to be here.

I have never seriously considered leaving Cuba, although the reality is getting more difficult every day. There is a great lack of everything, and an overwhelming poverty of spirit and material. I have traveled to many places and I know that you can live differently, but I have always thought that this is where I have to do things and you reach a point where you say: ‘If I am here it is because I have decided to be here, and I am fulfilling a function’. I hope I can fulfill a function.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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“In normal times she would not even know what I do, but of course, now we are together all the time and she does not take her eyes off me”

In general, parents of adolescents find it difficult to explain the dangers posed by COVID because they feel invincible.

“My daughter watches the news and knows perfectly, according to the data, that her age range is not the most problematic and that makes it very difficult for me to convince her to stay home, I have to get tough. I even talked to a psychologist but she told me that it is normal, that at that age it is a problem to make them follow the current measures because they want to see their friends and be able to go out and in no way understand to what extent social distancing helps them keep them away from contagion”, she explained.

According to this mother, the specialist recommended that she speak clearly to the young woman and tell her that the problem is not in them, that the important thing is to make them see that they could be asymptomatic carriers and infect others. “I tell her, look, you can’t know if your friends are well or sick, and if you catch it, nothing will happen to you, but if your 76-year-old grandmother gets sick she could die, that’s how hard it is. I spoke to her that sternly but she still complains”.

It is a consensus among psychologists that, for adolescents and young people, being with friends is the most important thing in their lives. One of these specialists who spoke to 14ymedio – asking to remain anonymous to avoid problems at her workplace – commented that one has to “have a talk with the kids” and listen to what they are feeling in order to “try to understand them”, and for them so see that the family understands how frustrating the isolation is for them.

“From time to time you can be flexible in some of the measures. Letting them talk on the phone and spend time on social networks can help fill that void in socialization that they are living through right now. One has to find ways to motivate them at home, with family board games, watching a movie or a series together, activities that involve everyone”, she recommended.

The mother complains that there are things that do not help, because “not all parents take the measures seriously” and that makes it difficult to make her daughter see the severity of the problem. “There are some parents who are not complying with all the established measures, and allow their kids to be out on the street all day. So, what can I say to my daughter when she looks out the window and sees one of her friends playing dominoes in the park or sitting on the benches talking?”

She also says that her daughter is very distressed because she is “missing out on things: she missed her best friend’s 15^th birthday party, her theater workshop graduation, and her boyfriend’s birthday party. But I can’t risk her being where there are so many people because I have to care for my mother. Besides, the last thing I want right now is to have any of the family hospitalized”.

 A survey conducted by UNICEF at the end of last year shows that the COVID-19 crisis has had “a significant impact” on the mental health of young people in Latin America and the Caribbean

A survey conducted by UNICEF at the end of last year shows that the COVID-19 crisis has had “a significant impact” on the mental health of young people in Latin America and the Caribbean. The study collected the comments of 8,444 adolescents and young people between the ages of 13 and 29 in nine countries in the region and broke down feelings they had to face during the first months of the pandemic, specifically in September.

Some 27% of the participants said they felt anxiety and 15% were depressed in the last seven days, while 46% reported having less motivation to do “activities that they normally enjoyed”. According to the study, young people’s perception of the future has also been negatively affected.

However, other adolescents have looked for better ways to pass the time and, within the pandemic, they have found motivations. Jennifer de la Vega is now finishing twelfth grade, but according to her grandmother “she is helping high school boys” who live in the building with reviews of the subject where she considers herself “a specialist”, and where many of her neighbors “are lazy”: mathematics.

“I go to their houses and help them solve the tele-classes exercises. I also explain the new content. It is a bit like playing teacher, something that I liked to do a lot when I was little, but now my students are not stuffed animal puppets, but friends from the building,” says the girl who confesses that her friends at school made fun of her for being “always on time” and always studying.

“I also like to read a lot. I have downloaded several books on the phone and spend hours on it. I also want this to be over, but I am taking advantage of my free time in productive things to avoid going crazy thinking about what I am missing. Like many, the arrival of the coronavirus has changed our routines and I have tried to make it better, not only for myself, but also for those around me”, says Jennifer.

The parks where young people usually gather in Havana are empty. Maceo Park, which normally welcomes young soccer fans, looked deserted this Friday afternoon. The same panorama was seen in the Parque de los Mártires, in Infanta and San Lázaro, and also at the intersection of Línea and L Streets, in the El Vedado neighborhood. Despite the disappointment, most of the young people are at home, waiting for the nightmare to end.

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However, the harassment escalated since last November. During that time, almost a score of artists from the San Isidro Movement (MSI)were imprisoned and some of them went on hunger strikes for the release of rapper Denis Solís, sentenced in a summary trial to eight months in prison for an alleged crime of “disrespect”.

Decried by various international organizations, besieging independent journalists and activists has been the dominant repressive strategy in recent months

But the State Security agent who identified himself as Ramses did not provide any reason last November 23^rd to prevent me from leaving my building with my two daughters. He didn’t know why he was doing it, he told me. He was only following orders.

“We are not going to allow you to influence the public space”, he told me on November 25^th, once again blocking my way.

The following day, the political police, disguised as cleaning men, violently evicted the MSI activists from their headquarters, and on the 27^th, a peaceful demonstration of 300 artists in front of the Ministry of Culture ended in a meeting of about thirty of them with the vice minister Fernando Rojas.

Since then, they have not given me a break. In December, they didn’t let me leave the house for a whole week. “You can’t go out”, they repeated every day. On the 10th, fed up, I told the officer on duty: “Tomorrow I’m going to leave whether you like it or not, this is turned into an abuse”, and he remained silent. On December 11^th I was able to hit the street.

 In December, they didn’t let me leave the house for a whole week. “You can’t go out,” they repeated every day

On January 27^th, two months after the demonstration, a new “siege” of my front door began that would last four days in a row. That Wednesday, several members of the 27N group once again planted themselves before the Ministry, located in El Vedado, to attend a meeting with Rojas and demand the release of some of his colleagues who had been arrested early that morning. Within hours they were violently evicted and transferred by bus to a police unit.

On February 2^nd and 22^nd, the operation was repeated for no apparent reason. That time, they also cut my mobile service. In no case do the officers give explanations, but repressive acts do not fail to take place on significant dates, such as International Human Rights Day or the anniversary of the death of Fidel Castro.

“Luzbely, you can’t go out today.” Again, the order was issued on March 8^th, International Women’s Day, which is why the agent on duty, a skinny man she had never seen before, felt compelled to cynically say goodbye: “Congratulations!”

On March 12^th, I ran into the same guy. The night before, on national television, the presenter Humberto López denounced, during his spot on the News program that some opponents had planned a protest in the Plaza de la Revolución, something completely false.

This March 15^th is the third day of this month that I am under surveillance. This Monday’s agent is accompanied by two female officers and he refused to show me his ID. He says that I have already seen him “at other times”.

Translated by Norma Whiting
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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.