Olea Gallardo – Translating Cuba

As the Cuban Economy Sinks, Spanish Group Vima Increases Its Revenue on the Island

The profits, which reached €10 million, “demonstrate the weight of the Moro family’s discreet food empire.”

Vima Caribe dollar store on Infanta and Santa Marta in Havana / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, July 30, 2025 (delayed translation) — The Vima Foods group increased its profits last year thanks to its buoyant business in Cuba. Specifically, according to a report on Tuesday by Economía Digital, the conglomerate’s purchasing center, which operates from La Coruña (Spain) under the name Corporación Alimentaria Vima, increased its profits by 16%, from €8.6 million in 2023 to €10 million in 2024, as well as its turnover, from €88 million to €105.8 million.

Of these nearly 106 million, 49 million correspond to its operations with the island, its main market, which is nevertheless suffering the worst food crisis in its history.

According to Economía Digital, based on the latest accounts submitted to the Spanish Commercial Registry by Corporación Alimentaria Vima, a conglomerate founded by Víctor Moro Suárez—son of Víctor Moro Rodríguez, who died in 2021, a politician during the Spanish Transition and also head of a frozen food packaging conglomerate— Cuba is followed in importance by the Dominican Republic (33 million) and Mexico (15.4 million). The data, according to the local media, “highlights the weight of the Moro family’s discreet food empire.”

The article does not mention Spain—although it does mention other countries where Vima Foods claims to have a presence, such as China, Panama, and the United States—and rightly refers to the Coruña-based company as “a firm as little known as it is profitable.” Vima’s products, which are as ubiquitous in Cuban stores as they are reviled by their buyers—and which range from frozen vegetables to pre-cooked foods, canned vegetables, jams, and grains—are not found in Spanish supermarkets. continue reading

As an explanation for its growth, the company’s administrators stated in their most recent report that it was due to increased activity across the group as a whole

As an explanation for its economic growth, the company’s administrators stated in their most recent report that it was due to increased activity across the group as a whole: “Throughout the 2024 financial year, the company has experienced growth in turnover as a result of the product rebranding strategy initiated in previous years and the consolidation of the group’s presence in the retail and food services channels, which has led to an increase in demand from Vima Group companies at its purchasing center.”

A notable element in the report is the “new subsidiary” created by the group on the island this year, Vima Caribe, “which channels all commercial operations to a new branch, a 100% foreign-owned company responsible for the import, storage, marketing, and distribution of the group’s products in Cuba.”

This makes it clear that the “collaboration project” between Vima and the military conglomerate Gaesa (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.) through its corporation Cimex, signed last January, goes beyond the mere management of several “dollarized” stores. It has involved the legal creation of a new company, which has not been reported in the official Cuban press.

This new branch,“ continues Economía Digital, ”will replace the previous one, and it is expected that its status as an importer will give it greater commercial capacity.”

The media outlet also clarifies the latest ups and downs of Vima Foods’ subsidiaries, which are not without reason referred to as “a highly dispersed conglomerate.”

The media outlet also clarifies the latest ups and downs of Vima Foods’ subsidiaries, which are not without reason referred to as “a highly dispersed conglomerate.” As a result, Corporación Alimentaria Vima “has transferred its corporate employees in Spain to a new company, CS Vima, based in Madrid, which will be responsible for centralizing all services related to leadership, operational support, and human resources provided to all companies within the group.””

The headquarters of the conglomerate, Vima World, is registered in the Spanish capital, having previously been based in Panama until March 2023. At that time, according to sources from the specialized outlet, “it completed the process of transferring its registered office to Spain and converting into a limited liability company, while retaining its legal identity.”

The group’s business prospects, according to Economía Digital, will continue to grow, focusing on “its consolidation in the food distribution segment in Central America” and “opening markets in countries where it did not previously have a presence.”

Vima continues to describe itself on its website as a “family-run company founded in 1994” and as a group “originally linked to the fishing industry in Galicia, Spain,” despite being relatively unknown in that region.

At the same time, the Moro family has never hidden its connection to the Island, and in fact, Moro Suárez’s son, Víctor Moro Morros-Sarda, held a lavish wedding in Havana in December 2023. The patriarch himself has lived in Cuba for over 25 years, where he served as president of the Association of Spanish Entrepreneurs in the country.

The Moro family has never hidden its connection to the Island, and in fact, Moro Suárez’s son, Víctor Moro Morros-Sarda, held a lavish wedding in Havana

The origins and growth of its multimillion-dollar business are more opaque. The Panama Papers, a publication of the Mossack Fonseca law firm’s database by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), revealed in 2016 that Vima World was listed among the companies registered in offshore tax havens.

According to the ICIJ database, it was founded in January 1994 in the British Virgin Islands. However, Moro Suárez himself acknowledged in a 2006 interview with the local Galician press that his business empire began in Cuba. When asked by the journalist how he had “learned” to manage “one hundred and sixty employees serving twenty million meals around the world,” the businessman replied: “I found a work niche in the Caribbean region, starting from Cuba, and that circumstance led me to organize this group of companies.”

A report published in La Voz de Galicia four years earlier confirmed this: “Vima was founded in Havana in 1994 to take advantage of the Cuban market’s opening to tourism investment and become the leading supplier to hotels and restaurants.” In 2002, the article stated that Vima World, “a distribution company based in Vigo and fully owned by the Galician Moro family,” was the market leader in Cuba, controlling 15% of food distribution and 25% of hotel supply. In 2001, its revenues reportedly reached 25 million euros. Over the course of a quarter century, the business has quadrupled, nearing 106 million last year.

How a company led by a foreigner could be founded in Cuba in the mid-1990s and reach such figures within just seven years remains one of the questions surrounding Vima, which began appearing in establishments across the Island during that very period — marked by dollarization and the desperation of the Special Period. The answer may lie in that 2006 interview, where the journalist wrote that, according to what he had been told, Moro Suárez held meetings with regime figures, including none other than Fidel Castro himself.

Translated by Gustavo Loredo

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Unable To Compete With the Black Market, “International” Cuba’s Pharmacies Are Dollarizing

In these stores you can’t get aspirin or dipyrone, but vitamins or cough syrups are available at stratospheric prices.

Pharmacy on the ground floor of the Sevilla Hotel in Havana. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, October 9, 2025 — “Payment in dollars, starting October 1st.” This information surprised the few customers of the Sevilla Hotel pharmacy on Tuesday, the employees heard. Until just a few days ago, it was an establishment where payments could be made in freely convertible currency (MLC), but now only fula [US dollars], foreign credit cards, or the Classic prepaid card are allowed.

According to the same workers, the same thing is happening in all the “international” pharmacies, like the one on the ground floor of the Habana Libre Hotel. Calling them pharmacies, in any case, is an exaggeration, as the selection is limited and mostly focuses on vitamin supplements.

Shoppers were even more surprised to learn that they didn’t have aspirin or dipyrone*, common medicines. As for the prices, the high prices are no longer surprising. Cough syrups range from $13 to $19, laxatives at $11, vitamins—even those manufactured in Mexico, like Troffin—at more than $20. As is often the case in other state-run continue reading

stores, the items fill the shelves even if they are of the same type.

“International” pharmacy on the ground floor of the Habana Libre Hotel. / 14ymedio

“Antibiotics, painkillers, and other necessary things like that are very easy to get ‘on the left’ . No one is going to buy those things from them,” explained a woman accustomed to this type of transaction. “They’ve come late to wanting to get dollars from selling medicines, and they know perfectly well that the black market has cornered them.”

Indeed, the list of medicines for sale on “specialized” Telegram channels and WhatsApp groups resembles a real pharmacy, at lower prices than the official ones. A young man who regularly buys his mother’s diabetes medication through these channels comments: “Those pharmacies are going to fail.”

*Note: [from the ‘web’] “Metamizole, also known as dipyrone, is a strong analgesic and antipyretic that is available in many countries but is not authorized for use in the United States. It is marketed under hundreds of brand names by numerous manufacturers globally. ‘

Translated by Regina Anavy

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“Yes, People Are Dying From This Virus” in Cuba

The official newspaper ‘Girón’ gives a shocking description of the situation in the province of Matanzas.

Olea Gallardo, Havana, October 6, 2024 — “This illness has made you lose track of time and even logic. You no longer know how many days you, your husband, or your mother-in-law have had the symptoms, or if this is dengue, oropharyngeal fever, or chikungunya, or when the after-effects will go away, or how many minutes ago you got out of bed, or where it all began, or when the authorities knew, or why it took them so long to act. Or maybe they acted quickly and well and you didn’t find out because you no longer watch the news because of the power outages, or don’t have internet access until the month is up so you can put a recharge on your next bill.” The text is not a complaint posted on Facebook by an anonymous source or a statement given to an independent media outlet, but an article published this Sunday in the Matanzas newspaper, Girón.

The province is under an unprecedented epidemiological alert since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fact that such words appear in a pro-government media outlet demonstrates the desperation of its inhabitants.

The note, signed by Raúl Navarro González, speaks not only of the symptoms (“you’ve lost your appetite, you’ve lost weight, you’ve lost strength in your hands and legs, and the terrible pain makes you not even want to get out of bed”) and the cost of medications on the black market (“the sheets no longer smell clean, but rather of the last fever you sweated out, the rancid stink of the paracetamol blister pack, mixed with the smell of the coil you burned and the $10 repellent spray you sprayed on your son’s body, hoping—for God’s sake!—that no mosquito would infect him”). And, it also speaks of the suspicion that the illness has nothing to do with Aedes aegypti , the transmitter of dengue, chikungunya, and oropouche: “Staying under the mosquito net sweating makes no sense because everyone in the house is already infected, and besides, it’s a luxury you can’t afford.”

“A wail, a curse word, escapes you when you manage to peel yourself off the mattress and put your feet on the floor.”

The description is graphic: “A wail, a curse word, escapes you when you manage to peel yourself off the mattress and place your feet on the floor. Then, when you take the first step, two tears fall. One, from the discomfort in your body. The other, larger one, falls from the pain in your soul, from the helplessness you feel as you walk down that hallway that feels narrow and dark, like this infected island you inhabit and love.” continue reading

The only praise in the text is for the residents, many of whom “have come by to learn how they can help.” One of them reported that “they were finally collecting the garbage in some neighborhoods and that they were also fumigating,” says the author, who concludes: “This disease we suffer from leaves an iron taste in our mouths that is too bitter.”

The testimony published in Girón is very similar to the one offered to 14ymedio by Annia Zamora, mother of political prisoner Sissi Abascal and a resident of the small town of Carlos Rojas, Matanzas. “The truth is, I can’t describe what we’ve been through here at home,” she said by telephone. “We couldn’t even get up to give each other a glass of water in the other bed. This has been very painful, very sad. It has affected us physically and psychologically. I myself can’t even walk because of the pain and swelling in my legs.”

The woman, who, like many other Cubans, has been suffering for two weeks from an illness they can’t name because they don’t know what it is, is certain of one thing: “The regime is lying shamelessly.” Her story paints an unmitigated picture of the health situation: “People are dying because of this virus.”

“It’s not the same. There are people who are having a much worse time. It’s something strange we’ve never seen before.”

As for the symptoms, she confirms: muscle pain that prevents even walking – “my hands and feet become stiff”; fever that reaches 40 degrees, vomiting, diarrhea… “It’s not the same; there are people who are having a much worse time, it’s something strange that we’ve never seen before.”

Zamora asserts that, far from being resolved, the situation continues to worsen. Hospitals and polyclinics are overwhelmed, and there are no medicines. “Right now, I have a relative admitted to the pediatric hospital in the city of Matanzas. They had him in the hallway on a stretcher because the hospital is completely overwhelmed,” she complains. “The only medication a patient can take is something they look for it on the black market or someone gives it to them, because there’s nothing in the pharmacies. Not even the hospitals have Duralgina to give to a child when they arrive with a fever of 39C [102F].”

For the activist, this is an “incredible” situation, but even more incredible is “the ease with which the regime lies”: “There’s no garbage collection, there’s no fumigation, it’s all a lie.”

Her words contradict the authorities’ announcement this Saturday, which claimed to have increased the “anti-vector fight,” meaning fumigation against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, and that “all municipalities are more organized.” In a note published in Granma, the provincial director of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology of Matanzas, Andrés Lamas Acevedo, explains that dengue fever is being transmitted in 12 municipalities in the province—all except Ciénaga de Zapata—and that chikungunya transmission is also “certified.”

“It spreads from person to person, through the air, through the environment. Something happens and it’s on a different level.”
Likewise, he stated that the priority is “active surveillance and combating dengue,” which, unlike chikungunya, can be fatal, although he did not report any deaths in the country. The clinical picture of chikungunya, he said, “is very serious,” but “people do not become seriously ill or die from it.”

However, he did warn that chikungunya can be “concomitant” with dengue in the same person, so he encourages people to go to the health service “so that the doctor can evaluate the appropriate course of action,” because, he cautioned, “we cannot self-medicate.”

He made no mention of the testimonies that have been multiplying in recent days, many of them reported by 14ymedio, which allude to the impossibility of an accurate diagnosis due to the lack of reagents. From Matanzas itself, Miguel Alejandro Guerra Domínguez, a doctor and victim of the shortage at the Cárdenas Territorial Hospital, denounced on social media that he had not received the tests required for the progression and monitoring of his illness. “A hospital that does not guarantee the basics for the diagnosis and monitoring of dengue is seriously failing its population,” he said on his Facebook page.

The more than 700 comments left by Girón’s readers on social media reaffirm the seriousness of the situation and abound in widespread suspicion. One commenter is even surprised that a pro-government newspaper would publish such a comment: “The Girón newspaper has the odor of 14ymedio,” Yobanis Herrera says sarcastically.

“It started 21 days ago with pain in my hands and neck, then it spread and I developed a high fever, itching, and loss of appetite.”

Maritza Catalina Rodríguez, for her part, ventures: “In my humble opinion, I don’t think it’s a mosquito. I’m more inclined to believe it’s a disease like rubella, mumps, measles, contagious diseases that spread very quickly.” Many other commentators agree, such as Jeny Dacal: “I totally agree. It spreads from person to person, through the air, the environment. Something happens and it’s on another level. It’s something that attacks the entire nervous system and makes you feel like you’re almost dying. I had it, and I’m 34 years old, and I thought I was dying. I had difficulty speaking, I felt like my soul was leaving me. It’s extremely unpleasant. This isn’t because of the mosquito, I’m sure of that.”

The responses are not only from Matanzas residents, but also from residents of Cienfuegos, Ciego de Ávila, Villa Clara, Guantánamo, Havana, and other provinces. Several users suggest it could be scarlet fever, which according to journalist José Luis Tan Estrada is being reported in Camagüey.

Without knowing for sure what is attacking them, the sufferers can only describe the similar symptoms: “It started 21 days ago with pain in my hands and neck, then it spread, leading to a high fever, itching, and loss of appetite. Currently, I wake up early with a stiff neck, no grip. The leg pain is worsened by the circulatory problems. I don’t know for how long; I can’t continue taking paracetamol. Could it be chronic?” wonders Adelfa García, from Matanzas.

Some others allude to the severity with which the COVID-19 pandemic hit that same province more than four years ago. The situation reached its peak between June and July 2021, precisely in the days leading up to the 11 July Island-wide demonstrations, in which Matanzas residents participated massively and which were especially intense in the municipality of Cárdenas.

Hildolidia Martell summed up the state of affairs in her commentary: “On my block, we’ve all suffered and are still suffering from the virus. But what did you expect, given the unhealthiness and shortages we’re enduring? Well, if you can even call it surviving? Yesterday, as I was returning from the clinic, a man said to me, ‘Ma’am, we’re dead and we haven’t even realized it.’ No, we’re still breathing, I replied. He looked at me very seriously and replied, ‘We’re dead people who are breathing.’”

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Cuba’s Old Age Pension Increase Is ‘Nothing’ in the Face of the Hunger Experienced by the Elderly in Cuba

The measure was approved on Wednesday and will take effect on September 1.

The increase in the lowest pensions represents “one bag of milk or a bottle of oil” purchased from an MSME. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 8 August 2025 — A liter of oil, a kilogram of powdered milk, a pound and a half of pork… Cuban retirees don’t think about numbers when asked how much their pensions will increase , but rather what they will be able to buy with it in well-stocked private stores. This is a common sentiment among those interviewed for this report, along with something else: they all think the increase, announced last month by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero and implemented with the resolution published this Wednesday in the Official Gazette, won’t do much good.

“Prices are so high that this increase isn’t significant for basic needs, especially food,” says Manuel, a 68-year-old retiree from a state-owned commerce company who will benefit from the measure. In his case, he earns 1,500 pesos, and starting September 1—with payment at the end of August—his pension will reach 3,000. “For me, that doesn’t mean much; maybe a bag of milk or a bottle of oil, and that’s it.”

Still, he considers himself lucky because he has a daughter who sends him money from abroad. “Pensioners who have no other option, who aren’t healthy enough to find work to supplement their income, or who don’t have remittances, are destined to suffer hardship.”

“Pensioners without remittances are destined to suffer hardship.”

This is the case for Dulce, a Ministry of Culture pensioner. Her skepticism and annoyance are immense, after months of waiting to receive the oil from the bodega (ration store), thanks to her ration book. “Small bottles for single-person households didn’t arrive, and now I have to wait for several shipments to fill a bottle so I can continue reading

buy it,” she laments, adding ironically: “So I’ll use the extra money to buy the oil from an MSME [small private business].”

As established by law, an increase of 1,528 pesos is established for pensions up to 2,472 pesos, as well as an increase to to 4,000 pesos for pensions between 2,473 and 3,999 pesos. As for pensions due to death—such as widowhood or orphanhood—which also increase, they will be “recalculated” based on the deceased’s updated pension based on the number of beneficiaries: 70% more if there is one, 85% if there are two, and 100% if there are three or more.

Meanwhile, the Director General of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, Benito Rey González, told the official press that citizens entitled to more than one Social Security pension “will receive the increase in the amount of their unified pension.”

“Not even if they raise it to 4,000 pesos, or 5,000, or 6,000, or 7,000,” exclaims Olivia, a retiree from the Ministry of Education. “None of that can solve a problem for someone who has worked for 30 or 40 years.” She is particularly bothered by the attempt to sell this as an achievement. “In every country in the world, that money comes out of your salary, monthly, that’s why they deduct it, and from taxes for other workers. It’s not the State that gives it away.”

“In every country in the world, that money comes out of your salary; it’s not the State that gives it away.”

Despite 37 years of uninterrupted work, she tells 14ymedio, Olivia was left with a minimal pension. “They raised my pension a little on the first go-round, and then they raised it a little bit more, to 1,500 pesos,” she says. And she adds, resigned: “Well, the law is the law. You have to accept it, because everything they tell you has to be accepted. What are you going to do? Where are you going to complain? But I really don’t think that’s going to solve anything, when a pound of milk costs 1,200 or 1,300 pesos. That’s a mouthful for all the hunger and misery experienced by the elderly in this country.”

María’s pension increase, which has so far been 1,400 pesos, will be paid to a friend of hers. A resident of the United States, she prefers it to be received in Havana, “where they face so many hardships.” This is quite common: retirees who no longer live in Cuba continue to receive their pensions through third parties.

In a climate of extreme poverty, solidarity among citizens is a last resort. In this regard, Tania, a resident of Central Havana, says she helps her 96-year-old neighbor, who earns 300 pesos less than her: 1,200. “I’m not one to go to church and give a tithe; I try to help the people who come to me because I know they use it and need it,” she explains. She adds: “When I found out about the increase, I was happier for her than for myself. She’s an elderly woman, very sweet, very polite, from a very good family, but she worked very little, in a kitchen, and they left her with the bare minimum.”

The elderly woman lives in her home with her two daughters, who are also pensioners on the bare minimum. This is not only evidence of the hardships suffered by those over 60 in Cuba, but also one of the island’s main problems: the aging population.

Leonardo, a former police officer, won’t get a raise, as he earns 4,000 pesos. “With 26 years of service and loss of sight.” Disappointed, he approached a colleague at the Ministry of the Interior, who assured him: “We’re looking into it to see if there’s a small raise for December.”

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Havana-Ciego de Ávila, a Trip in Apaguistan*

The Viazul bus travels through ghost towns, where passengers get on and off by the light of their cell phones.

Viazul station in Havana, without electricity or air conditioning. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana – Those without fans waved cardboard with their hands this Monday at the Viazul restaurant in the Havana municipality of Plaza de la Revolución while waiting for their buses to depart. “How cheeky! Of course we always had air conditioning before,” protested a woman with a ticket to Santiago de Cuba, fanning herself. “Now we have to make do with the air that comes in through the open windows.” One flimsy fan for the entire room was useless even though it was turned on.

The fact that the transportation company serving foreign tourists—or Cubans with families abroad who can afford the ticket in foreign currency—can’t even air-condition its facilities in the capital is just one of the many symptoms of the dire situation of the national electricity system (SEN) during this peak season. In the provinces, despair prevails.

Those traveling to the eastern part of the country experienced this in a radical way upon arriving in Santa Clara. “We only knew we had arrived because the bus made a left turn. Everything was blacked out!” a Havana resident spending a few days on vacation in Ciego de Ávila with her family told this newspaper. “It was just darkness everywhere: in the terminal, people were stumbling, we were almost scared. There was no light but the cell phones, even in the bathroom.”

“A woman got out in total darkness and a frightening silence, as if the town had been abandoned.”

The young woman wasn’t pleased to hear a joke from a Cuban who seemed to be visiting: “We’re in Apaguistan*, he said, as if expecting laughter, but I didn’t find it funny because the imagery is so powerful, it feels like you’re in the middle of a dystopian movie.”

The same scene was repeated in Cabaiguán: “A woman got off in total darkness and a frightening silence, as if the town had been abandoned.” At the next stop, she says, “All I could see were the silhouettes of buildings, so continue reading

much so that I got lost: I didn’t know where I was, whether I had already passed Guayo and was I in Sancti Spíritus or what.”

And worse was to come, with yesterday’s shutdown for maintenance of the Antonio Guiteras power plant in Matanzas, the largest in the country.

Authorities estimate the work will last four days, although it was initially planned to last one less. According to official press reports , there will be three days of construction work and one day for the start-up and synchronization process. The first days will include repairing a leak in the boiler and a faulty feed pump, cleaning the regenerative air heaters, and repairing and replacing valves.

A precarious fan for the entire Viazul waiting room was displaying its uselessness despite being turned on. / 14ymedio

No fewer than 140 employees from the Cienfuegos, Felton, Santa Cruz, and Mariel thermoelectric plants (CTE) have been called in for maintenance at the Guiteras plant, which reflects the magnitude of the work. “At this time, all the workers and resources are scheduled,” boasted Román Pérez Castañeda, technical director of the Matanzas plant.

Along with Guiteras, five other units are out of service: two due to breakdowns—Felton Unit 2 and Renté Unit 3—and three for maintenance: Santa Cruz Unit 2, Cienfuegos Unit 4, and Renté Unit 5. This represents a deficit of 294 megawatts (MW) in energy generation.

Due to a lack of fuel, 75 distributed generation plants (662 MW) and 9 motors (150 MW) of the 12 of the Suheyla Sultan, the Melones patana [floating turkish power plant], are stopped, although the report this Tuesday from the Cuban Electric Union (UNE) predicts that 80 MW of the first plants as well as one hundred percent of the motors of the floating plant will come on during the hour of maximum demand, in the afternoon-evening.

According to the state-owned company’s report, during that peak period, an estimated 1,970 MW of available power is expected to meet a demand of 3,670 MW, resulting in a deficit of 1,700 MW. The actual impact will be 1,770 MW, almost half of the country’s energy needs, a figure higher than yesterday’s 1,673 MW.

“We are on the path to independence from imported fossil fuels.”

Given this, the statement made by the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, this Monday almost sounds like a joke. “We are on the path to independence from imported fossil fuels,” he said before Parliament’s Industry, Construction, and Energy Committee.

The minister was referring, of course, to the solar farms that have been proliferating on the island with the help of China, which are, he insisted, “a viable strategy to recover the national electricity system.” The 21 already operating, however, currently provide only 544 MW at most, and only during full sun hours.

Vicente de la O Levy welcomed the fact that “an average of five photovoltaic parks are being installed per month” and “with resources already in the country,” but acknowledged that “the security of fuels continues without a sustainable solution.”

He also referred to the Turkish floating power plants, whose final departure from the country due to nonpayment was expected last June and which are still holding on by the skin of their teeth. “We had up to eight barges in the country, and five have been removed,” the minister recalled. “With scarce financial resources, minimum payments have been made to keep the barges generating through July and August.”

“With scarce financial resources, minimum payments have been made to keep the trucks generating during July and August.”

Without a hint of self-criticism, but presenting a picture just as bleak as other committees, such as the Economy and Health committees, De la O Levy said that the main causes of the energy shortage are the increase in imported household appliances – 17 million in recent years, he indicated – the lack of liquefied gas and the low “electricity rates that do not encourage savings.”

In second place, he cited the decline in domestic crude oil production (from 3.6 million to 2.1 million tons) and the decrease in fuel oil and diesel imports due to a lack of foreign currency. Regarding generators, he stated that “there is no progress due to a lack of access to financing,” and regarding transformers, of which the country needs 12,000 annually, they are also at a critical point.

Regarding the crimes suffered by the SEN, he said they are primarily thefts of cables, fuel, transformer oil, and various accessories, as well as “misappropriations” at gas sales points.

“In the life of a country, 60 years are nothing, but in the life of a person, they are everything.”

Ordinary Cubans don’t need the minister’s dire statistics to know how things are. On the bus to Santiago de Cuba, like someone traveling in the depths of the night, the air conditioning is barely noticeable, there are seats that don’t recline, and the ticket numbers are repetitive.

A few tourists mingled with Cubans, most of them emigrants. A Cuban woman and her Belgian partner were talking about visiting her family, laden with gifts. They were the only ones not ranting about the country, along with another Cuban woman from the east. Their topic of conversation: the misinformation on social media about violence in Cuba, which only “spreads lies.” The eastern woman boasted about having “a floor plan for the whole house,” a house she made available to the couple she was talking to.

Another passenger, carrying all her luggage up to her seat, complained about not being able to leave it downstairs. “It was all full,” she said. “But I don’t understand: a little while ago, three people arrived with a pile of suitcases. They handed a dollar bill to one of the lounge employees, but they didn’t get on. Maybe that pile of suitcases was for shipping.”

A university professor spoke bluntly and directly against Fidel Castro. “In the life of a country, 60 years are nothing, but in the life of a person, they are everything,” he lamented. In his diatribe, he proposed, directly, “rebuilding the nation from scratch.” Cubans, he continued, are “people without values” and “deeply damaged” by a system for which the current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, was now being blamed. The responsibility, he asserted, “comes from before: Fidel was a mentally ill person who tried to compete even with God and lost in every way.”

Already in Ciego de Ávila, the young Havana woman reported only two hours of daylight that night. “Everything seems so depressing to me, people are so sad, what we’re all experiencing in Cuba isn’t life.”

*A play on words: ‘Outage-stan’

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Alejandra, 7, Drew Her Dream House Before Being Crushed to Death by a Building Collapse in Havana

Thousands of Cubans risk their lives living in dilapidated houses.

Alejandra Cotilla Portales, in one of the images in her drawing studio in Havana. / Loyola Reina Center

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 14 July 2025 — A dark-skinned girl with enormous, lively eyes stares into the camera in the midst of drawing. On the blank page, an figure impossible in Cuba appears: a snowman, and two others that she could not have seen: giant houses with roofs. These are some of the images shared by the Loyola Reina Center in Havana in tribute to seven-year-old Alejandra Cotilla Portales, who died along with her parents, Alejandro and Yuslaidis, in the collapse on Monte Street on Saturday .

The words of the educational center, run by the Society of Jesus, not only give a name and a face to the tragedy, but also make it even more stark. “Alejandra, the youngest member of our Drawing Workshop, always stood out for her vocation, her grace, and her extraordinary talent for the visual arts. Her creativity, confidence, and joy filled every space she shared with us with light. Her short but brilliant career was recognized in every competition she entered, and her enthusiasm was an inspiration to her classmates and teachers,” the community expressed, with “pain and dismay.”

Alejandra as a younger girl in the arms of her father, Alejandro Cotilla. / Facebook

The text highlights Yuslaidis Portales’s maternal role: “Her mother, always present and attentive, was an example of kindness and commitment to her daughter’s upbringing.” Her funeral prayer includes a condemnation of the island’s precarious housing: “We pray to the Father to change the structures that force thousands of Cubans to risk their lives living in dilapidated homes.”

While the official press and authorities—the municipal People’s Power Assembly did confirm the news on the day of the collapse—they ignore the victims, friends and acquaintances who are helping to remember them through social media. For example, Mercedes Tabio, the orthopedist who treated little Alejandra, said: “They were excellent people. The mother was very concerned about her daughter, religiously taking her to all her appointments, and the girl was very polite.”

“Alejandra, such a loving girl, and her mother, so concerned, always carrying her little girl everywhere. I feel so much pain.”

Taimy Arébalo Guerrero shares a similar sentiment: “Alejandra, such a loving girl, and her mother, so concerned, always carrying her little girl everywhere. I feel so much pain.” The woman states in her post that she met Yuslaidis for nutritional consultations during her pregnancy and explains that their children attended preschool together and attended special English classes.

Although the comments emphasize the mother’s attention to the child, the family photos on Facebook also reveal a loving father in Alejandro Cotilla, a native of Guantánamo. There are many photos of Alejandra in his arms, both smiling, and others of him embracing his partner. Two exemplary adults and a beautiful, intelligent child who flourished despite Cuba’s poverty, are no longer with us.

Yuslaidis Portales and Alejandro Cotilla, Alejandra’s parents, in an image shared on social media. / Facebook

The collapse that killed the three, at 722 Monte Street in Old Havana, occurred while they were sleeping. Teresa, a resident of the same street, told 14ymedio about the area: “Most of the houses here have been declared uninhabitable, but people continue to live there because they have nowhere else to go.”

Just hours earlier, also in Havana, but in the municipality of Diez de Octubre, another building “under demolition” collapsed on three people, one of whom died. Both events demonstrate the state of the capital’s construction and the helplessness of Havana residents against the city’s ever-accelerating collapse.

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Richmeat Brings Dollarization to the Plaza de Cuatro Caminos in Havana

The mysterious company, falsely Mexican, opened a La Favorita butcher shop in the central market

New butcher shop sells in dollars at La Favorita by Richmeat on Cuatro Caminos / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez / Olea Gallardo, Havana, June 20, 2025 — A new business has just joined the fever of dollarization in Havana. And not just anywhere, but in the largest and oldest market of the capital, Cuatro Caminos, in Centro Habana. This is a butcher shop of the firm Richmeat, which three months ago signed an agreement with Cimex to manage a whole complex of shops under the name of La Favorita, as some of its products are called.

Just a few days after opening, the place looks pristine, clean and perfectly air conditioned. A blue and yellow balloon decoration shows that the opening is recent. All of the employees address anyone who enters with the same question: “Can I help you with something?”

The variety of the offers – pork, boneless or seasoned chicken, house brand picadillo (El Cocinerito), sausages, burgers… – contrast with the freely convertible currency (MLC) part of the Plaza, only a few years ago well stocked and now languishing.

While the store was previously accessed through a door in front of the MLC products, it is now accessed through the main facade on Cuatro Caminos. / 14ymedio

As if to separate the new venue from the old, which is gradually being abandoned, they changed the entrance. Previously accessed through a door in front of the products in MLC, clients now enter through the main facade of Cuatro Caminos. “The hard currency gets the red carpet,” an old man mocked in front of the new butcher shop.

“Here there is almost nothing, but look there, girl, in dollars,” indicated a custodian of the place to a client. Nothing was said about the poor quality of continue reading

Richmeat’s products, which does not prevent the company from becoming increasingly prosperous.

La Favorita will soon open a branch in a privileged enclave, the Náutico de La Habana, a shopping center close to the exclusive club of the same name, in the municipality of Playa. That was going to be the first of the shops according to the agreement between Richmeat and Tiendas Caribe, announced by the authorities, but the one of Cuatro Caminos has advanced without explanations.

An employee confirmed to this newspaper that the plan to open that butcher shop in the western part of the city is still ongoing, predictably also in dollars.

The poor quality of the products of the Richmeat factory does not prevent the company from becoming more and more prosperous

The official press indicated last March that in a “first stage” of the agreement with Cimex they would have not only the Playa store, but three more. As “the project progresses,” said Cubadebate, “its expansion to other territories of the country will be planned.” They did not say at that time, however, that the sale of products would be in dollars.

This agreement was the second of its kind by the state corporation belonging to the Group of Business Administration (Gaesa), after the one signed with Vima for the store at Infanta and Santa Marta, in Centro Habana, inaugurated last January.

This is not the only similarity between the two brands. Like the one founded by the Spaniard Víctor Moro Suárez, Richmeat products are little appreciated by Cubans, although they often represent the only protein option in the basket amid perpetual scarcity. “No one wants to eat the picadillo” is the comment of many consumers when they receive those tubes of 400 and 800 grams, which are marketed under the brand of El Cocinerito and La Favorita, respectively.

Another coincidence with Vima is that both companies are registered abroad, in Mexico in the case of Richmeat, but neither is known in their respective countries. In Cuba they have preeminence and receive all kinds of hospitality.

There is no indication that Richmeat is a truly Mexican company and not a Cuban firm “disguised” as foreign

Beyond its legal registration, effectively in Mexico, and the nationality of both its president, Luis Alberto González Hernández, and its vice president, Alejandra Chapela Díaz – both present at the signing of the recent agreement with Tiendas Caribe – there is no indication that Richmeat is a truly Mexican company and not a Cuban firm “disguised” as foreign.

As 14ymedio found, the most important Mexican meat industry agencies do not have this company registered: neither the National Agri-Food Certification and Verification Agency, nor the National Association of Establishments Type Federal Inspection (ANETIF) or the Mexican Meat Council.

Even more significant is that the National Service of Health, Safety and Agri-food Quality (Senasica), the Mexican authority responsible for issuing animal health certificates for exporting meat and products derived from it, has no news of Richmeat. “This must be because it operates directly in Cuba, and its products do not come from Mexico,” an official of that agency who asked for anonymity told this newspaper.

According to a knowledgeable source, Richmeat sources its meat on the island, not in Mexico. / 14ymedio

According to a knowledgeable source, Richmeat purchases the meat in Cuba, not in Mexico. This would explain the poor quality of the products. Meat in Mexico has an established reputation, and it’s no wonder the country is one of the world’s leading exporters of beef. According to this source, Richmeat buys the meat on the island, and one of the sites where they buy is the Rigoberto Corcho Credit and Service Cooperative (CCS), in Artemisa.

That it is truly Cuban and not Mexican would explain the “constant presence” of Richmeat “for more than eight years,” which the official press often emphasizes, “even in the most critical periods during the covid-19 pandemic”.

What is clear are the privileges received by the firm. It is often praised by the authorities and now has a location in Havana’s main market. This suggests that it is most likely a company controlled by the Cuban leadership, and the view is that it is expanding.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘After Difficult Negotiations.’ Bahamas Cancels Medical Contracts With Havana

Cuban health workers interested in staying will sign a new employment contract with the country’s Ministry of Health.

Bahamas Health Minister Michael Darville speaking to Parliament on Monday / Screen capture

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, June 17, 2025 — As announced, the Bahamas will directly hire Cuban doctors who are serving on the islands and cancel its agreements with the regime. This was announced by the Bahamian Minister of Health, Michael Darville, in a speech to Parliament on Monday about the government budget for 2025.

Darville said he was in Havana two weeks ago to “review the hiring protocols” of health workers with Cuban recruitment agencies. “After difficult negotiations, we are ready to announce the cancelation of all existing contracts with the Government of Havana and the signing of direct contracts with Cuban health workers,” he said.

Health workers who agree with the new terms, said the minister, will “sign a new employment contract with my ministry” and be able to stay in the country, deployed on the Family Islands (the myriad of islands that are not Grand Bahama and New Providence, whose capital is Nassau). “Those who are not interested in this new agreement will have time to settle their affairs and return to Cuba,” he emphasized.

The Cuban health staff currently consists of 35 persons: 3 ophthalmologists, 3 nurses, 10 biomedical engineers, 8 laboratory technicians and 11 x-ray technicians

As specified by the minister, the Cuban health staff currently consists of 35 people: 3 ophthalmologists, 3 nurses, 10 biomedical engineers, 8 laboratory technicians and 11 x-ray technicians, who, he said, “have recently completed a new training program at Princess Margaret Hospital” in Nassau. Most of them, he said, are willing to serve on the Family Islands.

Darville emphasized that all Cuban workers “receive the same benefits” as local workers. “They are well treated, they are respected in our country, we are grateful for their service,” he declared, while assuring that the contracts between both countries were articulating the changes.

In his address to Parliament, the Minister highlighted the shortage of health professionals in the country, including doctors and nurses from Ghana. At the same time, he promised that they will train and hire Bahamians to “fill in the gaps.” continue reading

He also said that the recruitment of Cuban teachers and health workers is suspended pending the outcome of talks with the US, which last February threatened to restrict visas for officials from foreign countries involved in what it called “labor exploitation” of Cuban workers abroad, including health workers.

“They are well treated, they are respected in our country, we are grateful their service”

Two days after the Bahamian Prime Minister, Philip Davis, held a meeting with US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, on May 6, Davis told the press that he would renegotiate the labor agreements with Havana and that, from then on, he would pay all the Cuban health workers directly.

At the meeting, according to Davis, he explained the situation to US officials and denied that the Cuban doctors were being exploited for their labor. “We were able to communicate this to them, and I think they were satisfied that we are not involved in any forced labor that we know of,” he said.

“If forced labor is occurring in our country with the Cubans, we have no record of it,” he added, while indicating that an exhaustive analysis was being carried out to determine whether there was any “element” of this type present in the employment relationship. “If we discover something like this, it will be corrected,” he said.

Davis argued, with relevance, that the method of payment through the Cuban government was not extraordinary. The Prime Minister resorted to recalling how the US paid part of the wages of Bahamian seasonal workers to the UK before the islands became independent. “That is not an unknown concept or construct. But it is now considered an ingredient of forced labor. So we will address that and say to anyone we hire, ’Look, we’ll pay you directly into your account’.”

Archivo Cuba, at the end of April, published an investigation showing that the professionals on mission to the Bahamas receive only between 8% and 16% of what the Bahamian government pays to Havana or them – between 5,000 and 12,000 dollars a month. It added that the Bahamian statements were mainly for the US State Department, and it urged Nassau to hire the Cubans directly.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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From a Prison in Cuba, the Owner of the Havana ‘Costco’ Denounces Deception and Torture

Cuban-American Frank Cuspinera accuses his lawyer of colluding with State Security to “keep me in prison, defenseless.”

Frank Cuspinera was arrested on June 20, 2024, and his Diplomarket was closed / Facebook

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 28 May 2025 — Almost a year after his arrest and lack of information about his whereabouts, Frank Cuspinera, owner of the Diplomarket, the “Cuban Costco” of Havana, has reappeared. He did so through a handwritten letter from prison signed on May 21, whose authenticity was confirmed by a family member this Wednesday, hours after it was broadcast by the ‘influencer’ Alexander Otaola.

In it, he makes “an appeal to the international community, to international and human rights organizations,” as well as to the United States Department of State, “to intervene with Cuban institutions for the constant violations of my rights and the denial of legal guarantees for my defense by Cuban state institutions and their representatives.”

Cuspinera says that he was manipulated by Cuban State Security (DSE) and the Cuban judicial apparatus, “which were cruelly activated against me” and which managed, with “multiple falsehoods,” to accuse me” without the right to a defense. “They have limited my access to justice. I was denied my rights to communication and legal defense from the start,” he claims in the letter. continue reading

Cuspinera announces he will go on a hunger strike on June 1

Therefore, he announces that he will go on a hunger strike -“to plantarme [stand firm]” he specifies, using the term of political prisoners – on June 1. “I will be willing to go to extreme consequences,” he says, until his rights to prompt defense and bail are guaranteed, “to be able to prove the injustice.” The Cuban-American businessman says that there was “premeditation by the DSE in conspiracy with the DTI [Technical Directorate of Investigations] and other institutions, including my defense attorney, who has worked against me.”

“Everything was planned even before my arrest, on June 20, 2024, almost a year ago,” he continues, confirming the date spread on social networks and never mentioned by the government. In those days, the La Tijera Facebook page said that a State Security operative arrived at the supermarket – located at kilometer 8 1⁄2 of the Carretera Monumenta, in the neighborhood of Berroa, more than 10 kilometers east of the center of the capital – along with two buses carrying auditors from Gaesa (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.), the conglomerate of the Armed Forces and owner of the land where the establishment was located.

A day earlier, in the WhatsApp group managed by Diplomarket, a message announced that they were “closed until further notice,” explaining: “We are having problems operating because our commercial license has to be renewed.” The app could still be visited and had a caption: “We are offline. Send us an email.”

“The Frank Cuspinera and Diplomarket case was premeditated and planned because it developed the private sector and was registered as a company in the United States”

The La Tijera post pondered, referring to Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, son of the late Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja and Déborah Castro Espín, and bodyguard of his grandfather, Raúl: “It seems that now El Cangrejo [The Crab, a nickname for López-Calleja], grandson of the dictator Raúl Castro, no longer needs his Miami figurehead Frank Cuspinera Medina.” The brief text also recalled that Cuspinera Medina was vice president of Las Americas TCC Corporation, based in Pompano Beach (Florida), and that for years he had been residing in El Vedado, where he had bought “a mansion thanks to his relationship with the dictatorial elite.”

The next day, La Tijera disclosed more details of the case from an email received. According to this anonymous source, the “Cuban military forces” intervened in the business of the Cuban-American, and both he and his wife have been “incommunicado” since that day, accused of “tax evasion, currency trafficking and money laundering.” These accusations, the email claimed, were “nothing more than a pretext for the regime to appropriate their assets.”

“The authorities waited until the closing of the day to break into the company and take everything, a sale that the owners had previously authorized themselves,” continued the text. On the day after these events, “they began to confiscate all the assets of his company and distribute them among the members of the Castro elite.”

La Tijera’s source framed the operation within a “repetitive pattern” in which “the Castro regime attacks those who try to create opportunities and prosperity outside of State control.” However, this was not the case of Cuspinera, well established on both sides of the straits of Florida for years.

In his letter from prison, Cuspinera does not mention any of these names, but he states: “The Frank Cuspinera and Diplomarket case was premeditated and planned because it developed the private sector, and as a company registered in the United States with approval and federal licenses that competed with Cuban State enterprises, it brought into question the reach of the blockade.” In this regard, he also does not specify what type of license he has from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), without which it is impossible to trade with Cuba under the laws of the embargo.

Las Americas TCC, among other activities, was in charge of supplying Diplomarket, inaugurated at the end of 2022

Las Américas TCC, among other activities, was responsible for supplying Diplomarket, inaugurated at the end of 2022. The supermarket, which before opening was already functioning physically for online shopping, started operating discreetly until a tweet by CNN correspondent Patrick Oppmann, who did not mention its name, focused on it almost a year later.

On that occasion, this newspaper visited the business and could see the strong surveillance to which it was subjected. In a first booth, they were taking the data of vehicles at the time of entry, and later there was another guard booth, before entering the store. At the door, two individuals looked everyone up and down, and a large screen showed the movement of the security cameras, placed everywhere. A regular customer called it a “military unit.”

Not even 12 months had passed when Cuspinera fell into disgrace, in a case that recalled the former Minister of Economy Alejandro Gil Fernández, arrested in March 2024, weeks after being dismissed for “mistakes made in the exercise of his office,” and about whom nothing has been known since.

When Diplomarket came to light it was not easy to find out who owned it, as the firm was not on the list of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) approved by the Ministry of Economy and Planning, and the name of Cuspinera did not appear on the supermarket’s website.

“Of the crimes they charge me with, they have manipulated contradictory statements of workers, without their knowledge and contact”

On the other hand, he was listed as vice president of Las Americas TCC. Consulting specialized pages, this newspaper verified that he had been domiciled in the United States and in El Vedado (Havana). In 2021 he appeared as a “specialist” at a meeting between self-employed workers and the National Association of Economists and Accountants of Cuba.

That same year, his name also appeared in a letter sent by several Cuban entrepreneurs to US President Joe Biden asking him to lift the sanctions against the island’s government, which were damaging to their businesses. In the letter he was not listed as a member of Las Américas TCC but rather as part of Iderod Servicios Constructivos.

This last firm was not on the list of MSMEs of the regime, although a company with its name, Cuspinera SURL LVI, is listed as dedicated to “providing services of electronic commerce platform,” as a branch of Las Americas TCC.

The businessman does not name in his letter either Las Americas or Iderod but does present himself as a “citizen, lawyer, Cuban-American entrepreneur” of Cuspinera SURL [Unipersonal Limited Liability Company], both in Florida and in Havana, “under the Diplomarket brand, known as the Cuban Costco.”

Cuspinera also states that he will not try to “evade the action of justice, but only ask that I can defend myself”

The text does not detail the charges against Cuspinera, but he claims: “Of the crimes I am accused of, they have manipulated contradictory statements of workers, outside their knowledge and contact.” The employer claims that he was accused of crimes by workers who “may have been able to leave the country.”

He says that, among other vicissitudes, “they have confiscated millions of dollars in goods, equipment, money from purchases and bank accounts,” without giving him a copy of those seizures. And he claims that the authorities “do not show evidence of alleged fraudulent goods, evasions or amounts, misrepresenting and manipulating information” which, he says, would prove his innocence. In addition, he accuses the prosecutors: “They have taken my statements by deception, trickery and torture.”

“They have denied all possibility based on an absurd social injury, without proof (there is no such danger from me to society), and by manipulating my statements and those of my employees.”

The appeal by his defense attorney to Court Complaints and Petitions was “riddled with errors, lacking in available evidence and all with the purpose of keeping me in prison, defenseless. He did not allow me access to my file and prevented other defense attorneys from being able to act.”

Giving names, he points to “instructor Yisset Oliva Betancourt,” the provincial director of the National Office of Tax Administration (ONAT), Yoandra Cruz Dovales, and his official lawyer, Luis Alberto Martínez Suárez, for having “taken unlawful actions to hold me in provisional detention unlawfully, without defense.”

Cuspinera also states that he will not try to “evade the action of justice but ask that I can defend myself through a bond so that the truth about my responsibility and that of the institutions comes out.”

Before finishing his letter, in which he also says that his mother is ill with cancer, the entrepreneur reaffirms his intention to stand firm. “I am ready to go to extreme consequences with my hunger strike to prove my innocence,” he concludes, after having warned that “the organs of the DSE” cut off “any possibility of defense.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Neighbors of the Saratoga Hotel in Limbo Three Years after an Accident that killed 47 People

“We remain unsheltered, homeless, and seeing no real progress in the reconstruction of our building.”

El hueco que ocupaba Prado 609, entre el hotel Saratoga y el edificio Yoruba, en La Habana, este martes. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, May 6, 2025 — A massive police presence could be observed around the former Saratoga Hotel and an adjacent building on Tuesday, three years after an explosion destroyed both structures and left forty-seven people dead. The resources employed by authorities to monitor the site on the anniversary of the accident were inversely proportional to the attention given to the demands of the evacuated residents, who took advantage of the opportunity to publicly express their grievances.

“As a resident of 609 Prado Street, I am posting this message to denounce the complete neglect of the victims by authorities,” writes Bárbara del Carmen Tenreyro Pérez on her Facebook page, summing up the situation of the building’s former residents. “We have been unsheltered and homeless for the last three years, and have seen no real progress in the reconstruction of our building.” In fact, residents say, work has been at a standstill for the last six months.

What remained of the building after the explosion was demolished in May 2023. A few months later, the government assured residents they would be able to return to their homes in 2025, claiming they would be rebuilt in the same location. “What they promised were just empty words. The official date for the building’s completion.

Nor has there ever been a full explanation of what happened. Authorities initially attributed the incident to possible leaks in the hose of a tanker truck that was supplying liquefied natural gas to the hotel at the time of the explosion. An investigation was promised but no findings were ever released. “What is most painful is the silence,” said Tenreyro. “No one tells us anything, no one helps us, no one responds to our concerns.” Her post included several photos showing the scene before and after the incident.

Using the same images to illustrate her own comments on the situation, Katherine T. Gavilán writes, “Another May 6th [has come around] and they are still homeless. Some have decided to leave the country while most are still living in Villa Panamericana. The relatives of those killed in the incident and everyone else are still awaiting the results of an investigation but there continue reading

is no news.”

Gavilán notes that, two years ago, families who had been living in the building’s twenty-seven apartments were informed that “they would be able to return to their homes by August 2025.” She adds that residents delivered letters to the local government, the National Assembly and the hotel’s owner, the Business Administration Group (GAESA), last year.

GAESA, the owner of the hotel, told residents that it “had nothing to do with matter”

GAESA, a business conglomerate run by the Cuban military, has owned the hotel since 2016, when it was seized from Habaguanex, a business subsidiary of Havana’s once all-powerful Office of the Historian, headed by the late Eusebio Leal. According to Gavilán, GAESA told residents that it “had nothing to do with the matter.” They received no response from the other two government entities other than to say that “the person in charge of the issue was the Havana government’s head of construction.”

Gavilán adds, “A little less than a month ago, one of the residents, acting on behalf of the entire building, requested a meeting with Namán Morales, the official in charge. Morales’s aide said she would discuss the matter with him and would call back in a few days. The following week, the aide said that she had not been able to speak with him. Gavilán got the same response fifteen days days after her initial contact.”

If the authorities had taken any steps, we would have heard about it. It has been well over a year since they have given us any information,” she complains, adding that none of the various government agencies responded to letters that one resident delivered to them in person.

“Initially, they provided a bus for us here but took it away because there was no fuel

They tried to deliver another letter to the Communist Party Central Committee on Monday but were unable to do so due to lack of transportation from the area where they are being housed. “Initially, we had a bus. It took us from the Villa every day and brought us back in the evening. But they took it away because they they didn’t have the fuel to keep it running,” she says.

The biggest problem in Villa Panamericana is not transportation, however, but running water. “Here, water here is only available here one or two times a day, for an hour. That’s when we have to fill tanks, jars and plastic jugs to last us the whole day. It’s what we use for the bathroom, for bathing, cooking, cleaning, for everything.”

Living conditions for the former residents vary, along with their complaints. “One neighbor had a swarm of rats. To shut her up, they sent an exterminator but no one fixed the furniture the rats had been eating. Others have had serious problems with leaks. Others with termites, even in the doors and windows.”

Work stopped last November, “after they poured the foundation,” she says. “There was never an explanation as to what caused the accident. They have never given us that information and we’re tired of asking for it.”

Residents were told that “construction would begin on February 24 and would be completed by December 25, that the building would go up quickly. Now look at where we are.” Work has been stalled since November, “after they poured the foundation,” she says.

A photo posted by residents on social media on Tuesday shows a hole in the foundation of 609 Prado Street, with bare concrete and stacks of rebars left here and there. Gavilán estimates it was taken in late December or early January” from the roof of the adjoining building, the Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba. “No one else has been able to take photos [since then] because they covered up that little hole.”

A hole of the slab of 609 Prado Street as seen from the rooftop of the Yoruba Building Facebook

Located a few yards from Havana’s Capitol building, the site would normally be considered very desirable. Before the explosion, several families made money by renting out rooms to tourists but have been unable to do so for the last three years. The move to East Havana has not only deprived them of this economic opportunity, it has also completely cut them off from the retail network they relied upon and from the schools their children attended.

Meanwhile, reconstruction on the iconic Saratoga has also come to a standstill. Almest, a real estate developer affiliated with the the Armed Forces ministry, was tasked by the government to carry out the work in conjunction with an an unnamed French company, widely believed to be based in the city of Bouygues and to have worked on the construction of twenty-two luxury hotels on the island.

On the first anniversary of accident last year, Cuban architect Luis Ángel Gil, who now lives in Spain, shared a proposal on social media for renovating the hotel. He proposed a new name, Kairós Saratoga, after the classical Greek words for “opportune moment.”

His basic idea was that the building would act “like a horizontal opening” so that “users would not feel enclosed by walls and could enjoy the excellent views the site has to offer.” To achieve this, he proposed incorporating “a vertical park” that would serve as “a natural extension of the existing public space,” enveloping the building and “strengthening the connection between architecture and nature.”

This proposal, ignored by authorities like the still unknown plan that officials might have, seems to being lying dormant in a drawer somewhere.

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Nostalgia for Radio Martí in Cuba, the Soundtrack of the Longing for Freedom of Information for Decades

“It’s where I first heard the real truth,” Tomás recalls
Numerous voices inside and outside the Island speak out against Trump’s decision to paralyze the station

Radio Martí was for at least a decade the only alternative source of news in a country where the Communist Party had a strict monopoly on information / Al Jazeera

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 17 March 2025 — During the Rafter Crisis unleashed in Cuba between August and September 1994, after the so-called Maleconazo, thousands of inhabitants of the Island tuned in to Radio Martí for one main reason: every day, the names of those rescued at sea were read there. It was, for many, the only way to know if their relatives were alive.

Years earlier, the station widely covered Case number 1 of 1989, when Arnaldo Ochoa and other high-ranking soldiers were executed, accused of drug trafficking and high treason. “If it had not been for Radio Martí, very little or nothing would have been known about the true involvement of the Castro regime in drug trafficking, ivory trafficking in Africa and other excesses,” says María, a resident of El Vedado in Havana. Like so many compatriots, she is dumbfounded that the current US president, Donald Trump, has suspended, by an executive order that includes other federal projects, the operations of the media, which this Monday is no longer broadcasting live.

Radio Martí – later called Radio and Television Martí when it had its own channel – was for at least a decade, since its inauguration on May 20, 1985, the only alternative source of news in a country where the Communist Party had a strict monopoly on information, until independent media appeared in the late 90s. As a part of Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, created in 1981 by then-President Ronald Reagan at the behest of anti-Castro leader Jorge Mas Canosa, it transmitted by short wave, and its signal could be heard in several Caribbean countries.

“Very few on the Island dared to give statements directly to Radio Martí, and those who did were repressed”

“At that time there were very few on the Island who dared to give statements directly to Radio Martí, and those who did were automatically stigmatized and repressed,” recalls María, who remembers the maneuvers that had to be done in the houses to tune in. “You had to have a certain type of radio and put it in a certain place. My father discovered that if he lay down on the bathroom floor and put it on the tiles, he picked up the station better, so the bathroom became a very busy place.”

Aware of the power of providing information other than the official one, the regime immediately jammed the signal with an annoying interference. “It continue reading

could barely be heard and had a noise, brbrbrbr,” imitates Tomás, a resident of Centro Habana, who claims to be a listener of the station since he was a teenager. “The neighbor next door put it on and taught me how to look for it on the radio and I put it on too.” At that time, says the man, there was no other universe than the one presented on national television. “We were completely oblivious. Here we thought that the world was a disaster and that Cuba was paradise.”

In its programs at that time, you could learn about the consequences of hurricanes crossing the Island – something that official propaganda always tried to minimize – or officials who had deserted on a trip abroad, or even international sanctions against the Havana regime. Tomás concludes: “Where I first heard the real truth was on Radio Martí.”

It also served, for example, to know what number came up in the “bolita,” the illegal lottery that is played on Cuban streets

The musical theme at the beginning of the broadcasts was repeated several times during the day and in some way became the soundtrack of our desire for freedom of information. “When you heard that cadence coming from a home in some tenement, you knew that the family was listening to the forbidden station,” María continues.

When I was little and heard it for the first time, it was in the middle of the Special Period,” says Josiel, an immigrant in Florida. “I soon sensed that it was something forbidden because in the neighborhood many spoke quietly when they mentioned this station.” Josiel says that he was not very aware of what was happening, but he associates Radio Martí with some neighbors who “made rafts with truck bodies” and reached the Guantánamo Naval Base.

As an adult, the young man continues, he visited the house of an uncle in Santiago de Cuba, who was very critical of the regime and a “faithful listener of Las Noticias Como Son (The News as it is).” In a similar way, María believes that the political transformation of her father, who ended up denying the Communist Party of which he had been a member, “was partly due to Radio Martí, which he greatly admired.”

There were consequences to getting involved in some way with the station. In the repression of the Black Spring, the mere possession of a shortwave radio to capture the signal or having ever spoken through microphones, via phone call, were considered incriminating evidence against the activists and independent journalists who were tried in those days of 2003.

“It can be reactivated with fewer staff, but nothing guarantees us employment”

The medium did not always have such a serious task. It also served, for example, to know what number came up in the “bolita,” the illegal lottery that is played on Cuban streets. “There were people on my block who only tuned in for that,” explains Gabriel, now a resident of Miami. His first memory of Radio Martí was not as a listener of the station but as a student, at the beginning of what was called the “Battle of Ideas“: “The first thing I heard were attacks made by teachers against that medium, which they called an enemy. In the classrooms we were constantly bombarded with rants against everything related to the Cubans in Miami.”

This 35-year-old father, a Trump supporter, does not believe that the closure of Radio Martí will be definitive. In this regard, he mentions the president’s own order, issued as “temporary,” and the promise of Cuban-American Republican congressmen Carlos Giménez, María Elvira Salazar and Mario Díaz-Balart to “work” to guarantee the continuity of broadcasting.

“Radio Martí has been key to counter the propaganda of the Castro/Díaz-Canel regime. While the programs and agencies of the federal government are restructured, I will continue to work with President Trump to ensure that the Cuban people have access to the uncensored news they need and deserve,” Salazar wrote on his social networks.

Martí Radio Television workers who a few days ago maintained optimism, this Monday were more hopeless. “It can be reactivated with fewer staff, but nothing guarantees employment,” one of them told 14ymedio on condition of anonymity.

“The freedom and democratization of Cuba is not only of interest and benefit to Cubans but also to the United States”

For the time being, numerous voices inside and outside the Island have spoken out against the presidential decision. On Monday, the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance urged Trump on Monday to help, instead of ending Radio and Television Martí. “The preservation and strengthening of this means of communication is indispensable for the Cuban people,” the Miami-based coalition, composed of 53 groups, stressed in a statement. It also reiterated: “The freedom and democratization of Cuba is not only of interest and benefit to Cubans but also to the United States.” It recalled that the Havana regime “has installed on its territory military and espionage bases of the adversarial regimes of the United States and has consistently undermined US national security.”

For its part, the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba, based in Madrid, expressed its “deep concern about the order to dismantle the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which includes the temporary suspension of funding for Radio and Television Martí. ” This “has already brought negative consequences, such as the receipt of dismissal letters by workers, who are in a situation of uncertainty.”

In a statement made public on Monday, the organization emphasizes that these media “have played an essential role in offering truthful information to the Cuban population, breaking the regime’s information monopoly and acting as a necessary counterweight to state propaganda.” In addition, it points out that they have also been “key elements to promote independent journalism, peaceful resistance against repression and censorship of the Cuban regime.”

And they warn: “The disappearance of Radio and Television Martí would represent a significant setback, benefiting exclusively the Cuban regime in its propaganda discourse both inside and outside the Island. In addition, it would strengthen the propaganda and misinformation of other authoritarian regimes that already have a presence in Cuba and in the rest of the world, such as the Russian media, Russia Today (RT), CGTN of China, HispanTV of Iran and Telesur of Venezuela, which would also affect the democratic interests of the United States and the West in general.”

José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), spoke along the same line. In repeated posts on his social networks, he highlighted that Radio and Television Martí is “a necessary and inseparable symbol of the cause in favor of freedom and democracy in Cuba.” He understands “any necessary restructuring” so that “these platforms constantly improve and are more effective and of greater scope,” but affirms that “they must not cease to exist.”

“Its total absence would greatly benefit the discourse and propaganda of the Cuban communist regime and the anti-democratic media increasingly present on our continent”

“Its total absence would greatly benefit the discourse and propaganda of the Cuban communist regime and the anti-democratic media increasingly present on our continent,” insisted the historical opponent. He asks that the president of the United States allow Radio and Television Martí “to continue to give voice to our people, oppressed and silenced by a brutal and tyrannical enemy of the United States and the entire West.”

Miriam Leiva also lashed out against the measure. In a post published on Facebook, the independent journalist recalled her collaboration, over more than 20 years, with Las Noticias Como Son, the program presented by José Luis Ramos, Amado Gil and her husband, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, which cost him the regime’s reprisal. “In his trial as part of the 75 of the Black Spring of 2003, the prosecutor used his participation in that program. Chepe replied that if they didn’t want him to do it, ’give me space on national radio’. The response to him was harsh and offensive.”

In the same publication, Leiva recalled, in capital letters, that Radio and Television Martí never paid them (something, by the way, that other collaborators expose as a criticism and that has been a frequent source of discomfort among reporters living in Cuba, who did not even benefit from phone recharges by the station). Not in vain, the journalist relates how the regime has recently congratulated itself on the cancellation of the programs that help independent media and human rights activists. Leiva concludes: “With this dismantling, the Cuban government has won.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Official Press Denounces the Situation of a Neighborhood That Has Been Without Water for Three Years

Municipal authorities acknowledge that the problem has no solution at the moment and express their concern about the coming months of drought

Two neighbors from the Jesús María neighborhood, in Sancti Spíritus, attach a hose to capture water from a leak. / Capture/Escambray

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 31 January 2025 – Several streets in the Jesús María neighborhood of Sancti Spíritus have been without water for three years. This time the complaint is not being made, as is usual in Cuba, by anonymous users on social networks or independent media, but by the official newspaper Escambray. Last Friday on its video newscast, VisionEs, it showed one of its reporters, Elsa Ramos, visiting the place she had gone six months earlier, and found that the situation was the same: still no water service.

One of the neighbors interviewed explained to the journalist the strategies they use to get water. “We’re going to put the pump in now, we put in the cables and the hose and a man there lends us a little tube, and we connect the pump there and get the water,” he said. “Because here on this block, from this corner to La Gloria, nobody has gotten even a drop of water for three or four years.”

Another resident confirmed: “It’s been more than three years since the water came in here, without any explanation offered. It’s impossible that this pipe here has water, that one over there has water, all the pipes in the block have water, and that this little section here does not have water. I don’t know how that is, it doesn’t make sense.”

A third resident hedged: “Since the construction of Reparto 26, the area around this neighborhood has been greatly affected.” There is water at her doorstep – “It’s a small stream, with little force, but with luck, there is no shortage,” the reporter noted. But this caused other neighbors to point out that it took from “early morning until all hours” to fill containers.

In her report, Elsa Ramos confronted “the government’s representation,” Ariel Muñoz Hidalgo, deputy mayor of Transportation and Energy for Sancti Spíritus, and Yusmeiky Mendoza Muro, director of the state Aquaduct and Sewage Company for the same city.

Asked about the reason why some parts of the neighborhood have water and others do not, Muñoz Hidalgo pointed to the “continuous increase in illegal connections to the hydraulic networks.” The reporter pointed out: “There are illegal connections because they don’t have water.” The official agreed and added, “because they don’t have water or because they have made new constructions.” continue reading

Thus, she attributed a good part of the problem to the increase in the population “without a projection, without an increase in the hydraulic systems as well.” The deputy mayor assured that they have a pumping system “with new pumps, with good water distribution capacities,” but that it could not be used “one hundred percent” because, he explained again, about the leaks, which prevent good pressure in all places.

Tank leaking water on the roof next to a house in Jesús María that does not have the service. / Capture/Escambray

The reporter persisted in asking why one segment in the heart of Jesús María does not have water while the surrounding streets do. The official replied that the street she referred to, Guillermón Moncada, is “very old.” But he didn’t go into detail about the reasons, and in fact, blamed the residents who get water by their own means: “We say it is illegal because it is not approved to do so, but people do it in search of the benefit of the resource.”

When the journalist asked Yusmeiky Mendoza Muro if Aquaduct has a solution and within what time frame, the company manager admitted: “No.” He and the deputy mayor enumerated numerous problems: a shortage of hoses, materials, fuel, and personnel. “We have almost no plumbers,” Mendoza Muro added.

Sealing the leaks and repairing the tanks on the houses are the next solutions that Muñoz Hidalgo promised, but at the same time, he warned that the situation will worsen in the coming months. “At this stage we do have to say that it is much more complex for us because we are already entering the dry season,” the official said, explaining that there are areas that are supplied by the Yayabo River, “which is losing all its capacity.”

“From early February,” he continued, “they will activate the groups to confront the drought and will draw up a calendar for the distribution of water in tanker trucks.” Then Elsa Ramos scolded him that, according to the residents, the tanker trucks don’t comply with the delivery schedules.

“That will always depend on the amount of fuel we have, the availability of tanker trucks we have, the neighborhoods that are growing,” answered Muñoz Hidalgo.

“In order not to create false expectations, will this segment of Jesús Mar continue to be thirsty?” the journalist pressed. Despite all the disasters previously enumerated, the director of the Aqueduct responded emphatically: “No, no, no.” Ramos asked again: “When will we be able to quench this thirst? Are we talking about months, years, centuries?” “No, no, months,” the official answered. The reporter replied that she would return in a while to check on the progress.

Just then, from the roof of a house, a woman didn’t miss the opportunity to point out “the contradiction” that the water tank on a neighboring roof was leaking drinking water. The official responded in a lowered voice: “That’s because of indiscipline.”

Translated by Tomás A.

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The Mysterious A&M Bazaar Opens its Third Shop in a Ruined Building in Havana

The supermarket is located where the state cafeteria Las Avenidas used to be, on Infanta and Carlos III

Since the supermarket was opened on 11 November there have been crowds thronging through its doors hoping to buy. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, 8 January 2024 — Number 909 Calle Infanta / Carlos III, central Havana, appears to be bipolar. The upper storeys, where the majority of apartments continue to be inhabited, are falling apart, whilst the ground floor, which used to house the state operated cafeteria Las Avenidas – which gave its name to the building among the locals – with its prosperous, recently opened private store, is all bright and shiny new.

Since the supermarket was opened on 11 November there have been crowds thronging through its doors hoping to buy. Beneath its newly painted arches there are ornamental plants and powerful air conditioning units, and there’s no sign of the ruined state of the rest of the building, which has been denounced by its residents on numerous occasions. On the contrary, it feels like another place entirely.

Number 909 Calle Infanta / Carlos III, central Havana, appears to be bipolar. / 14ymedio

Items of ironmongery, decor, articles for the home and white goods, along with other objects such as oriental smoking pipes, all mingle with foodstuffs, themselves also wide ranging, such as tinned foods, sauces and jams and even fresh produce, including dairy and meat. Everything is priced in pesos, and, as is usually the case with private shops, it’s all well stocked but at prices beyond the reach of most people’s pockets, and of poor quality.

A ’kitchen’-based toy, 1,000 pesos; a plastic container with two scouring pads, 450; two packets of incense, 900; a small pack of nuggets, more than 1,000; a tin of beans, 900; a small carton of juice, 700, and straws for 200 pesos – these are some of the products that you can find from day to day. The activity of loading and unloading is feverish. continue reading

Everything is priced in pesos, and, as is usually the case with private shops, it’s all well stocked but at prices beyond the reach of most people’s pockets, and of poor quality. / 14ymedio

The business doesn’t display any name plate outside, but pink letters on the employees’ black sweaters reveal that it belongs to Bazar A&M. The company, which already has two other stores in the same Havana district – on Neptuno/Lealdad and on Neptuno/Gervasio – has made the most of this third branch’s launch by opening a WhatsApp group where it announces new products and prices.

The products advertised on Sunday, the eve of the Epiphany / Three Kings day, are all toys, made in China. A toy truck fitted with beach-rakes at 2,500 pesos, a Jenga puzzle at 1,100 and a game with hoops for babies at 1,950. The company doesn’t allow public comments to be made, and someone who goes by the name of Valentina Vale is in charge; she is also the person who promotes the shops on Facebook.

The business doesn’t display any name plate outside, but pink letters on the employees’ black sweaters reveal its name: it belongs to Bazar A&M. / 14ymedio

Its owners are, beyond this detail, mysterious. In contrast to other micro, small or medium sized businesses (’mipymes’ or ’MSMEs’ in English), they don’t have a website, and, although they sell just about anything, they are registered with the Ministry of Economy and Planning as “producers of paper and cardboard goods” as their principal activity.

“I don’t know who they are, but not just anyone gets to use this logo”, one customer told this journal as she was waiting to get into the store, pointing to the message printed on the door: “Havana lives in me” – a logo created by the authorities for the 505th anniversary of the capital and distributed to government institutions. “What you can see, is that they’ve spent quite a lot of money here…”, the woman observed.

“I don’t know who they are, but not just anyone gets to use this logo”, one customer told this journal. / 14ymedio

Vigilance inside the store is also very noticeable. The staff don’t just visually monitor those who have made purchases, but they check the goods at the exit. “Carefully check your purchase before you leave, as we don’t do refunds”, says a notice.

Elsewhere, the buildings in which the company has established its other branches all used to be state owned, and, as has been repeated in recent years, they have been reopened without public tender and without advanced notice. The “mixed” bazaar Neptune was established in 2023 in a former clothing shop which had fallen into disrepair.

“Me and my sister used to love it, because you’d enter through a door at one side, go round the interior in a ’U’ direction and come out through another door, where there was also the stairway up to the residents’ flats on the upper floors”, María, a resident of the Cayo Hueso quarter, remembers of the old building.

Bazar A&M is, in any case, one of those establishments which have proliferated in Cuba in recent times, and, joining the list of these new “dollarized” businesses, it all in effect goes to demonstrate the end of the old convertible currency shops.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Cuban Government Opens a High-End Supermarket that Only Accepts Dollars in Cash or Card

The move is a sign that “dollarization” of the economy — something Prime Minister Manuel Marrero has spoken about— is going ahead along with the end of the MLC

The new Supermercado 3ra y 70 (3rd and 70th Supermarket) is owned by Tiendas Caribe, a branch of the Cimex corporation. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 3 January 2024 — The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket, which opened on Tuesday on the ground floor of the luxurious Gran Muthu Habana hotel in Miramar, does not accept MLC (a form of digital convertible currency) much less Cuban pesos. The store is owned by Tiendas Caribe, one of the numerous offshoots of the Cuban Armed Forces all-powerful Business Administration Group (GAESA). The store accepts three forms of payment: dollars in the form of cash, foreign cards and the so-called Clásica (Classic) debit card, which is denominated dollars.

The supermarket was bustling on Thursday, two days after opening, overwhelming its visitors. The store is part of a newly built shopping center that includes numerous privately owned shops — among them a branch of the Chocolatera confectionery —most of which have yet to open.

Outside the entrance to the complex was a line of cars, similar to lines outside the city’s gas stations, whose owners were eager to park and shop. Unlike at other state-owned stores, the shelves inside the huge, clean, well-lit space were fully stocked with a variety of products.

“Inside it’s all shiny and new, with automatic checkouts, with carts, with baskets, with all the products the MLC stores used to have but no longer do,” said Lucía, a first-time customer. / 14ymedio

“Inside it’s all shiny and new, with automatic checkout counters, with carts, with baskets, with all the products the MLC stores used to have but no longer do,” said Lucía, a first-time customer. “All the beans here are canned and natural. The meats, the cheeses, the olive oil, the regular oils, tomato sauces, pickles, canned fruit, nougat, rice, coffee, yogurt, milk, ice cream, and even whole wheat bread! It’s got everything, everything,” said Lucía, who spent 6,000-pesos taxi on a taxi ride from Old Havana to get here. And she was amazed. “The checkout counters move. I have never seen that in Cuba before, not even in the Cuatro Caminos market!”

The supermarket carries Cuban-made products which are no longer available at state-owned stores. Until now, they could only be found at privately owned small and medium sized stores (MSMEs). These include items such as Cubita coffee and Estancia fruit juices; private label brands such as Clamanta and Gustó. They new store also carries “foreign” brands routinely found at Cimex stores. They include Spain’s Vima, Mexico’s Richmeat and Chile’s Sur Continente, companies that have long been established on the island. Vima, which imports apples, has been operating in Cuba since the 1990s . Small appliances such as fans (for $45) and Italian coffee makers were also among the most popular items at the store.

“I imagine that, since this is in dollars, it will last but, with this kind of operation, you never know,” said an elderly woman who was accompanied by her daughter. “The MLC stores started out like this but but now they’re empty.”

A total of twelve cash registers served a diverse clientele with one thing in common: money to spend. / 14ymedio

A total of twelve cash registers served a diverse clientele with one thing in common: money to spend. Customers include high-ranking officials, foreigners and embassy personnel as well as a picturesque group of nuns. Two of them were in the checkout line, waiting to buy fans. Two others scurried back and forth to their car, carrying a wide variety of products and foodstuffs.

“You have to take advantage of this because, before too long, it will all be gone. Just look at the MLC stores. They haven’t been stocked in a very long time,” observes a retiree carrying a basketful of chicken.

A sign at the cash register explains how customers can pay for their items. “Payment here is made using USD cards,” it reads, with logos of which cards the store accepts. At the top — above even the Mastercard and Visa logos — is Russia’s Mir card, which a woman in the checkout line was waiting to use. “It belongs to my husband,” she said, surprised to learn the store will also accept cash. Most customers, however, were paying in dollars.

The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket also carries Vima-brand apples. / 14ymedio

The cash registers did not, however, provide change. Instead, employees hand out small sweets, though they were not given to customers if the amount was less than five cents.

Another novel form of payment is the Classic card, which has been available to customers at this shopping center since December 7. Though senior government officials have said nothing about it, requiring consumers to pay in dollars and incentivizing them to use this card can be seen as another step towards dollarization of Cuba’s retail economy, which Prime Minister Manuel Marrero spoke about last month in the National Assembly. Effectively, it also means the end of the MLC. continue reading

In a post on social media, Cimex describes Classic as “a financial product denominated in U.S. dollars, designed to facilitate your transactions within the country.” It can be used at the network of gas stations that take payment in dollars and at retail outlets with point-of-sale (POS) terminals. It can also be used to buy goods and services, and to import products from overseas. The card costs $5.00, or its equivalent at the “current exchange rate” in “accepted foreign currencies,” the corporation states. One dollar of the purchase price is automatically added to the buyer’s account balance. There is no “pre-set amount” or required minimum balance. Customers receive a 5% discount on each purchase but are charged a $1.00 service fee each time money is added to their accounts.

The supermarket is part of a new shopping center that includes numerous privately owned businesses. / 14ymedio

Cimex also announced that it will soon be available at CADECA foreign exchange offices and other retail outlets, including those in the Gran Muthu Hotel complex. One of the few shops now open there is a perfumery.

The supermarket is still accepting MLC for the time being , an employee tells a customer who asked about some cologne. “You can go to the perfumery if you have MLC but you’d better hurry because that’s about to change,” says the employee.

“When will that be?” asked the customer.

“I don’t think it will be long but they haven’t told us yet,” he replied.

The new 3rd and 70th stands in contrast to an old supermarket of the same name, which opened prior to 1990. Its merchandise was priced in dollars at a time when it was illegal for Cubans to have them. Initially, only diplomats and resident foreigners were allowed to shop there but, by 1993, it was open to all. Like many state-owned stores, it went into a steep decline after it became an MLC store in 202o.

Attracted by the crowed and dressed in their uniforms, some of the employees of the old store came over to check out the new one. Their irritation was all too obvious. “This is a disgrace. Everything they used to sell in the old store when it first opened is now here. There’s nothing over there and this place has everything,” one employee complained loudly.

The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket stands in contrast to the old pre-1990 market of the same name. / 14ymedio

“There are no empty shelves here,” said one of the employees. “All the empty shelves are over at the other store, which is falling to pieces,” responded one of her co-workers. Ironically, in late December, Cimex announced on social media that it was celebrating the anniversary of the old “diplomat’s store”

A visit on Thursday to the old store confirmed everything its employees described: poor lighting, visibly dirty shelves, scant merchandise, and the stench of rotting meat throughout. The site now mainly serves as a parking lot for customers of the new 3rd and 70th Supermarket,

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Cuban Military from Gaesa Partner with the Spanish Vima in Another Dollarized Store

Customers can pay with MLC, but employees suggest that they are going to remove this option

Faced with the delay in the line to check out and the subsequent protests from customers, this Sunday, the employee argued: “And what do you want me to do, if I’m the only one?” / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 6 January 2025 –Although it has not attracted as much attention as the Supermarket on 3rd and 70th, which opened a day later, the store on Infanta and Santa Marta in Havana is another of the new “dollarized” Caribe stores that the military conglomerate Gaesa (Business Administration Group) opened in recent days through its Cimex corporation. In this case, the establishment is presented as “a collaboration project with the supplier Vima.”

In fact, its shelves, which are impeccable and full, carry a few Chinese products but are mainly dominated the Vima brand, founded by the Spaniard Víctor Moro Suárez and much reviled by the inhabitants of the Island for its low quality.

Unlike 3rd and 70th, cash dollars are not accepted at Infanta and Santa Marta, but, as at the brand new Miramar establishment, you can pay with the Classic card, which is recharged with US currency.

“It is nice and has many things, but as always, not everyone can afford this.” / 14ymedio

Another difference is that you can still pay with freely convertible currency (MLC), although employees suggested that this will not be the case for long. “You can pay with MLC, but I recommend that you get the Clásica card, because the lines to get it afterwards are going to be violent,” said a cashier at Infanta and Santa Marta to a customer who was entering for the first time. “Are they going to remove the MLC?” he asked, to which the woman replied: “That’s what they say.”

Posters distributed by the store and other employees, as well as Cimex’s own posts on its social networks, also encourage users to buy the Clásica card, which costs 5 dollars (one of which remains as a balance). Operative in hotels, state stores and gas stations in dollars, its use applies a 5% discount in stores and 10% in hotels, but with each refill one dollar is “discounted.” continue reading

Although the country’s top authorities have not said anything about it, the obligation to pay in dollars and the incentive to use the Classic card – created at the beginning of last year – can be considered as another step towards the dollarization of transactions in Cuba, which Prime Minister Manuel Marrero spoke about last month before the National Assembly and, with it, the effective end of the use of MLC.

Facade of the Cimex and Vima store on Infanta and Santa Marta, Centro Habana. / 14ymedio

The first thing that catches your attention at Infanta and Santa Marta, however, is the number of security guards multiplying in the corridors. Above all, in contrast to the only worker who performs the function of checking the bags on the way out. This Sunday, faced with the delay in the line to leave and the consequent protests from the customers, the employee argued: “And what do you want me to do, if I am the only one?” To which a man snapped: “But look how there are people here doing nothing, they should put someone there to help you.”

“It’s nice and has a lot of things, but as always, not everyone can afford this,” lamented a pensioner outside the shop who only bought a 3-kilogram package of powdered detergent (for $8.95). “And well, a lot of green,” she said, highlighting the color of Vima. “I didn’t buy any food, because I can’t even look at that brand, which isn’t exactly cheap.”

Highly criticized by Cubans for its poor quality, Vima has been present on the island, with privileges that most companies do not have, since 1994, although it was registered in the National Registry of Foreign Commercial Representations only in October of last year.

Some of Vima’s prices at the new Infanta and Santa Marta stores. / 14ymedio

The partnership with Gaesa is not new for Vima, which has its headquarters in Havana in the Berroa area, owned by the Armed Forces business consortium. Its founder, Víctor Moro Suárez, has lived in Cuba for more than 25 years and was president of the Association of Spanish Businessmen in Cuba.

Before this rebirth, the store on Infanta and Santa Marta had gone through different stages. With the dollarization of the economy in the 1990s, it became one of the best-stocked markets in the Cuban capital – like the old “diplotienda” on 3rd and 70th, opposite the new Supermarket – where one could pay directly with the US currency and later with convertible pesos.

Posters distributed by the store and other workers, as well as Cimex’s own posts on its social networks, also encourage users to buy the plastic card, which costs $5. The lower sign says: “This unit sells products that can be paid for only by magnetic card backed with freely convertible currency.” / 14ymedio

Located in a border area between Centro Habana and Cerro, the store is surrounded by very poor neighborhoods, such as the El Platanito settlement. Its wealthiest neighbors were, until recently, the residents of the nearby Fama y Aplauso building, whose apartments were distributed among Cuban cultural figures, spokespeople for the regime, and journalists prominent in the so-called Battle of Ideas, an ideological turnaround promoted at the beginning of this century. However, the most powerful figures have ended up moving out of the building and into neighborhoods to the west of the city. The new market thus has to deal with the impoverishment of a neighborhood where the dollar does not circulate, and even less so the Clásica card.

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