Reinaldo Escobar – Translating Cuba

A Crowd in Love With Celia Cruz Defies Censorship at a Tribute in Havana

“They have been fearing that voice for 60 years, terrified of its extraordinary power to draw a crowd”

Few managed to stay seated during the parade of Celia Cruz’s songs. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 10 November 2025 — Spectacular. There is no other word to describe the tribute paid to Celia Cruz this Sunday night at the El Cabildo cultural center, near the Almendares River in Havana. The gala, commemorating the centennial of the Queen of Salsa, had been previously censored when it attempted to be presented on Sunday, October 19, at the Fábrica de Arte Cubano (FAC).

With all the seast occupied, and dozens of people standing because they couldn’t get a seat, despite transportation problems and the arboviruses that continue to plague the population, the show organized by the El Público theater group began. The baritone, Ulises Aquino , founder of the Ópera de la Calle company and promoter of El Cabildo, took the microphone and thanked the theater company for their courage in finally presenting the play dedicated to the Queen of Salsa

During the night, there was dancing, applause, and enjoyment. Few managed to remain seated during the parade of musical themes, as infectious as they were representative of a woman who symbolizes the most optimistic, sensual, and festive part of the Cuban soul, so battered after decades of feigned severity and public discourse that glorifies resentment and hatred of those who are different. Artists including Roberto Romero, Estrellita, Freddy Maragoto, Lucho Calzadilla, Georbis Martínez, Daniel Triana, and the dancers Brian Ernesto Pérez and Chay Deivis shone, and made the show shine.

While the official discourse was gray and subdued, the songs that resonated this Sunday at El Cabildo were expansive and direct

The show was not only a moving tribute to Celia Cruz, but also the best possible response to the National Center for Popular Music, which, in a terse message that didn’t even mention the name of the Queen of Salsa, announced last October that the gala at the FAC would not take place. While the official statement was subdued and timid, the songs that resonated this Sunday at El Cabildo were expansive and direct.

With the direction of Carlos Díaz and with the dramaturgy of Norge Espinosa, the show “Celia” found a fitting venue at El Cabildo. Among the foliage of the area, the event had a certain air of rebellion, of something done even though the dogs of censorship were barking nearby, very nearby. “We’ll see what they publish tomorrow,” commented a woman, who danced all night, alluding to possible official attacks against El Público and El Cabildo for preparing and hosting the gala. continue reading

“Quimbara, cumbara, cumba quimbambá” blared from the loudspeakers of the cultural center, and hips, as if possessed by a spell, swayed and swayed without rest. Amid the somber times being experienced in Cuba, with the fear that a mosquito bite might end in fevers, swollen joints, or a funeral, what happened at El Cabildo was more than a balm; it was a true injection of life, hope, and enthusiasm

An enormous mouth, bright red and with teeth peeking out in festive laughter, appeared on the stage screen. Contagious laughter that defined the evening from the start as a time to have fun, enjoy oneself, and let loose, dance and be happy. Creating that kind of festive atmosphere is no small feat these days, but the tribute to Celia Cruz achieved it. It transported the audience to a state of boisterous celebration that lasted even after the stage lights had gone out and people began to leave the venue

“I’m still a little sore, but I couldn’t miss this,” commented a young man still recovering from chikungunya, who could barely sit still at the table he shared with a couple. “I found out through a WhatsApp group, and even though I live far away, I arranged with some friends to pay for a ride here. Of course, we came covered in insect repellent, just in case,” he joked.

El Cabildo stage, this Sunday, during the tribute to Celia Cruz for her centennial. / 14ymedio

There was no lack of glances toward the entrance of the place, fearing that at any moment some guayabera-clad bureaucrat with a stern face might burst in and order the microphones turned off. “I came for Celia, but also to make sure this show was really going to happen because after what happened at the Fábrica de Arte, I couldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes,” commented Ana María, a Havana native born in 1960, the same year Celia Cruz left Cuba.

“In my house, we never stopped listening to her. My parents had their Communist Party [PCC] membership cards on one hand and their adoration of Celia Cruz on the other,” she told this newspaper. “When my mother died, she had long since left the PCC, but she never stopped being a fan of Celia. That was one of her lifelong dreams. The last New Year’s Eve we celebrated as a family before she died, she danced to ‘La Negra Tiene Tumbao‘.”

For some of those who attended Sunday’s tribute, it was the first time they had heard the Queen of Salsa in a space other than a private party or family gathering. Hearing her in a space packed with people, practically under the open sky, without subterfuge or hiding, proved to be a liberating experience. No musical closet can withstand a shout of “Azúuuucar!”

The affection for Celia Cruz and the joy of dancing to the rhythm of her voice acted as a magical connection among those attending the tribute. The atmosphere was very different from that of the attacks that, these days, government spokespeople are launching against the artist. If in the dark offices of ministries and institutions they decree to silence her, in El Cabildo she resonated powerfully; they could not muzzle her

Rosa Marquetti, a specialist in the life and work of the Queen of Salsa, had already warned that Cuban censors “have spent 60 years fearing that voice, trembling with fear at the mere mention or writing of her name, terrified by her extraordinary power to draw people in.” According to the expert, the songs popularized by Celia Cruz “are far more compelling and convincing than the bitterness and karmic negativity with which they impose orders, wield power, and threaten with the only thing they possess: the force of de facto power.”

That contrast between joy and anger, jubilation and resentment was more than evident at El Cabildo, transformed on Sunday night into a magical space where insults, hatred, and pessimism were banished. The gala’s closing couldn’t have been more in tune with that atmosphere of happiness. “I will live, I will be there/ As long as a comparsa passes by, I will sing my rumba,” was heard over the loudspeakers. “Oh, I want that to be the national anthem of Cuba,” a young woman said as she left, with tears and a smile on her face.

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The Mystery Surrounding the Alejandro Gil Case Deepens

The curiosity is no longer about what the corruption of the disgraced man consisted of, but rather who did he work for.

The prosecutor’s statement does not specify the sanctions being sought for the defendants, nor does it mention their names or numbers. / Workers

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, November 1, 2025 — The publication of an official statement from the Attorney General’s Office regarding the case of former minister Alejandro Gil has not cleared up the mysteries woven by secrecy over the course of 20 months, but has instead increased them exponentially.

If it seemed difficult to believe that Miguel Díaz-Canel would not be damaged after the dismissal and subsequent arrest of his right-hand man, now that the Attorney General’s Office has revealed that he is charged with the crime of espionage, we will have to expect at least some self-criticism or perhaps a hint of resignation.

The insinuations of corruption and lack of sensitivity that Díaz-Canel made in that ambiguous official statement of March 2024, where he did not detail what the “errors” committed by Gil had been, showed that the initial investigation against the former minister – the one that was not controlled by the Prosecutor’s Office – had been carried out behind his back, and that can only indicate a lack of trust and the suspicion that Díaz-Canel could warn Gil that he was being or was going to be investigated.

Díaz-Canel was also or is being investigated “for deceit”

If the investigators who interrogated him never asked him if the president was aware of his misdeeds, they would be the worst investigators in the world, as Díaz-Canel was also or is being investigated for deceit.

But espionage is another matter, and the penal code includes death as a possible punishment. continue reading

The official statement from the Prosecutor’s Office published this Friday does not specify what prison sentences are being requested for the defendants, nor does it mention the name or number of the latter, nor does it clarify the date on which the courts will have to decide on the appropriateness of the accusations.

Perhaps a closed-door trial will be held, culminating in an official statement, or perhaps a televised spectacle is already being staged, similar to the trial against General Arnaldo Ochoa and the La Guardia brothers, where the president could appear as a witness.

This developing story is still missing its most sensational headlines. The curiosity is no longer about the nature of the disgraced man’s corruption, but rather about who he was working for.

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If Nothing Happens, Something Will Have to Happen

In the long agony that followed the collapse of the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe, those who continue to rule in Cuba have found it necessary to shed ballast.

Nor has it worked that each person gives to society according to their ability, nor that each person receives according to their work. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar Havana, 30 September 2025 — We all aspire to write that definitive text that will put in its place, like a cockroach under an entomologist’s pin, this pseudo-socialism in its terminal state, subjected to therapeutic abuse.

I warn that this is not that text, although I intended it to be.

I have called what we suffer pseudo-socialism, not to avenge the Republic, on which they also foisted the media-driven label, but because since April 1961, when the hijacker of the Revolution without taking into account the popular will proclaimed the socialist character of the process, the essential principles that identify this system in the books have barely been fulfilled.

Nor has the principle of each person giving to society according to their ability, nor has the principle of each person receiving according to their work, worked. Much less have the ever-increasing needs of the population, an ambition inscribed as the fundamental law of socialism, been met.

Not even during those years of Soviet subsidies, were those five-year plans — (does anyone remember them?) that were announced with great fanfare at the conclusion of the Communist Party Congresses — fully implemented. It was all a mirage, a fraud, a swindle. continue reading

I have said that the system is in a terminal state because, in the long agony that followed the collapse of the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe and finally in the Soviet Union, those who remain in power in Cuba have found it necessary to shed ballast so as not to sink the country even further.

They thought it was reasonable to invite foreign investors, but they finally gave in to the ‘MSMEs’ and are now on the verge of dollarizing the market.

Like a boring striptease , they started by accepting self-employment. They thought it would make sense to invite foreign investors. They finally gave in to the MSMEs* and are now on the verge of dollarizing the market.

Only the most intimate garments are missing.

I have also said that the system is subject to therapeutic abuse precisely because its agony is prolonged in its terminal state.

If those who remain in power in Cuba were truly convinced of the theory, they would have given socialism another chance, at another time. And that would not be a defeat, nor a surrender, but a timely retreat. But all signs indicate that the sole purpose of continuing to milk this dead cow is to remain in power, nothing more and nothing less than to enjoy the obscene privileges that such a position grants.

We Cubans frequently find ourselves subject to the swings of the pendulum of hope. For the moment, it seems there is no one who can fix or end “this,” and unexpectedly, rumors are circulating that a nonagenarian is on the verge of death or that a fracture is looming up above.

It is as if we were waiting for the child to shout that the king is naked, as if it were so difficult to realize that dialectical materialism, the philosophical basis of historical materialism, was unaware of quantum physics and that artificial intelligence has no relation to the class struggle.

If immortality isn’t playing a practical joke on us, if the performance of unbreakable unity isn’t just another fiction, something must give, because this is unbearable.

*MSMEs — Micro, small and medium size businesses, commonly privatize.

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Haydée Santamaría’s Farewell Letter

Haydée Santamaría committed suicide two days after the 27th anniversary of the Moncada Barracks attack. (Celso Rodríguez)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 28 July 2020 [delayed translation] — Forty years ago today, Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado committed suicide.

Her self-immolation occurred two days after the 27th anniversary of the Moncada Barracks attack. That commemorative event was held in the plaza named after her brother, Abel Santamaría, in the province of Ciego de Ávila. It was also the birthday of Melba Hernández, the other woman linked to that attack.

The official version states that she died in the house she shared with her children as a result of a gunshot wound to the head. Despite being considered a heroine and a member of the Council of State and the Central Committee, her remains were not laid to rest in the Plaza de la Revolución, as they should have been, but rather in a funeral home in Vedado, Havana.

In the political code of those who rule in Cuba, suicides do not deserve to be honored, perhaps for this reason those who attended her funeral shared the feeling that they were committing an act of disobedience. continue reading

The reason for her decision is attributed to the fact that her physical and mental health was very deteriorated, as she had never been able to overcome the trauma of having lost her brother and her boyfriend in that action in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953.

Her depression, almost permanent, was affected by what happened a few months earlier when the Peruvian Embassy was taken over by more than 10,000 Cubans who no longer wanted to live in Cuba.

Her depression, almost permanent, was affected by what happened a few months earlier when the Peruvian Embassy was taken over by more than 10,000 Cubans who no longer wanted to live in Cuba, and then more than 100,000 embarked through the port of Mariel for the United States. The infamous repudiation rallies, in which the protesters were humiliated and mistreated, must have seemed like an atrocity to her. Her colleagues at Casa de las Américas, which she chaired, noticed that she would spend weeks at a time without going to her office.

It’s hard to believe that in the final minutes of her life, Haydée Santamaría didn’t want to leave a written record of the profound reasons for her dramatic decision. It is significant that no one has ever dared to deny the existence of a letter that was most certainly addressed to Fidel Castro.

Cubans under fifty today are probably no longer interested in learning the content of a probable confession of disappointments. They barely care about knowing anything about the lives of those who dreamed of a utopia, much less the reasons they had for killing themselves. What does it matter, since today almost everyone is disappointed?

This disinterest, this neglect, is like the second death that awaits those who founded a project without a future. If that letter, which those of us who wanted to know about it never saw, is ever declassified, it will remain a historical curiosity… and it’s only been forty years.

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Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Will Retain His Formal Power Until at Least April 2031

Raúl Castro said: “When he completes his two terms, if he works well (…) he should remain” as first secretary of the PCC

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 22 July 2025 — The elimination of the age limit as a requirement for being elected president of the Republic of Cuba has unleashed a wave of speculation about who will be hand-picked to this position, which, as we know, will not be an election.

It’s not necessary to quote Article 5 of the Constitution, which Fidel Castro drafted in its entirety, to recognize that, hierarchically, the position of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) ranks above that of President of the Republic. These two positions have traditionally been held by a single individual, with the exception of the period between April 2018 and April 2021, when Raúl Castro remained at the head of the party while Miguel Díaz-Canel held the office of President.

To confirm what is stated in the title of this commentary, we must recall Raúl Castro’s speech during Díaz-Canel’s inauguration on April 18, 2018, when he bluntly warned:

“When he completes his two terms, if he performs well and our Party’s Central Committee approves it (…), he should stay on. The same thing we are doing with him, he will maintain with his replacement. His ten years as president of the Council of State and ministers will be over, and for the three remaining years until the congress, he will remain as First Secretary to facilitate the safe transition and spare us the learning curve of his replacement until he retires to care for his grandchildren.” continue reading

Thus, the successor appointed to the presidency in 2028 will remain under the supervision and tutelage of Díaz-Canel until 2031.

The only thing that has changed is that the title of the position is now President of the Republic, which Díaz-Canel will hold until April 2028. The ninth Party Congress will be held between April 16 and 19, 2026, and barring a miracle or a curse, the current first secretary will be reelected for another five years, that is, until April 2031. Thus, the successor appointed to the presidency in 2028 will remain under the supervision and tutelage of Díaz-Canel until 2031.

The proposal to limit the holding of “fundamental political and state offices” to a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms was approved at the Sixth Party Congress in 2011 and ratified at the Seventh in 2016, but it wasn’t until the new Constitution was approved in 2019 that this proposal became legally valid. The peculiarity is that Article 126 merely states that the President of the Republic is elected for a five-year term and may only serve up to two consecutive terms, after which he or she may not serve again. The Constitution makes no mention of the tenure of the First Secretary of the Party.

The curious thing is that this detail is not specified in any of the PCC’s programmatic documents, not even in its statutes, where the furthest it goes in this regard appears in Article 21, which establishes that the renewal of leadership positions will be done “by establishing limits on tenure by time and age, according to the functions and complexities of each responsibility.”

At the time when the commander-in-chief ruled the country as he pleased, the question of who is coming after Fidel Castro couldn’t even be asked, because there was no one but himself. During Raúl Castro’s years, the consolidated generalship gained importance as a power behind the throne in the form of the Gaesa military conglomerate. The stigma of “hand-picked” that weakens Díaz-Canel’s leadership raises the question of whether he, from within the Party, will be the one to follow his presumed replacement, or whether the shadow of sabers will remain behind, or above, a fiction of civilian government.

In any case, his utility will continue to be that he can proclaim again that “the combat order is given,” even if he didn’t give it. That is, of course, unless something happens to turn everything upside down.

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Shakespeare’s Light Shines in a Havana Theatre in the Midst of Power Cuts

In order to understand all the references you’d need an extensive knowledge of William Shakespeare. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 6 April 2025 – When actor David Reyes, playing the role of Shakespeare, throws into the air the sheets of paper on which he has written his works, whilst Francis Ruiz, holding onto the lectern in the role of Shek, has at his feet the scull of Yorick, any experienced spectator might suspect that ‘Shakes’ runs the risk of being accused of being theatre about theatre.

This show, at the Bertolt Brecht Cultural Centre in Havana’s El Vedado district, is the sixth play by writer Reinaldo Montero that Sahily Moreda, director of the Cuartel Company, has brought to the stage over the last ten years.

If the audience reads the programme before the performance they’ll think they’ll be watching a strictly political play which criticises censorship and which shows the dilemmas that producers have with either needing to please those in power or to say what they need to say. A dilemma that is as current as it is difficult to tackle in today’s Cuba.

The presentation of this well-constructed piece is a relief and it encourages us to go back to the texts to find answers to the questions that it leaves us.

But ’Shakes’ seems to travel a different path. It’s not that the programme lies, but that the work is more demanding of its audience. In order to understand all the references you’d need an extensive knowledge of William Shakespeare. Those who have wide knowledge of the English playwright’s catalogue will be able to enjoy all the allusions to his works and laugh along with every knowing wink that the actors make towards his multiple themes.

The piece is a deep immersion into the Shakespearean world and the social and political setting through which he gave form to his characters, embracing also the pressures which the actor and poet himself endured. The play, directed by Moreda is the third in a tetralogy written by Moreno. The first was ’Liz’, which premiered in Havana in 2008, followed by ’Robin’, with the final part being ’Macbeth 2.0’. The enjoyment of all four parts could help in the understanding of each separate one.

But beyond mere comprehension, ’Shakes’ is enjoyable. In a city hit by power cuts and the difficulties of moving from one place to another, the presentation of this well-constructed piece is a relief and it encourages us to go back to the texts to find answers to the questions that it leaves us. I admit that I only went along to the Bertolt Brecht to escape a power cut where I live, but I came out recharged and illuminated.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Radio Marti’s Closing Statement

For 40 years, the elimination of the station was one of the most constant demands of the Cuban dictatorship, comparable only to the return of the Guantanamo naval base or the end of the embargo.

For years I was a regular contributor to ’The News As It Stands’ on Radio Martí, where you could hear reports from ’14ymedio’, ’Diario de Cuba’ and ’Cubanet’ / Radio Martí

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Desde Aquí, 18 March 2025 – I don’t know whether the USA will now be more “grande” (’great again’) after closing down Radio Martí. Neither do I know whether, in the English spoken by the president of that country, the word “grande” (’great’) is limited to the amount of money that that country stashes away in its vaults. In the Spanish that we speak in Cuba the word “grande” is associated with “grandeza” – magnanimity, or nobility – and this word in turn is associated with generosity.

Generosity cannot be demanded, but it is one’s duty to give thanks for it.

For 40 years, the elimination of Radio Martí was one of the most consistent demands made by the Cuban regime, comparable only to their demands for the return of the Guantánamo naval base and the end of the embargo. To use an expression familiar to the Republican who, for now, occupies the White House, the Cuban negotiators never even had “the cards” to put on the table for achieving their goal of switching off Radio Martí.

I’m not familiar with the rules of Poker, nor of any other card game, but if I were to get all ’conspiracy theory’ about it I would dare to suspect that the game’s being played underneath the table. ’Certainly’ it’s a coincidence that the closure of Radio Martí came just after we’d heard about the release of 553 prisoners! – which had been promised to the Vatican (of which only 230 were considered to be political prisoners), and shortly after it was announced that foreigners could now buy and own land in Cuba. And who knows, perhaps at last we may be about to find out exactly why so many hotels have been built on the island recently. continue reading

In the Spanish that we speak in Cuba the word “grande” is associated with “grandeza” – magnanimity, or nobility – and this word in turn is associated with generosity

There’s no use crying over spilt milk. For years I was a regular contributor to ’The News As It Stands’ on Radio Martí, where you could hear reports by independent media organisations such as ’14ymedio’, ’Diario de Cuba’ and ’Cubanet’, to name but a few. There, any Cubans without internet access were able to find out what these digital media had been publishing. Granted, it was accompanied by noise and interference, but it had a clarity which only the truth can provide.

By this means they were able to listen to: Dagoberto Valdés, Martha Beatriz Roque, Yoani Sánchez, Henry Constantin, Boris González, Miriam Leiva, Dimas Castellanos, Oscar Elías Biscet, Manuel Cuesta Morúa and other voices of opposition: people who daily ran the risk of prison, precisely for using those very microphones.

Perhaps it’s now just become our turn for giving “grandeza”/generosity towards the United States – to help it become “great again,” via yet more money in its vaults, in exchange for losing those spaces for truthful information about our reality. But as I’ve already said: generosity cannot be demanded, but it is one’s duty to give thanks for it.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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The Whole Truth About the Case of Former Cuban Minister Alejandro Gil

Or how the lack of transparency gives us the right to speculate

Alejandro Gil, former Minister of Economy and Planning, was dismissed in February 2024 / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 1 February 2025 — Those who rule in Cuba, from the powers that emanate from their positions, promised that there would be transparency in the trial of Alejandro Gil, former deputy prime minister and former minister of Economy. But instead of transparency, opacity has prevailed, not to say the darkest secrecy.

After that “Official Note of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic” published in the official newspaper Granma on March 7, 2024, the only comment that has been heard from an official source was that of the Comptroller of the Republic, Gladys Bejerano, who, in an interview with the EFE agency on May 21, 2024, said that what happened with Gil felt “like a betrayal.” Two months later she was removed from her position as part of the “process of normal renewal of the cadres.”

The Comptroller of the Republic said that what happened with Gil felt “like a betrayal”

Exercising the right to speculation (without abusing it) granted by government secrecy for a whole year, I dare to launch these hypotheses:

Alejandro Gil is innocent of the charges attributed to him, and to the surprise of his kind interrogators he has resisted all pressure to accept guilt.

Alejandro Gil is partially or totally guilty of the charges against him, but he has threatened to say everything he knows about those who are hierarchically above his old position, which has prevented or delayed their indispensable public presentation.

The charges that are imputed to him could be related to acts of corruption, such as appropriating funds intended for social use or declaring money as representing expenses that he later pocketed; nepotism, by taking advantage of his position to benefit private businesses of family or friends; adulterating in his reports the real data of the economy for the purpose of pretending to be successful in his management. Furthermore, salacious data about his personal morality could be included, and even worse, accusations of passing information to the enemy or that he intended to promote measures aimed at demolishing the socialist system.

And one last hypothesis: We will never find out what really happened.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Numbers or Names? Pact or Unilateral Commitments?

There has not been a pact, but a commitment by Díaz-Canel, at least that the Pope has promised him that he will not be punished for his sins

Image taken during a meeting between the Pope and Díaz-Canel in 2023. / Miguel Díaz-Canel/X

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Desde Aquí, Havana, 26 January 2025 — A young book designer, who is not a specialist in statistics or political mediation, made this comment about the releases from prison promised by the Cuban dictatorship in 2025, the year of the jubilee: “If they announced that they would release 553 inmates from prison, it must have been because a list of names was agreed upon, because if it were a commitment with numbers we would be talking about 500 or perhaps 725, which are the years that have passed since the first jubilee, but 553 is not a number that plays with any Kabbalah.”

In the letter that Miguel Díaz-Canel sent to Pope Francis at the beginning of January, he was informed that on the occasion of the Jubilee of Hope 2025, the decision had been taken to “benefit 553 people convicted in due process of various crimes contemplated by law by granting freedom.”

In the tenth point of the Bull of Invocation for the Jubilee Year 2025, Francis proposed to the governments of the world that “in the Jubilee Year initiatives be undertaken that restore hope; forms of amnesty or forgiveness of punishment aimed at helping people to regain confidence in themselves and in society.”

Seen in this way, it could be said that there was no pact, but rather a unilateral commitment by Díaz-Canel, unless the Pope promised the Cuban dictator that he would not be punished for his sins. But as far as we know, there are only eternal pacts with the devil, and those in literature. continue reading

For it to have been something like a pact we would have had to have a third party, in this case President Joe Biden.

For it to have been something like a pact, we would have had to have a third party, in this case President Joe Biden, in the event that he had made a quasi-parallel commitment, also unilateral, to “free” the Cuban government from the sanction that comes with appearing on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

To take this hypothesis to its extreme, the Pope would then be the intermediary between the two parties, but there is no letter from Biden to Francis nor any allusion to the fact that the withdrawal of this country from the list was due to the celebration of the jubilee year.

One person here vaguely promising one thing under the non-explicit condition that the other person promises the other thing can be described as anything but a pact, where there are supposed to be guarantees. This perhaps explains why there is no public list of names.

That is why Trump was able to put Cuba’s name back on the list and why the dictatorship was able to freeze the release of those who were so unjustly condemned for political reasons. With such a lack of transparency, the regime also had the door open to appeal to the maneuver of adding common prisoners to the list: people who “in the spirit of the Jubilee” will be able to regain confidence in themselves and in society.

The aforementioned Bull of Invocation to the Jubilee speaks of hope and also of patience. Hopefully, we will not have to wait for Francis to close the Holy Door of the papal Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican on January 6, 2026, the moment in which the Jubilee concludes and which would in some way be the deadline to fulfill this supposed unilateral commitment.

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Félix Navarro Celebrates the ‘Battle’ of Three Ladies in White Still Imprisoned by the Cuban Regime

Félix Navarro (2nd from R) and his family, shortly after his release from prison was announced this Saturday. / OCDH

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 18 January 2025 — Opposition leader Félix Navarro has been in prison since 11 July 2021 (11J). Almost four years later, as part of a deal between the Cuban regime and the Vatican to release 553 prisoners, he was granted conditional release this Saturday. He left the Agüica prison in Matanzas with the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen to his daughter Sayli Navarro, imprisoned for also participating in the mass protests.

Among the “many visits” and calls that besiege him to celebrate his release, he spoke to 14ymedio. “If I didn’t have this family and the brothers who have surrounded me in Cuba and around the world, I wouldn’t have been able to leave prison,” he says. “I found the family to be very well and very united.”

As of November 2022, he was allowed to see his daughter Sayli, a prisoner in the Matanzas Women’s Prison, who was transferred every 45 days to meet her father in the Agüica prison – almost 100 kilometers away – for two hours. There she had to talk to her in front of her guards, in an office.

As of November 2022, he was allowed to see his daughter Sayli, a prisoner in the Matanzas Women’s Prison,

“I always see her thin. The food situation [in Cuban prisons] is always bad. But [she has managed to mitigate it] thanks to friends and brothers in the struggle, with visits every 15 days,” he says. At first, when his jailers continue reading

suggested he call his daughter, Navarro rejected the offer. “You put her in jail,” he told them. Finally they decided to take him to her.

Navarro believes that his daughter, as well as other political prisoners such as Sissi Abascal and Tania Echevarría – all three of whom are Ladies in White – “have fought the battle that they have fought.” “We would not have wanted to go through this situation, but we are amazed at how these three women have behaved.”

In prison, only two other people could visit him at a time and every 50 days. His family and friends had to rotate. “There was always one of my brothers or nephews there. Anyone with the surname Navarro or Rodriguez could go in, that was the way,” he says.

His jailers were inflexible with this rule. Opposition member Iván Hernández Carrillo, for example, was not allowed in even though Navarro considers him his “blood brother” because – political activism aside – he did not have his last name. “However, he accompanied my family many times,” he says. “I told Iván: ’My brother, I need you not to let yourself be provoked in the street so that they don’t take you to jail.’ If they had put Iván in jail, what would be lost would be an army.”

In 2016, Navarro was diagnosed with diabetes, a disease that caused him to endure difficult days in prison.

In 2016, Navarro was diagnosed with diabetes, a disease that caused him to endure difficult days in prison. Now, he says, he has “low blood sugar levels,” although he does not consider that he is going through a critical moment. “Sometimes I lose consciousness, I can’t get out of bed. Diabetes knocked me out once at midnight and other times at dawn. I don’t remember anything that happened during that time.”

He has been unconscious for one to two hours. In prison, his diet contributed to the worsening of his illness and did not meet the requirements to maintain his sugar level. “The last visit I had was on December 6. Since then I have gained five kilograms and I have not had any more lows. However, this Sunday I ran out of medicine and I could not talk to my family either.”

Navarro thanked his “brothers in exile” for the visibility given to his case, in particular the Rescate Jurídico Foundation and its president, Santiago Álvarez Fernández-Magriña, a “Cuban patriot,” Navarro describes. He also thanked the Cuban American National Foundation. He celebrates the release on Thursday of José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, whom he describes as “a lion, a great man.”

At midday on Saturday, the organization Prisoners Defenders reported 89 releases, “the vast majority of which were conditional releases that had been due to them for some time and had been denied.” The government, for its part, said on Friday that it had already released 127 inmates , a figure that has sparked controversy and indicates – if true – that there are a large number of common prisoners who have been discreet about their release. Of these, only about 50 were political prisoners.

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José Daniel Ferrer Challenges His Jailers: ‘You Will Be Prosecuted in the Future’

José Daniel Ferrer, after his release, with his family: his wife, Nelva Ortega, and his children Daniel José and Fátima. / 14ymedio/Courtesy

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 17 January 2025 — The phone has not stopped ringing all afternoon. Yesterday, José Daniel Ferrer was released from the Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba, and he has not stopped giving interviews. Finally, I hear his voice on the other end of the line. He has the same firm and kind tone that I remember. Dungeons and mistreatment do not seem to have taken away either his energy or his sanity. We started talking as if just yesterday we had to pause this conversation that I now share with you.

“Right now I feel a bit sad because I have not been able to attend to everybody who has wanted to talk to me,” he acknowledges, overcome by the many phone calls. Leaving prison is an overwhelming experience. The sounds cease to be just the squeaks of the bars and begin to be familiar voices. The light changes and thee are no longer shadows but blinding flashes of light, and one’s body still does not know how to move, although the space is as small your own house. The veteran opponent has experienced those sensations many times, but they still affect him.

Ferrer has been welcomed not only by his relatives and neighbors but also by the blackout. “Now I have a rechargeable lamp because shortly after I arrived the electric power went out.” The Cuba that he has found on this side of the prison walls is a much more economically deteriorated country with fewer hours of electricity. “Even so, despite everything, I have already been able to hug some brothers in the struggle, physically and virtually, through the internet,” says the untiring leader of Unpacu. continue reading

Although the days in captivity were full of bad moments, Ferrer also tells how humor served him to deal with his jailers

Although the days in captivity were full of bad moments, Ferrer also tells how humor served him to deal with his jailers. “I once heard on the Round Table [State TV program] that the Minister of Agriculture wanted to improve egg production with more political and ideological work for the workers in the sector.” When the guards approached him that day, he could not miss the opportunity: ’By now you’ve heard that the chickens have to understand that they must work harder to lay eggs.’ They didn’t even crack a smile.

Every moment of this conversation, the voice of a small child is heard on the other side of the phone. Ferrer’s son, Daniel José, demands the attention of a father with whom he has spent very little time due to the rigors of prison and the isolation to which the political prisoner was subjected. “I’m coming now,” the father tells him, continuing to intersperse sentences about his time behind bars while attending to the little one’s demands. You can imagine him with the cell phone in one hand and a toy in the other, trying to distract his son.

His daughter Fátima, 20 years old, has also arrived from the community of Palmarito to see her father. He has been able to speak with part of his family exiled in the United States and talked to his sister Ana Belkis Ferrer, who during this time kept an updated report on what Ferrer was going through in prison, the denied family visits and the deterioration of his health. “I still need to talk to my brother, my mother and my other children, but I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” he says.

“When I got home I had such a rush of adrenaline that I felt I was 18 years old”

“When I got home I had such a rush of adrenaline that I felt I was 18 years old,” he admits, although he also remembers that he must avoid those bursts of enthusiasm because he has problems with blood pressure and needs to medicate himself with Enalapril to keep it from rising. “The adrenaline has already returned to its place and I’m 54 years old again,” he says. His body, suffering from the confinement, poor diet and lack of sunlight, now sets the tone, marks the pace.

In the book that Commander Huber Matos wrote after leaving prison, where he spent 20 years denouncing the communist drift of the Fidel Castro regime, he describes a scene in which he got up to go to the bathroom and came across, for the first time in two decades, a mirror that showed him his full body. In the pages of Cómo llegó la noche [How the Night Came], the former political prisoner described the surprise of seeing a graying and aged man who looked into his eyes. Ferrer also is now rediscovering his image, specifying the contours that the dungeon blurred, visually recomposing his anatomy.

Despite the mistreatment, for his jailers he had words loaded with future projections on his last day in prison. “The democratization of Cuba is also good for you,” he told them before leaving, with a knowing and ironic wink that the guards did not expect: “Vote for me for the presidency because I know that your salary is not enough and you are going through hard times.”

“I know that you have to deal ‘on the left’ in order to survive,” the opponent continued to explain to them

“I know that you have to deal ’on the left’ in order to survive,” the opponent continued to explain to them, while making with his hand the gesture that in the Cuban streets is used for the act of stealing and diverting resources from the State. In a prison, the boss, the jailers and even the workers lower on the scale take home food and other resources intended for the prisoners in order to support themselves day to day. That truth, as big and solid as the walls of a prison, cannot be denied, so there was a prolonged silence after Ferrer’s words.

“Just go home,” the officers almost begged him before the dissident’s diatribe. An annoying prisoner must be worse than a stone in the shoe for some guards who are not used to being warned that the regime they defend with their weapons and uniforms can fall like a fragile house of cards at any time. The henchmen must believe that their impunity is eternal, because imagining a future in which they are accountable puts them in front of another mirror, that of responsibility.

“The days they were going to beat me up, they took the highest-ranking officer of Mar Verde out of the environment, so that later I could not say that he was aware of that mistreatment,” he recalls. “Yesterday he told me to just go home to my wife and son and stop protesting.” But Ferrer took it calmly and wanted to make it clear that he did not accept any blackmail linked to the release of political prisoners after the talks between the Cuban regime and the Vatican, in parallel with the announcement made by the Biden Administration to remove Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.

“I want my things, my books, my writings, my verses,” the prisoner claimed. “I was writing quatrains. A few days ago I finished the first part of one that was about braggarts, those people who claim to have a courage that they don’t have: ’Juan, in a bar in Havana / under the effect of rum / without a weapon, kills a lion / on the African savannah’.” The night before the release Ferrer had finished the last verse: “Juan, without the drunkenness / just by seeing a mouse / his heart stirs / and the whole of Havana runs.”

“Yesterday he told me to just go home to my wife and son and stop protesting “

“When I got up this Thursday, one of my sources inside the prison warned me that Mar Verde was full of officials from all over Santiago de Cuba. ’There are also some from State Security, and it is being said that you are going free, that they are making preparations’.” Shortly after they informed him that it was a “conditional freedom,” which Ferrer refused: “I do not accept conditions; they can give me all the warnings they want but I’m not complying with them.”

The prisoner sent them a defiant message: “You will be prosecuted in the future and you will be convicted of all this, but I can assure you that you will not have to face the hunger, bedbugs or tuberculosis that we political prisoners have to suffer in Cuba.” Finally “they threw me out of there. They didn’t let me pick up my toothbrush, family photos or my books, nothing.”

Outside, his wife Nelva Ortega Tamayo and their little son were waiting for him. For her he has only words of gratitude. “She has gone through very difficult times while I was in prison: she lost her mother and recently her grandmother also died,” Ferrer adds. “It’s one of the hardest things about being in prison, that helplessness of not being able to be there for loved ones in the most complicated moments to encourage and support them.”

Now, Ferrer plans a visit to Havana, where he has a daughter he hasn’t seen since before the pandemic. The last part of the conversation is to remember our time of meeting as friends. A pizza eaten in company, a hug given in a hurry, a few laughs between personal testimonies. “See you, my brother,” he says in closing, as if we had paused our conversation a few hours before and only resumed it to catch up with the latest details: the news to which anecdotes, future projects and even verses are always added.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Relevance of a Dialogue Today in Cuba

The “change” will not be fraudulent because it will happen in the light at a negotiation table

Peace talks in 2016 between the Colombian Government and the FARC guerrillas in Havana / EFE

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 29November 2024 — In political terms an initiative can be convenient but inopportune, and vice versa. It must also be viable. The proposal for Cuba for a dialogue between the Government and the opposition fluctuates at these extremes.

Two answers, from opposite sides, are repeated in the face of the proposal for a dialogue:

“It is inadmissible that pro-democracy patriots sit down to talk with the dictators who decreed that ’the combat order be given’ to suppress the popular protests of July 11, 2021.”

“It is inadmissible that the revolutionaries who defend socialism and the sovereignty of the homeland against the aggressions of imperialism sit down to talk to their paid lackeys.”

These negatives have so many supporters on both sides that it is very difficult not to give up, even before developing arguments in favor of a dialogue.

Like swallows or the flu, from time to time these ideas return to the debate stage. Two colleagues from the independent press, Luis Cino and René Gómez Manzano, have recently addressed the issue. Also in an interview published in this newspaper with the Polish journalist and writer Adam Michnik, this controversial matter was raised from the perspective of a man who actively participated in a process of transition to democracy.

For Cino, who recognizes that it is unlikely that the dictatorship will want to sit down and talk with its opponents, “there are risks that, in the absence of other options, are worth running,” with the eventual gain that the regime recognizes the opposition.” He believes that “the dictatorship will see all its possibilities exhausted and face the imminence of a popular outbreak of incalculable magnitude, on top of the particularly hostile Trump continue reading

Administration, with Cuban-American Marco Rubio as Secretary of State.”

These new aspects show the imperative need for “the change” that has to go beyond cosmetic reforms

Cino warns that “the pro-democratic opposition must be clear about the direction, the goals to which it aspires. To do this, rather than with the regime, they must dialogue and agree, at least on their basic points and demands, with all the actors, both in Cuba and in exile.”

For his part, Gómez Manzano believes that Cino is in a hurry and that the moment of dialogue will be more propitious “when, in the ranks of the same single Party, those who are aware of an irrefutable truth become the majority: that the system is unfeasible and unsustainable”; however, at this moment “that essential aspect is not seen in Cuba, not even remotely!”

Manzano thinks it’s a good move to draw attention to “the need to negotiate with the regime, only not now with the one that declares itself to in ’continuity’. It is absolutely immobile and clings to power with an intensity that a limpet would envy.”

Five years ago I published in this newspaper an extensive, detailed (and somewhat pretentious) text on this matter where I warned that “to talk about dialogue, in the context of Cuba in the first decade of the 21st century, you have to steel yourself, replace all the fuses, secure the safety net and, if possible, pay life insurance in advance.”

The only thing that has changed since then is that the dominant historical generation has come closer to its extinction, and the living conditions of the population and the productive capacity of the country have plummeted even more. The demonstrations of 11 July 2021 also entered the equation, and in our neighbor’s house a government team is being installed that will not pull punches with the Cuban dictatorship.

These new aspects show the imperative need for “the change” to finally occur, which must go beyond the “changes” or cosmetic reforms that the regime could bring.

The change is not intended to be fraudulent because its birth will occur at a negotiation table. As we said yesterday, “the alternatives to dialogue are the overthrow of the dictatorship in a violent way (foreign invasion, popular uprising, coup d’état), with its inevitable consequence of death and ruin; the meek acceptance of waiting for the heirs of the heirs, in a remote future, to make some reforms; or, leave this Island forever.”

Mimicking Luis Cino’s arguments today, I think that if these continue being the alternatives, it’s worth running the risk of trying to have a dialogue.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Battered by Exodus and Crisis, Havana Takes Refuge “Behind the Wall” To Celebrate Its 505th Anniversary

The gala included a wide repertoire of ballads, boleros, romantic and traditional music, as well as songs in English, the language that makes officials nervous.

The show ’Behind the Wall’ was directed by baritone Ulises Aquino. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 16 November 2024 – On Friday night, Havana had a respite from its long decline. In the Plaza de Armas, a few meters from the point where the city was founded 505 years ago, music forced a pause in the midst of the agitation and despair that permeates every wall of the Cuban capital. The show Detrás del Muro (Behind the Wall), directed by baritone Ulises Aquino, was one of the few public tributes that the Island’s most populated city has received this year.

Getting to the almost perfect square guarded by the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales and the Palacio del Segundo Cabo was quite a heroic act, given the transport collapse that paralyzed Havana’s streets. “I was able to come because I ordered a car on the La Nave app, it cost me 1,200 pesos from my house in Cerro to here and I’ll have to pay another 1,200 pesos to get back,” said an elderly woman waiting on the other side of the protective fence surrounding the chairs.

Some tourists looking on with curiosity hovered around the area, hoping to sneak into the free concert and take a few snapshots of the moment. The poor, homeless people, with a limping appearance and outstretched hands waiting for some banknotes, preferably in foreign currency, also did not miss an opportunity; nor did the living statues that put their hats on the ground while holding their breath and acting out the cold bronze of a sculpture; and the matrons dressed up as 19th century Havana commoners, with their headscarves and flowers in their hair.

The front rows were reserved for senior officials of the capital and other figures of the ruling party. / Facebook/Government of Havana

As daylight faded, the place became a magnet that also attracted nearby residents, increasingly absent in a historic center where museums abound and residents are missed. Some arrived with annoyed expression asking what was happening, without remembering that old Havana is blowing out the 505 candles of its existence this Saturday. Joining forces to remind them were the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatro de La Habana, the Chorus of the Teatro Lírico, together with the orchestra and chorus of Opera de la Calle.

The words of Eusebio Leal — the Historian of Havana who died in 2020 — which resonated at the beginning of the show seemed more like an obituary than a text describing a living city. His voice made a tour of the intramuros town and the republican city, stopping at the proclamations, the awnings, the nightly concerts and the commerce in the streets, a vibrant image that continue reading

has nothing to do with the almost deserted avenues and the countless collapsed houses that characterize Villa de San Cristóbal today.

“I come every year when they do this show because I live nearby and it’s free. I also worked for many years with the Teatro Lírico and this reminds me of those good times,” says Ernesto, dressed for a solemn celebration. The old man, with his impeccable hat, long-sleeved guayabera buttoned up to the top and shiny cane, resembled one of those Havanans from the republican prints that hypnotize you when you look at them and make you sigh with nostalgia.

Ernesto finally got a seat and managed to sit in “the poor people’s area,” he said ironically. “But it sounds perfect because the audio, unlike other years, has been very good,” he said during a short break in the gala. “The stage should have been a little higher to see it well from here, but it’s a minor detail. I’m leaving happy, you can see that they’ve worked hard.”

The evening was led by the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatro de La Habana, the Chorus of the Teatro Lírico, together with the orchestra and chorus of Opera de la Calle. / 14ymedio

The first rows of seats were reserved for high-ranking officials of the Cuban capital and other figures of the government, and members of the diplomatic corps of Spain and France were also expected. Guests of the artists who went up on stage also sat in that area, located in front of the façade of the Santa Isabel hotel, in a view from which part of El Templete, the founding auricle of the heart of Havana, could also be seen.

Seen wearing military uniforms were the president of the National Assembly, Esteban Lazo, the secretary of the Communist Party in Havana, Liván Izquierdo Alonso, and the governor of the city, Yanet Hernández Pérez. The olive green color of their attire, the stern look in their faces, and the initials “CDP” on their epaulettes, to warn that they are still mobilized by the Provincial Defense Council after the passage of Hurricane Rafael, seemed as incongruous as arriving at a trench in high heels or participating in a funeral in carnival clothes.

Dressed in civilian clothes were the Vice Prime Minister, Inés María Chapman, and the Vice President of the Republic, Salvador Valdés Mesa. But even their more informal attire did not help them fit in very well at an event where, unlike official events, political slogans, poetic verses intended to praise some leader and party slogans were conspicuous by their absence. Instead, the gala included a wide repertoire of ballads, boleros, romantic and traditional music, as well as songs in English, that language that makes officials and censors nervous.

The weight of the spectacle fell on the actress and singer Gretel Cazón, the tenor Humberto Bernal and Aquino himself.

The weight of the spectacle fell on the actress and singer Gretel Cazón, the tenor Humberto Bernal and Aquino himself, the latter being the mainstay of the gala and a true one-man band who was not discouraged. Minutes before the instruments began to play, the founder and director of Ópera de la Calle was still fighting against the obstacles of bureaucracy and was going from one side to the other trying to tie up the last organizational loose ends in the midst of a context where apathy and improvisation ran rampant.

There was also a hint of support at the end, when the performers were heard singing Silvio Rodríguez’s song Venga la esperanza (Welcome Hope), a song that sounded like an urgent call for hope and enthusiasm to return to the corners of Havana. “Hínchese la vela, rora el motor” (Swell the sail, roar the engine), was the demand in the town whose patron saint who carries a child on his shoulders to the other side of the river. A premonitory metaphor for the exodus and the coyotes that have come to define the city today.

However, it was the song dedicated to the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, patron saint of Cuba, that was the most emotional moment of the concert. The composition by maestro Ernesto Lecuona describes Cachita as a “sweet and dark mother, who showers you with your piety.” The end of the song mobilized enthusiasm by becoming a call “for freedom to shine radiantly in Cuba.” Repeated loudly, that word made hearts beat, provoked tears and turned the faces of the officials in the front row marble.

The attendees loudly applauded this slogan, which, repeated in the streets of Havana during the popular protests of 11 July 2021, cost so many protesters of that historic revolt years in prison. Just a few meters from the spot where the city was once born, on Friday night its residents set themselves a goal more difficult than fighting pirates, building a strong wall or turning this piece of land next to the bay into a dynamic port of the New World. Havana was revered by being reminded of exactly what it lacks most.

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Cuba: Resisting Is Not Winning, Changing Is Not Giving Up

Those in power in Cuba, in order to maintain their prerogatives, insist on the irrevocability of the system

As can be seen in the image accompanying this article, the trash has been collected and a disciplined citizen is preparing to leave his bag in some empty containers. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 20 November 2024 — The chaotic accumulation of garbage in Havana is explained by the official propaganda media as the result of a combination of factors that include social indiscipline and the effects of the American blockade*. Those who exercise a discordant criterion reduce the cause of this disaster to the inability of the Government to fulfill a task which it is obliged to do.

If those in power in Cuba were to acknowledge their inability to resolve the problem, they might be forced to resign from their posts so that more capable people could take over.

Since they are not willing to give up everything they enjoy in order to stay in power and since they lack the ability to keep the country’s cities clean, they then appeal to that revolutionary principle, which has become a working method and is expressed in a willful idea left as an inheritance from Fidel Castro: “We are going to do it at whatever price is necessary.”

As can be seen in the image accompanying this text, the trash has been collected and a disciplined citizen is preparing to leave his bag in some empty containers.

Obviously, the application of this Fidelista legacy extends to almost all spheres.

As there were no suitable vehicles to handle the containers (because of the blockade) and as the rubbish was overflowing into the street (because of the undisciplined), dump trucks and different types of excavators were called in, which, with their voracious buckets, designed for rougher work, continue reading

collected the waste and deposited it in the trucks. A simple job with immediate results.

The price to pay was the demolition of the curb protecting the flowerbed and the sidewalk on Estancia Street, next to the parking lot of the Ministry of Agriculture. The destruction was not caused in one go, but rather by virtue of the repeated occasions in which this method was applied, gradually producing the current deterioration.

That is the banal fact, but what underlies it is the will to face a difficulty at whatever price is necessary. To resist as long as possible in order not to give up.

Obviously, the application of this legacy of Fidelism extends to almost all spheres. In order not to give up, it was decided to use national oil to fuel the thermoelectric plants, with the consequent damage to the boilers that have not been able to resist the corrosive effect of the sulfur.

In order not to give in to the stampede of qualified personnel in schools, it was decided to train ’emerging teachers’ in a hurry, with the consequence of a drop in the quality of academic results.

In order not to give in to the enemy in the area of Healthcare, surgeons learn to suture with threads other than those recommended and the shortage of medicines is being addressed with homeopathy.

The price to pay was the demolition of the curb protecting the flowerbed and the sidewalk on Estancia Street, next to the parking lot of the Ministry of Agriculture. / 14ymedio

It would be overwhelming to go on with the examples that could be brought to light. In the construction of low-cost housing, in agriculture with the absence of fertilizers, herbicides, machinery or irrigation, in industry that subjects its production plans to the schedule of blackouts, in science subject to impaired internet connectivity, even in the defense of the country, where the proclaimed military invulnerability is undermined because pilots cannot train, radars are not turned on to save fuel and it is almost offensive to the suffering civilian population to spend resources on maneuvers.

Hopefully we won’t have to pay the price that seems necessary.

*Translator’s note: There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in February of the same year, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.

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By Increasing Housing Prices Fivefold, the Cuban State Is Repealing a Key Norm of Socialism

The fair rule that determined the price based on the buyer’s salary disappears

Many of the houses being sold today are the same ones that were acquired under the just rules of socialism. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 13 November 2024 — The abandonment of the so-called fundamental laws of the socialist system in the Cuban model is something that has not been officially proclaimed, although it was slyly suggested in 1994 when the Special Period in Times of Peace was proclaimed, when it was necessary to appeal to the rules of the market “to save the conquests of the Revolution.”

The latest evidence that the publicized aspirations to establish real socialism on this Island are irrational and unviable is becoming clear after the publication in the Official Gazette of Resolution 313 of 2024, which will come into force on November 15.

The regulation issued by the Ministry of Finance establishes new minimum reference values for the liquidation and payment of taxes on personal income and on the transfer of property and inheritance, associated with acts of purchase and sale and donation of homes between natural persons.

These new reference values are five times higher than those established by this Ministry in March 2017 when it issued Resolution 112, which has now been repealed.

One of the reasons given in the document for carrying out this update is that it is necessary “given the current economic and social conditions.”

It is paradoxical that a government that requires private traders to reduce the price of their goods because it considers them excessive, then forces individuals to increase the price of the houses they sell fivefold with the sole purpose of increasing taxes.

Our lack of infrastructure and knowledge was balanced by belonging to a bloc where the weakest was worth as much as the strongest.

Let us go back to the time when there was still the illusion, or at least we were given the illusion, that “through a fair exchange between developed and underdeveloped nations” it was possible to achieve a socialist utopia. Our lack of infrastructure and knowledge was balanced by belonging to a bloc where the weakest was worth as much as the strongest.

We are talking about 1985. In May of that year the price I paid for the three-bedroom apartment that I still occupy was 4,200 pesos. Thus I stopped being a usufructuary who paid rent to become the owner who bought his home from a welfare state.

My salary was then 350 pesos per month and the cost of my house was calculated according to Law 65, in force since July 1985, based on the fact that I paid a monthly rent equivalent to 10% of my salary, or 35 pesos, and this figure was multiplied by 120 months, which in 20 years resulted in 4,200. If my salary had been the average for that year (188 pesos), then the price of my house would have been 2,280 pesos.

Almost 40 years have passed and the numbers must have obviously changed, but what was not supposed to change was the method for calculating housing prices, which was supposedly based on helping workers to buy a house.

If we do a reverse calculation with these elements, seeing that the reference price of my house, according to the aforementioned Resolution 313, is today 1,080,000, we can calculate that (if the same method of 1985 were maintained to calculate the prices of the houses) I would have paid for 20 years a monthly payment of 9,000 pesos, which is supposed to be 10% of a salary of 90,000. But it happens that the average salary in Cuba today is 4,648 Cuban pesos, which is 5% of this salary chimera of 90,000.

What kind of Cuban citizen were those who drafted this Resolution thinking of?

So one wonders: What kind of Cuban citizen were those who drafted this Resolution thinking of? Is the only reason for imposing an unattainable minimum price on housing mandatory to increase the amount collected through taxes?

The point is that the mere existence of “current economic and social conditions,” which the Resolution invokes to justify the new mandatory reference prices as a minimum for any purchase and sale transaction, are the denial of a deceased, though unburied, model.

I have no idea where the abandoned “socialist” formula of multiplying 10% of the salary by 120 months without including the real cost of producing a house came from; in the same way it is difficult to understand the reason why the State multiplies by five the “reference value” of a house that it neither built nor maintained.

This tedious play has been on stage for too long without any sign of renewal.

Many of the houses sold today are the same ones that were purchased under the just rules of socialism, but the most paradoxical thing is that the new officially established prices do not even come close to the very high prices imposed by abusive reality.

The illusion of a just method has vanished, as it is impractical and costly, but in the political theatre the bosses continue to play the role of providers of benefits who deserve meekness in gratitude.

This tedious play has been on stage for too long without any sign of renewal. Every day the make-up is falling off, the scenery is cracking, the script is boring and the actors are not convincing. The applause has died down for a some time now and the booing has already begun.

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