Category: TRANSLATORS

"All Of My Neighbors Know Of My HIV Because The Doctor Told Them"

With medical care statistics that can compete with any developed country, Cuba fails to protect the privacy of patients or the confidentiality of clinical records. (OPS)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, 22 January 2019 — The door did not close. While lying on the stretcher, naked from the waist down, the patient could see the faces of those who waited outside the examination room. After that experience she spent years without visiting a hospital for fear of again suffering a violation of her privacy, an element that is rarely taken into account in Cuban healthcare.

With medical care statistics that can compete with any developed country, Cuba fails to protect the privacy of patients or the confidentiality of clinical records. Complaints of indiscretions, leaking of medical information, or people who burst in the middle of a consultation are common in the hospitals of the Island. continue reading

The problem is frequent in the 10,800 medical offices in the country and more than 450 general hospitals, but the complaints mount in maternal hospitals.

“Our delivery rooms are shared and it is common for two women to be giving birth at the same time in one of them,” a doctor from the Gynecology and Obstetrics Hospital Ramón González Coro, who preferred to remain anonymous, told this paper. “Many patients complain of lack of privacy in such an intimate moment.”

In the delivery rooms of this Havana hospital, it is established that a screen is placed in the middle of the two patients to offer more privacy during childbirth, but sometimes “the haste with which the medical staff works and their own movement, from one side to the other, prevent that visual barrier from remaining in place,” confesses the obstetrician.

Yadira, who gave birth at the González Coro at the end of last year, confirms it. “It was my first delivery and what scared me the most was going into the room and seeing a woman who was giving birth in front of the stretcher where they put me,” she says. “I felt shame for her because she was exposed to the eyes of strangers,” she says.

Yadira expressed her desire not to be in the same situation as the other pregnant woman. “They answered that when the baby was sticking his head out, what I would least care about is being seen naked,” she says. “I felt as if I were a box, a wrapping without the right to have my body and my privacy respected.”

Later, in the recovery room where Yadira stayed for three days, the nurses were going to stitch up the wound left by the episiotomy, a surgical cut that is made just before delivery. “Everything is done in front of the other patients who are in the room and when I complained, the employees mocked me and told me to stop being such a prude.”

“This type of behavior goes against everything that is taught in the medical schools of the country,” says Maricarmen Ferrer, a retired doctor who also participated in training of new doctors. “Since 1989, bioethics began to be taught in Cuban universities and an important part is respect for the patient’s privacy, even when the patient is not aware of it or can not demand it for herself”.

“Unfortunately, many of the medical facilities in the country do not have the conditions to provide more personalized and individual care,” acknowledges Ferrer. “Many times we have to work in offices in which the door does not close or, to put it directly, that do not have one, and so there is no way to provide a private space to the patient.”

The doctor, however, believes that part of the responsibility for violating the privacy and information of patients comes from the patients themselves. “Many do not knock on the door before entering, they arrive in the middle of a consultation and make comments about the person being treated or about others,” Ferrer warns. “It’s a problem of lack of education that affects us a lot.”

Ferrer believes that indiscretions and the violation of ethical protocols can even cause someone to abandon treatment. “Once I had to call out a newly graduated urologist because he peeked outside his office and asked aloud what patients were waiting to ’be seen for a problem of impotence.’ No one in the waiting room answered.”

However, these actions rarely come to be presented as complaints in the Ministry of Public Health or to be taken to court. Ivan, 32, is an HIV patient and lives in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón in Havana. “All my neighbors know about my illness because the family doctor told a person who ended up spreading the information in the neighborhood,” he laments.

“At first I thought to file a report, but my friends convinced me not to because the damage was already done,” adds Ivan.

“After a lot of research, I was told that all that would come of it was an administrative sanction but that it was never going to reach the courts,” Ivan explains to 14ymedio. The indiscreet doctor was moved to another office, and the patient fears that wherever he is he can continue to “spread the private information of others.”

An investigation by the doctors Maylin Peña Fernández and Hiram Tápanes Daumy puts salt on the wound. In the opinion of these specialists the frequent “rotation” of doctors to different jobs causes the continuity in the treatment of patients to be lost and this also affects privacy.

In addition to the deficiencies in the functioning of the Health Service, the indifference of Cuban society explains this type of behavior, and this is reflected in the official press. The images of the injured or sick being treated in a hospital are frequent on national television. And, worse still, the government has repeatedly disseminated clinical details of opponents and activists.

Translated by: Michael S Brown

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

Believing is Easier than Thinking / Somos+

Somos+, Jorge Pantoja, 3 December 2018 — Upon hearing and studying the history of Cuba, as told by the victors of the so-called Cuban Revolution, there are many points of total incoherence that we, without being experts, can ask ourselves. Did it really happen like that?

Wherever there exist doubt, there is a very high possibility that history was changed to favor of the victors, generally those most disadvantaged until the moment just prior to reaching their objective.

I ask myself, how is it possible that such a ruthless tyranny as Batista’s would give an opportunity to its main opponent, Fidel Castro, to have a fair trial, defend himself and win the court’s ruling, this being perhaps the determining factor of the future as Castro himself removed from the constitution of the republic the right of a Cuban to defend himself in front of a court by his own means. continue reading

Instead guaranteeing with the great lie of judicial security representation by a professional who only responds to the interests of the government because it is his employer; lawyers in Cuba are present only because they have to be there and not because they can perform their work with dignity.

Just the mention of the physical disappearance of Camilo Cienfuegos my stomach churns; Cuba needed one last hero to complete the process and this man was Castro’s sacrificial lamb.

It is very easy to deceive a people when only one voice is heard and others that arise are silenced. What a coincidence that very few survived the year 1959 but the commander-in-chief suffered not even a scratch.

Democracy in Cuba was in good shape but it was well screwed up in the first minute of the Revolution, with those massacres of supposed traitors, that holocaust of silencing competing ideas because we already had the great thinker-in-Chief , I regret how my people let themselves be deceived in this cheap and vile way.

Another murky point in the history of Cuba is that after the Granma there were very few revolutionary’s left, and yet, they were always nearby to defend a peasant family that was under assault by the rural guard throughout the Sierra Maestra.

The great power of the revolutionary government was centered around the survivors of the landing of the Granma, little by little they got rid of those who were not on that boat until creating that closed circle of individuals overrated in heroism. I would say that it was cynicism more than anything and a well thought out plan.

I don’t know about everybody else, but for me, it has become easier for Cubans to BELIEVE THAN TO THINK.

 Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

It Wasn’t Revolution, It Was Dictatorship

Francisco Larios assures that “many of those who today oppose Ortega-Murillo in Nicaragua were part of the movement” that brought them to power. (Carlos Herrera/Niú)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Francisco Larios, Miami, January 22, 2019 — I don’t know with what words, nor with how many amplified speakers, email messages, publicity posters, speeches, and pleas, to recommend “Connecting the dots between totalitarianisms,” a magnificent work by the painter and writer Otto Aguilar.

My motivation is this: I believe that the massacre of 2018 and all the crimes that are being committed in Nicaragua come from the lie that has been lived since 1979, the year in which we believed that we were touching heaven with our hands, and in a blind ectasy we allowed a gang that was not fit for power to accumulate it in excess. continue reading

I know that it’s painful for many, still, at this stage, to confront that brutal reality. Many of those who today oppose Ortega-Murilla, and are even their victims, were part of the movement, like an enormous number of people that at the time acted out of principal and decency.

Many of them cried, and I don’t say that in the figurative sense, when the dictatorship of the FSLN fell in defeat in 1990. It even cost them years, after that defeat, to break completely with the mother tree.

They have attempted later, instead of facing the truth, to create another myth, that of “before the ‘piñata’ — the idealistic revolution and its achievements — and after the ‘piñata,’ the hijacking of the party and the decline.”

But the evidence that has accumulated for more than 30 years is overwhelming, and should force them to return to the lost path, not only for themselves, but at some point for all of us: the path of truth.

To begin, one has to put the “Sandinista revolution” between quotation marks and throw the key into the trash.

It’s quite certain, there was a popular insurrection against the dictatorship, also genocidal, of the Somozas. The rebellion was full of heroism and desperation, and of a passionate desire to build a utopian future.

Then they arrived, the same ones as always, the foxes of power.

In such a manner that from the revolution there was guillotine, and privileges for a few. Of equality, fraternity, and liberty, very little. Much Hollywood and Bollywood, much revolutionary tourism, affectation, and high-profile Machiavellianism, at the same time lots of torture, robbery, crime; and the rest, the same as our entire previous history.

If before it was the peons of the haciendas who were the “volunteers with rope,” the cannon fodder of the oligarchs and caudillos, during the Frentista dictatorship (that one goes without quotation marks) such disgrace touched an entire generation of young people, kidnapped by the totalitarian state and used as pieces in their chess game of blood.

For that reason I also was struck by the book Perra Vida, the memoirs of the adolescence of the writer Juan Sobalvarro, in which he beautifully narrates, from his own experience as a recruit, what the kids who at that time couldn’t evade conscription lived through.

That’s why I repeat my message to the translators and communicators of the story that still clings to the myth of the “Sandinista revolution:” the most revolutionary thing they could do, the bravest, the most beautiful legacy, the one that can change history for the good (not “revise it”) is to denounce the root of the tragedy: having let the tree grow twisted since the beginning, despite having been irrigated with so much generosity by so many.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

Editors’ Note: This text was published by the Nicaraguan digital outlet Confidencial, which has authorized us to reproduce it here.

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

I’M VOTING NO, a Campaign Attempting to Make History in Cuba / Ivan Garcia

Source: CubaTV.

Iván García, 14 January 2019 — “That cold morning of February 15, 1976,” recalls Sergio, a retired worker, “I was one of the first to vote in the referendum that was held to ratify the drafts of the Constitution and the Law of Constitutional Passage. I believed blindly in Fidel Castro and neither I nor anyone else considered voting NO. The internet didn’t exist, access to information was limited, and we Cubans would sign whatever blank paper the government gave us.”

Forty-two years later, some things have changed. Sergio no longer supports the government, because he assures that it hasn’t done a good job in its obligations in the economic and social spheres. “The money from my retirement and the salaries of my three children are barely enough to eat, and for that reason I go out to drive an almendrón [old American car used as a taxi] that a neighbor rents me, so I can try to get a few extra pesos. I’m going to vote NO for several reasons. The main one, I don’t want to validate a government that in six decades has been incapable of guaranteeing food for the people or offering quality public services.” continue reading

Sergio is not a dissident. Neither is José Manuel, a computer specialist. “When the government proposed a new Constitution, my gang of friends, almost all of them intellectuals, musicians, and designers, showed interest in studying it and comparing it with the previous one, from 1976. We were in favor of Article 68, on gay marriage. They were intending to vote Yes and I was thinking of abstaining, in order to not go against the gays. But when they withdrew 68, I moved from abstention to voting NO.

“I don’t care if this Constitution is better than that of ’76. If they haven’t fulfilled the obligations of the previous one, what will obligate them to fulfill those of this one? So, with Article 68 gone, it’s clear to me that it’s no longer about choosing between two Constitutions, but about a referendum of support for the government. I don’t want socialism to fall, but I do believe that the government deserves a good whack on the head,” he says and adds:

“Eliminating Article 68 not only changed my position, but also that of my friends and many people. A few days ago I took a survey at a family party. There were 20 people between 25 and 50 years old. I expected half and half approval for the Constitution, but the result surprised me: 16 responded that they were going to vote NO and 4 still hadn’t decided. I told them that for the first time I was noticing an agreement between ’the worms [derogatory term for Cuban exiles and opposition] and the intellectuals.’

“It’s an unprecedented situation: Díaz-Canel, the current president, didn’t storm the Moncada Barracks, he didn’t sail on the Granma, and he didn’t go up to the Sierra Maestra with the guerrillas, he doesn’t have the same legitimacy of the Castro brothers. He’s just one of us. The people don’t see him as a sacred being, and that is noticeable in the nerve with which the government is criticized on social media, by people who live in Cuba and don’t belong to the dissidence.

“Whatever intentions he has, Díaz-Canel is closely watched. I believe that the government should be worried about what will happen on February 24. I think that the result will be 60-70% in favor and between 30-40% against. Although in the end the government will win with the usual 90%. Cuba is crazy like that.”

The Constitution of 1976 was ratified by 97.7% of Cubans. “I was born in 1959 and in 1976 I was 17. I was studying at a technological institute and was openly gay. It was the first time I voted in my life. I was scared shitless, but when I was alone in front of the ballot paper I put down a giant NO. If at that time, when everyone supported the Revolution, I was capable of voting against, now that people are lying in the middle of the street, I’m also going to vote NO. I’m tired of so many lies and promises. I don’t want socialism at all,” confesses Adolfo, a private hairdresser.

Rolando, an accountant, sees the February 24 referendum “as another pantomime by the leaders, to try to legitimize not only the future to which they want us to bow, but also, as always, to confuse and entangle the world with a false democracy that in Cuba has never existed. I no longer remember the last time I went to vote, I got tired of so much show a long time ago. When I used to go I would annul the ballot, but this time I’m planning to go and vote NO,” he says and adds:

“I would like to be surprised and for them to say that the percentage of approval was 80 or less, but that would be a reality that I believe they are not prepared to admit. They neutralized the greatest danger that they had by withdrawing the famous Article 68, they knew that they would have a large protest vote, because of that article and to demand the Direct Vote [to elect the president] that, incidentally, were both debated at the assembly in my neighborhood.

“One lady mentioned that in numerous countries people voted to elect their president, and she too wanted to elect our own. Due process of law was also debated, that citizens have the right to an attorney from the very moment of their arrest and until the lawyer is present, not to be obligated to make a statement, as is seen in movies.”

The political indifference among ordinary Cubans, those who breakfast on coffee without milk, is tremendous. On corners, in lines at shops, or inside shared taxis, there are people who speak frankly about their voting intentions. In the neighborhood where Rolando lives, in the west of Havana, “people prefer not to have an opinion, apathy is significant, although some say that they won’t go to vote. I try to convince my friends of how dangerous and irresponsible it is, at this stage, to play the government’s game, how the best thing is to go and vote NO. Even if afterward they falsify the results.”

Carlos, a sociologist, believes that “the government has attempted to raise a curtain of smoke, legally modernizing the future Constitution by introducing Habeas Corpus and recognizing private work, but it keeps the disrespect toward those who think differently. It’s abnormal to sustain a dysfunctional system for life. In one of the articles of the new Constitution the use of arms is authorized if someone intends to change the system. Accepting that Constitution is jeopardizing the future of our children and grandchildren.”

Julio Aleaga, an independent journalist and spokesman for Candidates for Change, points out that “the best strategy is voting NO. The regime isn’t prepared to execute a massive fraud. Any citizen, in agreement with their own regulations, can observe the vote count after the referendum. We are preparing dozens of activists to perform that function on February 24. Voting NO is a better proposal than not going to vote. Abstention or leaving the ballot blank doesn’t specify what was the intention of that person’s vote. A NO has a marked political intention. If we follow the voting trends of past elections, now, when we have alternative journalists, independent artists, private workers, and citizens upset with the performance of the regime, I’m convinced that the vote for NO will be notable.”

Juan González Febles, director of the weekly Primavera Digital [Digital Spring], supports the group of opponents whose strategy is not going to vote. “It’s the State that counts the votes and whenever we are talking about dictatorships, it’s not going to hold an election to lose. If the Neocastro regime senses that it could lose, there will be a widespread fraud. If those who opt to vote NO lose, as will surely happen, they will have no other choice but to recognize their defeat. Then they will be legitimizing an autocracy.”

Reinaldo Escobar, editor-in-chief of the newspaper 14ymedio, is in favor of NO. “A miracle would have to occur for that proposal to win by majority. But I believe that it’s worth trying,” he emphasizes. In a recent article, Escobar writes that “the suspicion of a possible fraud has a demobilizing effect among the promoters of NO. The most effective antidotes to cancel out this paralyzing pessimism are assuming that possibility as a reasonable risk or trusting that fraud won’t be committed.”

With fewer than forty days from February 24, when the popular referendum that would approve the new Constitution of the Republic will take place, the regime, which according to its own electoral laws prohibits carrying out advertising campaigns, “in the next weeks, in high schools, universities, and work places discussions will be held with the objective of encouraging the people to vote YES,” assures a party official.

The battle is set. The government wants to cover up its inefficiency with the worn out anti-imperialist discourse and insulting those who think differently. The activists for NO, without public spaces to discuss their arguments, seek that the greatest number of Cubans over age 16 join a political process where votes are as powerful as any weapon. Adding people is the premise. Change is only possible if the citizenry mobilizes.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

The Director General of RTV Comercial Has Been Detained and Is Under Investigation

Joel Ortega Quinteiro is the director of the largest state production and marketing company of films and television programs in Cuba. (Cubanow)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 18 January 2019 — The director general of RTV Comercial, Joel Ortega Quinteiro, has been detained for the alleged crimes of influence peddling and embezzlement, as confirmed by several sources in the sector. The official directed the largest state production and marketing company of films and television programs in Cuba.

Ortega Quinteiro was arrested earlier this month and taken to Villa Marista, the Operations Directorate of State Security in Havana. In addition, the director of artistic representation of RTV Comercial, Wendolyn Ferrer Vela, is under house arrest while the investigation is being conducted. continue reading

According to an employee of the company and another of the Institute of Music, the director is accused of possible mishandling of funds, overpayment of salaries to employees and that some in his family were hired by the departments that buy audiovisual equipment abroad.

The RTV director’s secretary declined to confirm the information in a telephone call with this newspaper, although she said that Ortega Quinteiro would not be available in his office “until the end of February.” When pushed, the employee explained that Friday was his “last day of work in the company” and that he was “liquidating everything” in his office in El Vedado.

The company, directed until now by Ortega Quinteiro, has been in charge of programs such as Sonando en Cuba, a program of musical competition that achieved an impressive audience within the Island. It has also produced the acclaimed film Conducta, winner of the Coral Award at the Havana Film Festival in 2014 and, more recently, the reel “Why do my friends cry?”

RTV Comercial has been in recent years the crown jewel of the Cuban Radio and Television Institute (ICRT by its spanish acronym) and has been responsible for obtaining foreign currency to reduce the amount allocated by the State to radio and television productions. With a management model more focused on commercialization, the entity began to be the focus of the economic police more than a year ago.

RTV’s audiovisuals are characterized by resources that are rarely available for regular television programs. “The company accumulated enemies and people who questioned how it handles resources and what projects it assumes,” an ICRT source told the newspaper, who requested anonymity. “It was a matter of time before Joel was knocked down because it was known he was committing irregularities.”

“There were also allegations of delays in payments and possible bribes to be hired to the staff of a program,” adds the state employee. “Although the ICRT has not officially reported anything to the workers, the director’s arrest is the talk of the day in the corridors.”

So far “the projects that RTV Comercial was conducting have not been suspended, but all those involved in these programs have their hearts in their mouths because of the fear of losing their jobs or of not being paid the agreed salary,” the source explained.

Some producers consulted praised the salaries that the company could afford to pay to the creators because the content was later commercialized internationally. However, other sources allude to the fact that many of the programs produced were never sold to other chains, which caused severe losses that have also weighed in the arrest of Ortega Quinteiro.

The technical staff that is hired by RTV Comercial earns high salaries in convertible pesos (CUC — roughly equivalent to the US dollar). The director of Sonando in Cuba, Manolo Ortega, earns 3,000 CUC (roughy $3,000 US or about 75,000 cuban pesos) for one season of the program that lasts less than three months. While any other director of musicals linked to ICRT only earns 2,400 CUP (Cuban pesos — about $96 US) in the same timeframe.

In an interview with the Cubanow site, Ortega Quinteiro stated that RTV applied “a production system that is not very far from traditional production,” although he acknowledged that “national television goes through issues related to material resources that escape from the hands of the creators and the institution,” something that his company sought to improve.

The company was born in 1994, in the midst of the deep economic crisis caused by the end of the Soviet Union. A moment in which a process of decentralization of foreign trade was promoted, so that each state agency could create a team or department in charge of imports and commercialization of its products.

However, it wasn’t until 2007 with the advent of digital television that RTV began to produce content with standards that could be sold in the international market. Since then, programs with audience participation have been its mainstay.

Ortega Quinteiro explained to the official press that the company offered at the beginning “three fundamental services: licensing of audiovisual works, production services and importation of equipment.” Now, it covers “ten business lines,” including the production of revenue-generating audiovisuals and co-productions with other institutions.

The night of December 31, RTV participated in the production of the television show for New Year’s Eve and in tribute to the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. The transmission was praised in the official press but a few days later Ortega Quinteiro was arrested and taken to the headquarters of the State Security.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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

Jazz Breezes Refresh Santiago de Cuba

For the first time, the Plaza Jazz Festival included performances and concerts in Santiago de Cuba this year. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Eduardo Marín, Santiago de Cuba, 21 January 2019 – Santiago de Cuba has lived an unusual week. Not only have the temperatures cooled and long sleeves become more frequent in the streets, but the winds of good music have also blown. For the first time, the Plaza Jazz Festival included presentations and concerts in this city in eastern Cuba.

The inaugural day, January 14, brought a combination of experimentation and tradition with the show of Arturo O’Farrill, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas and the Conga de Los Hoyos at the Martí Theater. It was a night that neither the delay in starting the show nor the hubbub of the audience, formed by students of the Vocational Art School, managed to tarnish. continue reading

O’Farrill showed that his family ties to Cuban music from his father are not only a matter of blood inheritance but that his interpretations are permeated by a mixture of audacity and folklore. He reached the climax of the presentation when he performed the danzón Bodas de Oro (Weddings of Gold) with his two sons and the conga santiaguera.

The jazz festival program also featured throughout the week  the Colombians José Tobón and Sigura Jazz Ensemble, the Canadians Stich Wynston and The Shuffle Demons, along with a good number of Cuban musicians and students from the Esteban Salas Conservatory.

However, the final weight of the event was more inclined towards genres such as son, rumba and salsa due to the existence of very few jazz groups in the province. This musical reality was described by one of the members of the Vocal ConPaz quartet, Gualveris Rosales, who defined the Festival as “50%” jazz.

For several attendees consulted by 14ymedio, the fact that there are few santigueran groups dedicated to this genre born in the United States is due, in part, to the lack of presentation venues destined for its dissemination. “Jazz needs an atmosphere, a more intimate space in which the viewer and the musician connect better,” said Isaac, a young man who was at the Plaza Dolores for the closing of the Festival on Sunday.

So at the closing of the santigueran edition of Jazz Plaza the majority of the public came to dance with Ronald’s drums and his Rumbera Explosion, rather than with the cadence of the saxophones and piano.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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

Dissidents and Independent Journalists, Voice of the Cuban Public / Ivan Garcia

Trying to take a private taxi on the corner of 10 de Octubre and Dolores, Havana. Image by Juan Suárez taken from Havana Times.

Iván García, 21 January 2019 — In the summer of 2008, behind a pigpen, in a miserable improvised wooden hovel in El Calvario, a town south of Havana, a 28-year-old attorney made a speech about the importance of the Cuban regime ratifying the International Treaty on Civil and Political Rights and the International Treaty on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights approved by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966.

A passionate lawyer, Laritza Diversent explained that since Minister of Foreign Relations Felipe Pérez Roque had signed these documents at UN Headquarters in New York, Cuba was obligated to ratify them and, thus, must comply and establish civil and political rights that would pave the way towards a future democracy.

Laritza had three powerful factors working against her: she was a woman, black, and poor. Moreover, she was the mother of a 10-year-old son. It was a feat that she had graduated as a lawyer, given such difficulties. The campaign she started was supported by various opposition groups. The dictatorship, in its arrogance, refused to ratify these treaties. continue reading

Independent lawyers like Laritza Diversent and Julio Ferrer did not desist in denouncing the arbitrariness of the legal apparatus, and opened an office, Cubalex, dedicated to advising hundreds of people whose rights the government transgressed. Diversent carved a successful path within the dissident movement in Cuba.

With immense patience, she prepared several workshops on legal information aimed at members of the opposition, activists and independent journalists. She participated in international forums denouncing the abuses of Castroism. Always documenting every abuse. In her testimonies she dismantled the veneer of apparent democracy that the island government likes to show off. And showed reality as it is. A hard and pure dictatorship.

Her legal knowledge made her a formidable enemy for the olive green special services of the autocracy. One morning in 2016 they dismantled the Cubalex legal advice office, imprisoned the lawyer Julio Ferrer and opened a punitive file on Laritza. The only door that remained open was that of exile. Currently she resides in Pennsylvania, but like many exiles, she continues to sleep with Cuba under her pillow. She is very active in social networks and thanks to new technologies, advises, from the distance, whoever asks her for help.

Lawyers like Laritza, Julio Ferrer and René Gómez Manzano, among others, have demonstrated the authentic apartheid erected by the Castro brothers against their people. Like the decree Law 217 of 1997, which prevents Cubans born in the eastern region from living in Havana. Or the regime’s violations of its own Constitution.

It is true that the peaceful opposition is divided and has not been able to reach ordinary people. But its capacity to denounce has influenced the brief economic reforms promoted by the regime of Raúl Castro.

Until 2008, no journalist of the official media, minister, nor reputed intellectual, publicly recognized that Cubans were second class citizens and could not stay in tourist centers, legally sell or buy a house or travel abroad without so many immigration controls. It was the members of the opposition and free journalists who always demanded those and other deeper openings in the economic, social and political fields.

Today, it is the opposition that demands a new Constitution, a Law of Laws that protects all currents of thought and recognizes political diversity, not the false Magna Carta that the government will implement in 2019.

It is the dissident movement that asks for greater economic freedom for private entrepreneurs, to repeal the absurd regulations that limit wealth, when what is at issue is to combat the poverty that increases every year in the country. It is they who demand democracy, tripartition of powers, freedom of expression, of the press and culture, and university autonomy.

If there is a revolutionary and progressive entity in Cuba, it is the opposition and the independent press.

We independent journalists are the ones who recount the transportation problems, the shortage of food, the hardships of retirees, the aspirations of the population, without makeup nor political slogans.

Nothing escapes us. In blogs and alternative sites is where you can read the stories of those who have no voice, be it an elderly person, a prostitute, a family without resources, a vulnerable community or a web of corruption.

In silence and without recognition, we continue writing. It seems as if no one listens to us. But the rulers are taking note. Fearing loss of power, they do not accept most of the requests, suggestions, or complaints. It is precisely the antagonistic forces that the regime has as a reference in order to know the state of opinion in the streets.

The state scribes spread the directives that come from above. They are part of the trained chorus that applauds a regime that sooner or later will have no choice but to initiate a democratic opening.

Translated by: Michael S Brown

Healthcare in Cuba Doesn’t Discriminate, it’s Bad for Everyone

The state of Abel Santamaría Hospital during the hospitalization of the writer’s friend. (Yosvany Hernández)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yosvany Hernández, Pinar del Río, January 21, 2019 — The deplorable state of many Cuban hospitals and the dreadful nature of their services is no secret. But there is a false conception in the popular imagination that if you have money, life flows, even when it comes to hospital treatment.

I want to share with you the story that shattered that myth for me. It is the experience of a friend who was in a car crash and spent three days in Abel Santamaría Hospital, in the city of Pinar del Río.

My friend is German. Although I was convinced that the service would be costly, I thought that she would have the best treatment, because of that widespread belief that foreigners have priority. continue reading

Upon her arrival, the emergency room was packed with patients and she had to be seen in a room with no privacy (nor beds). I don’t know whether because of protocol or lack of management, she remained stranded on the same stretcher on which she arrived, right next to an open and overflowing wastebasket.

The first checkup was the most similar to that song about elephants balancing on a spider’s web, only that these white-coated elephants would touch, go, come, whisper, wait, et cetera, to, once in a while, ask one or another bilingual question (half Spanish and half sign language).

They did some routine procedures: ultrasounds, x-rays, and blood analysis.

Then “the attending comrade” appeared, that is to say the person responsible for counting and charging every movement of personnel and resources moving around the foreign patient. My instinct as a good Cuban senses mystery and adult language like in the Saturday movie.

So far nobody had addressed her to explain what was happening, nor what the procedures would be, but the accountant comrade managed to inform the patient that the hospital didn’t have a connection with her insurance and that, to avoid delays in treatment, she should pay in cash for the services she was going to receive. Despite this not being an appropriate conversation for a moment like this, the patient, who luckily was conscious and wasn’t traveling alone, agreed.

The first diagnosis was encouraging, only a fracture of the collarbone, immobilization, eight hours in observation, and she could return home. The rooms meant for foreign patients were full and, after 3 hours, they put her in another room with worse conditions for which she had to pay the same price, 10 CUC per hour.

Each consultation 30 CUC, 25 CUC for x-rays, and the ultrasound, which in the words of the little economy comrade was a little more expensive, 300 CUC; plus 50 CUC for a gauze bandage to immobilize the shoulder.

After eight hours during which there was very little observation, due to protocol, two exams with their respective additional costs had to be repeated. The same ones had to be examined by a second orthopedist, which meant waiting until the next day.

The second orthopedist suspects a fracture in the spine and suggests an MRI. At this point my friend had been in pain for 18 hours, without cleaning herself up nor understanding how, after charging her for so many x-ray exams, there still wasn’t certainty about her health status.

An incomplete MRI (400 CUC) produced a spinal fracture, and after repeating it (300 CUC), another break appears. Hours pass and the bill rises.

She had read many good things about Healthcare in Cuba, and she wasn’t expecting that her situation could be complicated, but faced with the dreadful appearance of the place and with such a diagnosis she decided to transfer to Havana.

After resolving the bureaucratic problems and with a pinch of persistence, now that the official who attended foreigners claimed that it was not necessary to transfer her, it was 6:00 in the evening. And interprovincial ambulances don’t run at night.

On the morning of the third day the ambulance finally arrived.

During the entire stay not even an orderly appeared. It was necessary to do two MRIs and, each time, someone had to go to look for the technician at his house. Even more disappointing than the lack of medications, inappropriate conditions, and several references to the economic blockade was the apathy of the majority of the doctors, the bad treatment, and, above all, the evasion of responsibility.

After paying $1,697 at the ambulance door for terrible service and an unreliable diagnosis, she was left with only the hope of that hospital in Havana where all the foreigners go, and which, as they told her by telephone, was the best.

We Cubans don’t have that hope, because what we’ve got is that one, that of mistreatment, that of the horror movie.

It is very difficult to preserve, after hearing this story, the image of the eternal humanitarian, the good Samaritan of so many international medical missions.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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

Only 70,000 Cubans are Connected to the Internet From Their Homes

The commercialization of Nauta Home is part of a government strategy seeking to close the technology gap with the rest of the world. (14ymedio)

14ymedio biggerEFE/14ymedio, Havana, January 19, 2019 — Only some 70,400 Cubans — out of a population of more than 11 million — are today connected to the internet from their homes, a service that has grown timidly since its beginning in 2017, compared to the popularity of the recent activation of mobile data with 3G technology, which has exceeded 1.8 million customers in a little more than a month.

Cuba, one of the most disconnected nations on earth, offers the Nauta Home service for individuals in 115 of the 168 municipalities of the country, according to information received from the state telecommunications monopoly Etecsa, published this Saturday by the official newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth). continue reading

95% of Nauta Home users use a 1 megabit connection, the cheapest of the four available packages, which cost from 15 to 70 CUC, high prices compared with national salaries, the average of which doesn’t exceed 35 CUC per month.

Until two years ago, connection from home was a privilege only granted to officials linked with the Government, and professionals such as doctors, journalists, and university professors. The service had subsidized prices but very slow speeds when it came to sending and receiving data.

At first, the commercialization of Nauta Home was seen by customers as an alternative to browsing from the wifi zones with wireless connections that began to be installed on the Island in 2015. However, the slow expansion of the domestic service frustrated those early hopes.

The breaks and cuts in service have also been frequent in Nauta Home, which on January 14 was out of service for more than six hours because of technical problems that affected the entire country.

The arrival of internet to mobile phones on December 6 has caused many to place their hopes in the possible technical improvement and the price reduction of the service from cellphones. Currently browsing packages for 3G technology cost between 7 and 30 CUC, a price much criticized by users.

Until the appearance of mobile data, 60% of the 5.9 Cuban internet users accessed the net from their workplaces or schools.

In Cuba, with 11.1 million inhabitants, there are more than 5.3 million cellphone users.

In December, the Cuban Minister of Communications, Jorge Luis Perdomo, announced before Parliament that this year they would begin to test the mobile service with 4G technology in large cities, although he did not specify official activation dates.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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

Venezuela: Now or Never

Caption: Juan Guaidó is part of a brilliant group of self-sacrificing ex-student leaders. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Carlos A. Montaner, January 20, 2019 — The destiny of Venezuela is probably in the hands of Juan Guaidó. It involves a young representative of 35, linked to Voluntad Popular (Popular Will), a party founded by Leopoldo López. The presidency of the National Assembly came to him, which is something like winning a tiger in a raffle. As President of the Assembly he has turned into, de facto, the acting president of the country in the face of the total illegitimacy of Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuela, then, has two presidents. One legitimate and constitutional, which is Juan Guaidó, and the other absolutely fraudulent: Nicolás Maduro. In any case, in the fourteenth century the Catholic Church had three popes simultaneously. Two were declared antipopes. By that measure, in the future Maduro will be declared antipresident. continue reading

Those who know Guaidó tell me that he has the maturity and the common sense necessary for that job. By means of television he projects a good image. He is endorsed by Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS, 13 of the 14 countries of the Lima Group (excepting the ineffable AMLO’s Mexico), María Corina Machado, Antonio Ledezma, and the US State Department. He has his back well covered.

On the table is even the possibility that Donald Trump’s administration continues buying the 500,000 barrels of petroleum daily from Venezuela, the only influx of fresh cash coming into the country, but with the condition that that money be deposited in an escrow account that only the National Assembly can access through its president. What sense would it make to pay it to an illegitimate government?

But who is this young politician? Guaidó is a graduate in industrial engineering from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, with postgraduate studies in public policy at George Washington University and IESA, a management school accredited in several countries.

Engineers have an advantage over lawyers: they’re used to incorporating the factor of time into the work they plan. They’re usually the best in “management by objectives,” something that is urgently needed in a country that has been thrown into such chaos as this one.

Guaidó, in short, has sufficient training and information to straighten out his country. At the end of the day, Venezuela has been devastated by Chavism ($300 billion was stolen) and, recently, by a half-idiot individual who talks to birds and doesn’t know where his right hand is. (Especially the right).

Guaidó is part of a brilliant group of self-sacrificing ex-student leaders that includes Yon Goicoechea, Juan Requesens, a political prisoner, Stalin González, and Freddy Guevara, protected since six months ago in the Chilean embassy in Caracas. They are the new generation. In 2017 the National Guard filled their backs and necks with shot. That is to say: they have risked their lives in the streets, something that is important in a society in which heroic gestures are valued.

Guaidó’s immediate task is about precisely that. He must assume the role of acting president. He must call on the people to demonstrate in the streets. He is also the natural chief of those in uniform. In theory, general Vladimir Padrino López, Minister of Defense, must stand at attention in front of him and accept his orders. Soldiers and minor officials are desperate for this to happen.

According to what viceadmiral Mario Iván Carratú told the Venezuelan journalist Carla Angola, the Armed Forces are demoralized, like the Portuguese army was when the Carnation Revolution happened in 1974. Soldiers are hungry and lacking medicines just like the rest of the country. If Maduro gives the order to attack the demonstrators, Carratú thinks that they wouldn’t comply.

And what would the Cuban Government do? Of course, it would recommend resistance to any change toward democracy and liberty, but the regime of Havana doesn’t have the power to rescue and sustain the dictatorship. It suffers from its own weakness. It would recall its troops and its personnel, much hated in Venezuela, and they would clear off for Cuba, perhaps offering asylum to a handful of their Venezuelan servants.

Can Guaidó promise Chavism something that gets the game unstuck? He cannot promise anything that the Constitution doesn’t allow for. Perhaps a referendum for the country to decide on a law that decrees an amnesty for crimes committed during these years of abuse and vile acts. Only that, but not as his own agreement or that of the National Assembly, but of the whole society.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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

The Egg, Still Being Sought

Two retirees have written initials on their eggs to handle the shortage that affects the whole country and to avoid disputes at home.  (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 16 January 2019 — In Norma and Francisco’s refrigerator only four eggs remain.  In order to handle the shortage that affects the whole country and avoid disputes at home, the retirees have written on the shells the initial of each member of the family.

At the end of last year, authorities attributed poultry production deficiencies to damages from Hurricane Irma in September of 2017 and the sub-tropical storm Alberto in May of 2018.  In Havana, where 28 million eggs are consumed each month, only five million came to market in December, according to the official press. continue reading

This shortage coincided with the lack of flour in stores, which caused a fall in the production of sweets in the state and private sectors.  With the passage of weeks, the flour shortage has let up slightly, but the egg shortage is unrelieved.

Cubans receive five eggs a month at a rationed price of 0.15 Cuban peso (CUP) each, and they have the right to five more for 0.90 CUP each.  On the free market an egg costs 1 CUP, but it has been more than a month since one could be had.

“This month eggs are not in the ration booklet, and anyone who still has one it’s because they kept it since December,” Pascual, an employee of an egg warehouse belonging to the Interior Commerce Ministry, confirms to 14ymedio.  “Right now we are waiting for them to arrive, but they have not,” he says.

Added to the deterioration of the poultry infrastructure is the problem of feed for the laying hens.  “We haven’t gotten any feed, and we are improvising with the little that is left, trying to stretch it or selling the hens as chickens for consumption,” complains an employee of a state farm near the community of Las Terrazas in Artemisa.

Powdered eggs, a product that a couple of years ago began to enter the country as a substitute for freshly laid eggs, has also disappeared from the market.  A kilogram of this product was selling for 65 CUP and came mainly from Brazil.

But last December it was announced that the Government of that nation had stopped exports to Cuba and frozen its credit because, of the 10 million dollars the Island was supposed to pay in June, it only paid 4 million.  This measure has already led to a reduction of Brazilian products in national markets.

“With Hurricane Irma we lost the roof, but little by little we were replacing it; what is impeding us right now from establishing production is the lack of food for the birds,” laments the Artemisa worker.  “We have had to sacrifice many hens for lack of food, and recovering from that takes time.”

The poultry farms, all under state management, are governed by the traditional concept of keeping the birds caged.  An intensive practice that in Latin America is being substituted little by little for another in which the well-being of the animals is taken into account and they are not confined inside of a small space.

The so-called “happy hen egg” is found in Cuba only in domestic production carried out on home patios or on small farms, but all the commercial product in the state network comes from caged hens.

“When our cages or warehouse roofs are damaged we cannot continue producing,” says another employee of a farm in San Antonio de los Banos.  “This is very fragile and when the wind blows a little strongly we always have impacts but also when it’s very hot because the interior of the warehouses gets quite hot and many animals die on us.”

Researchers Nadia Baez Quinones and Onailis Oramas Santos, from the Animal Science Institute and the University of Havana School of Economics, respectively, carried out a study of the sector’s problems.  The shortage of incubators, deterioration of the refrigeration equipment, deficiencies in the treatment of wastes and constant water pump breakdowns are some of them.

The experts assert that, if there is an investment to air condition the damaged farms and modernize their production, the supply to the population could rise to 39 eggs per month per resident, instead of the ten that they can currently acquire through the ration market.

But some producers, like Ramon Luaces, 72, who worked more than three decades with egg layers, say that more is needed than resources and investments.  “We must resume production on a smaller scale, too, and motivate the farmers to produce eggs,” he tells this daily.

“The private egg producer prefers selling them on the black market because they have no incentive to sell to the state,” explains Lucas.  “If they would let us sell directly to the people and the hotels, ’another rooster would crow’,” he says, using the Cuban expression equivalent to ’it would be a whole different story.’

Translated by Mary Lou Keel

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

One Single History / Fernando Damaso

Fernando Dámaso, 14 January 2019: Cuba’s history runs from 1492 to the present day, and men and women have contributed to it, for good or ill, throughout this period.

Because of that, I have never understood why they talk and write about science, art and sport, to name but three examples, as being pre-January 1st 1959, and post that date. This absurd and unnatural division, motivated purely by political considerations, splits up our national history into little compartments. As if the earlier people have nothing to do with present day people, and vice versa. continue reading

This phenomenon is most deeply rooted in sport and music, maybe because of their widespread appeal. So, in the first one, there are baseball players from before and after, and also boxers, volleyball players, swimmers, athletes, chess players, etc., as if all of them weren’t Cubans. The baseball players Orestes Miñoso, Conrado Marrero, Adrián Zabala and Willy Miranda are just as Cuban as José Antonio Huelga, Braudilio Vinent, Armando Capiró or Agustín Marquetti, to name but a few. Also Orlando “Duke” Hernández, José Ariel Contreras, Kendry Morales, Yasiel Puig and Aroldis Chapman as much as Alfredo Despaigne, Yurisbel Gracial, Frederich Cepeda and  Yordanis Samón. And, in the boxing ring, Kid Chocolate, Kid Gavilán and Puppy García as much as Teófilo Stevenson, Roberto Balado or Félix Savón.

If we look at music, we have a right old mongrel stew, composed of Brindis de Salas, García Caturla, Ernesto Lecuona, Gonzalo Roig, Rita Montaner, Martha Pérez, Esther Borja, Rosita Fornés, Meme Solís, Miriam Ramos, Pablo Milanés, Benny Moré, Pacho Alonso, Silvio Rodríguez, Beatriz Márquez, Maggie Carlés, Celia Cruz, Olga Guillot, Willy Chirino, David Calzado, Juan Formell, and others.

All of them play their part in forming the national identity, never mind where they come from, or their political and ideological points of view or belief, and nobody has the right or the power to deny them that.

Cuban history is one and indivisible.

Translated by GH

The Multiple Ways the Maduro Regime Kills

Sign: “Studying While Hungry Doesn’t Work.” The author argues that “induced hunger has an advantage: it kills slowly without its victims joining the statistics of violent deaths.” (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Miguel Henrique Otero, Madrid, 19 January 2019 — The regime headed by Nicolás Maduro kills without a timetable. It does so throughout the national territory, during the day or at night. The process that consists in depriving Venezuelans of their lives is permanent. And for this it makes use of the most diverse methods, whose results are confirmed at distinct rates.

The method that reaches the greatest number of victims is undoubtedly induced hunger. Over two decades, Chávez first and then Maduro built an economic model, now in full swing, that operates on two premises: hunger and hyperinflation. continue reading

Simultaneously, they liquidated the value of the currency–reduced its purchasing power to nothing–and spread among millions of Venezuelan families the practice of eating less and less, progressively worse, progressively more sporadically. In the design of this perverse, gigantic operation, which has among its glorious antecedents the famines caused by Stalin and Mao, it has counted on the participation of advisors of Castroism and the political party Podemos.

From the plan to turn Venezuela into a State of Hunger, nothing has escaped: the School Food Program ended, productive farms and companies in the agroindustrial sector were expropriated to ruin them, entities have been created one after the other to make the acquisition and distribution of food impossible, the budgets that, until 1998, allowed the operation of soup kitchens and food services in hospitals, orphanages, centers for the elderly, prisons and other institutions have been devastated. A reality that is yet to be reported and photographed: the thousands of industrial kitchens that, throughout the country, are now in useless, rusty and filthy.

The most significant achievement of the “Bolivarian Revolution” in its intent of imposing a dictatorship is expressed in the politicization of the right to eat: the national identity card and the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP) that, in particular, act under the most implacable logic of extortion: access to bags of food in exchange for political loyalty. The CLAP system is the most widespread method of humiliation and submission of the Venezuelan society.

Induced famine has an advantage: it kills slowly without its victims adding to the statistics of violent deaths. People — especially children and the elderly — lose weight, lose their body mass, weaken, fall ill and die. The structure of death works perfectly: when the afflicted citizen seeks the help of health services, he does not find it. Thus, the sick person becomes a kind of shipwrecked person: alone, lost, orphaned by the health care to which he is entitled.

To contribute to this politics of death, the regime first undertook one of its most impeccable operations: it destroyed the healthcare system. A perspective view of what happened, shows the multiple factors that were put into play: politicized the performance and operations of the hospitals, persecuted doctors and paramedics, who by thousands and thousands chose to flee the country; took the right measures to create situations of extreme shortage of medicines and hospital supplies; imported from Cuba, not professionals but pirates of the exercise of medicine; and stimulated the return of diseases that had been eradicated and that have acquired epidemic proportions.

They concentrated the purchasing systems in such a manner that it turned them into effective methods for corruption, acquired billion-dollar amounts of bad-quality medicines or counterfeit drugs, destroyed or stole the fleet of ambulances.

They ransacked the dispensaries of the health centers, created their own factory of incompetents under the name of community doctors, allowed the hospitals to become haunts for mafias and criminal gangs; and, if my count is correct, in two decades the so-called Ministry of Popular Power for Health has had, read closely, 17 ministers, one of the biggest posters for an executive power specializing in naming ignorants and thieves as ministers.

To double this process, insatiable and regularly sustained, of killing by hunger and disease, dozens and dozens of other methods are added, more apparent and occurring daily. They kill thousands of defenseless citizens, between 25,000 and 30,000 a year, at the hands of criminals who keep the cities and towns of the Venezuelan territory under control.

Drivers and passengers of vehicles die on highways full of potholes, without illumination nor road signs, in fatal and incapacitating accidents. Hungry people die after eating poisonous food — like bitter yucca — in their starving desperation.

Patients die in operating rooms and intensive care rooms as a result of the extensive and repeated failures of the electrical service. People die due to the lack of ambulance services and emergency care. Entire families die, dragged under by the mud and waters, on rainy days. Thousands and thousands of people die due to lack of medicines and supplies for chronic diseases such as diabetes, blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, HIV and others.

Venezuelan indigenous people die, struck by epidemics. Innocents who live in the neighborhoods of the country die, killed by gang fights or by police operatives or military bodies that shoot indiscriminately. Victims die by hired assassins in charge of the operations. Citizens such as Fernando Albán are killed in torture sessions. Political prisoners die who are denied medical attention. Thousands and thousands of Venezuelans die under the yoke of a regime that hates life.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

Editor’s note: Miguel Henrique Otero is Editor-in-Chief of the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional.

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

The Police Removed the Poor From the Streets of Cienfuegos During the Visit of Diaz-Canel

The authorities of Cienfuegos wanted to prevent the poor from “wandering” in the city during the visit of Miguel Díaz-Canel. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Justo Mora / Mario J. Pentón, Cienfuegos / Miami, 19 January 2019 – More than twenty beggars and elderly people were picked up by the police in the streets of Cienfuegos and sent to the Psychiatric Hospital. The authorities wanted to prevent those poor people from “wandering” in the city during Thursday’s visit by the Head of State, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Various testimonies collected by 14ymedio in Cienfuegos gave an account of the “cleaning” done by the forces of order with a bus that picked up the elderly who were on the Boulevard and other central zones of the city.

“My aunt was picked up on Wednesday, they manhandled and beat her, she still has a bandage on her leg and bruises on her face and mouth. Osniel Gómez, a policeman on the Boulevard, told me that the round up was due to the arrival of Díaz-Canel,” Martha Galán Cañizares, niece of Natividad Cañizares, reported by telephone. continue reading

Galán said her aunt appeared drugged when she picked her up at the psychiatric hospital in Cienfuegos. According to her, nobody could tell her who was responsible for the old woman’s injuries.

“My aunt raised me since I was a baby. Imagine the amount of medication they gave her that she did not even recognize me. When I told these things to the police they wanted to arrest me,” the woman added.

Although she thought about staying in front of the headquarters of the Communist Party to show Diaz-Canel what had happened to her aunt, Galán feared for the consequences.

“My fear is that afterwards they will continue harassing her. My aunt does not get involved with anyone. She is well mentally, the only thing is that she likes to walk around the city and while she is healthy I think she should do it,” she said.

Díaz-Canel visited Cienfuegos last Thursday as part of a tour that has taken him to several provinces in the country. The media presence of the president, appointed by Raúl Castro in April 2018, has grown exponentially. He visited the glucose factory, the university, the provincial hospital and the amusement park, as well as holding a meeting with the principal leaders of the region.

The social networks publish more and more photos and videos of Diaz-Canel strolling through the streets of the  major cities and small peasant villages, where people approach him to pose problems of all kinds.

“Every time a high-level visit comes, the police and the Ministry of Public Health pick up the dirty-looking people who roam the streets and take them to the Psychiatric Hospital,” says a source at the Municipal Social Security Directorate who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.

“The worst of it all is that they pick them up for a few days and then release them again on the streets without any type of asistance,” he added.

According to the same source, during Díaz-Canel’s visit at least twenty beggars and “wanderers” were picked up.

Arelys Silva, who lives in the vicinity of the Calzada de Dolores, one of the city’s main arteries, is “outraged” by the abuse of the beggars.

“Everybody knows that they take advantage of the fact those people have no one to defend them and they commit all sorts of injustices against them.” Since the arrival of Díaz-Canel, the entire scene was set up to show that things are all wonderful. These people live in a lie,” she said.

Silva says she is still waiting for Díaz-Canel to “bring back the quality” of the flour with which they are making bread or to change the filters of the city aqueduct so that the water does not arrive “with a chocolate color”.

“We have lived through decades of promises and calls for resistance but we continue with the ration book and ’eating chicken for fish’*,” she lamented.

Odalis Acea, a self-employed worker, recognized that with the arrival of Díaz-Canel, transportation and garbage collection had improved. “Even bus route 5 to Tulipán is passing by regularly, but when the president gets on his helicopter, all will revert to how it was before.”

*Translator’s note: “Eating chicken for fish” is a widespread complaint about the rationing system. Cubans can buy limited foods through their ration booklets at very low prices. The allocation is supposed to include fish but, as it almost never does, chicken is substituted. There is no explanation for why, on an island surrounded by water, fish is never available.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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

Hundreds of Cubans will Meet with Pope Francis in Panama

The Cubans who are departing for  Panama World Youth Day are children of a generation that, for decades, could not show their faith in public. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Bertha K. Guillén, Candelaria, 18 January 2019 — This Saturday is the day that Jorge has waited for months. Tomorrow he leaves for Panama along with 470 other Cuban Catholics to attend along with Pope Francis the triennial meeting of the World Youth Day (WYD).

It is the island’s largest delegation in the history of the event, which takes place between January 22 and 27, and for the first time, Cuban pilgrims are assuming their own transportation and lodging expenses. In the past, the parishes of the Island covered those expenses and that is why the Cuban delegations were small. continue reading

Jorge sold an electronic tablet and some household goods to gather the $640 that the trip costs. He has also received help from his parents, who make their living renting a house to tourists. With this amount, the youth can buy a packet of accommodation, food and insurance (at a cost of $250), while the other $390 will defray the cost of the plane ticket.

“I was a minor when the Pope visited Brazil in 2013 and I could not travel at that time, in addition there weren’t any meetings in the parishes so that those interested could pay for the trip,” Jorge tells 14ymedio.

The interest expressed by young people to attend the World Youth Day was so wide, according to parishioners from several parishes of Artemisa and Pinar del Río, that the ecclesiastical authorities decided to make a call for self-financing of the trip to all those who would like to participate.

The consular paperwork was handled through the diocesan board of Pastoral Youth. “That helped a lot because the Panamanian embassy in Havana is very complicated, the line is long and the resellers (Cubans who travel to other countries to buy goods and then resell them back in Cuba) offer more than 300 CUC (Cuban convertible pesos, roughly $300 US) for a place in the line in the informal market,” says Ismael, another pilgrim who has joined the trip.

Ismael’s parents look forward to the presence of their son in Panama. Growing up under the strict atheism of the 70s in Cuba, both professionals began to show their religious faith in public when, in 1991, the Communist Party allowed membership to believers. “They dreamed of something that now I can finally do,” says the son.

Many of those who travel to Panama this Saturday are children of a generation “that could not be baptized or married by the Church,” says Ismael. “Those people had to hide the crucifix and religious images and that is why now they have encouraged and supported the young people so they do not let their religion be taken away and carry it with pride”.

To join the delegation it was necessary to fulfill the requirements of the parish, such as having an active and sacramental life and providing a letter of approval from the parish priest or another religious figure of the community.

In all the parishes of the country, young people were advised to count on having additional funds for any unforeseen event. More than 60% of those interested in the trip arranged for private funds or received help from the religious community and from parishioners who collected money so they could fulfill their dream.

“Paying for our tickets has been a challenge, in which our priest have had the principal role. Most of us are students, so we have appealed to the generosity of priests, nuns and people of good will who live outside of Cuba.” explained to this newspaper a young man from Candelaria, in the province of Artemisa.

The Candelarian has many expectations for World Youth Day, an event founded in 1985 by Pope John Paul II that has become the biggest celebration of young Catholics. “It is also a place to compare our realities, to learn other ways of living the faith and above all to fill ourselves with hope,” he says.

In Panama, they will participate in meetings with Pope Francis. “Since last October we have had formative meetings in the parishes to be in tune with the world’s youth,” explains Mónica Rodríguez, a young woman from Santiago. “It is a great responsibility to represent Cubans who are unable to go on the journey and convey the true reality of our country.”

In Cuba there will also be a digital broadcast via Facebook. “We are enabling sites in order to experience the most important moments of the journey via the Internet”, explains David Yanes. “It is the first time that we are directly connected and we are going to take advantage of it”.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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