Translator: Regina Anavy – Translating Cuba

Cuba’s Record Number of 226 Graduates in Communication Will Revive the ‘Battle of Ideas’

The Cuban regime needs to reinforce its news media, diminished by emigration

This is not the first time that the Cuban government has placed its hopes on young professionals / UH

14ymedio, Havana, 12 October 2024 — In 2020, when the Communication Law that came into force this month was a remote objective of the Cuban legislature, the 226 young people who graduated this Friday had just entered the Faculty of Communication of the University of Havana. Four years later, they have graduated and are given a mission: to be “protagonists for the integral transformation of the press” and the “implementation” of the new law.

The recent graduates will be sent to official media and institutions decimated by the migratory exodus and the march in search of more lucrative jobs, generally in MSMEs. Cubadebate and Granma have given abundant signals about this crisis and have been launching recruitment campaigns for years. They now have put their hopes on the new batch, who must complete two to three years of social service.

The university graduates in Information Sciences are prepared to be librarians and archive managers. Journalism and Communication graduates will take up careers where indoctrination and “political-ideological preparation” play a primary role. In fact, to further guarantee the loyalty of the candidates, women who aspire to be journalists will have to go through military service, a requirement that already exists for men.

They are a “generation,” emphasized Televisión Cubana, who gave importance to becoming “integral vanguards”

They are a “generation,” emphasized Televisión Cubana, who gave importance to becoming “integral vanguards”; that is, who stood out for their political fervor as well as their academic achievement. This “effort” was recognized at the ceremony. It is, in addition, the “largest graduating continue reading

class,” not only for the year but also in the history of the Faculty of Communication.

The ceremony was held in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana and was chaired by the Dean of the Faculty, Ariel Terrero, and the President of the Institute of Information and Social Communication, Alfonso Noya. Noya’s presence is significant, since the entity he directs, recently created, emerged after the dissolution of the stagnant Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT).

The ICRT, once all-powerful, had the last word on all the content that passed through Cuban Television and responded directly to the Communist Party. It was current Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel who eliminated it, in August 2021, and gave the new Institute the task of “conducting and controlling the Social Communication Policy of the State and the Cuban Government”

A month earlier, the ICRT had failed to contain the impact of the 11 July 2021 protests, and an official journalist, Ana Teresa Badía, had been one of the voices of the regime in pointing out the fiasco. “It could be repeated painfully on July 11 if the ICRT does not communicate better, and I say this with tremendous pain, but it is the truth, and not telling the truth would be an dishonest act on my part,” she warned at the time.

Another note of loyalty to the regime was the presentation of singer Annie Garcés

Along with the head of the Ministry of Truth – the sinister epithet, based on George Orwell’s novel 1984, which not a few Cubans then gave to the Institute – there were several senior officials of the Party. Among them were Liuba Moreno, an official of the Ideological Department, and Liliana Mateu, general secretary of the Party at the University. Another note of loyalty to the regime was the presentation of the singer Annie Garcés, author of countless propaganda pieces and praise for the regime.

Terrero, who gave a final speech, told the students that the panorama is “challenging,” and we must “honor our country” by being useful to the official press. Some students have already done so since they graduated in this career. Several presenters of the propaganda program Con Filo, in addition to the members of several provincial newsrooms, worked there as students.

It is not the first time that the Cuban Government has put its hopes on young professionals, soldiers in the “Battle of Ideas.” The brigades of art instructors, social workers and emerging teachers, today diminished and inactive, have a common factor: high ideological demand and poor education. Lacking experience and preparation, and burdened by indoctrination, many ended up deserting or leaving Cuba.

The new journalists and communicators begin their working life, in addition, with an assigned enemy: the independent press. However, the new Communication Law barely affects that independent press, whose work is illegal in a country that does not recognize basic freedoms. It is already penalized by previous governments, including the Constitution.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The ‘Amarillos’ Have Emigrated, Making Transport Even More Complicated in Camajuaní

“You can spend an hour here without a single car passing,” says Ana, who studies medicine in Santa Clara / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Yankiel Gutiérrez Faife, Camajuaní, 9 October 2024 — It’s six in the morning, and at the bus stop in front of the Camajuaní Terminal – one of the busiest, next to that of the extinct Maceo cinema – there is no room for one more person. It has been like this for years, but the transport crisis raises the level of burden a little more every day. As the sun advances, the environment heats up.

The place has its characteristic smell – a mixture of urine, excrement and rotten garbage – but those who have to pass through there daily have lost, or almost lost, their sensitivity. The stop is one of the favorite corners for beggars to defecate, and there is no shortage of night owls far from home, who also arrive to take care of their needs.

At eight, when the sun begins to burn – there is no truce even in the last months of the year – those who can do so crowd under the small roof of the shelter to escape from the heat or, these days, from the rain. Those who can’t enter find another strategic point – a nearby tree, which will complicate the race to get on the bus, if it happens to arrive.

Those who can’t enter the shelter find another strategic point – a nearby tree, which will complicate the race to get on the bus / 14ymedio

There is no shortage of solitary “botellerros” — ‘hitchhikers’ — doctors who display their white coats, pregnant women and the elderly are considered entitled. They prefer to try their luck a few meters beyond the crowd, in case the car of an acquaintance takes pity on them. Few brake, because as soon as someone is picked up, four or five other people will struggle to enter the vehicle, sometimes without the driver’s consent. continue reading

The bus stop is on Independencia Street, which the people of Camajuaní still call – as in the 19th century – Real Street. Officially, the avenue is only a section of the circuit that connects Santa Clara with Camajuaní, Remedios, Caibarién and the Cayería Norte, a tourist corridor where the white buses of the State Gaviota never stop, knowing the situation.

When a mandatory stop is made, tourists look out curiously through the dark windows. The cameras rise behind the glass, and from the stop you can almost hear the click: Cuban poverty is also a tourist attraction.

From the Maceo cinema – where the other important artery of the town, General Naya, ends – to the terminal, a small hill descends, which allows travelers to see the red silhouette of a Transmetro bus from afar. Everyone tenses their muscles. It’s time to run. A frequent strategy of drivers is to stop a few meters beyond the stop. The crowd races, and the line forms in order of agility. There is no shortage of blows, elbows, pushes.

When there is no luck, the bus passes by and the travelers, between looks and expressions of absolute despair, observe how it passes the cemetery towards Santa Clara. They will try again.

In the group there are all kinds of people, from students who travel daily to the Central University of Las Villas – just over 20 kilometers from the town – to farmers who live in Santa Fe, Carmita, Vega Alta, Los Paragüitas or the University neighborhood. For many, these names are their daily stations of the cross.

Few brake, because as soon as someone is picked up, four or five other people will struggle to get in the car / 14ymedio

“You can spend an hour here without a single car passing,” says Ana, who studies medicine in Santa Clara. For her, completing the stretch to the ring road of the provincial capital is just the beginning. Then she will have to figure out how to get to the school, another overwhelming segment of the journey. With a little luck, the bus will arrive at the hospital area, but that will not completely solve her problem.

“Things have become very difficult. Many days I don’t get to my classes on time,” she says. Is it better to get a bed in a dorm? Ana thinks – like hundreds of Camajuaní students – that it’s not. The terrible state of the residence, the bad food and the difficult living conditions make it preferable to return home every day, despite the transport situation. Sometimes, she points out, she has to take a taxi to return, and she must prepare to spend.

Many travelers miss the “amarillos” — the “yellows” — individuals in yellow vests — the official “fishermen” of buses and State cars, who flagged down the drivers and forced them to stop.* Their work was far from ideal, since many were lazy and easily distracted by talking to acquaintances without spending time watching the traffic. But they did something. Their absence is the umpteenth effect of the migratory exodus and the search for other jobs, as they have apparently left the country in droves.

For Érika, a Camajuaní nurse employed in Santa Clara, what bothers her most about the situation is not only the wait but also the effect of the crisis on her pocketbook. “With current rates, I sometimes spend more than half of my salary on transportation. I’ve thought about quitting work,” she says. Her daily tour involves getting up before dawn and waiting at the stop, where “it’s a miracle to get a place on the first try.”

Not infrequently the shared ride becomes an “everyone for himself” event, even among acquaintances. It happened recently, Ana says, when the father of a friend – who works at the Party School and has, of course, a car – stopped to pick her up. “We had to leave a colleague behind because there was no room for anyone else,” she says.

The Camajuaní stop – which still has very expensive taxis and electric tricycles outside – is just one station on the arduous path of travelers, perhaps not even the worst. The Santa Clara Los Flamboyanes stop in the hospital area is more crowded, or the demolished intermunicipal terminal, which for more than a year has not seen the emblematic Girón circulating that connected both localities. At night, the wrecked bus had a cabaret name: the Queen of the Night.

Now, each trip translates into numbers: 150 pesos if it is done in a private truck, 250 to Caibarién; 20 pesos in state buses; and 500 pesos if a private vehicle is boarded, a figure that can be doubled if you go to the end of the Caibarien line. It doesn’t matter how much money the traveler has in his pocket: the bill, at the end of the month, doesn’t leave much.

*Translator’s note: It is (or was) supposedly mandatory for government vehicles to stop and fill empty seats, and this was enforced by the ‘amarillos’ in their yellow vests.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Sugar Crisis in Cuba: Hard To Find, Expensive and Puts ‘MSMEs’ out of Business

A pound of sugar sells for up to 500 pesos in private stores

A pound of sugar sells for 400 pesos in an ‘MSME’ (private store) at 10 de Octubre and Santa Catalina, in Havana / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 11 October 2024 — Sugar is once again scarce in Cuba. Its distribution in the rationed market has delays of months and has not reached all the provinces. A small amount can be obtained in private stores for up to 500 pesos a pound.

Thus, the popular phrase that shows the traditional importance of this product for the Island – “without sugar there is no country” – sounds like a macabre joke. Roberto, a resident of Santiago de Cuba, tells 14ymedio, “Here we put sugar in everything, even if it’s not healthy. When you don’t have anything to eat, you can put it on bread or prepare a glass of sugar water.”

However, obtaining it in the current crisis is not easy. “Where I live, for example, you can’t find it. You have to look somewhere else,” he says. After making a pilgrimage through the city, Roberto found a pound of sugar at 400 pesos: “Very expensive.”

The shortage has repercussions not only for consumers, but also for small businesses.

“The candy store in our neighborhood has not been able to reopen because of the high price of sugar”

Maribel, a resident of Nuevo Vedado, in Havana, witnessed a few weeks ago the closure of a private business in her neighborhood due to lack of sugar: “The candy store in our neighborhood has not been able to reopen because continue reading

of the high price of sugar. It was a MSME [private store], but it is already in liquidation. It’s a shame, because its owner, a woman in her 50s, employed at least two young people in the area who now have no income.”

According to the habanera, “people who complained about how expensive the sweets were in that MSME now sigh when they pass by, because it was the only pastry, cake and cupcake business for several blocks around.”

On social networks, Internet users also ask desperately if someone is selling the product at affordable prices, either for the children’s snack or to make a dessert that appeases hunger. “I’ve been trying to find sugar for days, whether white or brown. In the MSMEs near home they sell a kilogram for 950 pesos,” says a user on Facebook, who nostalgically remembers “the country of sugar cane, in the times when even a milordo (sweetened water) was often breakfast, snack and dessert.”

In addition to the high prices, there are failures in distribution through the rationed market, which in recent months has not been fully stocked. In fact, some provinces received barely a part of the food that makes up the subsidized basic basket.

In addition to the high prices are the failures in distribution through the rationed market, which in recent months has not been fully stocked

A kilogram of sugar is now more than two dollars on some Internet sites that sell products to emigrants for their relatives on the Island. At the informal exchange rate, the price is equivalent to 350 pesos a pound. With that, Maribel says, it was impossible for the candy store in her neighborhood to stay on its feet: “The lack of sugar buried it.”

A similar disappearance of the product was reported by 14ymedio in November last year. The emblematic Coppelia ice cream parlor, in the heart of El Vedado in Havana, closed because there was no “milk or sugar” in the factory that supplies it.

The natural medicine industry has also been a victim of the collapse of sugarcane production. Among the problems for generating these medications is not just a lack of some plants. Up to 15 imported raw materials are needed, in addition to alcohol – to extract the active metabolites of plants – and sugar, basic for the production of syrups.

Likewise, Cuban rum makers fear that this year the production of the drink will be diminished by the failure of last season’s harvest and the foreseeable fiasco of the current one. Executives of the export brands – Havana Club, Ron Santiago and Ron Vigía – point out that “the blow is felt” in the industry because of the shortage of sugar.”

Now Cuba has been forced to import much of the sugar needed for the population and is unable to comply with export contracts

Traditionally, Cuba consumed 700,000 tons of sugar and exported the rest, but with current production, the panorama has changed radically. Now Cuba has been forced to import much of the sugar it needs for its population and is unable to comply with export contracts.

Since at least 2020, each sugar harvest carried out on the Island is listed as the worst of the last 100 years. The amount projected for 2024-2025 is not yet known, but the authorities expect production to exceed the 350,000 tons of sugar obtained in 2023, a figure barely greater than half of what was produced in the same period (600,000 tons) by the Republic of Mauritius, an island of 2,040 square kilometers east of Africa that is 50 times smaller than Cuba.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Mexico Sends 23 Cuban Doctors to a Hospital Still Under Construction

Image of the back of the community hospital of Vícam Switch, in Sonora / Facebook/ Meganoticias Sur de Sonora

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 8 October 8, 2024 — A group of 23 Cuban doctors have been providing care since October 2 in a half-finished hospital in the municipality of Guaymas, state of Sonora (Mexico). At the same time as the consultations, the doctors have to endure the sounds of construction, and a pharmacy that provides an incomplete catalog of medications. A broken promise is behind the work, for which 26,014,316 dollars were invested, designed to serve 47,000 inhabitants of the Yaqui tribe, an indigenous community in the region.

The Government of Mexico, under Andrés Manuel López Obrador, granted a gift to Cuba with the hiring of doctors. At first it was said that they would be sent to the area of the Montaña de Guerrero, but in the eagerness to locate the Cuban specialists, against whom the national union and the opposition have raised their voices, they have been placed in hospitals in rural areas, and now even in clinics under construction, such as the one in the Yaqui area.

Several workers are observed in the background of the community hospital of Vícam Switch, in Sonora / Facebook / Meganoticias Sur de Sonora

“Governor Alfonso Durazo promised that the hospital would be finished in September. In addition, it would have an operating room and 28 beds,” a source told 14ymedio. Cuban doctors, along with nine Mexican doctors, offer consultations in internal medicine, ophthalmology, ear nose and throat diseases, pediatrics and gynecology, in addition to traditional medicine, according to Alejandro Burboa Luzanilla, director of the medical unit. continue reading

Consultations and other services are done while the hospital is being built, but in the media, the authorities show a different reality. “Everything has been done halfway. Smiling authorities appear in the videos, but everything is a facade,” adds the official.

The project includes two operating rooms, 30 beds, an emergency room, a shelter, pharmacy, X-rays and laboratory, but it does not advance at the pace that the authorities would like. “There are medications in the pharmacy, but some of the shelves are empty.” According to the hospital, the pharmacy has 98% of what is needed, including “antidiabetics, antidepressants and antibiotics.”

According to the official, the Yaquis must adapt to the Cubans, who “speak very fast and are little understood, although the Yaquis are grateful that they are in the region and are guided by the prescriptions they give them.” Official data indicate that in five days, doctors attended to more than 200 patients with diabetes, hypertension and digestive problems, even in the midst of the construction work.

Also, the Cuban specialists – the last ones arrived at the end of September – do not live near the hospital, as they should. “Apparently they still don’t have a house set up for them, so every day they are taken by official transport to cover the morning and afternoon shifts; there are no night shifts,” he said.

The authorities have assured that the work will be completed in December; in the meantime, the doctors will have to adapt and offer their services in the midst of the construction.

Regarding the per diem of Cuban doctors, at the beginning of October it was revealed that the Government of Mexico pays 5,188 dollars a month for salaries, transportation, food and lodging for each of the 3,101 specialists hired from Cuba to offer services in rural areas.

The governor of Sonora, Alfonso Durazo, in the community hospital of Vícam Switch / Facebook / Alfonso Durazo

This Tuesday, the arrival at the Imss-Bienestar unit of Tlaltenango, in the state of Zacatecas, of a geriatrician, gastroenterologist and family doctor was made official. Mayor Francisco Delgado Miramontes said that the specialists will begin to consult next week. The coordinator of the unit, Felipe Arreola Torres, said that with the arrival of the specialists, for the first time, it is guaranteed that there will be a doctor in each of the 484 health units.

Another group with 51 Cuban specialists was sent to the state of Hidalgo last Saturday, who were distributed to treat patients in 25 health units located in 16 municipalities of the state.

The arrival of these specialists is part of the agreement between the Government of Mexico and that of Cuba, through Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos S.A. de C.V., a Cuban company internationally accused of human trafficking. For the 610 Cuban doctors sent between July 2022 and 2023, it pocketed 23,227,156 euros.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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After Two Months at 320 Cuban Pesos, the Dollar Begins To Rise on the Informal Market

Among the causes of the momentary exchange rate paralysis are the “disincentives to the growth of imports from the private sector

Informal currency purchase stands at the La Cuevita market, in Havana / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Madrid, October 11, 2024 — The exchange rate from the peso to the dollar on the informal market has set a record of stability during September and the first days of October. The Observatory of Coins and Finance of Cuba (OMFi), directed by the Cuban economist residing in Colombia, Pavel Vidal, states that the dollar was at 320 pesos for 59 days in a row, an unprecedented duration since this type of operation was recorded.

This Saturday will be a week since the exchange rate began to rise, very slowly, first to 322 and, from this Wednesday, to 323 pesos per dollar. The OMFi is, however, cautious, and although it contemplates another increase, the forecast is more discreet, with 326 to 339 pesos per dollar, an increase of between 1.5% and 4.4%.

“The signs of equilibrium persist,” says the report, which recalls, like the previous one, that it is not the first time there has been a pause. “However, this time a new mark of 59 days without variations is established, from August 4 to October 1, 2024. In 2021, the TRMI [exchange rate] had remained unchanged for 57 days, and in 2022 for 56 days.” The same as last month, the economist insists that periods of calm have always been preceded by others of instability. The dollar reached almost 400 pesos in May, to the point that the Government accused El Toque of manipulating the exchange rate with the aim of bringing it to 500 on July 11, to force a social explosion coinciding with the anniversary of the largest demonstrations against the Regime, in 2021. continue reading

The Government has approved several measures to put the brakes on foreign purchases by private individuals

Among the causes of the momentary paralysis of the exchange rate in the parallel market, the report mentions the “disincentives to the growth of imports for the private sector.” The Government has approved several measures that can stop foreign purchases by private companies, such as capping the prices of six products considered basic necessities, and greater control over the main activity of MSMEs, but there are also others announced that keep the sector on guard.

In December, the authorities announced that the tax on imports of raw materials would go up by 50% to promote national production, while purchases of finished products would be penalized in the same amount. Although for now the rule applies only to tobacco and alcohol – presumably because of the fear of scarcity that the changes would produce – private businesses are not calm.

The increase in persecution of cash operations – for going against the government’s electronic payments policy – also appears in the OMFi report, which states that there are Cubans moving to the cryptocurrency market, with data on the rapid increase in the differential between the peso and the USDT (a cryptocurrency also known as Tether).

The OMFi report comes in the context of the dramatic economic crisis affecting Cuba, including the collapse of tourism. According to the text, the number of international visitors decreased by 3.5% at the end of August, compared to 2023, and is only 52% of those who arrived in the same period of 2019. “We would have to go back to 2002 (after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York) to have an eighth month with these levels, nothing more and nothing less than 22 years ago,” it explains.

In addition, even more serious, the report indicates that the number of rooms has doubled on the Island since that moment, and the investment (in tourism) does not stop.

Furthermore, for the OMFi, the lack of fuel is evidence of “the persistent financial problems and reflects the limits of the compensation that can be expected from allied countries”

It also emphasizes the decisive importance of the lack of energy on the economy, not to mention the quality of life of citizens. The document doubts the possibilities of the solar parks that are being built, at least for the moment, since at the end of the year, at best, only about 400 megawatts (MW) will be available, an insufficient amount given the deficits of more than 1,000 MW of the last month.

Furthermore, for the OMFi, the lack of fuel is evidence of “the persistent financial problems and reflects the limits of the compensation that can be expected from allied countries.”

The accumulated annual inflation, which is officially more than 19%, is barely 1.1% lower than for the same period in 2023, which does not detract from the severity of the panorama. “Prices grow less rapidly, but on an already very high level, along with incomes that remain lagging behind for a considerable part of the population.”

The report also reviews the negative fiscal deficit data (18% of GDP), the high issuance of currency (an error, according to most economists in an inflationary panorama), the fall in the value of the peso and a reduction in imports that threatens to restrict the precarious supply. In addition, the section closes with a revealing fact: the United States has surpassed Spain as a supplier to Cuba and is now second, behind China.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba and Hopelessness

The word that is most repeated in the talks of exile is not blackout, hunger or misery, but an even gloomier one

The few people who passed by had a lost look, with the resignation of someone who no longer expects anything / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 10 October 2024 — From time to time I meet with Cubans who have just left the Island or are passing through Madrid. The word that is most repeated in our talks is not blackout, hunger, or misery, but an even gloomier one: despair. A friend who recently went to Cienfuegos showed me the photos he took during his visit. The streets were practically deserted, and the few people who passed by looked lost, not like those who wait for a miracle, but with the resignation of those who no longer expect anything.

Social networks do not show a very encouraging panorama either. It is true that the Facebook avenues seem busier than the real streets of Havana, but there we all coincide, those who left and those who stayed. And surfing the Internet is not a sailboat ride; it is rowing in turbulent waters, where the currents of opinion throw us from one side to the other, against the rocks. Fights between opponents are more frequent than concrete actions against the Regime. Disputes, insults and “friendly fire” are more abundant than consensus and strategic agendas.

Probably, Hatuey had no desire to meet in heaven, either with the Spaniards or with his own people

There is nothing new under the sun, as Solomon would say. Reviewing our history, this despair appears more than once. We all remember the first hero, Hatuey, the enigmatic cacique who came to alert us about the ambition of the conquerors and who led the first rebellion. Our textbooks have emphasized his last words at the stake, rejecting the ticket to paradise and becoming a paradigm of intransigence. But what they never mentioned was his mood at the time. And he was not only a human being condemned to die in a frightening way, but a disappointed leader. It was one of his own continue reading

men who betrayed him, revealing his location and facilitating his capture. Probably, Hatuey did not have the slightest desire to meet in heaven either with the Spaniards or with his own people.

The other great hero in a loincloth was Guamá, who resisted the conquerors for a decade, in what some call “our first ten-year war.” And after all that time, the great chief did not die at the hands of his enemies, but by someone who shared his own blood. They say it was a matter of “skirts” or rather of petticoats. Guamá had kidnapped his brother’s wife, and the brother was possessed by Cain. While Guamá slept in his hammock, his own natiao (brother, in Taíno language) stuck an axe in his forehead. After that it was relatively easy for the Spaniards to pacify the territory.

We all know the epic anecdote that turned Céspedes into the Father of the Homeland. The Bayamés preferred the death of his son rather than give up his fight. But, perhaps, that would be his last thought in San Lorenzo. Céspedes was haunted by the envy of other caudillos from the very cry of independence. And five years after the start of the fight, he would be betrayed by the House of Representatives of the Republic in Arms itself. It was not enough for them to remove him; they also needed to humiliate him.

They forced him to march in the rear of the troops for a month and withdrew his escort. They systematically violated his correspondence, denied him permission to meet his wife and twin children in New York and abandoned him in a remote area. Perhaps we will never know for sure if he was betrayed by his former companions or if his last shot was a suicide bullet. What I’m going to write could be politically incorrect, but, with Céspedes, that abstract illusion that we call Patria committed parricide.

With Céspedes, that abstract illusion that we call Patria committed parricide

Not to mention Martí’s last days and his unnecessary death in combat. Our story, read without patriotic hysteria, is full of despair. But the purpose of this article is not to disillusion you, dear reader, but to shake you.

I was recently talking to a diplomat, whose name and nationality I reserve, and he told me something alarming. According to his vision of Cuba, the degradation is so accelerated that there is a possibility that the damage will be irreparable. Perhaps, not even if it the dictatorship falls, will we be able to rebuild the body and soul of the country in a prudent time. In short, if the Regime survives for a further five-year period, we would be left with a permanently failed state, where it would be impossible to achieve the democracy and progress we so much desire. And this fatality worsens if we analyze the international context, because today’s world is not in a position to give us the help we would need to repair all the accumulated damage.

That said, tighten your belt, dry your tears and recover hope. We are not going to bequeath this fight to our children. It’s our turn… and it has to be now.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Begins a Partial Unloading of the Liquefied Gas It Could Afford To Buy

The Minister of Energy and Mines revealed that the ship had been in the port for “several weeks” without being able to unload its cargo due to lack of payment

Ship monitoring pages indicate that the Cuban-flagged ’LPG Emilia’ arrived in Havana on September 27 / Vesselfinder

14ymedio, Havana, 8 October 2024 — The Government’s inability to pay for imports became evident again this Monday, when the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, announced on social networks the beginning of the unloading of liquefied gas (propane), after several days with the ship in port for lack of funds. The unloading, however, will be partial, since the State cannot pay for the whole amount.

“After several weeks of having the ship in our port loaded with liquefied gas, the supplier has agreed to a partial unloading, based on the payments that have been made. The distribution of the propane begins in hours,” he wrote on his X account.

The minister has not given any details about the location of the ship, although the online ship monitoring pages indicate that the LPG Emilia, under the Cuban flag, arrived in Havana on September 27 and planned to travel to Matanzas three days later. According to Marine Traffic, that’s where it has been since the 30th. The other liquefied gas ship that visited the Island recently is the Fortunato, with a Panamanian flag and coming from the Mexican port of Coatzacoalcos, where it returned to three days ago.

The supply of liquefied gas had been in trouble recently. At least two provinces, Cienfuegos and Las Tunas, were forced to announce the suspension of distribution. The head of the Commercial Area of Cupet Las Tunas, Osmey Muñagorri, had to deny the rumors of a three-month continue reading

stoppage of deliveries, although he recognized that it was impossible to ensure an exact date to resume the sale. The official described the situation as “highly worrying” due to the uncertainty about imports of this product.

Many families are running out of cooking alternatives and have even resorted to the old charcoal burners / 14ymedio

As for Camagüey, Cupet has reported daily on its social networks about the absence of liquefied gas in the province, stating that as soon as it was available they would tell the population. At the same time, the State company insisted on explaining how the virtual sale will take place, which includes the possibility of receiving the product at home with an additional cost of 100 pesos, amounting to 280 for the total. The authorities also offered to explain how to “order the cylinders,” properly recording the number of each one in the purchase. The mere mention outraged the customers.

“At this point in the game you intend to organize what you knew was not organized. I think it would be very irresponsible to do that at this time, first worry about having the availability of gas that is your social objective,” claimed a user. “In the midst of the blackout crisis, it occurs to them to put in some order and make the cylinder numbers match, after years and years without taking this into account. In their analysis, did they realize how much discomfort they are causing? Is the goal to irritate us more? Many families help each other; if I have an extra propane tank I share it with my family. They are forcing us to pour the propane into another tank so as not to lose the precious liquid, with the risk that this entails,” says another person.

In other provinces, such as Havana, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba, the lack of propane has also been reported

In other provinces, such as Havana, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba, the lack of propane has also been reported, with the problems posed by a constant situation of energy deficit in which many families are running out of cooking alternatives and even end up resorting to the old charcoal burners.

Meanwhile, the electricity deficit has been undauntingly predicted above 1,000 megawatts (MW) daily. A shortage of 1,155 MW is expected for this Tuesday, but forecasts are constantly exceeded without fail. This same Monday, the Electric Union of Cuba had calculated a deficit of 1,150 MW that finally became 1,363 MW at peak hours, “higher than expected due to higher demand than planned,” in the words of the company.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Political Police Harass Independent Journalist José Luis Tan Estrada, Invoking the Social Communication Law

The agents urged the reporter to take his passport and go “on a trip,” adding that it would be best for him

Days before the last anniversary of the ’11J’ nationwide protests of 2021, the journalist was arrested and taken to a police station in Camagüey / Facebook/José Luis Tan Estrada

14ymedio, Havana, October 10, 2024 — Independent journalist José Luis Tan Estrada was questioned this Wednesday by State Security agents in the province of Camagüey. According to his post on social networks, the authorities warned him that “he was on his way to falling into the crimes of being a mercenary and writing propaganda against the Government,” and they threatened to prosecute him under the Social Communication Law.

The appointment, scheduled for 1:30 in the afternoon at the Third Police Unit, lasted almost two hours, the journalist said. During that time, Cristian and Laura – the names given by the agents – dedicated themselves to reviewing Tan Estrada’s “counterrevolutionary” trajectory, including his journalistic work and publications on social networks. Although the authorities cited the recently implemented Social Communication Law to intimidate the reporter, the truth is that non-State journalism was already punishable by the Constitution, the Criminal Code and Decree Law 370.

“Cristian, the repressor who has been responsible for several arbitrary arrests against me, showed me a file with all my publications and some alleged witness statements, which they did not show,” said the journalist.

Tan Estrada was questioned about several of his publications, both on independent media such as CubaNet – 0n which he collaborates – and on Facebook. “According to Cristian, I took advantage of the ’tamales boy’ to set up a whole enemy campaign and give a bad image of childhood in the country,” he explained, referring to a photo published by the journalist weeks ago in which a child was seen selling tamales on the street. At that time, the photo caused strong reactions among Cubans, who denounced the case as child labor and organized a collection to help the minor. continue reading

Tan Estrada was questioned about his publications, both on independent media and on social networks

The agents urged the reporter to take his passport and go “on a trip,” adding that it would be best for him. They also pointed out that his journalistic work and the media with which he collaborates are spaces “designed to degrade and demoralize the achievements of the Revolution.”

Likewise, the agents cited several names close to Tan Estrada. “They tried to turn me against Laritza Diversent, director of Cubalex, and her work team. ’If you have been given so much advice during this time, tell them that, if they are so sincere, to explain the Social Communication Law, because all of them are there (in exile)’,” said the opponent, and added: “They also mentioned Professor José Raúl Gallego and Lara Crofs, with whom I maintain very strong friendships, and of whom I am very proud to be their friend, and it is no secret to anyone. Cristian says that I have been trained by Professor Gallego and that the links arose when he was my professor at the university, and that I should distance myself from him, because he has shown aggressive behavior against the country on social networks’.”

About Crofs, the pseudonym on the networks of the activist Yamilka Lafita, who mainly denounces social problems, “they said that both Lara and I do not provide any help out of feeling or heart, but to contribute to social degradation,” said Tan Estrada.

After the “monologue” of the agents – as he described it after refusing to talk to State Security – the reporter insisted that he will not stop doing journalism or asking for “the freedom of the more than a thousand political prisoners” that the Regime maintains in its prisons.

After the “monologue” of the agents, the reporter insisted that he will not stop doing journalism

Last July, days before the anniversary of the 11J demonstrations, Tan Estrada was arrested in a park in Camagüey and transferred to the Third Unit. Laura, the same agent who now “interviewed” him, was the one who immobilized him and removed the cell phone with which the journalist was trying to connect to the Internet.

“They gave me a warning notice, which I did not sign and, in addition, they said that if I did not comply with it, I would be prosecuted for disobedience and contempt. I told them, and I say it again here, I will continue to do independent journalism, and I will not turn away my face from injustices,” he said a few hours after being released.

Months earlier, in April, the reporter was arrested after arriving in Havana and detained in Villa Marista, the main headquarters of State Security, where he remained for several days. According to several opponents and organizations, Tan Estrada, in the course of a month, had suffered two interrogations and had been fined 3,000 pesos for violating Decree-Law 370, aimed at controlling and penalizing independent journalistic activity on the Island, among other things.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Not Even the Hospitals Are Spared From Blackouts in Cuba

La Dependiante, a hospital in Havana, has been without an elevator for more than a week

García Tuñón Pavilion of the Clinical Surgical Teaching Hospital Diez de Octubre in Havana, known as La Dependiente / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 8 October 2024 — Until very recently, living near a hospital on the Island gave a little consolation: no matter how much the electricity deficit increased, it was unlikely to suffer a blackout. The Cuban Electric Union avoided turning off the circuits where the health centers are located on the Island.

However, the blackouts have also been affecting hospitals for days, the last stronghold that seemed to keep the lights on. Even those who have their own generators have run out of electricity since there is no fuel.

This is the case, for example, of the Diez de Octubre Clinical Surgical Teaching Hospital in Havana, known as La Dependiente. In front of the stopped elevator of the García Tuñón pavilion, a woman refused to go up the three flights of stairs to the pain clinic where she had an appointment this Tuesday. “What time do they turn on the electricity?” she asked desperately. “We don’t know,” the elevator operator replied. “Sometimes they take it away for five hours, sometimes six and sometimes eight, from what we understand.”

The patient was amazed: “How is it possible that they don’t have electricity in a hospital?” The employee encouraged her: “Be thankful that you weren’t locked inside. This morning I was stuck with an old man who couldn’t even move.” continue reading

“Sometimes they take [the electricity] away for five hours, sometimes six and sometimes eight, from what we understand”

Different patients, however, reported on social networks that the elevator has been broken for weeks, and that this has made them miss consultations and therapies. “It’s disrespectful, and I wonder where the bosses in charge are; it’s sad that no one cares about anything,” Elsa Alfonso said on Facebook in response to Nelson Ayala, a man who recently had an operation and complained about the same situation.

La Dependiente, an impoverished and precarious health center, located on Diez de Octubre Avenue, is not the only one that suffers power outages. The Calixto García hospital, in El Vedado, one of the most important in the capital, has also been affected by blackouts. Two weeks ago, journalist Ernesto Morales, a U.S. resident, released a video in which the dark corridors of the hospital were shown, illuminated only by the light of patients’ cellphones.

Complaints are also multiplying on social networks about the provincial clinics. A photo published on October 2 by the writer Ghabriel Pérez, from Holguín, showed the surroundings of the Lucía Íñiguez Landín Surgical Clinical Hospital in complete darkness, with no sign of light inside.

“What time do they turn on the electricity?” she asked desperately. “We don’t know,” the elevator operator replied / 14ymedio

The hospital of the municipality of Vertientes in Camagüey was the same, as shown in photos released by José Luis Tan Estrada, on September 19. “Here, right now, there are patients in serious condition, with shortness of breath, and pregnant women, and the power just went out at 1:30 in the morning,” an eyewitness told the reporter.

The situation in Cuba was fully revealed this Monday, when the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, announced on social networks the start of the unloading of liquefied gas from a ship after it remained in port for several days, detained for lack of financing. Even more: the unloading would be partial, since the authorities did not have the full amount to pay for it.

On the other hand, oil is arriving in dribs and drabs. According to the latest Reuters report, Venezuela, the Island’s main supplier, sent 22,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) in September, much less than the 33,700 bpd of June and even the 28,000 bpd of April.

Although last Wednesday the PVT Clara tanker arrived at the port of Havana, loaded with Russian fuel from Kaliningrad, and the previous Friday, the Ocean Mariner with Mexican oil arrived in Nuevitas, it does not seem to be enough. Cubans cannot escape from power cuts even in the operating room.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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At Least a Thousand Cubans Are Among the Migrants Stranded in Tapachula Due to Delays in Procedures

Migrants of various nationalities in the Miguel Hidalgo Central Park in Tapachula, Chiapas / Facebook/Escenario Noticias

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 9 October 2024 — The delay in the response to appointments through the CBP One application keeps Cubans Alexander Mori and Bárbara García stranded since August in Tapachula, Chiapas. “Several Venezuelans received the answer in four days, but I, who carried out the procedure two months ago, have not had an answer,” Mori tells 14ymedio. The migrant defense lawyer for José Luis Pérez tells this newspaper that there are at least a thousand Cubans in the same situation.

This 27-year-old from Havana says that he has carried out the procedure up to three times; the last one was on Thursday, September 26. “We are desperate, people come and go, but we are still here, without moving.”

Pérez says that Mori, like other migrants, made a mistake: they have to wait for a response after making the appointment. “Every attempt starts from scratch; they must be patient,” he urges.

During his stay in Tapachula, Mori met Bárbara García in the Miguel Hidalgo Central Park. Originally from Matanzas and 29 years old, she was arrested in a raid by Immigration agents on September 2 and admitted to the Siglo XXI migratory station. The Matancera was traveling with her father and a nephew, but while she was detained they received a response to her CBP One appointment and moved her to the International Guardhouse in San Ysidro, Tijuana. continue reading

The parish priest Heyman Vázquez attributes the increase in the migratory flow to the “delay” in the procedures / EFE

“My family is already in Texas, they have managed to fulfill the dream, but I’m still here, waiting for an answer to the appointment,” he says. García spent 20 days locked up, “threatened with a deportation if she did not pay 1,000 dollars.” Her nephew was able to visit her after the National Institute of Migration (INM) granted him the multiple migratory form, a 20-day conditional stay permit that allowed him to travel to the border.

“One day the agents arrived, gave us a list and released us. I immediately completed the procedure and I am waiting for an answer,” he says.

The director of the Center for Human Dignity, Luis García Villagrán, told Diario del Sur that there are currently 45,000 migrants, most of them from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba, stranded in Tapachula. The common denominator of these groups is “political and religious persecution, xenophobia, violence, insecurity, poverty and lack of opportunities.”

The parish priest of the municipality of Suchiate, Heyman Vázquez, attributes the increase in the migratory flow to the “delay” in the procedures. The religious leader denounced the lack of attention by the INM, which caused people to be exposed to gang violence.

“The State ignored the situation of violence in the region, as well as its obligation to investigate and sanction human rights violations,” says the parish priest. The “crimes of public agents” and Migration are widespread, both for “omissions and in collusion with criminal groups.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Three Garbage Dumps in Havana ‘Collapsed’ After Exceeding ‘Authorized Height Levels’

Tires, batteries and spare parts are lacking for the 28 garbage trucks donated by Japan
Due to the shortage of personnel, prisoners have been ordered to perform these tasks
The La Güinera market is closed for a month due to the poor sanitary conditions

Garbage accumulates in the streets of Havana, as the independent press has been denouncing for more than a year / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Madrid, 7 October 2024 — After rebuffing the insistent reports from the independent press for more than a year about the disastrous situation of garbage collection in Cuba – more specifically in Havana – the State media have begun to pay attention. This Monday they published their third consecutive analysis of the issue, which has become alarming, according to them. All three landfills in Havana, without exception, “collapsed,” admits Roberto Cárdenas Santos, technical deputy director of the Provincial Company of Communal Hygiene, who also confirms that they exceeded “the authorized height levels.”

His boss, Alberto Ernesto Rodríguez García, maintains that the main problem affecting the capital is “the technical coefficient of the collection equipment, mostly stopped due to lack of tires, batteries and spare parts that have been deteriorating.” The official told Cubadebate that an expenditure of seven million pesos has been approved to acquire between 300 and 400 tires and 126 batteries. “With these, all the equipment that is working in the city could be repaired, and we would have a better sanitation situation,” he says. In addition, a container of parts has been imported for the Narciso López Roselló Equipment and Applications Company, where specialized equipment and other trucks are repaired and maintained.

Nothing allows us to ensure that this is the end of the problem. The managers of Comunales maintain that fuel is not an inconvenience in this case, since the company has a guaranteed allocation. Trucks have an average of 1 or 1.2 liters of gasoline reserved for each cubic meter collected, which is no small thing taking into account the widespread shortage for most industries and homes. continue reading

Trucks have reserved an average of 1 or 1.2 liters of gasoline for each cubic meter collected

However, the 28 trucks that were donated from Japan in 2019 suffer pressing needs. “There is a significant deficit of parts to support this equipment. Although maintenance was done on time, several trucks began to fail, and those that were left had to replace the others and were overexploited,” adds Rodríguez García.

In addition, waste collection suffers from one of the great evils that weighs on the already impoverished national economy: the shortage of personnel. This Monday’s report in Cubadebate speaks of a “labor fluctuation,” as they have decided to designate this new euphemism for the lack of workers caused by the massive emigration of the last two years, especially among people of working age. Thus, “the court has given them the ability to hire prison inmates, the main workforce today that takes care of garbage collection activity,” reveals the newspaper.

There are two other difficult jobs that the prisoners must assume: the collection of charcoal made from the marabou plant and the cutting of sugar cane. The Cuban regime resorts to these prison workers to cover vacant positions, a fact that has been denounced by organizations such as Prisoner Defenders. Tomoya Obokata, special rapporteur on the UN’s Contemporary Forms of Slavery, deplored this method.

Although the Government approved new labor laws at the end of 2023 to regulate the working conditions of prisoners and guarantee them new rights, sentencing prisoners to “correctional” work – included in the Criminal Code – is prohibited in most Western countries.

Workers are not the only deficiency facing the Government. There is one that is even more worrisome: a lack of the faithful. “We are being affected by the deficit of professional staff for the management of communal services. Cerro, Centro Habana and Plaza are without directors. Arroyo Naranjo and Boyeros also have problems. With a lack of central personnel, the control structure crumbles. The rules are there for a reason, because you don’t collect just to collect; there is a mechanism for providing quality service,” says Rodríguez García.

“With a lack of central personnel, the control structure crumbles. The rules are there for a reason, because you don’t collect just to collect; there is a mechanism for providing quality service”

This absence, he insisted, affects the organization and the awareness of citizens, whom he also urged to do their part to maintain hygiene.

Among the most affected municipalities, Cubadebate deals specifically with Diez de Octubre, where this Friday Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel went in person to supervise the mountains of garbage. Arroyo Naranjo is also mentioned, among others, where the Municipal Administration Council has been forced to make an unprecedented decision: to close the La Güinera market for one month due to the sanitation conditions, although they also mention the importance of “individual activity.”

“During this period, actions will be carried out by the different entities involved in the repair of dumpsters, pipe leaks and roads in the area,” the government of Havana announced on social networks. Merchants have regretted the suddenness of the situation, which forces them to store merchandise that can be damaged during this time, although most users have applauded a decision that improves the precarious health situation in the area and ask that it be generalized throughout the capital.

This Monday’s report clarifies the seriousness of the situation when Cubadebate does not mince words to describe it: Stench, mountains of solid waste, rodents, diseases and garbage that “springs from the city like one more limb.” “It is an issue that concerns everyone,” it continues, “and if everyone, authorities and citizens, don’t add a grain of sand, Havana cannot be that marvelous city that it aspires to be.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘Get Out, Before the People Rise Up With Uncontrollable Fury,’ Warns a Cuban Priest

Priest Alberto Reyes accuses the regime of committing “a silent genocide”

The parish priest enumerated the insecurities of life in Cuba / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 6 October 2024 — The columns published by the Camagüey priest Alberto Reyes every Sunday have made him the spokesperson for Cubans who do not dare to speak publicly. “My words are not a cry of violence; they are not an aggressive outburst,” says Reyes in his text. “I have been thinking” – the title he uses – “that this week I will ask the leadership of the regime to leave.”

The priest, whose open demands to the Government have cost him reprimands from both the Church and State Security, did not hesitate this Sunday to address, not Cubans – as he always does – but the rulers of the Island. “Get out, take all you want and leave this country forever,” Reyes wrote and urged them to do so “before, somehow, things change and you can be tried and accused of crimes against humanity, because what you have done and are doing to the Cuban people is a silent genocide.”

“You are not going to revive this country; you are not going to remedy the lack of fuel nor the instability of the thermoelectric plants; nor are you going to give us back a life without continuous blackouts,” said the priest, who continued to lengthen the list of insecurities that Cubans experience.

Inflation, hunger, shortage of medicines, deplorable medical care, lack of basic supplies, educational damage, agricultural debacle, galloping emigration, accelerated aging of the population and the lack of “a national project” were the reasons the priest gave as the prelude to a social explosion. “Get out, before these people reach the end of their endurance, rise up with uncontrollable fury and carry out the demise of this system by destroying everything they find in their path with blood and fire,” he warned. continue reading

The priest has his ministry in Esmeralda, a town of Camagüey with 30,000 inhabitants

“Every day without light, without water, without food; every day with food for the children spoiled, with the omnipresent scarcity and the desire for freedom. This is what you do with blind and excessive violence,” Reyes stressed.

The priest has his ministry in Esmeralda, a town of Camagüey with 30,000 inhabitants. From his parish, where he was sent for his “problematic” positions, Reyes has denounced the situation of Cubans and the helplessness to which the regime has subjected them. Every anti-government demonstration or protest that has been unleashed in recent years has found in the priest a voice of support.

Last May, the parish priest began to ring the bells of his church 30 times whenever there was a blackout in the town. This newspaper managed to record the bells, which represented the “agonizing death of our freedom and our rights, the suffocation and sinking of our lives.” A short time later, because of a warning from State Security, his superiors forbade him to ring the bells again.

Reyes has not ceased, however, to ask for a change in Cuba, and this Sunday his claim has been forceful: “Live where you want and can do it, so that we too may live.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In Cienfuegos, Cuba, They Take Advantage of the Work Day To Stand in Line

Line at a Pan-American store, in Cienfuegos / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 7 October 2024 — Surviving in Cuba is a matter of strategy, money and a lot of time to dedicate to hunting for food and basic necessities. Cienfuegos is no exception. And, if at noon there is nothing left to buy in the shops, the normal thing is that during working hours, especially in the mornings, workers run out in search of food, and State companies are left without a soul.

The counterpart of empty institutions are the crowded lines that form in the portals of stores and premises of all kinds. Bakeries, ATMs and agricultural markets have the longest ones.

“The only thing I’ve done at work today is sign the entry card. I left thinking I would solve things quickly, and here I am, waiting to see if I can pick up the bank card I ordered three months ago,” says Tamara, irritated. Although she is at the branch of the Banco Popular de Ahorro, on San Carlos Street, she already has her eye on another line at the La Princesa market to buy cookies for her children’s school snacks. “It’s impossible to do two things at the same time, and when it comes to choosing, I give priority to mine,” she says. continue reading

Tamara has managed to buy the cookies at the market, but the line at the bank is still stalled / 14ymedio

The lines do not originate just from the demand for sought-after products. It also results from the slowness of the salesclerks and officials, who take “all the time in the world” to attend to people. According to Tamara, excessive delays to serve the public are a common denominator, and it’s the same at the box office of the Terry Theater, on the waiting list of the bus terminal, or in the pizzeria of El Prado. “The place may vary. What does not change, in any case, is the terrible customer service.”

Standing in line in the city begins long before eight in the morning. Juan Carlos knows this very well; for some months, he has been saving places in the line outside the Cadeca (Currency Exchange) for those who are willing to pay the price of his time. “I take advantage of the fact that I work as a custodian near here. If I have to spend the early morning awake anyway, there’s nothing better than looking for some extra pesos by helping others,” he explains. He gets no less than 4,000 pesos every time he spends the night awake.

Juan Carlos is dedicated to saving places in the line outside the Cadeca / 14ymedio

Juan Carlos recognizes that, during the day, it is inevitable to be trapped in a purchase or procedure that seems endless. “I leave the Cadeca with a little money in my pocket, but then I arrive, for example, in the post office line to collect my mother’s retirement, or I stand in a very long line to have five or six scoops of ice cream at Coppelia, and the day goes on like that,” he says.

For her part, Tamara has managed to buy the cookies at the market, but the line at the bank is still stalled. “Several people arrived here after me and resolved it quickly with friends who work there. Then you realize that many people sneak in front of you claiming pregnancies, physical impediments, surgeries and all kinds of excuses, and to hell with the rest of us who have been waiting for hours.” Tamara looks at her watch with concern. “My boss doesn’t know that I left, and I’ve been here for a long time,” she explains.

“You come to realize that many people sneak in front of you claiming pregnancies, physical impediments, surgeries and all kinds of excuses” / 14ymedio

When the sun beats down on people who are tired of waiting, a custodian leaves the bank with an announcement that everyone can guess. In other nearby places, the lines are also gradually dissolving, disintegrating from the pressure to return to work or because the products ran out and the shops and markets are closing. “It was to be expected that they would cut the power at any moment. I have lost three hours, and now I will have to come back another day,” says Tamara, resigned. “I should go back to my job, but there won’t be power there either. So, the best thing I can do is go home and take care of things there. Tomorrow will be another day.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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For the Cuban Mind, Terse Questions

’Still life with a pig’s head’, painted in 1968 by Fernando Botero / CC

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 6 October 2024 — Yes, I also got carried away by nostalgia and went to a Cuban restaurant in Madrid. I’m not going to say which one, because the life of an emigrant is hard, and setting up a business – a pitiful one, but I’m getting ahead of myself – is already quite indigestible. But a fish dies by its mouth and so did I. In general, since I arrived in this country I have led a fairly private life. I have gotten together with few Cubans, more out of my unfriendliness than my lack of patriotism, because abroad there is a taste for the national junk that I fight against like hell.

I will never forget that waiter who, idiotic and melancholic, wanted me to give him a box of Ramón Allones cigars that I had brought from the Island. They were limited edition cigars, in green cedar packaging, a farewell gift – I would never have been able to pay for those jewels – the last one of which I burned down a few weeks ago. But look, the lad didn’t want to smoke. He didn’t tolerate the taste or smell, but he inhaled the butt. He wanted the box, the ark of the alliance, to deposit the remains of his Cubanness. I promised him that I would send it to him as soon as I had a chance.

Everyone knows that Madrid is the new Miami. The lycras and flip-flops, the despicable “asere qué bolá” (whasup, dude?) that any Cuban offers as a password of origin, the watering hole and the gossip, have taken possession of Chamberí, Puerta del Sol and Barajas. In the clueless Spanish imagination, Cuba was at first a land of promise, then a communist paradise and now – as in Dian Fossey’s famous book – a good place to have a mojito among gorillas. My newly arrived compatriots fervently cultivate their image of the noble savage, or at least the savage part. They change country, but not what’s inside their heads. continue reading

I paid the price of being waited on in my accent and enjoyed tiny portions: socialist, regulated by the ration book

It is not illogical, therefore, that if someone opens a Cuban restaurant in Madrid, they proceed to recreate our misery on a gastronomic scale. I was – unpleasant journey in time and space – in a Havana restaurant, in an inn with peeling walls, Cuban bric-a-brac, photos of the Capitolio and el Morro. I paid the price of being waited on in my accent, I waited in vain for a glass for the beer – Crystal, packaged in Holguín! – and I enjoyed tiny portions: socialist, regulated by the ration book.

Of course I deserved it. A few blocks away there were two Asturian restaurants where I would have felt at home. Not because Asturias is for me a gastronomic homeland – which it almost is – but because a well-made stew of beans, pork and other ingredients will always remind a Cuban of his origins; a slice of quince with cheese or a rice pudding, grandma’s desserts; a grape liqueur with a cigar, the perfect ending to a lunch.

There was something sumptuous and generous in the Creole, something that the Regime castrated and that the exile should have preserved. Why do Cubans travel to Spain asking for hamburgers and Coca-Cola? Why have they been saving to buy a car the first year when there is so little need here? Why the rush to forget the best of the country and cultivate the most rude, the vulgarity inherent in Castroism, the impudencence of the “New Man“?

I was looking for an experience that would bring me closer to my past, and they made the present bitter

That Madrid restaurant was a perfect summary of all that. Dishes, the basics: tasteless stews, steak, tostones, dry congrí. I was looking for an experience that would bring me closer to my past, and they made the present bitter. It’s useless to ask for explanations or hit the table – plastic, of course, no stools – with your fists. There it was the Government’s fault; whose is it here? To the “lacón,*” laconic questions, Lezama would say.

Where can Cuba find itself? For a long time I thought it was in books, but looking for a country in the library, without a real experience, is an exercise in archaeology. A bolero is heard and forgotten; a cigar is smoked; a language is used; a son lives not on the Island that his parents abandoned but on another continent, under its flag.

I don’t think the Cuban, in his usual light-heartedness, will notice that this gentleness now means very little. Does anyone care? Not me; now you know. Over time one finds grace for oneself if not elsewhere. If I went back, I would be a stranger. If I stay here, there will always be an air of provisionality wherever I am. Almost an act of cheap magic, a snap of the fingers, and I left, as I vanished from that Cuban restaurant in Madrid. Wasn’t that what Martí was referring to before pronouncing, in the swamp, his best spell? “I know how to disappear.” And he did.

*Translator’s note: A “lacón” is a pig’s head; hence, the play on words.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Decimated by Robberies and Blackouts, There Is ‘Not a Soul’ in the Cienfuegos Library

“The place to which I dedicated most of my life is today the tomb of Cienfuegos culture”

Located between Prado and Santa Cruz streets, the building is an emblematic element of the architectural landscape of Cienfuegos / 5 de Septiembre

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 5 October 2024 — At least since the pandemic, Hilda feels that her workplace, the beautiful eclectic-style library of Cienfuegos, is a mansion that only she and her colleagues inhabit, for eight hours a day. Not only are fewer and fewer readers and students visiting, but hardly any efforts are made to make the institution part of the cultural life of the city again. “There are times when I walk through the corridors and the reading rooms and I don’t find a soul. Neither students who come to do homework nor researchers who are looking for manuscripts, and much less readers who want to borrow a book,” the cienfueguera, who after her retirement was again hired by the Roberto García Valdés library, tells 14ymedio.

Located between Prado and Santa Cruz streets, in the historic center, the building is an emblematic element of the architectural landscape of Cienfuegos. “It is a pity that this heritage jewel is being lost among the dust of old books, which in most cases no one consults due to their deterioration and obsolescence. To that must be added the continuous loss of valuable bibliographic funds,” laments the woman, who states that many volumes, considered valuable, have been lost due to theft or carelessness.

Most of her colleagues, who spend their days as bored as Hilda, have even lost interest in their work. “Many of today’s librarians don’t even know the history of the place where they work. To top it off, when a reader arrives, he usually can’t find what he wants because the librarians don’t know the catalog very well or do not pay attention to what the visitor wants,” she reflects. continue reading

Most of her colleagues spend their days as bored as Hilda / 14ymedio

Martha, a younger worker, agrees with Hilda that the work of the library is deficient but attributes the loss of public interest in part to other issues. “Nowadays Google search engines have an answer for almost anything. So the users decide not to waste their time with employees who show apathy and a noticeable ignorance of their work,” she says.

The employee believes that not only the budget but also the difficult economic situation and the frequent blackouts affect the visitors. “It is easier to access the Internet than to go to our lounges that, as if that were not enough, have few comforts. We have fallen far behind in terms of new technologies. We have not been able to offer attractive alternatives,” she says.

The discouragement of workers is also a sensitive issue. “The low salary offers little incentive, and professional motivation is scarce. Library Science is a very nice career, but to exercise it requires indispensable means. While everything in the world is digitized, we are still looking for pieces of cardboard to replace the torn files. The demotivation begins in here and has a negative impact on visitors,” says Martha, who confesses that even the working day has been reduced by half, because the library is dead in the afternoon.

“Our impact on the population is decreasing significantly. If we convene a book club or social gathering in the library, there will be only two or three attendees. We have had to organize directed visits of students, but even so, the statistics do not favor us,” adds the worker, who predicts that the disuse will accelerate the deterioration of the building, which is more than 100 years old.

The reading rooms remain empty all day / 14ymedio

Inaugurated on December 31, 1921, the building was originally the headquarters of the Society of Instruction and Recreation, Liceo de Cienfuegos. It was not until 1962 that it became the provincial library, nourished with the funds of the city’s old house of books. The building was even named a Cultural Heritage of Humanity Site.

“We never talk about the Republican stage (1902-1959), and it turns out that even the buildings where the institutions are located are works made by capitalism. It was nice to see the collection of books that existed in the early 60s. Everything was so well taken care of that it is impossible to compare it with the state in which it is today,” says Hilda, who could see in her beginnings as a librarian something of the former splendor of the Roberto García Valdés library.

“We no longer have the old book sections for Adults, Art, Music and Youth. Even Extensions, which was in charge of taking the reading material to the most diverse places, ceased to exist,” the woman recalls. “Regrettably, the place to which I dedicated most of my life is today the tomb of Cienfuegos culture.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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