Translator: Regina Anavy – Page 151

Three Dissidents Who Called for a Press Conference Are Arrested in Cuba

Manuel Cuesta Morúa during a speech at the Political Institute for Freedom in Peru. (Archive)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 5 June 2023 — Three Cuban dissidents were arrested this Monday after convening a press conference in which they intended to present a global strategy against political, gender, racial, institutionalized and economic violence in the country.

The opponent Manuel Cuesta Morúa explained to EFE that he was temporarily arrested on his way to the place of the media appointment and taken back to his home, where a police team was installed in the neighborhood, presumably so he couldn’t leave. María Mercedes Benítez and Juan Antonio Madrazo, who had borrowed a house in Havana for the press conference, were also arrested.

The Ministry of the Interior has not made a statement so far on these arrests and their causes. The official media have not referred to these events either.

The three arrested were trying to present a security strategy called Shanti, backed by the dissident platforms D’Frente, Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba and the Democratic Action Unity Committee, according to the documents they sent to the media.

“Cuba is entering a vacuum of violence that is harming individuals, families, communities, groups and sectors of civil society,” warns the press release, which says that this violence is being “blacked out by the media and poorly disguised by the rhetoric of the authorities.” continue reading

The document highlights femicides, 34 so far this year according to the feminist platforms that record them (in the absence of official statistics), “murders,” “thefts” and “daytime assaults.”

It also talks about “institutional violence normalized by the political system,” emphasizing the role of the new Criminal Code and the recently approved Social Communication Law.

The proposal, which they describe as “ambitious” work, advocates for “amnesty and the decriminalization of dissent,” “initiatives against gender violence,” “the recovery of citizen sovereignty” and “the pacification of the streets.”

It also calls for addressing “institutionalized economic inequalities,” “flagrant violations of the Constitution and laws,” establishing a “culture of respect and tolerance” and a language that does not encourage “exclusion and hatred from the State and society, and by Cubans inside and outside Cuba.”

Among the symbolic actions it proposes is an “orange march” for Human Rights Day.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Russians in Havana, the Second Possession

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, during the signing of bilateral agreements in 2019. (EFE)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 4 June 2023 — It is evident that the Kremlin exerts a more than fatal attraction on the Castros. I do not say Russians or Communists; it’s those famous buildings that have transcended in time as a symbol of power and devotion for those who think and feel like autocrats, a feeling shared to the core by the Cuban rulers, without a doubt, the most representative despots of that fervor.

First were the tsars, then the general secretaries of the Communist Party and now Colonel Vladimir Putin, who, as a good KGB, knows that the Island can be his most reliable preserve, since exploitation knows no limits or borders there. Everything seems to indicate that the employee of the Castro family, Miguel Díaz-Canel, is pushing himself harder than his predecessors, something impossible to imagine, to be in that situation.

Fidel and Raúl Castro handed over Cuba to the Soviet leaders. The bolos, as the Cubans called them, could do whatever they wanted, including settling anywhere in the national territory, in exchange for a very generous subsidy that allowed the construction of the wall of totalitarianism.

The eagerness to Sovietize Cuba was so intense that the regime, since 1959, has granted scholarships to tens of thousands of young people to study in the communist paradise. Paradoxically, a significant number of those young people did not buy the fable, becoming staunch enemies of communist proposals, many of them assuming leadership positions, particularly in Europe, in the fight against the Castro regime. continue reading

Soviet power in Cuba was overwhelming. The Castros responded blindly to Moscow’s mandates abroad and applied the precepts of their Motherland to the interior of the Island. Cubans of my generation should not forget that Soviet and Russian literature flooded libraries and bookstores, cinema was a propaganda festival about the invincible socialist world and the artistic companies of the communist area did not cease with their great spectacles.

Nor should we leave aside the chronic shortage of food that was solved with the magical appearance of a can of Russian meat; that the most popular medicine, for a time, was a balm of resins with a name impossible to pronounce, until both disappeared; and that, after standing in line for hours to enter a miserable amusement park, access was denied to Cubans if a group of tourists from the socialist countries arrived.

The privileged relationship between Havana and Moscow was not interrupted because the Castros were nationalists but because the Kremlin of the time, managed by Mikhail Gorbachev, decided not to continue paying the bills of the country that had contributed the most to Soviet bankruptcy.

Now, as former political prisoner José Estrada wrote a while ago, former military, KGB and their heirs are returning, for the moment dressed in civilian clothes and discussing investments and profits, as in the past they instructed the repressors and Island bureaucrats on how to implement effective social control. In turn the Castros, not at all selfish, shared these tools with their associates from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, just as they would with any enlightened leader ready to implement their instructions.

The autocrat Díaz-Canel and his henchmen have declared that they are ready to provide special conditions to Russian businessmen, “including the right to use Cuban land for 30-year terms, the tax-free importation of agricultural machinery and the right to repatriate the profits in foreign currency, which the Cuban Government currently restricts.”

This second triumphal entry of Russia into Cuba, by the hand of Vladimir Putin, does not seek to solve the needs of the population, but to perpetuate the Castro dynasty in government and strengthen an alliance with the Kremlin that to some extent revives the old military association, a situation that directly threatens Western democracies.

The dictator Díaz-Canel and his mentor, Raúl Castro, know that there are more profitable opportunities in the world than those of the Russians, but for them they are inadmissible, since their survival means exercising strict control over the sector of society capable of producing wealth, and the development of the economy must conform to the interests of the ruling class.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Received More Oil in May, Suspicions Grow About the Fuel’s Destination

The Vilma sailed from José on several occasions to the port in Cienfuegos, designated as the destination on the application, but as it approached the Island it disappeared from the radar. (Vesselfinder)

14ymedio, Havana, 3 June 2023 — The constant movement of oil tankers from Venezuela to Cuban ports during the month of May foreshadowed what, this Friday, was confirmed by the data published by Reuters: exports of Venezuelan crude oil to the Island reached 58,100 barrels per day (bpd), almost 30% more than was sent by the state PDVSA in April, which was only 45,250 bpd.

In its usual monthly report on the commercial activities of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., the British agency detected a 14% drop in May exports compared to the previous month, but Havana was again saved from the cuts. On average, total sales were 606,258 bpd of crude oil and refined products, less than the previous two months but more than January and February of this year.

For its part, the American company Chevron – recently authorized to export Venezuelan fuel – sent 149,000 bpd to the United States and its warehouses in the Bahamas in May, a little more than in April (141,000 bpd).

Venezuela’s exchange with its allies has not stopped. According to Reuters, Iran sent a shipment of 2.1 million barrels of gas condensate to Caracas, but according to the Tanker Trackers application it has not yet been unloaded.

In the case of Cuba, the activity has been frantic during May: from the Venezuelan port terminal of José, several ships have sailed to the Island, especially to Cienfuegos, where Vesselfinder detected the presence of the oil tanker Vilma, with a Cuban flag. continue reading

The Vilma sailed on several occasions to the Cienfuegos port – indicated as a destination by the application – from José, but as it approached the Island it disappeared from the radar, to appear days later anchored in Venezuela. When examining the list of ports of the oil tanker, Cienfuegos doesn’t appear in the registry.

When examining the registry list of ports of call of the tanker, it never appears to have been in Cienfuegos. (Screen capture)

But this is not the only ship with a Cuban flag that has irregular activity. The same happens with the Alicia, which, coming from the Venezuelan port of Amuay, didn’t declare its destination; and with the Sandino, which set sail from José on May 11 and whose landing pier is not known.

Like the Vilma, the oil tanker Delsa constantly sails from the Venezuelan terminal to Matanzas, where it is supposed to be anchored from May 28, but the Cuban destination is also erased on its registry. El Pastorita, another of the Cuban tankers, left Havana several days ago and arrived this Friday in Moa, a port with little activity on the eastern coast of the Island.

Even more discreet, but always on the increase, has been the movement of international oil tankers to Cuba. This Saturday, the oil tanker Marianna V.V., with the Panamanian flag, was anchored in Havana; the Primula, with the flag of Belize, was in Mariel; and the Caribbean Alliance – with the Panamanian flag – will sail towards Moa, where it will join the Dutch oil tanker NQ Calipso.

The Nicos arrived at the port of Santiago de Cuba this Friday, with the flag of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which at the time of this article had not declared its origin for more than 70 days, and whose record of arrivals is empty. At the same terminal and coming from the port of Kaliningrad, in Russia, the tanker Scot Hamburg – with the Dutch flag – will arrive on June 6.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Court Sanctions 13 Cubans With Up to Two Years in Prison for Reselling Fuel

Since the beginning of April, the Island has been going through a fuel shortage that has resulted in long lines at gas stations. (14ymedio)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 2 June 2023 — A court in Havana sanctioned 13 people with sentences of up to 2 years in prison for reselling fuel in the midst of a severe shortage crisis that has affected Cuba for two months, official media reported on Friday.

According to a statement from the People’s Provincial Court of Havana, cited by Cubadebate, two people will serve their sentence with correctional work, while 11 more will go to prison. The minimum prison sentence is one year and four months.

In total, 15 people were tried – two were acquitted — for the crime of speculation. The sentence is not final, so it can still be appealed.

Those sanctioned, according to the court, sold the fuel on the Island’s extensive black market at prices ranging from 350 to 600 pesos per liter, that is, more than 20 times the price at service stations.

Since the beginning of April, the Island has been going through a shortage of fuel that has resulted in long lines at gas stations, which often don’t have the fuel. continue reading

This situation has led several Cubans to resell the fuel they manage to get at exorbitant prices as a quick way to get cash. The country is also going through a deep economic crisis that has been exacerbated since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

According to the court, they increased the framework for sanctions to 11 people, taking into account that the crimes “were committed in a complex scenario, nuanced by the shortage of fuel.”

The Cuban government reported at the end of April that the lack of fuel would continue until May due to “non-compliance by the supplying countries.”

Translated by Regina Anavy
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The Russian Reconquest of Cuba: What We’re Not Seeing

Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. (Archive/Kremlin)

14ymedio, Rolando Gallardo, Quito, 3 June 2023 — After twenty long intergovernmental sessions between Cuba and Russia and a visit of moral support by Díaz-Canel to the butcher of Ukraine — the warrior Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin — the Havana regime opened its arms to the proposals and pressures of the Russian oligarchy. Cuba is going through the greatest economic, political and social crisis in its recent history, and for the Kremlin’s vultures it is low-hanging fruit. The conditions ceased to be mere points of negotiation to become a “take it or leave it.”

What is Russia looking for in Cuba by gaining land in usufruct for more than 30 years? This is the question that the official media makes us ask, when, without a doubt, it is the least important element in the geopolitical move that the weak Cuban regime is making.

Let’s pay attention. Russia is a country of 17 million square kilometers (6,563,737 sq. miles), while Cuba does not exceed 11,000 (4,247 sq. miles). The small Caribbean island fits 1,545 times into the territory of the Russian Federation.

One might think that fertile Cuban lands are an appetizing prize for Russian farmers and Siberian businessmen tired of snow and frozen furrows, but such ideas would be typical of an irrational villager.

The most fertile lands on the earth’s surface are called chernozem, and they are only found on 7% of the planet, and of that amount 74% are in Russia. To be clear, Cuba would fit 23 times into the highly fertile territory of Russia, and we are not even talking about the other arable lands of the largest country in the world. A small detail: Cuba doesn’t have a single square meter of chernozem. continue reading

It is evident that it is not the “privileged” lands of Cuba that convened the eleventh business meeting between the Russian oligarchs and the worn-out Cuban leadership. The words of Boris Titov, the most visible face of the Russian right-wing billionaires and businessman close to the Castro regime, should serve as an alert for us to understand what is coming.

As “Comrade” Titov said at the inauguration of the XI Meeting of the Business Committee: “There is a whole set of proposals for Russian businessmen, such as the usufruct of land for more than 30 years. The elimination of tariffs for the import of high-tech products and the guaranteed right to be able to send the earnings and profits obtained in business to Russia (…). Currently, the Government of the Republic of Cuba guarantees that this process will be done in a short time with privileges for Russian businessmen.”

These words may seem innocuous, but it is necessary to translate Russian intentions into neighborhood Spanish. Titov is the main teacher of the political guidelines (requirements) of the Russian oligarchs to the Cuban regime. The so-called “roadmap” between Moscow and Havana are commandments to move forward with investments. The official document is preserved under some secrecy, as usual, but official publications of the Putin Government already allude to it, using that name.

From what has been published by Russian media, it is understood that the lands in usufruct are nothing more than the elimination of land leases for Russian agricultural and technology companies. Even the Americans were not so evicted with the Treaty of the Lease of Naval Bases and Coalfields. The “imperium” always paid rent. But the Russians will take the land for their companies and businesses without paying, and they will enjoy privileges that have not been given to any Cuban company that doesn’t have a direct association with the military entrepreneurship of the Castro regime.

Russians will be able to bring in technology for their businesses without paying the tariffs that Cubans have to pay even for basic necessities. They are guaranteed that they will not be disturbed at the Customs of the Republic of Cuba, while the citizens of the Island do not have that security.

The most scandalous of the privileges is that “the elimination of tariffs for the import of high-tech products is guaranteed, as is the right to be able to send to Russia the earnings and profits obtained in business,” according to Titov. If it were another country that spoke of free-form capital outflow, the Havana regime and its press would shout that they are profiteers and vultures.

It is natural that Russia’s “vulture” investments arrive at this time with guarantees of return to the accounts of the oligarchs outside Cuba. Russians can be whatever they want, but fools they have never been. Cuba is a country in political and social crisis, lacking leadership, and a hotbed of silent conflicts between the military, select cadres of the Communist Party and those close to power. In an increasingly unstable country it is mandatory to have a capital escape route that does not collide with bureaucratic obstacles and lack of legal guarantees.

The Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitri Chernishenko, said during the meeting in Havana: “The Governments of Russia and Cuba are working on the creation of beneficial conditions for business. That means the elimination of bureaucratic barriers, the reduction of taxes and tariffs and the development of banking infrastructure to guarantee uninterrupted service.”

There are many optimists on social networks who see in this move the salvation of the dictatorship and the rebound of the Cuban domestic economy. The big question they should ask themselves is in what currency they plan to use to pay the Russians for the agricultural and technological products they will develop in Cuba. Do you really believe that the Russian ultra-capitalist millionaires led by Titov want to accumulate pesos?

Cuban emigration has decimated the Cuban population in the last decade. Estimates indicate that more than 2.3 million Cubans live in the United States. The northern neighbor is the largest source of remittances for Cuba. If the Russians take charge, they will try to monopolize the turbulent foreign exchange market of the Island and fill their pockets while they can.

In these circumstances, Fidel comes to mind, when he was questioned by a journalist at the inauguration of one of those first hotels for foreigners which denied access to Cubans. “If these mixed hotels were to charge in pesos, the hotel would not be built here. Because even the capitalists would not come to invest; it they wouldn’t really be interested in accumulating pesos.” Then he continued with his diatribe about the American blockade, in the same style as the current Díaz-Canel discourse.

Cuba is a long loop of repetitions of history. Memories of past failures come and go. The owners of Cuba’s destiny are not the Russian oligarchs, nor the pink cadres of the Communist Party, nor the old military, nor the last-minute screamers. This prolonged and unpleasant novel will culminate when the Cuban people do what they have to do.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba’s ’11J’ Prisoner Yosvany Rosell Garcia Caso Suspends His Hunger Strike

Yosvany Rosell was transferred on May 29 from the Cuba Sí prison to the prisoners’ room of the hospital. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 2 June 2023 — Political prisoner Yosvany Rosell García Caso suspended his hunger strike on Thursday after three weeks of fasting. Sentenced to 15 years for his participation in the protests of 11 July 2021, the 34-year-old ingested a broth that his wife took him to the Lucía Iñiguez Landín Surgical Clinical Hospital, in the city of Holguín.

“Thank God my husband is restoring himself with liquid,” Mailín Rodríguez Sánchez posted on her Facebook account. “He drank broth and is in therapy,” she added, while thanking “the support and concern” that her family received during her husband’s hunger strike, when he barely weighed 122 pounds.

By profession a welder and blacksmith, García Caso was transferred on May 29 from El Yayal prison, Cuba Sí, to the prisoners’ room of the hospital. Initially he refused to receive hydration serums and was determined to “continue the strike because he is tired of his rights and those of the other prisoners continuing to be violated,” after the ’11J’ protests, Rodríguez explained to 14ymedio at the time.

His wife hoped that their eldest daughter, 14-years-old, would be able to convince her father to eat food again. “My girl is telling me that she wants to see her dad, and we are making arrangements so that she can visit him in the hospital.” Family pressures paid off, something that Rodríguez celebrated: “I hope he recovers very soon; his life is worth gold for his children and for me.”

García Caso began the strike on May 11, after an incident in which the prison authorities denied him a visit from his wife and three children, and as the days went by he extended his demands to that of being released as soon as possible. continue reading

Upon learning of the strike, his wife went to the prison four times but was not allowed to see him, and she could only meet her husband the day after he was taken to the hospital. The prisoner was also denied the religious assistance that Rodríguez requested repeatedly.

This was the third time that García Caso carried out a hunger strike. In February 2022, he spent 17 days without taking food to demand that he not be transferred from Holguín to a prison in Cienfuegos, and for improvements in prison conditions. At that time, he had been the victim of several suspensions of his right to make the regulatory phone calls, and they kept him in isolation.

A few months later, in July of last year, he went on a hunger strike again, after being beaten for dressing in white as a reminder of the popular demonstrations of 11J.

The political prisoner claims not to regret having taken to the streets on that day of popular protests, an act that cost him prosecution for the crime of sedition. “How could I regret wanting to see my country free from a communist dictatorship? A country that has been submerged for more than 60 years in extreme poverty, and with all our human rights violated?” he said in a letter that his wife disseminated on social networks. “That blessed July 11 not only marked a before and after of the beginning of the end of communism in Cuba, it also showed us the worst face of the dictatorship.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Ten Months After the Crime, the Murderers of a Teacher in Cuba Receive Life Imprisonment

Santiago Morgado’s body was found days after he went missing. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, June 2, 2023 — Two of the murderers of Professor Santiago Morgado, whose body was found in a well in July last year, in Sancti Spíritus, have been sentenced to life imprisonment. This was confirmed by activist Néstor Estévez, the victim’s relatives and witnesses to the trial.

A third person involved in the crime received a sentence of 30 years in prison, and two others received, respectively, two and one year in prison. The latter are involved in the sale of the Suzuki motorcycle that Morgado was riding, and which, according to the investigation, was the motive for the homicide. The vehicle was taken to Camagüey, where it was sold in desperation for 200,000 pesos.

Estévez tells this newspaper that on Wednesday, when the sentence was handed down, “the city was completely militarized,” and many of Morgado’s relatives were “rounded up” by State Security. “Maybe they thought they were going to appear in court to take a photo or a video,” ventures the activist, resident in the United States, who manages a page with independent information about Sancti Spíritus. In addition, he says that the relatives have not communicated with him again, despite his attempts, so he suspects that they may be threatened by the agents.

The official press, for the moment, has not reported the news. At the end of 2022, Escambray published that one of the five detainees was released on bail (presumably the one who received the lowest sentence).

Shortly after Morgado’s body was found, the provincial newspaper revealed in a report that two of those involved had been the material perpetrators of his violent death and that one of them knew him well. The first of the murderers led Morgado to El Capitolio, a town of the Banao People’s Council, where, hidden in the undergrowth, his companion was waiting. continue reading

The attackers used a stick and a stone, in addition to two pieces of agricultural machinery, to submerge the teacher’s body in the well.

As for the rest of those involved, one of them rode Morgado’s motorcycle to Camagüey, where the fourth individual tried to sell it for an initial price of 800,000 pesos, which he soon had to give up. Finally, the fifth detainee was the intermediary of the sale.

Of the five subjects, aged between 28 and 45, three are residents of Banao, one in the same town, another in El Pinto and the third in El Capitolio. The other two lived in Vertientes, from which it follows that the crimes occurred in places they knew well.

Morgado’s acquaintances were the ones who placed the most emphasis on the search for the body, since the police, as usual in these cases, took their time to join the investigation.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Professor Alina Barbara Lopez Has Been ‘Regulated’ and Will Not Be Able To Leave Cuba

Alina Bárbara López Hernández learned that she was “regulated for reasons of public interest” when applying for a new passport. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Madrid, June 2, 2023 — The Cuban historian Alina Bárbara López Hernández, who has been demonstrating peacefully since April on the 18th of each month in the Freedom Park of the city of Matanzas, is regulated; that is, prohibited from leaving the Island.

In a post published this Friday, the professor explained that she knew that she was “regulated for reasons of public interest” when applying for a new passport, since hers had just expired. She was planning to attend an event organized by the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy in the United States, which she had already attended in 2017.

“I don’t know what that phrase [’regulated’] means, but I will not admit an arbitrariness that contradicts the Constitution of the Republic itself, which in its Article 52 establishes freedom of movement for citizens, and although it clarifies that there may be exceptions, I do not consider myself described in any of them,” López Hernández affirms in her text.

The teacher reports: “I will wait all next week for the authority that decided to regulate me to contact me and inform me that such arbitrariness was reversed.” In addition, she assures that she will not “knock on any door, file any complaint or try to negotiate with anyone.”

After that time, she continues, she will begin to exercise “every week” her “right to peaceful demonstration, this time carrying a sign that will indicate the reasons for my action.” And she concludes: “I am fully aware of the consequences that this may have. I will also be willing to take them on. I’d rather go to prison than be subdued. We will see if those who decide these violations are willing to take the risk of depriving me of liberty.” continue reading

On April 6, López Hernández was detained for several hours by State Security after protesting the arrest of the writer Jorge Fernández Era in the same Parque de la Libertad.

In a long Facebook post after being released, she gave the details of her arbitrary detention for exercising “a constitutional right in a country without political rights” and announced that every 18th day she would demonstrate peacefully.

Her petitions would be four: “a National Constituent Assembly democratically elected to draft a new Constitution applicable in all its parts,” “that the State not disengage from the critical situation of the elderly, retirees, pensioners and families who are in extreme poverty,” “freedom for political prisoners without mandatory exile” and “ceasing harassment of people who exercise their freedom of expression.”

On the last occasion, in May, she said that to counteract her action, the authorities organized “a political act” that began “as soon as they saw me arrive”: “Microphones, amplification equipment, flags, very loud music and groups of officials and agents of State Security, always identifiable.”

The teacher began to merit attention from State Security at the same time as the young artists grouped in the event The Worst Generation, censored last October. López Hernández was going to write a preface for a book that would have the same title, which the regime also prevented from being carried out.

She herself denounced the harassment but stayed on social media. After receiving several requests from the political police to be interrogated, she filed with the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Matanzas a “formal complaint and action of nullity against official subpoenas.” With this, the teacher managed to get the State Security to annul the summons.

Three months later, inspired by the action, Jorge Fernández Era filed a similar claim of nullity for violation of the Criminal Procedure Law, after receiving a summons from the political police, and did not attend the meeting.

The writer said at that time that the officer who approached him expressly reminded him not to be inspired by the case of Alina Bárbara López Hernández, warning him that “Matanzas is not Havana.”

With the prohibition of renewing her passport, the historian joins the list of Cubans who cannot leave their country because they disagree with the regime or want to exercise their profession independently. Among them are the journalists of this newspaper Reinaldo Escobar and Miriam Celaya, the analyst Julio Aleaga Pesant, the activist Boris González and the director of La Hora de Cuba, Henry Constantín.

Many others, who had also been regulated, managed to leave the Island on the condition of not returning. State Security only lifted their ban on travel abroad after learning of their decision to emigrate. They had been subjected to pressure, police subpoenas and surveillance around their own homes.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Relatives of the Girl Who Died in Bahia Honda Say They Have Been Warned ‘We Can’t Return to Cuba’

Héctor offered details of what happened with the sinking of the boat in Bahía Honda, Artemisa. (Video capture/Univision)

14ymedio, Havana, 31 May 2023 — “We have been warned that we cannot return to Cuba,” says Héctor Manuel Meizoso González,the unlce of Elizabeth, the girl who died last October in the sinking of a boat after being hit by a Border Guard boat in Bahía Honda, Artemisa. He managed to leave Cuba with his sister a month ago and relates his fears to this newspaper.

This Wednesday, from the police unit known as the Cuatro Caminos Technician, in Guanajay, the family that remains in Cuba received a phone call making it clear that they should not return to the Island. Meizoso González, 21, fears that the situation for the relatives who were left behind may worsen after his departure.

Little Elizabeth’s grandmother “could not travel,” emphasizes the young man and confirms that the minor’s mother, Diana Meizoso, arrived in Miami a month ago through humanitarian parole, a path established since January of this year to ensure safe migration between Cuba and the United States.

After arriving in Miami, the minor’s uncle again rejected the version of the Ministry of the Interior, which pointed out the Bahia Honda case as “human trafficking.” At the time, an official note assured that “there were no invasive or aggressive actions” and argued that the crash was inevitable because the boat “had stood in the way” of the Border Guards.

In an interview for the Univision network, the migrant denied the official version. “That’s not what happened; they left out some of the video in Cuba.” He reiterated that on October 28, the Cuban Border Guards rammed the boat on which 28 people were trying to leave the Island, including six of their relatives, causing the death of Elizabeth, Yerandy García Meizoso, Aimara Meizoso, Israel Gómez, Indira Serrano Cala, Nathali Acosta Lemus and Omar Reyes Valdés. continue reading

The most recent statement by Diana Meizoso’s brother coincides with the one he gave to 14ymedio in November last year: “That was not an accident, that was murder, because it was done on purpose,” he said then. The intention of the Border Guards was to sink the speedboat.

In the interview broadcast this week through social networks, Meizoso González explained that the boat had left the Griffin behind, but when they “stopped they felt that the boat was moving” and that was when the Border Guards’ boat fell on top of them.

The young man, who is still affected by the disaster, also mentioned that when he went to obtain the official document on the cause of death of his niece, he was denied. “A friend who works there told me that she didn’t die from drowning, she died from the blows that were given.”

Diana Meizoso was arrested last November by State Security and taken to headquarters in Villa Marista, Havana, to change her statement. She refused to do it, said Héctor.

The Cuban interviewed by the Univision network said that there was pressure for several of the survivors to change their statements. “My brother (Héctor Eduardo Meizoso Chiong, who was traveling with his wife, sister and a cousin) was beaten; that’s why they put on his coat. In the video disseminated by the Cuban authorities he said “things were not true, we were not clear about what had happened, we said that it was a murder and it wasn’t like that.”

Meanwhile, Luis Manuel Borges Álvarez, the boatman who also survived the sinking of the boat in Bahía Honda, is in prison, awaiting trial. In a statement edited by the authorities like the ones they usually do to discredit dissidents and which was broadcast on official television, he blamed Héctor Meizoso Fabelo, the uncle of the young people, as the main organizer of the attempt to leave the country.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Commercial Advertising Enters the Official Press With an Advertisement for a ‘Cuban Amazon’

Main page of Cubamodela, the “Cuban Amazon.” (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Madrid, 2 June 2023 — The Cuban communist press aligns itself with the hated capitalist media by including, this Friday, its first commercial advertising paid for by a private company. Cubadebate has an ad for the micro-business Cubamodela, which defines itself as a “Cuban Amazon” and sells products at prices inaccessible to the vast majority of the population.

The sponsored text, as indicated at the end of the publication, appears with the epigraph publirreportaje, which only includes five previous topics, three from Havana Club and one from Caudal S.A., both state. On this occasion, it is a 100% private company that is announced, becoming a precedent for those who are about to deal with the new Social Communication Law approved a week ago, which will enter into force in six months.

The new legislation puts on paper a practice previously banned in the Cuban media by indicating in Article 38.1 that it can “complement the financial and material assurance of their activities with the commercialization inside and outside the country of their productions and services, the sale of advertising spaces, sponsorship, national and international cooperation projects and other means, all legally recognized, provided that the fulfillment of their public function is not compromised.”

However, this first advertiser is not a stranger to Cubadebate. Cubamodela, founded in 2015, in the wave of the thaw between Havana and Washington, was born as a platform dedicated to the exchange of interests of models, photographers and other people in the environment, but soon began to evolve into a website in which makeup, clothes or rentals are offered. After several years navigating this panorama, at the end of 2021, its founder and director, Alejandro Peñalver, associated with other self-employed people who wanted to use his platform to publicize their products and services. continue reading

“Currently, our business is linked to about 18 local enterprises, from leather goods, jewelry, toys, furniture and artisanal wines to photography services and clothing rental for weddings,” Peñalver, a graduate in Economics from the University of Havana, told Cubadebate in April 2022.

The media gave wide coverage to this online commerce platform, which at that time did not yet deliver the purchases at home, but was already preparing the new page, released in 2023. In it can be found everything from clothes and jewelry to spare parts, pet products and food, organized by departments in a way that, as its founder announced, refers to the American giant Amazon, although in a much more modest way.

“We want to sell and be attractive, and thus contribute to meeting the needs of the population. We accept both domestic and foreign payments. Those who have relatives outside Cuba can execute the purchases by paying from there, and the savings will be even greater,” says Peñalver in the promotional article.

One of the keys to the business is the “links with national producers,” which allows costs to be reduced. Its director insists that Cubamodela is specifically a showcase for self-employed and Cuban entrepreneurs to offer their products, achieving visibility in return, thanks to the popularity that the web already supposedly has and that improves its positioning.

“No more standing in lines under the sun,” says the campaign slogan. The businessman recognizes that the most sold products are spaghetti, tomato paste and detergent and, although he claims that their price is cheaper than that of “most private points of sale,” the products are very expensive compared to Europe, the United States and Mexico. A package of pasta costs $1.50, and a package of 32 rolls of toilet paper reaches $16, despite being on sale.

The commerce, explains Cuban economist Elías Amor, “attracts a very specific segment of customers with high purchasing power, who don’t need to pay attention to the relationship of their pay with prices. It’s a market segment in which the heat, the buses or the strenuous lines are not known, nor do they have to experiment with their negative effects, aspects that Cubamodela’s advertising and marketing highlights to ensure and give content to its competitive offer.”

The expert dedicates an entry on his blog to online commerce from the promotion that appeared in Cubadebate and considers that ideas such as that of Cubamodela are very good news. Amor analyzes the project and praises Cubamodela for having “thought of really interesting ideas,” including the deployment of relationships with suppliers, which guarantees the quality of the product and the stability of supplies.

“This, of course, would never have been done by communist state commerce. It has had empty stores with nothing to offer for 64 years.”

However, the economist is also aware of the limitations of the experiment, precisely because it addresses a percentage of the population that once again leaves out those who have the most needs. “In any case, it is easy to assume that online commerce moves in a very specific segment of customers with high purchasing power, and that they do not pay attention to the relationship of their remuneration with prices. A market segment that coexists with the majority of the population that, because they have an insignificant purchasing power from their salaries and pensions, have to waste their life suffering from the aforementioned heat, the poor bus transportation and standing in lines. These injustices exist currently in Cuba, and nothing and no one seems to avoid them, quite the opposite. Faced with the parsimony of the state sector, the private sector takes advantage of the situation,” he concludes.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘Minors Are the Most Tortured’ in Cuban Prisons, Denounces Prisoners Defenders

Prisoners Defenders asserts that the Cuban regime “tortures each and every one of its 1,048 political prisoners,” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 May 2023 — The organization Prisoners Defenders (PD) presented a new report on torture in Cuba on Tuesday, after collecting the statements of 181 political prisoners, including seven women and four minors (16 to 18 years old, the criminal age on the Island).

In an online press conference, the president of the NGO based in Madrid, Javier Larrondo, asserted that the Cuban regime “tortures each and every one of its political prisoners,” which PD currently puts at 1,048.

Of them, Larrondo said, “children, minors, are the most tortured.” In this regard, he gave the examples of Jonathan Torres Farrat, arrested for demonstrating on July 11, 2021, who has suffered the 15 types of torture identified in the NGO report, and Gabriela Zequeira Hernández, arrested at the same age and for the same reason, on whom they have inflicted 14 types of torture.

This young woman, they report, also suffered sexual abuse in prison, at the hands of an agent who warned her “that she was a lesbian” and “put her finger into her vagina,” reads the organization’s report. continue reading

This report is an extension of the one that PD presented last year and that documented “15 patterns of ill-treatment and torture” in Cuban prisons: deprivation of medical care, forced labor outside of their criminal conviction, obligation to maintain uncomfortable or harmful positions, solitary confinements, use of temperature as a mechanism of torture, physical aggression, transfer to unknown locations, intentional disorientation, deprivation of water, food and sleep, non-communication with lawyers and relatives, threats to their integrity and that of their loved ones, deployment of weapons and elements of torture, intentional submission to anguish and uncertainty due to the situation of a family member, and humiliation, degradation and verbal abuse.

“All these forms of torture are applied in a widespread and systematic way, without any limitation, except (we can intuit) the conscientious objection of some commanders or guards. It is alarming that all the most common tortures are, if we analyze them, a set of simple and direct tools, and that they do not require excessive need for control,” the report denounces.

The data of this complaint will be transferred to various international organizations such as the United Nations Committees against Torture and the Rights of the Child, as well as the Human Rights Council and several special organization speakers. The data will also be sent to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and embassies and representatives of more than 50 democratic governments, among other recipients.

The press conference was also attended by the Cuban jurist Fernando Almeyda — an activist of the Archipelago group who went into exile in February 2022 — in charge of collecting a large part of the cases, as well as several European deputies, including Leopoldo López Gil, Javier Nart and the vice president of the European Parliament, Dita Charanzová.

Both Larrondo and Nart attacked the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, for not having pronounced on the political prisoners on his recent visit to Cuba.

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuban President Diaz-Canel Praises ‘Friend Putin’ on Russian Television and Asks the World To ‘Move Away From the Dollar’

The president explained to Cuban journalist Aliana Nieves “the place occupied by the nation in the current geopolitical context.” (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 May 2023 — In front of the Russian television cameras, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel once again declared his unconditional friendship with Vladimir Putin. In a long interview, he defended the Social Communication Law recently approved by Parliament and called on the peoples of the world to “move away from the dollar.”

In the conversation, broadcast by the Russia Today television network and available from this Tuesday to Cubans, the president explained to Cuban journalist Aliana Nieves “the place occupied by the nation in the current geopolitical context.”

Díaz-Canel didn’t mince words: “I consider President Putin as a friend. A sincere friend to Cuba. And he has also demonstrated it with actions,” he said. “There is an excellent relationship between the Russian Federation and Cuba,” despite the fact that at some point there may have been “incomprehension or some fracture” between the two countries.

However, all the rough edges were smoothed out, he said, in November 2022, when a Cuban government delegation went to Moscow in search of economic support. “I felt an enormous understanding from President Putin about Cuba’s problems and situation,” he said.

Díaz-Canel exalted Putin as a “Russian and world leader” with whom he claimed to “coincide on many points of the international agenda.”

He also referred to the “historic ties” between Havana and Moscow since Soviet times, including, he said, in the family sphere: “There are Cuban-Russian families, and an important part of the skilled workforce talent that we have in our country was educated in Russia, with a whole exchange.” continue reading

He emphasized what he described weeks ago as his support for Russia’s “energetic condemnation of the West,” although this time he limited himself to “strongly condemning” NATO for “expanding its borders” with Russia.

From Moscow, he summarized, the Island hopes for food, medicines, tourists and economic and commercial support. At the end of the statement, Nieves alluded to the “hope” that was causing the signing of so many bilateral agreements in economic matters, “that ought to or have been translated into everyday life.” Díaz-Canel agreed with the comment and added that the changes would occur “in the medium term.”

To the question about his detractors’ concerns about the Kremlin’s “advice” to the Cuban business sector, Díaz-Canel responded that you have to see “where those doubters come from.”

He claimed that the United States should be the real concern, because it “tightens the screws” more and more. “They give false expectations of an alleged effort to improve the Cuban situation, and everything we experience is the opposite,” he said, not clarifying if he was referring to the Cuban government’s discussions with Washington.

Asked about Cuba’s future role in the context of the economic alliance between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), Díaz-Canel again attacked the United States and limited himself to saying that the Island hopes for a “multilateralism” where Russia also has a leading role.

“BRICS is considering separating from dollarization,” he said, and he pointed out his “strategy”: “By moving away from the dollar, the sanctions imposed by the United States are avoided. Cuba is an example of that,” he said, without alluding to the fact that international remittances in dollars and euros keep the precarious national economy afloat.

One of the measures to incorporate trade with Russia, he added, has been to open subsidiaries of Cuban banks in Russia and branches of Russian banks and financial agencies on the Island.

As for the Social Communication Law, Díaz-Canel called it “historic,” since none of his predecessors in the Government had dealt with the issue, and the legislation, in that sense, “was totally outdated.” “It cannot be a law that remains for many years,” he said, because of the “tremendous speed” at which communications technology advances.

In the context of the law’s approval and the justification for its severity, the president followed the usual script: “Cuba, like other countries, is totally assaulted in the media by campaigns of hatred, slander and discredit, which come from imperial centers of power supported by the US Government,” he said.

“Networks are less and less democratic and are managed by a small number of transnationals” with their own interests, he alleged. His solution? “Post our own content,” adding that he intends for the Cuban population to “know how to communicate” in that way.

Díaz-Canel said that he had achieved “consensus” with the citizenry and was implementing a “culture of debate”: “This is a paradigm that many in the world defend, but that is broken when they try to fracture the dialogues, when others say different things than those they want to impose,” he said, without alluding to the severity of the recently approved law that even penalizes interaction on social networks.

He dedicated the last part of the interview to China but did not describe the present state of its relations with the Island. He limited himself, again, to criticizing the United States and theorizing about the “Taiwan issue,” which threatens the “reunification” that Havana and its allies defend.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With the Murder of Anay Perez, There Are 32 Cuban Victims of Sexist Violence This Year

Anay Pérez was murdered by her partner at home in Guanábana, Matanzas. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 May 2023 — The death of Anay Pérez is the 32nd femicide of the year in Cuba, a figure that predicts that sexist violence will take more lives of Cuban women than in 2022, when there were 34 events reported by independent organizations and media. Journalist Alberto Arego confirmed with sources close to the victim that her partner killed her this Monday in Guanábana, Matanzas.

According to Arego’s report, a friend of the victim confirmed that the man, identified as Yosvani Torreblanca, killed her in the bathroom of her home around 3:00 in the morning and then turned himself in to the police. “The mother was the first to see her. She had to be sedated because she was very upset. It couldn’t have been easy at all. They didn’t let us see her because she was disfigured,” he said.

“Tata, you left me like that all of a sudden. You didn’t deserve this. You were just a little girl of only 21 years old that everyone here in the neighborhood loved; your life didn’t have to end like this. We will miss you a lot,” the journalist quotes a family member.

The scene of this femicide is about 19 miles away from the small town of Cidra, in the municipality of Unión de Reyes, where last week a triple homicide of a couple and their eight-year-old son took place. The preliminary version given by the authorities and acquaintances of the victims is that the motive of the crime was robbery. continue reading

The murderer, a former soldier, first killed his father, Maykel González Medina, and threw him into a pit that was near a workshop. Then he went to the victim’s house, where he attacked Linet Lucia and her son. The family is survived by a daughter who was not at home.

Meanwhile, the list of femicides continues to increase, and in the last week alone three more deaths were reported. Last Thursday, the Yo Sí Te Creo [Yes I Do Believe You] platform confirmed the murder of a woman identified as Tomasa, in the Havana neighborhood of Luyanó in the early morning of May 24.

In addition, independent journalist Claudia Padrón Cueto confirmed the murder of Daniela Thalia Tasse Arias, whom her partner killed with a knife at the Luis Marcano school, in Bayamo (Granma). Another case was that of Yericel Hernandez González, murdered in Guantánamo by her husband last Friday.

In the first five months of 2023, February has been the deadliest, with 11 femicides reported by independent organizations that keep a record in the absence of official statistics. April follows with six deaths.

Last April, Miguel Díaz-Canel said that his Government will have “zero tolerance” for sexist violence, but Cuban legislation still does not classify femicide as a crime, despite the repeated calls of feminist organizations. A month after those statements, the Supreme People’s Court of Cuba reported that in 2022 there were 18 convictions on the Island for sexist murders. The institution said that the sanctions exceed 25 years in prison and that the convicts range in age from 20 to 44 years.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Dengue Cases in Santiago de Cuba Reach Disturbing Levels, Especially in Palma Soriano

Fumigation in Camagüey to prevent dengue. (14ymedio/archive)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 May 2023 – – The rainy season is just beginning and dengue threatens again. In Santiago de Cuba, the contagion figures are already worrying, as an article published this Saturday in Sierra Maestra warns.

“In recent days the number of medical attentions for non-specific febrile syndrome has increased, as well as reactive cases,” says the article, which also warns, as if it were a war report: “With a high-risk infestation index (0.6) and more than 1,800 foci detected (almost 200 more than at the same stage of the previous cycle), the invincible territory has a high probability of moving towards epidemiological events, if a true popular movement for the prevention of the viral infection is not achieved.”

According to the official newspaper, the municipality of Palma Soriano is the one with the worst panorama, and that is why “entomological control actions” (fumigations) are carried out there in about 4,000 homes.

“It is expected that in the coming weeks suspected cases of dengue will continue to appear,” says the report, which also recognizes that the control of the disease “slows down because the economic difficulties that the country is going through limit the size and scope of anti-vector and other actions aimed at eliminating environmental conditions favorable to the insect.” continue reading

As an example of these conditions, Sierra Maestra talks about the “difficulties” in supplying drinking water and eliminating both wastewater and solid garbage, the optimal ecosystem for the reproduction of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits both dengue and chikungunya.

“The answer to these problems escapes from the actions of Public Health and requires a better performance of Municipal Services and Aguas Santiago (also hit by the scarcity of resources), as well as a greater collaboration of the population, responsible for their health in the first place,” the newspaper says.

And they insist: “If economic conditions have not changed substantially in 2023, you do not have to be an expert to understand that, for the moment, it is impossible to carry out large campaigns.”

Given the possibility that the population does not go to the doctor in a timely manner, as happened in 2022, the provincial newspaper warns of the “danger of staying at home in the face of symptoms such as fever, general malaise and muscle, joint, retrorbital (behind the eyes) and head pain, since dengue can evolve into serious and life-threatening forms.”

Last year, “the most complex of the last 15 years,” in the words of Sierra Maestra, dengue was rampant in several provinces, but especially in Santiago de Cuba, where an incidence rate of 65.2 per 100,000 inhabitants was recorded in November.

The situation was aggravated by the presence of severe or hemorrhagic dengue, which was not alerted by the Ministry of Public Health but by doctors in their personal capacity. “In previous epidemics, perhaps approximately 1% of cases had signs of alarm (those that alert you that the patient is not progressing well), but now it is more than 30%,” a doctor confessed to this newspaper.

The authorities did not give the official death toll at any time, although social networks and the independent press recorded several deaths of health professionals.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Lightning Kills an Employee of Union Del Niquel, a Cuban Partner of the Canadian Sherritt Company in Moa

Those affected were transferred to the Guillermo Luis Hospital, in Moa. (Rubiel De La Cruz Rabí/ Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 May 2023 — A lightning strike caused an electric shock in front of the Nickel Union Service Company in Moa (Holguín) and ended the life of one of the workers, Dunielkis Fonseca Borges, in addition to affecting six other people. All of them were employees of the state company and were waiting for transportation to return to their homes when the event occurred.

As a result, Fonseca Borges, “Muma,” who was a specialist in economic management, had to be resuscitated at the site of the discharge but died after again suffering cardiorespiratory arrest upon arriving at the Guillermo Luis hospital, where all the employees were treated.

Another of those affected is pregnant but, like the rest of those treated, she is out of danger.

According to the official newspaper of Holguín, Ahora, Bárbaro Aguilera Pelegrín, a safety and health specialist of the emergency group of the nickel company Comandante Pedro Sotto Alba, said his workers went to the place quickly after hearing the cries for help from those affected, since their facilities are a few meters from the point where lightning struck. continue reading

Three people were lying on the ground when the emergency teams arrived, although only one — the deceased — had to be resuscitated.

The death of Fonseca Borges is the third of a nickel industry worker in Moa to be mourned in the last two months. On May 17, the Canadian company Sherritt International reported the death in a work accident of a worker who fell from a ladder in the nickel-cobalt mine that is located in that town in the East.

On April 24, another employee of the company died, that time in an accident with a vehicle.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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