Translator: Regina Anavy – Page 21

The Political Police Arrest Cuban Opponent Oscar Biscet in Havana

Oscar Elías Biscet, Cuban opponent. (University of Miami)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, January 9, 2024 — Cuban opponent Oscar Elías Biscet, founder of the Emilia Project that seeks to restore democracy in Cuba, was arrested on Monday near his home in the Lawton neighborhood, in Havana, according to his wife, Elsa Morejón.

“At 8:00 am Oscar planned to go to a meeting with a group of activists in El Vedado to take stock of the project’s work for the tenth anniversary of its founding. When he left the house, Patrol Car 091 was already waiting for him with two uniformed and two civilian agents,” Morejón told 14ymedio.

According to Biscet’s wife, the agents “waited for him to walk down Milagros Street and get away from the house.” “They do that because they know that I record them,” she explains. The activist was finally arrested two blocks away, on the corner of Milagros and 8th, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre. “The neighbors warned me of the arrest, and I saw the police walking down the street with him,” she adds. continue reading

The activist was finally arrested two blocks away, on the corner of Milagros and 8th, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre

Asked if she knows the whereabouts of Biscet, Morejón says that she doesn’t. “The police’s methodology has always been to come to the house, and if Oscar is there they arrest him, because they know he’s going to leave. I looked out on the balcony and told him that the patrol was there, but he told me that he had to leave, that he was not going to be a prisoner in his own home and had to keep his word and attend the meeting,” she said.

Morejón tried to communicate with the rest of the activists to find out if they had also been arrested, but at the moment she cannot access the Internet. “I can’t post on social networks, I only have WhatsApp occasionally.”

She did, however, manage to contact the wife of José Elías González Agüero, in whose house the meeting would take place. “He told me that the ground floor of his building was surrounded by police officers who did not let anyone in or leave. Everyone who approaches the house is arrested,” says Morejón. “I don’t know if other activists have been arrested or not.”

Lawyer Marcell Felipe, leader of Inspire America – an organization dedicated to “inspiring freedom” in Cuba and the American continent – told the EFE agency that all the phones of the leaders of the Emilia Project are cut off, and they have not been able to find out anything about Biscet’s fate. The opponent, who is a doctor by profession, has been imprisoned on numerous occasions and was one of the 75 sentenced to more than 20 years in prison in the Black Spring of 2003.

Biscet was released in March 2011 in a process of release of political prisoners carried out by the Cuban regime

Biscet was released in March 2011 in a process of release of political prisoners carried out by the Cuban regime with the mediation of the Catholic Church and the Spanish Government.

The Emilia Project, according to its website, is named after one of the Cuban heroines, Emilia Teurbe Tolón, the first Cuban woman banished for political reasons. She embroidered the first Cuban flag with the star and the blue and white stripes that became the national flag.

“Those of us who subscribe to this document, inspired by its patriotic example, propose to carry out this project whose essential objectives are fundamental human rights, democracy and the freedom of the Cuban people,” says the website.

In 2017 Oscar Elías Biscet was awarded by the Hispanic Leadership Institute of the US Congress, and in 2007 he received the Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Government Is Also Raising the Prices of Electricity and Fuel To Penalize Cubans ‘Who Use the Most’

In practice, the price of fuel will go up in in March and for electricity at the beginning of April. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 9 January 2024 — According to the Government, electricity and fuel will cost Cubans 25% more beginning March 1, when a new tariff, designed to “correct distortions” in the state budget, becomes effective. The price increase will affect those who use more than 500 kilowatts per hour (kWh) of electricity and all those who receive propane tanks, who will pay 225 pesos, 45 more than the current 180.

During their appearance this Monday on the television program Mesa Redonda, the ministers of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, and of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale, alleged that their goal is not to ruin the pockets of Cubans but to find a “fair” system to penalize “those who use the most” and, by the way, to revive the state coffers.

In practice, fuel will rise in price in March, but the increased charge for electricity will not be until the beginning of April.

In the case of propane, the ministers admitted that the argument of “saving” does not explain the increase in the price to the 1,700,000 customers who receive it today, but that in any case the additional cost will contribute to “eliminating the subsidy on imports” and transfer it to points of sale throughout the country. continue reading

In the case of propane, the ministers admitted that the argument of “savings” does not explain the increase in price to the 1,700,000 customers who receive it today

De la O Levy insisted that for several years they have been studying how to make the “high consumers” pay more, which in 2023 were 107,570 customers of the 4,078,909 that make up the residential sector. The senior official tried to reassure viewers with a fact: only 2.7% of the members of this sector consume more than 500 kWh on a regular basis, although in July and August the figure “increases to 217,000 customers,” 5.4% of consumers.

The non-residential sector – 39% of the country’s consumers, according to the minister – is easier to control. “We have put up with it,” he celebrated, alluding to the constant inspections and energy restrictions that his office has directed throughout the country.

“It’s not to harm anyone,” he said. “We know that we have reserves to achieve savings in our homes, which without decreasing the standard of living can be adjusted to 500 kWh or be very close to that. There are customers who exceed 500 kWh in July and August but then not in the rest of the year.”

The minister explained that customers who use 600 kWh with the current rate pay about 2,451 pesos, but beginning in March they will have to pay 2,681. The increase is only 230 pesos, he clarified, because the additional cost only applies to the kWh that exceed 500, subject to the penalty.

He continued: “If I use 700 kWh today, I would pay 3,396 pesos; with the new rate it would be 3,862 pesos, an increase of 13%. For a consumer of 1,800 kWh, the cost grows by 22%. He currently pays 14,901, while in the future he would pay 18,355 pesos,” and so on.

During the program, both ministers offered data on the circumstances that, in their opinion, make the increase in prices indispensable

The increase in the price of gas will “unload” the state Union Cuba-Oil (Cupet) of about 280 million pesos that it had to request from the State for transport and other expenses, claimed Regueiro Ale. “It is not precisely the savings that is encouraged, but we do manage to recover the reduction of subsidies in that value chain, because the company (Cupet) can recognize the costs and expenses it has been incurring,” he said.

A network of social workers has identified “vulnerable people and nuclei,” who will not be able to “face” the new prices and for which measures are “being studied,” such as granting “subsidies to people who really require differentiated attention according to their capacity, their purchasing power.”

During the program, both ministers offered data on the circumstances that, in their opinion, make the increase in prices indispensable. First of all is the fact that 2023 was a record year of electricity consumption, which reached 64.5 gigawatts per hour in July.

In addition, in 2023, 2,300,000 household appliances entered Cuba, fewer than in 2022 – 3,430,000 devices – but much more than in 2021, when 2,240,000 arrived. The Island has half a million electric motorcycles, “which are mostly charged from the electrical system and not from renewable energy sources because we don’t yet have those possibilities,” they reported.

De la O Levy also said that inspectors are detecting more and more electricity fraud, and the deficit of meters in the country facilitates the increase in illegalities

De la O Levy also said that inspectors are detecting more and more electrical fraud, and the deficit of meters that the country is going through facilitates the increase in illegalities, he lamented. “The other thing is the fraud from manipulating the meter, diverting the circuit from the house or getting the direct connection outside the meter. We are having a strong battle to end that. We are going through 226,000 frauds detected in the last period, and we know that fraud is being committed because we are reading it in the difference between the energy that is generated and the energy that is charged. There are commercial losses, but the difference is that these being stolen from us. What they steal is almost what the Guiteras plant generates,” he explained.

The increase in electricity and gas prices follows that of fuel – which the ministers also reported on Monday – the cost of which will be quintupled beginning February 1.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Avalanche of Petitions From Argentina and Cuba To Apply for Spanish Nationality

Volunteers work on the digitization of the parish records transferred to the new headquarters of the Diocesan Historical Archive of Palencia. (EFE/Almudena Álvarez)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Almudena Álvarez, Palencia (Spain), January 9, 2024 — Dozens of petitions arrive every week to the Bishopric of Palencia, from different parts of Argentina and Cuba, to request the necessary documentation that proves the Spanish ancestry of the applicants so they can initiate the necessary procedures to acquire Spanish nationality.

This is one of the numerous utilities of the Diocesan Archive of Palencia, recently digitized in a database with 1.7 million records from 27,000 sacramental books containing data from parishioners dating back to the 16th century.

Since the Law of Democratic Memory was approved, which allows the great-grandchildren of Spaniards of origin to apply for nationality without having to wait for the parent, grandson or granddaughter of Spanish origin to obtain it in advance, the ecclesiastical records have received an avalanche of petitions.

“During the days of Christmas that we have been closed, more than fifty have accumulated,” says its director, Dionisio Antolín

Dozens of petitions arrive at the Diocesan Archive of Palencia every week. “During the days of Christmas that we have been closed, more than fifty have accumulated,” says its director, Dionisio Antolín, who emphasizes continue reading

that there are many descendants of emigrants, mainly Argentines and Cubans, who look for their roots in the ecclesiastical records to request Spanish nationality.

Through these searches, not only do they get a paper to apply for nationality, but in many cases ties are strengthened, because “the children and grandchildren of emigrants are finding relatives, cousins that in many cases they did not know they had,” he added.

Applying for Spanish nationality and tracing the family tree to find your roots going back to 1540 is possible thanks to the records of the church, which for centuries has counted every birth, marriage and death in each town in Spain.

In Palencia, 27,000 sacramental books containing data about millions of people have now been safely transferred to a new facility.

The Diocese Archive of Palencia has just moved. Until now it was located in the episcopal palace, but the risk posed by obsolete installations for the integrity of the documents that were kept there encouraged the Diocese to transfer them to another place that would ensure their conservation and consultation.

This move contained the history of the men and women who had lived in the province of Palencia since 1540, when some experienced parishes began to make the first records

This Tuesday, the apostolic bishop-administrator of Palencia, Manuel Herrero, and the director of the archive, Dionisio Antolín, inaugurated the new headquarters on San Marcos Street, in the facilities of the Major Seminary, which until recently occupied the Digital Space of the Junta de Castilla y León.

This move contained the history of the men and women who lived in the province of Palencia from 1540, when some experienced parishes began to make the first records, since these were not mandatory until 1563 with the Council of Trent.

They encompass a huge number of documents, and the data allow the tracing between the past and the present by reading the birth and baptism certificates, death certificates, marriages, confirmations and all the sacraments that the parishioners received.

These books provide a testimony of the inhabitants of the province, “to know who they married, the children they had, who were the godparents,” explained Dionisio Antolín, but also to trace the family tree of any family since 1540.

“They are sacramental books that make us aware of the lives of the men and women of the province over the centuries,” Antolín insisted, appealing to the pride of having a human heritage “that should interest us all and that must be preserved.”

“We know that they were important data to avoid blood marriages at a time when someone born in a town often lived, married and died in the same place”

“We have to know that they were important data to avoid blood marriages at a time when someone born in a town often lived, married and died in the same place. They also bring us closer to epidemics that decimated the population in many towns.”

As the director of the archive explains, a total of 12,000 folders have been moved from the old facilities located in the Bishopric.

Each folder can contain one to five books, although some are so large that they do not fit into a single one. “We can say that there will be around 27,000 sacramental books of baptism, marriage and death mainly,” he said.

But in addition to these sacramental books, the ecclesiastical records preserve other parish books such as those about accounts, the factories, the brotherhoods, the minutes and the papal bulls that construct the history of each town and city.

Because, as Antolín points out, the history of a territory is not only made of great feats but is also supported by the lives of the men and women who inhabited them, and the ecclesiastical records and parish books are full of data that contribute to reconstructing that past.

So far, about 5,000 books have been digitized, and 1,700,000 records have been incorporated

Now, the entire file is being digitized and indexed, a huge task to which 92 volunteers dedicate hours and hours. Their quiet work has allowed, for example, Dionisio Antolín himself to be able to dive into the history of his last name and go back to 1570 in the history of his family in his hometown, Villanueva del Río.

And it will allow anyone interested to do the same by searching a database that grows every day. At the moment, about 5,000 books have been digitized, and 1,700,000 records have been incorporated.

“Each record includes the name and surnames of a person, the names of their parents, their date of birth, baptism, their godparents, maternal and paternal grandparents….” And between 1,700 and 2,000 records are being incorporated every day, he added.

In addition, before long, this database will be accessible through a website without having to search the computers located in the main room of the new archive.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Lies Are the Foundation of Castro Totalitarianism

The José Martí monument in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery. The first big lie was to link Jose Martí with the insurrectional process and the subsequent dictatorship that was imposed. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, January 7, 2024 — The totalitarian Castro regime was constituted and established based on a network of lies and myths that have been reconstructed for generations, always maintaining a false epic and honor that do not correspond to the historical truth, creating a narrative of heroic victimization that confused and made it possible to manipulate large sectors of the population for decades.

The first big lie was to link Jose Martí with the insurrectional process and the subsequent dictatorship that was imposed. Martí was a passionately free man, and freedom was the foundation of his luminous thought.

It is completely false to see the heroism of the brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro in the attack on the Moncada barracks. The missing dictator-in-chief never entered the military bastion, and his heir attacked the Palace of Justice. Both were later arrested without presenting resistance, although they were armed. continue reading

It is illusory to describe the arrival of the Granma yacht on the Cuban coast as a “landing”. In reality, it was a shipwreck, another great mistake of Fidel Castro, which showed, like the failed attack on the Moncada barracks, the strategic incapacity of someone who resorted to extreme violence with the sole purpose of projecting himself as a national figure.

The terrible preparation of the two operations testifies, without a doubt, that Fidel only sought popularity by killing those who disagreed with him. He tried, by their deaths, to procure followers.

The dictatorship has tried to match the heroic feat of the Mambisa invasion led by General Máximo Gómez and Lieutenant General Antonio Maceo with the incursion commanded by the serial killers Ernesto Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, two absolutely different events in purposes and results.

The modest guerrilla activities commanded by the sadly famous brothers in the mountains of the province of Oriente have been magnified.

There is no doubt that in the eastern mountains they fought against the Army of the Republic, but not to the extent that official propaganda has disseminated, with the sole objective of giving undeserved laurels to the evil brothers and their unconditional supporters: Guevara, Cienfuegos and the unscrupulous hitman Ramiro Valdés.

Another farce is the vaunted attack on the armored train, a term that intimidates but that in reality was not as protected as the propaganda says. In addition, the personnel it was transporting were not combat personnel but engineers and other soldiers who had the mission of repairing the tracks, without ignoring that the train, according to numerous complaints, was economically negotiated with the military chief in charge of it.

The control of information, in addition to the moral shooting of organizations and people, prevented the population from accessing investigations that allowed them to balance the knowledge of the past.

The control of information, in addition to the moral shooting of organizations and people, prevented the population from accessing investigations that would allow it to balance the knowledge of the past

A notable example is that the Castro dictatorship has always promoted the July 26 Movement as if it had been the only organization that dignifiedly fought the military regime of Fulgencio Batista, when in reality there were several that fought against the general, such as the Segundo Frente Nacional del Escambray, the Organización Auténtica and the Directorio Revolucionario, among others.

Another great lie on which totalitarianism was based was that 20,000 people lost their lives during the insurrectionary process. This false information came from Bohemia magazine – at the time under the direction of its founder, Miguel Ángel Quevedo – and from one of the greatest pimps disguised as a journalist – totalitarianism has had many – Enrique de la Osa.

The true figure was made public by Colonel and historian Ramon Barquín, head of the Conspiracy of the Cigars, a military faction that opposed General Batista in 1956, who was imprisoned for attempting a military coup against the regime of March 10.

According to Colonel Barquín, author of several books on the history of Cuba, including The Day Fidel Castro Seized Cuba, the death toll of both forces amounts to 2,495, a remarkable number of lives lost, but very far from the official figure of the regime.

In these 65 years the lies have been many, the destruction of Cuba, almost absolute.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘The Cuban State No Longer Has Money To Pay Waste Collectors, so I Sell to the Private Companies’

Cooking pots like pressure cookers are made from the processing of cans. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Miguel García, Holguín, 7 January 2023 — Search, collect and crush. Ramón’s day, at age 57, contains those three actions. He makes his rounds through the city center of Holguín, where cans of soft drinks or beer can be more common in the trash. Then, after several days of accumulating, he sells his loot to an intermediary who will take it to a workshop where it is turned into slotted spoons, frying pans, pots and buckets.

“It’s been more than three years since the Raw Materials Recovery Company here had almost no money to pay the collectors, so now I only sell to private companies,” Ramón tells 14ymedio. “Many people have left this job because they earn less and less, and it depends on many things, so everything is very insecure.”

Ramón needs a lot of tourists to arrive in Holguín because they empty thousands of cans a week, and he can “fish” them out from the city’s broken garbage containers. “Now fewer foreigners come, and the soft drinks that are sold almost all come in small bottles, which is not what I pick up. My thing is aluminum.”

On the outskirts of the rustic workshop, the cans that have previously been collected and crushed accumulate. (14ymedio)

Born in 1968, the same year of the Revolutionary Offensive that erased the private sector in Cuba with a stroke of a pen, this holguinero once dreamed of being an engineer, but a traffic accident caused him a head injury that left him with the inability to remember numbers, concentrate and even find his way home in the busy streets of the city. continue reading

“I made a living with whatever appeared, but since 2014 I have been doing this,” he explains. Although the Raw Materials Recovery Company has existed since 1961 on the Island, for decades its operation was nourished by the waste collected by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and the State centers in their days of voluntary work, or with the by-products of the State industry.

After the opening to tourism during the crisis of the 90s, not only did travelers arrive but also their waste. Canned beer was no longer a novelty to be sold in hotels, shops and cafes. National soft drinks were no longer distributed in the traditional glass bottles but in the lightest and easiest to handle aluminum containers. It was at that moment that the “can crushers” emerged everywhere.

“I made my neighbors crazy,” acknowledges Luisa, another 81-year-old from Holguin, who was one of the first in the city to take up collecting raw materials on her own. “I would come home with a sack or two and spend the whole afternoon crushing cans, I didn’t let any can get away,” she says. Now she has left the business “because it got very bad.”

For the collectors of 30 years ago, the problems were different. “We didn’t have a license; we had to hide every time a policeman passed by, and people treated us badly because they thought we were all crazy,” Luisa recalls. “Now you can ask for a permit and sell the cans legally in one of the State raw material houses, but there’s hardly any business.”

By 2013 the country already had more than 5,700 people who were registered as self-employed in that occupation

It was the economic easing promoted by Raúl Castro from 2008 that boosted the activity, and by 2013 the country already had more than 5,700 people who were registered as self-employed in that occupation, according to Jorge Tamayo, then director of the state Raw Materials Recovery Company.

“With four or five bags of cans that I sold a month, I earned more than my doctor brother,” Luisa recalls. “We made the slab for this house out of crushed cans, because before it was made of tiles, and it was always wet. I had agreements with the private tourist homes, who gave them to me before throwing them away, and I also made some contacts in hotels to pick them up twice a week.”

Over the years, there were delays in payments. “You took the raw material to the State premises, and they told you that you had to wait for the money.” The State began to decline in the organization of its points of purchase, and the private sector occupied the place left by the increasingly ailing State companies with insufficient resources.

The clandestine factories now absorb most of the cans recovered from the garbage. Many of the owners of these small industries do not even have a license to operate, or, if they have a permit, it only covers a small number of employees under their direction.

Image of a finished lid for a pressure cooker. (14ymedio)

In the People’s Council of San Rafael, Víctor, (his name was changed for this report), says that in his private workshop he has “six permanent workers, although, if the volume of work grows,” he hires new employees. “One manages the oven, three are turners and the other two finish the pieces, throwing away the garbage generated by the whole process and collecting the cans upon arrival,” he explains to this newspaper.

“The State pays 30 pesos per kilogram of aluminum, and you have to empty the cans of any liquid and put them in a well-tied bag. They can be whole or broken, but now they’re buying only two or three times a month because they don’t have a budget,” Víctor explains. “We can pay a little more, at 100 pesos, depending on the need we have, with no delays to collect.”

Víctor clarifies that his workshop buys from intermediaries, who in turn pay between 50 and 60 pesos per kilogram of cans to the collectors who look for the raw material on the streets. “Everyone wins because a relationship is established, and the intermediary is the one who responds to me, the one who shows his face and has to guarantee that the merchandise he sells me is good.”

The arrival of the pandemic, the closure of the borders to tourism and the drop in the number of visitors to the Island have also influenced the number of aluminum cans that are discarded every day. “It’s not like before. There are fewer, and many collectors have left because they can no longer earn the same, plus the prices of food and everything else have risen a lot.”

The arrival of the pandemic, the closure of the borders to tourism and the fall in the number of visitors to the Island have also influenced the number of aluminum cans that are discarded every day

The fall into disgrace of State premises for buying raw materials is evident. On a visit to the 12th Street of Reparto Nuevo Llano, this newspaper found that in mid-December there was only one employee, who warned collectors who arrived that they were not buying due to “lack of money.” In another, located on 28th Street of the Reparto Pueblo Nuevo, the scene was repeated: two workers with their arms crossed due to the absence of a budget.

In Victor’s workshop, however, the coming and going doesn’t stop. “We have a lot of demand for pots, pans, kitchen utensils, buckets, pitchers and many other products we make,” the entrepreneur acknowledges. “Here the oven stays on for a good part of the day, and when a can arrives, it comes out on the other side in the form of a lemon juicer or a ladle.”

“Even people who can buy an electric pressure cooker in MLC [freely convertible currency] also want to have their aluminum pitcher to heat the coffee,” he says. “They are durable things that can be used for many years, and if they are broken it is not a tragedy for the family; they buy another one and that’s that.”

With instruments, also handmade, they produce kitchen utensils out of aluminum. (14ymedio)

The ruin of the State houses for buying raw materials is the result of the national crisis in which Victor and his employees get profits. “With the opening of the MSMEs [small businesses], a few more cans of beer and soft drinks arrived. That makes us happy because the customers buy them; they buy a lot.”

Thrown on a street or inside a garbage container, Ramón’s agile hands will find that empty can left by a tourist or a national. A large, dark stone, taken from a nearby river, helps him reduce it to a thin sheet. Then it goes into the sack, later into the hands of the intermediary and then into the oven.

In her kitchen, the experienced Luisa knows that the slotted spoon she uses to stir the rice once contained beer or Coca-Cola. The path of recycled aluminum that people like her helped to start remains open.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘Writers and Artists Under Communism’, a Chronicle About the Cuban Government’s Hatred of Culture

Caption – Alfredo Guevara, Nicolás Guillén and Alejo Carpentier talk to Fidel Castro at a reception during the second UNEAC Congress in 1977. (Mario Ferrer/Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, January 6, 2024 — “Down with the apolitical writers! Down with the supermen of literature!” “Their original sin: they are not authentically revolutionary.” “Outside the Revolution, no rights.”

The law of eternal return presides over the tension between the intellectuals and communism. Guevara repeats Castro, and Castro repeats Stalin or Mao. Hundreds of pages can be filled about espionage, shootings, accusations and complicity with “red-flag fascism”. This is demonstrated by the formidable Writers and Artists under Communism (Arzalia), by the Spanish journalist Manuel Florentín.

The vortex has its origin in Lenin, the historian Antonio Elorza explains in his prologue to the volume. In 1905, long before his troops assaulted the Winter Palace, the Bolshevik leader defined what he would do with writers and artists if the revolution materialized. In one of his libels, Lenin openly affirms that the problematic Russian intelligentsia should behave like another “wheel and screw” of the great social watchmaking. For the misfits, exile or bullets.

Since then, the communist regimes of any continent have followed the advice of Moscow. The intellectual must be an “engineer of the soul,” a servant of the State, which will pamper him with perks and recognitions, or he must not exist at all. continue reading

As a reader and imitator of Lenin, Fidel Castro dodged the “problem” of the intellectuals until 1961. By that time, the writers close to the “maximum leader” had already prepared the ground. The well-known “guilt” for not having fought in the Sierra Maestra – of which Guevara knew well how to take advantage – impregnated numerous poems and slogans: “We, the survivors, to whom do we owe survival?” the cultural commissioner Roberto Fernández Retamar wrote early in 1959.

European revolutions failed or were corrupted; the Cuban one was the hope of Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Saramago, of Feltrinelli, Sontag and Graham Greene

The “great illusion” of the intellectuals was followed by the “great disenchantment,” says Florentín in the chapter of his book dedicated to Cuba. European revolutions failed or were corrupted; the Cuban one was the hope of Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Saramago, of Feltrinelli, Sontag and Graham Greene. Others, such as Vargas Llosa or Gabriel García Márquez, soon traveled to Havana, invited by the Casa de las Américas.

The disappointment could be seen coming. Politically and militarily, dissident heads had fallen since 1959 itself, with Huber Matos and other senior officials. Castro’s chess was aggressive and incessant, and when it was the writers’ turn, he already had enough power to speak clearly.

The son of communists – and “vaccinated,” he clarified, against the viruses of Moscow – Guillermo Cabrera Infante was sitting at the same table as Castro during his famous Words to the Intellectuals. With a privileged view of the caudillo’s revolver, he soon understood what for several decades the lobotomized intellectuals tried to hide: culture was – and still is – a slave of ideology.

As a minor diplomat in Brussels, Cabrera Infante’s break with the Regime was the loudest and most militant until the arrival of Reinaldo Arenas. For Cabrera Infante, Cuba was “far from God and close to Mefistófeles”; for Arenas, who had a rougher time and life, his was a country of “scoundrels, criminals, demagogues and cowards.”

Cabrera Infante’s break with the Regime was the loudest and most militant until the arrival of Reinaldo Arenas

Florentín dedicates a section to the closure, in 1965, of Ediciones El Puente. Friends of the American poet Allen Ginsberg – who was expelled from Cuba for denouncing the persecution of homosexuals – the young, avant-garde poets were sent to the camps called Military Units to Support Production (UMAP), and, over time, they marched into exile. The cigar wrappers on which Ernesto Díaz Rodríguez wrote his poems from prison are the symbol of a generation.

But nothing better illustrates the tension between Castro and the Cuban intelligentsia than the Padilla case, in 1971, which has been the subject of debate again after the eponymous documentary by Pavel Giroud, with unpublished recordings of that day. Everything that the ideological purge had as a ritual is evident in those images.

Heberto Padilla’s punishment was the initial shot in an “uncomfortable” hunt. Paradiso, from Lezama, was removed from bookstores; Virgilio Piñera and Antón Arrufat saw their careers as playwrights cut off; hundreds of manuscripts were discarded as unpublishable; and Norberto Fuentes – fallen out of favor and rehabilitated several times – had to resort to powerful friends like Gabriel García Márquez to earn Castro’s favor once again, lost when he published Condenados de Condado.

The survival of the Cuban regime is an anomaly. So is its cultural apparatus, composed of bureaucrats and informants whose careers depend on their almost abject loyalty to power. Florentín closes his Cuban chapter with a biographical sketch of the poet Raúl Rivero, forced into exile, a long tradition that began in the 19th century with José María Heredia and continues today with so many writers and artists from the Island.

However, the worst thing – says Florentín – is the naivety, always complicit, of those who defend communist regimes as dreams of freedom. They are not, and Rivero, who suffered several boycotts from young pro-Castro attendees during his conferences in Spain, made it clear: “Their dream is the Cubans’ nightmare.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Two Cuban Companies Compete in the Blue-Scorpion Fraud Against Cancer

The directors of Labiofam in Las Tunas launched a crusade on Wednesday to contain “the indiscriminate hunting of the blue scorpion.” (Periódico 26)

14ymedio, Havana, January 5, 2024 — Gema, a 65-year-old from Havana, received the news in 2013 that she had liver cancer at a fairly advanced stage. In a rapid physical decline, she clung to the recommendation made by a neighbor to look for blue scorpion venom, because the product could “stop the advance of cancer.” In a tiny jar accompanied by a dropper, the woman obtained a few millimeters of a liquid that she had to mix with plenty of water and consume every day. When the amount of venom in the bottle decreased, she made new contacts to buy the “miracle formula.”

Without a label, expiration date and sold in the informal market, the veracity and effectiveness of the product was based on trust. “The person who sells it to me gets it from a laboratory, where they discovered its properties,” she said one day to friends who were curious about the venom. Hundreds of pesos later and after many glasses of diluted drops, she died. She still had two jars of scorpion venom left that her nephew sold to another interested patient. A couple of small, amber-colored jars, unlabeled, surrounded by promises of improvement and recovery.

Patients from all over the world have come to Cuba as a lifeline since, in 2011, the state-owned Labiofam introduced Vidatox, a drug whose active ingredient was the venom of the Cuban blue scorpion (Rhopalurus junceus), to which it attributed “proven anti-tumor, analgesic and anti-inflammatory efficacy.” The researcher in charge of explaining the product – and its master mind – was the young microbiologist Alexis Díaz, who then reported that there were already customers eager to try it in Spain, Italy, Albania and several Latin American countries.

In a few years, the drug was so discredited worldwide that some customers and relatives of deceased patients ended up calling it “Cuban water”

Vidatox was not the hen with the golden egg that Havana was hoping for, although hundreds of patients bought it, and many paid for months of continue reading

treatments in Cuba. Soon, international oncologists began to warn cancer patients about the scam. In a few years, the drug was so discredited worldwide that some clients and relatives of deceased patients ended up calling it “Cuban water.” To keep a low profile, Labiofam then began to qualify Vidatox as a homeopathic product (a pseudotherapy based on water and alcohol solutions).

In an unprecedented acrobatic maneuver in Cuban Public Health, the creative team of Vidatox – including Díaz – shut down Labiofam and formed a new international research group, Lifescozul, which claimed to sell “the most advanced formulation of the blue scorpion venom” – Escozul – while harshly criticizing Vidatox.

Vidatox, they insist, is manufactured by Labiofam, a company that specializes in “products for veterinary use,” and does not contain “a single molecule of the blue scorpion venom.” But the criticism doesn’t stop there, Díaz’s team warns. Vidatox not only does not cure anyone but also “causes and accelerates metastases due to the high degree of alcohol it contains.”

On the contrary, they argue, the Escozul brand – “created by Cuban scientists” supervised by Díaz – is available in more than 30 countries, although “it is in the Health Registration phase” for commercialization. The company’s website has several spaces devoted to “scientific data” disproving the effectiveness of Vidatox.

The fine print of the Lifescozul chronology clarifies the origins of the scism: the group “was founded by Cuban scientists and doctors who once worked at Labiofam and decided not to continue when the management of Labiofam chose to market a homeopathic product without the properties of the blue scorpion venom. That product was called Vidatox 30CH.”

The Cuban State facilitates the work of Lifescozul and does not penalize its activity in any way. The most solid proof is the commercialization of treatments with blue scorpion venom offered to foreigners

How is a discord of that level possible between two pharmaceutical companies that belong to the same State health system? Does the Ministry of Public Health punish Díaz and his team for selling a drug that competes with Vidatox, manufactured in the same laboratories as the advertised Cuban vaccines against the coronavirus?

The answer is negative: the Cuban State facilitates Lifescozul’s work and does not penalize its activity in any way. The most solid proof is the commercialization of treatments with the blue scorpion venom. The treatment is offered to foreign patients and has to be done in a hotel or in hospital facilities administered by the Government, such as the La Pradera International Health Center, founded by Fidel Castro in 1996, and the Lifescozul headquarters in Havana.

If a cancer patient wants to be treated by Escozul in Cuba, he will have to pay $1,200 – perhaps more, if he goes in the “high season” for tourism – and spend three months in Cuba for an initial treatment. The cost includes the visa, insurance, stay, transportation, food and the “appointment with the producer.” If he wants the medicine to be sent to his country, he has to pay between 80 and 110 dollars per month for the duration of the treatment. But, they clarify, the most advisable thing is to go to the Island.

The empire continues to grow, always under “the highest authority” of Díaz. In 2018, they agreed on a research project with the University of Chile and the University of Talca, also in Chile. In 2021, they signed two contracts in Mexico, with the companies Pharmometrica and Research Pro. In 2022, they closed a deal with the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, to give more scientific weight to Escozul’s work. Díaz’s ambition is to obtain the Health Registry of the product, which would allow its authorized sale worldwide.

Labiofam managers in Las Tunas launched a crusade this Wednesday to contain “the indiscriminate hunting of the blue scorpion

However, new obstacles have appeared, and the future of Escozul and Vidatox – which the Cuban Government continues to sell – is in danger from the same source. The directors of Labiofam in Las Tunas launched a crusade on Wednesday to contain “the indiscriminate hunting of the blue scorpion and the misuse of its venom for health treatments.”

In the northern part of the province, where scorpions abound, an emergency meeting took place with the hunters, to make them see “reason.” Labiofam informed them that the arachnids “are part of the food chain with insects and pests in their diet,” so their extinction would be a problem for the local fauna.

Negotiation through the way of conscience did not, apparently, have too many results. Labiofam ended up promising “a payment system to hunters,” to “include them in the company’s human resources and thus ensure that the activity is safe.” To manufacture Vidatox in Las Tunas, they pointed out, between 400 and 600 scorpions must be hunted annually. They remain in captivity for two years and then, supposedly, about 14,000 are “freed” every year throughout the country.

Despite the “campaigns” of Escozul, Labiofam continues to sell its panacea against cancer and, in October 2022, protested because the United States prevented the purchase of about 50,000 bottles of the drug – the price of each: $40.78 – to “meet the potential demand” of Vidatox in that country. It was two million dollars that Cuba stopped earning due to the well-known blockade, said the company, which also complained about the “disinformation campaigns that hinder its registration and commercialization in some markets,” although it did not allude to Escozul.

The medical consensus on both products is categorical: it is not scientifically proven that scorpion venom can cure cancer. The prestigious cancer research center Memorial Sloan Kettering – founded in 1884 in the United States – has explained that the benefits attributed to Escozul and Vidatox “are mostly based on anecdotes, testimonies and experiments that may not have been executed correctly.” And it adds that “in Cuba, where these products originate, the Government rejected the use of Escozul in 2009 for not having enough information.”

Beyond the controversies between Vidatox and Escozul, the very expensive treatments and the undisclosed numbers of deaths of patients who trusted Labiofam and Lifescozul, the stories of patients who relied on scorpion venom are tragic, but they haven’t stopped the false hopes.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Perpetrator of Cuba’s First Femicide of 2024 Was Released on Bail for Another Crime

Cervantes was 29 years old at the time of her death. (Facebook/Diana Rosa Cervantes Mejías)

14ymedio, Havana, January 5, 2024 — The femicide of Diana Rosa Cervantes Mejías in Camagüey, which occurred on January 2, was confirmed this Thursday by the independent journalist Henry Constantín, who interviewed a relative of the victim and provided more details about the crime. The murder of Cervantes is the first case of violence against a women resulting in murder recorded by the independent media in 2024, after the previous year’s figure of 87 femicides on the Island.

According to a note published on Facebook by La Hora de Cuba, a media outlet directed by Constantín, Cervantes met her ex-partner last Tuesday in the house where they used to live together before separating, located “near the factory known as La Baldosera, in the Juruquey neighborhood” in Havana.

The 29-year-old victim was brutally beaten by the alleged aggressor, whose identity responds to the initials C.A.G. The man, said Constantín, who interviewed Cervantes’ mother, was on bail and awaiting trial at the time of the murder for having assaulted a co-worker “with a machete.”

Likewise, an anonymous source consulted by ’La Hora de Cuba’ characterized the alleged killer as “an abuser”

Several social media posts in recent days alleged that Cervantes had been beaten with a bat “out of jealousy.” Likewise, an anonymous source consulted by La Hora de Cuba characterized the alleged killer as “an abuser.” The aggressor “is now imprisoned,” this media confirmed, adding that Cervantes “left behind a nine-year-old boy.”

This Monday there was also news of the femicide of Nurisbel Guerra, a nurse resident in the Granma municipality of Cauto Cristo, who was serving on a medical mission in Venezuela. After returning to the Island for a few days on December 24, she was killed by her husband, who committed suicide after cutting her throat. The man, identified as Oreste Tamayo, from whom she intended to separate, was a worker at the Electricity Company of the province, as several media reported at the time.

The name “Guerra” was the last one added to the 87 femicides – more than double those quantified a year earlier (34) – that occurred on the Island in 2023, as confirmed by independent platforms and media.

This type of crime, which is not classified in the Criminal Code, has managed to attract the attention of the Island’s population, who demand a response from the authorities in the face of the “wave of violence” in the country that has claimed the lives of dozens of women.

For their part, both the official press and the authorities keep their distance from femicides, and their promises to prevent and quantify cases of violence against women in real time remain unfulfilled.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Etecsa Promises To Crack Down on ‘Digital Criminals’ Who Attack the Cuban Government’s Servers

A battalion of engineers has been training at the University of Computer Science for several years. (Facebook/UCI)

14ymedio, Havana, January 6, 2024 — The Cuban communications monopoly, Etecsa, revealed this Saturday that its cybersecurity experts recorded 2,600 incidents from January to September 2023, including numerous attacks and “complex intrusions” into banking and government servers, which are characterized by “the use of unauthorized systems and devices to share data that are of a confidential nature.”

Daniel Ramos, Business Director of Etecsa, said that most of the attacks have to do with “the sending and receiving of spam, malicious traffic generated by malicious codes, service scans and exploitation of vulnerabilities that have compromised websites and other computer elements.”

However, the official said he felt reassured about the future of cybersecurity in the country: a battalion of engineers has been training at the University of Computer Sciences (UCI) for several years, with a course plan that will train them to become the digital elite, with one goal: to make war on “cybercriminals” with a spoonful of their own medicine, Artificial Intelligence (AI), among the other tools used by “criminals,” Ramos said. continue reading

“Human error is one of the main causes of cyber incidents in State entities,” Ramos said

“Human error is one of the main causes of cyber incidents in State entities,” Ramos said. The cause: “violations of information security policies by those responsible for computer security and users of these technologies.”

In addition, he pointed out, in “work devices” – computers and the industrial phones of cadres and workers, subsidized by the Government – “weak passwords” are used, and it is common for “staff to visit unsafe websites.”

Some 8.4 million Cubans have an Internet connection, which also makes them vulnerable to threats, Ramos alleged. Some 70% of the cybersecurity “incidents” counted by Etecsa refer to “cyber harassment, identity theft and scams through digital social networks and electronic payment channels” such as Transfermóvil and EnZona, Ramos said.

Etecsa considers cybersecurity as an indispensable condition for the banking process set up by the authorities in August 2023. Without “high levels of security in the technological organizations involved” there will be no banking, the official warned. Ramos also asked for a “permanent update” of the telecommunications laws in Cuba.

The director of Etecsa, who alluded to Cuban servers as victims of “cyber enemies,” did not say a word about the complaints of international cybersecurity companies, which have warned about the intensification, since 2019, of the information manipulation campaigns that several Governments – including that of Cuba – have put at the center of their political agendas.

The proliferation of anonymous profiles, the generation of images and videos with AI and the dissemination of false content are some of the activities that characterize the work of these Internet groups, related to the Island’s regime and the governments of Russia, China, Iran, Mexico, Argentina, El Salvador and, in addition, organizations in Ethiopia, Indonesia and Ecuador, according to the American company Mandiant.

Although Mandiant does not reveal to what extent the Cuban regime is involved in the financing of these groups, its report takes as an example one of the false profiles created by a group related to the Government of Havana. The technique, they say, is the recreation of a digitally altered face so that it looks like the profile of a real person.

For more than a decade, activists have pointed out the ICU as the origin of these campaigns. Even the testimonies of graduates of that center confirm the hypothesis that students, among their teaching tasks, must carry out hacking and denial-of-service attacks on dissident sites, techniques that are now learned professionally, as Ramos explained, in the recent Cybersecurity major of the ICU.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Three Hours Stranded on the Highway, Cubans and Tourists Suffer the Negligence of Viazul

After half an hour, the driver gave his diagnosis: the transmission belt broke and, worst of all, he didn’t have a spare. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 4 January 2024 — The trip from Ciego de Ávila to Havana by bus is neither short nor cheap, but Maidelys is already used to it. This habanera has been traveling that road by public transport for ten years every time she has a vacation, to visit a sister in the central province. Although the distance is about 400 kilometers, or 250 miles, the trip between the two cities by road takes almost eight hours. That is, if there are no unforeseen events like those that happened this Wednesday, which caused her to arrive three hours later.

As has been customary for a long time, another brother, an emigrant, had given her the ticket, which cost 28 euros, buying it on the Viazul website, where payment is only accepted with foreign cards. Very few can afford these prices, so the vehicle, coming from Santiago de Cuba, was full of foreign tourists, many of them Cuban-Americans, with very few domestic travelers.

The bus left at six in the morning from Ciego de Ávila, and Maidelys fell asleep right away, until they reached the next stop, Sancti Spíritus. “Fortunately it was one of the comfortable buses, because in some Astros [National Bus Company] I can’t get a wink of sleep,” she says. “Once I traveled in one that had no floor in front of my seat, and I spent the whole trip thinking that if I fell asleep I would fall through the hole.”

“There’s a goldmine here,” is how Maidelys described the atmosphere of Las Palmas restaurant. (14ymedio)

Another advantage of going in a “tourist” vehicle is that they have hot food at the stops. “With the bus of the proletariat, there’s only sugar and more sugar,” Maidelys jokes, referring to the soft drinks and cookies sold at the government stops.

At kilometer 139 of the National Highway, after passing Santa Clara, the bus stopped for breakfast. “There’s a goldmine here,” is how Maidelys described the atmosphere of the Las Palmas restaurant, a “grill” where the meat dishes cost 2,000 pesos, the sandwiches go from 600 to 1,200, and a continue reading

malted milkshake costs 500. They also sold boxes of cigars for 120 dollars, although some foreigners haggled until they got them down to 110.

Everything seemed to be in order – they had already passed through the provinces of Cienfuegos and Matanzas – when with just under an hour and a half left to reach the capital, at kilometer 72 on the highway, at the height of Nueva Paz in Mayabeque, the vehicle stopped.

“At first you only heard the driver and someone else, like a baggage handler, and no one worried,” says Maidelys. “But then the air conditioning turned off, and people began to protest, saying it was a lack of respect, what with the cost of the ticket.”

An almendrón — a classic American car operating as a shared taxi — stopped to help, but they didn’t have the right part, and then a Transgaviota bus, which didn’t have any spare parts either.” (14ymedio)

After half an hour, the driver gave his diagnosis: the transmission belt broke and, worst of all, he did not have a spare. He did not say if they would have to wait for another vehicle or if the company would send help. “There is a review department that is supposed to handle all breakdowns,” Maidelys says. “It shouldn’t happen because they’re charging you up the nose, and none of these buses have the comfort they’re supposed to have.”

The driver himself, she says, acknowledged his impotence before the travelers who complained about the breakdown: “He told us that the rule said that after five years the buses should be renewed, but that Viazul has not had new buses for at least 15 years.” The laughter of those present testified to the lack of credibility of the driver’s excuse for such precariousness: “the blockade.”

Soon, as the minutes passed and there was no solution, the good mood gave way to restlessness. “There were people with flights at two in the afternoon, another with a ticket for 1:00 pm, but he already knew it was lost,” says Maidalys. The most dramatic case was that of a young mother who was traveling with her daughter to get to Nicaragua — from where she would probably make the journey to the United States: she cried when she saw her money for the bus tickets wasted.

Those who did not have a plane to catch were the most resigned, and they spread out on the ground. (14ymedio)

Those who did not have to catch a plane were the most resigned, and they spread out on the ground, like Maidalys. From a mound she saw how the bus driver desperately stopped other vehicles to ask for help. “An almendrón [a 1950s American car operating as a shared taxi] stopped, but they didn’t have the right part, and then a Transgaviota bus, which didn’t have spare parts either,” she says.

And she continues with the surreal parade that soon populated the place: “A pastry seller appeared and then someone who sold preserves, to get us to buy a kilo, but the worst thing was that an old woman who got on in Santa Clara began to hyperventilate. I don’t know if it was from anxiety or fatigue, but they said that there was no ambulance to pick her up.”

It was more than an hour after being stranded that they began to call the passengers whose final destination was terminal 3 of the José Martí International Airport, to get them into another vehicle. “But they were warned that they had to stand up,” Maidelys says. With that bus, a fan belt also arrived, but it didn’t solve the problem either.

“We had to wait almost three hours for another bus to come and pick us all up.” (14ymedio)

“We had to wait almost three hours for another bus to come and pick us all up,” says Maidelys, who finally arrived at her destination, the bus terminal near the Plaza de la Revolución, at the end of the evening. “I had a piece of meat in my suitcase. It was frozen but I was already afraid that when I arrived in Havana it would be cooked. Rather than Viazul, they should call it Viacrucis [the Way of the Cross].”

The only happy person during the trip, she indicates, was a passenger who, in the middle of the journey, learned that she had received Spanish citizenship: “She started screaming like crazy, and it’s no wonder. She’s not going to have to put up with the things of this country anymore.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With Its Alternative ‘Therapies,’ Cuba Wants To Become a Paradise for Sick Tourists

Customers will be able to buy packages of 14 and 21 days to be treated on the Island, beginning in January. (Invasor)

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, January 4, 2024 — Ready to take out the artillery in the face of the tourism crisis in Cuba, the ministries of Public Health and Tourism returned this Thursday to their strategy to make the Island a paradise for the sick traveler. The Cayería Norte of the province of Ciego de Ávila will be converted into an enclave of “oriental and western therapies, along with therapies with dolphins,” where “ancestral energies” will have as much weight as “the use of Cuban medicines.”

The Medical Services Marketer (CSMC) explained to the official press that the “traditional” Cuban sun and beach tourism is already medicinal in itself, but that they plan a whole package to contribute “to the well-being and improvement of the quality of life” of those who relapse, afflicted by any ailment or a desire for relaxation on the beaches of Seville.

Agnerys Cruz, director of the state company in Ciego de Ávila, pointed out to Invasor that the services will include all kinds of innovative “therapies”

Agnerys Cruz, director of the state company in Ciego de Ávila, told Invasor that the services will include all kinds of innovative “therapies,” as well as “the consumption of healthy food and drinks” and direct interaction with the dolphins of Cayo Guillermo, which offer proven benefits to the mental health of patients.

“To this is added the possibility of attention to different disorders, from the autism spectrum, in all its varieties, to others that hinder socialization,” Cruz added, without going into details. continue reading

The limits of the program are only imposed, judging from the announcement, by the imagination. “The possibility of visiting cities and rural areas is added, including agricultural farms and local development projects, where they can enjoy ecological walks, farmers’ lunches, traditional Cuban drinks, tropical fruits and fresh vegetables. These proposals reinforce the initiative to travel to Cuba to receive well-being and quality of life services,” the director said.

On a more practical note, Cruz offered customers packages of 14 and 21 days, beginning in January, although she did not delve into the costs. “The experience will be wonderful for both tourists and therapists,” she said.

Both the state facilities and the hotels of Jardínes del Rey will be involved in the new program, which already includes the Canadian Blue Diamond Resorts as one of its partners. “These offers are added to the existing ones at the Starfish Cayo Guillermo hotel, but the purpose is to extend them to other facilities,” the director explained.

However, the CSMC plans an ambitious expansion in its services and is already targeting other audiences. “The Grand Muthu Rainbow hotel, destined for the LGBTIQ+ segment, develops specific therapies that meet the demands of that market and make the stay more pleasant,” Cruz celebrated.

Also inaugurated, in the capital city of the province, was a medical office at the Rueda hotel, “with the aim of ensuring healthcare for those who engage in city tourism in hotel facilities, rental houses or are passing through the province,” she added.

The staff will promote the use of Cuban drugs such as vaccines against covid-19 and Heberprot-P

The office will promote the use of Cuban drugs such as vaccines against covid-19 and Heberprot-P, the latter described as a “stimulant and accelerator of the healing of diabetic foot ulcers” that reduces the risk of amputation.

“In the same way, the medical office staff will promote services aimed at guaranteeing the well-being and quality of life of tourists, such as massages and cosmetic dermatology,” Cruz said.

The initiative, Invasor alleges, is based on data from the World Tourism Organization, which assures that this year health tourism will be a “trend,” since it “increased the number of travelers eager to regain their energies, take a ’breather’ and feel comfortable with themselves.”

It is not the first time that the regime has tried to create a “favorable climate” to attract this type of traveler. After the coronavirus pandemic, the authorities offered foreigners a trip to the Island to recover or receive treatment. The controversy was not long in coming from the population, who feared an increase in the number of infections with the arrival of thousands of tourists.

To this is added, today, the health debacle that the country faces, unable to offer treatment or perform a surgery without the patient’s emigrated relatives sending everything from the simplest supplies, such as needles and thread, to the most expensive drugs. The situation has reached the point where the Government has had to extend again and again the tariff exemption for food, toiletries, medicines and even generators that travelers can bring to the Island for non-commercial purposes.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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More than 18,000 Cubans Requested Asylum in Mexico in 2023

After nine days of walking, the “Exodus from Poverty” caravan was dissolved. (EFE)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 4 January 2024 — The Mexican Refugee Aid Commission (COMAR) processed documents for 18,386 Cubans during 2023. All of them were part of the 140,982 migrants who requested documents for visitors for humanitarian reasons, which includes asylum cases. This is a “record figure,” the coordinator for COMAR, Andrés Ramírez Silva, told 14ymedio.

Migrants from the Island were the third largest group to which they provided assistance, behind Haitians, with 44,239 applications and Hondurans, with 41,935. Ramírez Silva stressed that despite the fact that the figure is considerable, between “November and December” they observed a decrease in the number of irregular foreigners who went to their facilities.

“Since October it has been agreed with the Ministry of the Interior to give priority to migrants who request asylum and want to remain in Mexico,” the official also explained, who attributed the collapse suffered during the year to the misinformation among foreigners who came to obtain transit permits so as not to be arrested. continue reading

“Not to be confused with those who continue to arrive in Mexico. The flow has been very large and that is why the meeting took place between Mexico and the United States”

Ramírez Silva clarified that this decrease refers to migrants who approach COMAR: “Not to be confused with those who continue to arrive in Mexico. The flow has been very large, and that is why the meeting between Mexico and the United States took place.”

Guillermo wants to reach the United States, but he distrusts the Mexican authorities who have offered the almost 5,000 migrants who make up the so-called “Exodus of Poverty” caravan a “humanitarian visa” to be able to transit to the northern border. “They are going to return us to Tapachula and put us in prison,” he fears.

This Cuban tells 14ymedio that neither he nor nine other Cubans are going to get on the buses that Migración sent to the municipality of Mapastepec to transfer them to the custom facilities of Cerro Gordo, located on the Huixtla-Villa Comaltitlán section. He says that they will get the documents, but they will continue walking.

Zuselmi García López and the other 12 Cubans whom Migración tried to extort, charging 1,500 Mexican pesos (88 dollars) each, have left the caravan. “The same day of the complaint they took advantage of the night to continue in a van,” says Guillermo.

A group of the so-called “Exodus of Poverty” caravan in the municipality of Mapastepec (Chiapas). (Facebook/Girasol TV)

The coordinator of the Center for Human Significance, Luis Villagrán, told this newspaper that Migration committed to provide special attention to the vulnerable groups of the caravan (minors, women, the elderly). These will be attended to through the DIF (National System for the Integral Development of the Family) and will be provided with “assistance and services to meet their family needs.” The remaining migrants will be transferred to other parts of the country, but he did not specify where.

While the procedures are being carried out for the members of the caravan, the Secretary of the Interior, Luisa Alcalde Luján, reported the rescue of 31 people who were kidnapped in the state of Tamaulipas.

Without breaking down the figures by nationalities, Migration said that last year 135,382 documents were issued for visitors for humanitarian reasons, of which 97,545 were refugees, 25,402 were victims of persecution and 9,103 were given documents for humanitarian reasons.

They also delivered 136,235 documents for temporary residents, 83,529 to applicants for permanent residence, 69,517 to regional visitors and 6,637 for border workers.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cuban Leinier Domínguez, Eighth Best Chess Player in the World Despite His Stumble in Barcelona

Domínguez, in the center, analyzes his game against his Indian rival, Pranav, and his coach, Vladimir Chuchelov, in Sitges. (ChessBase)

14ymedio, Havana, 2 January 2024 — The unexpected departure of Leinier Domínguez in the Sunway Sitges tournament (Barcelona) last December did not prevent the Cuban from starting the year as the eighth best chess player in the world, according to the International Chess Federation (FIDE). With 2,752 Elo* and playing under the American flag, it is not the most notable score of the great master, but it is his best mark in the international ranking.

The Cuban has been one of the top ten of FIDE on three other occasions, always with a better score than this year and in 10th place. In May 2014, he had 2,768 Elo; in August 2019, 2,763, and in October of that same year, also 2,763.

Domínguez – who at 40 is the oldest member on the list – was in seventh place for several weeks and had his sights set on the Candidates Tournament, which will be held in April in Canada. However, on September 16, in Barcelona, he agreed to a draw with the young Indian chess player Anand Pranav and withdrew from the tournament for health reasons. continue reading

His participation in the Sitges contest responded to a FIDE requirement that participants in the Candidate Tournament win in a competition outside the country they represent

His participation in the Sitges contest responded to a FIDE requirement that participants in the Candidate Tournament win in a competition outside the country they represent. According to the Spanish journalist Leontxo García, the measure – which has generated great controversy – forced Domínguez to “fly urgently” to Spain, with a view to complying with the Federation and guaranteeing the points he needed.

It couldn’t be. García himself, in his comment on the Cuban’s performance in Sitges, where he was the great favorite, concluded that Pranav – a 17-year-old prodigy and with only 2,520 Elo – had “embittered” the day.

In fact, after 43 moves and playing with white, Domínguez could only reach a draw with his opponent. The Cuban started with a Spanish opening and built a solid defense, but from the 23rd move he made a series of mistakes that cost him the victory. When they agreed on a draw, Pranav kept his rooks and a bishop, and Domínguez his queen and a knight.

Two days later he appeared on television talking about his departure from the tournament. “I had all the desire in the world to fight for a spot in the Candidates Tournament,” he said. “I’m simply risking too much if I continue. I could have played better. I don’t regret it.”

The FIDE world ranking included this January, in addition, the Camagüeyan Carlos Daniel Albornoz in the group of chess players with more than 2,600 Elo. The Cuban, towards whose career the official press remains vigilant, was the winner of the Carlos Torre in Memoriam tournament, held last December in Mexico. Until February, when FIDE updates its results again, Albornoz will occupy 186th place in the world.

None of the successes of the so-called ’Idol of Güines’ is echoed by the official Cuban press, which this Tuesday celebrated the results of Albornoz

At the top of the list remains the Norwegian genius Magnus Carlsen, with 2,830 Elo, followed by far by one of Domínguez’s traditional rivals, the Italian-nationalized American, Fabiano Caruana, with 2,803. Below 2,800 are the Japanese Hikaru Nakamura, the Chinese Liren Ding, the Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi, the French Alireza Firouzja and the Filipino Wesly So, who is followed by Domínguez.

None of the successes of the so-called Idol of Güines is reported by the official Cuban press, which on Tuesday celebrated the results of Albornoz and reviewed the list up to Nepomniachtchi, without daring to allude to Domínguez.

The Cuban Chess Federation, of which Domínguez was the most valuable asset until he left for the United States, invited emigrated chess players to play in Cuban national championships if they left the foreign federations with which they had affiliated. In the best of his world game, Domínguez did not react to the measure or to the statements of the ruling party, who promised to make an “exception” if he requested it.

The person who was definitively ruled out, because he was “disrespectful” of the regime, was the great master Lázaro Bruzón. Following his critical position against the Government, Bruzón did not refrain from commenting on the draconian conditions of the Cuban authorities. “They have the Cuban people sunk into the utmost misery and despair and they know what they have to do, which is a radical change of the system,” he said at the time.

*Translator’s note: The Elo rating system calculates the skill level of chess players.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Santeros Predict Disease and an Increase in Crime in 2024

Among other predictions is a decrease in the birth rate and more marital breakdowns. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 1 January 2024 — The Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba fortells for 2024 an increase in disease, crime, alcohol and drug use, and it drew attention to the increase in “abuse of women” on the Island, according to its predictions released this Monday.

A group of priests from the Cuban Santería or “babalawos” met on New Year’s Eve at the headquarters of the Association in Havana, as is tradition, and on January 1 they published the well-known Letter of the Year, one of the traditions rooted in practitioners and believers on the Island.

The predictions of the oracle of Afro-Cuban religions foreshadow, among other things, a decrease in the birth rate, an increase in criminal activities and more marital breakdowns.

Priests advise “to take precautions with belongings during national trips

Also diseases of the lower abdomen, genetic ailments, the increase of neurological ailments and skin conditions. continue reading

The priests advised Cubans “to pay more attention to agricultural productivity and the use of land” and “to take precautions with belongings during national trips,” in addition to asking the “corresponding authorities for preventive work on the intake of alcoholic beverages and the consumption of narcotics, especially among young people.”

In Santeria, one of the most widespread syncretic cults in Cuba, each letter or sign includes a history of the deities or the “orishas” of the Yoruba pantheon, who speak for it and implicitly carry a teaching or a general recommendation.

In 2024, among the recommendations are to ” not leave children in the care of anyone, as they can be harmed, and be careful with them even in your own home

In 2024, among the recommendations are to “not leave children in the care of anyone, as they can be harmed, and be careful with them even in your own home” and to “be respectful of the differences between human beings to avoid conflicts and unnecessary disagreements.”

The syncretic cults arrived in Cuba with the African slaves in the colonial era, and their practices are transmitted by oral tradition from one generation to another through prayers, rites, spells, magic formulas, sayings, dances, songs, sacrifices and liturgies.

Santería uses divination as one of its main practices, and among its elements are snail shells for the act of consultation and the use of the so-called “foundation necklaces,” made with beads of the colors that characterize each deity.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba’s Independent Yorubas Dedicate the Year to Elegba, Protector of Private Enterprises

Headquarters of the Miguel Febles Padrón Independent Commission, in Diez de Octubre, Havana. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana | 2 January 2024 — Devoid of the critical tone against the Regime that characterized it in another era, the Letter of the Year of the independent Cuban Yorubas, published this Tuesday in Havana by the Miguel Febles Padrón Commission, focuses on international trade and on requesting “the prompt sanitation of the country.” After the announcement ceremony, presided over by the priest Gaspar Mesa, the organization insisted that its prediction – contrary to the one signed this Monday by the ruling Yoruba Cultural Association – is the legitimate Letter.

As in 2023, the text came out a day late with respect to officialdom’s Letter. Faced with the claims of the believers, the commission asked for patience and assured that the predictions would be revealed this Tuesday morning, during a press conference in the Yoruba temple of the municipality of Diez de Octubre.

Among the advice of social interest, the independent santeros [priests of the Santería religion] asked to “respect trade agreements” and “increase imports,” and announced an “increase in foreign financing,” although they avoided specifically alluding to the regime’s allies, such as Russia, which have marked the Island’s trade in recent months. Hence, the year, they explained, is consecrated to Elegba, an Afro-Cuban orisha or deity that protects “shopkeepers and merchants.”

However, they devoted several points of the Letter to commenting on the unhealthiness of the country and predicted “an increase in insect and rodent pests.” In addition, there will be “an increase in homicides,” robberies, divorces and disagreements among couples. The santeros predict continue reading

multiple child abandonments and call for a higher birth rate.

The containment of disease, on which the commission is thorough, will depend on removing the piles of garbage

The containment of disease, on which the commission is thorough, will depend, they add, on “removing the piles of garbage: cerrestravascular, bacterial and parasitic, respiratory and infectious diseases, and diabetes with danger of mutilation of the extremities.” Finally, they recommended going to the “godparents” in search of “specific guidelines,” which the brief message cannot offer.

This Monday, the Yoruba Cultural Association – to which a militant complicity with the regime is attributed – also published its Letter. Focused on the increase in “abuse of women,” the consumption of alcohol and drugs, and crime, the text was more incisive with the situation of the Island than that of the independents.

The Letter of the Year, a tradition that orthodox believers resort to as much as the occasional ones, faces once again the schism in the leadership of Cuban Santería. The division between officials and independents results in the issuance of two texts, with different series of advice, prophecies and ruling divinities.

Inside Santería, the divided loyalties of their babalawos or priests and the emigration of thousands of religious Cubans – who aspire to take their practices with them, adapting them to the country of emigration – causes, in practice, a serious confusion among practitioners, who prefer to go to their personal “godfathers.”*

*Translator’s note: In Santería, the “godfather” (or “godmother”) is the one who initiates and guides the new devotee.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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