Translator: Regina Anavy – Page 216

More ‘Business Opportunities’ in Cuba for Kempinski Luxury Hotels

Kempinski already has two establishments in the Cuban capital: the Gran Hotel Manzana, inaugurated in 2017, and the Gran Hotel Bristol, in 2020. (Twitter/Manuel Marrero Cruz)

14ymedio, Havana, 2 September 2022 — The Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, foresees more “business opportunities” on the Island with the luxury hotel group Kempinski. In a meeting held on Thursday in Havana with Bernold Schroeder, president of the Board of Directors of the company, Marrero negotiated the expansion of the group in Cuba.

Qualified by Marrero as a “high standard” German company, Kempinski already has two establishments in the Cuban capital: the Gran Hotel Manzana, inaugurated in 2017 with five-stars plus, and the Gran Hotel Bristol, which opened its doors in 2020.

Despite the optimistic tone of the meeting, a recent 14ymedio tour of the hotel cartography of Havana revealed that the Manzana hotel was under repair, with excavators and without customers, while the Bristol, after a brief opening, was closed to the public.

Bernold Schroeder, the manager who met Marrero, has been part of Kempinski since 2017 and has been running the company since 2020. According to the company’s official website, Schroeder boosted the growth of the group in Asia and Europe, which earned him the promotion to his continue reading

present position, and has been responsible, to a large extent, for the rapprochement with Cuba.

In 2019, the Gran Manzana Kempinski hotel was included by Donald Trump in the List of Restricted Cuban Entities, an inventory of companies that could be sued by the U.S. justice system for profiting from properties expropriated after the 1959 Revolution, although several companies registered in the European Union have legal protections against this mechanism.

All these companies were managed or directed by Gaesa, the administration group of the Armed Forces, then led by the recently deceased General Luis Alberto Rodríguez-López Calleja.

In the midst of the resounding crisis that Cuba is going through, the Cuban government’s link with a high-caliber hotel company such as Kempinski arouses several controversies. For example, why is government management concentrating on unnecessary projects, when there is a moderate number of tourists entering Cuba, in addition to the hotels being excessively expensive.

Marrero, who served from 2004 to 2019 as Minister of Tourism and was part of the administrative apparatus of Gaesa, personally manages the deal with large companies, while the owner of that portfolio, Juan Carlos García Granda, occupies a secondary place in these businesses.

Reproducing topics and tropical clichés, Kempinski announces Havana as a “city stopped in time, slow,” where people “take their time.” The Cuban government has not offered additional information about the projects that the German company intends to carry out or where they will be located.

The Kempinski group was founded in 1897 and today manages 79 five-star establishments in about thirty countries. On the island, in addition to the Manzana and Bristol hotels, with 246 and 162 luxury rooms, respectively, the company opened the Cayo Guillermo Resort Kempinski, located in the north of the province of Ciego de Ávila, in 2019.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Due to Lack of Resources, Only 23 Sugar Mills Will Process Cane in Cuba in the Next Harvest

The planned harvest is half the goal of the last campaign and lower than that achieved. (Granma)

14ymedio, Havana, 2 September 2022 — The Cuban authorities have set themselves the goal for the next harvest at even fewer tons than were achieved in the previous one, which was the worst in the history of the Island. It’s true they have called it small, but it’s difficult to understand why they call it “efficient” since in no case does it even cover domestic demand.

Julio Andrés García Pérez, the General Manager of Azcuba, a group of companies in charge of sugar production, announced that 455,198 tons of sugar must be produced for the ’family basket’, tourism, medicines, industrial production and exports. It’s too little sugar for so much demand, if we take into account that domestic consumption requires around a half million tons, and, last year, 411,000 tons were committed to foreign sales.

The plan wasn’t achieved last year, since 911,000 tons had been projected and barely 473,720 were obtained. This year, therefore, officials adjusted their forecasts according to the poor production recorded in 2022, and even a little less. The figure is more realistic, although it remains to be seen if it is reached, in the midst of the current economic and financial debacle, lack of fuel, blackouts and a planting that has already started badly.

The campaign will begin in mid-November, which on this occasion will involve 23 sugar mills. In the past there were 36, but only three fulfilled their production plans, according to the authorities, who already warned that for this year the number of sugar mills would be reduced to 26. In the end, the number is even more modest.

In the meeting held yesterday between the leadership of Azcuba and the Party leadership, García Pérez explained that “it’s a matter of planning the harvest so it’s objective, flexible and, although small, with good practices, concentrating resources in fewer sugar mills to achieve greater efficiency.” continue reading

Deputy Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca, who emphasized “discipline,” recalled that this year “there will be no more subsidies for losses in the sector” and fiercely placed the responsibility on the workers, whom he asked to be aware of how much they will achieve each day, because “if the mill doesn’t mill, the economic results won’t be good.”

“Indicators of efficiency are the main weapons of this harvest, which will be the beginning of the recovery of sugarcane in the country,” said Tapia Fonseca, to the astonishment even of the readers of the official media, Cubadebate.

“One of the most serious problems we have is triumphalism, which then dissolves into sad realities,” says a commentator in the article, entitled “Cuba is getting ready for a small, but more efficient harvest.” And another spits out, “That title is repeated every year.”

Meanwhile, a reader who has reviewed the accounts of the previous campaign says regretfully: “That means that the sugar production in the next harvest (455,198 tons) will be lower than in the last (480,000 tons in round numbers, the lowest production in more than a hundred years). We keep moving forward like the crab. We are already announcing that we will break the record we had ’achieved’ in the last harvest. And when I woke up, the directives were still there.”

The warning has also caught the attention of the Spanish-based Cuban economist Elías Amor. “Knowing that the economic situation is very serious, they no longer try to hide the disaster but broadcast it before it happens, so that people can prepare. It’s a change of strategy that, in the case of sugar or blackouts, is now set,” he says. The expert describes the adjective “efficient” as “a macabre joke” for the coming harvest.

Elías Amor has dedicated numerous analyses to the resounding fall of the sugar industry, which has gone through times of glory. In 1959, Cuba had 156 operational factories that produced 5.6 million tons of sugar. During the years of the Soviet subsidy, although without reaching the mythical 10 million announced by Fidel Castro, record figures were reached that exceeded eight million tons in the best harvests, between 1970 and 1989.

The root causes of the debacle in recent years are, for the authorities, the lack of fuel, breakage in machinery and transport and industrial failures, in addition to the humidity of the fields and COVID-19. According to the economist’s analysis, the greatest burdens are the absence of financing (due to the lack of access to financial markets), the impossibility of attending to domestic consumption and the little technology available to obtain sugar production byproducts* – “which is where the profitable sugar lines are.”

These causes explain the failure of one of the industries that contributed the most money to Cuba in history, well ahead of tobacco, but there will also be consequences. The lack of sugar for export will prevent the much-needed acquisition of foreign currency, and its absence for the domestic market will force the State to spend amounts of money that it doesn’t have. Meanwhile, the street finds a new reason for discontent.

*Translator’s note: The four main byproducts of the sugarcane industry are cane tops, bagasse, filter muds and molasses.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Spinning with the Failure of Foreign Investment in Cuba

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 4 September 2022 — Cuban communists have failed dramatically with foreign investment. They were wrong to believe that an interventionist law and not guaranteeing property rights were going to serve to promote investment. They were wrong about the Mariel Special Development Zone, which has not been special, nor anything close. They were wrong about the devices for hiring labor, the design of joint ventures or the absence of funding. They were wrong in everything; hence, the failure.

And now, the State newspaper Granma published an article entitled “Lend a hand” to national industry and economy with foreign investment. Wouldn’t this be like going for the jugular? Nor would putting the national infrastructure that is still state-owned at the service of foreign investment make it possible to patch over a pothole that has its explanation in the desire to apply the communist model to foreign capital, an erroneous pretense that doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

The foreign investor wants freedom to decide what to do with his money. The hands of the state, the farther away, the better. This is something that the Cuban communist regime cannot understand, and that’s how it goes.

Contrary to what is stated in Granma, analysts emphasize that the framework of foreign investment in Cuba continues without undergoing the necessary changes to achieve its increase, and the recent decisions of the regime have passed without pain or glory, because they don’t go to the heart of the problem. But with these decisions, the communist state intends to solve critical problems that throw the Cuban economy into a situation of extreme weakness, such as with food or electricity, and in these matters, foreign capital seems to have little interest. continue reading

The regime intends for foreign capital to enter to operate in wholesale distribution, but this stumbles over the legal framework in Cuba. On one hand, there is no guarantee because this activity is subject to control by the regime, and on the other, why dedicate itself to distribution when the problem is that there are not sufficient products or goods?

The two vectors point to a scenario in which no matter how hard the authorities try, they won’t find a foreign distributor to provide the technology and experience that will achieve radical changes in the gray commercial landscape of the communist economy. You don’t build a house from the roof down; you need a solid foundation. As much as Minister Gil tries at the National Hotel to convince representatives of embassies, national and foreign businessmen and officials from agencies of the State, he knows that this initiative won’t go very far; and in any case, if it happens, the government will have a partner subject to communist decisions who, sooner or later, will abandon the business.

Likewise, Gil claimed the new scenario according to which, currently, both the private and state sectors have a demand for resources to produce, backed up by imports, which means a space for the participation of foreign capital in wholesale trade. But in this, he also didn’t tell the truth, since while the state sector agrees to dollar-to-peso exchanges at the rate of 1×24, others, the non-state, must get used to the semi-official rate of 1×130, or resort to the informal market rate of 1×150, and rising.

Gil said that the country has an infrastructure that is above production levels, and this is false, according to the results of 2021, but by disagreeing with it, he refused to accept the technological obsolescence of numerous sectors and companies in sugar, electricity, manufacturing, transport, etc. The minister is wrong to say these things, and the foreign investor is attentive to all this when making decisions.

It’s not surprising that other Caribbean countries, such as the Dominican Republic, benefit from this black hole of the Castro regime, which aims to trap unsuspecting investors so that they place their capital in warehouses or factories whose cost of reactivation is much higher than putting it into operation from the beginning. If you think not, look at the estimate of 255 million dollars to update the electricity sector.

Haste has never been a good adviser in economic policy decisions. In reality, attracting foreign capital to Cuba simply requires another model, another economic structure, another legal framework, and that doesn’t happen overnight. Going around in a vicious circle doesn’t lead anywhere.

Therefore, when the minister declares that he is willing “to make national infrastructure available to foreign investment,” he should clarify how he intends to do it, in terms of what model, with what instruments and within what deadlines, because that being said, in open terms, he will not be able to attract anyone; on the contrary, he will scare off foreign capital. The lost foreign exchange income in the country, which is more than 3 billion in a very short period, will never come within the current framework of foreign investments.

The minister abandons the idea of international investors deploying their structures to produce and generate employment in Cuba, seeing that this is impossible, and therefore, he now wants to make it easier for foreigners to bring products into the country, taking advantage of their experience, their financial facilities, their technology and for this, to take advantage of the communist state infrastructures. They aren’t going to be successful, not in the wholesale trade and much less in the retail trade. There are many countries to attend to first, with promising markets. Cuba lags behind in this international competition, and for Cubans things are getting worse and worse.

As always happens in these business forums, such as the one held at the National Hotel, ministers participate in the road show to present business opportunities to foreigners who then, when studied in detail, end in nothing. The five proposals offered by the director of foreign trade of Havana, Luis Carlos Góngora, surprised the attendees. First, the possibility of wholesale and retail production and marketing of consumer and intermediate goods in the capital, which are in high demand, associated with the activity of breadmaking and pastry, artisanal and industrial productions of candies and other jams, and the processing and preservation of food.

He stressed that there is a market for this, due to the growing number of micro, small and medium-sized companies that are engaged in these activities, in addition to the fact that these products and raw materials are for widespread domestic use, in family food, which also justifies a retail market. And among the products to be marketed, he mentioned sugar, salt and flour, in addition to specific mixtures, gluten-free flour, packaging, fats, oils, yeasts and dyes, among other raw materials.

The business director of the Ministry of Industries, Tomás Oviedo, proposed several areas for foreign investment; for example, the marketing of tires and rubber articles, as well as inputs and equipment related to these productions. The proposal would be in the form of a wholesale marketing company, and the opportunity lies in the high unmet demand, with potential customers such as the ministry itself, MITRANS [the Minstry of Transport], the construction sector or any other branch of the economy that owns automotive transport.

From the chemical industry, there was talk of the creation of a wholesale entity that markets flat glass and items of this material, supplies and equipment for the respective factories, which would meet the demands of that market, acquire new technologies for the development of this industry and recover and make the most of the capacities already installed.

In the field of agriculture, it was proposed to develop a chain of wholesale and retail stores, no less than five, to offer a variety of products and commodities with national reach, supported by wholesale warehouses. This proposal would be supported by a high demand in the sector for raw materials, tools and accessories, among other things, and as another potential it added the existence of underutilized logistics capabilities, with a network of establishments that are out of stock.

The question that appears in all this list of opportunities is the same: Why haven’t the Cubans done this themselves, and why do you have to resort to foreign capital? Or more importantly, why doesn’t the state do it with its state companies?

On the other hand, it abounded in several conditions and guarantees of operation, such as the “Single Window,” created to accompany investors and facilitate the entire process.

Castroite leaders have thrown in the towel, aware that the communist model can’t go on, except to highlight interventionist nonsense such as the portfolio of opportunities or the one-stop-shop. They speak of a more favorable environment for foreign investment, but they don’t realize that the current times, due to a serious global economic crisis caused by Cuba’s partner, Putin, will bring with it a collapse of markets and financing. It’s unfortunate that Cuban leaders are going to look for investments just when it can become more complicated. Always swimming against the current.

Not even letting businesses operate in foreign currency, which means taking them away from the reality of a weak and increasingly fragmented domestic market, will manage to interest any foreign investor. No one trusts these types of decisions that, at any time when the conditions of the economy change, can be reversed, and then it’s over. This lack of guarantees is what worries many investors.

The eternal bureaucracy is also frightening investors, so, when the flexibility in the requirements for proposals was announced, the reduction in the content of the documentation that is required today for approval, some rejoiced, but sadness returned when it was seen that the required paperwork remained the same and that the multiplicity of partners again casts shadows of doubt.

Finally, no one told Minister Gil and his colleagues that in order to attract foreign capital for business opportunities in the sectors of the economy, something must be done first, and that it’s very important.

And that is to pay off the debts. No attendee said anything about this issue. It’s an annoying matter for those who haven’t paid the Paris Club and other creditors for two years. And so, with that data about non-payment, they want to attract investments? Good luck with that.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Journalist Ricardo Fernandez Asks for Asylum in Germany with his Family

Ricardo Fernández has been in Germany with his family since last August waiting to obtain political asylum. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 September 2022 — Independent journalist and collaborator of 14ymedio Ricardo Fernández has been in Germany with his family since last July waiting for political asylum. The reporter, who suffered an intense siege from the political police, recognizes that so much pressure has left him with a damaged soul.

Fernández has lived through years of harassment and arbitrary arrests. Now, from a refugee camp in Zirndorf in the state of Bavaria, he details the pressures he felt in recent months. “Until that moment I had been the one who had put myself at risk for my ideals, but since the beginning of 2022, the new objective of State Security was my wife, my mother-in-law and my eldest daughter.”

By the month of May, “the situation had already become unsustainable, and I couldn’t sacrifice my family members for a struggle that they didn’t choose.” Fernández recognizes that he didn’t have the “right to offer the lives of others” because of his personal determination to practice independent journalism under a regime allergic to freedom of information.

Once the decision was made to leave the Island, they began the procedures to obtain passports and put family matters in order. “When State Security learned that we were in that process, the harassment multiplied.” A three-hour arrest at the third Camagüey Police Unit, on July 14, confirmed the need to leave as soon as possible.

It was not the first time the reporter was arrested. In July 2019, he spent nine days in a dungeon for the simple fact of visiting the headquarters of the Ladies in White Movement in the Havana neighborhood of Lawton. From that arrest he came out with a warning report for being “illegal” in the Cuban capital, a document that he refused to sign. Last July, he also received new threats.

“I was given the ultimatum that I had a month to leave the country. I am sure that in previous years they would not have told me that way, because I would have categorically denied it, but when they saw me start the process they threw themselves at me like dogs against an injured animal.” Even so, the political police retained the family’s passports and only handed them over at the end of July. continue reading

Boarding the plane, feeling it take off and flying over the Atlantic were bittersweet moments for Fernández, his wife and his three children. On the one hand, they felt relief at leaving the police threats behind, but on the other, the question opened up to them of what would become of their lives from that day on. They didn’t carry a single euro with them.

“The asylum process in Germany, after being approved by the police authorities in charge of carrying out the express deportation of those who cannot present evidence of persecution, is quite simple, and the organization is impressive,” he explains to this newspaper. “There is a large volume of requests for refuge, mainly from Ukrainian families fleeing the war.”

In the refugee center where the reporter is waiting for a response to his case, there aren’t a lot of Cubans. The days take place there in a peculiar way: “Because of the difference in schedule with Cuba and the desire to talk to our loved ones, there is little sleep at night. During the day we are engaged in adapting to this reality.”

Although the surprises before everything new seem to have no end, Fernández and his relatives have also realized that they are “broken inside.” “When we meet to share a coffee, strained precariously, we laugh at our own wounds and compare the hoarding habits that we carry in our souls.”

“Some keep boxes of bottled water; others sleep with the goodies that they accumulate. Everyone stores what they can as if there were no more tomorrow. That’s what we laugh at, avoiding the issues that break our souls. Finally, night comes and everyone retires to connect with their loved ones who were left behind.”

Now, the emergency list is very clear to the reporter: “My priority is to get my family to heal from the psychological damage it has suffered for years of persecution, while supporting my homeland in everything that can serve it.” In the midst of the uncertainty of what will happen to him and his family in the coming days, he avoids thinking of an option in which he doesn’t receive asylum and bets that “the hope of a life in peace will flourish.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Instead of Facilitating the Import of Flour, the Cuban Government Lashes Out Against the ‘Resellers’

The Government has already released a pack of inspectors throughout the province, with instructions to “detect any illegality.” (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Havana, 31 August 2022 — The shortage of wheat flour in Cuba, with the consequent increase in the price of bread and cookies on the market, has quickly reached its critical point. In addition to the difficulties in making the products, there is the absence of an effective mechanism for the import of the necessary raw material.

However, without offering solutions to the problem of hunger, which will be further aggravated by the arrival of the new school year, or facilitating imports for the self-employed, the Cuban Government, more inefficient than ever, has concentrated its efforts on a raid against food vendors.

“Any small or medium-sized business (SME) can, in theory, import products,” a cookie producer in Sancti Spíritus tells 14ymedio. “Of course as long as you can find them. What you can’t do is go to another country and bring a container of flour, for example, to sell here to producers who need it for their businesses.”

“A month ago,” he continues, “when the disappearance of flour began, I went to Cubaexport to request the import of the quantities I needed. But they can only supply small amounts, so dealing with them doesn’t work. The same thing happened to me with other state import routes: they’re a problem.”

From Havana, they told him about someone who sold flour in quantities: “They told me it was legal, but of course you always know what’s happening.” continue reading

The producer says several of them met and went to the Government to request permission to import a container of flour that they would later distribute among all. “The officials straightened us out,” he laments. “The justification was that you can make contract as a SME or self-employed person, under the terms of the Government, but that collectively you can’t. “That’s reselling,” they told us.

The sellers of Sancti Spíritus have begun to approach the official reporters on the street. “Now they say that from next week we will not be able to sell any product with bread or wheat flour. Do you know about this?” they asked the author of a chronicle published in the newspaper Escambray about the shortage of flour in the province.

The journalist, who advances along Espirituano Boulevard overwhelmed by the “stratospheric prices of almost everything,” has to admit his ignorance when citizens demand explanations from him in the face of the unstable fluctuations in bread and cookie prices.

Another seller suspects that “the provincial government banned its sale and we don’t want to take risks.” At twenty or twenty-five pesos, the packages of cookies exceed 120, that is if you manage to “capture” some improvised merchant passing by on bicycle or on foot.

The rise in prices is an expression of doubt and insecurity on the part of the self-employed, the journalist recognizes, but when he must point out a culprit, he doesn’t look for him in the bureaucracy of state trade, but in the producers themselves.

Once the “enemy” has been identified, Escambray lashes out at the private sector: “What if because of the war in Ukraine, the price of flour went up on the black market, and people could no longer could get it so easily, and if the price of the dollar on the street exceeded 145 pesos…, in short, a string of excuses to justify the rise in price.”

Not satisfied with making the increase in price and disappearance of flour clear to the official culprit, the reporter goes to the provincial authorities. Ricardo García Hernández, coordinator of Programs and Objectives of the provincial government of Sancti Spíritus — the same person who declared the “innocence” of the officials who ordered the destruction of a patrimonial locomotive of 1917 in Jatibonico — makes his position clear: “There is no justification for private companies to continue raising prices.”

The Government has not issued any prohibition, he says. It’s rather a strategy of the private sector to “manipulate the people” and justify the rise in prices.

“Here we haven’t talked about prohibiting anything; we haven’t even restricted prices, although we draw attention to some abusive prices that we’ve detected in recent days with respect to cookies and bread,” says the official, washing his hands of the problem.

He warns, however, that the government has already released a pack of inspectors throughout the province, with instructions to “detect any illegality associated with the production of such food.”

After concluding his meeting with García Hernández, the reporter ignores or pretends not to know why food prices in Cuba are rising: “If the government of the province hasn’t banned the sale of bread, cookies, sweets or any product that contains bread or wheat flour, why then do some insist on constantly raising prices? Why is it so easy to keep squeezing the already battered pocket of the workers?”

As in Sancti Spíritus, other state media have turned to local governments to repeat the pantomime of an “official explanation.” In each of the cases, the official invokes the note published by the Ministry of Internal Trade on August 23: the shortage is due to an “intensification of the blockade [i.e. the US embargo], the current international logistics crisis and the financial limitations of the country,” which has limited its imports of wheat.

On the other hand, the authorities ask for more “creative resistance” and offer examples such as that of Gabriel Pérez, a young man from Guanabacoa who makes “alternative” flour. Together with his sisters, Pérez sold an apartment in Havana and bought a plot of land to “get into the flour business.”

The farmers of the area taught them some cultivation techniques that they then took advantage of to make their brand, Bacoretto. Its product, which the Government exposes as an emblem of self-ownership, manufactures flour from carob, rice, cassava, coconut and banana. “It’s the same thing that has always been done, many years ago, in the Cuban east and in the countryside,” Pérez says, to reassure his clients.

While the official press interviews “inventors” of flour and seeks to absolve the Government of all guilt, Cuban mothers are still concerned about the coming school year and the impossibility of offering their children bread to take to school as a snack. Families continue to buy bags of cookies at inconceivable prices, and producers try to maintain a “low profile” in front of inspectors who, more than criminals, are looking for scapegoats.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘El Toque’ Denounces Harassment Against its Journalists in Cuba

Members of El Toque during their virtual press conference this Wednesday. (Captura)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 September 2022 — The editorial team of the independent news source El Toque denounced on Wednesday, from its editorial office in Cuba, the harassment by State Security of nine young journalists, who, as a result, gave up their jobs.

During a conference broadcast on YouTube, the directors, residing abroad, answered the questions raised that same day by an editorial entitled “The night will not be eternal,” using a phrase from the opposition leader Oswaldo Payá.

Four of these young people, Mauro Díaz Vázquez, José Leandro Garbey, Aleiny Sánchez and Meilin Puertas, were “regulated” [Translator’s note: The term chosen by the regime to mean ’forbidden to travel’] before they were able to travel to Argentina, where they had been invited to participate in the Media Party, one of the most important regional journalism events.

José Jasán Nieves, director of the media, explained that on their ignoring the travel ban, State Security subjected them to “direct and indirect” pressure to give up their jobs.

Nieves describes the methods of the political police as “a mechanism of psychological torture,” a “term that may sound strong,” but perfectly describes the actions of the repressive bodies of the Cuban Government, which has declared an “open war” on anyone who contravenes official propaganda. continue reading

According to the report from these young people, they were asked to make public their resignation from El Toque, to film a video of “self-incrimination” that, Nieves alleges, has a lot to do with the famous Padilla Case for its “Stalinist resonances.” It was an exercise of “sadism,” he insists, which Humberto López or some other “person of the regime” will then use to carry out a ’disqualification’ campaign against them, that is a “character assassination.”

For his part, Eloy Viera, coordinator of the El Toque Jurídico space, mentioned that it’s difficult to “find legality” in the actions of the Cuban regime. “Only propaganda is admitted,” he said. The rest is not allowed, and there is a tendency to use the law as a mechanism to “legitimize human rights violations,” appealing to concepts such as national security.

After its denunciation, the editorial team took advantage of the moment to reflect on the context of independent journalism on the Island, from the complaints of the artists before the Ministry of Culture on November 27, 2020, and the protests of July 11 of the following year.

On the other hand, he discussed two points with which the Government usually disqualifies the work of this medium: the monitoring of currency exchange rates in the informal market and the financing of the page. On the first, he explained that transparent and public algorithms are used to reach the daily figure that is made known to users, and as for the economics of the medium, he explained that no program or institution has ever intervened in its editorial agenda.

It’s logical that “a power that needs us to live in an alternative reality” attacks the opposition “with all the repressive force of its apparatus,” added Nieves, who also lamented the exile into which the main directors of the medium have been forced.

“Thanks to technology, it’s becoming easier to continue reporting about Cuba even if we’re not in Cuba,” he said, and indicated that his team, which he described as “multilocated,” will find “ways” to communicate from abroad, “because they will not silence us.”

Nieves specified that the situation is not exclusive to El Toque, but that other media have experienced similar “repressive waves” in recent years, which “is nothing more than another expression of the circumstance and the general crisis that our country is experiencing.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Entering, Buying and Leaving, the Great Achievement Advertised by State Businesses in Cuba

“You should have called all the world’s news agencies. For the first time, good treatment was discovered in a Cuban store.” (Facebook/Caribbean Granma Stores)

14ymedio, Daniel Wilt, Holguín, 1 September 2022 — The Facebook page of Tiendas Caribe de Granma [Caribbean Shops of Granma Province] delighted readers on Tuesday with an unusual “story of the day.” The text began by clarifying that what was coming really happened, in a store in Bayamo, and that “the words used were exactly the same.”

Next, the story presented “a young customer” who went to the El Arte store, in Bayamo, to whom “instantly,” an extraordinary event happened: “The workers of the place welcomed her as she deserved,” because, it clarified, “at that moment she was the only one who was passing by there.” This detail wouldn’t cause a peep out of the people from Bayamo, because it’s one of the stores with the lowest influx of buyers in the municipality.

Without at any time revealing a spirit of mockery in the publication, the story continued: “The young lady walked in and was very interested in one of our garments. She went directly to a spandex dress of polyester, with a white color and fringes, very much in tune with the summer season.”

And it reproduced an excellent dialogue.

“I want to try a size 7.”

“Yes, of course, I’ll show it to you right away, and you can use the changing room in that corner so you can see it and choose the one that suits you best.”

Satisfied, the customer went to the cashier “to make the payment.” Then, the clerk “proceded to accept the payment.” With this, “the sale was successful, and the clerk gave her the receipt and put the merchandise in a plastic bag.”

After being told goodbye by the employee with a “thank you for your visit, come back soon!” the young woman, the only person in the store if we look at the narration, was subjected to the scrutiny of the receipt by the doorman, to verify the merchandise that was bought, and “to review and ensure the integrity of the shop.”

It wasn’t long before the publication, offering the story as “an example of a sale to a customer with great success and satisfaction,” was plagued by humorous comments that laugh at presenting an anodyne act like buying something in a store as an unprecedented achievement. continue reading

“This writing seems too short to me. The author got the exclusive scoop out of all the world’s news agencies. For the first time, good treatment was discovered in a Cuban store,” one mocks. “The tension, the mastery of language, the development of the characters… sublime,” says another, and one of many adds, giving free rein: “I think it’s a very beautiful composition. I was eager to know more. What would be the dramaturgical continuity of the story? What did her mom tell her when she got home with the spandex dress of polyester? What dreams materialized with her dress? Under what armpit did she transport it, by bike taxi, to her abode? With which bra (the latter bought in what other state store?) did she combine it for her Sunday walk? Please, don’t delay in giving us the rest of the story, so we can keep on living.”

“As we are in prehistory, we don’t know how to communicate and are learning. This is the first class on Customer Service. Thank you. I’m waiting for the second one,” says Madelaine Verdecia Enamorado.

Jotabarrioz, for his part, jokes: “Top 5 Cuban clients with the most luck in the world,” and others, such as Yaneth CM, get serious: “The clerk did nothing more than fulfill her position profile. I don’t understand the merit. The truth is, the only thing these publications promote is mockery.”

There is no shortage of those who, in the ten photographs that accompany the writing, all with smiles and in color, observe suspiciously that everything is a fiction. And certainly, only the words “once upon a time” are missing for the unforgettable, almost fantastic adventure in the socialist paradise of the Caribbean, of a correctly made sale.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The United States Resumes Interviews for Parole for Family Reunification at its Embassy in Havana

The United States Embassy in Havana. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 September 2022 — The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) reported on Thursday the resumption of the procedures for the Cuban Family Reunification Permit (CFRP) program at its embassy in Havana.

In a statement, the USCIS explains that it will process applications to the program that are pending and that it has already sent notifications to the beneficiaries, but it will not issue “new letters of invitation at this time.” In fact, USCIS started doing interviews on August 18.

The government body warns that the embassy “has limited capacity” and that applicants should not “take any action” without having received an appointment.

The USCIS also warns applicants in its text to have their postal addresses updated. “We will not send you an email or call you to ask for money or the payment of fees,” they reiterate. “Don’t become a victim of an immigration scam.”

The decision to resume the Cuban Family Reunification Program was brought forward at the beginning of last June, when the US Department of Homeland Security explained that the decision was part of the search for “safe and orderly alternatives to irregular migration and its many dangers and indignities.” continue reading

The CFRP, established in 2007, “provides a safe and orderly path” to U.S. territory for “Cuban beneficiaries of approved family-based immigrants,” the institution said at the time. The permission granted by this program allows the family member to travel to the United States and go to an immigration authority there to process their residency.

The United States reduced the staff of its embassy in Cuba in 2017, after about thirty of its diplomats suffered mysterious health incidents known as “Havana syndrome,” whose causes haven’t yet been clarified.

Since then, family visa procedures have been carried out at other embassies outside the island, mainly in Georgetown, Guyana, where hundreds of Cubans still have to wait for the resolution of their procedures, not exempt from irregularities.

The United States Consulate in Havana resumed the processing of visas for immigrants on May 3, processing only the IR-5 category. Two months later, it expanded the visa categories and began processing the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, including spouses and children under the age of 21.

Despite this restart of procedures, the US immigration authorities have made it clear on several occasions that the headquarters in Georgetown, Guyana, would continue to be “the main place of processing for most Cuban applicants for immigrant visas.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Blackout Frustrates Dozens of Customers in a Foreign Currency Store in Havana

Supermarket at 3rd and 70th, in Miramar, Havana, during a blackout. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 29 August 2022 — Scheduled power cuts don’t bypass even profitable businesses. This Monday, it happened in the 3rd and 70th Shopping Center, in Miramar, Havana, three times. After the power went out the first time, the center turned on a generator, but it quickly stopped working. The second time, they used another generator, which also went out quickly. The third time the blackout arrived, there was no auxiliary equipment to turn on, and the store was completely in the dark.

The explanations of the employees didn’t alleviate the displeasure of the customers. “With all the dollars they extort from people here, you’d think they’d have power,” a woman protested aloud. Meanwhile, workers shouted to the customers to go to the cash registers next to the windows, where there would be natural light.

“You can’t record here, please, you damage the image of the shop,” a cashier told a young man who took out his cell phone to photograph the corridors in the dark. “Same with the image here; it’s not very good,” the boy replied.

The 3rd and 70th supermarket is one of the largest in the city that sells its products in foreign currency. It was also one of the first stores to be dollarized when there was economic flexibility in the 90s, and nearby is an abundance of embassies, the houses of diplomats and the homes of more affluent families, so it’s considered a business with a somewhat exclusive clientele.

But not even this location and the uniqueness of its consumers has saved the place from shortages, fights in the lines and the deterioration of its facility. To prevent the semi-empty shelves from being seen, the Center’s administration places the same product repeatedly, a very common practice in Cuban state stores. This Monday, the sequence of cans of the same vegetable or the row of mustard bottles tried to hide the reality that even these markets don’t have a great variety of goods. continue reading

The butcher’s area was the one that showed the least number of options. If it weren’t for the products of private businesses, the refrigerators of the place would have been practically deserted, devoid of dairy products, frozen food or the long-awaited boxes of chicken quarters and breasts, which are so in demand in a country where no one knows when they’ll come across certain foods again.

This Monday, at one point and to the chagrin of the buyers, the employees sent everyone out. Just when almost everyone had left, the current came back, and people began a stampede. “The light came back, the light came back!”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A New Fault Delays the Promise of Diaz-Canel and Raul Castro About the End of the Blackouts

“The fact that Raúl Castro shows his face can mean a warning for those foreign investors who are looking for memories with the Castros for their offices in Madrid or Paris.” (Revolution Studios)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 August 2022 — The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, in Matanzas, left the National Electric System this Tuesday, according to the Cuban Electric Union (UNE), “due to losses of turbine parameters (empty).” Although the state company then assured that “work will be done immediately on the solution to the leak in the boiler that had already been detected previously,” the news, in any case, further casts a shadow over the announcement made by President Miguel Díaz-Canel this Monday: that the blackouts will end in December.

That date would look promising if it were not for the fact that the same man stated last May that the energy situation would improve before the start of June, while just last week, on State TV’s Roundtable program, industry officials warned that the “complexity” would last at least a year.

Together with Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro went for a walk through the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant, in Felton, in Mayarí. The general stood to the right of his successor during the tour of the Holguin center as a more-than-necessary support-cane for the leader.

“Felton 1 decides today the course of the recovery strategy, and its start-up is vital for the fulfillment of the outlined objectives, first, to minimize or eliminate blackouts by next December,” Díaz-Canel said. continue reading

Edier Guzmán Pacheco, director of thermal generation of the Electric Union (UNE) explained that since the beginning of August, a program is being carried out that should solve the problems of the plant this summer, with a view to starting the production and startup of the unit “very soon.”

To this end, technical modifications have been made to the machinery and the auxiliary systems, in addition to tests that guarantee “the stability, reliability and efficiency of the equipment.”

Felton, the Holguin energy colossus, with the capacity to supply about 500 MW, had a breakdown in the boiler of unit 1 at the end of July that caused its exit from the National Electrical System, while unit 2 has been disabled since it suffered a major fire at the beginning of the same month.

The machinery of the first unit, which is being repaired, must reach, according to the director of the plant, Euclides Rodríguez Mejías, 260 MW. “It would be a positive injection and would significantly reduce the effects on the population,” he said.

“We’re going to have the support we need in Felton,” Rodríguez told the official press. “It’s a commitment, but Felton is ready to take it on.”

With regard to block 2, the project manager, Eric Milanés Quinzán, said that its structure has been dismantled by 8%, and work will be done on the reconstruction of the boiler and maintenance of the high-medium cylinder of the turbine, as well as the incorporation of various equipment.

Díaz-Canel, who had also visited the Santiago de Cuba power plant, explained that the task is not only focused on quickly repairing the failures to overcome the power cuts of up to 12 and 14 hours, which has pushed citizens to their limits, but also about stabilizing the system with investments that will arrive in 2023 and change the electro-energy matrix.

These investments and their acquisition are, in the opinion of the Cuban economist living in Spain, Elías Amor, one of the possible reasons that led Raúl Castro to place himself yesterday, at the age of 90, next to his dauphin. “That Raúl Castro shows his face can be a warning for those foreign investors who scan their memories with the Castros from their offices in Madrid or Paris,” says the expert, who warns of Díaz-Canel’s low media attractiveness for businessmen who “in their youth had communist ideas and now, at the head of large corporations, feel a sickly attraction to the Cuban regime.”

And the economist considers that there is another important reason: to express the Army’s support for the head of state and, therefore, the risks faced by citizens who protest the blackouts.

“Díaz-Canel will feel calmer having obtained the explicit support of Raúl Castro, so any maneuver to relieve him of the post has been put on hold until further notice,” he adds. “The Cuban communists thus lose political initiative, if they ever had it, and instead of concentrating on changing things and preparing a viable future for Cuba, they concentrate on technical programs to solve the failures that took the different units of the power plants out of service, so they don’t raise their heads. Order and discipline, Raúl Castro’s eternal song.”

Meanwhile, the population remains desperate, and this Monday the week began with a deficit of 36%, with a generation of 2,280 MW for a maximum demand of 3,100 MW. The UNE predicted that up to 890 MW would be missing during the highest consumption period.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Castroism Stole the Cuban Rum Industry and Now Seeks to Appropriate the Figurehead of the Bacardi Family

Members of the Communist Party of Cuba paying homage to Bacardi at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, in Santiago de Cuba. (Juventud Rebelde)

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 29 August 2022 — The imposing funerary pyramid of Emilio Bacardí Moreau, who died on 28 August 1922, is not far from the mortuary stone of Fidel Castro, the man who dismantled the rum distillery and the cultural legacy of the Bacardí family.

One hundred years after the death of the patriot, historian and philanthropist from Santiago, the same regime that expropriated the Bacardí distilleries and buildings intends to pay tribute to the first Republican mayor of Santiago de Cuba.

Tributes and biographical notes in the official newspapers now present Bacardí as a kind of politician precursor of the revolutionary practices of 1959. He is credited with a rabid anti-imperialism, and his business and political acumen is minimized. The issue of rum is taboo, and they almost classify him as a feminist for asking the widows of the mambises to fill positions in the town hall.

Bacardí will attain everything the Cuban regime needs, including a “little war of memory” against the heirs and directors of the company, who are currently based in Bermuda.

However, investigating and quoting Bacardí means playing with fire, because not all those who have contributed to the tribute have expressed themselves in politically “desirable” terms. continue reading

Some texts recover the sappy language of the social chronicle of the Republic, in addition to making use of terms such as patrician, eminent and patriarch, inconceivable in the official organs of the Communist Party.

Censorship confronts journalists with a curious dilemma: they must reconstruct the history of Cuban rum manufactured by Bacardí, talk about it as if it were still being distilled on the Island and suspend any reference after 1960.

“If Cuban rum is the best on the planet,” Cubadebate reasons, “in Cuba the best is that of Santiago de Cuba, the one initiated by Facundo and bequeathed by Don Emilio Bacardí Moreau,” the official government site says, without mentioning the expropriations after the triumph of the Revolution or talking about “trademarks.”

In commemorating his death, Bohemia magazine repeats that the initial tomb of the patriot was “humble to the point of surprise” — the phrase is by Fernando Portuondo — but they forget to talk about the sumptuous mausoleum of a millionaire that was later dedicated to him, described as just a “symbolic pyramid structure.”

The “main course” of the tributes was the presentation, once again, of the two volumes of Emilio Bacardí Moreau: on Passionate Cuban Humanism, published in 2018 by the historian Olga Portuondo, a controversial biography of the patriot whose distribution and sale was delayed, until it was almost impossible to find in bookstores.

Successfully, but serving the official appropriation of “uncomfortable” figures, Portuondo introduces the work of Bacardí as the founder of the oldest Cuban museum, as well as the author of the monumental collection Chronicles of Santiago de Cuba and other books, fictional and historical, of smaller scope. He is presented as an intellectual and mambí conspirator, rather than a politician or entrepreneur.

During the commemorations, there was no shortage of those who remembered quietly the “prophetic coconut tree” of Facundo Bacardí. Facundo, father of the Bacardi clan, was the man who, in 1862, coined the symbol of the bat to identify his new technique for distilling rum. In the vicinity of the factory he planted a palm tree that survived earthquakes, wars, fires, independence and flag changes.

“The company will live in Cuba as long as the coconut tree,” the legend said. On October 14, 1960, on the eve of the centenary of the company, the coconut tree just dried up, and Fidel Castro expropriated Bacardi’s premises without compensation.

The family members went into exile, with the “secret recipe” of rum, honey and yeast strains. Several international legal proceedings have been brought against the Cuban government, but none have been successful.

To this day, the most emblematic brand of Cuban rum continues its production in the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Italy and the Bahamas, but not on the Island.

This Sunday, numerous officials, Party leaders and historians aligned with the regime, and some workers of the Provincial Heritage Center, concluded the tribute in front of the mausoleum of the patriot in the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia.

Whipped by the sun of eastern Cuba, and after anachronistic speeches by the members of the Central Committee, none of the attendees were able to toast to the memory of Don Emilio with a drink of Bacardi rum.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With the New Cuban Data Protection Law, State Security Will Go Unpunished

Among the rights that, according to the text, should be guaranteed is the protection of identity, immigration status and political affiliation, among others. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 August 2022 — With the publication this Friday of Law 149 on the Protection of Personal Data, which will enter into force in February 2023, a set of rules is made official that aims to guarantee respect for “personal privacy.”

The appearance of a legal body that regulates the processing of private information, “by public and private individuals or entities,” is still controversial in a country like Cuba, where the State intervenes unscrupulously in conversations and personal databases, to manipulate them in its favor in legal processes or as a method of surveillance.

This new legislation, based on articles 40 and 48 of the Constitution of the Republic on “human dignity,” also addresses the existence of archives, information reservoirs and data storage on digital platforms, in addition to the “promotion” of a social culture of data protection.

Published this Friday by the Official Gazette, Law 149 was approved on May 14 by the National Assembly and will enter into force within 180 days. Among the rights that, according to the text, it should guarantee, is the protection of data related to image, voice, identity, religious beliefs, migratory status and political affiliation, as well as medical, judicial and administrative information.

Because the data is of a more sensitive nature, whoever requests it, whether people, companies or authorities, must clearly state the reason to the citizen, in addition to guaranteeing its security and confidentiality. The owner, in addition, must offer his express consent, “freely and unequivocally,” so that his data can be stored in any file, including government files. continue reading

“The person may not be obliged to provide sensitive personal data, nor is its processing lawful without the consent” of the owner, according to the legislation in its article 16.1, except “for reasons of general welfare, public order and the interest of defense and national security.”

As for the police and other authorities, Cubans have “the obligation to identify themselves” through their documents, but the authorities don’t have the right to demand “other data other than that reflected in those documents.”

Article 19, one of the most problematic for describing a common practice of some spaces and programs of the Cuban Information System, states that citizens “have the right not to disclose these [their data] and, consequently, to have respected their personal and family privacy, their personal honor and identity, their own image and voice.”

The use of videos, fragments of conversations, photographs, names and other sensitive data as part of the regime’s propaganda, exposed on national television by journalists such as Michel Torres and Humberto López, is a flagrant violation of a right that existed even before the drafting of this law.

In article 54, Law 149 adds that “the use of recordings of images and voices of people obtained from mobile phones, cameras, recorders and other similar devices, in no case can affect the rights protected in article 19.

This situation also contradicts the practices of the Ministry of the Interior and State Security, which have systematically used as legal evidence to hold trials after July 11, 2021, material from networks and personal devices.

Despite the fact that the articles of Law 149 are introduced as guarantees for citizens, it’s unlikely that they can be invoked against the Government during criminal proceedings. As has happened on other occasions, the National Assembly formulates laws as diplomatic tricks to cleanse the image of the regime vis-à-vis international organizations, but it gives them little real value.

The document is full of formulas that, if invoked by the defense of someone whose right to privacy has been violated, ensure the impunity of the State. The “public order and interest of defense and national security” will continue to be the regime’s alibi every time it needs to violate its own Law on the Protection of Personal Data.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Preparation of Cuban Lobster Destined for Export

Cuba was the fifth largest exporter of lobster in the world in 2020.(El Universal)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 August 2022 — The production of lobster destined for export is one of the few things that seems to be going strong in Cuba. In Niquero, a municipality of Granma Province, the plan for July of 44 tons was exceeded in just nine days, reaching 52 tons of the crustacean.

According to Jorge Rosa Acuña, plant manager of the company InduNiq, most of the success can be attributed to the implementation of new technology: a tunnel freezer and a plate freezer that have accelerated the capacity to store the lobster.

“Previously, it took us 24 hours to freeze a production; today we need only eight. The plate freezer allows us to carry out other productions on a par,” the official explains to the local newspaper La Demajagua.

In a context of constant blackouts and energy limitations for companies, the Government seems determined to maintain a meteoric march of the lobster industry, which in 2020 — the last year for which data are available — returned an income of 40.5 million dollars. The island was then the fifth largest exporter of the product worldwide, only behind Brazil, Nicaragua, the Bahamas and Honduras.

One of the company’s workers explained to the provincial newspaper that the processing of lobster is very delicate due to the demands on foreign sales. In Cuba, the product has practically disappeared from all markets. continue reading

“There are several indispensable requirements to meet the customer’s demands. Lobster is an export product that goes to the world market: Asia, Africa and Europe. So it includes review processes and quality control,” he said.

It is the second Cuban company in just three months to report its success in this area, one of the main ones along with rum, tobacco, nickel and shrimp. Last May, the La Coloma fishery in Pinar del Río presented in the official press its lobster hatchery project for export.

“It’s a project that, more than increasing the amount of product to be exported, raises the economic value of the company and is one more selection for customers that we will offer,” said Ray Leonar Sánchez Ramírez, director of the company.

The investment in the ponds, which keep the crustacean for up to 72 hours before it is moved abroad, is two million pesos, but it would allow the production of two tons of lobster per day.

The lobster catch season runs from the beginning of June to the end of January. After the end of the season, a closure period of at least four months is established to facilitate the recovery of the species before the start of the new season.

Cubans hadn’t seen lobster for ages, until after the protests of July 11, 2021 (known as ’11J’), the Government sent to the markets some products that hadn’t been seen for a long time, in order to appease the spirits of the population. Among them were the ground beef and the reputed crustacean, which cost 200 pesos without being of excellent quality.

In the most well-known gastronomic places in Havana, a Cuban lobster dish can easily exceed 700 pesos. This is the case of the state-owned Bodeguita del Medio, where 280 grams of lobster costs 705 Cuban pesos, as well as of the private bar-café Mercy, which serves it for 990.

On the black market, prices can be more affordable. In the case of fishing towns such as Batabanó or Caibarién, they can even be less than 100 pesos, but on average, lobster can be obtained for 400 pesos a pound on the “informal” market.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Parents are Distressed by the Outrageous Prices of School Supplies

In Cuba, even elementary school students don’t feel sure about the exams if they haven’t paid a tutor for several sessions beforehand. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 26 August 2022 — After two years of ups and downs, between the forced confinement of the pandemic and the economic crisis, the beginning of the school year in September is causing more than one scramble in Cuban homes. The return to school will take place in the midst of high inflation that increases the price of shoes to the snack that students need.

Parents wonder what this new beginning of teaching will be like with the long blackouts that hit the island, the shortage of flour that has sunk the production of bread, so necessary for school snacks, and the loss of value of the Cuban peso against foreign currency, in a country where only in stores that take payment in freely convertible currency can you buy shoes or a backpack.

Given the succulent slice they can get from the sale of school accessories, even several restaurants that sell their products through the Internet have added offers that have nothing to do with food. Backpacks for children at 60 dollars, snack bags, water bottles, pencils and erasers now alternate with their dishes of lasagna or fried rice.

“School supplies for girls,” reads one of these options, which for $120 include the backpack, a pair of notebooks and other tools needed in class. Home delivery in Havana can add about ten dollars more, but in the provinces it can be even more expensive. Having a family abroad that finances the purchase is essential in this case, because payment is made online with Visa or Mastercard.

Those who don’t have emigrated relatives must buy school supplies in Cuban pesos, at the exchange rate with the dollar that is currently in force in the market. Translated into the national currency, the price of a small backpack purchased in Panama can exceed 2,000 pesos, plus 300 for shipping to the house. continue reading

As for the school uniform, the nightmare is no less pressing. “I’ve been wearing this uniform since the tenth grade,” a student from Sancti Spíritus, who is about to start his last year of high school, tells 14ymedio.

“They give you high school uniforms, but no one thinks about the growth spurt at age 17. In the eleventh grade my mom had to ask for another pair or pants and depend on the officials to solve it,” he says.

He’s lucky that his mother is a seamstress, otherwise everything would get tight. “To top it all off, the polyester fabric is hot and fades easily,” he says. In the middle of the school year, the family had to buy a few meters of fabric that was very expensive to sew extra shirts and pants. “I have to take care of them,” the boy continues, “because when high school is over I have to donate them to a cousin of mine who is just starting out.”

No matter what grade he’s in, his municipality or the family’s condition, the student will always have hand-me-downs in need of repair from their use by many generations, with books full of Soviet anecdotes, anachronistic for today’s Cuban student.

“My books always have to be passed down,’” says the young man, showing the texts marked with a pen, drawn on the back and the covers or unbound. “Pencils and notebooks are another story: before you could go to Artex, and get a pencil and a couple of notebooks, but now there isn’t even that.”

The return to school will take place in the midst of high inflation that increases prices from shoes to the snack that students need. (14ymedio)

The shops of the Artex group used to market stationery, backpacks and other school supplies. But with the extinction of the Cuban convertible peso and the dollarization of the economy, the family can invest very little money in materials that Artex no longer even offers, as it is now almost entirely dedicated to the sale of tobacco and handicrafts at outrageous prices.

“Books almost never arrive; notebooks, which are of very bad paper, always come in the second or third week, hopefully. And it’s better not to mention the pencils with horrible graphite” says the student interviewed by this newspaper.

The young man has been wearing the same backpack since junior high school; the shoes are sent to him by a family member from the United States and the rest, such as socks and underwear, had to be bought in the informal market.

After two years of zero, or hasty and mediocre activity, the logistical aspect is just one side of the problem. Even primary school students don’t feel sure about the exams if they haven’t paid a tutor for several sessions beforehand. In many cases, those who offer these support classes are the same people as the student’s teachers, who have found in these reviews of the coursework a financial complement to their squalid salaries.

Another issue is the food,” continues the young man. “When you live far from the school, you have to bring a snack, because the prices of snack vendors and the private restaurants are impossible to pay. Or you walk home, which, for example, can be over one mile from school.”

Despite these and other obstacles to learning, such as the terrible school furniture or the lack of hygiene in the bathrooms, triumphalist announcements about the beginning of the new school year proliferate in the official press.

“The material base of study is assured in both internal and semi-internal centers,” lies the newspaper Tribuna de La Habana, although it discreetly admits the deficit of 4,000 teachers in the capital’s classrooms, which will be covered “with various alternatives.”

“Completing the faculty and ensuring retention” are priorities of the new course at the Artemisa pedagogical school, says a local newspaper, although it doesn’t specify what measures will be taken to achieve that goal when there are only 77 places out of the 122 that should be filled.

In the continuous journeys through the provinces by the Minister of Education, Ana Elsa Velázquez, the directors of the sector formulate the same guarantees: the State has resolved all the weaknesses, everything has been repaired and the panorama is positive.

The domestic reality, the complaints of mothers on social networks and the external aspect of schools suggest the opposite. Those Cubans who expose the reality are harassed by State Security, as happened with Trilce Denis, a Havana mother who denounced in a direct transmission the difficulty of starting school in such precarious conditions.

“I want to know, on the 7th, when school starts, what snack is going to be given to the children,” Denis said, upset. “Today I decided that I’m not going to send my son,” she concluded.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Diaz-Canel Says Goodbye to Camilo Guevara, “Promoter of the Ideas of his Father,” ‘el Che’

Camilo Guevara March was Che’s third son and was 60 years old. (Latin Press)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 August 2022 — Despite his irrelevance in Cuban public life, it was the president himself who announced on Tuesday the death of Camilo Guevara March, one of the sons of Ernesto Che Guevara.

“With deep sorrow we say goodbye to Camilo, Che’s son and promoter of his ideas, as director of the Che Center, which retains part of his father’s extraordinary legacy,” wrote Miguel Díaz-Canel, who sent in his message “hugs to his mother, Aleida, his widow and daughters and to the entire Guevara March family.”

According to the Prensa Latina agency, Guevara March was “on a visit in Caracas” and died “as a result of a pulmonary thrombolism that resulted in a heart attack.”

Born in 1962, Camilo was the third son of Che, after his sister Hilda, the daughter of Che’s first wife, Hilda Gadea; and his sister Aleida, who was also the daughter of Camilo’s mother, Aleida March. Camilo also had a younger sister, Celia, and a younger brother Ernesto, the last two children of Che and Aleida March. continue reading

Despite being a “director of the center dedicated to the study and dissemination of the thought of the Heroic Guerrilla,” as described by Cubadebate in a brief statement, Camilo, like all the descendants of Che Guevara, has lived removed from power in Cuba. With his sister Aleida, of course, they were the most visible heirs. Both traveled around the world and participated in official events.

Few things were known about his private life, except that he had a relationship with Suylén Milanés, daughter of Pablo Milanés, who recently passed away, and had with her a daughter, Camila, dedicated to the world of music. He was a lawyer, although he did not practice his profession.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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