Translator: Regina Anavy – Page 219

A Man ‘Under the Concrete Slabs’ of Santiago de Cuba High School is Still Trapped

The collapse occurred in the old building of the Antonio Maceo Grajales high school in Santiago de Cuba. (Aris Batalla)

14ymedio, Havana, 25 August 2022 — One person was injured during the collapse that occurred this Wednesday in the old building of the Antonio Maceo Grajales Vocational Pre-University Institute of Exact Sciences (IPVCE), in Santiago de Cuba

The rescue team also tried to locate another individual, allegedly trapped between several cement slabs after the collapse of the structure. This was reported on Facebook by Aris Arias Batalla, provincial head of Operations and Relief of the Red Cross branch in Santiago de Cuba.

“A whole multidisciplinary team worked tirelessly to remove the body that is under the concrete slabs,” wrote Arias Batalla. He added that the injured person was transferred to the Juan Bruno Zayas Clinical Surgical Hospital and, as of last night, he was “out of danger.”

The Cuban Red Cross, the Civil Defense and workers of the Mariel project and the Ministry of Construction are operating at the scene of the accident. In addition, they support the labor of workers at the cement factory, paramedics of the Integrated Medical Emergency System, brigade members and experts in rescue techniques.

During the early hours of Thursday, work was being done to clean up the debris, and they had to break up the concrete slabs with electric hammers, according to Arias Batal, a rescue worker. At 8:00 in the morning, the rescuers began the search in a second sector after not finding any bodies in the first. continue reading

Since the event became known, the people of Santiago have demanded from the authorities the immediate demolition of the facilities of the former IPVCE, which was being used as a source to extract steel from. These actions have already caused accidents, such as the one that occurred on July 6 when another collapse left two people in the rubble.

The injured were illegally removing the steel from the fourth floor of the structure, which collapsed on Wednesday.

“How long will people be so irresponsible and risk death trying to remove steel from the floors and columns?” asked Carlos Caballero Reyes on Facebook, after the latest collapse.

“Since the previous injuries, not even two months ago, those ruins should have disappeared. People aren’t aware,” Idamis Geilis said in the comments.

The boarding schools, especially in the vocational centers, prepared students to pursue university studies in science and technology and were one of the “crown jewels” of the Cuban education system during the years of the Soviet subsidy.

In 2006, a study on seismic vulnerability was carried out, and it was determined that the school represented an imminent risk, due to the occurrence of earthquakes in Santiago de Cuba.

However, over the years, the refusal of families to send their children to these centers, the material deterioration and the shortage of food caused the initiative to capsize. In 2009, Raúl Castro closed the boarding schools in the countryside, which accelerated the ruin of the vocational high schools.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Writers in Exile Celebrate Their 25th Anniversary with PEN International

Luis Paz, president of the PEN Club. (Facebook)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Jorge I. Pérez, Miami, 25 August 2022 — The PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile, a subsidiary of PEN International, celebrates its 25th anniversary this Saturday with a new book about its history and the “stigma” of being a “political organization” financed by the United States, something that according to its president, the poet Luis de la Paz, “is a fallacy.”

“Our organization responds to the statutes of PEN International of writers, but these 25 years we have had to fight against an aggressive campaign by the Cuban Government that calls us ’second-rate’ writers, a political organization and one funded by the CIA and the American Government,” De la Paz tells EFE in an interview.

According to PEN International, one of the first NGOs in the world founded in 1921 by the British woman, Catherine Amy Dawson Scott, “PEN centers are the voices of literature and freedom of expression in their respective countries.”

The organization, based in London and currently chaired by Kurdish novelist, Burhan Sönmez, is present in more than 100 countries.

“We were the first world organization and group of writers to emphasize that freedom of expression and literature are inseparable,” declares the organization.

Its name was conceived as an acronym for Poets, Essayists, Novelists (PEN), which was later expanded to poets, playwrights, editors, essayists and novelists.

The history of the Cuban PEN writers dates back to 1945, when the journalist Jorge Mañach, author of one of the most controversial biographies about José Martí, “Martí the Apostle,” founded the subsidiary. continue reading

Then “long years” were interrupted, says De la Paz, when the Government of Fidel Castro arrived, and cultural institutions such as the state Casa de las Américas and the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba were created, which “displaced” it.

The Cuban PEN, according to De la Paz, ceased to function after the Government took measures based on “Words to the Intellectuals,” in a speech given by Castro shortly after coming to power, at the National Library in 1961, in which he said: “Within the revolution everything, outside the revolution, nothing.”

“Censorship began, and many took the path of exile,” explains its president.

“It was at the 64th Congress of PEN International, held in 1997 in Edinburgh, Scotland, when, by unanimous vote, the creation of the PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile, based in Miami, the capital of Cuban exile, was approved,” recalls De la Paz, also a journalist based in Florida.

The poet and former political prisoner, Ángel Cuadra (1931-2021), along with other writers in exile, was the one who reactivated the Cuban PEN center, in 1997. During his captivity, Cuadra had been an Honorary Member of the Swedish PEN.

For the Cuban writer Rolando Morelli, “the Pen Club in exile must be considered, properly speaking, as a continuation of the one founded by Mañach.”

“We went into exile to preserve and conserve an ideal Cuba outside the island; that is, a symbol and embodiment of the best of our traditions,” Morelli adds from Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), where he directs the publishing house La gota de agua [The Drop of Water], which, he said, is preparing a report on the Cuban writer exiled in Spain, Gastón Baquero (1914-1997).

“Naturally, I’m honored and satisfied to be part of an institution that is a global and local reference for commitment to freedom and the defense of writers,” said Morelli, a member of the Cuban PEN in exile.

De la Paz, for his part, is proud to present this Saturday, in Miami, a book that collects all this history: “Homeland and Culture, 25 Years of PEN”, by the poet, Sara Martínez.

Next September, De la Paz and Morelli will travel to Uppsala, Sweden, to participate in the 88th PEN International Congress, which will take place from October 27 to October 1.

There they will present a resolution where “the arbitrary imprisonment of writers and plastic artists and the increasing persecution of intellectuals are denounced.”

“In exile we don’t have major problems with freedom of expression, but we do reject the lack of it on the island. Artists such as Tania Bruguera and Yunior García Aguilera are being forced into exile. The Cuban government used to try to prevent you from leaving; now it invites you to leave and doesn’t let you return. This is what is happening now,” said De la Paz.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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After Milk and Beef, Bread Disappears from the Cuban Table

Bakery on Carlos III Avenue in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez and Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 24 August 2022 — From the balcony, Yudineya watched dozens of bread and cookie sellers pass by every day in her neighborhood of Los Sitios in Havana, but for weeks they have practically disappeared. The shortage of wheat flour has hit private bakeries hard and has also put state bakeries in check.

For decades, “bread with something” has been the fundamental comfort food in Cuban homes. From the elaborate bite of ham and cheese to the poorest bread with oil and salt, the snacks of students and workers depend to a great extent on that baked product that has been disappearing in recent weeks.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do when our child starts school,” says Yudineya, 38, whose son will start the second grade of elementary school in September. “What my son always takes for a snack is bread with whatever appears, but now not even that is available,” she explains to 14ymedio.

In Nuevo Vedado, a colorful private bakery that until recently offered bags of the so-called “ball bread” in addition to hard-crust French bread, baguettes and rolls, now offers only roasted peanuts and egg-white merengue. “We’re not offering bread because we don’t have any flour,” the employee explains. “Sales have fallen a lot, and if we continue like this we’ll have to close.”

Line to buy bread on August 24 at the Pueblo Nuevo Council, Central Havana. (14ymedio)

But it’s not only bakeries that are feeling the blow of the shortage of wheat flour. Businesses that base their gastronomic offerings on pizzas and sandwiches are also suffering. “We were selling bags with 10 pizza crusts for 300 pesos, and now we’ve had to raise the price to 500,” says the delivery man of La Paloma, a private business in Diez de Octubre. continue reading

In front of the bakery on Carlos III, one of the few that still sells “released” [unrationed] bread, the elderly, physically disabled, kids, mothers and all kinds of people begin to show up. Neither age nor the numerous ailments exempt the Cuban, who must defend his place in line as if he were in a besieged fortress.

An employee announces that they will soon sell a few breadsticks. What in Creole gastronomy used to be long and crunchy, in socialism assumes the dictionary definition: “small stick, crude and poorly made.”

Invoking strength that they don’t have, battered Cubans, hoping to get a breadstick, stampede to take their place in line. One woman complains, “All we can get is a little piece of breadstick per person.”

Once the “sticks” have been bought and packaged, the crowd recovers its place in the shade. They must keep waiting: in an hour, they think, the bakery will take out a small amount of garlic bread.

“It will get worse,” predicts a bakery employee. “As of September 1, only the popular council can buy bread here. We’ve been told that there must be an establishment in every place that takes care of the people in that area.”

The shortage of flour occupies the gossips, as do the newspaper articles, the panic of daily hunger and the comments about the imminent school year. It scares mothers and overwhelms retirees, accustomed to a Spartan ration of bread and water with sugar.

An audio circulated on social networks, attributed to a Commerce manager, whispers to anyone who wants to listen that there will be no more flour. “Neither for hospitals nor for the army,” says the anonymous voice. Some sacks of flour will be available for standard bread and some for prisons, whose tranquility cannot be risked.

A prison riot, in a country where a protest can break out every night, has become one of the favorite topics to discuss during the blackouts and domino games.

At the bakery on Reina Street they handed out shifts before selling bread this Wednesday. (14ymedio)

“Today for breakfast I had only a hard roll that I brought from Havana several days ago,” Kenny Fernández Delgado, one of the Havana priests who bothers State Security the most, wrote on his social networks.

Fernández lambasted “communism,” which “took away my beef before I was born, and my milk at the age of 7” and now even “the ‘released’ bread has become a prisoner… Take everything away from me and that’s it,” the priest concluded, “as they did to Jesus Christ on Good Friday, because that way I will know that Easter Sunday is closer.”

The Government, as usual, used the State newspaper Granma to “rewrite” the alarming reality on the Island. “There are no problems with the production and distribution of bread from the Regulated Family Basket and the Cuban Bread Chain,” the media said, citing a note from the Ministry of Internal Trade.

He admitted, however, the “difficulties in the import of wheat,” attributed to the embargo, Cuba’s “financial constraints” and the “international logistics crisis.” The report concluded by “calming down” the vulnerable sectors of the population, apparently saved from scarcity.

Meanwhile, the official reporter Lázaro Manuel Alonso was trying to reconcile the fiction with reality: “Señores, stop the interpretations now,” he demanded on Facebook, supporting Granma’s version.

However, he admitted in the same publication, “Yes, there have been difficulties with the processing of bread due to the lack of electricity, which has nothing to do with the supply of raw materials for production.” Regardless of the contradictions within his own message, he tried to settle as “false” the rumor of scarcity that “some users have shared on social networks.”

The “white dust crisis,” as some Cubans have begun to call it, keeps private producers in suspense. Pastry shops have substantially reduced their supply, while the price for any empanada, jam or cake, no matter how squalid, is increasing.

Not only flour, but also eggs, sugar, oil and other ingredients of the family pantry will be removed from the symbolic Cuban’s table. The meats, the fruits and now, finally, the bread basket are also gone.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: Protests and the Declaration of the Civil Society

Last Thursday night, the population of Nuevitas took to the streets in protest against the blackouts lasting more than 10 hours. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, August 24, 2022 — To those who asked when the Cuban population would return to take to the streets, when another July 11 would be repeated, it must be said: the people have already taken to the streets in many cities every day. Every day is July 11. And this is just the beginning, because, curiously, it’s the authorities themselves who give the signal for the protests to begin.

That “signal” is called a blackout. And apparently they are going to happen more and more frequently. They thought they had found the formula to prevent any mass protest in a city from spreading throughout the country: cutting off the internet, but they themselves are inadvertently putting into practice another formula to summon them: cutting off the electricity.

The difference with July 11, 2021 is that it was then face-to-face and held at the same time in many places at once, like a disadvantageous frontal war against a powerful enemy. Now, it is more like a guerrilla war, where even darkness is the best ally.

However, last week, the people of Nuevitas not only protested in the streets, but also faced the dictatorship’s attack, and there were injuries on both sides. All the demonstrations have been peaceful, but the population cannot be asked to turn the other cheek in the face of a brutal repression that makes no distinction for age or gender.

So where is all this going to go? Because cutting off the Internet no longer works for the regime, when today no city or town waits for a San Antonio de los Baños to initiate a protest. There will come a time when every town and city is protesting in the streets, and the whole country will shudder with another social explosion, this time more forceful, and then no one will be able to stop it.

The only thing that would be missing today is the common position of that civil society in rebellion, something to which Manuel Cuesta Morúa, vice president of the Committee for the Democratic Transition, was referring when he made a proposal a month after those glorious protests last year: “I think that what should happen now is to translate the social explosion into a political proposal.” And he added: “This has to be led, coordinated and activated by civil society.” continue reading

Prominent philosophers such as Spinoza and Kant agreed to define civil society as “a collective body constituted by the individuals of a society, which is positioned outside the limits of the State.” Civil society, being composed of all those who participate in that community, has a moral force superior to the State, so the State must submit to it, and not civil society to the State, especially when the party leadership that controls it was not elected by the citizens. Jean Jacques Rousseau went much further when he said: “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”

When it comes to civil society, a declaration that reflects its common position cannot be ideologized, because it would contain all the diversity of a political tuning fork, but it must address the concrete problems that are affecting us all. And this is precisely what was reflected, in just two pages, by a group of Cubans in their Manifesto of Cuban Civil Society. In a few days they collected more than 80 signatures from inside and also outside Cuba, “since the Cuban nation extends beyond the Cuban archipelago to any part of the world where there is a Cuban identified with the collective aspirations of his compatriots.”

The manifesto, which aims to collect thousands of signatures, doesn’t ask anyone for anything, but demands respect for all our legitimate rights and the release of all those imprisoned for practicing or defending them. Each signatory must give the details of his name, profession or activity he carries out, the organization to which he belongs if any, city and country where he resides, and send them to concordiaencuba@outlook.com, to proclaim to the world and to the oppressors, that the Cuban people are already on the move and that nothing and no one will be able to stop them from reaching their destination: a homeland of freedom and life.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Rolando Cubela, the Cuban Commander who Conspired to Kill Fidel Castro, Dies in Miami

Faure Chomón, Fidel Castro and Rolando Cubela after the triumph of the 1959 Revolution. (El rastro del invasor)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 August 2022 — Commander, former political prisoner and doctor Rolando Cubela died at the age of 90 on Tuesday morning in the Miami hospital where he had been admitted for several weeks, according to family sources. A member of the Rebel Army, the guerrilla leader was part of a conspiracy to kill Fidel Castro in the 1960s.

Born in 1932 in the city of Cienfuegos, Cubela studied medicine and was a leader of the University Student Federation (FEU). After Fulgencio Batista’s military coup, on March 10, 1952, he joined the Revolutionary Directorate, a group founded by José Antonio Echeverría and Fructuoso Rodríguez.

Cubela was part of the clandestine cell that murdered Colonel Antonio Blanco Rico, head of the Military Intelligence Service, in Havana on October 27, 1956. After that action, he went into exile in Miami, where he was when his colleagues from the Directorate raided the Presidential Palace, on March 13, 1957, and failed to kill Batista.

Upon his return to Cuba, he established himself with other members of the Revolutionary Directorate in the guerrilla struggle in the Escambray mountains, where in 1958 he signed the Pact of El Pedrero with Ernesto Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, an alliance with the July 26 Movement that allowed the capture of the city of Santa Clara, in which Cubela was injured.

After Fidel Castro came to power, he was promoted to the rank of commander of the Armed Forces, and in 1959 he was elected president of the FEU over the other candidate, Pedro Luis Boitel, who in 1972 died on a hunger strike in prison. From the first years, Cubela began to have profound differences with the communist course of the revolutionary process. continue reading

In November 1963, a CIA agent met Cubela in Paris, who then held the position of military attaché of the Cuban embassy in Madrid. There he was given a feather, with poison in the quill, to puncture Castro when he was near him. But Cubela never used the device, since he preferred to use a rifle with a telescopic sight and silencer so as not to be so close to the target.

The delivery of the rifle was delayed, and the Cuban intelligence services ended up encircling Cubela, who was arrested in February 1966 and sentenced to death, although, due to Castro’s direct intervention, his sentence was commuted to 25 years, of which he served 12. In 1979, he went into exile in Madrid, where he worked as a doctor, and in 1988 he obtained Spanish nationality.

His profile in Madrid was very discreet due to the danger of being killed by Castro. In 2007, he participated in two public events organized by the Democracia Ya Platform, one of them in front of the Cuban Embassy in Madrid. Unlike other exiled commanders, such as Huber Matos and Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Cubela did not found an anti-Castro organization during his time off the island.

After retiring from his job as a doctor, he settled in Miami, where he also maintained a low profile. The man who could have killed Fidel Castro survived him by at least six years.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Receives Humanitarian Aid from Nicaragua and Bolivia Due to the Matanzas Fire

A cargo plane from Bolivia arrives at José Martí International Airport with 62.3 tons of aid due to the fire, this Monday in Havana. (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, August 23, 2022 — Cuba received shipments of humanitarian aid from Bolivia and Nicaragua on Monday due to the fire in the Matanzas Supertanker Base, the largest in the history of the country.

The donations consist of food, medicine and medical supplies, according to the Cuban Government.

The aid coming from Bolivia — more than 62 tons — arrived at the Havana international airport José Martí, and the Nicaraguan aid arrived at the port of Mariel on the ship Augusto César Sandino, which had left Arlen Siu a few days ago.

During the reception at the airfield, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Deborah Rivas, thanked Bolivia on behalf of the Island government and added that the country will also support La Paz “whenever they need us.”

Likewise, in the port of Mariel, Betsy Díaz, Minister of Internal Trade, said that the donation reaffirms the “unyielding will to strengthen historical ties” between Havana and Managua, especially “at such a difficult time.”

Other countries, such as Argentina and Spain, have already announced they are sending humanitarian aid to the Island after the accident, which left 16 dead, 146 injured and 17 hospitalized. continue reading

On August 5, a huge fire broke out at the Matanzas fuel tank base, the most important in the country, when lightning struck one of the eight tanks in the industrial park, according to the Cuban authorities.

The fire — which affected four tanks with a capacity of 13,208,602 liquid gallons — caused strong explosions, with flares of hundreds of feet, and a column of toxic black smoke that reached Havana, 60 miles away.

The island decreed two days of official mourning that ended last Friday with a posthumous tribute to 14 of the 16 victims, who until last week were still considered missing, and whose bone fragments were found at the scene of the accident.

According to Cuban experts, the degree of calcination of the remains made it impossible to extract their DNA, but he said that it corresponds to those of the missing, some of whom were young people doing their military service.

The Government revealed last week the names of the 14 people but not their ages, amid criticism of dissent and NGOs that claimed that several of them were young people in military service.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Boxer Billy Rodriguez Escapes after Winning Against Luna in Mexico

Boxer Billy Rodríguez left the Domadores de Cuba team after his professional debut in which he beat Miguel Ángel Luna. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 August 2022 — Cuban boxer Billy Rodríguez traveled to Mexico with one goal: “to come out victorious and then enjoy myself,” he stated in an interview with the official site Jit. He showed his qualities last Friday in his professional debut against Miguel Ángel Luna, whom he beat by a technical knockout, and with his escape he gave another hook to the liver of the boxing team Domadores de Cuba.

El Niño Rodríguez, as he is known within the Cuban Boxing School, became, like every athlete who escapes, a traitor, who “turned his back on contractual obligations” and “whose attitude must be condemned.”

According to journalist Francys Romero, with Rodríguez’s abandonment there are now 31 athletes who have escaped this year from Cuban teams during international competitions, including those who have decided to end a contract with Cuba’s National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder).

“These 31 include baseball players Alfredo Fadraga and Yosvany Ávalos, who were captured and deported back to Cuba last June,” the journalist said on his social networks. “It’s the reality right now of sport and Cuban society. The situation will only get worse. In 2023, there will be Central American and Pan American Games in the same year.

Billy Rodríguez’s escape is a serious setback for the Cuban regime that highlighted the young man from Havana as a revelation and Cuba’s hope in the 108-pound division. He was due to debut on June 5 in Buenos Aires, but host Sergio Daniel Rosales said he didn’t comply with the weight requirement. continue reading

Last Friday, Rodríguez showed himself against Luna as a fast boxer, with variety in his punches and a solid right, which took down his opponent. He exhibited in the ring the teachings of his mentor, Diógenes Luna, 2001 world champion in Belfast.

Rodríguez has defined himself as a boxer who likes to exploit his right, who likes to strike, dodge and counterattack. He is also a follower of Olympic and world champion Julio César La Cruz, but his idol is Lázaro Álvarez.

El Niño is gone from Cuba. The future may bring opportunities in boxing but also professionally, as this young man has completed his studies as a physical education teacher, said Cubadebate.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Angola Resumes its Air Relations with Cuba

The flights between Luanda and Havana will start this November 8. (TAAG Airlines)

14ymedio, Havana, 23 August 2022 — Angola’s state airline, TAAG Airlines, will cross the Atlantic Ocean again from Luanda to Havana beginning November 8, according to an official announcement by the company.

“After the positive evaluation of business for the intercontinental routes (America and Europe), TAAG is in a position to resume connections with Cuba/Havana,” the Angolan Day published a few days ago.

The flights will be made on board a Boeing 777-300 on a biweekly basis, starting in November, and it’s expected that weekly trips can be made from December. Later, in February 2023, the biweekly frequency will be resumed, says the Angolan newspaper.

There is already a flight schedule that includes November 8 and 22, and December 6, 13, 20 and 27. On the other hand, in January 2023, travelers will be able to book on February 3, 10, 17 and 24, and also on February 14 and 28. continue reading

Departure from Luanda will be at 10:00 p.m. and a landing in Havana is scheduled for 6:00 a.m. the next day, local time. Departures from the Island will be at 11:30 a.m., with an arrival in Luanda at 7:00 p.m. the next day. On its social networks, the airline has begun to promote its relaunch to the island and invites bookings on the first dates.

TAAG Airlines paused its flights due to travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic and was only allowed some humanitarian or cargo trips. This airline had operated without interruption between the two countries from 1984 to 2020.

In June of this year, the CEO of TAAG, Eduardo Fairen, announced that the company is preparing to be privatized before 2025, as has happened with the rest of the companies involved in the aviation sector, prior to the open skies agreement.* Several months before these statements, in February, the company acknowledged that its debts to international suppliers are around $250 million.

Cuba and Angola established diplomatic relations on November 11, 1975 and have maintained close ties since then. Between that year and 2002, more than 300,000 Cuban soldiers participated in the civil war that broke out in Angola after its independence from Portugal, a colonial power for four centuries.

Earlier this year, the Minister of State of Angola, Adao de Almeida, visited the island and together with Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas reaffirmed the desire to promote “economic cooperation” between the two countries. “Today, Havana and Luanda are focusing on promoting the links between the Mariel Special Development Zone and the Special Economic Zone of the Nation of West Africa,” says a statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry, dated February 28 of this year.

With the election in 2017 of a new president, João Lourenço, a review of the cooperation with Cuba began, which the former head of state, José Eduardo dos Santos, handled with a suspicious generosity.

In December 2020, Luanda annulled a million-dollar contract with Havana for “failure” of its obligations in the construction of a road. The company Imbondex Construcciones y Materiales de Construcción S.A. belonged to the Cuban military conglomerate Gaesa (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.).

In 2015, Cuba had more than 4,000 aid workers deployed in Angola, including 1,800 doctors and 1,400 teachers.

A few days ago, more than 260 young Angolans returned to their country after graduating in healthcare specialties in Cuba, including Medicine, Stomatology, Optometry and Optics, Rehabilitation, Hygiene and Epidemiology, Nutrition, Health Information System, Veterinary Medicine, in addition to others such as Agronomy and Civil and Industrial Engineering. According to the Cuban Foreign Ministry, the island has trained about 45,000 Angolan students.

*Translator’s note: An agreement in which aircraft can fly between two countries without any restrictions.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Official Sale of Dollars in Cuba Begins and Each One Will Cost 123 Pesos

The purchase can be made at 36 exchange offices and a branch of the Banco Popular de Ahorro in Isla de la Juventud. (14ymedio)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 22 August 2022 — The Cuban government announced on Monday that it will start selling dollars to the population on August 23 at a rate of 123.60 Cuban pesos (CUP) per dollar. The 37 premises authorized to carry out this operation will report daily the number of people who can buy that day, “depending on the availability of foreign currency,” said the Minister President of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), Marta Sabina Wilson González, on the Roundtable television program, hosted by Randy Alonso.

Initially, a person will be able to buy only $100 or its equivalent in other currencies, although Wilson González did not specify how often this can be done. The sale will begin in 36 exchange houses (cadecas) and a branch of the Banco Popular de Ahorro in Isla de la Juventud.

The official said that both the exchange rate, for now 120 CUP for a dollar, and the margins, will be adjusted if necessary. In addition, the purchase limit of $100 per person “can be extended” later.

“If the dollar is the most difficult currency we have for export, then the idea is for people to demand that currency, and we want that purchase to be fundamentally from the dollars we have in stock in the cadecas,” said the minister president of the Central Bank.

The Cuban authorities said that the euro is the currency that has entered the official foreign exchange market the most since they implemented the new exchange rate at the beginning of the month, followed by the dollar, the pound sterling and the Mexican peso. continue reading

The Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, for his part, acknowledged that “there is a demand for cash dollars” on the Island, whether to emigrate, to go shopping abroad or for other reasons. However, he clarified that right now the only way out for these dollars is to sell them on the foreign exchange market.

Cubans buy dollars to emigrate, make domestic transactions and leverage their little savings in the face of the collapse of the power of the CUP to buy goods and services. Inflation and lack of productivity have pushed the national currency into abysses never before seen.

“We’re not going to fall behind the exchange rate of the informal market,” Gil said for those who expect the official rate to compete against illegal networks. “The first step is for the State to regain control of the value of the currency,” the minister clarified. “This is not a market economy,” he stressed.

“Little by little, the State will advance in controlling the foreign exchange market,” Gil reaffirmed. But “if you have a partially dollarized market,” there will always be a demand for foreign currency. “We will reach a time of lower demand for foreign currency when we have more products available in Cuban pesos.”

The minister, who repeated the word “challenge” several times to describe the foreign exchange market, warned of the need to relaunch Cuban industry in order to sustain the pulse of the currency and reiterated his criticism of the “voluntarist” vision of the economy. “The strength of the economy is what will allow us to stabilize the exchange rate,” he explained. “You have to come down to earth and understand the sense of urgency,” he confessed.

“This is not for the new rich,” Gil defended himself. “This is not a measure for those who receive foreign currency,” he said in a speech, trying to reinforce the idea that there is an official script that includes, in the medium and short term, an improvement in daily life. “It’s not improvisation; nothing we do is improvised,” he said in the midst of a climate of increased social criticism.

Reactions to the new announcement flooded the social networks. Cuban economist Mauricio De Miranda Parrondo said ironically on Twitter: “I think the next decision of the Government will be to sell foreign currency through the ration book in Cuba. Randy says that they will assign turns in the line. I imagine they will end up making phone appointments.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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More Police and Arrests and Fewer Blackouts to Calm Things Down in Nuevitas, Cuba

Moment in a video during the second protests in Nuevitas, in the early hours of Saturday, in which protesters are seen facing an agent. (Captura)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 August 22, 2022 — The Camagüey city of Nuevitas, a protagonist on Thursday and Friday of the largest demonstrations in Cuba since July 11, 2021, wakes up on this repressed and silent Monday. Throughout the weekend, its inhabitants had their Internet access restricted, and the streets were patrolled by police, soldiers and civilian agents.

Eyewitness testimonies about the protests, published on social networks, have been deleted. Thanks to these videos, it was possible to observe the crowd that made up the demonstrations, where along with demanding an the end of the blackouts — “turn on the power, dickhead” – they shouted other high-sounding slogans, such as “freedom” “homeland and life” or “Díaz-Canel, motherfucker, the people are tired,” and sang of the national anthem.

There is also no trace of what happened in Nuevitas in the official press. The provincial newspaper Adelante limited itself to announcing this Sunday a new “energy schedule,” inferring that there will be fewer blackouts.

In an attempt to appease the spirits of the population, they also reported that the Diez de Octubre thermoelectric plant, in Nuevitas, which had stopped working due to breakdowns, “synchronized” two of its units to the National Energy System. The title of the note published on Saturday, Thermoelectric unit of Nuevitas integrated into the national generation of was, however, misleading: both blocks later, were again “off-line” because of problems with the boilers, and the only unit that works in the plant is the VI.

Some official media did allude to the protests on their social networks, only to dismiss them. Thus, Radio Nuevitas reproduced on Facebook a publication that calls peaceful demonstrations “disruptions of public order, always encouraged from the outside to incite hatred, popular discontent and violence.” continue reading

The text, signed by Pedro Alexander Cruz Moiset of Radio Cadena Agramonte, extends to the opinion that “none of those who call for a regime change in Cuba have lived under capitalism, much less delved into the history of capitalism.”

The author suggests that “rather than inciting hatred, the call must be for unity, discipline, order, the collective search for the solution to the real and objective problems that the nation is experiencing,” and ends by calling for “the defense of the Revolution and its conquests” with the slogan “homeland or death, we will win.”

The publication was strongly criticized in the comments. “You have to be really cold to blame others for what happens in Cuba! Enough is enough! No one believes you!” writes Indira C. Martínez. “Be ashamed of your complicity and do real journalism!” asks Gissel Herrera.

A Cuban woman, resident in Miami, Alina Jalil, argues: “They could say that Cubans were asleep because there was no internet, and they barely had communication with the outside world, buddy! But now? It’s shameful that they publish this! Who is that note for?”

And the Havanan Niurvis Delgado says: “The people are tired of so many unfulfilled promises. They protest to ask for change and demand that they be heard, because they know that there’s a better life and that what they lead is not life,” while encouraging: “We are all Neuvitas! Poor, brave people!”

Meanwhile, Justicia 11J reported that the relatives of Mayelín Rodríguez Prado, La Chamaca, were informed by the police of Nuevitas that the 21-year-old girl was transferred to Camagüey. “We don’t take this information for granted until Mayelín makes the regulation call that would put an end to her disappearance,” clarifies the legal platform, which registers a total of 42 detainees in the protests that have occurred on the Island since the beginning of the “scheduled blackouts” in mid-June.

On Sunday, the organization mentioned ten others arrested for the demonstrations in Camagüey. Two of them are José Armando Torrente and his wife, parents of Gerlin Torrente Echevarría, the 11-year-old girl who along with two others was assaulted by security forces in the early hours of Saturday.

In addition, they report that the hairdresser Josué Nápoles Sablón, El Nene, and six demonstrators from the peoples council of Camalote were arrested: Yasmani García Ramírez, Michel Escalona Ramírez, Kenay Perdomo Soria, Héctor Curbelo, José Antonio Rodríguez and Richard Conte Betancourt.

Finally, they confirmed the arrest of Julio Gil de Montes, related, says Justicia 11J, “to his critical statements about the first secretary of the Party in Camagüey.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Every Man for Himself, Blackouts are Growing in Cuba and so is the Market for Generators

Since August 15, Cubans are allowed to import up to two power generators without commercial purposes. (CMKX Radio Bayamo/Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 16 August 2022 — “Noiseless and efficient,” according to the text that accompanies the photo of a power generator that, for about $4,000, promises to exorcise the demon from the blackouts. The most precious status symbol on the Island is a device that keeps appliances running when the government cuts off the power. Only surpassed by a plane ticket to emigrate.

The energy deficit, due to the poor state of the thermoelectric plants and the lack of fuel, has plunged Cubans into darkness. In large areas of the country, electricity appears for only a few moments, not exceeding ten hours of service per day. Cooking, cooling off or being able to drink a glass of cold water depend on running devices that invariably need power.

Since August 15, with the easing of customs measures, Cubans can import up to two generators with a maximum power of 15,000 watts without commercial purposes. The duty payment may vary depending on the capacity of the device and whether the traveler brings in other goods that are also taxed, but that small opening has been enough to trigger the market for generators.

Ibrahim has been traveling to Panama for six years to import household appliances. “The pandemic almost put me out of business because I couldn’t travel for some time, but now I’m back on track,” he tells 14ymedio. “The most profitable thing right now is to bring in generators, because people are desperate and pay well for them. If you don’t have a generator, you don’t have quality of life.”

Those who don’t have the resources to buy one appeal to ingenuity: blades of a fan that are driven by pedaling a bicycle, improvised beds in the doorway or on a terrace to take advantage of even the smallest breeze in the early hours of the morning, and the traditional hand fan that serves to refresh the skin and scare away mosquitoes are just some of the ways, but they are only palliative and barely calm the discomfort. continue reading

Living in the Havana neighborhood of Nuevo Vedado, Ibrahim’s clients are middle-income people, often with families abroad who can help them with their expenses and who don’t want to go through the blackout without being able to turn on at least one fan, a rice cooker or a television. “I haven’t left Cuba yet, and I already have six orders for generators.”

“The most in demand right now are those that use both gasoline and propane, because there’s no guarantee that one of the two can always be bought. Diesel ones also have their market,” he explains to this newspaper. “The problem is that now it has also become a problem to get the fuel, so buying the device doesn’t end the problem,” he admits.

Among Ibrahim’s clients are families who seek to ease domestic life during power outages but also some entrepreneurs. “I have people who can’t afford to lose power because valuable merchandise will spoil, or they’ll lose a lot of money because they can’t work.” As an example, he mentions “informal shrimp and lobster sellers,” in addition to a home beverage business that sells its products online and promises them “always cold.”

The prices vary. Ibrahim sums it up: “For every watt I generate you pay me a dollar. But if it’s a powerful generator of more than 4,500 watts, I can provide it, and there are discounts that make the price cheaper. If, in addition, the client wants it to be home-delivered, that can be arranged.”

But it’s not all a matter of money when it comes to acquiring one of these devices that saves you from darkness and heat. “My brother has been insisting that I buy one for a long time, but I live on a street where everyone is a big gossip,” laments Juan Carlos, a resident of the city of Alquízar. “If, in the middle of a blackout, the only house that is illuminated is mine, people will start talking.”

Juan Carlos runs a modest business selling fresh cheese and yogurt. Most of his business is informal, and he’s afraid to keep his lights on when the neighbors can’t even see their hands. “The least that can happen is envy, and the worst is the thieves, who might think I have a lot of money because I have a generator.”

The theft of these devices is becoming more frequent. “In the early hours of the morning they took the generator that we had secured behind a padlocked fence,” a resident of El Vedado, who managed to use her generator for only a few weeks, explains to this newspaper. “It was wonderful, although a little noisy,” she says. “We never filed a complaint with the police because we had bought it on the black market.”

Ibrahim doesn’t want to import a generator for his family. “My thing is to make money to get my wife and my two children out. If I have to spend that time fanning myself with a piece of cardboard, I’ll do it.” In advance, he already knows what devices to bring to the island in the first days of September. The classified ad he has put in several places shows a large generator, with wheels and accompanied by a phrase: “Sleep all night without worrying about blackouts.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Experts Say the Pollution Levels of the Matanzas Fire are ‘Low’

Remains of the fire at the Supertanker Base of the port of Matanzas (Cuba). (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, August 22, 2022 — The serious fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base threw out “low” levels of pollutants, the Cuban authorities told the official press on Sunday.

Oscar García Martínez, delegate of the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment in Matanzas, said that the main effects are “air quality, as in any fire” and that the measured levels “do not compromise human health.”

The accident, which began on August 5 and lasted almost a week, claimed the lives of 16 people, some of them young people who were undergoing compulsory military service, and injured 146, 17 of whom are still hospitalized.

“Everything indicates that what happened in the fire doesn’t seem to have compromised any aspect for the future,” García Martínez said without showing exact figures. The Government expects to have an environmental impact assessment by September. Scientific research, the official said, continues. “If we know anything new, we will inform you,” he told the newspaper Girón. “If any indicator is altered, we will analyze it and follow up on it.”

The specialist said that the samples taken in Matanzas Bay, near the industrial area where the disaster occurred, “corroborate visually that there is no damage right now.” continue reading

He pointed out that “we had never experienced a spill (of crude oil) associated with a fire,” and research on its effects covers aspects related to soil, agricultural production and traces in livestock milk — a series of elements to ascertain the real magnitude of the impact of the fire, the largest recorded on the island.

This analysis stage, planned for two months, could be extended up to two more years with other parameters, “to reassess soil, vegetation and food chains,” he added.

Although he considers that “the danger has already passed,” because the focus that caused the increase of pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, among other substances, in the atmosphere “disappeared,” he estimates that the emanations are in the usual range in Matanzas.

Four of the eight tanks of the storage base, the largest facility of its kind in Cuba for receiving and storing crude oil, burned completely, causing explosions, flares of hundreds of feet and a curtain of smoke that reached neighboring provinces such as Mayabeque and Havana, located more than 60 miles to the west.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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General Blackout in Havana Due to an Alleged Breakdown in a High Voltage Line

Havana was almost in complete darkness, seen from Nuevo Vedado on Thursday night. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 August 2022 — A power outage left all of Havana in the dark on Thursday night. Shortly after 9:00 pm and neighborhood by neighborhood, the Cuban capital went out, with a few exceptions: Diez de Octubre, San Miguel, Cerro, Central Havana, Old Havana, Beach, Marianao, Boyeros. From the 14th floor of the editorial office of this newspaper, the panorama was as impressive as a satellite image of North Korea at night.

Not even government offices, such as those located in the Plaza de la Revolución, nor emblematic places, like the Capitol, La Cabaña or El Morro, were lit. And areas where, until now, they hadn’t taken away their power, such as neighborhoods near hospitals, were also without electricity.

Around 10:00 pm, the Electric Union of Cuba (UNE) communicated what all Havanans knew: that a large part of the municipalities in the capital were “affected without electricity service.” Likewise, it clarified that “this impact on electricity service” was not related to “the energy deficit and scheduled blackouts” and that the causes were being investigated. The UNE had no idea what had happened, and that was very worrying. continue reading

Under normal conditions, a technician knowledgeable about the energy system explains to 14ymedio, the electricity company has a way of knowing in real time where a breakdown happens and, therefore, what caused it.

“However,” he ventures to say, “if the three sources of power in Havana are turned off, they have no way of knowing where the breakdown is or what happened, because if everything goes down, everything goes out.” And he says: “Something serious, but really serious, happened there.”

Once service was restored, two hours later, the UNE said that the problem had been due to “a breakdown in the 110 kV [kilovolt, high voltage] lines, which affected several substations that feed an important part of the city.”

The explanation didn’t satisfy the citizens’ suspicion. Sources for this newspaper also reported blackouts in Varadero, Matanzas and Santiago de Cuba.

“I don’t remember a blackout of this magnitude without a hurricane,” said a concerned neighbor in Central Havana, where you could hear the distinctive racket of children playing outside the tenements and buildings.

Comments on Telegram in response to the brief statement of the UNE were limited, but some managed to express their indignation. “Everyone to the street! Cuba is one big block of poverty,” said the user Dama Bautista.

In fact, from the isolated screams in the middle of the night, it was inferred that many habaneros had their pots and pans ready to bang on in the midst of the darkness. Luyanó was the only place where, so far, some neighbors have carried out a protest, as reported in videos on social networks.

From the black beret patrols [Army Special Forces] that sources from San Antonio de los Baños report to this newspaper having seen “looking for a road to Havana,” it’s understood that the fear of a saucepan demonstration in the capital was spreading among the authorities.

Before that happened, and while crazy rumors about the leaders’ flight from the country began to circulate on social networks, around 11:00 pm the light returned.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Nicaragua Sends a Ship with Food to Cuba

Archive image of the Nicaraguan ship AC Sandino, sent this Thursday to Cuba. (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Managua, 19 August 2022 — The Government of Nicaragua announced on Thursday that it sent a ship with food to Cuba, as an act of solidarity “with Cuban families.”

The ship Augustus C. Sandino, with a Nicaraguan flag, weighed anchor in the early hours of Thursday from the river port Arlen Siu, in the Autonomous Region of the South Caribbean (RACS), and headed to the Island, said the Executive Branch in a press release. Nicaraguan authorities expect the Sandino to arrive next Monday at the port of Mariel (Artemisa), about 30 miles from Havana.

This is the second shipment of aid granted by Nicaragua to Cuba so far in 2022, and the fifth since the street demonstrations of July last year on the island due to the lack of food and medicine, which has reached unprecedented levels. continue reading

The Government of Nicaragua didn’t give details about the type or quantity of food sent to Cuba this Thursday. In previous shipments, Nicaragua gave Cuba rice, beans, oil, coffee and other goods.

The governments of Nicaragua and Cuba have had close relations during the times when former Sandinista guerrilla Daniel Ortega ruled the country, first from 1985 to 1990, and then from 2007 up to the present.

Nicaragua and Cuba are part of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America (ALBA), led by the Island regime and chavista Venezuela.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Old Cheater and the Suspicious Guajiro Negotiate the Crisis in Cuba

This Thursday morning an old woman rehearsed an apology for taking a pound of rice without paying from the improvised point of sale located in the park on Carlos III and Belascoaín streets. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 18 August 2022 — With a paper cup in his hand, a man with a tanned face approaches those who pass through Havana’s Central Park. “My daughter suffered an accident yesterday and I need to buy her medicines,” he explains. He has been repeating the same story for years, which he seasons with more lurid details as the economic crisis worsens. A few feet away, a shaved-ice seller cursed because he had been paid with a five-peso bill as if it were 500 pesos. This very common counterfeiting swindle is due to the recent arrival of high-denomination banknotes whose colors resemble lower-value banknotes.

Upon hearing this story, the colleague who helped him push his cart also took the opportunity to talk about the scam he suffered in transfers through his mobile phone, which cost him his whole telephone balance. “You can’t trust people; they say one thing and then try to stab you in the back,” he said.

The feeling of mistrust spreads everywhere, and the most notorious scams of the Special Period are again recounted with fear. From steak made from a carpet to pizza with condoms masquerading as cheese, the urban legends of street fraud return in force to everyday conversations.

But beyond these milestones of deception, the small scam or apparent naivety is the one that’s most widespread on the Island.

This Thursday morning an elderly woman rehearsed an apology for taking a pound of rice without paying from the improvised point of sale located in the park on Carlos III and Belascoaín streets. “Mijo, give it to me and I’ll go right away to the ATM and bring you the money,” the lady repeated several times, but the merchant didn’t buy it. “Go and come back with the 50 pesos and then I’ll give you the rice,” the farmer responded categorically, adding in a lower voice: “I may be a guajiro but I’m not stupid.”

The deception also spreads to private cafes: snacks that show a slice of ham only on the outside but inside are empty, and presumed natural juices that are sold at exorbitant prices and are actually artificial concentrates mixed with water. However, the champion pickpocket is still the State: meat slices that don’t even have the memory of animal origin but continue reading

are marketed at the price of gourmet food, all-inclusive tour packages where you have to take a glass with you because in hotels they don’t have the packaging to serve drinks, and an internet access service, among the most expensive in the world, which barely guarantees a few hours.

The corner scammer justifies his villainy by pointing to the constant economic crimes committed by the ruling party. He himself is a victim of voracity and state inefficiency. “My old lady, if she goes to the cashier now to get money, she will return tomorrow because there’s a blackout and they’re out of service,” joked another customer from the point of sale on Carlos III Street. The crisis can lead to scams but, at the same time, it’s noticeable that people are more suspicious and don’t allow themselves to be scammed so easily.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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