Translator: Regina Anavy – Page 36

Running Behind the Truck Is the Only Way To Buy Bananas at a Fair in Santiago de Cuba

Agricultural fair on October 14, 2023, in the José Martí District of Santiago de Cuba. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Santiago de Cuba, 14 October 2023 — It’s early morning, and Yésica puts on her most comfortable clothes and shoes. Together with her two children, she tries to be among the first to buy ’burro bananas’ (fongo, in the east of the country) and yucca at the agricultural fair that takes place every Saturday in the Micro 9 neighborhood, in the José Martí District of Santiago de Cuba. She anxiously waits for the truck to arrive with the products so “the bananas don’t turn black during the week,” but her plan is one thing, and the result could be another.

“People run after the truck, willing to be dragged. If they don’t die of hunger they can die by being crushed,” complains Yésica. To reach the vehicle, still running, position yourself and be among the first customers, “you have to be ninjas,” she says, although in her case, as in that of so many others who come to the fair, “the instinct for survival is stronger than the fear.”

Organized by the city authorities, the fair is not peaceful, and the police often intervene, as happened this Saturday. The relatively low price of food, cheaper than in the private shops, causes an unstoppable flood of people. Both a pound of fongo and one of cassava costs 15 pesos, in contrast to the 80 that they ask for in the private shops. Both products have become the salvation of many homes in the area. continue reading

That food is essential to occupy the space that cannot be filled by the scarce five pounds of rice that are distributed through the ration book. That amount is barely enough for a few days, and Yésica says that she can’t always buy the product at 200 pesos a pound, which is the current price in the informal market.

“I bring my children to the fair, and we buy yucca and fongo for 15 pesos. That helps us stretch the little bit of rice they give us,” explains Yésica. “And we even have breakfast with that. If there is no bread, I fry yucca for the kids in the morning and let them fill up with it because sometimes I can’t buy bread. I need at least six rolls a day, and that’s where 150 pesos go.”

Physical skill, youth and some craftiness are essential to fill the bag. Last Saturday, the son of this santiaguera, 16 years old, got a good place on the moving vehicle, and “I got a place nearby, like the 15th.” Every Saturday you can see people rushing to get in line and run behind the truck. There are also people on crutches, mothers carrying small children and the elderly.

“That day, although my son managed to be among the first, I didn’t get home until noon, and that’s why they do a nearby fair,” Yésica adds, referring to others in various parts of the city, but because of “how bad the transport is, it’s not worth it to bother going there to see what they are selling,” she explains.

In the informal market, a pound of these foods can cost up to 80 pesos. (14ymedio)

That same day, Evaristo, another neighbor of the District, tells 14ymedio that “they even gave tickets to the slaughter and sold only six pounds of yucca and 10 of fongo per person, so that everyone could take a little, because if not, the first ones hoard everything and then you see them reselling a pound at 60 pesos.”

But, beyond having more agile legs or younger children, hunger is hitting everyone, says Evaristo. For her part, another 68-year-old resident summarizes the hard daily life in Santiago de Cuba: “Today I told my niece, who lives in Spain, that people here walk on the street like they’re crazy, without transportation, without money, but above all, without eating. They even faint on the buses. In my grandson’s school, children pass out every day because they don’t have breakfast and can’t bring a snack.”

“One boy told me that at his best friend’s house there is a law: ’Whoever eats lunch doesn’t eat dinner’. So he leaves the main course for the night and eats nothing at lunch,” she adds.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Moscow Sends Teachers to Havana so That Cubans Can Speak Russian ‘With Quality’

Good relations between Cuba and Russia include encouraging the learning of that language. (Portal Cuba)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 October 2023 — The political alliance between Havana and Moscow involves the teaching of the Russian language. This is demonstrated by the meeting at the Meliá Cohiba hotel this week of a hundred Cuban professors and students with advisors from the Moscow state university Rosbiotech. With the endorsement and funding of the Kremlin, learning the Russian language begins to gain ground on the Island, and the authorities of both countries are determined that Cubans speak Russian “with quality.”

In four days of work, which began at the University of Havana and followed at the hotel, a delegation of Rosbiotech, founded in Moscow in 1930, explained that the course would be funded by Rossotrudnichestvo, a federal collaboration agency supervised by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The goal is to “raise the rating of Russian language teachers in Cuban universities,” said Anastasia Fedosina, director of Rosbiotech’s Center for Engineering and Complementary Education. The project will begin in Havana, but it will soon be repeated in other provincial universities, which sent representatives to the meeting at the Meliá Cohiba. continue reading

Although its efforts have redoubled for several months, Moscow has been providing means to Havana for the teaching of Russian for years. The decisive impulse came last May, during the visit of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Chernishenko. Among the many agreements agreed during that visit, the politician had on his agenda a meeting in the classrooms of the Russian Orthodox cathedral in the Cuban capital.

Interviewed by 14ymedio, a cathedral worker said that the Russian classes taught there are free and that they take place every day of the week, except Friday, Saturday and Sunday, at five in the afternoon. The language is taught, he added, for “the one who knows something, for the one who knows nothing and for the one who comes to review.” Children who wish to receive classes can also take them.

Father Savva, along with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Chernishenko and a delegation from the Cuban Ministry of Education. (Korolenko Center)

The classrooms of the Havana cathedral have the advice of the Glazov Pedagogical Institute – known as the Korolenko Center – which has provided them with “an interactive whiteboard, a virtual reality helmet, Russian textbooks and fiction. Here the Cuban and Russian classics are combined,” Arseniy Parfyonov, head of the project office of the Korolenko Center, posted on the center’s official website.

The Orthodox priest Savva Gagloev, who has lived in Havana since 2017 and is rector of the cathedral, oversees the project as part of his personal mission on the Island. The priest himself, in an interview with Orthodox Christianity, when asked if he preferred to be appointed to the United States or Cuba, did not think twice before choosing the “Isle of Freedom.”

More than 180 Cubans have already passed through the classrooms, and there are several hundred requests waiting to be seen to. Among the students, according to the Korolenko Center, there are employees of several hotels in the capital.

Online courses have also been promoted, the company Maximum Education told this newspaper by email. Its project, called “Maximum. Govorim po-russki” (“Maximum. We speak Russian”), is funded by the Russian Ministry of Education, and its goal is to “teach Russian to foreign citizens.”

Online courses have also been promoted, the company Maximum Education told this newspaper by email

The classes are taught online with a teacher and at different levels, from beginner to advanced, and even for those who want to take the Unified State Exam to access Russian universities.

The interactive platform they use is based, they explain, on the methodology of Maksimum Obrazovaniye, which has developed “courses of various formats and directions for over 10 years” and, since last year, “has also been implementing international educational projects.”

According to the collaborative encyclopedia page, Maximum Education was founded in Moscow in 2013 by Mikhail Myagkov, who had worked for the American consulting firm Boston Consulting Group and the international educational company Kaplan. The name under which it is registered does not appear on Wikipedia: Umax LLC (Limited Liability Company).

Relations between Cuba and Moscow, which had been going at full speed since Chernishenko’s visit in May, have advanced more cautiously since several international media reported the presence of Cuban soldiers in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The announcement that Russia continues to promote its projects in Cuba is a sign that the alliance with the Kremlin is as healthy as it was several months ago.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘Prices Are Expressed in Dollars’ Says the Sign in Cuban Shops

Products in the hard currency store on 47th Street in Nuevo Vedado is poor. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 13 October 2023 — “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” was repeated several times a day between those walls. The former Legal Consultancy of Nuevo Vedado in Havana, which welcomed so many marriages between Cubans and foreigners, is now a business immersed in the separation of goods for the privileged foreigners and the National beggars. On the same property there is a market in pesos and another, newly opened, in freely convertible currency. From a distance the building is obvious. Dark wooden blinds cover its facade and alternate with geometric stained glass windows that are not only the most beautiful thing on that block but for several blocks around. The house, which once belonged to a prosperous resident of the area, has been in the hands of the State for decades, and a few years ago it ceased to be used for marriages and the legalization of documents to become a store.

An exterior ramp and staircase lead to very different worlds. The one that goes upwards leads to a room where the so-called “modules” are sold in Cuban pesos, which the nearby neighbors can acquire once a month after being aware, for days, of what is announced in the shop window that corresponds to their family’s ration. The staircase leads to the semi-basement, where they only accept foreign currency.

Recently opened, the new freely convertible currency (MLC) store is a small room with only one counter. “It’s not self-service; ask for what you want and I’ll get it,” the employee clarified to a customer who wanted to look closely at a can of tomato sauce located on the shelf behind the woman’s back. Displayed on four shelves were mayonnaise, soy sauce, pasta, cookies, vegetables and toilet paper. continue reading

In the former Legal Consultancy of Nuevo Vedado, Havana, a foreign currency store has been opened. (14ymedio)

“The offers are quite poor,” complained an old woman who had been looking for chicken sausages. “We don’t have any butcher or frozen food because there is no fridge to store those products,” the employee responded. An exhibition refrigerator contained only beer: the foreign Corona and the national Parranda. A few small packets of instant soda completed the market’s limited catalog.

Outside, some customers who did not know that sales were in foreign currency crowded to enter. The guard, realizing the confusion, warned that the place “is in MLC.” This caused a stampede of long faces. “I thought they weren’t going to continue opening stores of this type if the ones that exist are all out of stock,” grumbled one of the frustrated buyers.

Opened at the end of 2019, initially the MLC stores were intended for the sale of appliances, hardware and furniture, but in mid-2020 they also began to sell food, toiletries and other basic items. Cubans reacted angrily when they found out that the peso shops languished from shortages while the MLC shops had products ranging from vegetable oil to beef.

The ramp leads to a store that only sells “modules” in national currency, while the staircase leads to the store in foreign currency. (14ymedio)

“You would have thought that the people who live in this neighborhood have a lot of money to spend,” another woman grumbled at the doors of the store on 47th Street in Nuevo Vedado. The truth is that the house has had a long history of invoicing in foreign currency. In the 1990s, when the Island opened up to tourism and the economy became dollarized, thousands of Europeans, Canadians and visitors of other nationalities passed through its salons, seeking to formalize their marriage with a Cuban or write a letter of invitation, an indispensable condition for nationals to obtain the exit permit and travel outside the country.

All those procedures had prices of three or even four figures, and every day the place received thousands of dollars for marrying, legalizing documents and writing invitation letters. After the immigration reform that came into force in January 2013, all that very expensive paperwork faltered, and many Cubans preferred to marry their foreign partner in his or her country, and the exit permit was eliminated as a requirement to travel.

“Nothing has changed. Now they get the foreign currency out of us with concentrated soup cubes and cookies for the children’s snacks,” Rosa María, a resident of the neighboring Santa Ana Street, told 14ymedio. “The State always finds a way to take away our dollars.”

La Mariposa has been divided into one part in Cuban pesos and the other in freely convertible currency. (14ymedio)

Almost 100 yards away, the story is repeated. La Mariposa, located on Tulipán Street and 26th Avenue, has opened another MLC store this week. The market, with two access doors, now has one door for customers who pay in foreign currency and the other for those who pay in pesos for the basic product modules from the ration program.

Still placing some products on the shelves, the employees of the area in foreign exchange received customers who had just discovered the new market. With poor offerings but a greater number of products than in the old Legal Consultancy, La Mariposa in MLC also has fruit juices, cans of sardines, cream to add to coffee and canned peppers.

“Look, here is the soda that disappeared,” said a young woman, pointing to a 1.5 liter bottle of cola from the national brand Ciego Montero. Next to the container, a Corona beer and another Parranda completed the offer of drinks. “I want two boxes of apple juice,” the woman asked. “It’s 5.45,” the employee replied without mentioning in which currency. A foreign Visa card came out of the customer’s wallet, and she paid the bill.

Behind her, a man bought two 1.5 liter bottles of Parranda beer for 3.70 MLC each. “It’s like carnival beer, but it’s the cheapest on the market right now,” the customer explained to a woman who inquired about the quality of the product. After touching the container, the man complained: “Even though it’s in hard currency, the beer isn’t even cold.” His criticism was immediately answered by the employee: “We have been open for a very short time. We’re just beginning.”

Near the box a sign showed the logos of the magnetic cards that the store accepts and underneath, a blunt phrase: “Prices are expressed in dollars.”

Customers don’t have direct access to the products; when they want to buy something they must ask the employee. (14ymedio)

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With Recycling, the Cuban State Earned 41.6 Million Dollars Exporting Garbage

A junkyard in Cuba, a key point of the lucrative raw materials business. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 October 2023 — The directors of the Recycling Company congratulated themselves this Thursday on Cuban State TV’s Roundtable program for being one of the few “industries” in the country that has overfulfilled its plan: so far this year, the company has collected 74,000 tons of raw material and collected more than 41.6 million dollars, of which 29 million come from export.

The president of the business group, Jorge Luis Tamayo, regretted that the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic did not allow him to achieve “superior results.” Even so, there was success with what was accumulated between the “fixed” recycling points, which collected 16,400 tons, and the “mobile” points – which collected 16,000. In addition, state schools and organizations, contributed 1,500 tons. The Communal Services, which should carry the weight of the collection, only delivered about 1,900 tons to Recycling, the leader complained.

Nothing exceeds, however, the capacity of the Island’s hotels to generate garbage, which Recycling then purges and collects. So far this year, tourist establishments have “provided” the not-inconsiderable amount of 2,240 tons of usable raw material, 556 more than last year. continue reading

Tamayo said that, in addition to selling the raw material, his company uses it to manufacture 65 products “without executing large investments”

Tamayo said that, in addition to selling the raw material, his company uses it to manufacture 65 products “without executing large investments.” What generates the most money – and therefore, what is most exported – are “carton packaging, plastics, glass, parts, pieces, aggregates, laminates, pipes and ball bearings.” In addition, the sale of non-metallic scrap managed to bring in five million dollars.

What is reinvested in the maintenance of recycling equipment is minimal: about 109 million pesos, Tamayo said. His company, in addition, benefits from a “closed scheme of foreign exchange financing” – for which other sectors, like publishing, have advocated, without success – and from “a differentiated exchange rate” of 1 dollar for 120 pesos, which the leader described as “fundamental for the organization.”

Tamayo proudly said that Recycling knows how to take advantage of any setback. In the greatest disasters of recent years – the gas exposion that collapsed the Saratoga Hotel, the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base and the collapse of the mezzanine in a tower of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant – his company has collected and reused the materials that were no longer usable in the reconstruction.

The director of the Recycling company in Havana, Rosa Reyes, was not so optimistic about the situation. During her speech, she admitted that in the capital no one is too interested in recycling, and she attributed this to the “great dissatisfaction of the population,” besieged by the “energy situation” and the fact that habaneros throw garbage on the street without distinguishing between materials that are recyclable and those that are not.

The recyclable product, once it is mixed with garbage, loses quality, loses value and is very difficult to recover

“The recyclable product, once it is mixed with garbage, loses quality, loses value and is very difficult to recover,” she said. On the other hand, “Havana doesn’t have the optimal infrastructure to be able to make that sourcing of recyclable materials from home,” she said, referring to the absence of containers and baskets on the streets. However, she ended up calling on Cubans to have “a little discipline and conscience.” The collection of raw materials, she insisted, could help the “home economy.”

Although burdened by health restrictions during the pandemic, the collection of raw materials was the livelihood of many elderly and low-income people in Cuba. On the streets of the Island, it is also common to see beggars collecting cans and cartons that they then sell at recycling points for a few pesos.

The phenomenon carries a serious health risk, since the search for these items is carried out without the slightest protection, and it is not uncommon to find “dumpster divers” – people who dive into the containers looking for materials and food – rummaging through the garbage. Tamayo and Reyes alluded to none of this, setting their sights set on how lucrative the business has become.

Both managers ended the program with a call to the micro, small and medium-sized companies of the Island to join their “action” to increase the profits of Recycling. “We are urging everyone,” Tamayo concluded.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Imports of Chicken From the United States Skyrocket and Even the Cuban Army Sells It in Its Markets

Arrival of American chicken at the El Vedado Youth Labor Army market. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana/Madrid, 9 October 2023 — The arrival of American chicken in Cuba has multiplied to such an extent that on Saturday it landed in Havana’s Nuevo Vedado market of the Youth Labor Army itself, the agro-market of the Cuban Armed Forces. In August, imports from the United States recorded absolute record figures, both in quantity and in millions of dollars.

At 35,117 tons, the figure is much higher than in the last five years, recorded in December 2022, when 30,884 tons arrived on the Island. Although the price fell by 14.6% compared to July, when 2.2 pounds of chicken cost $1.23, the volume is so high that total U.S. sales reached $37.08 million. It is more than 90% of that month’s total imports from the U.S., which rose to 39.91 million dollars.

“The ineffective official economic policy means that the MSMEs [micro, small and medium-sized enterprises], far from contributing to the national production of the main animal protein consumed in Cuba, would seem to be strengthening their dependence on imports,” said Cuban economist Pedro Monreal on his X account (Twitter). His diagnosis of the situation is overwhelming. “That high import dependence is a risk to food security,” he says. continue reading

Chicken purchases from the United States in the last five years. (P.Monreal/Dep. Agriculture USA)

The figures analyzed by Monreal are sourced from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and together represent the purchases made by the Cuban State and the country’s new economic actors, the MSMEs. During the first eight months of the year, Cuba bought 198,706 tons of chicken meat worth more than 207 billion dollars.

The August data from the Consumer Price Index did not highlight the cost of chicken in the official Cuban markets, but in the previous month it was, curiously, one of the products that most contributed to curbing the rise in inflation. In July, the price of chicken fell by 3.8%, which most experts attributed to the increase in supply, thanks to private companies, whose impact has also been noticed on other imported foods, cooking oil among them.

Chicken meat has gradually regained its presence in Cuba, and its lack is no longer so frequent, although on social networks the desperate exchange continues between those who try to buy it at about 250 pesos a pound and those who offer boxes of 33 pounds or more. The worst part is, without a doubt, the almost absolute absence of national production.

This Monday, Cubadebate dedicates an extensive report to the scarcity of another product linked to this: the egg. The text collects the terrible data that the provincial press has been offering in previous weeks – and which this newspaper has echoed – about the poor diet and old age of the chickens, which, consequently, lay fewer eggs.

The official media recalls that an attempt was made to alleviate the shortage with semi-rustic chickens and quail but that it was completely insufficient to feed the country. The most discouraging thing is that there is no proposal or solution. “It’s a chain in which the population observes how the price continues to rise on a par with resellers and speculation, and it will not stop as long as the industry is unable to meet demand.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Son of Fidel Castro Defends the Cuban Regime on Social Media With Capitalist Arguments

A carton of eggs costs more than the minimum monthly wage. (14ymedio )

14ymedio, Madrid, 12 October 2023 — It’s been a little over a month since Alexi Castro Soto del Valle, one of the children that Fidel Castro had with his last wife, Dalia Soto del Valle, opened an account on the social network X, where he maintains a remarkable level of activity dedicated to the active defense of his father’s principles. According to his own description, he is a “Cuban patriot, follower of the ideology of the founding heroes Félix Varela and José Martí and the July 26 ideology of the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro Ruz.” In his penultimate dispute, he made clear, however, his critical opinion of the current Government, which he asks to be accountable to the National Assembly, “which is the sovereign power of the people represented through its deputies,” for the failure of the Ministry of Agriculture’s policy.

“Nor is the role of state and private property management by the various cooperative forms in agriculture fully understood; each has its place and function,” says Castro’s son, who also attributes to companies and farmers the incompetence that has generated food insecurity on the Island.

Castro takes advantage of his posts to illustrate his knowledge of economics. “They don’t understand concepts such as the sense of ownership, the necessary autonomy to invest, associate, produce and market, and price formation, which should not be by mandate, but respond to an econometric science, the role of the market…”

The remark comes as a result of a comment by journalist Magdiel Jorge Castro, annoyed with the price of the eggs, whose shortage was the subject of a report even in Cubadebate on Monday. “So that you have an idea of the huge crisis in Cuba: a carton of eggs is sold today at 2,800 pesos, almost double the average [monthly] pension and much more than the minimum [monthly] wage, set at 2,100 pesos. A Cuban worker can’t even buy 30 eggs with a month’s work,” the reporter emphasizes. continue reading

Concepts such as the sense of ownership, the necessary autonomy to invest, associate, produce and market, price formation, which should not be by mandate, are not understood

Castro’s son rushes to reproach him for not using his “communication talents to lead a movement of all Cubans against the blockade as an effective way to favor the changes he wants so much.” In addition, he considers that the journalist, like many activists, does not maintain a constructive attitude toward solving the Island’s problems.

“Of course we all have the right to criticize or propose what we want. But no one has a moral right to promote the blockade against their homeland, offend or threaten those who think differently, call for disrespect or the laws and violence,” he adds.

Alexis Castro also points out that it is not an “informational first” to talk about the high price of eggs, since “Cubadebate was the one to first publish it. In case you didn’t know, Fidel taught us that the greatest critics have to be the revolutionaries themselves, so there’s no problem with that,” he says, ignoring, with or without knowledge, that the independent press has been denouncing the escalation of the prices of eggs and other products for years.

The most recent article on the subject in 14ymedio, without going any further back, is from October 2nd – when a carton of eggs was reported at 3,000 pesos – a week before the article in the official digital media. It even noted the inflation of the product in 2020, when the Ordering Task* had not yet given the coup de grâce to the runaway prices that came from its application.

Castro admits that things are not right in Cuba, but he believes that the solutions are only, as his father said, within the Revolution. “We know that we have a lot of deficiencies and that we have made another mountain of mistakes, but there is a big difference between staying in the homeland working to move it forward and criticizing from the outside with resentment, without making serious proposals,” he says.

A few hours later, a new dispute began, in this case from the cancellation of new contracts to send Cuban doctors to Kenya. “If I manufacture a product and you invest in finding a market for me, and for that management you have a part of the profit and we both earn, does that make me your slave?” he responds when they suggest that the doctors of the Island work as slaves.

Among the answers, a user reproaches him for comparing people to merchandise, but he insists that “there is nothing slavish in having the opportunity to provide services of high human value, acquire experiences, obtain income and contribute a part to the country that formed you and managed the opportunity. Doctors win and the country wins.”

*Translator’s note: The Ordering Task is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso (CUP) as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency, which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuba’s Telecommunications Company Blames the Electric Union for the Telephone and Internet Cuts

Cubans from Sancti Spíritus complain about the poor Internet connection during blackouts. (ACN)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 October 2023 — The directors of the Cuban communications monopoly, Etecsa, blamed the Unión Eléctrica (UNE) on Thursday for the poor state of telephone and Internet services in Sancti Spíritus, and for the terrible conditions of its radio bases. According to the officials, as long as the “difficulties” with electricity generation in the country are not solved, any investment to improve the telephone infrastructure will be in vain.

In response to the constant complaints of the espirituanos [people in Sancti Spíritus] about the collapse of Internet connectivity and even fixed line telephone service during the blackouts, Gustavo López, commercial head of Etecsa in the territory, told the provincial newspaper Escambray that the main problem lies in the instability of the electricity flow: “All the equipment of the telecommunications system works with electricity, and when this is lacking, since there are not enough backup sources, the interruptions and impacts begin.”

The official also explained that many of the radio bases and power plants – in charge of emitting, expanding and receiving telephone signals – had backup batteries to maintain service for a few hours, until the electricity returned. However, with the constant cuts, the batteries, which should last about four hours, hold less and less and are damaged faster. continue reading

Even if that money were available and the investment executed, it would not really be money well spent if the capacity of the electro-energy system is not recovered and normal generation restored

The largest telephone power plants, located in the key towns of the province and in the capital city, have higher capacity generators, but these do not ensure that the services are maintained for very long once the blackouts begin. The few hours that they function don’t benefit everyone either. “Of the 66 sites we have in the province that provide service today, only 26 are backed up by generators: less than 40%,” López explained.

“In the case of radio bases, there are 85 in the province, and just 30% have the support of a generator backup. The rest have only batteries and are greatly affected by the lack of electricity,” he added.

To Escambray’s question of why Etecsa did not invest in the repair or replacement of those batteries so that the population could enjoy better connectivity during power outages, López added that, currently, the company lacks the funds to make that type of large-scale investment, which would involve thousands of radio bases and power plants throughout the country. “But, even if that money were available and the investment executed, it wouldn’t really be money well spent if the capacity of the electro-energy system is not recovered and normal generation restored,” he said.

The official’s explanations do not promise relief for the population, which continues to suffer long hours of blackouts without being able to communicate. Lázaro, a 41-year-old espirituano, told 14ymedio that the situation of Internet interruptions during blackouts has lasted for more than a year.

“We have been suffering from both blackouts and Internet outages for a long time, and, when the power goes out, you don’t know what to do. Every time there is a power outage, which sometimes lasts up to 16 hours, the connection gets terrible and the phone starts jumping from 3G to 2G and gets very slow. At this point, 4G is not even available,” he explains.

“Internet speed drops ridiculously, and you can’t send a single message on WhatsApp. I have to go out on the street and walk around like a fool if I need to communicate urgently, looking for an antenna that isn’t in a blackout area. There are days when I don’t see the face of my daughter, who lives in Miami,” says Lázaro, who collected at least 18 reports to Etecsa in recent months complaining about the situation.

For about three months, when the power goes out, the fixed line also fails, and there is no way to call anywhere

To top it off, he says, “for about three months, when the power goes out, the fixed line also fails, and there is no way to call anywhere. Fortunately, when the power comes on, both the landline and the mobile are restored in a few minutes.”

The situation of Sancti Spíritus is similar to that in other provinces of the country. However, in rural areas, even with power, it is not possible to communicate comfortably. Reina, a former retired primary school teacher who lives in a small town next to the Central Highway in Villa Clara, regrets not being able to communicate with her son, who lives in Spain, due to the poor Internet connection.

“When I want to talk on the phone I have to walk to the little park, near the road, because the signal is better there. There isn’t any inside my house. If, on the other hand, the issue is the Internet, then things get complicated, because not even in the park is there a good signal,” the retiree said, adding that she takes advantage of all the trips to Santa Clara, the capital city of the province, to talk for a while with her son and grandchildren.

“When I know that I’m going to Santa Clara I make sure I have data and tell my son before so that he knows that I’m going to call him, because talking here without the voice or image being cut is very difficult. Sometimes my son gets very frustrated and ends up using the international call service. I tell him not to do it, because I know it’s expensive,” she adds.

According to Reina, about four years ago they were promised an antenna closer to town so that they would have Internet coverage, but the promise has not yet been fulfilled. “I hope that one day they will do it, because it’s very difficult to communicate. In recent weeks, when they have cut off the power for a longer time, we have been incommunicado for almost whole days.”

This Thursday, the UNE announced a deficit of 465 megawatts (MW) for the entire country that, compared to the 973 MW on Wednesday, seemed enviable. With these forecasts, it is evident that both Etecsa and the Electric Union have few answers for Lázaro and Reina who, in the current situation, and with the authorities pointing at each other, will have to look for their own remedies.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Prisoners Defenders Raises the Number of Political Prisoners in Cuba to 1,052

The brothers Nadir and Jorge Martín Perdomo, along with their mother, Marta, after receiving their first pass from prison in more than two years. (X/Betty Guerra)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 12 October 2023 — The NGO Prisoners Defenders (PD) raised this Thursday to 1,052 the number of people considered political prisoners in Cuba, compared to 1,047 the previous month. The organization, based in Madrid, specified in its report at the end of September that in the last six months they have confirmed and added to their list “104 new political prisoners.”

The record published on the PD website includes 34 minors, of which 28 are serving a sentence and six are being criminally prosecuted.

PD also denounced that there are 117 prisoners “who are in proceedings for political and conscientious convictions”

The NGO statement adds that 223 demonstrators of the 1,052 political prisoners have been accused of sedition, and at least 207 have already been sentenced for this crime, to an average of ten years of imprisonment.

PD also denounced that there are 117 prisoners (including several who are transgender), “who are are in proceedings for political and conscientious convictions.”

All transgender women of conscience have been and are imprisoned among men, which also happens with common trans prisoners, and they suffer indescribable situations because of their sexual condition,” the organization warned.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Diplomarket, the ‘Cuban Costco’, in the Hands of a Front Man for the Regime

Diplomarket is heavily guarded: “Yes, that looks like a military unit.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 11 October 2023 — The opening of a wholesale supermarket in Havana under the name Diplomarket in December last year went unnoticed. Only an ad on Instagram for the company, dedicated until then only to online purchases and shipping, gave an account of the opening of the establishment, located at kilometer 8 ½ of the Carretera Monumental, in the neighborhood of Berroa, more than 6 miles east of the center of the capital.

A tweet last week from Patrick Oppmann, a CNN correspondent, put the focus of current affairs on commerce. “After years of having to look for the most basic products, it’s a bit surreal to see how a private entrepreneur has set up what is basically the first Costco in Cuba,” said the journalist on the network now called X, without specifying the name of the supermarket and assuring that Cubans can pay in pesos, dollars and euros, even with U.S. credit cards.

And yes, the images that accompanied his text verified the resemblance to the American wholesale firm: huge corridors with wholesale products placed as in a warehouse, the distinctive red color and, more revealing, the sale of Kirkland brand products, marketed exclusively by Costco.

In a visit to the store this Wednesday, 14ymedio verified that, in fact, the place is similar to the Costco franchise, which is in more than a dozen countries. It is also true that the Kirkland brand populates its shelves, but no more so than Goya, the largest food company of Hispanic origin in the United States, which just three years ago was involved in a controversy for defending the then-president, Donald Trump. continue reading

It’s designed for cars, and you always see luxurious cars and the rich people who fill those huge cars

For the rest, the differences between Diplomarket and Costco are obvious. In Costco, when buying wholesale, the products are cheaper. In Diplomarket, very few customers were seen with the large packages. Most preferred to buy the items separately, at stratospheric prices: a small bottle of Goya oil for 7 dollars, a small can of grated Goya coconut for 4 dollars, a bar of soap for 2 dollars (the complete package, 16 bars, $32), toothpaste for a little more. As for cheeses and sausages, prices exceeded 20 dollars, as for a large jar of mayonnaise. Tools and household items are also offered at an unattainable price given the country’s average salary.

Diplomarket does not require a membership card, as Costco does, and is supposed to be open to any customer, but the stratospheric prices and the remoteness of the location deter any ordinary Cuban. “It’s designed for cars, and you always see luxurious cars and the rich people who fill those huge cars,” says Mayca, a young woman from Central Havana who went once with a friend who has a private food business.

The establishment is also heavily guarded. At the first checkpoint, they take the data of the vehicles at the time of entry, and then there is another booth with guards before you enter the store. At the door, two individuals look everyone up and down. A large screen shows the movement of the security cameras, placed everywhere with warnings. “Yes, that looks like a military unit,” Mayca concedes.

Inside, a kind of “persecution” by the employees begins. You are not allowed to take photos or record videos, and the workers walk behind the customers watching every movement, disguising their zeal with kindness: “Can I help you with something?”

You are not allowed to take photos or record videos, and the workers walk behind the customers watching every movement, disguising their zeal with kindness: “Can I help you with something?

Mayca says that whenever she has gone she has felt very uncomfortable: “Not only because of the vigilance but because of the humiliation with which they treat you. “A lady almost had to return the merchandise because she didn’t bring dollars and thought that everything could be paid in Cuban pesos. At the last minute she was saved by her friend, who loaned her some American bills.”

Didn’t the U.S. correspondent say that you could pay in all currencies? Doesn’t it say that in the firm’s own ad on Instagram? The cashier laughed at our reporter’s question: “That’s over, people pay in cash in dollars.”

As for the ownership of the supermarket, neither does it have the same transparency as the capitalist brand that it intends to emulate. They do not indicate on the web or on the premises any clear information about what causes the most mistrust: who actually owns Diplomarket, a gigantic, well-stocked and clean store, guarded like a government enclave?

The firm is not on the list of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) approved by the Ministry of Economy and Planning. Moreover, according to its corporate website, Diplomarket belongs to an American company called Las Américas TCC Corporation, founded in 2011 and based in Florida.

The vice president of Las Americas is the Cuban, Frank Cuspinera Medina, who is domiciled in the United States. Two years ago, his name appeared as a “specialist” in a meeting between self-employed workers (TCP) and the National Association of Economists and Accountants of Cuba.

On that occasion, he told the Cuban News Agency that “this type of exchange allows the institutions to know first-hand the interests and needs of the TCPs” and that the official association was “an efficient way to raise the approaches presented at the meeting to the authorities in charge.”

This last firm is also not on the regime’s list of MSMEs, but a company with its name is: Cuspinera SURL LVI, dedicated to “providing e-commerce platform services

Cuspinera Medina, whose current address is in El Vedado, Havana, also appears in a letter that several Cuban entrepreneurs sent in 2021 to U.S. President Joe Biden, asking him to lift sanctions against the Government of the Island, which were harming their businesses. In the letter he does not appear as a member of Las Américas, but as part of Iderod Servicios Constructivos.

This last firm is also not on the regime’s MSME list, but a company of the same name is: Cuspinera SURL LVI, dedicated to “providing e-commerce platform services.” It is also a branch of Las Américas TCC.

The issue is not a minor one, given the U.S. embargo against Cuba. As U.S. Treasury officials said, following a meeting of Cuban businessmen in Miami a few weeks ago, several conditions must be met in order not to break the law. Entrepreneurs residing in Cuba, for example, cannot create companies in the U.S. to sell their products or buy goods directly from U.S. companies. Similarly, Cuban-Americans cannot establish businesses on the Island unless they achieve permanent residence in the country through repatriation.

It is not clear in which category Cuspinera Medina, which maintains a low profile on social networks, belongs. About Diplomarket, Mayca is blunt: “It is not private.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cuban Jewish Community Rejects the Regime’s Statement About the Attack on Israel

Some members of the Jewish community of Cuba at a meeting in 2019. (Board of the House of the Jewish Community of Cuba/Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 11 October 2023 — The Jewish community of Cuba, grouped in an NGO that has never been characterized as dissident, has expressed its severe disagreement with the Government about the conflict unleashed in Israel as a result of the unprecedented attack by Hamas terrorist militias that infiltrated its territory.

“The Federation of Jewish Communities of Cuba totally disagrees with the pronouncement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba in the face of the events that are taking place in Israel, generated by acts of total terrorism,” reads a post by the Board of Trustees of the House of the Jewish Community, published on Monday, two days after the aggression began.

On the same Saturday of the attack, the Ministry released a statement in which it expressed its “serious concern” about the “escalation of violence,” for which in no case did it blame Hamas, but rather the “75 years of permanent violation of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and Israel’s aggressive and expansionist policy.”

In the same text, they demanded “a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on the basis of the creation of two States, which allows the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and to have an independent and sovereign State within the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.” They also called on the UN to “end the impunity of Israel, the occupying power, with which the United States has been complicit.” continue reading

It is more than proven that the State of Israel has nothing against the Palestinian Authority; the war is with Hamas, an openly terrorist organization

In the face of the regime, the Federation is blunt: “It is more than proven that the State of Israel has nothing against the Palestinian Authority; the war is with Hamas, an openly terrorist organization.”

For them, “justifying the reprehensible acts of crime and savagery” is unacceptable. “The terrorism that occurred since last Saturday in the territory of Israel, of which the international media give clear samples with videos shared by the members of Hamas themselves, who filmed how they killed in cold blood and with impunity, indiscriminately, children, young people and the elderly, including more than 260 young people from various countries who were innocently attending a large outdoor youth festival in the southern part of Israel, is totally unbalanced and lacking in coherence,” they say in their publication, making clear their “total support for the right of the State of Israel to defend itself.”

This Wednesday, the Board of Trustees of the House of the Jewish Community reiterated its position, asking to spread the news about the conflict, because “silence” made possible the extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

It also mentioned another publication that praises the “powerful statement” of the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who “has had the courage to say what many won’t.”

The Cuban Federation of Jewish Religious Communities put in writing what it thought from the first day of the attacks, which it immediately condemned. “Once again Hamas shows its true face, the face of terror, the face of betrayal, the face of opportunism, the face that many do not want to see,” it said in a statement, recalling that Israel “warns the civilian population with enough time to prevent the deaths of innocent people whose responsibility lies solely with Hamas.”

The Federation of Jewish Religious Communities of Cuba is composed of all the synagogues of the Island and the B’nai B’rith Lodge. Its headquarters is located on Calle I between 13 and 15 in El Vedado, in Havana.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Roberto Perdomo, Former Cuban Political Prisoner and Leader of Plantados, Dies in Miami

Former Cuban political prisoner Roberto Perdomo. (Lilo Vilaplana/Facebook)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 11 October 2023 — Former Cuban political prisoner Roberto Perdomo, president of the Plantados exile group, died at the age of 89 of heart failure in a Miami hospital, close sources reported on Wednesday.

His death in the Kindred hospital comes a month after he underwent surgery for a fracture due to a fall in his home, as reported today by the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance (ARC), an organization formed by opposition organizations inside and outside Cuba.

“We deeply regret the departure of the patriot and former political prisoner, Roberto Perdomo and president of Plantados, a member of the ARC organization,” said the statement.

Perdomo, disappointed with the direction the 1959 Cuban revolution was taking towards a communist dictatorship, “began to fight” against the Castro regime “clandestinely.”

In 1961 he was arrested and sentenced in a summary trial to 28 years in prison.

In his imprisonment “he refused to wear the uniform of a common prisoner, always maintained a firm position as a plantado” and carried out several hunger strikes, says the statement. continue reading

In 1986, the ARC statement continues, Perdomo went into exile in the United States, where “he continued his struggle for the freedom of Cuba until the last days of his life.”

During his exile in the United States he was elected president of the patriotic organization Plantados hasta la Democracia y la Libertad de Cuba (“Planted” until Democracy and the Freedom of Cuba. (Plantados)

In the statement, the ARC expressed its condolences to Perdomo’s widow, family, friends and “all Cuban political prisoners, especially those who were his companion Plantados.

“We have lost one of the bravest and noblest children of the Cuban people,” the exile organization stressed.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Re-Elected to the UN Human Rights Council Despite Its History of Repression

Other countries with a documented record of human rights violations, such as China, also won a seat. (EFE)

14ymedio, Madrid, 10 October 2023 — Despite the numerous complaints against its candidacy for the UN Human Rights Council, Cuba obtained 146 votes in its favor on Tuesday. The Island, systematically accused of violating basic rights and freedoms, and with 784 political prisoners, will be part of the Council from 2024 to 2026.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry celebrated that the country “had the most votes,” which it attributed to the “indisputable” recognition that the international community gives to the regime. It is the sixth time that Havana has received the necessary ballots to occupy a position on the Council, to which Brazil and the Dominican Republic were also elected.

Other countries with a documented record of human rights violations also won a seat. This is the case of China – the most controversial candidate along with Russia – which won 154 votes.

The 47 member states, “responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights around the world” elected their board, which includes France, Japan, the Netherlands and the Ivory Coast. continue reading

As the vote was secret, it is unknown whether Putin’s allies, such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela or Belarus, supported Cuba’s candidacy

Peru was left out, overwhelmed by political instability since the attempted coup d’état perpetrated by former President Pedro Castillo in 2022, as was Russia, expelled from the Council since that same year, after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. However, Moscow managed to get 83 countries to endorse its request, which required 97 votes.

Since the vote was secret, it is unknown whether Putin’s allies, such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela or Belarus, supported the candidacy. In the case of Peru, which obtained 108 votes – more than necessary – it was surpassed by the other applicants in the region.

Several institutions and personalities had criticized Cuba’s candidacy to the Council’s board of directors. The Demo Amlat platform lamented Cuba’s entry into the Council and pointed out that “the Cuban regime criminalizes dissent and systematically persecutes human rights defenders.”

Hours before the results were known, activist Carolina Barrero had pointed out that “if Cuba is re-elected in the Human Rights Council, it will be with the support of complicit states… Cubans, human rights organizations and activists condemn the re-election of a bloody dictatorship that has plunged our country into misery and oppression,” she added.

“In a slap in the face to the democratic aspirations of the Cuban people, the longest-running dictatorship in the hemisphere has been re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council right in the midst of an escalation of violence against its citizens. A real shame,” stressed fellow activist Magdiel Jorge Castro.

Hours before the results were known, activist Carolina Barrero had pointed out that “if Cuba is re-elected to the Human Rights Council it will be with the support of complicit states

For his part, the exile Félix Llerena had said days ago that “the perpetrators (of violations of rights) cannot be the guarantors of compliance with international law.”

The Human Rights Watch organization reminded the international community of Havana’s treatment of its dissidents and the “thousands of political prisoners,” prosecuted for demonstrating peacefully, and asked them to vote against Cuba.

With a view to the vote, the Government and the Chancellery of the Island had undertaken an international campaign aimed at promoting Cuba as a state that defends rights. In the main lobby of the UN headquarters in New York, an exhibition entitled “Cuba, a sustained commitment to all human rights for all,” by Cuban visual artist Yosvany Martínez, was curated.

“The Cuban people own their own destiny, exercise full power and control over the life of the country, and actively participate as the main actor in an effective system of socialist democracy and social justice that they support and endorse,” said the presentation brochure of the exhibition, signed by the Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba and Permanent Representative to the UN, Gerardo Peñalver Portal.

Among posters alluding to the “benevolent” Cuban Criminal Code – which intensified the sentences of the protesters in the protests of July 11, 2021 – the exhibition invited the UN to “feel pride” in Cuba’s role in the defense of human rights.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Toronto Independent Festival Awards the Cuban Film ‘Plantadas’

Frame of the film ‘Plantadas’, by Lilo Vilaplana and his son Camilo. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 10 October 2023 — The historical feature film Plantadas (Planted)* by Cuban directors Camilo and Lilo Vilaplana, won the award for best international film at the Toronto Independent Festival of Cift, in Canada, the directors of the event announced on Tuesday.

Lilo Vilaplana celebrated the award on his Facebook page and thanked his entire team for the production of the film. “I am very happy with this award. I really thank Reinol Rodríguez (activist and executive producer of the film) for electing me to do Plantadas.” He also praised his technical and production team, the actors, sponsors, businessmen and “everyone who contributed money, resources and support to Plantadas, but above all the former Cuban political prisoners who gave everything for Cuba, including the Cubans who are imprisoned today for thinking differently and asking for freedom for our beloved homeland.”

The award, added the filmmaker, “will greatly annoy the dictatorship, which will no longer be able to say that it is a film awarded only in Miami. We are taking the message of the denunciation of castrismo to the whole world.”

The story of the inmates who opposed Fidel Castro after the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 was also awarded last March at the 40th edition of the Miami Film Festival. At the same event, El Caso Padilla (The Padilla Case), by Pavel Giroud, was awarded in the category of best documentary. continue reading

This film promises to be at least as valuable as the previous one, because it will collect the experiences of women who have faced the dictatorship

Vilaplana’s feature film was made after the success of his film Plantados, which forms, along with the most recent production, a duo that narrates the human rights violations of the Cuban prison system and illustrates the daily life of the first political prisoners imprisoned by Castro.

“This film promises to be at least as valuable as the previous one, because it will collect the experiences of women who have faced the dictatorship and who, for their actions, ended up in the dungeons of totalitarianism, suffering a systematic violation of their rights, including that of life,” said journalist Pedro Corzo in an article published in 14ymedio.

“The political imprisonment of Cuban women has been, without a doubt, the most numerous and extensive in years that the American hemisphere has suffered. It started in 1959 and it’s not over yet,” he said.

*Translator’s note: Plantadas refers to female political prisoners who resist, refusing to conform to the demands of their jailers. Brief history of plantados [male political prisoners who resist] here.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Mexican Agencies Take Advantage of Cubans and Double the Cost of Tickets

Aerial image of migrants, including Cubans, in the Tapachula ecological park. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 28 September 2023 — Travel agencies in Tapachula (Chiapas) are doubling the cost of tickets for Cubans who want to fly to Mexico City or the U.S. border. This was reported to 14ymedio by Yumara, a 29-year-old Cuban who was processed by the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) for the “complementary protection” document that guarantees her stay in Mexico while requesting an asylum appointment for the United States through the CBP One application.

Yumara tried to buy a ticket at Tapachula International Airport, but Migration agents warned her that “it wasn’t allowed,” without showing her any official document. On the outskirts of the air terminal, she was offered a ticket to Tijuana (Baja California) for 16,000 pesos. “You arrive directly at the border to follow your procedure,” they told her. For a ticket to Mexico City, she was charged 15,000 pesos.

“What are these people thinking? I don’t have the money for this; I will try to go by land to Mexico City and from there to the border,” says Yumara, who knows of many Cubans, Venezuelans and Colombians who have paid the extra cost of the ticket sold by the travel agencies.

José Estrada, of the local agency Aerotur, argues that the increase in ticket price is due to the high demand caused by migrants. He also denies that the immigration authorities prevent them from boarding the flights. “They warn them that if they don’t have a transit permit, they can’t fly,” he says. continue reading

He insists on the extra cost of the tickets and points out that Volaris has flights from 7,000 pesos and Aeromexico from 9,000. “Nobody forces them to resort to an agency.”

Estrada says that 70% of the flights are occupied by migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, and the remaining 30% are Mexicans. Yumara says there are no Haitians buying tickets. “He is lying. They live on the street, and most of them are washing clothes or cleaning to have one meal a day. I don’t see them having to pay 15,000 pesos for a ticket.”

Volaris aircraft at Tapachula International Airport. (El Orbe)

Alfredo Gálvez Sánchez, from the Vuela travel agency, accepts that the cost of a ticket to Mexico City, which at the beginning of the year was 4,000 pesos, has risen to 15,000 pesos. “This is because people who arrive at the agencies want to fly the next day, and you have to look for seats among the airlines.”

According to figures from the IWA, the demand for tickets is 1,200 per day.

The new migratory wave in Tapachula has caused a shortage of eggs, bread, rice and beans, warn shelter directors and activists in the region, who demand the intervention of the Government. “In supermarkets, sugar has already doubled in price, between 33 and 40 pesos (1.8 dollars and 2.28 dollars) for 2.2 pounds,” the director of the Todo Por Ellos shelter, Lorenza Reyes Núñez, said in an interview with EFE.

The activist complained that the Mexican authorities “do nothing” to stop the migratory flow and leave all the work to Comar, which has collapsed due to the arrival of thousands of foreigners daily in recent weeks.

Tapachula has been the scene this month of stampedes of thousands of migrants seeking an asylum appointment in Comar, demonstrations in the offices of the National Institute of Migration and undocumented people sleeping on the streets.

Dani Rorube, a migrant from Cuba, said that they are dissatisfied with the lack of issuance of transit documents, so they will set up a caravan to leave Tapachula. “We have gone to Migration, from Migration they send us to Comar, and they have us by the hairs, as the Cubans say. Everyone wants to walk, go in a caravan or with a coyote, but it’s a lot of money.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Instead of Studying Themselves, Hundreds of Young Cubans Are Recruited To Alleviate the Deficit of Teachers

Students of Teaching will mainly cover primary and secondary education. (Invasor)

14ymedio, Havana, 10 October 2023 — With a deficit of about 634 teachers in all openings, the General Directorate of Education (DGE) of Ciego de Ávila, Cuba, has decided to interrupt the study cycle of hundreds of pedagogy students to incorporate them into schools. However, the 394 who have been recruited to date will barely be able to fill half of the vacant positions.

Days before the start of the 2023-2024 academic year, in August, the official newspaper Invasor reported on the terrible situation of teachers in the province. Of 7,116 positions, only 6,482 were covered. To alleviate the deficit, the DGE has incorporated 113 students from the top of the class at Raúl Corrales Fornos pedagogical school, and 141 from the Rafael Morales González school in Morón, two of the municipalities most affected by the absence of teachers.

Gilmé Sánchez, a member of the DGE, announced that 140 young people who have already graduated from teaching and are currently completing their Compulsory Military Service would also be added.

The students who, as the newspaper headlines, “are already in the classrooms,” are in their fourth year and will work mainly with primary and secondary education, which has the greatest deficit of teachers. They will also be exempted from their own studies from Monday through Thursday, and only on Fridays will they have to attend classes. continue reading

According to the DGE, the subjects that will be given the most coverage are Chemistry and Mathematics

According to the DGE, the subjects that will be given the most coverage are Chemistry and Mathematics. On the contrary, those who study to be English teachers will not have to teach classes and will be able to dedicate themselves to their career.

The authorities did not specify what type of remuneration will be given to young people and whether it will be less than or equal to that of the rest of the teachers in the schools, but they did clarify that, due to the situation with empty teaching places, they are expected to contonue to teach in the same schools once they graduate.

As the official press itself has pointed out, the measure is “no more than a respite” because, in addition to the fact that they will not be able to cover all the places, the real problem lies in why the teachers leave.

Data offered by Invasor reveal that this year 97% of the 562 pedagogical careers offered in the province were covered, something that the authorities did not delay in celebrating. However, more important than this figure is the number that ends up really graduating without abandoning their career or leaving the country.

According to the statistics of the province for the previous year, the retention of students for the first year was only 80.8%, and for the entire career, 60%. It is worth clarifying that these numbers do not include the percentage of graduates who don’t work as teachers or who, after a few years, leave the sector in search of better salaries.

The DGE says that in Ciego de Ávila, as in the rest of the Island, measures have been implemented to retain teachers such as the payment of wages per hour of work

The DGE says that in Ciego de Ávila, as in the rest of the Island, measures have been implemented to retain teachers such as the payment of wages per hour of work. However, the “improvements” have not had much effect. Currently, the territories most affected by the lack of teachers are Havana, Artemisa, Mayabeque, Sancti Spíritus, Camagüey and Ciego de Ávila itself.

The provincial directorates of Education have also begun to make use of the Educando por Amor [Educating for Love] contingent, composed of more than 6,000 university students from all over the Island. The measure has been made effective in Las Tunas (where 700 teachers were missing), in Villa Clara, with the incorporation of 384 university students in the schools, and in Sancti Spíritus with 50 and Holguín with 52, among others.

So far, the authorities, busy praising the loyalty to the Revolution of these young people, do not seem to worry about the impact that this deviation of study time can have on university students, about the quality of the education provided by students who havenot graduated, or about the fact that some do not even pursue a pedagogical career.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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