English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 6 January 2022 — With 1,429 new positive cases for covid-19 reported this Thursday, Cuba exceeded one thousand infections registered in one day, a figure that the Ministry of Public Health had not reported since last October 25 when it reported 1,210 patients. With the increase in cases — this … Continue reading “Cuba Exceeds 1,000 Covid Cases and Changes the Isolation Protocols”
14ymedio, Havana, 13 December 2021 — There will be changes to correct the deficiencies of the failed Tarea Ordenamiento (Ordering Task), which was planned for more than ten years and whose execution even the Cuban authorities themselves consider catastrophic. In his 2021 accountability report, presented this weekend, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero admits that “the objective of this … Continue reading “Faced With the Failure of its ‘Ordering Task’, the Cuban Government Talks About ‘Rectification’”
14ymedio, Havana, 23 November 2021 — Retaliation against anyone who expresses themselves on social networks against Cuba’s current healthcare system continues. This Tuesday, a resolution signed by the Minister of Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, “disqualifies from the exercise of [his] profession” Dr. Alexander Jesús Figueredo Izaguirre. “The arbitrariness and denigration continue” just because “I … Continue reading “Cuban Government Disqualifies a Doctor for His Criticisms of the Healthcare System”
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 14 November 2021 — Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla was used by Raúl Castro to try to “scare” the young creators of “Archipiélago” and the San Isidro Movement. Bruno summoned the diplomats based in Cuba and said that the excesses announced for November 15 wouldn’t be tolerated. Why? Very … Continue reading “Regime Change in Cuba”
14ymedio, Havana, 8 October 2021 — About a million packages sent to Cuba from abroad have been piled up in state warehouses, some of them for more than a year, while the recipients, overwhelmed by needs, cannot get them delivered. With the worst economic crisis of this century and a growing shortage in the island’s … Continue reading “A Million Packages are in Cuban State Warehouses, Waiting to be Distributed”
14ymedio, Havana, 21 September 2021 — With the reopening of tourism and schools, scheduled for the middle of November, a way is opened to the reactivation of citizen protests. A group of artists and intellectuals who participated in the spontaneous demonstrations on July 11 has requested authorization for a march against violence on Saturday, November … Continue reading “Group of Cubans Ask Authorization to Demonstrate in Havana on 20 November”
14ymedio, Havana, September 21, 2021 — After so many articles about “improved maintenance at the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, after so many promises,” this is what they come out with. That was the reaction of one customer, Valette, to an announcement that most of central Cuba would be without power starting at 5:24 on Tuesday. … Continue reading “Cubans Losing Patience after Another Outage at the Island’s Main Electric Power Plant”
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 22 August 2021 — “Imagine your mouth being forced open to shove a tube down your throat and all this without a sedative.” The Cuban doctor asks to keep his name in reserve before telling 14ymedio about his traumatic experience with Covid-19 patients in collapsed hospitals, without oxygen, without medicines for patients and without means … Continue reading “‘It is Torture to Intubate Patients Without Sedating Them, As is Being Done in Cuba Now’”
14ymedio, Havana, 18 August 2021 — “The Cienfuegos hospital continues to have an oxygen deficit. The helicopters of the Primetime News on Cuban Television are something symbolic for the need that exists,” a doctor from the province, which has replaced Ciego de Ávila as the province with the highest positive rate of covid on the island, … Continue reading “‘Last Night 36 Patients Died in Cienfuegos Hospital’ Laments a Cuban Doctor”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Desde Aqui, Havana, 18 August 2021 — As I do not have the patience needed to analyze paragraph by paragraph, article by article, the ways in which Decree-Law 35 violates the rights of freedom of expression, I opt for the following challenge. I formally challenge President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, … Continue reading “Challenge to Cuba’s Decree-Law 35”
14ymedio, Havana, 11 August 2021 — In Ciego de Ávila they know what is happening and the local press no longer holds back on reporting it. “I knew we lost my cousin due to problems with oxygen therapy. And it wasn’t just hime,” reports a family member in Morón whose relative died of Covid-19, speaking to the local … Continue reading “Cuba’s Provincial Press Reports on the Drama in Ciego de Avila Hospitals”
Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, July 15, 2021 – The first reaction of the Cuban communist dictatorship to social protests was the repression and imprisonment of numerous protesters—this is to say, fear. The second has been propaganda, with the Roundtable television program espousing the government’s viewpoints. Yesterday, this medium led the charge with Manuel Marrero, Cuba’s … Continue reading “Cuba: Notes on a Roundtable with Nothing New to Say”
14ymedio, Havana, July 14, 2021 – The Cuban Government announced this Wednesday that it authorizes “under special circumstances” imports of food, cleaning products, and medicine for passengers arriving to the island. The entry into the country of these goods will be “without limit of import value and free of tariffs,” said Prime Minister Manuel Marrero … Continue reading “Against the Wall, The Cuban Government Authorizes Unlimited Imports of Food and Medicine”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Desde Aqui, Havana, 6 May 2021 — A former colleague of the microbrigade that built the building where I have lived for 36 years, visited me on Wednesday afternoon to help him search on the internet for the update of the Conceptualization of the Cuban Economic and Social Model of Socialist Development … Continue reading “Searching for the ‘Conceptualization’ With a Member of the Cuban Communist Party”
14ymedio, Havana, 26 April 2021 — The worst tourism forecasts for the island are already a reality. According to figures published Monday by the Cuban Statistics and Information Office (ONEI), between January and March 2021, 76,913 travelers arrived, representing only 6.2% of those who arrived in the same period last year (1,230,934), more than one million fewer. … Continue reading “Tourism in Cuba Falls to Historic Lows in First Quarter of the Year”
