Sitting on a bench, a man plucked a rooster recovered from the trash this Friday.
The rooster was part of the remains of a Santeria ritual or some other syncretic religion. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 21 March 2025 — Just a decade ago Fe del Valle Park in Central Havana was a hive of activity. People of all ages, but especially young people. The spot—named after the “heroine” who died in the El Encanto department store fire in 1961—was home to one of the first 35 Wi-Fi hotspots installed by Etecsa, the State’s telecommunications monopoly, before mobile internet was allowed. Standing or sitting on the ground, huddled together, concentrating on a mobile phone, tablet, or computer, dozens of Cubans were using the slow connection—it cost 2 CUC an hour—as if their lives depended on it.
Today, the landscape is very different. The people who live in the park are mainly homeless. Homeless, desperate for food, some clearly suffering from mental health problems. Many of them sleep there. A photo taken this Friday showed this. Sitting on a bench, a man was plucking the feathers from a headless rooster.
Not far from him, on another bench, was the footprint: a black garbage bag, torn and half-open, filled with objects from a ritual offering that had been scattered. / 14ymedio
It was the remains of a Santeria ritual or some other syncretic religion. Not far from him, on another bench, was the trace: a black garbage bag, torn and half-open, filled with scattered ritual offerings, including a broken figure of an Indian, common in spiritualist practices in Cuban homes and cemeteries. “That’s where he took it, I imagine, to eat it,” observed an elderly witness. continue reading
According to one specialist on these rituals, “it seems that the chicken was a sacrifice to a dead person—to the dead person who lived in the broken Indian—and that’s why it was kept outside the house: offerings are made to ancestors in the courtyards, far from where one lives.” Far from being reused for anything, the expert continues, “they are left anywhere to rot, because, as a santero told Lydia Cabrera, the dead don’t chew with their teeth.”
In a few minutes he had de-feathered the animal, which suddenly looked gaunt and whitish. / 14ymedio
Oblivious to the rest of the world, and without any remorse—Santeria dictates that the remains of the offering be buried in a cemetery or in the jungle—the man worked quickly and skillfully. Within minutes, he had plucked the animal, which suddenly looked gaunt and whitish.
“That doesn’t even have meat, you’ll know if it’s rotten,” said the same old man, who claims to reject these “obscurantist” practices: “This is a malignant country, that’s why we haven’t gotten ahead, nor will we.”
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In the document prepared by the Department of Homeland Security, it is argued that this program is “incompatible with the foreign policy objectives” of the current Administration.
Many Cubans benefited from the ’humanitarian parole’ program / Mario Vallejo
14ymedio, Havana, 21 March 2025 — Donald Trump’s government has set a date for the revocation of the temporary protection status known as Humanitarian Parole. It was implemented by the Biden Administration and benefited more than 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. It will terminate on April 24, when the resolution signed by the Department of Homeland Security will be applied. The official announcement will be published on March 25 in the Federal Register and will take effect 30 days later.
The rule indicates that people who have Humanitarian Parole and do not have a legal basis to stay in the United States after the end of the permit must leave the country before the date on which their parole ends.
The Humanitarian Parole Program, approved by Biden, favored the legal arrival in the United States of 110,240 Cubans, Haitians (213,150), Nicaraguans (96,270) and Venezuelans (120,760). The latest data published by the federal agency recorded 110,970 travel authorizations for Cuban citizens.
The document argues that this migration program “no longer represents a significant public benefit” for the United States and is “incompatible with the foreign policy objectives” of the Trump Administration. continue reading
The text was published this Friday in the Federal Registry, the official newspaper of the US Government
The text was published this Friday in the Federal Registry, the official newspaper of the US Government, in which rules, regulations and other statements from federal agencies are disclosed. It will be officially published on March 25, the day the measure will come into force.
Last January, a few days after Trump assumed the presidency, a memo was leaked, indicating how the officials of the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) could proceed with the expulsion of some 1,400,000 people who arrived in the country under one of the asylum programs created by the previous Administration, including the Humanitarian Parole Program.
Trump believes that both the Humanitarian Parole and other programs under the CBP One appointment application were never legal, so those who came to the U.S. through them should be expelled, an anonymous source from National Security told The New York Times.
The idea of these programs, as Biden Government officials explained at the time, was to grant beneficiaries a legal entry to the United States so that they could then take advantage of other immigration programs such as Temporary Protection Status (TPS) or asylum.
The document argues that this immigration program “no longer represents a significant public benefit” for the United States
This new decision, therefore, leaves people who are currently in the country with Humanitarian Parole in legal limbo, while waiting for their immigration processes to be resolved.
This is the case of many Cubans, who entered with this program and are waiting to receive permanent residence under the Cuban Adjustment Act. However, in mid-February, the Administration ordered a freeze on the applications of migrants who arrived in the United States under these mechanisms during Biden’s mandate.
The decision affects the majority of Cubans who have arrived in the last two years. According to a memorandum from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) to which CBS News had access, officials will no longer be able to process petitions for this and other benefits if they are requested by migrants who arrived under the policies of the previous administration.
The news network also reported that the authorities decided to paralyze all requests because cases of fraud were taking place. In order to avoid this, they are expected to improve investigation procedures and thus reduce “concerns related to national security and public safety.”.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Despite opposition rejection in South Africa, Bruno Rodríguez managed to renew a cooperation agreement that was very beneficial to Havana.
The Cuban Prime Minister embraces the President of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso / Estudios Revolución
14ymedio, Havana, 19 March 2025 — Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero hugged Denis Sassou Nguesso, President-for-life of the Republic of Congo. “It has been a historic visit, very exciting, a reunion between two governments and sister countries,” he said on Tuesday when closing a day of meetings in Brazzaville, the country’s capital. The Congolese did not want to be left behind: “No matter how long the night is, the sun will shine for the Cuban people.”
“We are very satisfied, and we believe we have met the objectives to raise economic and trade relations to the same level as policies,” added the Cuban leader, trade being the central issue. Marrero had previously met with his counterpart, Anatole Collinet Makosso, and the delegations of both countries agreed to update the “potentialities for cooperation, strengthen collaboration in public health, technology, science and innovation, training of human resources, tourism development, culture; and the development of the hydrocarbon sector,” among other collaborations.
The Congo, like the rest of Africa, has been negotiating, although, as usual, it is not yet clear for what or how. The Cuban Prime Minister is in Africa on a trip that continues tomorrow to Namibia and Equatorial Guinea. He is accompanied by an important entourage, which includes the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda; the Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade, Déborah Rivas Saavedra; and the Director General of Bilateral Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Miguel Pereira Hernández. continue reading
The independent press has focused on the fact that Marrero has included his wife in the delegation
The independent press has focused on the fact that Marrero has included his wife in the delegation, although it is worth remembering that Yadira Ramírez Morera is the communication director of the Ministry of Tourism, a department that also seeks agreements in Africa.
Yesterday, Marrero, along with the Congolese prime minister, paid tribute at the mausoleum of Marien Ngouabi, the fourth president, who played a role in African liberation struggles. Marrero also laid a floral offering in front of the monument dedicated to the former president of the country, Thomas Sankara, a revolutionary leader nicknamed the “African Che Guevara.”
The show does not end there, since Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister of Foreign Affairs, is doing his own African tour, which began on Friday, March 14, in Burkina Faso. Rodríguez commemorated the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Cuba and Burkina Faso, the same as he did in Ethiopia, where he held meetings with the authorities and emphasized “Cuba’s will to strengthen cooperation” in these times of crisis.
In Ghana, the Cuban Foreign Minister also made the obligatory floral offering, in this case to the Marxist Kwame Nkrumah, “founding father of the Ghanaian nation and symbol of African unity,” in the words of Prensa Latina. Rodríguez took the opportunity to recall on his X account that the Pan-African leader was the first in the region to meet with Fidel Castro.
For decades, the Island has sent doctors to Ghana, and there was a controversy years ago over a speech that clashed with the official position
“I participated in a meeting with the Solidarity Movement with Cuba, graduates from our country and Cubans living in Ghana, as part of my official visit. I thanked everyone for their support for our country and their invariable solidarity with the Cuban people,” the foreign minister said in another post. For decades, the Island has sent doctors to Ghana, where there was a controversy years ago over a speech that clashed with the official discourse of the Island’s authorities.
Two weeks ago, in an episode of State TV’s Round Table program aimed at praising the work of medical missions in the face of Washington’s new sanctions, the Government argued that only countries “that have a little more economic solvency” pay. “There are 25 countries where the missions are still totally free, because they have no resources to contribute to Cuba. We remain there with 25 cooperation agreements that do not generate a penny,” they claimed in contradiction with that demand.
Rodríguez’s most important meeting, however, was in Pretoria, where he met with the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ronald Lamola “to promote bilateral relations.” It is another of the meetings of which no detail has been revealed, because in the relations of the Island with African countries there is always some gain for Cuba that takes time to become public.
This is the case for the beginning of the Kgala cooperation plan, a new suit in the old disguise known as Project Thusano, a military agreement between Cuba and South Africa that was in force between 2015 and 2025, through which, according to the opposition, Cuba earned 1.7 billion rands (93.6 million dollars) in “irregular” expenses. Among the best known cases of that agreement is Cuba’s sale of Heberon Alfa R for the coronavirus crisis, whose purchase was made by Defense without the required authorization by Health. At the beginning of covid-19, Cuba believed the virus was a bacteriological weapon, and in that operation alone, the Island pocketed almost two million dollars, which would have been 17 million if the purchase had been completed.
In addition, 136% more was invested in medical training on the Island than it would have cost in South Africa, which did not translate into better knowledge since only 28% of students passed the validation exam afterwards.
In January of this year, when Thusano expired, the creation of Kgala was announced. “Despite the attempt of the Department of Defense to rethink the project with a new name, the reality remains the same: an expensive and politically motivated operation that is a complete waste of South African resources,” argues the organization, which has asked the Government to paralyze it.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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A Spanish institution digitizes more than 50 20th-century textbooks.
Fidel and Raúl with pioneers on the Central Committee, in which they celebrated the first Children’s Day in Cuba, on July 6, 1973 / Cubadebate
14ymedio, Havana, 16 March 2025 – The text books with which many generations of Cuban children were educated since 1901 can be found today in the Manes archives, a Spanish institute dedicated to the conservation and narration of South American educational thinking. The project, with more than 50 school manuals already digitised, allows us to take the pulse of changes in Cuban pedagogy and their relationship to the political propaganda of each historical era.
According to Manes’s website, the aim of the exhibition is to provide reflection on how teaching has evolved in the island since the end of Spanish dominance. Two German institutes – Leibniz, and Georg Eckert – financed the Cuban historians’ digitisation process.
The material, available free to download, are mostly books on Reading, History and Geography, as well as Morals and Citizenship (two subjects which were key to citizenship training during the Republic), Natural Sciences and Pedagogy. Each one of the original books are kept in the José Martí National Library in Havana.
The oldest records in the collection are those of ’Courses of Study, and Teaching Methods for Public Schools’, printed in 1901 in Havana by the Board of Superintendents of the nascent Republic. This manual attempted to lay the foundations for an education service in a country which, though only recently emerging from war, was ready to “achieve the progress desired” by those who had lost their lives in the wars of the nineteenth century. continue reading
The oldest records in the collection are those of ’Courses of Study, and Teaching Methods for Public Schools’
In its preamble, the text denounced the schooling situation in the country, and the “monstrous barbarisms” of the language. The authorities also wanted Cuban children to learn mathematics, so that “those who are able to work out for themselves their exact change (in a shop) won’t be vulnerable to being swindled”.
They also insisted on the study of agriculture – depending on the region – as well as arithmetic, needlework and civic instruction. In this latter subject the syllabus required the teaching of “the need for keeping promises, of always being punctual, of using courteous language, of never using bad language and always using moderate tones in speech”. And to “erase any superstitious behaviour”.
Because of the proximity of the USA to Cuba, children were also to be taught the history of that country, and they argued “the influence of Cuba in the independence of the United States”. In June 1900, whilst this manual was being written, 1000 Cuban teachers attended a Summer School at Harvard, to train in the most up to date pedagogical thinking.
During the following decades, the biggest names in teaching on the island, like Ramiro Guerra, were consolidated. A number of titles authored by Guerra, the most significant Cuban historian of the first quarter of the century, are among those digitised by Manes – titles having such significance that not even Fidel Castro could banish them completely from schools.
Such is the case of his ’Manual of Cuban History’ – a voluminous recounting, in more than 700 pages, of colonial history – which continues to be the text par excellence for the teaching of history on the island, including at university level.
But by 1968, when People & Education published ’My First Book’, by Josefina Díaz Entralgo, the context, just as much political as educative, had completely changed. The content, overseen by a series of education authorities – a fact which is flagged up in an initial note – was aimed at first grade children:
“One, two, three! Soldiers marching!” is one of the slogans that appear, along with a corresponding image, in the first pages of the book, mixed in with elements of daily life. “I’ll be a pioneer”, “The Sierra” – in capital letters, refers to the Sierra Maestra where Fidel Castro’s forces were based – “We are like soldiers with their rifles”, or, “No one must drop out of line”, are some of the other illustrations.
In a few lines, Entralgo sums up what a child of six should learn about the military
In a few lines, Entralgo sums up what a child of six should learn about the military: “Yesterday, a soldier from the Revolutionary Armed Forces came to talk to us in our classroom. He’s our friend. We met him in November when we visited his base… After he left, we children were thinking, ’How brave are those soldiers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces! They love Cuba very much and are always there to protect it”.
“Eusabio’s parents told him that before, life was very bad in the mountains. The people of the Sierra suffered a lot: the children didn’t have school”, says another passage. “But Fidel and the rebel soldiers fought there and now there are many new things in the Sierra. There are roads and hospitals and lots of schools. The Revolution changed life in the mountains. All the people there are happy now”.
The first edition alone of ’My First Book’ – still read in schools until recently – was printed 80,000 times. But beginning with the Congress of Education and Culture in 1971 – the starting shot for a period of repression in schools and cultural centres – school textbooks no longer even attempted to disguise their motive of indoctrination.
Although Manes, founded in 1992, doesn’t have those texts in their collection, other repositories, like that of the Ministry of Education itself do have them, and they facilitate confirmation of the high level of political, ideological and pro-military content that these school textbooks – still in use today – are filled with.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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The store, located on 37th Avenue, reopened with the new payment method last week.
Facade of the La Valenciana store, now selling in dollars. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 18 March 2025 — Unafraid of ideological contradictions, the stern visage of Che Guevara, “a knight without blemish or fear”—a verse from a poem dedicated to the guerrilla—crowns the building that houses the first dollar store in the city of Cienfuegos. The store, located on 37th Avenue, reopened last week with the new cash payment option, a transformation evident as soon as you look in its windows and see its shelves packed with products.
La Valenciana is now a place where los fulas [dollars] have swept away the previously freely convertible currency (MLC) with which commerce operated. Retaining the name of Agua y Jabón [Water and Soap] the Italian chain with more than fifty stores across the island, the establishment now displays a different image that goes beyond the increased variety and quantity of merchandise for sale.
“I was surprised to see so many lights on inside,” said Isabel, a nearby resident, speaking to 14ymedio this Tuesday. She was also surprised by the doorman’s friendliness. “He welcomed me with a smile and told me that payment could now be made in dollars.” A quick glance around the room, albeit with limited air conditioning, revealed shelves full of laundry detergent, dish soap, hair conditioner, shampoo, brooms, and all sorts of household cleaning products.
“He welcomed me with a smile and told me that payment could now be made in dollars.” / 14ymedio
Sponges, air fresheners, mosquito spray, and toilet paper are also part of the offerings at this store, which is jointly managed by the state-owned Tiendas Caribe. “When this sold in MLC [moneda libremente convertible/freely convertible money], it was almost empty,” noted a young continue reading
woman who was also surprised by the change inside the store. “There’s quite a variety of detergents, and they also have toilet bowl descaler, which I haven’t found here in Cienfuegos for a long time,” she summarized.
However, the young woman preferred to remain cautious and not let her enthusiasm run wild: “Now the question is whether they’ll be able to maintain the supply because, as we know, a new broom sweeps clean,” she concluded at the counter where an employee was checking out another customer. The man, who had bought a pack of toilet paper and a cleaning bucket, paid with a $20 bill. The change was returned: partly in US bills, and instead of coins, in candy, a widespread practice in other dollar-denominated markets that have opened across the country.
The difference with other stores in the city that continue to operate in hard currency or pesos extends beyond the variety of products. “I didn’t see any employees playing on their phones or leaning on the counters,” Isabel explained to this newspaper after leaving La Valenciana, where she ultimately settled on just a handle for her old broom and a box of hair dye, all for a little over $10.
At the entrance, a sign warns that, in addition to dollars in cash, Visa, Mastercard, the Russian Mir, and the Cuban AIS, Viajeros, and Clásica cards are accepted. These cards are issued by national banks and operate only in foreign currency. However, power outages can make electronic payments difficult in a city that has experienced consecutive blackouts of more than 20 hours a day so far this year in the weeks hardest hit by the energy shortage.
Keeping the Agua y Jabón name, the store now displays a different image that goes beyond the increase in variety and quantity of merchandise. / 14ymedio
“I prefer to come with the dollars my daughter sends me,” summed up an elderly man who approached with “the exact amount” to buy some laundry soap. “I’m not in the mood to leave the change as a tip, nor am I interested in candy, because I wear prosthetics and don’t have grandchildren living here with me,” he concluded. The bill was exactly four dollars, which the customer paid in one-dollar bills.
Others prefer to receive the candy instead of the corresponding cents, or simply leave the difference as a tip for the employees. “At least this gives us a little money from time to time, because when we were in MLC, our pockets suffered the consequences. Listen, we didn’t get anything!” commented one employee who, a few months ago, was on the verge of being laid off, precisely because of the crisis that had gripped La Valenciana.
“I’m optimistic because when it comes to the dollar, everything improves,” he says. “It’s good for us until the power cuts off, because then customers have to pay only in cash and our opportunities to earn a little extra money increase,” he explains to this newspaper. “The most generous are the Cuban-Americans who come to visit and leave 40 cents here, a little there.”
While in other stores, the power outage is the golden excuse for halting sales, closing the doors, and canceling entry to the public, this isn’t the case at La Valenciana. Even during lunchtime, employees take turns to avoid interrupting service, and when the power goes out, instead of processing bills at the cash register, they write them down on a piece of paper.
As in those verses dedicated to Che Guevara, the face that welcomes customers on the rooftop of the dollar store, when the power goes out at La Valenciana, everyone continues working “en lo oscuro, señora, en lo oscuro” [in the dark, madam, in the dark].
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A woman and a 15-year-old girl were taken to the hospital known as La Benéfica, neighbors told ’14ymedio’.
This Sunday, the neighbors on the street were gathered around a woman who was talking to them with a list in her hand. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 16 March 2025 — At least two people were injured Saturday night when an apartment building collapsed, at number 552 on Diez de Octubre Avenue, near the corner of Santa Irene Street, in Havana. During a visit to the site Sunday morning, several neighbors told 14ymedio that the injured were an adult woman and a 15-year-old girl.
According to testimony from some of the neighborhood’s residents, the victims were taken to Dr. Miguel Enríquez Hospital, known as La Benéfica. Some also told this newspaper that they were one of the families who had occupied the building, which was abandoned due to its deterioration, although 14ymedio was unable to corroborate this information.
Several images of the incident, which occurred inside the building during a national blackout, were shared on social media. The videos show the presence of a fire truck, an ambulance, police officers, and several paramedics transporting one of the injured women on a stretcher.
This morning, the street’s residents were gathered around a woman who was chatting with them, holding a list. A plainclothes political police officer on a motorcycle watched closely, registering the victims and their losses and promising some assistance or temporary shelter.
At the improvised dump site in front of the building, a ’diver’ was searching for trash buried beneath the rubble. / 14ymedio
The presence of authorities didn’t stop the criticism from those who lived in the neighborhood and observed the scene from afar. “You can’t even go out [to the street to protest] because there’s so much repression. They put in place that law that says you can’t even criticize this on social media. And continue reading
that collapse, the roof falling on you in the middle of the blackout…” lamented another neighbor.
In addition to the building’s situation, residents are focusing on obtaining ice to preserve food and water to consume while the power outage lasts.
In a video shared on social media by residents of the building, several people are seen gathered around the fire truck, which, along with the vehicles passing by on the street, provided the only light in the area.
At the improvised dump in front of the building, a ’diver’ was searching for trash buried beneath the debris that had fallen from the building.
Building collapses in Havana are a reality Cubans have had to get used to. Especially in older neighborhoods, the fear of a roof collapsing or a facade beginning to peel off is heightened if there’s a storm or a hurricane is approaching.
The collapses in Havana are a reality that Cubans have had to get used to.
In mid-February, a building located on San Bernardino Street, between Durege and General Serrano, in the Santos Suárez neighborhood of Diez de Octubre, collapsed, leaving a dozen families homeless.
Residents piled the few belongings they had managed to extract from the fragments of the wall on the side of the street while several state employees used a crane to demolish the three-story tenement. The building had been declared uninhabitable, according to residents, but with nowhere else to go, many families continued to live there.
At the end of June 2024, when Havana experienced several days of storms, at least 19 buildings suffered partial or total collapses, according to this newspaper’s information.
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“It is absolutely reprehensible how agents of the murderous Castro regime have manipulated our immigration laws to infiltrate our country,” said Republican Carlos Giménez
Tomás Emilio Hernández Cruz, the former Cuban agent arrested on Wednesday by the US authorities /ICE
14ymedio/EFE, Madrid/Miami, 20 March 2025 — Carlos Giménez, a Republican congressman of Cuban origin, asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to immediately investigate and deport more than 100 people who reside in the United States and have alleged links to the Castro regime.
In a letter sent to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, the Republican said that these individuals represent “a threat to national security.”
Giménez provided a list with more than 100 names of people he considers “previously supported the brutal policies of the Castro dictatorship and have taken advantage of US immigration laws to enter our country,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
These agents of the Cuban regime must be identified, investigated and deported immediately, stressed the congressman, born in Cuba and one of the most recognized faces against the Castro regime in southern Florida in continue reading
recent years, as mayor of Miami-Dade County between 2011 and 2020.
“It is absolutely reprehensible how agents of the murderous Castro regime have manipulated our immigration laws to infiltrate our country,” he said.
Giménez said that he will continue to work closely with the DHS to identify agents of regimes from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua
Giménez, who represents a district with a large Cuban and Hispanic population in South Florida, highlighted the arrest of Tomás Emilio Hernández Cruz by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on March 14. He was identified as a “member of Cuban intelligence in several high-level positions abroad,” after an investigation carried out based on inconsistencies detected in his immigration application.
Giménez said he will continue to work closely with the DHS to identify agents of regimes from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
The recent measures of the US Government to restrict the arrival of foreigners, and especially the draft that the New York Times made public six days ago – where Cuba appears on a “red list” of countries whose citizens cannot enter the United States – has concerned Cubans, even those who already reside in the country legally.
The fear is that, if it becomes an executive order, the measure will prevent Cubans with a residence permit from returning to US soil if they travel outside the country. The draft doesn’t mention this, however, and specialists are trying to calm the community.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The Diocesan Archive of Ourense reveals that due to the existence of this black market, they have been forced to ensure that documents bear the signature of the vicar.
A line of Cubans in front of the Spanish embassy in Havana / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, 21 March 2025 –“There are more and more people from Ourense on the streets of Havana or on Ribadavia Avenue in Buenos Aires. They are Ourensanos who don’t know Ourense, who have never stepped foot on the Couto or Marcelo Macías.” This is how the program En Portada, on the local channel of Ourense, Telemiño, began this Thursday. It revealed that there is a black market in Cuba for false birth certificates to prove Spanish origin and request nationality in accordance with the Democratic Memory Law. The price reaches 2,000 or 3,000 euros for a document whose real version costs 10,000 euros.
Pablo Cid, in charge of the Diocesan Historical Archive, said that every day they receive 30 to 50 emails requesting information about birth, marriage or death certificates of those interested in finding out if they have an ancestor from Ourense. “On weekends the number goes down a little, but from one day to the next we still leave with our inbox empty, and the next day we arrive and there are 40 emails, mainly from Cuba, Argentina and some from Mexico. Well, there are many from Miami, but because of the issue of Cuba,” he says.
In 2024, 500 new Ourensanos registered in the census of Spaniards abroad thanks to the nationalization obtained through this law. In addition, the archive resolved 20,000 requests for information. It can be assumed that more Galician citizens will emerge thanks to the Democratic Memory Law, whose application period began in 2022 and closes in October of this year.
In 2024, 500 new Ourense citizens registered in the census of Spaniards abroad thanks to the nationalization obtained through this law
According to data from the Centro de Descendientes de Españoles Unidos, more than 200,000 people have already received the passport, to which must be added more than a million people, including the 300,000 Cubans continue reading
involved in the process. But Pablo Cid left a disconcerting fact in his speech yesterday: Cuba is the only country in which the black market of certificates has such a considerable volume that it has reached the ears of the Historical Archive, which has been asked to take extraordinary measures.
“For any country in the world, documents sent bearing the stamp of the Archive and the signature of the director are enough for them to be valid. But since one month ago, birth certificates coming from Cuba are required to carry the signature of the vicar. At first we didn’t know why, but then we discovered that they were falsifying the documents,” Cid revealed. “There was a massive influx of forged certificates, and they decided to make it more difficult. Someone told me that any Cuban can buy a false one for 2,000 or 3,000 euros.”
The archivist commented that the queries that arrive at the archive are very diverse and refer to ancestors who allegedly left Galicia at the end of the 19th century, for whom it is impossible to find anything. Or they ask about people known only by name, and finding something is statistically impossible or the results ambiguous. Most attempts come, of course, from countries “with problems.”
Among them, he says, are Venezuela and, of course, the Island. “Cuba is one of those that is always in the ranking, because the economic and political situation encourages the population to leave.” Those invited to the program, including an economist and a journalist, addressed an issue that was”unthinkable” for them 10 or 20 years ago: the increase in population in a province that has been depopulated for decades.
Ourense, the only one of the four Galician provinces without sea access, is the least populated and the one with the lowest per capita income, so the participants on En Portada considered it very positive that the population would increase and contribute to the maintenance of the State. In addition, they defended the right of immigrants to be welcomed as Spaniards were when they emigrated.
“I am one of those who think that we have emigrated to other countries for years, if not decades and centuries. Now we find that in those countries, which used to work better than Spain, there are problems. And I think it is fair to return to the groups that are there and that have an interest in moving to our country the same opportunity that they gave us at the time,” said economist and professor José Ángel Vázquez Barquero.
“And I think it is fair to return to the groups that are there and that have an interest in moving to our country the same opportunity that they gave us at the time”
Pablo Cid, who spoke at length about the complexity of some inquiries, was also asked about the worst things he has seen in this work, among which, scams aside, he spoke of the discomfort generated by the fact that there are companies and lawyers “taking advantage of the situation to make money” even if it is legal. The archivist, who says that the process of obtaining a document costs 10 euros, said that among the workers of the institution there is an internal joke about “adding a zero” when the request comes from this type of company, charging 200 or 300 euros for the procedure. “We do the work, but the money goes somewhere else,” he smiles.
The broadcast gave half an hour to discussing the programs of the Xunta de Galicia to attract emigrants and the job possibilities that exist in the province of Ourense and the region. But many of those new Spaniards may never leave for Spain but may find another value in their passport, such as a mobility that a Cuban passport will never give them.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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A coffee grower from Sancti Spíritus lost everything by selling the beans on his own, without going through the State agency Acopio
In Sancti Spíritus, the price of unroasted Criollo coffee is between 200 and 240 pesos. / Escambray
14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus, 20 March 2025 — The story of Isidro, a guajiro — as he will be known to protect his identity—is spreading in Sancti Spíritus, after authorities confiscated 465 sacks of coffee he was saving to sell. In his eyes, he has done nothing wrong, but in Cuba, what he did is illegal.
The farmer decided one day to invest in his business and expand it beyond the coffee plantations he cultivated himself. So, he sold his motorcycle to use the money to buy beans from other producers. “This is now a small business that’s making money, because of the price of coffee,” a resident who also requested anonymity told 14ymedio. In the province, the price of the native product is between 200 and 240 pesos, unroasted (250-gram bags, already roasted and ground, cost between 1,350 and 1,500 pesos).
“The man was crazy. They had to bring him to Sancti Spíritus because he said he wanted to kill himself. He lost his money, his motorcycle, everything.”
The police, who accused him of “hoarding” and prohibited him from selling the coffee to any buyer other than the State agency Acopio, gave the confiscated product to the Cabaiguán roasting plant.
He usually goes to the fields to buy coffee from the producers, but now he has stopped this activity, “until the dust settles.”
The line for breaking the law is thin, the resident continues. He usually goes to the fields to buy coffee directly from the producers, to resell it in the city, but he’s stopped doing so now, “until the dust settles.” He adds: “If the police catch you with a backpack of coffee, even a small one, they’ll take it away.” continue reading
At the beginning of last September, the government issued a new resolution on the marketing of agricultural, forestry, and tobacco production that, de facto, penalized private farmers with more controls—reserving the monopoly on purchasing from these farmers, the campesinos, and setting prices for products destined for export, including coffee, despite their far more successful production than the state sector.
For example, private farmers produce more than 80% of fruit trees, almost 80% of beans, and three-quarters of vegetables, root vegetables, and corn, according to official data presented by economist Pedro Monreal, who harshly criticized the new regulation. As he posted on social media at the time, he believes the resolution “expresses the arrogant notion that centralized planning is more effective than the market in ensuring ‘economic calculation’ (rational distribution of resources).” Furthermore, he observed, it represented a “variant of ‘forced’ contracting,” like the one imposed on the guajiro Isidro.
The harshness of the raids has not increased the presence of coffee in the island’s bodegas (ration stores). Just a week ago, the official press argued that the disappearance of the product and the collapse of its production was due, above all, to the lack of workers to harvest the fruit.
In that unusual note, published by the official newspaper Granma, they didn’t hide the sector’s collapse. “In 2023, the situation with the coffee was tense, and resources for harvesting and transport were insufficient,” Felipe Martínez Suárez, director of the Agroforestry Experimental Station in the municipality of Tercer Frente, in Santiago de Cuba, told the Communist Party newspaper. He nevertheless emphasized that the company was able to develop “more resilient” plants thanks to aid from Vietnam.
According to the National Statistics and Information Office, production in the sector fell by 51% in the last five years.
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“They don’t eat breakfast, they don’t eat lunch, they don’t eat anything, they just stuff themselves with that, it doesn’t lead to anything good.”
With some effort, a young man is picked up in Fraternity Park in Havana / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 19 March 2025 — A prisoner to his convulsions, a young man tosses on the ground, amid guttural screams, while he hits himself with fury. He has a scratched face and sores on his hands. “Watch him, that’s the químico [chemical],” the witnesses exclaim, recognizing a scene that is no longer exceptional in Cuba. So much so that it does not happen only in marginal territories, but also in the heart of cities. In this case, in Havana’s Fraternity Park, a step away from the Capitol, in the middle of this Wednesday morning.
“I know that boy, he’s twenty-years-old. He spends the day there sitting on a bench with a small group, asking people for money,” the worker of a nearby place tells this newspaper. “They don’t have breakfast, they don’t eat, they don’t feed themselves, they just get into that, which doesn’t lead to anything good.”
Another neighbor aware of the situation corroborates that the young man is a regular consumer of synthetic cannabinoids, known on the Island as “el quimico” – the chemical. “He takes it up to nine times a day,” he says, but they had never seen him like that. “It does give him fits, but not as strong. And it’s scary, because you can see that he could do anything under the effects.” continue reading
The police try to dissuade him from approaching the boy and threaten to put those who take out their cell phones to take photos into the patrol car
Faced with a crowd of people, the police try to dissuade people from approaching the boy and threaten to put those who take out their cell phones to take photos into a patrol car. Minutes later, not without effort, between an agent, a guard and two other men, they manage to carry the still trembling body to a private red Lada to take him to a hospital, whose name they don’t give.
The event coincides with the most recent crusade of the Cuban Government against narcotics, the “Third Exercise of Prevention and Confrontation of Illicit Drugs,” which began on Sunday the 16th and will end on Saturday the 22nd. The objective, the official press said, is “to reach the neighborhood with preventive and confrontational actions, to work on community factors, to raise the perception of risk and the rejection of drugs, and to achieve greater participation of the family in the education and protection of their children.”
Among the actions that the authorities say they will develop are establishing controls on the roads, making “prophylactic preventive interventions in 57 educational centers,” carrying out “checks on the production and storage systems of medicines and other substances,” holding debates and talks, but also, according to the official State newspaper Granma, executing show trials.
This same Wednesday, Canal Caribe reported that such a trial took place in Havana for “alleged crimes associated with illicit drugs,” although it does not specify when or how many were prosecuted. In the same report, Xiang Fong Zamora, president of the First Criminal Chamber of the Provincial Court, recalled that in 2024, “more than 92%” of defendants tried for acts related to drug trafficking were sentenced to prison.
The media reports that a trial took place in Havana for “alleged crimes associated with illicit drugs,” although it does not specify when or the number of defendants
The figure was given by the Ministry of the Interior itself: more than 1,100 people went to jail last year for that reason. Likewise, in 2024, 1,051 kilos of drugs were seized in Cuba, mostly cocaine, in addition to marijuana, methamphetamine and cannabinoids. Most were detected on the sea. There alone, the police seized 844.13 kilos (619.72 of cocaine, 222 of marijuana and 2.3 of hashish) in 133 actions. There were also nine stings in which 37.5 kilos of drugs were seized.
In Holguín, the “Exercise” seems to focus more on prevention. As Iris Cosella Torres, a provincial Mental Health official, said this Tuesday to the newspaper Ahora!, “they will arrive in the neighborhoods, fundamentally, to promote protection factors and in this way contribute to achieving greater participation of the family in the education and guarding of their children against drugs.”
In her speech, the official recalled, without referring to him by name or surname, that “the Historical Leader of the Revolution prioritized the fight against drugs, for which he instituted almost at the end of 1958 Provision No. 6 of the Civil Administration of the free territory, which provided for the total elimination of the consumption of any substance that was against the well-being of the people.”
This is one of the many fallacies spread by Fidel Castro, especially lacerating given the involvement of high authorities of the regime in the international trafficking of narcotics, and the outcome of Case 1/89, which ended in the execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa and three other high military officials, on July 13, 1989.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The International Republican Institute was able to retain only five of its 95 programs funded by the State Department and USAID.
Archive photograph of former USAID employees and supporters in Washington, D.C. / EFE/EPA/Shawn Thew
14ymedio, Havana, 19 March 2025 — The United States Department of State restored part of the financing that it had frozen weeks ago for independent Cuban media and non-governmental organizations, according to the Nuevo Herald on Wednesday, after confirmation with several sources related to the issue.
The newspaper CubaNet, dean of the independent press, was notified that a subsidy that financed its operations was no longer canceled, according to Roberto Hechavarría, director of the digital media which was founded in 1994, speaking to the American newspaper.
Likewise, the legal organization Cubalex and the NGO Outreach AID to the Americas were also informed by the State Department that a program related to part of its financing, previously canceled, had been newly approved.
Both institutions linked to Cuba, however, have had to reduce their teams and will not have all the budget that was approved before the current Administration suspended all aid distributed through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). continue reading
Sources related to the federal decision confirmed to the Nuevo Herald that the International Republican Institute was able to retain only five of its 95 programs funded by the State Department and USAID. These are all projects related to Cuba and Venezuela, including one that supports political prisoners on the island. They also indicated that the Democratic National Institute could only retain a couple of contracts related to Venezuela.
For his part, José Jasán Nieves, director of El Toque, said that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an independent organization that receives funding from the US Congress, notified them of the disbursement of funds already committed, “but they still aren’t talking about reactivating the suspended programs.” The federal government released part of the previously frozen money after a lawsuit by the Foundation against the State Department.
Last year alone, according to the report prepared by tycoon Elon Musk at the request of President Donald Trump after the shutdown of USAID, the expenditure to “rebuild the Cuban media ecosystem” was one and a half million dollars. It is an infinitesimal part of the agency’s total budget of about 60 billion dollars annually, but it represents a substantial part of the spending of several independent media, which try to compensate for the propaganda of the Cuban regime with plural information.
In addition, dozens of Cuban organizations working for human rights, free enterprise and freedom of expression were benefiting from these funds.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated last February that some USAID programs will be exempted from the freeze on funds. “Every dollar we spend, every program we finance must be aligned with the national interest of the United States, and USAID has a history of ignoring that and deciding that, somehow, they are a global charity separate from the national interest,” he said.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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For 40 years, the elimination of the station was one of the most constant demands of the Cuban dictatorship, comparable only to the return of the Guantanamo naval base or the end of the embargo.
For years I was a regular contributor to ’The News As It Stands’ on Radio Martí, where you could hear reports from ’14ymedio’, ’Diario de Cuba’ and ’Cubanet’ / Radio Martí
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Desde Aquí, 18 March 2025 – I don’t know whether the USA will now be more “grande” (’great again’) after closing down Radio Martí. Neither do I know whether, in the English spoken by the president of that country, the word “grande” (’great’) is limited to the amount of money that that country stashes away in its vaults. In the Spanish that we speak in Cuba the word “grande” is associated with “grandeza” – magnanimity, or nobility – and this word in turn is associated with generosity.
Generosity cannot be demanded, but it is one’s duty to give thanks for it.
For 40 years, the elimination of Radio Martí was one of the most consistent demands made by the Cuban regime, comparable only to their demands for the return of the Guantánamo naval base and the end of the embargo. To use an expression familiar to the Republican who, for now, occupies the White House, the Cuban negotiators never even had “the cards” to put on the table for achieving their goal of switching off Radio Martí.
I’m not familiar with the rules of Poker, nor of any other card game, but if I were to get all ’conspiracy theory’ about it I would dare to suspect that the game’s being played underneath the table. ’Certainly’ it’s a coincidence that the closure of Radio Martí came just after we’d heard about the release of 553 prisoners! – which had been promised to the Vatican (of which only 230 were considered to be political prisoners), and shortly after it was announced that foreigners could now buy and own land in Cuba. And who knows, perhaps at last we may be about to find out exactly why so many hotels have been built on the island recently. continue reading
In the Spanish that we speak in Cuba the word “grande” is associated with “grandeza” – magnanimity, or nobility – and this word in turn is associated with generosity
There’s no use crying over spilt milk. For years I was a regular contributor to ’The News As It Stands’ on Radio Martí, where you could hear reports by independent media organisations such as ’14ymedio’, ’Diario de Cuba’ and ’Cubanet’, to name but a few. There, any Cubans without internet access were able to find out what these digital media had been publishing. Granted, it was accompanied by noise and interference, but it had a clarity which only the truth can provide.
Perhaps it’s now just become our turn for giving “grandeza”/generosity towards the United States – to help it become “great again,” via yet more money in its vaults, in exchange for losing those spaces for truthful information about our reality. But as I’ve already said: generosity cannot be demanded, but it is one’s duty to give thanks for it.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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An article in ‘Granma’ describes the bleak outlook for the sugar harvest in Guantánamo province.
Argeo Martínez is the only sugar mill in the east of the country that joined the campaign this year / Prensa Guantánamo
14ymedio, Havana, 18 March 2025 — The International Agroindustrial Food Fair of Cuba began this Monday in Havana, at a time when national agriculture is experiencing a deep crisis and desperately needs foreign investors to revive production. Proof of this is an unusual article by the State newspaper Granma that describes the bleak panorama of the harvest in the eastern provinces and bears a title that says it all: With such ingenuity and effort, where’s the harvest?
In the eastern zone, the Argeo Martínez sugar mill is the only one that has assumed the grinding (there are only 14 throughout the country this year), but its entry into the campaign was late, and after the appearance of other “inconveniences,” the delays have accumulated. From the beginning, the mill was far from reaching the 26,000 tonnes of sugar it achieved in 2014. For this year, the plan is one fourth as much, and with a deadline of March 25, they already owe 700 tonnes.
This translates into thousands of tonnes of cane not being processed, according to the mill’s administrator, due to rain and other obstacles.
The raw material “reached the conveyor belt with a delay of up to 90 hours and was often burned”
According to Granma, the raw material “reached the mill with a delay of up to 90 hours and was often burned,” which the person in charge of the harvest in Guantánamo – where the mill is located – justifies with the poor state of the fields: “In some seedlings there is pica pica,” a plant that stings the skin of the cane cutters and which it is better not to approach,” says the continue reading
newspaper.
Other plants have also invaded the oldest plantations, neglected for two and a half years. Cutting them down, the article argues, would demand too much effort on the part of the macheteros, so it is decided to burn the field,* and only the blackened cane remains standing. “The scientific literature states that the burning of cane fields affects biodiversity and the ecosystem, reduces the natural fertility of soils and reduces the quality of the raw material,” the media emphasizes.
The same was alleged by Deputy Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca in his visit to Argeo Martínez last week, when he asked for “more discipline” on the part of the employees: “What kind of harvest can be obtained from a burnt cane that arrives late to the conveyor belt?” he scolded.
The director also “saw railroad cars waiting too long to be unloaded, and he knew – from the record – that there was cane in the field waiting to be transported, a sign of discontinuity in the flow of raw material to the mill,” says the media.
To this are added the failures, unforeseen stops, problems in the boilers, “disorders here and there in the 162-year-old ’rheumatic’ colossus”
Granma also highlights “other causes and bad luck” that delay the transport to the mill. “The humidity on the ground has risen, and many times, because of it, the cutting and lifting slow down. The mud makes it difficult and sometimes prevents the cane from arriving on time, which takes away its freshness,” emphasizes the administrator of Argeo Martínez
Added to this are failures, unforeseen shutdowns, boiler problems, “disorders here and there in the 162-year-old ’rheumatic’ colossus” whose ailments can no longer be corrected with temporary patches.
However, some workers take responsibility for the failure with voluntarism and promise a better future for the harvest. The administrator believes that the next plantings “will give more sugar.” Until now, the yield was 5.79 tonnes of sugar for every hundred tonnes of ground cane, but “in recent days that index exceeds 6.50,” which managers see as a “good symptom.” And they assure: “we will get to eight.”
“At first glance it seems impossible,” predicts Granma, which attributes to the mill a “gypsy curse disguised as interruptions and inefficiencies, which has haunted them year after year for more than a decade.” If it is achieved, it is thanks to the “efforts of the operators and the workers.” And it clarifies: “The good, the bad and the regular of the current sugar campaign in the Upper East depends on this sugar mill, the only one working in Guantánamo.”
For years, each sugar campaign has been worse than the previous one, and, in 2024, the Island reached its lowest point. Barely 160,000 tonnes were produced, less than half of what was achieved a year earlier, when 350,000 were reached. Last year, Cuba also imported more sugar than it produced for the first time.
Sugar is just one product of those presented – all in a similar state – by Cuban agriculture to companies in Spain, Italy, Panama, Chile and Brazil, and to the 46 firms from 20 countries visiting the Agroindustrial Fair. Currently, according to official data, the country imports 80% of the food it consumes, including 100% of the products in the basic family basket.
*Translator’s note: Burning the cane field eliminates the grass and makes it easier to cut at the base of the plant.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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A power deficit of 1,300 MW is forecast for today as more tankers carrying oil and fuel continue to arrive.
The Luyanó neighborhood has been without water for more than a week / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 18 March 2025 — After the collapse last Friday of the national electricity system (SEN), electricity is not the only thing missing for Cubans. In Havana, the image of elderly people carrying buckets or pushing wheelbarrows with water containers has become frequent. In some neighborhoods, the supply cycle was interrupted by the total blackout, and, since then, “not even one drop of water” has reached homes.
This is the case of Luyanó, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre, where the neighbors who talked to 14ymedio assure that they have been “more than a week”, since Monday, March 10, without water. Normally, they say, the service works every other day. The options to overcome the shortage range from appealing to the kindness of neighbors with wells to going to relatives with reservations to be able to bathe or cook.
In Nuevo Vedado, where the editorial staff of this newspaper is located, the situation is similar. “I only have a small reserve left, and I hope that this afternoon there is enough water in the building’s cistern to be able to pump it into a container,” says a resident in the area. continue reading
“I had to go to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital on Monday. and there were nurses complaining that they had not been able to wash their uniforms”
I had to go to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital on Monday, and there were nurses complaining that they had not been able to wash their uniforms because they still had no power in their homes,” adds the neighbor, worried about the hygiene of the employees who are exposed to diseases and infections. In the center, despite now having electricity, “the servers were down and there was no network,” she adds.
According to an article published yesterday in the State newspaper Granma, the “greatest complexity” with the water supply is in the capital. Interviewed by the official media, José Antonio Hernández Álvarez, director of Water and Sanitation in the province, explained that water service would not be available until “the afternoon-night of Wednesday” if the supply is restored.
“The stability in the pumping systems begins about 72 hours after being energized, in this case after the reconnection of the national electrical system, which collapsed last Friday,” Granma added.
The weekend of total blackouts has reminded many of the obstacles they faced at the end of the year, when the SEN suffered three power outages in three months. In Holguín, on the other side of the island, Manuel still laments that most of the food he had refrigerated ended up in the trash. “We had to bring food to my wife’s grandmother, who lives in the countryside about five kilometers from the city, because everything went bad,” he says.
He explains that this week everything has returned to the usual “normality,” at least in Havana. “The blackouts are now scheduled and will happen as before. But in the countryside it takes two hours and more to turn on the power, taking the programming schedule as a reference,” he says.
The image of elderly people carrying buckets or pushing wheelbarrows with water containers has become frequent in Havana / 14ymedio
As of this Monday, and despite the fact that many Cubans continue to suffer the consequences of the total blackout of the weekend, the Electric Union began again to broadcast its usual report. For this Tuesday, the deficit is forecast at 1,300 megawatts, a number that has become standard in recent months and that represents almost half of the Island’s demand.
The situation is barely alleviated by the tankers that arrive on the Island and take time to distribute the tons of oil they bring. “It took the Corossol about 120 days to unload its precious cargo of urgently needed fuel,” Texas University expert Jorge Piñón told this newspaper about the ship loaded with 650,000 barrels of diesel that had been circulating around the Island since November before docking at the port of Matanzas on March 3.
The same is repeated, says the specialist, with the Marlin Aventurine, which has been waiting to unload in the operational part of the Matanzas Supertanker Base since March 5. On the horizon, with an expected arrival in Matanzas on April 1, he explains, there is another ship approaching, the Marlin Ammolite, with an estimated 330,000 barrels of fuel from France. “Does Cuba have a problem in the storage capacity in its logistics chain or a financial problem?” asks Piñón, who emphasizes that these three tankers “do not come from Mexico, Russia or Venezuela, where there would not be any kind of delay for payment reasons.”
They are all, for the moment, questions: “Is it Cuba who is paying in cash for the fuel in these three tankers? Or is it a third party, Russia or Venezuela, that is the counterparty through a credit to the supplier?” Not counting the freight, the expert estimates these three tankers carry fuel worth 85 million dollars.
Meanwhile, unit 6 of the Renté thermoelectric plant, in Santiago de Cuba; the 2 of Felton, in Holguín; the 6 of Mariel, in “maintenance in Artemisa; as well as the 3 of Santa Cruz del Norte, in Mayabeque; the 3 and 4 of Cienfuegos, and the 5 of Renté are out of the game.
Another 435 megawatts are not available in thermal generation, he says without offering explanations. And, finally, 42 distributed generation plants are not working due to lack of fuel, affecting another 176 megawatts.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Currently in Cuba, along with hunger, poverty, ill health, disease, criminality, and repression, suicides are on the rise
Source: El Toque
Cubanet, Luis Cino Álvarez, Havana, 17 March 2025 — Rare is the day we don’t hear of a suicide: someone of any sex or age who hanged or poisoned themselves, jumped off a bridge or rooftop, shot themselves, slit their wrists, set themselves ablaze, threw themselves under the wheels of a bus or truck.
At this time in Cuba, along with hunger, poverty, ill health, disease, criminality, and repression increase, suicides are on the rise.
According to official data, which are most likely conservative, the suicide rate in Cuba has ranged between 12 and 20 for every 100,000 persons.
According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the suicide rate in Cuba is 14.11 for every 100,000 inhabitants. The worldwide average is 9.49, and 7.3 on the American continent.
According to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), in 2021 the suicide rate in Cuba was 16 per 100,000 inhabitants, and in 2022, 12.9 suicides.
In the neighboring Dominican Republic, the rate is almost half that: 6.3.
In 2015, ONEI stated that suicide was the tenth leading cause of death in Cuba. But in the last five years, with the country’s economic and social continue reading
conditions worsening to extreme levels, the number of persons taking their own lives must have increased significantly.
The number of Cubans who die by suicide is surpassed only by deaths from traffic accidents, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.
In official reports (police, forensic, demographic, etc.), they avoid using the term “suicide.” So as not to admit the fact that so many Cubans (even among the elite, as was the case with Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart) are unhappy, stressed, and depressed enough to prefer death. In official Cuba—given as they are to euphemisms—they use a rather long one to refer to suicides: “death by intentionally self-inflicted injuries.”
Capable as they are of any absurdity in official circles, I don’t know if they also use that euphemism when there are no injuries, as in cases of poisoning, which are among the most common, especially among women, children, and adolescents.
Regarding the latter, the Statistical Health Yearbook revealed that suicides among minors between the ages of five and 18 rose from 18 in 2022 to 28 in 2023; and that among adolescents between the ages of 10 and 18, suicides increased from 31 to 34, making it the fourth leading cause of death in that age group. These are mostly due to bullying, family problems, and also, among those aged 16 to 18, to avoid compulsory military service.
If the authorities deem that the attempt to take one’s own life disrupts the public order and “civil peace,” the failed suicide is sent to prison. A military conscript who tried to kill himself is also put in jail. How can a draftee attempt to take his own life, which, like the means of production, information, and everything else, also belongs to the socialist state?
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 21 March 2025 — Just a decade ago Fe del Valle Park in Central Havana was a hive of activity. People of all ages, but especially young people. The spot—named after the “heroine” who died in the El Encanto department store fire in 1961—was home to one of the first 35 Wi-Fi hotspots installed by Etecsa, the State’s telecommunications monopoly, before mobile internet was allowed. Standing or sitting on the ground, huddled together, concentrating on a mobile phone, tablet, or computer, dozens of Cubans were using the slow connection—it cost 2 CUC an hour—as if their lives depended on it.
