Translating Cuba – Page 109 – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Cuban Repressor Arrested in Miami for Attacking Protesters on 11 July 2021

Upon entering the United States, Daniel Morejón García concealed the fact that he had been a member of the Cuban Communist Party and an agent of the Ministry of the Interior.

Daniel Morejón García, in an image of his arrest released by authorities on Monday. / X/@HSI_Miami

14ymedio, Madrid, 14 April 2024 — Daniel Morejón García, who appears on the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba’s (FDHC) list of repressors, is being held by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is about to be deported. According to a statement from ICE itself, issued this Monday, the Cuban was “administratively” arrested at his home in Miami after it was established that he had lied upon entering the country.

“Law enforcement officers obtained official Cuban government documents and information from reliable sources indicating that Morejón García had not disclosed his affiliations,” that is, he had omitted being a member of the Cuban Communist Party and an agent of the Cuban Ministry of the Interior on his immigration applications.

There is evidence, the text asserts, that Morejón García, 57, assaulted protesters during the massive Island-wide demonstrations of 11 July 2021 (’11J’) “as part of his duties.” The former agent was president of the National Defense Council in the province of Artemisa and a member of the Rapid Response Brigades, the text indicates, explaining that these are groups “composed of civilians trained and organized by the Government” and “designed to assist authorities during incidents of social unrest, protests, or riots.” continue reading

The Foundation reported that the former agent was living with his daughter, Dhayma Morejón, in Miami.

This information is consistent with that found on the FDHC website, which indicates that, as seen in a video, during the June 11 demonstration in Las Cañas, Artemisa, he got off his motorcycle and attacked Armando Martínez Luis. This political prisoner, who suffers from hypertension and paranoid schizophrenia, was sentenced to eight years in prison. Two other detainees in the same facility, Rolando González Arévalo and Richael Cantún Morales, were sentenced to six and seven years, respectively. All three are serving prison sentences in the Guanajay prison (where artist and San Isidro Movement leader Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is also held).

Based on an anonymous complaint, the Foundation reported that the former agent, who was also the director of the Las Cañas feed factory, was living with his daughter, Dhayma Morejón, in Miami. Another complainant, according to the file, claimed he was a State Security agent who “walks around armed” and was the manager of Almacenes Universales, a subsidiary of Cuba’s Gaesa military conglomerate.

The former official also appears on the list that Cuban-American Congressman Carlos Giménez sent last month to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with more than 100 people who, the Republican politician alleged, “previously supported the brutal policies of the Castro dictatorship and have taken advantage of U.S. immigration laws to enter our country.”

Morejón García is being held at the Krome Detention Center in Miami-Dade County, awaiting deportation, according to ICE, which is urging anyone “with information about alleged human rights violators traveling to or entering the United States” to report the situation, which can be done anonymously.

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Cuban Child Damir Ortiz Dies After Several Weeks of Treatment in Miami

“There are no words to describe so much pain,” said activist Diasniurka Salcedo Verdecia upon breaking the news.

Damir passed away around 5:00 a.m. this Saturday. / Eliannis Ramírez/Facebook

14ymedio, Havana, 5 April 2025 — The Cuban boy Damir Ortiz, who arrived in the U.S. for treatment for a serious illness, died this Saturday in Miami. After several days of apparent improvement, doctors certified his death at 5:00 a.m., according to family and friends.

“There are no words to describe such pain,” said activist Diasniurka Salcedo Verdecia, who, along with doctors and Cuban exiles, arranged the trip that brought the boy and his mother, Eliannis Ramírez, to Florida after a tense dispute with Cuban authorities to facilitate their departure from the country. The goal: to treat his plexiform fibromatosis type 1, caused by a genetic mutation that led to the development of tumors throughout his body.

Since then, both the boy’s family and the Cuban Health Department have discussed Damir’s progress, the degree of responsibility of both parties in his situation, and the political impact of his case, one of the most mobilizing efforts on and off the island.

“Unfortunately it wasn’t to be,” said Yamilka Lafita, also an activist, concerned about the child’s health.

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be,” said Yamilka Lafita, another activist, concerned about the child’s health. “Despite fighting a formidable battle against tyranny to save yet another child, at least in his final days he received quality care, the love and affection of a Cuban community that was continue reading

there for him constantly. The enormous support given to this mother also demonstrated that we are a people who fight to the bitter end.”

Thousands of people have left messages of condolence for the family at the bottom of the announcement. Last week, Ramírez, Salcedo, and others familiar with the case held a press conference in Miami to refute the government’s version of events regarding the patient’s progress.

The doctors’ statements—whom Ramírez accused of giving him a “false diagnosis”—have been followed in recent days by a wave of comments and criticism from government spokespeople. The most recent attack, by Cuban TV’s Mesa Redonda [Round Table] host Arleen Rodríguez , compared the impact of the case to that of Elián González, the child—now a deputy for the regime—for whom Fidel Castro waged an ideological and legal battle until achieving his return to the island in 2000.

What was at stake when talking about Damir, Rodríguez argued, was “the prestige of Cuban medical personnel and the country’s health system.”

What was at stake when talking about Damir, Rodríguez argued, was “the prestige of Cuban medical personnel and the country’s health system,” which the boy’s family had called into question. The spokesperson also criticized the press conference, organized by “people who have lived off the counterrevolutionary industry”— an allusion to the politician Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat — who had not donated “a single cent to fundraising” to pay for the boy’s treatment.

At the press conference, Ramírez said the boy was improving and receiving adequate treatment, which he could never have received in Cuba. He did not provide any diagnosis from the medical professionals who treated him in Florida other than the child’s genetic disease, which had irreversible effects on his body.

At that time, she also responded to another accusation: that the child’s condition had worsened because she had refused to authorize a biopsy for Damir at the Juan Manuel Márquez Pediatric Hospital in Havana, thus delaying his treatment. “I had sufficient reasons and motives not to allow them to do that biopsy,” she said. However, she clarified, when Damir was transferred to the Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery, she did authorize the test.

Reactions to the boy’s death have been manifold. The grief, after weeks of fighting for the child’s health, remains with those who followed the case and are now expressing their grief in messages like this one, from doctor Alexander Figueredo: “Damir did not die. Damir was killed by the negligence of a system.”

____________

A Cuban Boy, Damir Ortiz Ramírez, Is Air-Lifted to U.S. for Medical Treatment

The activists who arranged the trip had not reported the critical nature of his condition so as not to complicate the process.

The position the Cuban Public Health Service position is that Damir’s illness is incurable and that it can only provide him with palliative care. / Eliannis Ramírez/Facebook.

14ymedio, Havana, March 12, 2025 — Ten-year-old Damir Ortiz Ramírez, who is suffering from a serious illness, arrived Wednesday morning at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami for treatment. Activists who arranged the trip said they had not disclosed the seriousness of his condition so as not to complicate the trip. “We had to get him away from the dictatorship,” they explained in a statement made a few hours after his arrival.

The air ambulance that transported him and his mother to Florida landed in the U.S. at 6:34 AM. “Our boy is now in the hospital,” reported activist and Miami resident Diasniurka Salcedo Verdecia on social media.

On Tuesday Salcedo reported that she had purchased the medical insurance needed to pay for the boy’s treatment at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, which also covered his transport to the U.S. “All that’s left is for Cuba to issue clearance for the airlift and to pick him up,” she stated. That permission was granted early Wednesday morning. The aircraft departed Fort Lauderdale Airport at 12:44 AM and arrived on the island less than an hour later. continue reading

In a joint appearance with activist Aylín Díaz and physician Miguel Ángel Ruano, Salcedo stated that $64,093 in donations had been raised. Of that, the $6,629 at the current exchange rate remained in Cuba but would would be submitted to the family. The aerial transport fee, which would normally have been over $41,800, ended up only costing $26,000. “Anyone who made a donation and believes there is discrepancy can call me, show me what they donated, and I will reimburse them,” said Salcedo.

During his last hours in Havana, Damir faced an obstacle: a shortage of type A-positive blood for the constant transfusions that his body required. A group of people got together outside the Havana Blood Bank and managed to find sixty-two people willing to donate.

It was not the first time that Damir’s case required a large mobilization in just a few hours

It was not the first time that Damir’s case required a large mobilization in just a few hours. Days earlier, after the family’s issued an appeal for funds to cover the approximately $41,800 cost of airlifting the boy to the United States, the amount was been raised in just over 24 hours through various apps such as Zelle, PayPal, and Cashapp. Donors in Cuba transferred money in pesos and freely convertible currency (MLC) to the child’s mother’s bank cards.

Damir suffers from plexiform fibromatosis type 1, a genetic mutation that produces tumors throughout the body. He was also diagnosed with acute leukemia, known as Burkitt’s lymphoma, in February. At that time, Ramírez and an independent organization, Gremio Médico Libre Cubano, accused the island’s Public Health Service of making errors in two biopsies that may have prevented his illness from being diagnosed sooner.

In 2023 Ramirez protested outside the Ministry of Health to call attention to the situation, which aroused international attention. Today, Damir is on a ventilator and cannot see or walk.

In 2023 Ramirez protested outside the Ministry of Health to call attention to the situation

Last week, Washington issued Damir a visa to travel to the United States. He had been denied it twice this year due to the lack of a document required by the Cuban Public Health Service. The family had requested a humanitarian visa for him starting in 2023. At that time, the tumor was already protruding from his eye and was operable, but the Cuban doctor who could perform the procedure, according to Salcedo, had traveled to Germany and “stayed.”

At the beginning of this month, his deteriorating health already required special arrangements for his transfer, and the use of an air ambulance was essential to ensure the child’s condition didn’t worsen on the way to Miami. Nicklaus Children’s Hospital has previously treated Cuban children with serious or terminal illnesses.

The Cuban Public Health Department’s position is that Damir’s illness has no cure and that they can only provide him with palliative care, for which, they claim, the State spent $500,000 on medication. Other members of the regime, such as Humberto López, gave the case a political angle and accused Ramírez of “manipulating” his son’s situation.

Ramírez, for his part, along with the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (Iclep), announced the creation of the Damir Foundation “to defend the rights of the sick in Cuba,” provide them with legal support, and offer advice.

____________

Cuban Authorities Heed Social Media and Fire a Battering Employee

Screenshot from the video showing the Santa Clara Psychiatric Hospital employee hitting a patient. / X/Rubén Carrillo

14ymedio, Madrid, 15 April 2025 — It is unusual for a complaint on social media in Cuba to have, first, a direct official response and, second, consequences. The employee at the Dr. Luis San Juan Pérez Provincial Psychiatric Hospital in Santa Clara, who appears in a video posted on social media beating a patient, has been fired.

The Villa Clara Health Department announced this Tuesday in a statement, explaining that “in response” to the images published on social media five days ago, an “interdisciplinary commission” conducted an investigation. The commission determined that the perpetrator was a worker identified by the initials “HBC,” hired on July 1 of last year as an emergency services assistant.

The man, the text says, “acknowledged his participation in this reprehensible act, contrary to the ethical and humanistic values that underpin our health system.” The events also occurred, they specify, 35 days ago.

For his actions, he has not only been “permanently removed” from the health center, but also “referred to the judicial authorities.

For his actions, he has not only been “permanently removed” from the health center, but also “referred to the judicial authorities for the appropriate legal action.” In their statement, the authorities express their “most sincere solidarity with the victim and her family, deeply regretting the suffering caused” and promise to work “tirelessly to prevent such continue reading

painful events from recurring.”

Likewise, they firmly condemn the inhumane attitude of the person who recorded the video, who not only witnessed the attack without attempting to stop it, but also chose to share it on social media instead of immediately reporting it, demonstrating an alarming lack of compassion and responsibility.

They are referring to the video posted on X by user Rubén Carrillo on April 10. In the soundless footage, the health worker is seen hitting a patient. Carrillo wrote: “This happens very frequently at the psychiatric hospital in Santa Clara, Cuba. The assistant hits him while telling him to stay calm,” clarifying: “I removed the audio to cover up my source’s voice.”

This situation is neither unique nor new in Cuba. In Holguín, a schizophrenic patient tells this newspaper, he calls the local psychiatric hospital “that prison where they torture me.”

In 2011, a total of 13 employees of Havana’s Psychiatric Hospital were sentenced to between five and 15 years in prison for the deaths of 26 patients during a cold wave that hit the capital in January 2010. Several of them showed signs of anemia and malnutrition.

During that trial, widely reported by the official press with the intention of setting an example, it was proven that workers—including senior officials at the center—had been stealing food, blankets, and coats intended for patients for years, and that some wards even had missing windows.

____________

“In Cuban Hospitals, if You Don’t Donate Blood They Won’t Operate on You”

Rafael, a volunteer with dozens of donations in his history, has seen people come to the Provincial Blood Bank practically begging for a donation / Facebook / FEU de Holguín

14ymedio, Miguel García, Holguin, 16 April 2025 — On the shoulders of the Cuban patient lies not only the responsibility to get syringes and drugs before surgery. Now, more and more often, carrying a blood donation is a prerequisite for undergoing an operation. In Holguín, those who do not have someone who, for friendship or money, gives them their blood are forced to postpone the surgery.

“Please, an AB+ blood donor is urgently needed at the provincial hospital in Camagüey. If anyone could help, thank you,” reads a Facebook group where residents of Holguín meet and sell imported clothes that are reported stolen. These appeals alternate with other publications that say the self-sacrificing donor will be rewarded with a payment of between 5,000 and 7,000 pesos.

Rafael, a volunteer with dozens of donations in his history, has seen people come to the Provincial Blood Bank practically begging for a donation, just hours before a family member must have surgery. This Monday, the scene was repeated before his eyes when he decided to help a young neighbor who last weekend had a motorcycle accident. continue reading

It is now a custom in Holguín that when a person is going to have an operation, he has to bring a blood donation

“The treatment by the staff was friendly, excellent, with explanations and educational chats,” says Rafael, who immediately adds the other side of the coin. “But it is now customary in Holguín that when someone goes in for surgery, he has to bring a blood donation. There was a case of a man who had to be operated on the next day, and if he wasn’t bringing a donor, they wouldn’t operate.”

Although it is not officially stipulated that the patient is responsible for managing the donation, the fact is that the practice of imposing this responsibility on the person concerned has spread throughout the country. The requirement to have a document certifying the donation has fueled the informal donation market to the detriment of altruism. ” There are people who have no one to give them blood but also don’t have the money to pay for it,” says Rafael.

For years, the national blood bank system achieved high levels of self-sufficiency thanks to a combination of health education, social pressure from the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution as well as labor and student centers. But that stability began to deteriorate after the Special Period and has worsened further over the last decade.

The Pan American Health Organization measures efficiency in this sector at one donation per 20 inhabitants]]

A recent article in the Spanish media Rebelión, connected to the Cuban regime, addressed the issue in the tone of a harangue. The author reviewed the dramatic drop in the volume of voluntary donations, comparing the 585,000 registered in 2003 to 415,000 in 2014. But according to data from 2023, the situation was worse, reaching only 254,845 donations. The Pan American Health Organization measures efficiency in this sector at a rate of one donation per 20 inhabitants, so that Cuba (0.44) does not reach half the target. The article called for “less apologetics” and “more knocking on doors, even to guarantee something as elementary as a good snack afterwards to those who donate.”

The conditions of the blood banks, hit by the crisis, also do not help much. A few years ago, the “strengthening snacks” that were given after extraction to help revive the donor were legendary. Little remains of those sandwiches with ham and cheese, sometimes accompanied by a milkshake or flavored milk .

This Monday, after filling a bag with 450 milliliters of blood, Rafael was given a small, poor-quality ration of food. ” They gave me a strange bread, with a kind of raw sausage, a glass of watered-down soda and a small glass of milk with a stale cookie,” he says. When he left, still a little weak from the effort, the man who was desperately looking for a donation was still there, waiting to find someone to help him.

During the time that Rafael spent at the blood bank, “few people arrived.” Most were “people who were donating directly to patients.” Some, of course, did it as a business because they barely knew the name of the patient that was supposed to be on the donation form. In Cuba, the need for blood is no longer solved with harangues.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

‘We Will Continue To Deport,’ Trump’s Spokeswoman Replies

The president is considering offering a “stipend” and a return ticket to migrants to leave the US.

Among the most closely monitored programs will be Medicaid and Medicare, which many Cubans with parole had access to. / El Toque

14ymedio, Madrid, 16 April 2025 — The White House’s reaction to a Boston judge’s decision to suspend the revocation of the Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans was as expected. “I spoke with the White House counsel’s office about this this morning because, obviously, another rogue district judge is trying to block the administration’s mass deportation efforts with this latest court order,” said spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, in a personal criticism of Judge Indira Talwani.

This was prompted by a Fox News journalist who pointedly asked why Joe Biden was allowed to “suddenly” approve a law while Trump was prevented from repealing it, ignoring the fact that in both cases the law must be followed.

“We will continue to focus on deporting as many people as we can,” Leavitt insisted, to no one’s surprise on a day filled with messages aimed at convincing migrants in the US to self-deport.

One of them came from the president himself, who once again appeared on Fox News to launch a new idea: paying undocumented immigrants to leave. “I haven’t determined what we’re going to do, but we’re going to give them financial assistance. We’re going to give them some money and a plane ticket,” he said. “If they’re good, if we want them to come back, we’ll work with them to get them back as quickly as we can” legally, he added. continue reading

“If they’re good, if we want them back, we’ll work with them to get them back as quickly as we can” legally.

In his sights are the 14 million undocumented immigrants in the country, according to a report by the Migration Policy Institute . Of these, just over five million—2.3 million in 2023 and 2.8 million in 2024—arrived in the last two years, many thanks to one of the programs approved by Joe Biden to reduce illegal immigration. The two most criticized by Trump and which affect Cubans are the Humanitarian Parole Program (through which some 530,000 migrants arrived legally in the country) and CBP One, the dating app also suspended by the White House. In addition, there are those who were detained at the border and are living free on parole with the permit known as I-220A.

All of them have mobilized to legally halt the president’s decisions, and although they have achieved some small victories, Trump does not intend to relent. Therefore, taking advantage of the fear factor, the most recent measures involve convincing migrants that it is best to return to their countries of origin on their own, before they are detained.

“Self-deport now or face the consequences,” Customs and Border Protection (CBP) threatened Tuesday on its X account . The agency recently launched CBP Home, a kind of CBP One in reverse, that is, to express their decision to leave the country. Users must fill out a form with their information, their photograph, and the answers to a questionnaire and submit it, thus informing authorities of their intentions.

Along the same lines of threat is Border Patrol Chief Michael W. Banks, who also posted the link to the app on Tuesday with a warning. “Last chance to self-deport on your own terms. CBP Home is available now. If you don’t, DHS will remove you and prohibit you from returning,” he wrote. To date, more than 5,000 people have registered using the platform, but for many, there is no greater threat than what awaits them in their countries, nor money with which to buy their willingness to prosper in a place that offers opportunities.

It’s unclear whether the intention to pay a “stipend” and a return ticket to those who choose to leave is just another presidential idea or is actually on the table, but at first glance, it doesn’t seem like a measure consistent with the Trump administration’s stated intention to save money.

This Tuesday, the president signed an executive order restricting the use of Social Security by migrants.

This Tuesday, the president signed an executive order restricting the use of Social Security by immigrants, leaving those in the country illegally without its benefits. In this case, the title of the order is “Preventing Undocumented Aliens from Obtaining Benefits Under the Social Security Act.” Trump maintains in the text that it is “urgent that taxpayer-funded benefits be provided only to eligible individuals and do not encourage or reward illegal immigration.”

The text directs the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Commissioner of Social Security to coordinate with the Secretary of Homeland Security to “ensure that ineligible aliens do not receive funds.”

In addition, the Attorney General and Social Security are ordered to cooperate in “assigning and accrediting the necessary special assistant U.S. attorneys” to strengthen oversight during this fiscal year. Special scrutiny is also planned for those covered by the Medicaid and Medicare programs.

The order states that a 2023 audit revealed missing information about the deaths of “millions of holders” and that there has been neglect in investigating and resolving income reports received by people 100 years of age or older, casting doubt on the illegality of some grants.

“Within 60 days of the date of this memorandum, the Commissioner of Social Security will review whether, and under what conditions, the application of civil monetary penalties should be resumed” and if “reinstatement is determined to be warranted, shall immediately resume the program or seek regulatory or policy changes that would allow for its timely resumption,” the document adds.

____________

A Free Hand for Repression in Cuba

The independent press raises the alarm over the arbitrary detention of two journalists.

Miguel Díaz-Canel, presidente designado de Cuba. / EFE

14ymedio, Maite Rico, Madrid, 15 April 2025 — Zoila Chávez is almost 85 years old and lives in a wooden house in Encrucijada, a town in the Cuban province of Villa Clara. She has circulatory problems, legs with sores and walks with difficulty. She was cared for by her son, José Gabriel Barrenechea. But the regime’s police arrested him in November and Zoila has been homeless for five months.

A physicist by training, a writer by vocation, Barrenechea published his reflections in independent media and was in the crosshairs of the regime. He was taken away for protesting, along with his neighbors, the endless blackouts that exacerbate the hardships of Cubans. It was a peaceful march, like so many others that took place throughout the country. But the huge-bellied president Miguel Díaz-Canel has already said that he will not tolerate anyone disturbing “the tranquility of the citizenry.”

In La Pendiente prison, Barrenechea is awaiting trial for “propaganda against the constitutional order,” which may carry the death penalty.

In La Pendiente prison, Barrenechea is awaiting trial for “propaganda against the constitutional order,” which may carry the death penalty. Meanwhile, Zoila heats water on a charcoal stove, walks holding onto the walls and fantasizes about an impossible trip there, to ask for her son back. “He’s the only thing I have” she relates in a video released by the Cubanet website. It is a heartbreaking monologue, which flows between reflections, prayers and a sad song. “Every night I ask God and the Virgin to let me wake up. I just want to see Gabriel walk through the door.” continue reading

Not far from there, Yadiel Hernández, 33, a designer, a graduate in theological studies and independent reporter, is in pretrial detention in the fearsome Combinado del Sur prison. He had been missing since his arrest in January, when he was investigating drug trafficking in a school in Matanzas for the independent digital newspaper 14ymedio. The regime is not so much concerned about the growing consumption of narcotics on the island as it is about the fact that it is talked about. It is only known that he was interrogated for weeks by State Security and that he will be tried for the same crime as Barrenechea.

Repression does not subside an inch in Cuba, where, since 2024, an unusual number of prisoners have been dying. Nor in Venezuela. Not even in Nicaragua. We must remember this, now that geopolitical shocks have taken these countries off the radar. In this week of the media promotion of Rodríguez Zapatero, that sinister “enabler” of dictators, it is essential to give a voice to those who fight them.

____________

This text was originally published in El Mundo and is reproduced by permission of the author.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz
____________

To Rob Warehouses Criminals in Cuba Take Advantage of the Indolence of the Guards

The police have increased the monitoring of conflict areas during the “exercise” / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Madrid, 16 April 2025 — The televised war on crime offered its second part yesterday on State TV’s Round Table program. The authorities were very satisfied to have detected a multitude of illegalities, theft of electrical power and transportation of merchandise “mainly related to the trafficking of food, medicines, weapons, fuel, cash and other illicit products.” In these activities, “vehicles from the state sector involved were identified, (…) and administrative and criminal measures were applied when necessary.”

This Tuesday’s program on Cuban Television was dedicated to offering the results of the second “national exercise for the prevention and confrontation of crime, corruption, illegalities and social indiscipline,” which was held between March 24 and 29 to give continuity to the first, between December 2 and 7 last year. The objective of this plan is “a fundamental pillar for the maintenance of internal order and citizen peace,” said Colonel Hugo Morales Karell, deputy chief of police.

The “exercise” seems to exist more in name than in results, since no improvement was detected in the barely three months that separated the first part from the second, which invites us to think that there is more propaganda about the fight than the fight itself. The authorities know where to look, and it is what they apparently did for yesterday’s data display. Morales Karell said that patrols were reinforced in the places “with a higher incidence of crime,” which “allowed the protection of economic objectives where sensitive and important resources for the population are stored, such as ration stores (bodegas), shops and warehouses.” continue reading

The “exercise” seems to exist more in name than in results, since no improvement was detected in the three months separating the first from the second

According to the colonel, criminals take advantage of the indolence of the guards, on whom administrative and criminal measures have been imposed.

The numbers came out high. Some 100 people were arrested for offenses related to theft, slaughter or possession of livestock meat. Drugs, one of the current concerns in the country, occupied part of the attention, with more than 46 interventions in communities, bars, discos and rental houses where almost 47 kilos of all kinds of drugs were seized, as well as electronic cigarettes and “large sums of money.” In order to put a stop to this problem, 400 training activities were carried out in schools and workplaces, although the phenomenon is still on the rise.

There was also an increase in transportation penalties. Fines of 14,000 pesos were imposed, many of them on drivers carrying passengers without adequate protections, a situation which does not improve because of the decline in public transport service. In the first quarter of this year, the mass casualty rate increased, said the deputy police chief, who also spoke at length about prevention.

“People with inappropriate behavior were taken to PNR stations or other places to carry out preventive actions in the community. These meetings are held with groups for prevention and social care. It is not a question of ’stopping for stopping’, but that previous work with social prevention groups has been exhausted, as well as job offers or warnings to abandon problematic behavior. When this is not respected, the crime of disobedience is committed,” he said.

In addition, probation has been suspended for some persons who failed to comply with their obligations, and young people “with inappropriate behavior” have been followed up, including the increase of “surveillance on the population.”

In addition, probation has been suspended for some individuals who failed to meet their obligations, and “misbehaving” youths have been followed up

The work of prevention put special emphasis on the Prosecutor’s Office, represented on television yesterday by the deputy attorney general, Alina Montesino Li, who gave data on penalties. Pre-trial detention occurred in 86 per cent of cases related to serious crimes, 97 per cent of which were drug trafficking. There were 297 oral hearings in which prosecutors promoted “exemplary trials,” she said, in order to “strengthen justice and legality.”

As for economic crimes, 80 tax audits of state and private entities resulted in the recovery of 121 million pesos and the detection of 649 violations, including “double counting, warehouses with undeclared inventories, abusive prices and tax evasion.” There were also fines in the amount of 22 million pesos, although the prosecutor stressed that “only 30 cases” – in just 5 days – went through criminal proceedings, since priority is given to “prevention and voluntary compliance.”

Among the most revealing data in her speech was the confirmation, already perceived by the whole population, that contracts are concluded without proper tendering processes “or with obvious favoritism,” in addition to leases that were not collected from their beneficiaries or whose resources were diverted. There were also numerous instances of electrical power being stolen through illegal connections. There were 13 criminal proceedings related to these matters.

“Our people are key in this battle. Each complaint strengthens transparency and justice,” said the prosecutor, who thanked the more than 11,000 citizen complaints that have been dealt with so far this year.

Acela Martínez Hidalgo, Deputy Comptroller General of the Republic, also spoke about public accounts. There were 310 preventive actions in entities of national and local subordination, both in the business sector and in the budgeted, but in 39% of the entities visited (121), “a harmonious and effective implementation of the methodology was not achieved.” The official concludes that there is a lack of training and stressed the importance of workers feeling “connected” to the company.

Finally, Judge Ileana Gómez Guerra, President of the Chamber for Crimes against State Security, re-emphasised the drug problem, and 111 “exchanges” were organized in secondary and higher education establishments to alert them to its dangers. Visits were also made to “offenders who had competed their sentences, to verify their behavior with members of the CDR [Committees for the Defense of the Revolution] and other mass organizations.”

“The majority maintained proper conduct, but the 173 who did not, according to the gravity of their conduct and the most worrying cases, had their parole status revoked and could no longer serve their sentences in freedom”

Of the 65 people who were placed on parole, 55 had “better behavior,” but 10 had their benefits revoked for persisting in “inappropriate behavior.” Without much detail, she mentioned that 143 people who were sanctioned “donated blood, 76 participated in voluntary work and more than 20 made donations to homes for children without family support,” actions which seem more forced than the result of good will.

In addition, there were 37 exemplary trials in eight provinces, mainly for drug trafficking, carrying and illegal possession of weapons and embezzlement, among others. As a result, 51 people were sanctioned, 96% with deprivation of liberty or correctional work with internment.

The 20 who were sentenced for drug-related offences received sentences ranging from 6 to 15 years. “This crime is very damaging to society, hence the importance of maintaining a policy of zero tolerance,” she insisted, before noting that the trials have been recorded and given “visibility through the media.” A phrase in which she perfectly summed up the real purpose of these “exercises”: staging.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Despite the Court Decision in Favor of the ‘Parole’ Beneficiaries the Offensive To Deport Them Continues

Cubans waiting for their relatives with ’parole’ at the Miami airport / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Madrid, 15 April 2025 — There is silence in the White House following the decision by Boston judge Indira Talwani to suspend the cancellation of the Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. Hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries feel happy and relieved, but on social networks the most staunch followers of US President Donald Trump are already urging to ignore the judicial measure or dismiss the judge directly.

Elon Musk, head of the Department ofGovernment Efficiency (DOGE) and Trump’s trusted man, has posted a video on X complaining that the “bureaucracy” may have more power than the president. Although it does not indicate what it refers to, many have understood it as a questioning of the judicial decisions that are paralyzing the measures announced by Trump with great fanfare.

The billionaire owner of Tesla and X, among other companies, is behind a move by the Trump administration that is allegedly aimed at pressuring beneficiaries of the Biden Administration’s immigration programs to self-deport. The White House intends, according to The New York Times (NYT), to cancel their social security numbers, which in practice would mean that they no longer have access to essential financial services, the ability to open a bank account or access public benefits. continue reading

Now, it will be the migrants with a temporary status granted by Biden who move to that list of presumed dead

The information, published on the weekend, is the result of an investigation by the NYT, which had access to documents and interviews with six people linked to the matter. According to the newspaper, the technique consists in using the “death master file” of the Social Security Administration (SSA), which is used to list the names of those who can no longer be recipients of aid because they have died. Now, it will be the migrants with a temporary status granted by Biden who move to that list of presumed dead.

According to documents consulted by the NYT, 6,300 migrants whose legal status had just been revoked were added to that file last week. The members are, according to the Government, criminals and terrorists, but the initiative could be extended to “people who are in the country without authorization.” In addition, one 13-year-old and seven minors were listed.

Leland Dudek, acting commissioner of the SSA, said in an internal mail that these peoples’ “financial lives” would “end.” The discontent has been such that several senior officials resigned during the week after learning that the tax office would cooperate to locate undocumented migrants.

Dudek, the NYT continues, reached an agreement in February with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to hand over the last known addresses of 98,000 people to the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE). Up to 12 SSA officials insisted to the newspaper that under previous governments, of all political stripes, the information in their hands was protected and not given to ICE unless justified.

“Enforcement of immigration laws is not the responsibility of the Social Security Administration”

“By using Social Security data to exclude migrants, the government is using a widely popular agency that exists to send benefits primarily to American retirees and people with disabilities” to track migrants, which qualifies the role assigned to the body as coercive. In addition, there is a fear that any errors in the database could have fatal repercussions on the financial life of those affected.

“Enforcement of immigration laws is not the responsibility of the Social Security Administration,” said Jason Fichtner, a senior official during George W. Bush’s presidency, who believes that the slightest mistake can have serious consequences for any citizen.

White House spokeswoman Elizabeth Huston believes the opposite is true and that the service is very useful because it “removes the economic incentive” from aid. “We’ll encourage them to self-deport,” she told the NYT, which has received complaints that it’s getting harder and harder to apply for a benefit.

The NYT also explains that the way in which migrants appear on the register has not changed, so they are added with alleged dates of death, according to two close sources. Martin O’Malley, a former commissioner of the Social Security Administration in the Biden Administration, called the strategy inhumane. “It’s the equivalent of a financial murder.”

The rules state that the SSA can only share information when a person has been charged or convicted of “violent crimes” or to investigate serious fraud. The first Trump administration tried to pressure the SSA to hand over the information for migratory purposes. This time, Dudek has authorized the delivery of the data to ICE, and, allegedly, the aim is to also hand it over to the Department of Homeland Security.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

A Judge Suspends Deportation of Thousands of Cubans and Other ‘Parole’ Beneficiaries

Family members of Cuban migrants who received humanitarian parole waiting to receive them at the airport in Miami, Florida / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Madrid, 15 April 2025 — A US federal judge temporarily blocked the cancellation of the Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. Indira Talwani, a magistrate in Boston, has ruled that the Government cannot abruptly end protection measures “pending a new court order.”

The conclusions also include a decision to suspend all “individual notifications” received by parole recipients urging them to leave the country.

The decision, which had been advanced by the Reuters agency, was confirmed on Monday when Talwani issued the opinion. “The defendants have not offered any substantial reason or public interest that would justify compelling persons who were granted temporary residence permits in the United States for a specified period to leave (or obtain undocumented status) prior to the original expiry date of their parole,” wrote the judge.

“Nor is it in the public interest to state summarily that the presence of hundreds of thousands of people is no longer legal in the country, so that they cannot work in their communities or support themselves and their families”

In addition, Talwani said, “it is not in the public interest to summarily state that the presence of hundreds of thousands of people is no longer legal in the country, so that they cannot work in their communities or support themselves and their families.” The order halts the cancellation of the program, scheduled for April 24, and provides that the stay of the beneficiaries is maintained during the two calendar years for which it was granted.

The Humanitarian Parole Program came into effect for citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) in January 2023, along the lines of continue reading

those already in place for Ukrainians and Afghans. The aim, as argued by the Biden administration at the time, was to end the disorderly and dangerous immigration that also gave rise to human trafficking.

Through the program, migrants from these countries who have their support guaranteed by sponsors could obtain a temporary status that allowed them to stay on the U.S. for two years, with work and residence permits. In the case of Cubans, the time could be used to invoke the Cuban Adjustment Law, which after one year allows them to obtain a green card and permanent residence.

Some 530,000 people benefited from the parole during the two years it was in force, of whom 110,240 were Cubans, 213,150 Haitians, 96,270 Nicaraguans and 120,760 Venezuelans. These migrants arrived in the U.S. with their documentation already arranged and on regular flights

However, the restrictive migration policy of Donald Trump was a threat to such mechanisms. The Republican, who came to power promising mass deportations of migrants, considered that programs such as Humanitarian Parole – among others – had favored an uncontrolled immigration. Irregularities were detected in the summer of 2024, when the plan was put on hold for a few months to correct the errors and abuses.

According to a report by the Republican majority Congress, blank forms were found, telephone numbers that did not work, postal codes that did not exist, social security numbers associated with deceased persons, repetitive texts or persons who submitted their applications more than once.

In March 2025, the Trump administration announced that the program would end on April 24, when the final suspension order would be issued. The Government indicated that beneficiaries who did not have a legal basis to remain in the US after the expiry of their permit should leave the country before the end of their parole.

“On behalf of all those who came to the United States through the CHNV program, did everything the government asked of them and have been living with the fear that their legal status and work permits would be withdrawn on April 24, we are relieved “

A group of migrants with humanitarian parole and their sponsors in the United States filed a lawsuit against the decision, claiming that the abrupt suspension of the program would cause serious harm to thousands of people who had been granted permission to be in the country.

“On behalf of all those who came to the United States through the CHNV program, did everything that the government asked them to do and have been living with the fear that their legal status and work permits would be withdrawn on April 24, we are relieved by the court’s decision, which is based both on the harm these people would suffer and their likelihood of winning this case,” Anwen Hughes, claimants’ representative and lawyer for the refugee programs of Human Rights First, told the media.

The Department of Justice has not yet responded to requests for comment from the American press.

Thousands of Cubans may feel, at least temporarily, relieved by this measure, although it remains to be seen what the Government will do next. In addition, the legal status of those who arrived through the CBP One appointment application – also suspended by the White House – and those who were detained at the border and are on parole with the permit known as I-220A is still pending.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Baseball in Our Country, a Symbol of Cuba’s National Identity

Sports betting is banned in Cuba, although many people turn to regulated international online casinos / Pixabay

14ymedio, 14 April 2025 — Since its introduction to the Island in 1864 by students returning to Cuba from the United States, baseball has woven its history into our culture. The first official recorded game was played in 1874 at the Palmar de Junco Stadium, in Matanzas, considered the oldest still active baseball field in the world. Since then, the tradition has become an identity and a symbol of resistance.

A controversial theme

Unlike other countries, sports betting is banned in Cuba, although many people turn to regulated international online casinos to follow games and bet informally. Meanwhile, in other Latin American countries, sports entertainment goes hand in hand with casinos that follow the law. In fact, those who travel to Santiago or Viña del Mar can enjoy one of the best casinos in Chile, where sports and gambling coexist in a legal and safe environment.

The statistics that define us

In 1961, Fidel Castro abolished professional baseball, replacing it with an continue reading

amateur system that prioritized homeland pride over professionalism. Nevertheless, our country dominated international events in the same way. Teams like Industriales and Santiago de Cuba became icons, filling stadiums with fans who chanted revolutionary slogans.

Numbers that will live in history

Today, despite the massive exodus of talent, Cuba has won 25 gold medals at the Pan American Games and has brought to stardom such great legends as Omar Linares, José Contreras and the Gurriel brothers, who became the first family to have two people who have won World Series (Yuli with the Astros, Lourdes Jr. with Arizona).

Over the course of baseball history, more than 380 Cuban players have made it to the major leagues, including stars like José Abreu, who won 2014 the Rookie of the Year and Aroldis Chapman, who remains one of the most dominant pitchers with his straight exceeding 100 mph. In 2016, Chapman helped the Cubs break the curse of 108 years without winning a World Series.

Cuba has also had memorable performances, such as José Miguel Fernández’s batting average in the 2013 World Baseball Classic. And who didn’t get excited when “Dick” Abreu won the MVP in 2020 with the White Sox, crying like a child when they gave him the award?

Our daily ceremony

From the streets of Havana and the Malecón to the stadiums of Major Leagues, the players carry with them that unmistakable Caribbean style. The victories of Industriales or Santiago are celebrated with the same passion as the successes of the national team of Cuba, while the fans who play on improvised grounds in neighborhoods like Lawton or Alamar create their own language about it: a “home run” is always “a stick”; a skillful pitcher “has tremendous fire,” and the strikes are counted with a mixture of resignation and humor typical of our country: “that pitch was bought!”

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

The Judge Judged

Juana Orquídea Acanda claims her right to be wrong. It would be good to know if she used to be so benevolent from the bench.

Juana Orquídea Acanda Rodríguez “has had bad luck: on the day of her retirement, Castro’s television praised her repressive work.” / X.

14ymedio, Juan Manuel Cao, Miami, 14 April 2025 — The judge feels judged. Misjudged. She, who for more than thirty years was part of a flawed judicial system. What an irony! Juana Orquídea Acanda Rodríguez has been deported to Cuba for hiding her communist militancy and her work in one of the key ministries of official repression. Judge Juana, like the Pope, claims her right to be wrong. It would be good to know if she used to be so benevolent from the bench. She even considers herself a victim of injustice, and now refers to the American dream like the fox in the fable of the apples: “After all, they’re unripe.”

But the unjust Judge Juana, it must be admitted, has had bad luck: on the day of her retirement, Castro’s television praised her repressive work, and she declared herself proud of it. She even had a lyrical outburst, hugging a bouquet of Soviet flowers, her eyes half-closed, as she uttered the sentence that condemned her: ” This tribute is indescribable; it is recognition of a lifetime’s work, of what I did; realizing my dreams, and it is the greatest example of what the work of the Revolution is all about.”

Unfortunately for her, and for her idyllic retirement in enemy territory, the internet immortalized such partisan enthusiasm, and the relentless YouTube has played a trick on her. Now, she is back in the socialist paradise, enjoying the blackouts and all the work she praised in public and planned to betray in secret. continue reading

Now, she is back in the socialist paradise, enjoying the blackouts and all the work she praised in public and planned to betray in secret.

But, I repeat, our ill-fated Joan of Arc wasn’t as lucky as others: those many who have been just as complicit as she, or worse, and yet were never paid in public honors, and therefore, as in the movie Men in Black, they live among us, go to the same supermarket, buy with coupons, or have Medicaid, and nothing will happen to them because there is no proof of their infamy and their lies.

Miami is the capital of republished biographies, where many have found the opportunity to rewrite their pasts. Some with such an excess of imagination that, in two strokes, they have gone from being repressors to repressed, metamorphosing into heroes of a movie they never starred in. And that’s fine: we all, like cats, have the right to a second and even a third or seventh life, but we must recognize that there are some who go overboard. And there are others who are as strongly anti-Castro as they were for Castroism before.

That’s the human side. Let’s now look at the strategic side. It is good for the repressors to know there is no impunity; that should discourage them. Theoretically, it serves to protect the victims. It is also ethically correct. But on the other hand, a closed-door policy could entrench the scoundrels: finding no way out, seeing that there is no possible forgiveness on the other side, they would rally around the power that protects them and defend it tooth and nail.

Those who call, for example, on the Castro army to rebel, might as well be plowing the sea. It is because of dilemmas like these that it is so difficult to deal with arbitrary powers. History is replete with similar examples. Although, as Grau San Martín said: “When the dog is dying, the ticks leave.”

Those who call, for example, on the Castro army to rebel, might as well be plowing the sea.

There is one aspect of Judge Juana that’s shocking. When journalist Mario Pentón manages to interview her about her abrupt repatriation, she gives an extremely superficial and frivolous assessment of what happened: “I think I had an experience. Having experiences is a good thing. I lived, at least, under the conditions that were, but I lived 21 days in the United States. I didn’t know that. It’s something I learned.” Her reflection seems insubstantial. One would expect something less stupid from someone who passed sentences for so many years. Poor convicts. It’s what Hannah Arendt defined as the banality of evil.

Here we go.

Meanwhile, we continue to pluck the daisy, here and there.

I hope not for much longer.

____________

US Embassy Chief in Havana Escorts Ladies in White to Attend Mass

Unlike on other Sundays, Berta Soler was able to reach the church of Santa Rita.

The dissident was accompanied by Mike Hammer, head of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba. / Ángel Moya

EFE (via 14ymedio) Havana, 14 April 2025 — Unlike on other Sundays, the leader of the Ladies in White, Berta Soler, was able to attend Mass, this time for Palm Sunday, at the Santa Rita Church in the Havana neighborhood of Miramar. The dissident was accompanied by Mike Hammer, head of the U.S. Embassy mission in Cuba, according to the opposition leader herself posting on social media.

However, seven members of the female group were detained for a few hours while attempting to attend the service, Soler reported, referring to the event as the “seventh repressive Sunday” against that group in 2025.

In addition, she reported the arrests of several Ladies in White in the towns of Cárdenas and Colón, in the province of Matanzas, and another in Havana.

They were all headed to mass, as is their usual practice, to pray for the release of political prisoners.

The Ladies in White movement emerged from the initiative of a group of women, relatives of the 75 dissidents and independent journalists arrested and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in March 2003 during the period of repression known as the Black Spring.

From then on, the wives, mothers, and other relatives of those prisoners were identified by always wearing white, and after attending mass at a Catholic church, they began holding Sunday marches to demand their relatives’ release, becoming a symbol of dissent.

In 2005, the Ladies in White received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament.

____________

Mario Vargas Llosa and Cuba

The scene of a toast and libertarian laughter on the Havana coast will no longer be able to materialize.

Yoani Sánchez and Mario Vargas Llosa, at the Casa de América in Madrid, in 2014. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 14 April 2025 — The last time we spoke was in his native Peru. After sharing the stage and reflecting on literature, authoritarianism in Latin America, and the paths of journalism, Mario Vargas Llosa and I parted, joking about a possible lecture he might offer at the University of Havana. I remember telling him that the Aula Magna would surely be too small, Plaza Cadenas would be filled with young people, and all of La Colina would be packed with Cubans who had read him despite the publishing censorship imposed on his books. But the return to the island never happened.

In 2000, while working on my thesis, Words Under Pressure: The Literature of the Dictatorship in Latin America, I received from the Peruvian the greatest literary gift I could have hoped for. The publication of The Feast of the Goat was not only a delight for the ardent reader of his work I had long since become, but also reinforced the hypothesis of my thesis: literature on the dictatorship has not been exhausted on this continent, as the satraps continue to taint our lands with repression and authoritarianism.

Vargas Llosa had the ability to touch my life, twisting and turning it with some of his works. In 1993, spurred by the desire to read a novel by that son of Arequipa, blacklisted by Cuban publishing houses and universities, I found myself in the office of an irreverent journalist estranged from his profession. From that encounter, I gained two experiences that shaped my life: immersing myself in The War at the End of the World and meeting Reinaldo Escobar, the person with whom I share my life, dreams, and a son to this day.

Vargas Llosa had the ability to touch my life, twist it and turn it with some of his works.

Another earthquake, but this time an academic one, was the inclusion of that book about Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in the list of works analyzed in my thesis. Mario had managed not only to portray the Dominican dictator with his excesses and moral decadence, but he had also drawn a map that made it possible to track any tyrant. It was very difficult not to find analogies between the capricious Chapita and the fickle Fidel Castro, who would continue reading

embark on a pharaonic sugar harvest or economically devastate the island just as easily as he would imprison a poet for his sharp verses against power.

The Feast of the Goat was about one leader, but at the same time, it affected them all, because tyrants share more traits than meets the eye. Most lack a sense of humor, reject public debate with their opponents, locking them in dark dungeons or shooting them, and turning their omnipresence in every aspect of national life into a way of controlling everything from the uniform children wear to the best-selling ice cream flavor.

Approaching the dark depths of the personality of El Jefe, El Benefactor de la Patria Dominicana, or El Perínclito, as he was known, also evoked the tenebrous depths of the Commander who, in January 1959, initiated the destruction of the Cuban nation in all its aspects—economic, ethical, educational—and condemned its population to an unprecedented mass exodus.

Those similarities between Trujillo and Castro were not only evident to me as I read the book

Those similarities between Trujillo and Castro were not only evident to me as I read the book, which was covered with a page from a pro-government magazine to ward off informers and extremists. The panel evaluating my graduation thesis also noted those overlaps and was annoyed, especially because I included as the main author of that work the “black beast of Latin American literature,” according to the narrow confines of revolutionary cultural politics.

It wasn’t easy to earn my diploma after that daring act. The thesis discussion proved to be a test to avoid the humiliations and provocations that sought angry responses from me and thus cancel my graduation. I resisted. I clung to the character of Urania, who had been locked in a room with El Chivo and had seen his perversions, his excesses of power, but also his human fragility. I swallowed hard, defended my work, and they gave me that card with Gothic letters stating that I was now a philologist. That same day I buried my profession. I didn’t want to dedicate myself to words in a country where so many of them were prohibited.

Years later, when I managed to travel to Spain after almost a decade of being banned from leaving Cuba, I was able to meet Mario. Talking to him was far better than reading him, if anything can surpass the joy of delving into the thousands of pages he wrote throughout his life. A loquacious interlocutor, he also had a gift for listening and asking good questions. He was generous with his personal anecdotes, his literary advice, and his extensive political knowledge. He treated the group of Cuban activists and journalists who spent several days with him at Casa de América with deference and respect. By then, he was a Nobel Prize winner in Literature.

In 2014, when the newspaper 14ymedio’was born, he showed us his loving and enthusiastic support.

One of those days, I asked him to let me know when he published his next book: I wanted to prepare for the earthquake those pages were going to cause in my life. “Thanks to you, I found the love of my life, and I was on the verge of not graduating from university, so I need to make the necessary arrangements for the next cataclysm that a title from yours will cause,” I told him. He laughed like a child, with that mischievous little snicker reminiscent of Fonchito, the angelic, yet demonic boy in his Elogio de la madrastra In Praise of the Stepmother .

We met again on several occasions. He always wanted to know what had become of some of the places, officials, and writers he had met on those trips to Cuba, when, like so many other Latin American intellectuals, he saw the Cuban Revolution as an emancipatory and libertarian process. That idyll didn’t last long, and Vargas Llosa’s keen sense of smell soon detected Fidel Castro’s authoritarianism, his allergy to artists, and the totalitarian drift of the regime he built through censorship and firing squads.

In 2014, when the newspaper 14ymedio was founded, he showed us his loving and enthusiastic support. He was as good a journalist as he was a novelist, so he fully understood the importance of a free press to cement a democratic opening in Cuba. He offered us an interview at his home in Madrid. I heard that childish laugh again, and we fantasized about sitting on the wall of Havana’s Malecón on a starry night, where, together with thousands of people, we would celebrate the fall of Castroism.

This Sunday, Mario Vargas Llosa died. The scene of a toast and libertarian laughter on the Havana waterfront will no longer be realized. Nor will the predicted talk in the Aula Magna at La Colina come to fruition, packed with young people who would bring their novels, no longer having to cover them to hide the author’s name, for the Peruvian to sign.

However, I am convinced that in a future closer than we can imagine now, the name of the author of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Conversation in the Cathedral, and The Green House will grace chairs, research centers, literary competitions, and faculties on the Island. Graduation theses on his work will be countless, and no student will feel pressured for including it in their bibliography. That day, perhaps I will take my philology degree out of the drawer and return to a profession that Mario helped shape, like so many other things in my life.

____________

Dear Mario

When Haydée Santamaría signs her last letter to Vargas Llosa, she addresses a man who has already written some of the greatest novels in the language

Santamaría was responsible for the “revolutionary education” of the new Latin American writers. / Casa de las Américas

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 9 February 2025 — How little we know of Haydée Santamaría. An odd woman who suffered from depression, someone consumed by incurable resentment. She committed suicide in 1980. But we are familiar with her writings. “A bullet cannot end infinity. For fourteen years I have seen human beings I so dearly loved die. I am at Fidel’s side. I have always done what he wanted me to do. I am tired of living. I believe I have lived too much. The sight of the sun is no longer as beautiful to me. Looking at a palm tree gives me no pleasure. And all the rest of it,” she wrote.

In the book of horror stories that the Castro regime created for Cuban school children, Haydée and her brother Abel assume the roles Hansel and Gretel while Batista plays the witch. Repulsed and frightened, I listened as my teachers recounted the story of the boy’s martyrdom dozens of times. The son of Spanish parents – his father was from Orense, his mother from Salamanca – he was born in Encrucijada, forty kilometers from my hometown. They gouged his eyes out, we were told, as his sister looked on. She looked on, they reiterated, as if the real crime was not so much the murder itself but their choosing to make Haydée their accomplice.

This, we now know, was a myth, a twisted fiction repeated ad nauseam as propaganda. According to one of my teachers, Abel’s eyes were removed and then shown to Haydée. According to another, she witnessed the torture. In the latter version, she seems to have held his eyes in her hands like Saint Lucia. I cried as I listened to the story. But who knows if this grotesque image of her brother — a ghostly, blind twenty-something — was engraved on Haydée’s retinas with the same innocence, with the same clarity, as on ours at age ten or eleven. continue reading

Patron saint of hippies and other outcasts under the Castro regime, Haydée was the tsarina of Casa de las Américas until her death

Patron saint of hippies and other outcasts under the Castro regime, Haydée was the tsarina of Casa de las Américas until her death. Her responsibility was the “revolutionary education” of young Latin American writers. She claimed to have made that generation famous, something she admitted in numerous documents, but never with greater elation than in a letter she sent to Mario Vargas Llosa on May 14, 1971.

The document is famous, having been cited by the likes of Jorge Fornet and Rafael Rojas. I myself discovered it between pages 66 and 67 in a 1971 issue of the journal “Casa.” The whole magazine is one long artillery barrage. It starts off with a speech by Fidel. The main course follows, with instructions on cultural “parameterization.”* And for dessert, the self-incrimination of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla.

The letter to Vargas Llosa shows up on a little slip of paper, folded like the message in a fortune cookie, to aid the reader’s digestion. As the note itself explains, it is presented this way because of the urgent need to respond the Peruvian writer’s resignation from the magazine’s editorial board. Fortunately, I was able to steal that issue of “Casa” from a dusty bookshelf at Central University before the termites could get to it. I now have it in front of me along with the letter.

By the time Haydée adds her signature to the letter’s four long pages, she was addressing a man who had already written some of the Spanish language’s most acclaimed novels: The City and the Dogs, The Green House and Conversation in the Cathedral. She freely reveals the author’s address –Via Augusta 211, Ático 2.o, Barcelona. Like Beethoven, she knows how to create a big bang.

Haydée lurches between totalitarian coldness and revolutionary coarseness, the two rhetorical styles of Cuban strongmen

She addresses him as “sir,” not “comrade,” as Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén liked to do, because Vargas Llosa is no longer her colleague. First, the formalities. He cannot resign from the board because the board no longer exists. It was abolished “because having a divergence of opinions among committee members was unacceptable.” Surgical castration to treat the cancer of free expression. “We thought this action was preferable to simply excluding people like you from the board,” she explains. Haydée lurches between totalitarian coldness and revolutionary coarseness, the two rhetorical styles of Cuban strongmen.

What a shame, the midwife mentions in an aside. “A young man like you,” someone who could have done so much for Fidel, like García Márquez, who would go on to enjoy a personal friendship with the Cuban leader, something Haydée denies to Vargas Llosa. He is exiled from the communist firmament, dragging dozens of intellectuals with him. The Peruvian writer had to add his voice — “a voice that we helped get heard” — to the unanimous chorus.

The talent of the Revolution’s old aristocrats to turn a statement into a judicial weapon is also employed here. She mentions Padilla, a writer “who has acknowledged his counterrevolutionary activities” and has never been tortured. “It is clear that you have never faced terror,” Haydée says. It is clear that the ghost of her brother still haunts her. If the regime does not defend itself, it would really be like “letting Abel die.”

The trial continues. Vargas Llosa acceptance of Venezuela’s Rómulo Gallegos prize in 1967, which the Chavez government later rescinded, was an insult. He should have given the money to Che Guevara and his guerrilla fighters, as Havana suggested. “Buying a house was more important to him than showing solidarity with Che’s military efforts at a decisive moment.” Thus, Vargas Llosa is responsible for Guevara’s death later that same year.

At the end, Haydée asks that her death be viewed as a sacrifice – like Che, like the Vietnamese, like Abel – and that is what she will get, but not from Vargas Llosa

The tone of the letter becomes more strident. His opinions on Fidel’s position regarding the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia are “ridiculous.” Appearing at an American university is a sin. Not going to Havana when he is invited is also a sin. Vargas Llosa can only “regret” being “the living image of the colonized writer, contemptuous of our people, vain, confident that writing well not only makes one forgive bad actions but also allows one to pass judgement on a great movement like the Cuban Revolution.”

At the end, Haydée asks that her death be viewed as a sacrifice – like Che, like the Vietnamese, like Abel – and that is what she will get, but not from Vargas Llosa. After a lifetime “of fuses and cannon fire all around”, she kills herself in a conventional way, by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, like Eduardo Chibás and Osvaldo Dorticós before her. Abel and Celia, her children with Armando Hart, will also die prematurely, in an accident that occurred in 2008. Fidel Castro will outlive them all. As will Vargas Llosa.

*Translator’s note: a process of establishing “parameters” and categorizing anyone who falls outside of them as misfits.

____________