Translating Cuba – Page 121 – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Demand Immediate Release of Rapper Nando OBDC, Charged With “Terrorism”

The artist is being held at the Villa Marista State Security detention center

Fernando Almanares Rivera recently coordinated a group exhibition in Miami called ’Forbidden Art: From Cuba’. / Facebook ’

14ymedio, Havana, 10 January 2025 — This Thursday, the international organization Article 19 demanded the release of rapper Fernando Almenares Rivera, known as Nando OBDC, who was arrested last December 31 at his home in the Havana municipality of La Lisa. The artist, who is being held at the Villa Marista State Security detention center in the Cuban capital, is charged with “terrorism.” On the day of his arrest “there was no opportunity to document or take photographs of the event,” the Arts and Humanities project Fuego contra Fuego [Fire against Fire] said on Facebook, pointing out at the time that the “arrest was arbitrary,” since “it was carried out without a summons or judicial hearing.”

Since his capture, a week passed without his family being able to see or hear from him. His mother, Eva Rivera, was able to visit him last Tuesday. According to Martí Noticias, during the visit, the official in charge of the case told his mother that her son was being linked “to a fire that occurred in Lenin Park on December 30 and that is why he was being detained,” explained Adriana María Machado, the artist’s wife.

Since his arrest, a week passed without his family being able to see or hear from him. His mother, Eva Rivera, was able to visit him last Tuesday

“Initially they were accusing him of having links with people who wanted to carry out acts of terrorism against the Cuban state, and they (the authorities) were still sort of fabricating the charges,” Machado added. In the face of the accusations, “he maintains his innocence,” Machado told ADN Cuba.

Days before the visit, on January 3, agents of the regime searched the rapper’s home. According to the same source, they were looking for a computer or USB memory stick, but they also took photos of the paintings in the house and “they took a Cuban flag that he had.” continue reading

“Nando OBDC is a musician and visual artist with a long trajectory in the Cuban underground, which is commensurate with the intensity of the harassment by the political police,” noted the Observatory for Cultural Rights a day after his arrest.

The 35-year-old artist recently coordinated in Miami a group exhibition called Forbidden Art: From Cuba

The 35-year-old artist recently coordinated a group exhibition in Miami called Forbidden Art: From Cuba. According to the press release, the show featured artists’ work “from Cuba’s vibrant yet restricted art scene.” The invitation to the opening on December 7 even asked for donations such as food or medical supplies for political prisoners on the island. In recent years, the rapper has also collaborated with artists such as Marichal, Maykel Castillo Osorbo, David D Omni and Navy Pro, among others.

That profile has put him in the crosshairs of authorities for some time. In November 2021, Almenares Rivera was summoned to the Seventh Station of the National Revolutionary Police for his publications on social networks. The Navy Pro musician said at the time that, a month earlier, the artist had already been taken “to this same police station where he was threatened with Decree Law 35, and based on it, the officers told the artist that he could be prosecuted for making publications showing the faces of government agents.”

“’We’re going to watch you,’ ’you’re going to have to move from La Lisa,’ were some of the attacks Nando received from the officers, who also suggested putting him in a cell to beat him,” added Navy Pro.

Translated by LAR

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Another Former Cuban Regime Official Enters the United States

Orlando Ernesto Pérez Núñez arrived in the US through CBP One on November 19 and lives in Kentucky

Orlando Ernesto Pérez, when he was elected president of the Martí Youth Movement. / ‘Escambray’

14ymedio, Havana, 10 January 2025 — The emigration of Cuban regime officials to the United States continues unabated. The most recent on the list is Orlando Ernesto Pérez Núñez, former president of the Movimiento Juvenil Martiano (MJM) [Martí Youth Movement], belonging to the Union of Young Communists (UJC). According to Martí Noticias, he arrived in the US through CBP One on November 19 and lives in Kentucky.

Pérez Núñez, who replaced Yusuam Palacios at the head of the MJM in January 2023, crossed the border from Mexico through El Paso, Texas, where he requested asylum, according to a note from the American media published this Friday.

According to an MJM official cited in the note, Pérez Núñez was no longer at the head of the organization, although his resignation from the post was not officially announced.

A year ago, in an interview with Cubadebate, the then official assured that one of his main tasks at the head of the movement was to “transmit the principles of the Cuban Revolution, and the vehicle to be effective is history.” continue reading

A year ago, in an interview with ’Cubadebate’, he said that one of his main tasks at the head of the movement was to “transmit the principles of the Cuban Revolution.”

“Another of the challenge,” he said, “is the transformation of this movement in today’s Cuba. To be able to bring it to the minds of young people, to make the José Martí Pioneers Organization a reality. The challenge is to transform the methodological documents and the processes that we develop as a movement and adapt them to the new generations.”

According to his statements, he planned to serve out his entire term, until 2028. “We want to see a strengthened, improved movement when we finish our five-year mandate, one that truly responds to the interests of today’s Cuba, of the new generations and of the UJC. That it assumes within the José Martí Cultural Society the care of children, adolescents and young people, as part of the system of institutions of the Office of the Martí Program,” he indicated. However, he did not even complete two years at the head of the organization.

Pérez Núñez did not respond to Martí Noticias’ request for comment and has deleted his social media profiles.

During 2024, more than 115 Cuban repressors and officials fled to the United States. The figure is five times higher than that reported in February 2023 by the Miami-based Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, which runs a program to identify those who, having contributed to repression on the island, intend to settle in a democratic country.

Tony Costa, director of the organization, reported last August that they have “identified more than 1,000 Cuban regime repressors” living in the United States, many of whom entered “by lying.” Costa added that these former officials “have abused the immigration system to come to the United States.”

During 2024, more than 115 Cuban repressors and officials fled to the US. The figure is five times higher than that reported in February 2023

Members of the Communist Party, State Security agents, prosecutors and even judges are among the people who have recently arrived and who have been identified in the digital project Cuban Repressors.

One of the most representative cases is that of Judge Melody González Pedraza, who arrived at Tampa Airport in Florida on May 30 thanks to humanitarian parole. However, she was denied entry into the country there and decided to request political asylum. Since then, Judge González has been waiting in prison for a ruling to obtain refugee status.

The judge arrived in the United States a few days after having sentenced four young Cubans to three and four years in prison for throwing Molotov cocktails at property belonging to regime officials in November 2022 in Villa Clara. Two months later, from prison, González Pedraza tried to distance herself from the ruling in an interview with Diario de Cuba and said she had received instructions from the president of the Provincial Court and the president of the Security Chamber.

Another case was that of Rosabel Roca Sampedro, the former prosecutor responsible for sentences of up to four and a half years in prison for “attack and contempt” for four protesters from Camagüey during the Island-wide protests on 11 July 2021. Despite the alert launched by different organizations and the express request of three congressmen to the Department of Homeland Security to reject her request for asylum, she entered the United States on July 15. According to Martí Noticias, which had reported on the case in June, Roca Sampedro entered with a CBP One appointment at the border with Mexico in Brownsville, Texas.

Also on the list is Liván Fuentes Álvarez, president of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power on the Isle of Youth between 2019 and 2022, who was denied entry by the United States immigration authorities last May after his humanitarian parole was revoked. On social media, he showed himself to be a staunch defender of the regime, as evidenced by official images alongside President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

One of the most high-profile cases of last year was that of Manuel Menéndez Castellanos, former first secretary of the Communist Party in Cienfuegos, who was “coordinator of the Coordination and Support Team of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro.” Last August, he managed to enter the United States. He arrived at Miami International Airport – seeking to go unnoticed – in a wheelchair, wearing a mask and a cap.

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The United States Returns 20 Irregular Migrants to Cuba, Its First Operation in 2025

Two of the irregular migrants were transferred “to the investigative body for being suspected of committing criminal acts before leaving Cuba,” the authorities said.

The group was intercepted by the US coast guard after illegally leaving the island / X/@USCG

EFE/14ymedio, 9 January 2025 — The United States Coast Guard Service (USCG) deported a total of 20 migrants to Cuba on Thursday, in the first return operation to the Island from the US in 2025, official media reported.

The group – composed of 9 men, 7 women and 4 children – was intercepted by the US coast guard after illegally leaving the Island. Most live in Havana, according to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior.

The migrants were handed over by the US coast guard at the port of Orozco, in the province of Artemisa

Two of them were transferred “to the investigative body for alleged criminal acts before leaving Cuba,” the authorities said.

In addition, the Ministry of the Interior stated that this is the second return operation of 2025, after the one reported on January 3, when 19 Cubans were returned from the Bahamas by air, making a total of 39 returned so far this year. continue reading

The migrants were handed over by the US Coast Guard in the port of Orozco

The Cuban authorities have stated that they maintain “firm” in their commitment to a “safe and orderly” migration, and they continue to warn of the danger and risks of illegal exits from the country, stressing that it is “irresponsible” to involve minors in those events.

The Governments of Havana and Washington have a bilateral agreement so that all migrants arriving by sea to US territory are returned to Cuba.

In addition, deportation flights resumed in April 2023, mainly for people considered “inadmissible” after being detained on the US border with Mexico.

In Mexico, eight Cuban rafters who were rescued last week by sailors are at the headquarters of the National Institute of Migration (INM), where they have requested advice to prevent them from being deported to the Island. The migrants, a woman and seven men, were found by the crew of the ship Catherine-Grace on a drifting raft 198 nautical miles north of Puerto Progreso.

A total of 8,261 Cubans were registered by US border authorities last October

According to data from the US Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP), during the 2024 fiscal period, which ended on September 30, 217,615 Cubans arrived in the United States.

A total of 8,261 Cubans were registered by US border authorities last October, the first month of fiscal year 2025, and according to CBP, more than 860,000 Cuban migrants entered US territory in the last four years.

In 2024, 93 returns were made from different countries in the region, with a total of 1,384 irregular migrants returned.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Some Relatives of the 13 Missing From the Explosion in Cuba Criticize the Military’s Decision To Delay the Rescue

More details are known about the victims of the Melones explosion in Holguín
The alert has been extended to Sancti Spíritus, where helicopters fly over the weapon silos on the Zaza road

’Granma’ does not specify how many explosions there were in total, but in the videos spread on social networks by eyewitnesses can be seen at least two explosions that occurred during the day. / Screen capture

14ymedio, Miguel García, Holguín, 9 January 2024 — “We are doing what we can.” The response of the authorities is invariable when approaching the relatives of the 13 soldiers who disappeared after the explosions that occurred on Tuesday at the Melones base, in the municipality of Rafael Freyre, in Holguín. As explained to 14ymedio by the aunt of one of the young recruits affected, who asks for anonymity, the local government officials themselves visit the homes but are not able to give the families concrete information.

They hope, says this same source, that the soldiers – nine recruits of the Active Military Service (SMA) and four officers – “have managed to enter a security tunnel near the site of the explosion, to which they had access.” The woman continues: “They say that when they manage to lower the temperature of the place they will look there specifically, because it’s the only hope of finding them alive.”

One of them, Leinier Jorge Sánchez, only 18 years old, is the son of Gretel María Franco, secretary of the president of the Municipal Assembly of Popular Power of Rafael Freyre, Alexis Driggs Gómez, as confirmed to this newspaper by several local residents.

The shock wave of the explosion that happened “impacted them all, throwing them to the floor”

Driggs Gómez himself was injured in one of the explosions, as the State newspaper Granma published this Thursday: “He carries on his forehead, between his eyes, the imprint of the impact of a glass fragment caused by the first large explosion that occurred in the Military Unit.” The text details that the municipal president, along with several military authorities, “had reached the vicinity of a burned silo, where the military chief explained to them the continue reading

magnitude of the danger that threatened the residents in the vicinity and the need for a quick evacuation.”

The shock wave of the explosion that occurred, the article continues, “hit them all, throwing them to the floor in the middle of a cloud of particles, dirt and dust flying in all directions.”

After that first explosion, “around two in the morning,” Yamilé Suárez Serrano, one of the evacuees from the hamlet of Sao Nuevo, whose home served as an “address post” in the first hours, told Granma that “the warning was set in motion,” and “later the means of transport arrived.” The first evacuated were the elderly, children and pregnant women, said the same source, who is also the mother of a People’s Power delegate in the area.

The Communist Party newspaper does not specify how many explosions there were in total, but in the videos spread on social networks by eyewitnesses can be seen at least two that occurred during the day.

On Wednesday afternoon, says the official newspaper, “a press group gained the closest possible access to the damage.” “Columns of smoke still crowned several elevations,” although “no explosions have been reported since early Wednesday morning.”

More than 490 residents in the rural constituency of Sao Redondo, according to official information, were transferred to “safe places,” as were residents of Sao Nuevo, El Cerro and the town of Melones itself. Granma sources highlighted “the creation of rural brigades” that guarded “homes with the belongings of those transferred to evacuation centers and protected the homes of family and friends, in the municipal capital and in other places.”

General Ramón Pardo Guerra, 88, described the event as a “disaster of technological origin”

The report also indicates that “surveillance is constant with the use of various means, including unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).” According to sources from 14ymedio, the alert went throughout the country. In Sancti Spíritus, this Thursday “helicopters are flying over the city in the northern part, specifically over the weapon silos on the Zaza road,” says a former SMA recruit in that area. “In addition, you can see the coming and going of cars with soldiers.”

In the official press, the authorities claim that they showed “courage and responsibility” and that in the “area of greatest danger from the first moment” the “main heads of the Eastern Army and the Military Region of Holguín have been there, as well as Joel Queipo Ruiz, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and first secretary of the organization in Holguín territory, also Manuel Hernández Aguilera, governor of Holguín, and members of the Defense Council of the Municipality and other local authorities.”

The head of the National Civil Defense General Staff, General Ramón Pardo Guerra, 88, described the event as a “disaster of technological origin,” without specifying why he used this term, although he added that the causes were still being investigated.

However, the opinion of family members, who vent on social networks, is very different. Jesús Antonio, uncle of Liander José García Oliva who is missing, posted,”I feel that the right thing is not being done; I feel that those children are still alive but nothing is being done to save them. They are leaving them to God’s fate, because we know that they have not tried to look for them. And what hurts the most is that they had the courage to risk them all, but now none of them want to risk it for those children, whom they forced to do the dirty work that didn’t correspond to their rank.”

Jesús Antonio says that they are still waiting for the return home of the recruits, and adds: “All parents and close or distant relatives should come together and make it come true. Tell them to stop lying and do what they have to do, which is to give their lives to try to save those whom they forced to be there.”

More commentators joined his wish, such as Yeikel del Valle, who says that his ex-brother-in-law and uncle of his daughter is also among the victims, and Camila Ching, who says: “Very true, I have the brother of a dear friend on that list and there are no answers. It is not fair to leave them to the fate of what may happen.”

Leandro Pérez Alberteriz says he is “available in case they need volunteers. Those words are very well written. My first cousin is also among the missing, and they aren’t doing anything to get them out.”

From testimonies of relatives and comments on Facebook, it is possible to reconstruct scraps of the biographies of the disappeared.

Among the nine SMA recruits are a Japanese cartoon enthusiast and a future chef, and some who were only a few months away from demobilizing. Most are residents of the vicinity of the Melones base or other Holguin municipalities.

Leinier Jorge Sánchez, only 18 years old, is the son of Gretel María Franco, secretary of the president of the Municipal Assembly of Popular Power of Rafael Freyre

Along with the aforementioned Leinier Jorge Sánchez and Liander José García Oliva, the list of recruits consists of Brian Lázaro Rojas Long (from the community of Esterito, in the municipality of Banes), Yunior Hernández Rojas (originally from Holguín), Rayme Rojas Rojas (born in 2004), José Carlos Guerrero García (only 19 years old), Frank Antonio Hidalgo Almaguer (neighbor of the municipality of San Andrés), Carlos Alejandro Acosta Silva and Héctor Adrián Batista Zayas (from Las Tunas).

Among the officers is Major Carlos Carreño (from Santiago de Cuba, married and with a child), the second non-commissioned officer Orlebanis Tamé Torres, with a military degree also obtained by Yoennis Pérez Durán, a graduate of electrical engineering, as well as Major Leonar Palma Matos (also the father of a son).

Their identities were made public by the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces almost 12 hours after the event occurred, and after long hours of rumors and uncertainty.

These types of accidents are not rare in military installations such as Melones. In the first hours of the event, news was spread by mistake – even by the official press – that the damaged warehouse was the same one that in 2020 also suffered two morning explosions in Gibara, about 50 kilometers from Rafael Freyre.

In addition, in June 2017 there was a similar event, this time in Santiago de Cuba, when several explosions occurred in the municipality of Songo-La Maya, near the Ti Arriba military unit .

Then, half a thousand neighbors were evacuated for five days, without anyone giving them an explanation about the incident, which did not cause more damage than the consequences, reported by the residents, of leaving their animals abandoned for several days.

Last 2024, three workers died in several explosions at the Ernesto Che Guevara Industrial Military Company (EMI), located in La Campana, in Manicaragua, Villa Clara. In these cases, accidents occurred when employees handled potentially dangerous explosives.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Mexican Doctor Asks a Cuban Businessman to Get Him Out of a Cuba with Its Blackouts and No Food

The scholarship holder is accused of being in line with the policy of the current Government of Claudia Sheinbaum

Mexican medical students studying a specialty at the Pedro Kourí Institute in Havana. / (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 25 October 2024 [Note delayed translation] — Raúl Guerrero, one of the 994 doctors who received scholarships from the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt) to study a specialty in Cuba, asked businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego for help to get him off the island. According to the doctor, the group had faced a power outage for almost four days, with food shortages and rising prices for everything. “Enjoy what you voted for,” replied the third richest man in Mexico, referring to the ruling Morena party.

The owner of TV Azteca said that on August 28, the same health worker called him “a debtor of the Nation” and told him to “pay what he owed.” Guerrero provoked a wave of mockery and reproaches for his contradictory attitude, which until recently was aggressive with Salinas and now is begging for his help. After the controversy, the student closed his account at X.

Businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego answer to a Mexican medical student in Cuba. / Plataforma X

The doctor’s previous comments were shared on social media, in which he showed his total agreement with the Mexican government, which was responsible for his being sent to study on the island. In May 2024, he challenged journalist Joaquín López-Dóriga to a debate. In the post, he wrote: “They no longer know how to stop AMLO (Andrés Manuel López Obrador), we are going to have a government for the people and not full of hypocrites like you, López-Dóriga.”

In the post he wrote during the prolonged blackout that affected Cuba this weekend, Guerrero had attached a letter that the students sent to the continue reading

Mexican consul in Havana, Ignacio Cabrera Fernández, to let him know that the hospitals where they are “rotating” told them that their demands should be attended to by the Cuban Medical Services Marketing Company SA or Conahcyt.

The energy crisis on the island, they complained, affects public transportation, which makes it difficult for them to reach different parts of the cities, in addition to the fact that “there is no electricity in the hospital units, which makes work difficult because supplies, medicines or procedures are minimal, more so than usual.” Given these limitations, they asked to be taken off the island between the 23rd or 24th of this month.

The so-called “Medical Specialties in Cuba” program was implemented during the Administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to inject money into the Island. It is expected that this year another 601 Mexicans will join the 994 scholarship recipients to study their specialty at the University of Medical Sciences in Havana, the Ministry of Public Health or the Center for Medical-Surgical Research.

However the agreement with Mexico has not been as favorable as Cuba had hoped. In 2021, it was learned that, of 1,600 available scholarships, only 172 were covered. Once in Havana, the medical students reported unforeseen extra expenses, such as paying for internet, laundry service and lodging, in addition to being forced to manage the $1,100 for “maintenance” that Conahcyt granted each of them through an account at the Banco Popular de Ahorro.

Cuban medical student Raúl Guerrero called businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego “a debtor of the Nation.” / Plataforma X

According to official information from Conahcyt, scholarship students must also cover annual medical insurance, which ranges from 231.28 euros per year for those who are 18 years old to 3,204 euros for students up to 70 years old, although the institution does not have students of such advanced ages.

Mexico pays the Cuban government 7,800 euros annually for each student of pathological anatomy; 12,500 euros for general surgery; 7,800 euros for hygiene and epidemiology; 12,500 euros for medical genetics; 7,800 euros for geriatrics; 9,900 euros for rehabilitation medicine; 12,500 euros for intensive medicine; 9,900 euros for internal medicine; 7,800 euros for pulmonology; 12,500 euros for ophthalmology; 12,500 euros for clinical pathology; 9,900 euros for psychiatry; and 12,500 euros for traumatology and orthopedics.

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Like Zombies, Cuban Smokers Look for Affordable Cigarettes in the Midst of Inflation

The customers, with the anxiety of those who cannot contain themselves before the image of their desires, raised their eyebrows and pursed their lips when the saleswoman answered their questions

This Wednesday, on the boulevard of the central San Rafael Street in Centro Habana, a petite woman unfolded her box of merchandise / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 9 January 2024 — In the movie Juan de los Muertos [Juan of the Dead], the zombies who wander the streets of Havana have a lost look and a clumsy step. That fiction, which masterfully mixed humor and terror, seems to have predicted the nervous walk and the irritated faces of the smokers who roam the Cuban capital these days. Desperate and with a gesture of anguish, they are looking for cigarettes that they can afford in the midst of a rise in price, which has exceeded 1,500 pesos per pack.

This Wednesday, on the boulevard of the central San Rafael Street in Central Havana, a petite woman unfolded her merchandise in a box. The customers, with the anxiety of those who cannot contain themselves before the image of their desires, raised their eyebrows and pursed their lips when the saleswoman answered their questions: “The boxes of H are 1,000 pesos. The Upmann [strong] and the mild ones are from 300 to 600.” If the smoker doesn’t have enough money for these, the merchant offers Criollos, the worst valued and popularly known as “rompepechos” [chest breakers] at 350 pesos a pack or each cigarette of H. Upmann for 50 pesos.

“The packs of H are 1,000 pesos. The Upmann [strong] and the mild ones are from 300 to 600”

“It’s better to smoke the bills than to pay so much” lamented a sad customer who went for a pack and left with barely three cigarettes in his hand. “I haven’t even been able to sleep for days. I no more end a fight with my wife only to get into another; I can’t go on anymore,” he stammered. In other places, managed by MSMEs, the prices are even higher. In those markets a pack of Populares with filters reaches 1,600 pesos, and a pack of H. Upmann is fast on its heels with 1,500. Employees justify the escalation with the cost of buying the goods from the State or, in the case of foreign brands, of importing them. continue reading

“Most of the time we have to buy Cuban cigarettes in the stores in MLC [hard currency] or now in the ones that have opened in dollars, so we barely get anything at the current price of dollars,” says an employee of a private market on Reina Street. The young worker says that in recent days she has even come to feel afraid, “because the smokers come in, see the prices, get very upset and take it out on everyone. They usually swear and even punch the wall.”

“Most of the time we have to buy Cuban cigarettes in the stores in MLC [hard currency] or now in those that have opened in dollars”

In a country that grows tobacco and in which 24% of Cubans, from the age of 15, actively smoke, the rise in the price of cigarettes puts hundreds of thousands of consumers in check. Although some cut consumption in order not to affect personal and family finances, most reduce expenses in other areas in order to be able to pay for their addiction. “I may lack food, water and a roof over my head, but I don’t want to gamble with cigarettes,” summarized a young man sitting in Fraternity Park smoking a newly-bought pack: “It cost me 1,500 pesos, the same amount as the monthly retirement my mother receives.”

According to this Havanan, lowering cigarette prices should even become a political priority for the authorities. “They know that when people can’t smoke they go crazy. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a protest, with smokers throwing themselves into the street,” he predicts. It is not difficult to see his premonition in some scenes from that 2011 film where some zombies, with their slow gait and their terrifying gaze, take over the esplanade in front of the Plaza de la Revolución.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba, 66 Years in the Dark

The hope for a better world was dashed, only fear remained

Fidel Castro entering Havana on January 8, 1959 / Archive

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami. 5 January 2024 — I remember as if it were today, the first of January 1959 and the days that followed. I had just turned 16 and there was a collective hysteria, as best described by the journalist and historian Enrique Encimosa in the documentary Al Filo del Machete, produced by Pedro Suarez Tintín and Luis Diaz, and by the writer Jose Antonio Albertini in his most recent publication Memoria Constante: Relatos verídicos.

At the end of 1958, the premiere of the film The Bridge Over the River Kwai was scheduled to take place at El Cloris, the most modern cinema in Santa Clara.

I don’t think there were any movie-goers in those days. Various rebel groups attacked the city, taking the war to the streets, although I do remember that a few months later the cinema and the building that housed it, the Grand Hotel, the tallest building in the interior of the country, were confiscated by the revolution.

The former owner, Orfelio Ramos, was an entrepreneur, as dictator Miguel Diaz-Canel likes to say, who had made his fortune renting out bicycles and driving local buses with such spirit and talent that he became the owner of the buses that provided urban service in the city of Santa Clara.

Most of the population participated in that carnival that mixed hope for some and fear for others.

Hysteria had gripped both men and women. To my knowledge, the majority of the population participated in that carnival that mixed hope for some and fear for others. In the end, the ironclad social control established by Fidel and Raúl Castro terrorized the population in a framework of colossal inefficiency that has led the country to unprecedented spiritual and continue reading

material misery.

The hope for a better world was dashed, and only fear remained. These contrary feelings were the result of the fanaticism of a few who, by standing out in the revolutionary whirlwind, were the protagonists of a sectarianism that was difficult to free themselves from, even if they had revolutionary credentials, as happened to the insurrectional leader Pedro Barata, a political prisoner for many years, when he testified before some thugs that the person they accused was innocent.

I remember a Castro slogan that said more or less it doesn’t matter what you did, but what you are doing, a clear message to the new and future accomplices of the destruction of the Republic that we lost.

The tension in society grew stronger every day because the arbitrary arrests and the roar of the firing squad frightened and deafened us. Arrests based on mere suspicions or unfounded accusations of collaboration with the overthrown regime were factors that encouraged opportunists or the most fearful to become accusers before the revolutionary courts, which did not seek justice but cruel revenge, concealed in a spurious judicial process.

The Revolution as a source of law, a pronouncement by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Republic, as Dr. Ramón Barquín explained in a recent article, gave the coup de grace to civility, including the conversion of the media, even the private ones, into instruments of a thunderous propaganda that confused the citizenry beyond description, a citizenry that was gradually but constantly being transformed into a mass at the service of the Castros and a criminal accomplice.

The massive confiscation of property, without judicial process, deprived many people of well-earned family fortunes.

On the other hand, the massive confiscation of property, without judicial process, deprived many people of well-earned family patrimonies. A Ministry for the Recovery of Misappropriated Property was hastily created, appointing incompetent administrators who destroyed the properties, a kind of precursor to the nouveau riche of today, children of the moncadistas, who today enjoy the power and wealth that their parents and grandparents appropriated.

Days and nights passed by, accumulating 66 years. Many have been accomplices of Castro’s totalitarianism. The regime has not lacked executioners who, even if they have not fired a rifle at a fellow human being, are accomplices of the numerous deaths and sufferings endured by the population.

However, to the satisfaction of men and women of dignity, there has been no shortage of compatriots willing to face the disgrace of Castroism with the painful consequences of exile, prison and firing squad, not to mention the internal exile in which many compatriots live, who, for various reasons, remain on the Island.

I am sure that Cuba and the Cubans will be free, but justice must be sought for this vast devastation of 66 years of terror.

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Who Are the 13 Missing in the Explosions at Cuba’s Military Warehouse in Holguín?

Nine are young military service recruits, most of them from that eastern province

A fan of Japanese cartoons, a future chef and a young father are among the missing / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 9 January 2025 — The life stories of the 13 missing soldiers begin to emerge with the testimonies of relatives and the scraps of their biographies found on social networks. The nine young people, apparently all recruits of the Active Military Service (SMA), include a fan of Japanese cartoons, a future chef and a young father. Most are residents near the Melones base or in other Holguin municipalities.

For example, Brian Rojas Long lives in the community of Esterito, in the municipality of Banes. His aunt, Norma Rojas, said that he had recently been on a pass at home and that he had only eight months left to finish his service. His father, Lázaro, said the young man is very excited because he has been assigned to work in a hotel on the Ramón de Antilla peninsula as a chef’s assistant. “I like that,” he told his aunt during the family visit.

There is also Yunior Hernández Rojas, originally from Holguín and father of a baby, who has been with his current partner since 2018. Rayme Rojas Rojas, 20, likes animated Japanese cartoons. In November 2023, he was seen on social networks wearing the recruit uniform. He had only six months left to complete his time as a soldier. continue reading

Some relatives have appealed to social networks in search of answers

Among the youngest, there is José Carlos Guerrero Garcia, 19, also in the SMA, son of Julio Guerrero and a resident in the municipality of Rafael Freyre. Frank Antonio Hidalgo Almaguer is a resident of the municipality of San Andrés and is currently single. Lander José García Oliva is also from that same community, hard hit at the moment by uncertainty.

Some relatives have appealed to social networks in search of answers. A cousin of Leinier Jorge Sánchez, 18, made a desperate request on Facebook for the young man to appear alive. Yilena Roche Arcaya defined him as “one of the children who is missing in the explosion.” The young man also lives in Rafael Freyre, the municipality most marked by the tragedy. There are hardly any details about the others; Héctor Adrián Batista, another recruit, is only known to be from Las Tunas.

Among the missing officers are Major Carlos Carreño, a native of Santiago de Cuba, married and with a son, and a second non-commissioned officer, Orlebanis Tamé Torres, who has a military rank. Another is Yoennis Pérez Durán, a graduate of electrical engineering, who obtained his diploma in Moa at the Dr. Antonio Núñez Jiménez Higher Mining Metallurgical Institute in 2009. He is a follower of the Real Madrid football team.

Major Leonar Palma Matos studied at Juan José Fornet Piña de Holguín’s basic high school and has a son. Although he keeps his Facebook profile restricted, several of his childhood friends have left messages of sadness in other groups for what happened.

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuban Government Opens a High-End Supermarket that Only Accepts Dollars in Cash or Card

The move is a sign that “dollarization” of the economy — something Prime Minister Manuel Marrero has spoken about— is going ahead along with the end of the MLC

The new Supermercado 3ra y 70 (3rd and 70th Supermarket) is owned by Tiendas Caribe, a branch of the Cimex corporation. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 3 January 2024 — The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket, which opened on Tuesday on the ground floor of the luxurious Gran Muthu Habana hotel in Miramar, does not accept MLC (a form of digital convertible currency) much less Cuban pesos. The store is owned by Tiendas Caribe, one of the numerous offshoots of the Cuban Armed Forces all-powerful Business Administration Group (GAESA). The store accepts three forms of payment: dollars in the form of cash, foreign cards and the so-called Clásica (Classic) debit card, which is denominated dollars.

The supermarket was bustling on Thursday, two days after opening, overwhelming its visitors. The store is part of a newly built shopping center that includes numerous privately owned shops — among them a branch of the Chocolatera confectionery —most of which have yet to open.

Outside the entrance to the complex was a line of cars, similar to lines outside the city’s gas stations, whose owners were eager to park and shop. Unlike at other state-owned stores, the shelves inside the huge, clean, well-lit space were fully stocked with a variety of products.

“Inside it’s all shiny and new, with automatic checkouts, with carts, with baskets, with all the products the MLC stores used to have but no longer do,” said Lucía, a first-time customer. / 14ymedio

“Inside it’s all shiny and new, with automatic checkout counters, with carts, with baskets, with all the products the MLC stores used to have but no longer do,” said Lucía, a first-time customer. “All the beans here are canned and natural. The meats, the cheeses, the olive oil, the regular oils, tomato sauces, pickles, canned fruit, nougat, rice, coffee, yogurt, milk, ice cream, and even whole wheat bread! It’s got everything, everything,” said Lucía, who spent 6,000-pesos taxi on a taxi ride from Old Havana to get here. And she was amazed. “The checkout counters move. I have never seen that in Cuba before, not even in the Cuatro Caminos market!”

The supermarket carries Cuban-made products which are no longer available at state-owned stores. Until now, they could only be found at privately owned small and medium sized stores (MSMEs). These include items such as Cubita coffee and Estancia fruit juices; private label brands such as Clamanta and Gustó. They new store also carries “foreign” brands routinely found at Cimex stores. They include Spain’s Vima, Mexico’s Richmeat and Chile’s Sur Continente, companies that have long been established on the island. Vima, which imports apples, has been operating in Cuba since the 1990s . Small appliances such as fans (for $45) and Italian coffee makers were also among the most popular items at the store.

“I imagine that, since this is in dollars, it will last but, with this kind of operation, you never know,” said an elderly woman who was accompanied by her daughter. “The MLC stores started out like this but but now they’re empty.”

A total of twelve cash registers served a diverse clientele with one thing in common: money to spend. / 14ymedio

A total of twelve cash registers served a diverse clientele with one thing in common: money to spend. Customers include high-ranking officials, foreigners and embassy personnel as well as a picturesque group of nuns. Two of them were in the checkout line, waiting to buy fans. Two others scurried back and forth to their car, carrying a wide variety of products and foodstuffs.

“You have to take advantage of this because, before too long, it will all be gone. Just look at the MLC stores. They haven’t been stocked in a very long time,” observes a retiree carrying a basketful of chicken.

A sign at the cash register explains how customers can pay for their items. “Payment here is made using USD cards,” it reads, with logos of which cards the store accepts. At the top — above even the Mastercard and Visa logos — is Russia’s Mir card, which a woman in the checkout line was waiting to use. “It belongs to my husband,” she said, surprised to learn the store will also accept cash. Most customers, however, were paying in dollars.

The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket also carries Vima-brand apples. / 14ymedio

The cash registers did not, however, provide change. Instead, employees hand out small sweets, though they were not given to customers if the amount was less than five cents.

Another novel form of payment is the Classic card, which has been available to customers at this shopping center since December 7. Though senior government officials have said nothing about it, requiring consumers to pay in dollars and incentivizing them to use this card can be seen as another step towards dollarization of Cuba’s retail economy, which Prime Minister Manuel Marrero spoke about last month in the National Assembly. Effectively, it also means the end of the MLC. continue reading

In a post on social media, Cimex describes Classic as “a financial product denominated in U.S. dollars, designed to facilitate your transactions within the country.” It can be used at the network of gas stations that take payment in dollars and at retail outlets with point-of-sale (POS) terminals. It can also be used to buy goods and services, and to import products from overseas. The card costs $5.00, or its equivalent at the “current exchange rate” in “accepted foreign currencies,” the corporation states. One dollar of the purchase price is automatically added to the buyer’s account balance. There is no “pre-set amount” or required minimum balance. Customers receive a 5% discount on each purchase but are charged a $1.00 service fee each time money is added to their accounts.

The supermarket is part of a new shopping center that includes numerous privately owned businesses. / 14ymedio

Cimex also announced that it will soon be available at CADECA foreign exchange offices and other retail outlets, including those in the Gran Muthu Hotel complex. One of the few shops now open there is a perfumery.

The supermarket is still accepting MLC for the time being , an employee tells a customer who asked about some cologne. “You can go to the perfumery if you have MLC but you’d better hurry because that’s about to change,” says the employee.

“When will that be?” asked the customer.

“I don’t think it will be long but they haven’t told us yet,” he replied.

The new 3rd and 70th stands in contrast to an old supermarket of the same name, which opened prior to 1990. Its merchandise was priced in dollars at a time when it was illegal for Cubans to have them. Initially, only diplomats and resident foreigners were allowed to shop there but, by 1993, it was open to all. Like many state-owned stores, it went into a steep decline after it became an MLC store in 202o.

Attracted by the crowed and dressed in their uniforms, some of the employees of the old store came over to check out the new one. Their irritation was all too obvious. “This is a disgrace. Everything they used to sell in the old store when it first opened is now here. There’s nothing over there and this place has everything,” one employee complained loudly.

The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket stands in contrast to the old pre-1990 market of the same name. / 14ymedio

“There are no empty shelves here,” said one of the employees. “All the empty shelves are over at the other store, which is falling to pieces,” responded one of her co-workers. Ironically, in late December, Cimex announced on social media that it was celebrating the anniversary of the old “diplomat’s store”

A visit on Thursday to the old store confirmed everything its employees described: poor lighting, visibly dirty shelves, scant merchandise, and the stench of rotting meat throughout. The site now mainly serves as a parking lot for customers of the new 3rd and 70th Supermarket,

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Mexico Rejects Migrants’ Request for Refuge, a Cuban Man Denounces

The Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid reports that the number of applications decreased in 2024, with 78,975, including 17,884 citizens from the Island.

In Tapachula, the National Migration Institute set up 12 checkpoints to prevent the nearly 30,000 migrants in the state from moving forward / EFE

14ymedio/EFE, Mexico City, 8 January 2025 — The Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar in Spanish)) claims that applications from migrants fell by almost 44% in 2024. According to official figures, it served 78,975 migrants that year, or 43.8% less than in 2023, when a total of 140,720 foreigners went to one of the commission’s nine offices.

For many Cubans, however, asylum applications have not really dropped, but rather Mexico is responding negatively to them. Thus, Osiel Rodriguez, reports that the Comar rejected his asylum application just as it did for at least 30 other Cubans the day he went to the office in Tapachula, on the border with Guatemala. The Mexican authorities, he tells 14ymedio, told him that “he was not a politically persecuted person” and considered that he had left the island because of “economic problems.”

Rodriguez was instead granted a safe-conduct with which he can remain in the country for a maximum of 20 days. In his account, the Cuban insists that he left because of the “persecution” he suffered and the “threats of the regime” when he made public his discontent with the situation in the country. “In Cuba, there is no freedom, they put you in jail for thinking differently.”

Osiel Rodriguez is desperate to go to the U.S.: “Whatever it takes, paying a coyote or in a convoy, but I have to be at the border at Piedras Negras on the 16th and be able to cross before Trump is sworn in.”

He said he has not been able to log in to the CBP One application. “It’s crashing, I keep trying, but I don’t know if I will be able to log in.”

Donald Trump warned that he will toughen immigration laws from day one of his term in office. One of the measures is to close the CBP One continue reading

application. Since its implementation, also in January 2023, until last December, more than 904,500 people have been able to schedule their appointments to appear at the border.

In Tapachula, the National Migration Institute set up 12 checkpoints to prevent the nearly 30,000 migrants in the state from moving forward. “They are closing the roads, holding us and returning us to Tapachula,” denounces Guatemalan Tonatiuh Gomez. “They don’t want trouble when Trump becomes president, that’s what the soldiers say.”

Local authorities claim that the concern in Chiapas is to tackle human trafficking networks. This Tuesday 30 video surveillance cameras were uninstalled on the Hidalgo and Suchiate border, which criminal groups used to monitor migrants to “extort and kidnap them,” the state prosecutor’s office said in a brief statement.

Meanwhile, in the United States, civil rights and immigrant organizations criticized the Laken Riley Act, approved Tuesday by the lower chamber of the new Congress, considering that it will facilitate President-elect Donald Trump’s massive deportation plan and eliminate due process for those charged with non-violent crimes.

The initiative, if passed this Friday by the Senate, will strengthen Trump’s position, who takes office this coming January 20, to unleash mass deportations and will allow racial discrimination when it comes to punishing non-violent crimes, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stressed on Wednesday.

The bill requires immigration authorities to detain undocumented migrants accused of committing theft and other non-violent crimes so they can be deported.

Translated by LAR

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Cuba Will Not Allow Tragedy To Spoil the Celebration of the 66th Anniversary of the Revolution

At the beginning of 2025, the explosion in Holguín has gotten in the way of so much paraphernalia

Every January, the same tiresome sequence of commemorations, freedom caravans and official evocations is repeated in Cuba. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 8 January 2025 — Lovers of ritual, and anchored to symbolic acts, dictatorships are given to organizing ahead of time and in a rigid manner a script of celebrations, public events and media coverage on anniversaries and founding dates. Nothing can make them deviate from this protocol projected to aggrandize their power and show themselves eternal. Every January, in Cuba, the same tiresome sequence of commemorations, caravans of freedom and official evocations of that January of 1959 when Fidel Castro took power on the Island is repeated. But at the beginning of 2025, tragedy has gotten in the way of so much paraphernalia.

Throughout Tuesday, Cubans have been following the news that, in dribs and drabs, came out from the vicinity of the weapons and ammunition warehouse in the community of Melones, belonging to the municipality of Rafael Freyre, in Holguín. In the military enclave, a series of explosions put the neighbors on alert and forced the Ministry of the Armed Forces to publish a note in which it limited itself to briefly reporting the explosions. As the day progressed and the testimonies and images taken by residents in the area reached the social networks, concern grew that the incident was much more serious than the authorities admitted and that it was far from being controlled.

Shortly afterwards, the number of 13 people missing at the military base began to be mentioned in the streets, but the official press continued to give priority to the events planned to commemorate the January 1959 anniversary. Nothing could interrupt what was planned for the day: showing a smiling Miguel Díaz-Canel surrounded by young communists in La Plata, echoing the ceremony for the anniversary of the National Revolutionary Police and closely following the pathetic caravan that travels through the provinces, imitating the route that the bearded men in olive green made 66 years ago. continue reading

The drama had no place in this scheme of self-satisfaction. The possible victims of the explosions did not fit into the operetta created to boast of having controlled a country and its millions of inhabitants for more than six decades, of having completely destroyed the economy of a nation and having forced hundreds of thousands of its children into exile. Nothing could tarnish the days of festivities. Therefore, the update on the incident and the names of the missing officers and soldiers were relegated to the end of the main newscast and as for President Díaz-Canel, it took him almost 24 hours to make a mention of what happened on his social networks.

But tragedy does not choose the time or the place, even though it seems to have been infatuated in these lands for years.

But tragedy does not choose the time or the place, even if it seems to have been infatuated in these lands for years. The analogies are inevitable. The pain of those days of the fire at the Supertankers in Matanzas is repeated, the collective affliction left by the explosion at the Saratoga hotel and the terrifying images of a crashed plane near Havana airport that claimed 112 lives. Once again, suffering is installed in Cuban homes and secrecy tries to hide it, to reduce it to a mere incident that does not deserve the major front pages or the first minutes of the news.

Dictatorships cannot stand desolation ruining their celebration, or the suffering of others forcing them to cut short long-planned celebrations.

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Cuba: Artificial Intelligence against Natural Stupidity

Many of these technologies have been developed to democratize creative processes, and that word is for them the greatest threat

Havana, recreated with artificial intelligence (IA.Cuba/ Artificial Intelligence Cuba)

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, January 8, 2025 – On April 19, 2023, a Parliament, held hostage by the Single Party, ratified Miguel Díaz-Canel as the hand-picked dictator. His management during the previous five years could not have been worse, but the nonagenarian Raúl Castro continued to give him a thumbs up. Why? It is true that the absolute incompetence of his pupil was evident, but at least Raúl and the other Castro bosses continued to keep their privileges intact.

It didn’t matter if the rest of the country fell apart. His test piece had shown that he was willing to distribute all the force necessary to keep the commoners at bay. And that was enough for him. In addition, looking sideways at the rest of the deputies present, it is likely that he whispered to his confidant, General Amadito Ricardo Guerra: we have to use what we have, and it doesn’t really matter if we loan this ass the baton for five more years.

The re-appointed climbed to the podium with his handful of notes, read a speech full of hyperboles and made the pauses marked in the script to receive the corresponding applause. And, to be in tune with the trends recommended by his advisors, he decided to also talk about AI. His words resonated from a completely defensive attitude: “I am quite sure that no Artificial Intelligence simulation could summarize the feat of the Cuban people in recent years. The creative resistance of the people of this country, their resilience, exceeds the limits of any simulation or prediction. There is no algorithm capable of reflecting everything we live.”

“I’m pretty sure that no Artificial Intelligence simulation could summarize the feat of the Cuban people in recent years”

Behind his words was hidden something very interesting that went viral on social networks. Several Cubans had begun to play and experiment with the new applications, asking ChatGPT about issues related to the reality of the continue reading

Island or generating images of a possible Cuba without a dictatorship. The algorithms were forceful. With them [the Regime] in power, life was an absolute disaster. Without them, the country and its people would enjoy undisputed development and prosperity. That’s why Díaz-Canel lashed out at an Artificial Intelligence that refused to recognize or applaud the alleged achievements he mentioned in his speech.

However, just a few days ago, he touched on the matter again, although this time going on the offensive: “We have to use Artificial Intelligence. Everyone is talking about it; everyone is applying it to the processes.” His audience looked at him without understanding if the speech was about using robots as employees at the ration stores or covering the potholes on the streets with some Instagram filter. Theater director Mario Junquera posted on his Facebook page: “I would say YES for AI to govern the country… tomorrow.” It was obvious that even the most primitive computer would make more coherent decisions than the “same old, same old” of the ruling bureaucracy.

Cuba is late to these debates, like almost everything else. And it is understandable. In a country where banking has not been carried out due to technological insufficiency, what can be expected from experimenting with AI? In a country where the internet is slower than a caterpillar and where blackouts are more frequent than alumbrones — a Cuban word coined to describe when the lights are ON — who will have nerves, battery and enough data to mess with those futuristic toys?

The truth is that Artificial Intelligence is no longer a fantasy of the future, but a reality of the present. And the speed with which it evolves generates fear in some and fascination in others. Some compare the development of Artificial Intelligence with that meteorite that extinguished the dinosaurs. Others celebrate it as the tool that will help humans take a great evolutionary leap as a species. What will happen to AI? Or, rather, what will happen to humans? Will it make us smarter or more idiotic? Will it steal our job or give us more time for ourselves? Have we opened a Pandora’s box?

The truth is that Artificial Intelligence is no longer a fantasy of the future, but a reality of the present

I’m on the side of the enthusiasts. Using these tools has allowed me to find inspiration, make project models in record time, as well as generate and socialize content more quickly and attractively. And its use has not taken away anyone’s work, on the contrary. I have received calls from other colleagues interested in collaborating on new projects, precisely thanks to the result they saw with the help of AI.

As for Díaz-Canel and his harangue, there is little to add. Many of these technologies have been developed to democratize creative processes, and that word is for them the greatest threat. In any case, what they develop will be to promote that only area in which they are efficient: surveillance, control and repression against the masses.

But, once again, it would be a shot in the foot. With the clumsiness that characterizes them, what they generate could turn against them in a very short time. It is impossible to pretend to dominate Artificial Intelligence, when you have more than enough of natural stupidity.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cuban Government Carried Out at Least 10 Repressive Actions per Day Last Year

Two independent organizations registered 3,921 acts against demonstrators and around 1,000 political prisoners

Police arresting demonstrators in front of the Cuban Capitol during the ’11J’ protests in Havana – 11 July 2021 / EFE

14ymedio, Havana, 7 January 2024 — The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) reported this Tuesday that during 2024, the Government’s persecution of those who expressed discontent with the serious crisis that the Island is going through increased. According to its count, at least 10 repressive actions per day were recorded in the country during the last year.

The total number of repressive acts was 3,921, they report. Among these, 949 were home detentions, 818 were arbitrary arrests and 786 involved abuses against political prisoners; the remainder were ‘other’.

“The Cuban regime continues to exhibit the worst record of repression in the Western Hemisphere. There is permanent abuse against independent activists and journalists, and also against any citizen who criticizes the current situation of impoverishment and lack of freedom,” reflects the OCDH.

The provinces with the most cases of repression were Havana, Matanzas, Camagüey and Villa Clara

The report details that the provinces with the most cases of repression were Havana, Matanzas, Camagüey and Villa Clara. It was in that last province where, last November, the residents of the municipality of Encrucijada continue reading

protested in the streets, beating on pots and pans, against the long blackouts, which in some places exceeded 60 hours (two and a half days).

Also in Villa Clara more arrests were reported for demonstrations in the last two months (18 of 34), according to a report by Prisoners Defenders (PD) published last December, which also documented a “scandalous repressive escalation this quarter against peaceful demonstrators.”

The OCDH report also addressed the situation of political prisoners in the country. According to its count, 2024 closed with 952 prisoners of conscience, of which “most do not belong to opposition organizations.” The figure falls short compared to the PD count, which was 1,153.

“We take this opportunity to warn once again that the situation of many political prisoners is serious. It has been a terrible year for them,” added the OCDH, which registered three deceased prisoners in state custody.

The situation of many political prisoners is serious. It has been a terrible year for them

The most recent one was Manuel de Jesús Guillén, 29 years old: “The family reported that (the death) had been the result of a beating by the prison staff. The situation is critical from a humanitarian point of view, as there are a considerable number of prisoners with impaired health, including women with gynecological problems and several young people who have tried to commit suicide.”

The OCDH clarified that these data “are provisional” and are underreported, “because in Cuba there are many abuses for political reasons that are off the radar for our observers and other organizations.”

Regarding the violations of freedom of expression and press freedom in the country, the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (Iclep) registered 67 cases last December.

In a report published on Monday, Iclep counted 39 violations of freedom of the press and 28 violations of freedom of expression. Of these, 28 were attacks, threats and psychological aggressions; 19 were arbitrary detentions; nine were digital restrictions, six were cases of abuse of state power, and five were detentions.

The organization counted 39 violations of freedom of the press and 28 violations of freedom of expression

Among the victims were 18 journalists, 11 activists, four citizens, two people identified as “opponents,” as well as political prisoners and artists. In 12 provinces of the Island, assaults were documented. Most were in Havana, with 20, followed by Villa Clara (10), Sancti Spíritus (nine), Las Tunas (seven) and Camagüey (five).

“Among the most worrying repressive patterns of the Cuban regime is the criminalization of the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression through fabricated accusations and imprisonments to silence dissent and maintain social control,” they said.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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November Books: The Mafia in Cuba, Belkis Ayon’s Gods, Sartre and Beauvoir

A novel by Pavel Giroud, an anthology by storyteller Alberto Garrido and a farewell to Juan Manuel Salvat.

Work ’La cena’, painted by Cuban artist Belkis Ayón / Belkis Ayón Estate

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 30 November 2024 — Marked by borderline figures – she died at the age of 32, one year younger than Christ, in 1999, before the beginning of the millennium – Belkis Ayón created a world no less divided between two dimensions: that of color and that of the spirit. Observing her prints and paintings leaves a metaphysical doubt: if Ayon already shows us the other world, the spiritual plane, why does she give the feeling that there is still much more, hidden behind those Abakuá faces?

Ayón’s suicide – she locked herself in a bathroom and shot herself in the head with her father’s revolver – only reinforces the mystery. Her silence makes one despair. During the Special Period, when the country was plunged into extreme poverty, the artist focused on her black, white and gray works. The themes of loyalty and betrayal, of lost paradise and desire, as well as the Abakuá religious worldview – the sacrifice of the goddess Sikán – surrounded her in her last decade.

In 2021, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid dedicated a major retrospective exhibition to her, commissioned by Cristina Vives, her friend. It was the sign that Ayón had awakened the public’s and critics’ interest all over the world. This November, the Spanish publishing house Turner publishes Nkame mafimba, a compelling catalogue raisonné of her work that expands on an earlier version.

Nkame mafimba means “praise, deep conversation.” The phrase synthesizes Ayón’s relationship with her prints and also the ideal reading she demands for her work. With texts in English and Spanish, the book continue reading

explores how the artist delved into the Abakuá universe, the research she conducted and how the symbolic translation of those myths came about.

Ayón was born at the end of a decade of international enthusiasm for Fidel Castro’s Revolution. In 1960, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir traveled to Havana to see with their own eyes the “hurricane over sugar.” Their impact on the generation of young Cuban intellectuals was enormous. The newspapers of the time were filled with articles about the two visitors.

Sartre and Beauvoir in Cuba. “La luna de miel de la Revolución” (The Revolution’s Honey Moon) (Casa Vacía) reconstructs step by step that visit and the chronology of that decisive year for Castro’s international image. Compiled by Duanel Díaz Infante and Marial Iglesias Utset – author of a fascinating study of the birth of the Republic in 1902, “Las metáforas del cambio en la vida cotidiana”(The Metaphors of Daily Life) – the volume gathers the meaning of the presence of both French intellectuals in a country that, according to Sartre, “had to triumph.”

Filmmaker Pavel Giroud, who was at the center of many controversies last year after the release of “El caso Padilla” (The Padilla Case), makes his debut in novels with Habana Nostra. The story is based on an old script by the director about the gangster Lucky Luciano, a regular in the Cuban capital during the 40’s. Finalist of the Azorín Novel Prize, it was published by Traveler and has already been presented in Spain and the U.S.

An anthology by storyteller Alberto Garrido, “Gritos y susurros” (Cries and Whispers), was published this month by Ilíada Ediciones. Novelist Amir Valle has said of these stories that “they shook in many ways the panorama of national literature. Undoubtedly, pieces of excellence by an authentic Cuban short-story writer on par with Alejo Carpentier, Lino Novás Calvo, Virgilio Piñera and Onelio Jorge Cardoso.”

With the death of Juan Manuel Salvat on November 26, the Cuban exile community lost the man who did the most to bring Cuba’s literary heritage within reach. Born in Sagua la Grande, Villa Clara, he was part of a generation that, without forgetting Cuba, knew how to rebuild his life and think about the future.

El Gordo (The Fat Man), as his friends called him, did not hesitate to take up arms first against Batista and then against Castro. He protested against the visit of Soviet leader Anastas Mikoyan and was expelled from the University of Havana. He left Cuba clandestinely and returned by sea. He was imprisoned. He fled again and went into exile in Miami, where he realized he had to change his strategy.

An exile needs books, and Salvat became not only the rescuer of old authors, who also left the island but also the publisher of new ones. From Lydia Cabrera to Reinaldo Arenas, he nurtured his catalog with names of excellence. Thanks to those books, he told me, he could utter the phrase in which his legacy is summarized: “I have managed to live as a Cuban all my life, even though I have been far from the country.

Translated by LAR

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Nine Soldiers and Four Officers Are Missing in the Ammunition Explosions in Holguín, Cuba

Military authorities acknowledge that they do not know “the state of those who initially faced the incident”

Images published by the residents of Rafael Freyre after the explosions at the warehouse / Facebook

14ymedio, Havana, 8 January 2025 – Thirteen soldiers are missing after the explosions that occurred during the early hours of Tuesday in a weapons and ammunition warehouse in Melones, in the municipality of Rafael Freyre, Holguín.

Almost 12 hours after the event happened and after long hours of rumors and uncertainty, the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces made public the information and identities of the missing. They are Major Leonar Palma Matos, Major Carlos Carreño del Río, second non-commissioned officer Orlebanis Tamé Torres, second non-commissioned officer Yoennis Pérez Durán, and soldiers Leinier Jorge Sánchez Franco, Frank Antonio Hidalgo Almaguer, Liander José García Oliva, Yunior Hernández Rojas, Rayme Rojas Rojas, Carlos Alejandro Acosta Silva, Brian Lázaro Long, José Carlos Guerrero García and Héctor Batista Adrián Zayas.

The ministerial statement says that the families were previously informed and that “throughout the day actions were developed to specify the state of those who initially faced the incident.” The explosions continued all day, complicating free access to the facilities. continue reading

The ministerial statement says that the families were previously informed and that “throughout the day actions were developed to specify the state of those who initially faced the incident”

The debate about the slowness of information was quick to take place. “We are talking about a place where until you have the certainty that another detonation will not occur, you can’t enter,” a commentator replied to the publication of the first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the PCC in the province, Joel Queipo Ruiz. “I think that can be understood by anyone in the world. What we want most is to be able to go inside and find people still alive. But we can’t do anything reckless that could cause worse results.”

The Holguín Defense Council and a commission of the Ministry are analyzing the situation caused by the fire that led to the explosion. “The damage to the property is being evaluated, and the surveillance of the place continues, an effort that also includes the Ministry of the Interior and the National General Staff of Civil Defense,” says the statement.. It adds that the 361 people who reside in the vicinity of the warehouse have been evacuated.

This type of accident is not rare in military installations like the one affected yesterday. In the first hours of the event, it was even spread – even by the official press – that the damaged warehouse was the same one that in 2020 also suffered two morning explosions in Gibara, about 50 kilometers from Rafael Freyre.

In addition, in June 2017 something similar took place, this time in Santiago de Cuba, when several explosions occurred in the municipality of Songo-La Maya, near the Ti Arriba military unit.

At that time, half a thousand neighbors were evacuated for five days, without anyone giving them an explanation about the incident. There was not much damage, but the residents had to abandon their animals for several days.

Last year, three workers died in several explosions at the Empresa Militar Industrial (EMI) Ernesto Che Guevara, located in La Campana, in Manicaragua, Villa Clara. The accidents occurred when employees handled potentially dangerous explosive devices.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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