Translating Cuba – Page 136 – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Ciudad Democracia

Democracy is a contract whose guarantor is a committed citizenry. Every right dies if duties are not exercised

14ymedio, Miami, 17 November 2024 — Unfortunately, a significant number of citizens around the world do not fully realize the absolute truth expressed by Winston Churchill when he said: “Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others that have been invented,” a reason that leads many to neglect it and fail to enjoy it.

A genuine democracy must be shaped by the full enjoyment of freedom, the rule of law, fair justice and equality of opportunity for all.

Democracy requires powerful political parties, not fraternities. Parties are the appropriate instrument to educate the electorate and those aspiring to public office. The ideal link between the electorate and the candidates, a relative guarantee that the elected official will adjust to the proposals of the political group to which he belongs.

The media, whomever they may be, play a fundamental role in democratic society, as long as they are not corrupted by spurious interests. continue reading

It is very true that democratic management is not perfect, that a well-orchestrated electoral machine can bring the most vile to power and, even worse, that this same democracy disappears because we elect to lead it those who are committed to its destruction, as has happened in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia.

It is very true that democratic management is not perfect, that a well-orchestrated electoral machine can bring the most vile to power

We must never lose sight, even in the most solid democracies, that behind every electoral crusade and the most relevant politicians, there are operators and managers who are the ones who draw up many of the guidelines on which the campaign will be developed. Subjects who study our expectations to achieve their purposes, not always beneficial.

These strategists seek to reduce the votes for their opponents, in a kind of war without shots where enemy casualties lead to victory, not always for the best, but even so, democracy, as long as it is respected, must offer us the opportunity for periodic change, the alternation in power, one of its key premises.

These are unavoidable risks, but there are also antidotes, and that is to fulfill our obligation as citizens to be informed. Investigate different sources about the candidates and the proposals. Try to find out what and who is behind the formulas, particularly those that appear to be the most beneficial.

Political campaigns are risky for candidates, but also for the electorate. We should never choose a candidate based on their appearance or the sympathy they generates, skin color, gender, nationality or religion. Our commitment is to choose the most capable and the one who can show the electorate the best record of public service.

Awareness of this dilemma has led our Alexis Ortiz, a Venezuelan journalist and politician who honors me with his friendship, to start a project on the popular YouTube network that gives the title to this column.

The main objective of Ciudad Democracia is to motivate and encourage citizens to actively participate in the enjoyment of their rights and the fulfillment of their duties. To raise awareness that there are no rights if obligations are not fulfilled and vice versa.

Ortiz and his team are driven by the experience of having lost democracy in Venezuela

Democracy is a contract whose guarantor is a citizenry committed to its enforcement. Every right dies if duties are not exercised, because predators will never be lacking in any society, including a democratic one, where conditions exist for them to strip us of our prerogatives.

Ortiz and his team are driven by the experience of having lost democracy in Venezuela through elections, while appreciating that there are other nations at risk of losing it due to the same conditions.

The military coup of 1992 did not bring Hugo Chavez to power, it was the popular vote, the frustration of an electorate disillusioned by the mismanagement of some unscrupulous politicians, who betrayed the social contract to which we all owe ourselves, which was also not fulfilled by the voters by not subjecting the candidates to an appropriate examination.

Ciudad Democracia has made a global commitment to participate in the education of all, fulfilling Martí’s postulate – “education is the only way to save oneself from slavery… A nation of educated men will always be a nation of free men” – while teaching us that there are nations with an imperial vocation, such as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, committed to totalitarian variants that lead to slavery.

The project of Ortiz and his associates is important for everyone. Let us support Ciudad Democracia to defend the rights of all.

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In Villa Clara, Cuba, With Hard Work and an Excellent Peanut Harvest, Braulio Barely Made 675 Dollars

The farmer had to hire several people to do the threshing by hand / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Yankiel Gutiérrez Faife, Rosalía (Villa Clara province), 23 November 2024 — To plant peanuts, without which Villa Clara’s famous turrones* would not exist, three things are needed: experience, technique and luck. Braulio, a 62-year-old farmer from the Rosalía sugar workers’ town in Camajuaní, certainly has the first two. The third is harder to come by. Nevertheless, this year he decided to take a chance and sank twenty-five pots into the ground instead of the usual three. His neighbors, with the usual wisdom of the Cuban countryside, foresaw a good harvest and even better sales.

In October, the radio began giving news of Cyclone Oscar, and Braulio’s life got complicated.

Even for an expert in the cultivation of peanuts like him, the rules of the game had changed. The plant depends on the level of humidity. It is sown in the rainy months, and the furrow needs to be wet, but not too wet. Otherwise, the plant will rot. The downpours that the hurricane brought put Braulio face to face with that risk, and he had to counterattack quickly.

He hired four locals for a few days to speed up the harvest, paying them 600 pesos for the morning shift and another 600 for the afternoon. For the rice and beans – which he also had to collect – he paid a similar amount or made a payment in kind. After the downpours, the peanuts showed unequivocal signs of maturity: yellow flowers with dark spots. continue reading

Once the plants were uprooted, they had to dried / 14ymedio

Once the plants were uprooted, they had to be dried, an almost impossible mission until Hurricane Oscar departed from Cuban shores. Some peanut pods had begun to germinate. For Braulio, it was the sign that he had to start threshing. He promised each guajiro 150 pesos for each can of peanuts that they managed to collect. The work was not easy: it was necessary to separate the healthy pods from those that had already sprouted or rotted.

The threshing is done by hitting the peanuts in a tank or on a canvas, but in the face of urgency, Braulio had to hire several people to do the process by hand, pot by pot. When the sun finally came out, they stretched the canvas on the lawn of the farm and let the pods dry for three days.

The result was satisfactory: 210 cans of peanuts in good condition; about 190 to sell and the rest for sowing next year. “Last year there were few farmers planting peanuts,” says Braulio. “A can was worth up to 2,000 pesos because there was little availability in the area, and the turrones demanded it. Five or six buyers a month came looking and couldn’t find them.”

After the harvest, Alberto, a friend of Braulio who makes turrones and lives in Zulueta – a town in neighboring Remedios – went to his farm to buy his peanuts. He left with the 190 cans that Braulio had planned to sell, at 1,500 pesos each.

The predictions of his colleagues in Rosalía were not wrong. With the sale he earned 285,000 pesos. He subtracted 49,500 pesos for the payment of workers and 14,000 for herbicides, insecticides and other supplies. The net profit brought by the harvest was 221,500 pesos, much more than in previous years, but on the informal foreign exchange market, this exceptional performance is equivalent to just $675 for an entire harvest.

From Braulio’s furrow to Alberto’s factory, the route of turrones in Villa Clara is one of the most traditional in Cuba / 14ymedio

From the furrow of Braulio to Alberto’s factory, the route of the turrones in Villa Clara is one of the most traditional in Cuba. The peanuts are cleaned and ground by hand – Alberto designed a peeling machine -, and the resulting dough is sold to the confectioners of the province. In Santa Clara, for example, one of the most successful businesses is that of Orelvis Bormey, whose original motto for his Casa del Maní, located a few blocks from Vidal Park, left no doubt of its quality: “unshelled and peeled.”

With a novel advertising and distribution system, in addition to deals with the State to export, Bormey and his wife, Jenny Correa, have been producing peanut butter for more than a decade. They also owned one of the 315 pioneering businesses that became private enterprises in 2021.

Although the activity in networks of the Casa del Maní decreased considerably after the pandemic, they then received their raw material from state cooperatives of Encrucijada. That year they came to have three points of sale in Santa Clara and Encrucijada, and their products were sold at Abel Santamaría International Airport and in several hotels in the central region.

Already at that time – after having made a first shipment of their turrones to Italy – they regretted that the lack of agricultural inputs complicated the acquisition of raw material and that they would have to resort to coconut, cheaper, to maintain diversity in their catalog.

Last June, at the Expocaribe fair in Santiago de Cuba, Correa was still looking for international customers. “Entrepreneurs with very particular interests have approached us,” he said with enthusiasm, “but without clear results.” Contradicting its founding motto, Bormey presented among its products “unshelled roasted peanuts.”

*Translator’s note: Turrones are similar to nougat confections but use sugar instead of honey.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In Cuba, a Pound of Pork Reaches 1,000 Pesos a Few Weeks Before the Christmas Holidays

The price of meat has always worked as a thermometer to measure the state of the domestic economy.

The rise in the price of pork comes to a large extent from the fall in national production / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 24 November 2024 — It became so common on Cuban tables that someone proposed to remove from the national shield the Cuban tocororo, that bird that few have seen, to replace it with a good chubby pig. Pork was our Thanksgiving turkey, our Mother’s Day delicacy, our Christmas dish and our December 31 dinner. Nobody questioned the crown ingredient of festivities, the protein of family meals and the protagonist of the boxes that were sold in street stalls.

But Don Cochino has changed and is no longer seen on solemn occasions. This week, in the 19 and B market of El Vedado, Havana, the price of a pound of pork reached 1,000 pesos, twice as much as a year ago. For their part, the offers with skin, fat and bone are up to 900 and for ribs with little to bite you must pay 850. That increase, a few weeks before the New Year’s Eve celebrations, augurs a Christmas without chicharrones or masitas fritas [fried pork chunks] in many homes.

“Here I have 5,000 pesos, and this is not enough for two meals for the four people in my house,” lamented a woman in front of the butcher counter. Shortly before, she had managed to discreetly get 20 dollars from an informal money changer at the entrance. “With what’s left of my money, which is not even 2,000 pesos, I am going to buy some tomatoes and a cabbage,” she sighed.

If in November 2023 a pound of pork reached 500 pesos, which made many Cubans raise their eyebrows and clutch their wallets, the beginning of this year behaved like a launch pad that boosted the price, which in April exceeded 1,200 pesos. By May, it seemed that the rise was beginning to slow down, but in the last quarter of the year it gained height again. continue reading

This week, in the 19 and B market, the price of a pound of pork reached 1,000 pesos, twice as much as a year ago / 14ymedio

The price of pork has always functioned as a thermometer to measure the state of the Cuban domestic economy. While a few decades ago the calculation separated families according to the part of the animal they managed to eat, now it has only two categories: those who cannot afford to sink their tooth into a piece of pork and those who still manage to pay for the meat of what was called “the national mammal.”

“When I was a child my family was poor, my mother worked in the gas company and my father was a driver on Route 22, but in my house they bought steaks, legs, liver and even heart,” recalls Alejandro, a resident in Old Havana who this Thursday tried to buy a pork shoulder in a market on Monte Street. “I couldn’t. When the butcher weighed the piece, it was above 10,000 pesos, crazy.”

“My dad, in the 80s, guaranteed with his salary that we would not miss the year-end pork,” he recalls. Alejandro’s family, without having a high income, was among those who could afford to roast a medium-sized leg for New Year’s Eve. “There were some neighbors who had very few resources and bought fat, necks or even ears, but no one was left without their little piece of pork.”

Now, Alejandro, his wife and their three children have been on the other side of the measurement. The line that divides those who can afford a piece of pig, whatever part of the animal, has thrown them into the area of those who must be content with savoring the memories. “The smell of pork can’t be hidden. When you fry chicharrones it’s like when you cook shrimp, lobster or squid: everyone in the neighborhood knows what you’re doing,” says this 51-year-old from Havana.

“When that smell comes from a house on my block, everyone draws their own conclusions: that family has money and lots of it, because pork is very expensive.” Alejandro does not rule out that some even open the windows and leave the door of the living room open so that the aroma floods the neighborhood and exhibits their purchasing power.

“A plate of pork now says more about your pocketbook than a gold chain,” he jokes. “Look, if you go out on the street with a piece of fried pork hanging around your neck it will cause more of a stir than if you wore an 18-carat gold chain.” In his opinion, the rise in the price of pork is largely due to the fall in national production and the arrival on the market of a product imported mainly from the United States.

“The breeding cycle was broken a few years ago when many females were slaughtered due to a lack of feed”

In the area of Alquízar, current province of Artemisa and former land of pig-breeding to nourish the voracious appetite of the habaneros, “the guajiros no longer want to dedicate themselves to this business,” confirms Mildred, who together with her husband supplied pork loins, with or without skin, with or without bone, to numerous residents of Nuevo Vedado, in the Cuban capital. “There is no feed for the animals,” she says.

“The breeding cycle was broken a few year ago when many females were slaughtered due to a lack of feed. Now people raise pigs for their own consumption and to sell a few animals. The Cuban pig that is currently bred cannot compete with the one that comes from the U.S., neither in size nor quality of meat, and much less in presentation.”

An American pork loin, from the Smithfield brand, is sold in private shops at a price of 1,100 pesos per pound, but “it is clean, very well packaged and with very little fat,” says Mildred. The lean pieces, the sanitary check stamps and the “Made in USA” sign attract more than “the legs full of flies hanging from the hooks of the agromarkets.”

“Most farmers have to slaughter the animal early in the morning to sell it the same day because there is no way to transport refrigerated pieces,” she points out. “In addition, here the pigs are stunted because they hardly let them grow. The lack of food accelerates the slaughter and does not allow them to be fattened. Before you could fatten up three pigs; now you can’t even bring one to a decent size.”

Mildred’s family, however, has saved their leg for the end of the year. “My brother bought it for me. He left a couple of months ago and is now in Tapachula, waiting for the appointment to enter the United States and working as a welder.” The piece that will delight the family on December 31 comes from Brazil. “We are crossing our fingers that there is no other big blackout because we have it frozen.”

If the national electrical system collapses again and the pork for December spoils, no one can predict how much a pound of pork will cost. The animal has already earned a place on the national coat of arms of the dreamed-about Cuba. In that coat of arms, the chubby animal frolics in an idyllic field with a lonely palm. On its head a key in the middle of two pieces of land is the symbol of an Island, in a strategic commercial and political position, that no one inhabits.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Vietnam to Invest Again in Rice Production in Pinar del Río but Will Provide Only 50 Percent of the Seeds

The country sent technical advisers to help the province plant 1,000 hectares, 5% of the land available for rice cultivation.

Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel visits rice fields in Palacios with Vietnamese advisers. / Guerrillero

14ymedio, Havana, 21 November 2024 — Despite the failure of similar projects in the past, Vietnam will begin a new rice-growing effort on the island this winter. The project involves planting an initial 1,000 hectares with rice in Palacios, a town in Pinar del Río province. So far, 50% of the seeds have been delivered.

The site, inspected on Thursday by Miguel Díaz-Canel during a visit to the municipality’s Agro-Industrial Grain Company, consists of 300 hectares to be planted by the end of December — the first planting is set to begin on November 15 — with the rest to be planted by February 2025. Provincial officials note that, if all goes well, the project will be expanded to 5,000 hectares.

His face reddened by the sun and his arms draped over the shoulders of Vietnamese technical advisers, the Cuban president cited the importance of the project, stating, “Cuba could be self-sufficient in rice and achieve food sovereignty.” The chance of that happening, however, is far from certain. The size of the available rice-growing acreage in Palacios is, according to state media, roughly 20,000 hectares. Assuming Cuba does provide all 50% of the required seeds, the Vietnamese project will use no more than 5% of that land.

Around 2,500 of the province’s farm workers are being employed in this winter’s rice planting drive

According to an official report released in early November, around 2,500 of the province’s farm workers are being employed in this winter’s rice planting drive. The plan calls for 5,500 hectares to be planted, which should yield between 1.7 and 2 tons per hectare. The province consumes about 1,873 tons of rice a month. With the 6,000 hectares harvested last spring, the continue reading

province should have enough rice to last a year. That assumes, however, that each hectare achieves maximum yields and that none of the rice is exported overseas or diverted to other sectors of the economy.

“Rice production will continue to grow in the immediate future. The expansion of cultivated areas through different means will also play a key role as long as resources for production are available,” officials promised on November 1. Five days later, Hurricane Rafael hit Cuba’s western provinces, causing major damage to agriculture.

There is no guarantee that Vietnamese aid will help revive the rice industry. Though state media alludes to a “rice-growing tradition” in Palacios, there has also been a history of failures in rice cultivation.

Vietnam has been investing in the town since at least 2009. The highpoint of this partnership came in 2019 when the country spent more than 20 million dollars on machinery, technicians and laboratory supplies to insure that the rice crops thrived, something that did not happen. The province had planned to sow 1,200 hectares in the winter of 2022, a time when the covid pandemic was still raging. State media did not clarify whether or not this was to be done with Hanoi’s help, but the production target of 3.5 tons per hectare was not met.

The rice-growing region of Sierpe is another example of Vietnamese failures

Its experience in the rice-growing region of La Sierpe is another example of Vietnam’s failures in cultivating the grain on the island. The Sur del Jíbaro farm in Sancti Spíritus province seemed not to have been affected by the economic inpacts of covid-19 when it was the subject of a 2021 article in state media which noted that, in spite of the difficulties facing the island’s rice growers, it managed to produce 5.3 tons per hectare, an all-time record.

But by early 2023, Vietnamese tolerance of “Cuban inefficiency” had reached its limit. “They came here twenty years ago but they grew tired. It was worse than trying to grow crops in the sea,” a farmer told 14ymedio at the time. The final blow, he said, was the lack of fuel. A year later, the company’s crop yields fell by 62%.

Last September the government announced it had found a new partner, a privately owned firm, which had agreed to get production at Sierpe up and running again. That partner is Agri Vma, one of the five Vietnamese companies operating in the Mariel Special Development Zone. The firm arrived in Cuba with an initial investment of 21 million dollars in early 2023. Though its business is mainly focused on animal feed, livestock breeding and poultry, its proposal was to launch an experimental planting program with hybrid seed varieties from Vietnam.

“We will share information on growing techniques and provide technical support to ensure success,” said one director, who claimed the company intends is to continue planting the same type of seed on 15,000 hectares throughout the island beginning at the start of the winter season in November. “This harvest, like the previous one, will be donated to the Cuban nation,” she added.

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The Last Journey of Carlos Alberto Montaner, the Most Lucid Cuban of Our Times

Gina Montaner narrates the end of life of her father, the man who knew how to listen, the antithesis of Fidel Castro

The book has other interpretations through the prism of Cuban history. / EFE

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 23 November 2024 — Just by reading the first pages of Wish Me a Good Journey we already know the ending: this is a book that ends with death. We enter into the narration of the last months in the life of Carlos Alberto Montaner, the Cuban writer, journalist and analyst. However, it is not a heartbreaking approach to the end of an existence, but rather a testimony built from the sweetness and understanding of a daughter who asserts, not without doubts and pain, her father’s will to die.

The volume, which has just been published by Planeta, shows Gina Montaner’s maturity as a writer, an exercise in which it is easy to detect her training and experience as a journalist. We are faced with a carefully crafted account, which largely maintains a linear chronology, although with the necessary leaps into the past to explain eight decades of a man who seems to have compacted several lives into one.

Gina gives us a map, but not a treasure map. She spreads before our eyes a plan to follow the rough road of saying goodbye to someone we love. If, in addition, that person is going to close the door of their own free will, choosing the month and the day, Wish Me a Good Journey will then be an indispensable companion on the road. Little has been written, in Spanish literature, about euthanasia, much less by a front row witness to the emotions and responsibility.

In just over 200 pages, we witness with Gina and Carlos the long and tortuous bureaucratic process of claiming the use the Euthanasia Law that was passed two years ago in Spain. The family returns to the place they considered home after the exile they were forced into six decades ago. In Madrid, they deal with bureaucracy, emotions and the deterioration of Montaner’s health due to progressive supranuclear palsy, the neurodegenerative disease that affected his facial expression and continue reading

locomotion, as well as his ability to speak and write.

Montaner imparts a master class in courage that his daughter manages to capture in the small anecdotes of everyday life

However, even though the reader sees a man who was synonymous with elegance in language and politics gradually deteriorate and fade away, CAM, the acronym by which many called him, emerges in a greater light. Without excesses, without displays of feigned courage or lessons of bravery in the face of the approaching Grim Reaper, Montaner gives a master class in bravery that his daughter manages to capture in the small anecdotes of everyday life. From the enjoyment of the cinema in the family room, even hours before his death, to his calm but determined stance in front of the doctors.

We walk alongside them and Linda, the eternal partner who shared her life with Montaner, through the paths of health bureaucracy. A journey that is sometimes frustrating and moving in circles, but flanked, of course, by a right that Spanish legislation enforces and to which, little by little, patients and doctors are getting used to, the latter often anchored to the conviction that euthanasia goes against the Hippocratic oath.

The book also has other readings through the prism of Cuban history. Carlos Alberto Montaner is confirmed to us as one of the most lucid and consistent human beings who inhabited the rarefied scenario of the politics of this Island. The most libertarian among the island figures, he exercised his will until the end, deciding the way and the moment of leaving this world. With the exception of several famous national suicides, Cuban leaders have shown attitudes towards death that range from the irresponsible search for a heroic end to the fearful denial that the last breath is approaching.

Fidel Castro, the man who was Carlos Alberto Montaner’s nemesis in so many ways, clung to a long and debilitating final agony with the sole objective of prolonging his control over the lives of Cubans. The dictator spent ten long years fading away and writing delirious reflections in which he mixed moringa plantations with the light years that separate us from the most distant galaxies. In the face of death, he hid, behaving in the same way as in that early morning of 26 July 1953, when he did not enter the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba but ordered dozens of young people who blindly followed him to die and be killed.

Montaner took his last breath surrounded by the family he founded, a brotherhood based on love and understanding.

While Montaner knew how to put a final point, already in time, to the articles of international analysis that he published punctually each week, Castro imposed the diffusion of his ramblings on the front page of the main media on the Island. One had the nobility to spare his readers any stumble that cognitive deterioration could cause him, and the other forced us to listen to his disjointed litanies read by the anchors of the main news program and repeated in morning school assemblies and party meetings.

Montaner took his last breath surrounded by the family he founded, a brotherhood based on love and understanding. Castro hid his children and his wife for decades, he even refused to give his surname to several of his children and those who knew him closely defined him as a person incapable of feeling empathy for anyone, not even for those who carried his own blood. Authoritarians are known by their lives but above all by how they die. Perhaps it is because they sense that after closing their eyelids they will no longer be able to dictate orders, imprison enemies and shackle countries.

The leader and the writer portrayed in their final moments. One, with his sickly need to dictate to others what they should do, even after his death. The other, gathered in that intimate circle made up of his wife, his children and his granddaughters, doing what he did best: listening. Because Carlos Alberto Montaner was one of those rare Cubans with the ability to listen to others, to sit back and become all ears while his interlocutor told him about prisons, exiles or literary projects.

Reading Wish Me a Good Journey is especially emotional and at times very difficult.

If one asked for a mausoleum to be erected for him that must be visited, the other knew that the most honorable pantheon where his memory should rest was in the books he left behind, the family he founded, and the thousands of friends he had everywhere. For the latter, reading Wish Me a Good Journey is especially emotional and at times very difficult. We are witnessing a testimony that confirms what we already knew but had not wanted to accept: that the most complete public figure that Cuba has produced in the last half century is no longer here.

The man who taught us not to fear freedom, which of course implies immense amounts of responsibility and civic maturity, has left us; nor to fear the leader who sank a country run by an ancient family clan that has caused the ruin of the nation, the greatest exodus in our history, and a political infantilism that is horrifying. The writer who did not reach the shelves of our national bookstores but who people sought out with the eagerness not only for what is forbidden but for what is of value. The analyst who had read with delight and was one of the most cultured minds that has represented our country on the world stage.

The book ends, the last page finishes before our eyes. We must say goodbye, or better yet, hasta luego. The journey continues and Carlos Alberto Montaner has left us the map to explore it fully and at will.

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A Russian Deputy Puts the Installation of Missiles in Cuba and Venezuela Back on the Table

Alexei Zhuravlev believes that this is the best way to respond to the West for assisting Ukraine in the war

Alexei Zhuravlev, first vice president of the Duma’s Defense Committee / AGN Moscow

14ymedio, Havana, 22 November 2024 — The first vice president of the Russian Defense Committee, Alexei Zhuravlev, proposed this Friday that the Kremlin place missiles in Cuba and Venezuela to “attack the United States.” It is not the first time that the Duma deputy suggests returning to the tension of the October Crisis in 1962, but this time he does so in relation to the aid that the West provides to Ukraine. “This would be an appropriate response,” he says.

In conversation with the Russian news media NEWS, Zhuravlev explained that Moscow’s response to Kiev “is already underway, and with considerable success; we are moving forward and we will continue to move forward until they understand that Ukraine must simply capitulate.” However, the deputy believes that a forceful warning to Ukraine’s allies is necessary.

“The answer can be the following: supply medium and short-range missiles to Venezuela and Cuba,” repeated the parliamentarian, whose vision of Moscow’s “partners” has the militaristic and utilitarian tang of relations with the disappeared USSR. The intention remains, however, to respond to the “Ukrainian attacks with British Storm Shadow long-range missiles on continue reading

Russian territory.”

He also recalled that the United States gave Poland an anti-missile system and that the country, bordering Ukraine and Belarus, “can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles” that could easily reach Russian territory.

“Likewise, it is necessary to supply Venezuela and Cuba with similar means, such as air defense”

“Likewise, it is necessary to provide Venezuela and Cuba with similar means, such as air defense, with the capacity to launch missile attacks on the territory of the United States,” he reaffirmed.

Just a few days ago, U.S. President Joe Biden authorized Ukrainian forces to use long-range tactical missiles to attack Russian targets. In response, Moscow modified its military doctrine, which now contemplates the use of nuclear weapons in case of attacks that compromise the sovereignty of Russia and Belarus.

Zhuravlev is not the only one in favor of the militarization of Venezuela and Cuba by Russia. Last July, legislator Sergei Mironov, leader of the Just Russia coalition and close to Vladimir Putin, suggested a similar deployment. The politician, a member of the Lower House of Parliament, said that installing weapons on the Island is one of the Kremlin’s many options if it wants to respond to Western support for Ukraine.

Mironov explained that if Russia sends missiles to Cuba, it could give a signal to the United States, whose missiles were used in Ukrainian attacks against Russian targets in Crimea. “The possible use of a base in Cuba, which was recently visited by Russian ships transporting hypersonic weapons abroad, is just one of many options,” he said in a statement at the time.

Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the Kremlin has revitalized some old alliances

Months earlier, in January, Zhuravlev had already made another of these proposals, which in that case involved nuclear weapons

Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the Kremlin has revitalized some old alliances that have been on ice since the Soviet era. In Cuba, this relationship has included a series of military exchanges, as well as the visit of a Russian naval flotilla in June, headed by a nuclear-powered submarine.

When the Russian flotilla entered the capital’s pier at the beginning of June, the Kazan submarine and the Admiral Gorshkov frigate were carrying missiles of various types: Zircon hypersonic, Kalibr cruiser and Onyx anti-ship. On their way to Havana, the ships passed very close to Florida and carried out exercises with “high-precision missiles” in the Atlantic, which set off alarms in the United States, which also deployed a flotilla in the area and sent a nuclear-powered submarine to the naval base of Guantánamo.

Nor is Cuba conflicted about presenting itself to its allies as a key military point in the region. Last December, the Cuban Army allowed a reporter from the Russian channel Zvezda to record part of its underground arsenal that includes war tanks, missile launchers, Russian Ural-4320 trucks and Chinese Howo trucks.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The United States Is ‘Outraged’ by Allegations That José Daniel Ferrer Was Beaten in Prison

They demand proof of life from the Cuban regime for political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer

José Daniel Ferrer, leader of Unpacu, imprisoned in Santiago de Cuba, in a file image / Screen capture

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 22 November 2024 — The United States said on Thursday that it was “outraged” at the complaints of family members, human rights NGOs and Cuban dissident organizations that claim that the opponent and political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer has been hospitalized after receiving a “brutal beating.”

“Indignant to hear the reports that José Daniel Ferrer was beaten in prison and transferred to another facility,” said Brian Nichols, in charge of Latin America at the Department of State, in his X account.

“We call on the Government of Cuba to allow immediate access to his family and to release him, along with the nearly 1,000 political prisoners unjustly detained in Cuba,” it added.

Ferrer’s sister reported this Wednesday that she was aware of the situation thanks to the testimony of a prisoner in Boniato prison, in Santiago de Cuba, which has a hospital where Ferrer was taken from Mar Verde prison, in the same province, where he has been serving a sentence since 2021.

According to the sources, Ferrer was seriously assaulted, and not being able to be properly treated in the Mar Verde infirmary, had to be transferred. continue reading

The leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) has allegedly been admitted to Room A of the infirmary of the Boniato prison for three days, although no details are known about his state of health, which, according to his relatives, had deteriorated significantly in recent months from existing conditions related to his stays in prison.

The Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba denounced “this act of violence, which shows the systematic dehumanization of conditions in Cuban prisons.”

The Cuban Democratic Directory, based in Miami, held responsible “the communist regime of Cuba in its entirety, especially the hitmen of the dictatorship who serve as prison officers. We demand proof of life for José Daniel Ferrer, his freedom and freedom for all political prisoners in Cuba,” adds the statement of the exile group.

Cuban civil society organizations and individuals asked last August that political prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García be proposed for the Sakharov Prize, awarded by the European Parliament.

Cuban civil society organizations and individuals asked last August that the political prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García be proposed for the Sakhorov Prize

According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, based in Madrid, the petition was signed by a “coalition of human rights organizations” with the aim of achieving the “protection and safeguarding” of Ferrer, whose physical and psychological integrity is at “extreme risk.”

On 11 July 2021, Ferrer was arrested along with his son, for participating in popular protests against the Regime, when he was under house arrest after a four-year sentence imposed on him for “corruption” in 2019.

Since then, he has remained in Mar Verde, where he has been subjected to “ill-treatment and violations of UN recommendations on the treatment of prisoners.”

In December 2022, he began a hunger strike in prison, and since March 2023, he has not received family or conjugal visits and is in an isolated cell with hardly any light.

His last known visitors were the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio García Ibáñez, and the priest Camilo de la Paz, in charge of the Pastoral Penitentiary of the diocese, on September 7. According to his wife, Nelva Ortega Tamayo, they found him in a “not entirely good” state of health, although he was strong in spirit.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With the Exemption of Tariffs on Agricultural Inputs, the Cuban Government Continues Its Patchwork Policy

The private sector does not have the necessary foreign currency to import fertilizers or seeds

The new resolutions aim to make some products cheaper, such as fertilizers and other inputs necessary for cultivation / Granma

14ymedio, Madrid, 22 November 2024 — The Government has approved two resolutions with which it intends to stimulate food production through discounts and tax exemptions on the import of raw materials and inputs. The measures, which affect both the private and state sectors, comes “at a very necessary time, due to serious agricultural effects due to recent weather events,” said the Minister of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale.

It is actually one more step in the direction taken in December 2023, which was highly criticized by several experts for placing the emphasis on tariffs without taking into account the inability of private companies to obtain the necessary foreign currency to finance imports. “Cuba’s agricultural crisis will not be solved by any tariff. In the short term, it requires raw materials and intermediate goods that should be imported mainly by the State,” economist Pedro Monreal wrote at the time.

The minister’s comments to justify the new measures indicate that the Government has not taken the advice of independent experts into account. The official stressed that the decision will not only reduce import costs but will also provide the “possibility of establishing partnerships to recover production lines” and will have a “favorable impact on prices with an increase in supply, especially food.” However, there is a deadline: December 31, 2025, since the measures are “subject to the study of their real impact.”

Resolution 329 automatically exempts 191 products from the payment of import tariffs, detailed in an appendix. These are mainly pesticides, fertilizers, raw materials and inputs from production processes. Among them are grain seeds of all kinds, veterinary medicines for ranchers, continue reading

chemical and mineral fertilizers, and insecticides.

Resolution 329 automatically exempts 191 products from import tariffs, detailed in an appendix

In addition, there is a multitude of tools for the field – shovels, saws, wire – and tires for agricultural machinery, and there is a large collection of items for packaging and distribution ranging from bags to cardboard, paper and pallets.

In the long list, some products for food preparation such as oils of different types and flours stand out. At the end of 2023, when the Government announced that 2024 national manufacturing would be encouraged with tariff subsidies of 50% for the import of intermediate products and 50% penalties for finished products, the ministers themselves admitted the complexity of establishing some limits. For example, flour, which could be “final” if sold to the consumer, could be “intermediate” if used in the production of breads and pastries.

Also striking is the inclusion of three groups linked to the sugar sector, such as cane and beet sugar and chemically pure sucrose in a solid state; other sugars, syrups and honey substitutes; and molasses from the extraction or refining of sugar. This section contains 20 by-products and reveals, on one hand, the dependence of Cubans on a substance the World Health Organization considers “unnecessary from a nutritional point of view” and harmful to health, in particular because of its close link to obesity and type 2 diabetes.

It also reveals what has been evident for a long time. Cuba urgently needs to import the product due to the destruction of its previously powerful sugar industry. In 2023, for the first time, more money was allocated to buying sugar abroad than was obtained by selling it.

According to Regueiro Ale, there are more than 3,000 tariff items, and for the moment, these 191 are automatically exempt, although “the economic actor receiving the goods” must present a quarterly report with the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the use of its profit, in which it must include the price reduction achieved. Ministry and Customs will have the responsibility of evaluating the result of the exemption.

“The economic actor receiving the goods” must present a quarterly report with the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the use of its profit, in which it must include the price reduction achieved”

Resolution 328, for its part, is complementary to the one described above, since it provides for a 50% bonus for items that, also intended for the production of food and agriculture, do not appear in the previous list, which means that the reduction of the tax rate is not automatic but must be requested.

In this case, the documents detailed in the resolution must be sent, which essentially include the identification and billing data of the company, the international sales contract, the quantity of merchandise, its value and the justification for what the cargo is intended for, among others. They will be reviewed and must be sent within 15 days, but the time to correct errors is also extended. In case any document is missing, the applicant is required – interrupting the processing time – to send what is needed within seven days.

Minister Regueiro Ale explained that this resolution aims to improve the previous rule, approved in January, by which tariffs were reduced by 50% on intermediate products, but without documentation and deadline specifications. To date, “the tax sacrifice,” he said, “amounts to about 25 million pesos, especially among non-state economic actors, most of whom have requested this permission.”

The automatic exemption of almost 200 by-products will allow, on the other hand, relieving the bureaucratic burden on both parties and reduce import times. However, the Government is still not considering the possibility of freely trading with the outside world without a state intermediary, one of the main demands of the sector.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Students Will Work for Energy and Mines for Minimum Wage and Without Guarantees of Employment

Although the project is “initially” restricted to the seven careers that are related to the Ministry, it is possible that it will extend to other faculties

Although the State newspaper Granma does not mention it, Cuban universities have been sending students to work for years, at the expense of their own free time and regardless of conditions / Cujae

14ymedio, Havana, 21 November 2024 — Students of seven technical careers in several Cuban universities will be sent – it is not clear whether en masse or voluntarily – to work in the energy-mining sector while they study. What began as an emergency measure to remedy the personnel crisis will become a common practice in Cuba, but with almost no benefits: they will earn the minimum, and nothing guarantees that they can keep their jobs after graduation.

On Tuesday, the State newspaper Granma praised the “new model of work-based training,” an idea that it attributes to Fidel Castro at a distant date – 1968 – which predicts success for the 44 companies where students will work. Juan Ruiz, general director of Mining of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, reported that third-year students from Electrical, Mechanical, Automatic, Chemical Engineering, Geology, Mines and Metallurgical will be called to respond “to the needs of the sector and the country.”

The model is already practiced by the Ministry of Public Health with university hospitals, Ruiz explained, and has begun to be implemented in the universities of Pinar del Río, Havana, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Villa Clara, Camagüey, Granma, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba. Although the project is “initially” restricted to the seven careers that are “linked to the Ministry,” it is possible that it will extend to other faculties, the manager said. continue reading

The model is already practiced by the Ministry of Public Health with university hospitals, Ruiz explained

“Only third- and fourth-year students will be considered, since it is at these levels that they can begin to apply the knowledge acquired in a real environment. For first- and second-year students, the focus will be on the acquisition of fundamental knowledge such as chemistry, physics and mathematics,” he said.

According to Ruiz, some 84 entities were evaluated before implementing the measure, but only half met the requirements. Of these, 19 are electrical institutions; 11 are in oil; seven in mining; five in nickel; one is a salt mine; and the Institute of Geology and Paleontology is included. “Quality is not negotiable,” he said, alluding to the possibility that – due to inexperience – young people might do a bad job.

They will earn a minimum wage; they will be part of the staff as long as the “model” lasts; they will be paid for “fundamental specific projects”; but the Ministry cannot – according to Ruiz – guarantee that they will have a permanent position when they finish their training. The manager took no responsibility for the granting of places, saying that it was up to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, “depending on the country’s priorities, although in some cases changes can be made legally.

Other education officials – the vice-rectors of the Central University of Las Villas (UCLV) and the Technological University of Havana (Cujae) – said that the measure implies a correction of “historical deficiencies” in the articulation of teaching and work in Cuba. “We want students to be more connected with the work environment,” they explained.

“We want students to be more connected with the work environment”

Although Granma does not mention it, Cuban universities have been sending students to work for years – at the expense of their own free time and without basic conditions of transport and food – in centers that need workers. Under the concept of “pre-professional practice,” the Ministry of Higher Education sends pre-university and first-year technical school students to work.

Jorge, a graduate of English Language at UCLV, remembers that every day he and his classmates had to go to the neighboring Lázaro Cárdenas polytechnic school to teach all kinds of subjects, as decided by the management of the center. “Lázaro Cárdenas is one of the worst schools in Santa Clara. No one wants to teach there, and they are always looking for teachers because no one lasts long,” he explains.

From his faculty to the polytechnic he had to walk almost half a mile along the edge of the road, which has a highly dangerous curve for pedestrians. “Trucks and buses go around at full speed, but it’s the only way to get to school.” Originally a Salesian school and expropriated by Castro, the current Lázaro Cárdenas school is a massive building in Girón style.*

“The worst part is not the students, who are stigmatized even in their own families for not having been able to opt for the pre-university, but the faculty and managers,” says Jorge. Those who had been there for several years looked “menacingly” at the “intruders,” because they had to give a report on their experience at the end of the semester.

“Everyone was dumped on the Lázaro Cárdenas. Neither those who went to the Ipvce (the pre-university of sciences) nor those who had to attend other pre-universities in Santa Clara complained in that way,” he explains. In the long run, the collaboration between the two institutions cooled, and those who continued going could have the luxury of attending the first weeks and then drifting out of the classroom. “It was enough to return in the final stretch of the course,” he says. “From the ’work-based training models’ there is no longer anyone who tells stories to Cuban students.”

*Unlike the ornamental style preceding the Revolution, this modern “brutalist” apartment complex was built in 1967 to house the workers of the Girón Bus plant.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Journalist José Gabriel Barrenechea Is Transferred to a Prison in Santa Clara

His admission to La Pendiente prison “represents a serious risk to his life,” warns an NGO

Independent journalist José Gabriel Barrenechea / Facebook

14ymedio, Havana, 20 November 2024 — Independent journalist José Gabriel Barrenechea was transferred on Monday to La Pendiente prison, in Santa Clara. The 14ymedio collaborator had been arrested on November 8 for his alleged participation in the popular protests that took place a day earlier, in the municipality of Encrucijada, Villa Clara, after more than 48 hours without electricity.

The penitentiary center where Barrenechea is currently located is “known for its conditions of extreme overcrowding and for housing prisoners of all kinds,” warns the Denunciation Center of the Foundation for Pan American Democracy (FDP). His stay in La Pendiente “represents a serious risk to his life,” the entity emphasizes in a statement.

Barrenechea was transferred from the Santa Clara Police Instruction Unit where he was being interrogated for allegedly having joined the demonstrations of November 7 in Encrucijada, the Villa Clara community where he lives. According to the legal organization Cubalex, three days after his arrest his family had no news about his situation.

While in the Unit, the reporter remained incommunicado. “Now, in La Pendiente, he is surrounded by common prisoners, some of whom are used by the regime to carry out dirty work in exchange for benefits such as passes, visits or changes in their sentences,” FDP emphasizes. “In this hostile environment, the physical integrity and life of Barrenechea are in imminent danger.” continue reading

This week a letter signed by more than 200 journalists, activists, intellectuals and academics was released demanding his immediate release. The letter emphasized that the reporter was “arrested for political reasons,” which constitutes a “frank violation of his rights.”

The text, which was signed by journalists Boris González Arenas, Camila Acosta Rodríguez and Yoe Suárez; playwright Luis Enrique Valdés Duarte; the coordinator of the Patmos Institute, Mario Félix Lleonart; analyst Juan Antonio Blanco; political scientist Armando Chaguaceda and academic Alina Bárbara López, among others, exposes the “concern for the news related” to Barrenechea’s lack of legal defense.

The signatories of the document join in a unanimous statement: “We demand the immediate release of the writer and activist and, by extension, of all political prisoners in Cuba.”

Barrenechea has been in the crosshairs of the Cuban political police for years for his collaborations with several independent media such as Árbol Invertido, Cuba Encuentro and 14ymedio. Since 2019 he has been subject to harassment and persecution by the regime, which has “regulated” him, preventing him from leaving the country.

His arrest is part of a series of arrests linked to the protests that took place after the passage of Hurricane Rafael and the consequent new collapse of the national electricity system. The organization Justicia 11J recorded the arrest of at least 23 people in Cuba since last October 18, when the national electricity system collapsed for the first time this year. Since that day, there have been 68 protests.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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China Follows in Russia’s Footsteps and ‘Deploys’ an Aid Package for Cuba After the Hurricanes

Xi Jinping is “very concerned” about the situation and “is paying a lot of attention” to the Island, according to the State newspaper Granma

Liu Jufeng, vice president of China’s National Agency for International Development Cooperation, with Díaz-Canel / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Havana, 16 November 2024 — China continues to support the Cuban regime and is aware of the country’s precarious situation after the passage of two hurricanes. According to the official press, a new aid package will arrive from Beijing. The order comes from Xi Jinping himself, who is “very concerned” about the panorama and “is paying a lot of attention” to what is happening on the Island.

Liu Jufeng, vice president of China’s National Agency for International Cooperation for Development, traveled to Havana expressly to offer Xi’s “greeting” to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and to give the news of his economic support. However, neither the Chinese nor the Cuban side has said a word about the “round of measures” to benefit the country or the amount of the “emergency aid.”

“President Xi Jinping has a very complex internal and external agenda, but he closely follows Sino-Cuban cooperation. At the recent BRICS summit in Kazan, he talked to Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla,” Liu told Díaz-Canel. The president was grateful that Beijing gave the regime “very concrete solutions with relatively short deadlines,” especially in the food and energy area. continue reading

With each Chinese government delegation, says the State newspaper Granma, comes a legion of experts to evaluate the country’s situation

With each Chinese government delegation, says the State newspaper Granma, comes a legion of experts to evaluate the country’s situation in several key sectors. The experts then return to China and document the “needs” of the Island, so that the Xi Government can invest in “cooperation.”

In addition to Díaz-Canel, Lou met with Deputy Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas, who is the lead representative in economic relations with Russia, China and the Arab countries; the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy; the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga; and Foreign Ministry staff.

Last month, an article in Financial Times reported that economic relations between Cuba and China are apparently stagnant, but the policies between are steadfast. The aid that Beijing announced this Friday is part of the dynamic between the two countries, characterized by the delivery of “emergency” money and subsequent debts.

Currently, the British media reported, Cuba owes hundreds of millions of dollars to Chinese companies such as Huawei and Yutong.

Cuba owes Chinese companies like Huawei and Yutong hundreds of millions of dollars

A sign of Beijing’s distrust in its Caribbean ally is the cancellation, according to the Financial Times, of an import contract of 400,000 tons of sugar per year from the Island. The reason: the regime is unable to implement a reform of its market that allows it to live up to the production that China requires.

The media quoted a former professor of Economics at the University of Havana, who said that China’s investments in Cuba are almost non-existent and that “it’s more about large-scale trade and commercial credits.”

Debts are another characteristic aspect of the relationship. According to an investigation by Martí Noticias, in 2010 Beijing restructured Cuba’s debt – millions of dollars – and gave more credits to the Island because it had confidence in Raúl Castro’s “reforms”. In 2014, China granted interest-free loans to build a port in Santiago de Cuba and postponed the debt again.

That year, Xi Jinping visited Cuba and met not only Raúl Castro but also his brother Fidel, who would die two years later. In 2016, China activated a protocol to forgive Cuban debt. By that time, Beijing had made it a practice not to say how much Havana owed.

In 2019, Cuba became included in China’s plan to achieve international economic expansion. In 2022, Xi gave Díaz-Canel 100 million dollars in credits during the president’s trip to Beijing. The Chinese president then asked to help Cuba “regardless of the debt.” Last year another 100 million dollars were donated to the Island, and this year China has continued its “cooperation” agenda.

China and Russia have come to the rescue of Cuba after the passage of hurricanes Oscar and Rafael

China and Russia have come to the rescue of Cuba after the passage of hurricanes Oscar and Rafael. In addition to financial aid, both countries have sent senior officials to personally verify the situation.

In recent weeks, not only the Minister for Civil Protection, Emergencies and Elimination of Natural Disasters, Alexander Kurenkov, passed through Havana, but also an old acquaintance of the regime, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Dimitri Chernyshenko, who participated in a meeting in Havana of the Cuba-Russia Intergovernmental Commission for Trade Cooperation.

The message of both officials was the same: “By instructions of our President Vladimir Putin, Russia is willing to provide emergency aid to sister Cuba.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Yunaikis de la Caridad Linares, 11J Prisoner, Faces Isolation and Threats in Havana Prison

Yunaikis de la Caridad Linares Rodríguez / Cubalex

Cubalex, 14 November 2024 — Cubalex warns about the serious situation of Yunaikis de la Caridad Linares Rodríguez, political prisoner and protester of the Island-wide mass demonstrations on 11 July 2021 (’11J’), who is currently in solitary confinement in a punishment cell in the women’s prison El Guatao, in Havana.

Although a few months ago she was transferred to a less severe regime, the authorities are now threatening to return her to the most severe regime or even add a new case to her sentence, according to Maykel Osorbo’s official Facebook page.

Yunaikis faces serious health problems, including asthma and thyroid disorders, conditions that are severely affected by the harsh prison conditions. The lack of adequate care and the hostile prison environment put her physical and emotional health at risk.

Since her arrest, Yunaikis has been subjected to threats, beatings and psychological torture. In addition, the authorities have encouraged other prisoners to attack her, subjecting her to a constant environment of violence and intimidation. Denial of benefits and reprisals are systematic practices used in Cuba against persons imprisoned for political reasons.

Update on the situation of Yunaikis de la Caridad Linares Rodríguez

Yunaikis decided to go on strike on November 13 as a form of protest, demanding to be removed from the punishment cell where she is being held.

Prison authorities have responded by threatening to tighten her detention regime, which would prevent her from accessing the passes granted to visit her family. They have also threatened to add a new case to her sentence, increasing the pressure and risks to which she is subjected.

Her life is in grave danger due to constant harassment by the authorities, who have incited other inmates to attack her, creating an environment of violence and intimidation.

According to activist Anamely Ramos on Facebook , Yunaikis was allowed to make a call in which she announced that she had been taken out of the punishment cell yesterday and transferred to a more severe regime.

Translated by GH

A Wannabe of Science

For a long time science was conducted in the field notebook – with pencils and watercolours – as well as with the microscope.

One of the ’anthomedusae’ drawn by Ernst Haeckel, which today illustrate the Polish writer Stanisław Lem’s books, published by Impedimenta / Kunstformen der Natur (Artforms in Nature)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, 17 November 2024 – Salamanca. To draw an object is to understand it. I leave the house with Faber-Castell pencils, a case of Staedtler felt pens and a hard-backed notebook in my jacket pocket. The pencil line forms quickly and shakily. It’s cold. Hardship can determine style: disjointed, austere, or brief – all virtues which one would want to have also for writing. The world moves on quickly and one wants to keep something of it. Snails, spiders, branches, puddles, voices.

To categorise is to capture; to draw is to hunt. “Regrets: not having continued to draw”, wrote George Steiner, “with charcoal, pastels and ink, in order to illustrate some of my own books. The hand can speak truths and happinesses that language is incapable of articulating”.

For a long time science was conducted in the field notebook – with pencils and watercolours – as well as with the microscope. The German naturalist Ernst Haeckel, whose work is as electrifying as the books of Darwin or Humboldt, is the best example. Better known as an artist than as a zoologist, his prints of jellyfish, radiolarias and cephalopods still make you dizzy. They make you dizzy because they seem to be alive and moving beyond the page. continue reading

Better known as an artist than as a zoologist, his prints of jellyfish, radiolarias and cephalopods still make you dizzy

Haeckel called his subjects enigmas of the universe, wonders of life, artforms of nature. Tentacles, spirals, membranes, strange multicoloured clusters, translucent, viscous and retractable. He dreamt of defining a complete morphology of these organisms. After immersing himself off the beaches of Naples and Sicily and investigating the composition of the Mediterranean waters, he painted some 1,000 images. He moved from art to biology and from biology to theology. He claimed to have defined God as a gaseous vertebrate.

Art, science and writing have one necessity in common: imagination. The scientist Carlo Rovelli says that science is, above all else, a visionary activity, and as such it requires sensitivity. Severo Sarduy, however, warns that: “it is possible that, when confronted with science, a writer is never much more than a wannabe”.

Antonio Parra was, to put it like that, our Haeckel, the man who united science and imagination. Born in Portugal in 1739, he arrived in Cuba as part of an infantry regiment after the English had taken Havana. He settled, left the army, and married a creole girl. In 1787 he submitted for publication one (and perhaps the most celebrated) of the 300 Cuban books that still survive from the eighteenth century, and which someone has called ’our incunables’.

’A Description of Different Types of Natural History, Most of them Marine Life’, with 75 copper engraved plates – in colour in some editions – was the first ever scientific work written on the island. If the military engravings of Dominic Serres and Philip Orsbridge mark a new way of seeing Cuba, or at least Havana, then with his Book of Fishes we have a visual discovery of its nature. The eighteenth century, Lezama explains, “shows us the character of Cuba”.

Science was born on the island through thought, drawing and the desire for exploration. Parra doesn’t write a scientific work, but a catalogue, a guide for his cabinet of curiosities. What curiosities? “The multitude of remarkable works of nature that abound on the island of Cuba and in the seas that surround it – in the the three kingdoms of animal, vegetable and mineral – all inspired in me, from the very first moment I set foot there, a great desire to put together a collection”.

With a “remarkable respect” for his adoptive country, Parra, enraptured, describes the nature of the tropics

With a “remarkable respect” for his adoptive country, Parra, enraptured, describes the nature of the tropics. He preserved and varnished specimens of the creatures that interested him, like Haeckel, the most – fish and marine creatures. He was, he says, praised for this work by some of his friends and this gave him encouragement. After a year the collection had grown significantly, and, despite a “scarcity of engravers”, Parra got his son to illustrate the book. The boy posessed, says the father with some irony, “a somewhat superficial style of drawing”, but he was nevertheless up to the job. He may perhaps have had some help, because the 75 plates are not the work of a beginner.

This improvised naturalist explained all of this to no less than the King of Spain himself, to whom he sent various pieces from his collection. With little preamble, the creatures begin to line up: some of his descriptions are poetical, others are almost tender – one fish has “two little arms, from which come two fins, like hands”. Another “eats with some suspicion”. The devil fish has stilettos in the form of horns, “whose use we don’t yet understand”.

There are [amongst others] wreckfish, bonefish, swordfish, hawkshead turtles, loggerhead turtles, furry and toothy crabs, teleost fish, prickly prawns, the mother of all snails: a kind of beehive that engenders an infinite number of molluscs, and a worm that’s a nightmare worthy of the planet Solaris…

Parra ended up being ignored by the King, who denied him Spanish citizenship. He had collected tropical seeds for sowing in Madrid and Aranjuez and had become a celebrity in illustrious circles on the peninsular, but even in the eyes of his admirers he was little more than a mere empiricist, an improviser, a mere artisan of curiosities. No more, as Sarduy would say, than a wannabe.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Netflix Will Premier Two Episodes of Its Miniseries ‘One-Hundred Years of Solitude’ in Cuba

The streaming platform cannot be legally accessed on the island.

Actor Claudio Cataño as Colonel Aureliano Buendía in the Netflix adaptation of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” / Capture/Netflix

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 20 November 2024 — The American streaming platform Netflix will premiere the first two episodes of its new miniseries “One Hundred Years of Solitude” in December in Cuba. The series is an adaptation of the well-known work of the same name by Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez.

The announcement was made at a press conference on Wednesday by organizers of the Havana International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, which is being held from December 5 to 15 in the Cuban capital, who spoke of it as a “world premiere.”

“The film adaptation of the Nobel Prize winner’s masterpiece will premiere on December 6 in the Cuban capital on the second day of the festival,” said Tania Delgado, festival director.

Netflix, which is not legally available on the island — pirated copies of its programming can be purchased through the so-called “weekly packet” — plans to release this miniseries worldwide on December 11. continue reading

“The film adaptation of the Nobel Prize winner’s masterpiece will premiere on December 6 in the Cuban capital on the second day of the festival”

García Márquez (1927-2014) was an artist with close ties to Cuba. A close friend of Fidel Castro, he maintained a house in Havana. He also founded the New Latin American Cinema Foundation, an organization based in Havana, and the International Film and Television School in San Antonio de los Baños.

The yearly festival is one of the most important events on Cuba’s cultural calendar. Its director announced that this year 110 films will be screened – 89 fewer than last year – from a total of 42 countries including Cuba, Mexico and Argentina.

The 45th edition of the festival will open with the Argentine film “More People Die on Sunday” and will include seminars such as one dedicated to the Cuban screenwriter and animator Juan Padrón (1947-2020).

Similarly, thirty original pieces of art from seventeen countries will compete in the poster competition. The awards ceremony will take place on December 15.

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José Daniel Ferrer Is Hospitalized After Being Assaulted in Prison, Say His Relatives

The opponent’s sister confirmed the news through a prisoner in Boniato, the Santiago de Cuba prison with a hospital to which he was allegedly transferred

José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), during an online event organized by Cuba Decide before his last admission to prison / Screen capture

14ymedio, Havana, November 21, 2024 — The activist and leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), José Daniel Ferrer, is admitted to the hospital of the Boniato prison, in Santiago de Cuba, after having suffered an attack in the Mar Verde prison, where he has been serving a sentence since the island-wide protests of 11 July 2021.

The opponent’s sister, Ana Belkis Ferrer, posted the news on her social networks this Wednesday, 24 hours after receiving the information, the source of which she did not specify.

“Yesterday afternoon, Tuesday, November 19, 2024, we were informed from Cuba that José Daniel Ferrer Garcia had been brutally beaten and taken out of the Mar Verde prison. Today, a political prisoner confined in Boniato prison told a relative that José Daniel has been admitted to the prison hospital,” explained Ferrer’s sister, also an activist.

The sister demanded that the leadership of the regime provide information about her brother’s condition. “We demand that Raúl Castro, Díaz-Canel and all the members of the criminal dictatorship give signs of Ferrer’s life immediately. We hold them responsible for his physical and psychological integrity, and we demand his freedom and that of all political prisoners,” she added.

Early this Thursday, the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC) released an identical statement, condemning what it has “been denouncing for years, along with other actors of civil society.” continue reading

The organization “deplores and condemns this act of violence, which shows the systematic dehumanization of conditions in Cuban prisons

The organization “deplores and condemns this act of violence, which shows the systematic dehumanization of conditions in Cuban prisons. Nothing in the prison regulations authorizes prison agents to inflict permanent physical punishment on those who, like José Daniel Ferrer, do not bow to injustice and humiliation for the exercise of their rights .”

The CTDC, which calls José Daniel Ferrer “a courageous pro-democratic fighter,” is forceful, “making it clear that the Cuban Government is solely responsible for the consequences, whatever they are” on the health of the opponent. The organization also sends its “support and solidarity” to the family of the UNPACU leader, as well as to his friends and members of that organization.

“The international community must urgently speak out against this abuse that many Cuban prisoners suffer,” the statement concludes.

The last time Ferrer’s family had news from Mar Verde prison was on November 4, when, for the umpteenth time, they were denied the right to visit him. They have been denied access for 20 consecutive months,
according to his sister.

They have been denied access to that right for 20 consecutive months, according to his sister

Ana Belkis Ferrer, who currently resides in the United States, told Martí Noticias that he is also denied the right to receive “phone calls.” The leader of UNPACU has been in prison since 2021, and his family was barely able to see him on 11 occasions, although nine marital visits were allowed, all under strict control.

“March 2023 was the last time he had visits and was able to talk to his wife and his son, Daniel José,” said his sister, adding that Ferrer suffers from mistreatment and isolation in a punishment cell with little lighting.

The Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio García Ibáñez, and the priest Camilo de la Paz, in charge of the Pastoral Penitentiary of the diocese, visited Ferrer on September 7, said his wife, Nelva Ortega Tamayo. She was glad at least that “after so long, a “person of God” was able to visit her husband and offer him “encouragement.”

That meeting revealed that his state of health was not entirely good, with heartburn, stomach pains and a “practically useless” arm. However, he was mentally “stable” and firm about remaining in prison despite the regime’s offers.

“They have maintained their harassment, repression and threats. They remind him that he could spend his whole life in prison if he doesn’t decide to leave the country, and he has made it very clear that he prefers to die inside rather than leave,” Ortega stressed. Her husband is considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and other organizations.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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