Translating Cuba – Page 163 – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Expensive and Exotic, the Quimbombó No Longer Features on Cuban Tables

The food that once produced a catchy chorus of traditional music is hardly consumed among young Cubans

Not only has the product gone up in price, but the rest of the ingredients that accompany it also cost a fortune / 14ymedio]

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 22 September 2024 — Preparing a dish of quimbombó (okra) is one of those popular pieces of wisdom that has been lost with decades of mass migrations, State agricultural plans and a very limited basket for the rationed market. Younger Cubans barely know how to cook this fiber-rich food, which also has little favor among children and that one day slipped forever into a catchy chorus of traditional music.

“Quimbombó que resbala pá la yuca seca” [“okra that slides together with dry yucca”] is the song that, among others, was popularized by the Chappottín Ensemble and that has become an inescapable theme with the wiggling of hips and a lot of alcohol. But beyond the festivities, the fruit, which is used in kitchens as a vegetable, has not escaped the Island’s inflation that raised traditional recipes to the level of gourmet food, suitable for very few pockets.

In September of last year, a pound of okra cost 100 pesos in the market at 19th and B, in El Vedado. Twelve months later the food is quoted there at 150 after experiencing an increase at the beginning of 2024 that took it to 200. But those oscillations do not give the measure of how unattainable it has become for many families, because the other ingredients needed for cooking it have skyrocketed even more: meat, spices, garlic, onion and tomato, among others.

In September of last year the pound of okra cost 100 pesos, and twelve months later it is quoted at 150 / 14ymedio

“The first thing you have to do is get rid of the slime,” explains Zenaida, a retiree from Central Havana who declares herself “frustrated” because she continue reading

can only enjoy it by herself at home. “My grandchildren don’t like it. My daughter says it disgusts her, and everyone prefers to eat the picadillo that the butcher sells, even though no one knows what’s in it,” she complains.

Zenaida, a mulata who for decades has been a Santería godmother for dozens of residents in her neighborhood of Pueblo Nuevo, inherited the taste for quimbombó from her mother, the granddaughter of slaves, who ended up marrying a blue-eyed man from the Canary Islands who arrived in Cuba in the 1920s. Of their three children, only the old woman remains on the Island: “My older brother went to a better life and is in the Colón cemetery, and my younger sister also went to a better life and is in Miami.”

In the family, the recipe to make the quimbombó was one of the first that was taught to girls as soon as they began to get into the pots and pans: “First, you soak the quimbombó in water with a little vinegar or lemon to remove the slime,” she explains to this newspaper, in reference to the substance that is seen when eaten boiled, which is slightly reminiscent of gelatin.

“Then you boil it until it softens and in the meantime prepare a good sauce,” she explains. “I like it with meat, preferably beef, but pork also goes very well with it. My mother also threw in chicharrones,” Zenaida recalls. The quimbombó, also know as okra, is highly valued in the kitchens of many African countries and the Caribbean.

“These days they are a little small,” warned a cart peddler who this Saturday offered quimbombó on Carlos III Avenue. “But there are people who prefer it that way because they say it softens more easily.” In the small El Vedado grocery store, a pound of the fruit was offered at 80 pesos, but the presentation was far from the clean bag with larger specimens on offer at 19th and B.

“These days they are a little small,” warned a cart peddler who this Saturday offered quimbombó on Carlos III Avenue

“Most of those who buy quimbombó from me are older people, because the younger ones don’t even know how to cook it,” the merchant explained to this newspaper. “A lot of pizza, a lot of croquettes, a lot of hot dogs: young people here no longer eat real food,” he lamented. “The problem is that quimbombó doesn’t taste good without meat, and meat is harder to find than electricity,” he joked.

“Also, it seems that the farmers have realized that it doesn’t sell very well in the market, so they don’t harvest it as much as before,” the man added. “When I was young there was plenty; you could go to any small shop, and next to the malangas and the squash was the quimbombó, but today people don’t even know how to select it. They cannot distinguish between one that is good quality and one that stays hard.”

A few feet from the wheelbarrow, a retiree, with his empty bag hanging from his shoulder, complained about the price of the product. “I like it but can no longer pay that price, and also in my family, no one eats it but me,” he said. “Just for the tomato and the garlic cloves you need for the seasoning, half of my pension is gone.”

Today, the rise in the cost of living and the loss of culinary traditions have had one of its most notorious victims in the quimbombó. The lyrics of that contagious song are indecipherable for most Cubans born with the ration book and the five-year agricultural plans.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Withdraws Its Doctors From a Town in Sinaloa, Mexico, Due to Clashes Between Drug Traffickers

A group of Cuban doctors in Badiraguato, Sinaloa / Facebook/José Paz López

14ymedio, Mexico City, 26 September 2024 — “If they die, you die.” This was the threat a group of hitmen made to several Mexican doctors at a hospital of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), located in Villa Unión, Sinaloa. The doctors were forced on September 15 to treat drug traffickers with gunshot wounds after a confrontation.

The wave of violence that has plunged the state into a security crisis for more than 20 days, with 79 deaths, kidnappings and clashes, led the Cuban Embassy in Mexico to order the withdrawal of Cuban specialists who were in the town of Concordia, in the municipality of El Palmito.

Sinaloa Senator Paloma Sánchez Ramos, of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), denounced on Monday that after 15 days of fighting, the state has recorded 79 murders, 70 missing persons, the theft of 98 vehicles and losses of more than 5 billion pesos (almost 250 million dollars).

“They are not used to stress like this. The Cuban Embassy asked us to protect them and we had to do it that way,” said state Health Secretary Cuitláhuac González Galindo on Wednesday, in an interview with Espejo magazine. continue reading

Soldiers of the National Guard in Concordia, Sinaloa / Periódico Mercurio

The Cubans are part of a group of 32 specialists – 16 general practitioners and 16 surgeons, anesthesiologists and pediatricians – who had been sent to rural communities in El Valle del Carrizo, Choix, El Fuerte, Badiraguato, and Concordia.

González Galindo stressed that the Cuban doctors “were there (in El Palmito) and were among the last to leave the area.” The region, located in the mountainous area, became a ghost town due to insecurity. Last week, more than 50 families abandoned their homes and moved to Mazatlán.

The Department of Welfare and Social Development of the Mazatlán City Council confirmed to 14ymedio that 26 family units were located in Villa Unión and another 28 in Mazatlán, but the groups asked for “discretion” in light of the threats they have received from factions of the Sinaloa Cartel – Los Chapitos, made up of the sons of the famous drug trafficker Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán Loera, sentenced to life imprisonment in the US – and others, close to Ismael El Mayo Zambada, who are fighting for control of the state.

The medical centers in El Palmito and Integral had to close. However, those located in Villa Unión, Civil and General remain open.

Confrontations between Mexico’s armed forces and drug cartel hitmen have marked the final phase of the administration of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The spiral of violence linked to organized crime has left more than 450,000 murders and some 100,000 missing in Mexico since 2006, according to official figures.

In Sinaloa state, where the cartel of the same name is based – one of the most powerful and violent in the country – internal disputes within the criminal gang have resulted in dozens of deaths.

López Obrador, who is leaving office next week, has promoted a controversial campaign, with the slogan “hugs, not bullets,” that supposedly seeks to address the roots of the problem, such as poverty, rather than war.

On Thursday, nine bodies were found with bullet wounds at the exit of the tunnel known as Sinaloense, on the Mazatlán-Durango highway, in the municipality of Concordia. The state Public Security Secretariat also confirmed the blockage of the toll booths in Coscomate and Mesillas.

On the other hand, the agency reported the discovery of a clandestine grave in Culiacán, the state capital, where there were three men “whose identity is unknown.”

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Two and a Half Years in Prison Requested for Opposition Leader José Manuel Barreiro for Sharing Memes About Cuban President Díaz-Canel Memes

His innocence was proven “to the point of exhaustion,” his relatives accuse

José Manuel Barreiro Rouco, member of the Citizen Movement for Reflection and Reconciliation / Facebook

14ymedio, Havana, 19 September 2024 — Opposition leader José Manuel Barreiro Rouco, arrested in June last year, was finally tried last Monday in the Cienfuegos Provincial Court. The prosecution requested a sentence of two and a half years in prison for the crimes of contempt, and illegal possession and sale of dollars.

The first charge, according to the final petition dated May 22 and released by family members last Saturday, is based on the fact of sharing memes considered offensive and affecting “the honor and integrity of relevant figures of the Cuban Revolution,” including President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

According to the indictment, Barreiro Rouco published in a WhatsApp group called Familly, with 11 people close to him, “images in which degrading epithets were attributed” to Díaz-Canel, Raúl and Fidel Castro. The accusation says that “he also wrote messages in which he declared ‘Homeland and Life’ and ‘Down with Communism’.” Similarly, “he is associated with people who oppose the Cuban revolutionary system, both in the physical and virtual arena, supporting publications on the Facebook page known as Aguada Informar.” continue reading

The prosecution says that he also wrote messages in which he declared ’Homeland and Life’ and ’Down with Communism’.

Regarding the illegal possession and sale of dollars, the legal document indicates, briefly, that the activist, “in the first half of June 2023, without being able to establish the exact date,” sold 1,000 dollars and obtained profits of 200,000 pesos, “outside the legally established channels in the country for that activity.”

Jam Pérez, the activist’s nephew, posted on Facebook that Barreiro Rouco, a member of the Citizen Movement for Reflection and Reconciliation, was initially “accused of belonging to a group dedicated to subverting the constitutional order in Cuba.” He added that his “innocence was proven to the point of exhaustion,” so “they tried to fabricate other crimes against him that were also not upheld.”

In the post , he explained that, “already under house arrest, he was notified that he was accused of contempt and currency trafficking,” both accusations, he said, “without any kind of support.” He added that the family was in charge of showing all the elements to prosecutors, lawyers and members of the courts, and “they reached a consensus that none of the accusations are supported.”

Regarding the messages, he added that “while it is true that in the Familly group we shared content that was not in line with the system, it would be worth clarifying that the group, as its name suggests, is strictly family-oriented and nothing and no one is authorized to violate the privacy and intimacy of a family.”

Only someone with all the bad intentions in the world would dare to accuse him of such a thing.

“I don’t believe that my uncle, one of the most intelligent, kind and loving men I have ever met, would have encouraged his family to do such a thing. Only someone with all the bad intentions in the world would dare to accuse him of such a thing,” she said.

Barreiro, 54, a resident of the Aguada de Pasajeros municipality in Cienfuegos, was arrested on June 15 of last year “ without explanation as to why he was detained.” He was held in preventive detention for 90 days, “under investigation” for – it was said at the time – a post he made on Facebook the previous morning, where he denounced that a former State Security agent was entering the United States legally.

After six months in prison – without any request from the prosecutor, trial or case number – “his sentence was changed to house arrest” on December 30, his nephew said.

As of August, the number of political prisoners in Cuba has risen to 1,105, according to the latest monthly report by Prisoners Defenders (PD). In its statement published on Monday, PD emphasized “the horrendous situation that prisoners live in, starving, sick, without medical attention and tortured” and denounced “the lack of food, the lack of medical attention and the denial of medicines.”

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Cuban Soldier Accused of Exiling Opponents Dies From Complications of Oropouche Fever

Two Cuban Foreign Ministry officials reported the death of Lázaro Delgado Chaple on social media

In the center, Lázaro Delgado Chaple, second in command of the Directorate of Identification, Immigration and Foreigners of the Ministry of the Interior / Facebook/Orestes Hernández Hernández

14ymedio, Havana, 24 September 2024 — Until last week, the death toll from Oropouche Fever in Cuba, according to Cuban Public Health authorities, was zero. However, the death of Colonel Lázaro Delgado Chaple, reported at the same time by several Cuban officials – and not by the official press – casts doubt on the declared figures and highlights the silence of the health authorities, who have been opaque about the total number of cases on the Island so far.

Delgado Chaple, second in command of the Identification, Immigration and Foreign Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior, died from “complications resulting from Oropouche,” Orestes Hernández Hernández, a Foreign Ministry official who said he knew the soldier, posted on Facebook last Thursday. According to the post – which was removed from the official’s profile – the two worked together in the “securing” of the José Martí international airport in Havana during Barack Obama’s visit and then Delgado Chaple went on to occupy the position of head of Remodeling of the Museo de la Denuncia, in the municipality of Playa.

The Cuban consul in Mexico City also lamented the death of the soldier, saying he had lost a “comrade” and “brother in the fight.” This Tuesday, the comment, recorded by CubaNet , also did not appear on the official’s profile. continue reading

The Cuban consul in Mexico City also lamented the death of the soldier, saying he had lost a “comrade.”

In February 2022, Delgado Chaple was included on a list of repressors by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, which pointed to the military officer as one of those responsible for the expatriation and forced exile of activists, journalists and artists opposed to the regime.

So far, the island’s Hygiene and Epidemiology authorities have assured that the Oropouche virus is a disease with mild symptoms that rarely ends in death. In fact, in the latest report that Public Health made public on social media, attention is focused on dengue, an arbovirus with similar symptoms but higher risk, which can coexist in the same patient with Oropouche Fever.

Unlike dengue, which has not reached Artemisa and Granma, according to the statement, the Oropouche infection has spread throughout the island, although the number of infections or deaths is not specified. As of the end of August, only 506 cases have been confirmed since May, when the first cases were reported in Santiago de Cuba. Due to the lack of means in hospitals to identify the disease, the figures could be much higher.

Many Cubans have even stated that, after going to hospitals, as recommended by Public Health if symptoms appear, the health workers themselves claimed not to have the means to identify whether it was Oropouche, dengue or another disease, and sent them back home with a “standard” treatment.

The presence of the virus on the streets of Havana was revealed by ’14ymedio’, at the beginning of June, despite the silence of the authorities

The presence of the virus on the streets of Havana was revealed by 14ymedio at the beginning of June, despite the silence of the authorities in the face of the accumulating cases and the discontent of the residents with the situation. By the end of that same month, this newspaper reported the presence of the Oropouche in 13 of the 15 provinces of the Island, which at that time contrasted with the data from Public Health that only officially counted nine.

Public Health has been criticised on numerous occasions for allegedly hiding or partially providing data on infections. The most emblematic case was during the Covid-19 pandemic when, even with hospitals overwhelmed, Hygiene and Epidemiology offered relatively moderate daily figures of sick people. Even the treatment given to those who died from the virus was dubious. Not only was death declared due to “complications associated with the coronavirus” – a euphemism to avoid adding more deaths to the death toll from the disease – but many corpses were buried in mass graves.

As described in this newspaper, in the San Francisco batey [sugar workers’ town], several kilometers from Manzanillo, up to 200 people who were victims of Covid were buried in mass graves every day.

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The Regime Shuts Down the Turkish ‘Patanas’ for the Day To Conserve Fuel

The Cuban authorities keep the few oil reserves to support the nighttime power deficit

View of the Bay of Havana this Tuesday, September 24, without the smoke of the patanas that the Government has decided to shut down during the day / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 24 September 2024 — “For the first time in a long time the landscape is not stained with the smoke of the patanas. Now things have become critical,” exclaimed a resident of Nuevo Vedado on Tuesday. Until about 7 in the morning, the smoke from the three floating power plants in Havana Bay was visible from the 14ymedio newsroom, but not even an hour had passed when the sky began to clear.

The explanation was offered by the Unión Eléctrica de Cuba (UNE) in its first morning newscast: the generation will stop during the day to be able to use all the capacity at night, since there is no fuel.

“The National Load Dispatch Center estimates that by noon there will be a loss of 750 megawatts (MW), because the floating and distributed generation plants are being preserved to operate at night and early morning,” says the communication, which also begins with a devastating sentence: “High demand and lack of imported fuel are causing high deficits in generation capacity.” continue reading

Late on Thursday, the Cuban Government was able to pay for and unload one of the four oil tankers that were waiting in the ports of the Island, but the Minister of Energy and Mines had already warned: “In Cuba, 3,000 tons of hydrocarbons are consumed daily. A 20,000-ton boatload lasts for a week. Two or three boats are needed for seven days to supply diesel, gasoline, liquefied gas, fuel oil and turbofuel.”

The figure is, however, an estimate, judging by what happened this Monday, when 950 MW had been predicted, which, finally, became 1,081

Minister of Energy and Mines Vicente de la O Levy must be anxiously awaiting the arrival, scheduled for tomorrow, of the Ocean Mariner, which was loaded and left the port of Tampico, Mexico, heading towards Havana. Since it is not known with certainty whether the fuel is paid for to Pemex or given to Cuba, it is not possible to determine if the arrival on the Island is a guarantee of immediate access to oil, but relief is on the way. In addition, the Ocean Integrity is in the port of Cienfuegos, and this Monday the Primula left Mariel after being in Pastelillo (Camagüey).

In this situation, the UNE authorities predict a maximum demand of 3200 MW for this Tuesday, which represents a deficit of 995 MW at peak hour. The figure is, however, an estimate, judging by what happened this Monday, when 950 MW had been planned, which finally became 1,081.

“They should suppress the morning interview of the UNE. The information provided has no practical use. It creates bewilderment and uncertainty. No possible solution or attenuation is projected,” complains a network user. Many other commentators agree with this argument and accuse Bernardo Espinosa, a Canal Caribe journalist in charge of the report, of “looking like an Energy and Mines worker” for never asking relevant questions; such as, what are the real causes of a deficit that this year has not retreated and has now advanced?

“There are many questions for the journalist,” he said in the brainstorming. For example, why is there so much delay in the solution of the Felton 2 boiler? Why was the burned unit in Mariel not recovered with the Russian credit? Why did they close two inefficient units in Cienfuegos of Czech manufacture but not replace them? Like these there are many, which Bernardo knows very well,” says a user.

The entry of unit 6 of the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant is scheduled for today with 95 MW, but the five of Renté are still being repaired, and the one of Santa Cruz del Norte in Mayabeque is still under maintenance.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Four Major League Players Resign From the Official Cuban Team

Julio Robaina, Omar Estévez, Narbe Cruz and Erisbel Arruebarrena were among the 11 participants who emigrated
The Cuban representation in the Little League World Series was left out of the competition

The integration of Cuban players with experience in the Major Leagues is in doubt for the Premier 12 tournament / Jit

14ymedio/Swing Completo, Havana, 21 August 2024 — Of the 11 exiled players who had agreed to play for the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) in the international Premier 12 competition, four recently “declined” despite the fact that they had committed to the Island team. The refusal of Julio Robaina, Omar Estévez, Narbe Cruz and Erisbel Arruebarrena complicates the plan of the Federation, which last January announced that it would form a competitive squad with Cuban members from teams of the United States Major Leagues.

Initially, the institution contacted emigrated players who compete in 40 teams but barely convinced a dozen, among them the habanero Narbe Yadán Cruz. The athlete left the Island in 2019 and a year later got a contract with the Houston Astros for 218,000 dollars. He is currently part of the Asheville Minor Leagues team, and, despite committing to the Cuban national team, his interest is focused on returning to the major league circuit rather than representing the Island.

Estévez, for his part, faces a bad streak in the sport. His performance has been declining since his contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers ended in 2022. The matancero [player from Matanzas Cuba] barely added seven games since then – five of them with the Mexican team of the Tomateros de Culiacán and two with the Puerto Rican club Leones de Ponce. continue reading

The Santa Clara U-12 team was eliminated from the Little League World Series / Jit

Robaina is also going through a difficult time after suffering an injury that has kept him away from the game, in addition to the fact that this year his contract with the Houston team ends, which will allow him to re-sign or look for another team to play with. This could be the reason why he gave up defending Cuba in the Premier 12, an event that brings together a dozen of the best national teams of the World Baseball and Softball Confederation, said Pelota Cubana. His future could be in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League, but nothing has been finalized yet, the same media added.

Finally, Arruebarrena is in full recovery from an obligatory surgery due to a knee injury, so he was taken out. This athlete from Cienfuegos played for the FCB as part of Team Asere in the 2023 World Classic, where the Cubans lost.

The obstacles to forming a national team do not end there. The national baseball commissioner Juan Reinaldo Pérez Pardo admitted on Tuesday that the participation of the Major League players “is not entirely safe” and will depend on “the authorization of the clubs, if they declare them in extreme fatigue due to the number of games played during the season. It will also depend on the medical insurance that is not covered on this occasion by the World Confederation of Baseball and Softball,” according to Juventud Rebelde.

Also among the dubious participants is the baseball player Elián Leyva, who may not attend the contest due to his contract with the Leones del Escogido (Dominican Republic) for the winter. “It’s most likely that he won’t be able to participate,” Pelota Cubana said.

On September 10 Cuba must deliver a list of 60 players from among whom it will choose those who make up the national team to present themselves in the Premier 12. The emigrated players, however, seem insufficient. The FCB’s list also includes Alexei Ramírez, Yoan López, Yadir Drake, Roberto Baldoquín, Lázaro Armenteros, and Darién Núñez. According to the sports authorities, the name of Yusnier Padrón is also mentioned.

In other international competitions, the Island has not managed to achieve a good status either. Represented by the Santa Clara team, Cuba was eliminated this Monday by Mexico 6 to 4 in the Little League World Series, held in the American city of Williamsport (Pennsylvania) . “The relay pitching could not hold out,” said the official media Jit.

The Cuban team was invited by the organizers to play the tournament this year; however, next year it will have to compete with other representatives to be able to participate in the event.

This Tuesday the World Baseball and Softball Confederation announced the qualifying groups for the upcoming World Classic of 2026, which will take place in the United States, Japan and Puerto Rico. Cuba is part of Group A, where Puerto Rico – the venue for this group – Canada, Panama and another team to be defined are also included.

Group B was left with the United States, Mexico, Italy, Great Britain and another team to be defined. They will play at the Minute Maid Park stadium in Houston, Texas. Group C, for its part, is made up of Japan, Australia, Korea, Czech Republic and another country, while D is made up of Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Israel, the Netherlands and one last participant.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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August Rumors in Cuba: ‘Black Berets’ in Venezuela, President Díaz-Canel’s Broken Arm

A strange helicopter incident with the president’s grandchildren

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel last week at the renewable energy fair / Presidency of Cuba

YucaByte/14ymedio, Havana, September 23, 2024 — What Havana orders is fulfilled in Caracas. In all the rumors collected in August by 14ymedio and YucaByte, the suspicion is repeated that the Cuban regime designed the strategy to keep Nicolás Maduro in power, manipulate the election results and dismantle the opposition. It is a logical deduction from the fact that both governments have given numerous indications of what is at stake in Venezuela and its growing interdependence.

The approach has been, above all, several users speculate, in the military and counterintelligence sphere. The massive presence of agents from the Island in the electoral process, their advice to the Venezuelan police and the sending of detachments of Cuban special troops – the so-called “black berets” – appear in a large part of the complaints on social networks, although both regimes have denied any type of interference. The Cuban Foreign Ministry insisted that it “maintained the normal and planned flow of movements of the members of Cuban cooperation in Venezuela.”

Several social media profiles of aeronautics fans detected alleged irregular flights between both capitals in planes of the state-owned Conviasa and Cubana de Aviación. They contained soldiers and diplomats from the Island, alleged many users. The truth is that Havana had already planted, months before the elections, numerous agents, such as the journalist Pedro Jorge Velázquez, known as El Necio, who now lives in Caracas.

Several social media profiles of aeronautics fans detected alleged irregular flights between both capitals in planes of the state-owned Conviasa and Cubana de Aviación

In addition, a photo published by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla – and deleted shortly after – attested to the presence of agents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other entities of the Island in Caracas. Maduro himself was educated in Havana in 1987, as a student at Ñico López, the Communist Party School, a fact that many dusted off to show how long Venezuela has been in the sights of the Cuban regime.

Faced with the victory of the opposition – which Maduro did not recognize, unleashing a political crisis in the country – it was also a rumor that Havana considered Venezuela lost and that it had begun to withdraw its troops. Another hypothesis announced that Cuban troops were ready to act against the Venezuelan military if they decided to give their support to the continue reading

opposition and turn their backs on Chavismo. Finally, the rumors reached the extreme of saying that Cuba had one last trick up its sleeve: to capture Maduro and hand him over to the U.S. Department of Justice, which offers a reward of 15 million dollars for him.

On the other side of the Caribbean Sea, rumors continue to circulate about the corruption of leaders and their rush to leave the island to live out their “retirement” in the United States or Europe. Those who stay – say the rumors – have found a new source of corruption in the private enterprises. Through deals under the table, the inspectors take a slice of the profits of these businesses.

The families of the upper elite have also offered something to talk about this month, after the report of a forced landing in Holguín of a helicopter from the State-owned Gaviota was reported. According to rumors, two of Raúl Castro’s grandchildren were on board.

On the other hand, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as El Cangrejo — The Crab — and also Castro’s grandson, is rumored to have assaulted Miguel Díaz-Canel and dislocated his right arm. At least this was the explanation that many gave to the sling that the president has been wearing for several weeks and which he did not explain.

Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as El Cangrejo — The Crab — and also Castro’s grandson, is rumored to have assaulted Miguel Díaz-Canel and dislocated his right arm

A fired former high-ranking official, Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, appeared in a photo that circulated for several days. Dismissed in 2009 along with then Vice President Carlos Lage, and absent from public life, Pérez Roque continues to pull strings within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the rumor, and has contacts with important private entrepreneurs. The photo, however, showed him on foot and in humble clothes in a corner of Havana.

The terrible state of Public Health continues to be the subject of multiple rumors. This month there was talk of the sale in pharmacies of expired medicines, which are also used in hospitals. Some users report that many of these drugs were available in the warehouses at least since 2021, judging by the expiration dates.

Rumors about the burning of garbage dumps – a new sign of protest against the inaction of the Communal Services – are also recurrent; the acts of violence, such as the discovery of the mutilated body of a 20-year-old; and the beatings, silenced by the regime, that its agents give to members of their relatives and acquaintances. It was the case of the Havana judge Josué Mayo, of whom photos circulated with the information that he had assaulted his secretary. For few users it was a surprise that his own court acquitted him.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Boar Hunting Giant African Snails Passes Through Havana

The boar has managed to break the shell and already chews on the foot, mucosa and tentacles / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 28 August 2024 — The boar moves freely through the streets of Luyanó, in Havana. As if he knew that this December 31 his life has been spared – he still has many pigs to fertilize and piglets to see grow – he calmly sniffs the grass on the sidewalks and ignores his owner, who takes him for a walk as if he were a pet.

The scene is almost bucolic – the little terrier runs next to him, the owner greets those he meets – if it weren’t for the pig’s appetite: if he finds a bug he eats it. The problem is when its teeth find a hard shell and a gelatinous mass: it is the Giant African Snail, which has met the most unlikely predator.

The owner doesn’t seem to care. The boar has managed to break the shell and already chews the foot, mucosa and tentacles. On the palate of the strange hunter, the prey is a delicacy and in a few minutes there is no trace of the dangerous mollusk or its beautiful spiral shell. continue reading

What the boar has just had for breakfast is a highly toxic animal, capable of devouring – if its victim does not move, of course – anything / 14ymedio

The dog, perhaps with a sixth sense that tells him what is good for the stomach and what is not, does not interfere. What the boar has just had for breakfast is a highly toxic animal, capable of devouring – if its victim does not move, of course – anything. Its slow invasion of Cuban streets began a decade ago and has only increased. Once circumscribed to rural spaces, they are now the owners of the street.

It is a plague. Cubans dodge them and sometimes destroy their shell, when they are rushing and don’t observe the sidewalk well. However, it is rare that they find a nemesis, as happened this Wednesday with the unfortunate Luyanó snail. In his life, which can reach six years, he collects bacteria, parasites and excrement. The trail left by his slime is far from being harmless.

Without the slightest hint of concern, exhibiting its testicles to the slight Havana breeze, the pig continues on its way. He does not suspect – although his owner should know – that what he has just ingested is practically poison, and that his work as a male to guarantee the continuity of the domestic pigsty is in danger. Maybe, in fact, he doesn’t even face December 31st alive. And not for the usual reasons.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Students Spent Three Weeks in a ‘School in the Countryside’ Without Leaving the City and Without Books

“They made them clean and do other jobs where they don’t have people to do them”

The teachers threatened the students whose parents didn’t want them to work despite the fact that they had informed them that it was “voluntary” / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 23 September 2024 — The educational authorities of Cuba had announced that the new “school in the countryside,” with which several grades began the 2024-2025 school year on September 2, would last only 15 days, but a week before the end of September, there are still many students who are obliged to participate in the project, sold by the regime as a “link between study and work.” This is the case of Lucía, who is in eighth grade at a school in Luyanó (Havana) and who, after spending several weeks employed in different tasks, has to prepare a report in writing and present it orally, explaining everything that they did.

One of the questions she has to answer is “what is a school garden and why is it important?” despite the fact that they weren’t sent to any garden at any time. “I don’t know what there is to explain, if all they did was go to a childcare center to entertain the little kids with their cell phones,” explains Marian, Lucía’s mother. At first, she says, they made them go get lunch and snacks for the children, “but an inspector came and told them that they couldn’t do that.”

“What I think is that they rotated them where they don’t have people, to make them work,” Marian says. “That’s a way to exploit young people.” In the end, she says, “what are they going to put in the report? Lies, nothing more.” continue reading

“What are they going to put in the report? Lies, nothing else”

Micaela, a resident of the Havana neighborhood of Ayestarán, also in eighth grade, was not taken out of school “because there was no transportation or position,” says her father, Luis. Instead, she spent last week, along with her classmates, going to school at regular hours to do “cleaning and beautification work.”

Other reports collected by 14ymedio said that some students were sent to wash bottles in a private company.

Although they presented it with fanfare in the official press, the authorities did not really fully explain why they resurrected a project of such infamous memory for the Cubans who grew up in the 70s and 80s, a project whose eradication was one of the most applauded measures when Raúl Castro came to power.

The families’ presumption was the lack of school supplies. Children forced to do these “alternative” tasks have not received the books they need, three weeks after the start of the school year. On the other hand, teachers have threatened students whose parents have refused to subject them to what they consider a “vexation” and something “inappropriate for their age,” despite the fact that they had been informed that it was “voluntary.” “They tell them that it will have an impact on their grades, that they won’t look good in the ranking, and why? They themselves are the ones who have not fulfilled their obligation and have not given the children school materials.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Tabacuba Is Committed to a Harvest of 25,500 Tons and Income of 300 Million Dollars

The joint venture Habanos S.A., 50% owned by Spain, earned 721 million dollars in 2023

In Pinar del Río, the mecca of Cuban tobacco, planting seems to be recovering due to the amount of resources that are set aside / Habanos SA

14ymedio, Havana, 23 September 2024 — The authorities estimate 300 million dollars to be the amount received each year by the Cuban State thanks to tobacco, according to a note published this Monday in the State newspaper Granma. It reports on the start of the campaign in Pinar del Río, where the irrigation of seedbeds is beginning with the aspiration of sowing 12,000 hectares, more than half of the 20,000 that will be planted throughout the country.

Marino Murillo Jorge, president of the Tabacuba Business Group, after contributing to the shipwreck of the country’s economy as the author of the Ordering Task, announced that the tobacco sector’s bad luck after the passage of Hurricane Ian – just two years ago – has passed, and the harvest is expected to reach the 25,500 tons of leaves required by the industry.

It will be necessary, the official warned, “to increase production, in order to have the raw material that is needed for the export of braided cigars.” For this, the State has guaranteed something unusual in the midst of scarcity: secure fuel until March and the availability of all fertilizer formulations. “The hirings and arrivals are behaving as we expected. In terms of resources, we have exceptional conditions,” he exulted. continue reading

For this, the State has guaranteed something unusual in the midst of scarcity: secure fuel until March and the availability of all fertilizer formulations

Everything is apparently ready for profits to continue to rise, something confirmed by information published this Sunday in Cubadebate, according to which Habanos S.A. has obtained a record income in 2024 of 721 million dollars. In reality, it is about the turnover achieved in 2023 that the sector expects to equal or exceed this year. Net profits, after deducting production and marketing expenses, are not public, and only half correspond to Cuba, since it is a joint venture equally owned by Cubatabaco and the Spanish ITI Cigars.

Habanos S.A. celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and boasts of being “a global reference in the promotion and marketing of the famous Habanos, considered by many as the best cigars of the world,” with a presence in 130 countries and different lines, among which Behike of the Cohíbo brand stands out, considered one of the best premium tobacco creations.

There are reasons for satisfaction, since it is one of the few products that work in the Cuban economy. The company closed 2023 with 721 million, which was 31% more than the previous year in which it achieved 545 million dollars, which at the exchange rate change was 578 million, ten million more than in 2021, the year in which revenues had already grown by 15% compared to 2020.

“The news is very encouraging, but those millions of dollars are not seen on the Cuban’s table,” says a reader of the news published this Sunday. “Divide it between the cost of rice, petroleum and cooking oil and tell me the result. It will take ten exportable products just like this one to see,” replied another, knowing that tobacco is an exception in the national industry, only comparable to rum, charcoal, lobster and honey, which, however, record much more modest benefits.

Murillo Jorge commented that the main challenges of the sector are to achieve greater efficiency and raise agricultural yields to the 1.4 tons per hectare to which the Group aspires.

The need to protect tobacco also involves “reducing dependence on fossil fuels and the National Electricity System”

The need to protect tobacco also involves “reducing dependence on fossil fuels and the National Electric System,” says Murillo. That is why he announced as a priority the transformation of energy consumption to photovoltaics, which begins to accumulate expectations before it is even installed.

As a result of the passage of Hurricane Ian in September, 90% of the tobacco houses in Pinar del Río were razed. Tobacco producers told the foreign press at that time that it would possibly take “between eight and ten years” for the province to recover, but the attention and resources that the Cuban authorities have put into the sector have facilitated an unusually rapid rehabilitation.

Despite the fact that the plantings have been smaller these last two years, the revenues from the export of the product are outstanding. However, Murillo asks for more efficiency, especially when it comes to “improvising agricultural yields, organization and discipline in the correct use of the hard currency we have to materialize imports.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The United States Joins the International Call for the Freedom of José Daniel Ferrer

The White House shows “increasing concern for the health” of the opponent

José Daniel Ferrer suffers from health problems in prison / Facebook

14ymedio, Havana, 20 September 2024 — The United States Government demanded this Friday that the Cuban authorities release the political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer, as well as the more than 1,000 Cubans “unjustly detained.” Through the Undersecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Brian Nichols, the White House also pointed out the “rising international concern for the health” of the opponent and leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), which has been diminished by prison conditions and his recent hunger strike.

“We condemn the horrendous conditions that he and other unjustly detained political prisoners suffer. We call on the Cuban government to release Ferrer,” the official said. The complaint is added to that of the European Parliament this Thursday, which, as in 2019, again demanded that the regime release Ferrer “immediately and unconditionally,” as well as all the people “arrested arbitrarily for political reasons and for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”

The non-binding resolution was approved with 380 votes in favor, 182 against and 51 abstentions. In the call, European deputies condemned “the torture and inhuman and degrading mistreatment inflicted against José Daniel Ferrer and the other political prisoners.” They demanded that “the families of the victims of the Regime’s persecution be immediately allowed access to them, and that the victims receive medical attention.” continue reading

The complaint is added to that of the European Parliament this Thursday, which, as in 2019, again demanded that the Regime release Ferrer immediately and unconditionally

“The repression must end,” said the members of Parliament, who asked the European Union to sanction “those responsible for the persistent violations of human rights” on the Island.

On September 7, the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio García Ibáñez, and the priest Camilo de la Paz, in charge of the Penitentiary Pastoral of the diocese, visited Ferrer in prison. The meeting was announced by Nelva Ortega Tamayo, wife of the political prisoner, in statements to Martí Noticias.

Although the opponent is mentally and physically “stable,” the archbishop and his companion were worried about his health, she reported. “To be precise, his health is not good,” Ortega told the media, and she clarified that Ferrer told García Ibáñez and De la Paz that he suffered from heartburn, stomach pain and “a practically paralyzed” arm.

Similarly, on September 12, Amnesty International, in a message on X, expressed concern about Ferrer’s life

Similarly, on September 12, Amnesty International, in a message on X, expressed concern about Ferrer’s life, since “his family could not visit him for months and found that his health has seriously deteriorated under the prison’s inhumane conditions.”

Ferrer García was one of the prisoners of the so-called Black Spring of 2003, when he was sentenced to death. Then, his sentence was commuted to 25 years in prison thanks to the efforts of the Vatican and the mediation of Spain.

During his current conviction – for trying to join the ’11J’ protests of 11 July 2021 – his family, especially his wife, has denounced the Regime’s constant refusal to let him receive family and conjugal visits. On numerous occasions, due to his forced isolation, Ferrer’s family and some independent institutions have requested a proof of life for the political prisoner.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cafeteria Hamburgo – a State-Run ‘Microwave Oven’ to Torment Havanans

Hamburgo suffers from every possible problem that a state run cafeteria could have / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 20 September 2024 – Going from hell to heaven – or at least to purgatory – is a question of temperature. This is well know by the habaneros who go from the state run cafeteria Hamburgo to its neighbour, Fress. At the former, customers are welcomed by a massive wave of heat; in the independent establishment the air conditioning is working and the atmosphere is pleasant. This is just one of the many differences between the two premises in Plaza de Carlos III in central Havana.

Hamburgo suffers from every possible problem that a state run cafeteria could have, but its central location and its overheated atmosphere make the ordeal of eating there even more noticeable. In the words of the waitresses – whose ill-humour is even more of a fixture than the daily menu – it’s not that the air conditioning is switched off, but that “it’s on so low that it’s more like a gasp, it’s nothing”. Customers leave the place convinced that even a gasp would be more refreshing than the actual steam that the cooling system puts out.

Fress honours its name, which sort of sounds like the English ’fresh’. The place has fallen on its feet after many ups and downs since it started out, and now it puts Hamburgo in the shade. The bright red decor in the latter contributes to the feeling of being inside a “microwave oven”, as one diner put it. continue reading

The menu’s star attraction, the hamburger, couldn’t look more different from how it appears in the marketing / 14ymedio

Up there in the corner of the ceiling, the air conditioning contributes to the noise in the cafeteria. At the tables closest to it you can hear the machine spluttering. It’s using up electricity and the idea of keeping it turned down low is supposedly to save power, but it’s pointless, that doesn’t work.

It’s clear that the air conditioning is “dragging” electricity out of the place: more than a few of the lights are blinking – an effect that gives the whole scene the feeling of a horror movie. Apart from that, there are inattentive and irritated staff, tasteless and sugarless fruit juices – “they’re diet drinks!”, jokes one customer – and the menu’s star attraction, the hamburger, couldn’t look more different from how it appears in the marketing. On the poster, the disc of ground meat is juicy and greasy; in the actual item, a squalid sheet of protein is all you get under the bread.

Hamburgo sells Parranda beer for 180 pesos and an imported one (oddly) for five pesos less. Juices and soft drinks cost between 90 and 100; the Super Hamburger – pork and beef, ham and vegetables – costs 550. Cheaper ones cost between 275 and 300 pesos. Ham is often unavailable.

The bill for two people can reach up to 1,500 pesos, but in Cuba no one is startled any more by inflation, which – unlike the hamburger – is solid and you feel it in your stomach. Sweating and fed up with it all, the customers take their last bites of Hamburgo’s star attraction and leave. Nearby there’s a perfume shop, where it’s the air conditioning, at midday, that attracts more customers than the eau de cologne.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Cuban Doctors Waiting for Certification To Practice in Spain Ask for Solutions

A health worker attends to a patient in a health center in Madrid, Spain, in a file image / EFE / Mariscal

14ymedio, Madrid, 23 September 2024 — Cuban doctors living in Spain have declared war on the bureaucratic jam of the Ministry of Universities, which prevents the certification of their degrees within a reasonable time. The doctors complain that it takes an average of two or three years to carry out this validation, when the law establishes a period of six months. Therefore, the Movement for Cuban Certification in Spain and the Association of Cuban Doctors in Spain have intensified their demands in the last year, and this Wednesday they will protest before the Congress of Deputies demanding solutions.

The work has been accumulating for too many years, which is why the Government approved in 2022 the obligation to process certification electronically, thinking that this would speed up the process. Although, according to the Fair Certification Now! platform, there was a significant reduction (from 50,677 applications in 2022 to 34,221 in 2023), the ease of submitting the documentation has also increased the number of files, so that at the end of that year, 45,000 had already accumulated, creating too many cases with the same number of officials in charge of managing them.

Although the General Secretariat of Universities issued, in February, a recommendation to order the processing of files for Spanish and European legal residents “through a specific way that allows rapid integration into the labor market,” the agony continues. According to the Fair Certification Now platform, among all the professions, there were more than 100,000 files backlogged. continue reading

From the Movement for Cuban Certification in Spain there is talk of an arbitrary paralysis of the applications for a year

Cuban doctors need to provide four documents to have their degrees certified in Spain: their degree, a certification of their grades, their work career and a certificate that guarantees that they are qualified to continue practicing their profession, all legalized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, health workers complain that the Cuban government systematically denies them the reference for their professional career, which extends the deadlines. In the Facebook group Cuban Doctors in Spain, the members advise starting to process the approval before living in the European country and “looking for a lawyer,” because the State is obliged to deliver everything that is asked of them.

Among them circulates the rumor – supposedly based on the officials of the Ministry of Universities – that Spain is considering no longer demanding the document in light of the Regime’s deliberate delays, but officially nothing has been said. From the Cuban Certification Movement in Spain, on the contrary, there is talk of an arbitrary shutdown on applications for Cuban doctors for a year, alluding to “a background check” by the Ministry.

“This selective and systematic discrimination not only harms the professional rights of these doctors, but seriously affects the Spanish health system, which currently faces challenges in the coverage of medical personnel and long waiting lists, which directly impacts patients and their families,” they denounce in a statement.

Cubans, like other non-EU workers, can join the national health system in two ways, either by taking the Medical Resident Intern entrance exam or through temporary contracts if the country’s different autonomous communities – which have health competitions – allow it. However, in both cases it is strictly necessary to have their degree certified.

According to the Community of Madrid, in that region alone there are more than 7,100 foreign doctors

According to the Community of Madrid, in that region alone there are more than 7,100 foreign doctors, most of whom are Cubans, Venezuelans and Argentinians, so the Minister of Health Fátima Matute has urged the Government of the nation to shorten the procedure. “Likewise, we ask you to help solve the situation of Cuban doctors residing in Spain who have an approved degree but who cannot practice because they lack the qualification certificate that the Cuban government denies them,” she wrote in a letter addressed to Mónica García, the Minister of Health.

The Ministry of Health approved this year an extraordinary call to approve non-EU specialists through specific exams that were held in the first quarter of the year, although they still had to have their degrees in general medicine validated.

In 2020, the worst year of the covid-19 pandemic in Spain, the Ministry of Universities certified the degrees of 134 Cubans – one of the nations with the most complete files, after Venezuela and Colombia – 82 of them during the state of alarm that was in force between March 15 and May 9 of that year, according to the department’s statistics provided to 14ymedio. A year later, in 2021, 564 doctors and 39 nurses of Cuban origin joined the Spanish health system after obtaining the relevant certifications, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Feminists Confirm a New Femicide, the Second in a Week

The victim is Annelis Hernández Puerto, 47, who was allegedly murdered by her partner

In the Criminal Code of Cuba, femicide is not classified as a crime, and the terms “femicide” or “sexist crime” are not used / Maykel Hernández/Facebook

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 24 September 2024 — The independent Cuban platforms Alas Tensas and Yo Sí Te Creo confirmed this Monday a new femicide on the Island, the second in a week.

The victim is Annelis Hernández Puerto, 47, who was allegedly murdered by her partner on September 19 in her home in the municipality of Florida, in the province of Camagüey. After the fact, the aggressor committed suicide, according to the activists.

Both groups expressed their condolences to the adult son who survives, Hernández Puerto, as well as to other relatives and friends. With this death, there have been 35 femicides in Cuba so far this year, according to this newspaper’s records.

The independent platforms also indicated that they have knowledge of three other attempted femicides, and that they require access to the police investigation for six more possible cases in the provinces of Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Villa Clara. continue reading

Both groups expressed their condolences to the adult son who survives, Hernández Puerto, as well as to other relatives and friends

The groups insist on the importance of the Cuban government declaring a “state of emergency for gender violence,” and they advocate for a comprehensive law against sexist violence.

In the Cuban Penal Code, femicide is not classified as a crime, and the terms “femicide” or “sexist crime” are not used

The official Cuban Observatory on Gender Equality stated at the beginning of August that the courts identified a total of 110 women over 15 years of age murdered by their partners or ex-partners, who were tried in 2023.

A recent report by the Attorney General, Yamila Peña, reflected that 72% of the victims are between 25 and 59 years old; 84% of the perpetrators were the partner or ex-partner, and 31% had criminal records of violent acts.

Information about femicides in the Cuban press is scarce, but in recent months the ruling party has publicly recognized the dimension of the problem.

At the end of July, the government approved a national system of “registration, attention, follow-up and monitoring” of sexist violence on the island.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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How Much More Can the Situation in Cuba Deteriorate?

Castroism has shown that the times of greatest scarcity are not the scenarios that most threaten its power

Ideological radicalization is noticeable these days and is growing at the same rate as inflation and despair. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 23 September 2024 — The drip drip drip of bad news for Cubans does not stop. Within just a few days, the authorities announced the reduction in the size of the bread rolls sold in the rationed market; the energy deficit has escalated to a point where blackouts in many provinces exceed 12 hours a day; and the lack of water affects more than a million people throughout the island. Faced with such a scenario, citizens are wondering to what extent the situation could deteriorate in the coming months and what the government is willing to do to stop its fall.

Seen from outside, the crisis that Cubans are experiencing could be seen as the final stretch of a political and economic model that will end up imploding. However, Castroism has shown, over the course of six decades, that the moments of greatest scarcity and desperation are not precisely the scenarios that most threaten its power. The most difficult periods for ordinary people are the times the regime takes advantage of to tighten controls and reinforce its authoritarian discourse. This ideological radicalization can be perceived these days and grows in the same measure as do inflation and despair.

Analysts who have been wrong in successive predictions of an opening are once again venturing to predict that, faced with a lack of resources, the Plaza of the Revolution will have to embark on the path of reforms. But the signals that the Cuban government has given in recent weeks point in another direction: an offensive against private businesses. Faced with the imposition of price caps on certain basic products, and an army of inspectors fining merchants who do not accept the new regulations or who are too slow in implementing electronic payments, the private sector finds itself on alert. continue reading

The signals that Cuban leaders have given in recent weeks point in another direction: an offensive against private businesses

There is also no progress in the area of civil liberties. More than a thousand political prisoners remain incarcerated, a good number of whom demonstrated during the Island-wide ’11J’ mass protests of 11 July 2021. The demand for an amnesty that would allow these prisoners to return home has been met with deafness by a government that has opted for exemplary punishment rather than a conciliatory and magnanimous gesture. Added to this is the imminent entry into force of a new Communications Law that will further narrow the space for independent journalists and intensify the reprimands for those who publish dissenting content on social media.

Described in this way, if the current situation continues, it would seem like a suicidal path for the regime itself, which will end up provoking a new social explosion if it persists in its stubborn control over every corner of the country’s economic and political life. But, in its logic of surviving at any price, the Cuban leadership believes that any opening will be read as weakness, and allowing a small space for dissent could weaken its authority. The leaders of the Communist Party are willing to witness, from their comfortable seats, the national ruin rather than publicly recognize their inability to solve the problems of the Island and allow the emergence of new political actors.

The mansions of the olive-green bosses avoid the stench of the garbage dumps that grow on every corner of Havana, and their swimming pools are filled with water even though thousands of families only receive it from tanker trucks once every two or three weeks. There is no shortage of food on their tables, the size of their bread has not shrunk, and the lamps above their heads do not go dark due to the lack of fuel. Surrounded by privileges, the military leaders can hold on to the ship’s helm much longer. It remains to be seen how the people react to a worsening of the crisis: by taking to the streets to change the course of the nation or by taking to the sea to escape from Cuba.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on DW and is reproduced under license from the author.

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