Translating Cuba

In Cuba, half of the population does not have ’dignified access to water’

In a press conference held this Tuesday, hours before the protests in San Miguel del Padrón, José Antonio Hernández Álvarez, President of the Water and Sanitation Business Group – belonging to the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources – detailed that of the 600,000 affected and recognized by the regime, at least 27% are concentrated in the west of the Island, the most populated area. Provinces such as Pinar del Río and Artemisa each have 30,000 customers without service, and Havana, by itself, exceeds 130,000. In the center and east of the country things are not improving, and provinces such as Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos and Holguín add up to 150,000 affected.

According to Hernández Álvarez, the damage to the water infrastructure in the Cuban capital began, on a date that he did not determine exactly, due to breakdowns in a group of important devices in the South Basin, which supplies the municipalities of Plaza de la Revolución, Centro Habana, Habana Vieja, Diez de Octubre and a part of Boyeros.

“However, after the gradual improvement in that area, now the greatest difficulties are moving to the west of the city,” he said. In that sense, Hernández Álvarez ventured a possible explanation about the 16 days that the residents of San Miguel de Padrón have been without a drop of water. According to what the official told the press, the supply to the municipality operated for a long time with only three, or even two, of its four pumps, “but all are now restored.” In addition, “a driver repair, last Friday, made it possible to recover pressure and flow,” he said, although these repairs do not seem to be reflected yet, because the protests occurred during the night, hours after the conference.

In the official press, notices of repairs of the hydraulic network in Havana have become common, which also affect the roads in some areas. This is what happened this week at the intersection of 23rd street and A in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución.

In addition to the constant breakdowns in the island’s hydraulic networks, there is rampant drought

While attempting to argue before the press about Cuba’s complex situation with water, Hernández Álvarez appealed on Tuesday to the old excuse about the breakdowns in a significant number of pumping stations and the situation of the National Electroenergetic System (SEN).

Regarding the energy crisis throughout the Island, the official reiterated that, “sometimes the availability of the generation or the instability of the SEN prevents the protection of the circuits that house the supply teams. In addition, sudden starts and stops, as well as voltage and frequency variations of energy systems, produce collateral breakdowns,” he added.

The publication of the official newspaper emphasizes that the strategy to “reverse this reality involves attention to priorities, in accordance with the amount of population in places with broken equipment.”

To the constant breakdowns in the hydraulic networks of the Island is added the galloping drought caused by the lack of rain in recent months, which has led Cuban reservoirs to dry up. A clear example is that of the Zaza dam, located in Sancti Spíritus, which is so thirsty that where before the fishermen snuck in to get some tilapia, now there are cows grazing on the grass.

To try to alleviate the “complex” situation, the government has come up with no better remedy than to promise a series of investments, which to date have not been reflected in any benefit to the population. Among the government measures announced for this year is the execution of 206 hydraulic works, including investments and maintenance actions, as well as the acquisition of some 1,390 pieces of pumping equipment.

A worker of Aguas de la Habana reveals to 14ymedio that in the capital, all the repairs that are being carried out on the hydraulic network are very late because there is not enough budget to pay for them. This has forced the workers to reduce their activities to a few jobs on foot, with days of only three hours.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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

“That same vehicle under the current pricing rules would cost more than 50,000 dollars”

The minister reviewed the current “pricing rules” mechanism, with a margin that “is around 350%-500%, of which 30% is the commercial margin of the marketer and the rest forms a special tax.” For companies, however, the price is the cost of acquisition or import, plus a commercial margin of up to 30%.

With the new rules, the price will be the import cost, the tariffs, the commercial margin (which drops to 20%) and a special tax that varies depending on the vehicle. The most preferred, by virtue of promoting the change of energy matrix, will be the electric ones, which are exempt – “to bring us closer to the way the world works on this issue,” although there is no infrastructure in Cuba – while the high-end ones will reach 35%.

The money collected, as had already been highlighted at the end of July in the announcement of the news, will serve to create “the necessary infrastructure in the country to meet the growth of the fleet,” stressed the minister, as well as the updating of public transport, “which is very deteriorated.” Until now, Rodríguez Dávila said, the fund has existed, but in national currency.

“This policy will allow the creation of a new fund in convertible currencies, which will be allocated to concrete projects to restore the infrastructure of our country, although the needs are in the billions,” he said.

“The Ministry will issue recommendations to suppliers so that they know which brands to import”

Individuals who want to import a car can resort to the marketers Imperexport and Cimex, but a new one is also incorporated, the mixed company MCV Comercial, which has been working on the Island since 1995 as an authorized distributor mainly of Mercedes Benz. In this sense, there is doubt about which brands the authorities will recommend importing, since Rodríguez Dávila said yesterday that there would be guidelines. “The Ministry will issue recommendations to suppliers so that they know which brands to import,” he said, and it will depend on the “optimal operating conditions in terms of the fuel they need or the condition of the roads.”

Last July, the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, said that the painful state of road infrastructure in Cuba and the low quality of fuel are capable of “melting” some of the best cars, and he also said that the entry of luxury vehicles would be controlled. “There are some cars that are coming in that are not really compatible with our society and are not necessary,” he said.

Rodríguez Dávila also mentioned the possibility of “receiving international manufacturers to associate and establish their network of services in the country,” although, in an allusion to the US embargo, “not all suppliers will jeopardize a large market for a small one in Cuba.”

Regarding the number of vehicles allowed, the minister said that a person or a company has a limit of six, increasing with the tax burden. For the second car it will be 25%; for the third, 50%; for the fourth, 75%; and for the fifth and sixth, 100%.

Rodríguez Dávila had time for other clarifications, such as the rules affecting motorcycles, the new import formulas for those who fulfill missions abroad or the transmission of ownership. In addition, he said that the vehicles of the tourism sector that have concluded their lifespans and have passed, in priority, to foreign exchange sales, are now excluded from that network and will pass, directly, to the replacement of taxis, patrol cars, state entities and “as incentives for doctors and athletes.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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

Time does not seem to have passed for a plan that remains unchanged despite the technological advances that can be expected in all these years

Although the highlight, for novelty, seems to be the shortening of the travel time between Havana and Santiago de Cuba, which, if fulfilled, would go from 20 hours to 12, the truth is that the 2017 plan already contemplated it, since the peak speed of 120 kilometers per hour (km/h.) was planned.

Those 12 hours that, in the best case scenario, would separate the primary two cities of the Island, are just under the 14 hours that it takes to travel the 1,145 kilometers between Barcelona and Vigo by conventional route; that is, in the few long-distance trains left in Spain that travel at 130 km/h instead of the majority high-speed ones, which connect the main cities at 300 km/h.

Pavlov spoke on Tuesday of an integrated plan that includes the creation of a unified traffic control center and staff training facility, but, once again, these aspects appeared in the 2017 project, which can still be seen on the outdated RZD website.

The Russian state company said it was in contact with the Cuban side and the financial institutions of its country for the allocation of a specific export credit for this project but did not want to give figures. In the previous project, signed in 2019, the amount totaled 1.88 billion euros, but it is expected that the amount will be raised, due to the logical price increase in recent years.

Among the improvements planned by the company is an increase in cargo transport capacity, which would go from 14.7 to 21.6 million tons, while the passenger capacity will grow from 7.8 to 24.3 million people.

It remains to be seen whether or not the project comes to fruition once and for all. The agreement adopted in 2017 and signed in 2019 between the two parties was shipwrecked in 2020, when RZD chose to suspend it.

“Regrettably, we have had to suspend our project of comprehensive modernization of the Cuban railway infrastructure due to economic difficulties and quarantine restrictions on the Island, but we hope to resume the work after the situation has stabilized,” Pavlov himself said in October 2020.

The news came a few days after the executive secretary of the Russian-Cuban Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, Oleg Kucheriáviy, hinted at a massive cancellation of investments in Cuba due to non-compliance by Havana.

The agreement adopted in 2017 and signed in 2019 between the two parties was shipwrecked in 2020, when RZD chose to suspend it

The official told the Russian press that, of the 60 joint projects, only ten were being carried out, and he mentioned at a meeting of the Senate International Affairs Committee that the last session of the intergovernmental commission, which was to be held on the Island, was canceled due to the “silence” and “delay” of the Cuban authorities.

It wasn’t the first bucket of cold water thrown on the project by the Russians. Yuri Borisov, then deputy prime minister of Russia and in charge of economic relations with Cuba – he is currently responsible for the space agency – said after a trip to the Island that Cuban officials had a “Cold War mentality that in post-Soviet Russia” was out of place. “They are complicated businessmen, I’m not going to hide it; the mentality of the past weighs on them constantly. During the negotiations, in the positions they hold, it always appears that they are an outpost of the world revolution and we simply have to help them,” he said.

In this impasse, China arrived to fill the gap left by Russia. In 2022, the Union of Railways of Cuba (UFC) and Beijing Fanglian Technology signed “two letters of intent for the gradual recovery of part of the railway infrastructure.” Among the agreements, a recovery of railway workshops was planned that is being carried out, also with French investment.

Both China and Russia have continued to cooperate with Cuba in respect to rail transport, in particular by sending locomotives. But the new scenario after the invasion of Ukraine, which has relaunched relations between the Kremlin and the Regime, has led to reopening the drawer of lost projects. And the ancient Cuban train continues to chug along.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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

“They have never been given a pass, so it is an absolutely discriminatory exclusion”

“The events of 11 July 2021 left a trail of those who were arrested, beaten and finally sentenced to years in prison,” Sayli Navarro said in an audio sent to Martí Noticias. The daughter of political prisoner Félix Navarro was sentenced to eight years of deprivation of liberty for the alleged crimes of attack and public disorder. Abascal, for her part, is serving a six-year sentence.

Roque adds that “temporary passes have become increasingly frequent in Cuban prisons.” The reason that the prison authorities grant these passes points to the serious economic crisis that the Island is going through. “In prisons there is less and less food; sometimes the only thing they have throughout the day is a little rice.”

Other reports compiled by 14ymedio show that the supply crisis is more crudely acute in prisons, where prisoners are increasingly dependent on the food that their relatives bring them during visits. Without what is popularly known as “la jaba (the bag),” inmates depend exclusively on the meager standard ration that each time is smaller and of poorer quality .

“When prisoners go out on pass there are fewer mouths to feed,” explains Roque, convicted during the Black Spring of 2003 and currently
on parole. The activist, who is “regulated” and cannot leave the country, warns about the extreme situation experienced by common prisoners and, more seriously, by political prisoners.

“In prisons there is less and less food; sometimes the only thing they have throughout the day is a little rice”

The relief experienced by the authorities for not having to supply a plate of food has not weighed as much, in the case of Abascal and Navarro, as the reprisals against two of the most internationally known prisoners of 11J. In September 2023, the authorities denied Abascal a transfer from a maximum security prison to one of minimum security. Prison managers alleged “indiscipline” and “negativity” on the part of the prisoner.

In conversation with this newspaper, Annia Zamora, Abascal’s mother, said that although a judge is the one who should ultimately approve her transfer to minimum security, the report issued by the prison has a remarkable weight on the decision. “Sissi is currently in a prison uniform in a high security cell. They should have already put her in minimum security in another section of the prison, where the prisoners are in civilian clothes with other benefits, and receive passes every month to go home,” she said.

However, the prison authorities refused to grant the transfer to Abascal, alleging indiscipline: “Lieutenant Colonel Marta Cristina, director of La Bellotex, called Sissi to tell her that they would not change her situation because of her ’negative attitude’ and because she is not participating in political acts or shouting slogans.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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

Each and every one of the Cuban municipalities lost population between the end of 2020 and the end of 2023

In detail, the general panorama confirms that the western provinces lost the highest percentage of population compared to the eastern ones, predictably because the purchasing power – very necessary to emigrate – is lower in the latter. This means that there are fewer family members and acquaintances abroad, decreasing contacts for leaving and the possibilities of obtaining the required sponsorship from family members in the United States to qualify for humanitarian parole.

Despite this, the decline in population is not a minor thing. Between the dates compared (from the end of 2020 to 2023, although there are data corresponding to each of the intermediate years), Guantánamo lost 5.3% of its population, going from 505,606 to 478,328 inhabitants, the province with the smallest decrease. It is closely followed by Santiago de Cuba, falling from 1,045,631 to 988,655. The decrease is 5.4%, although the fall to less than one million inhabitants has a strong symbolic effect.

The same thing happens with Holguín, which is in fourth position; Granma, with 6%, has the third smallest loss of population; Las Tunas lost 8.1%, and it loses its quality of a province with more than one million residents (1,021,591 in 2020) and remains at only 938,744.

The special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, which at the end of 2020 had a small population of 83,625, has lost 8.9% of its population in these three years, ending up with 76,154 residents.

The middle area of the table, with a population loss of 9.2% and 9.5% respectively, is occupied by the westernmost provinces, Pinar del Río and Artemisa, which currently have around 500,000 inhabitants.

Meanwhile, the group of central provinces loses about 10% of its population. Among them are Camagüey and Matanzas (10.9%) and Villa Clara (11.5%)), which, to a greater or lesser extent, exceeded 700,000 in 2020 and is now well below that figure. Sancti Spíritus (10.3%), Ciego de Ávila (10.4%) and Mayabeque (11.1%) range from 415,714 for the first to 341,568 for the latter. Cienfuegos, which fell from 406,244 to 356,641 residents, is the second Cuban province that has suffered the most demographically.

But nothing compares to Havana, which went from 2,132,183 at the end of 2020 to 1,814,207 three years later, a loss of 15.3%. To put it into perspective, the population of Ukraine fell by 16.6% between 2022 and 2024 as a result of a brutal war. In Havana, the average loss in each municipality is about 20,000 inhabitants, except for those with the smallest number of residents (Old Havana, Regla and Cotorro).

In 2020, the average age of Cubans was 41.4, compared to the current 42.2, while the most common age has risen from 42.8 to 44.1

The analysis of the Onei includes, also with year-to-year tables by municipality, the demographic rates, with the data of births and deaths, which have a much smaller impact than emigration in the final balance sheet. In addition, figures of internal migrations appear, as well as the few foreign immigrants who arrived on the Island in recent years.

Another table gives the distribution of urban and rural population in each of the provinces and municipalities as well, while the last one has the data disaggregated by sex. The last tables of the document are dedicated to analyzing the average age of the population, as well as the median.

As expected, since emigration is higher among young people, the population has aged in these three years. In 2020, the average age of Cubans was 41.4, compared to the current 42.2, while the most common age has risen from 42.8 to 44.1.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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

Yulelkis Hernández, provincial prosecutor, was much more eloquent about the case and fulfilled one of the functions of these reports: their exemplary character. Hernández said that pre-trial detention was an extraordinary measure, but that the authorities had all the power in the world to apply it, especially if it was requested by the police. The key words, frequent in the official press, is “maximum severity.”

Without explaining the reasons, halfway through the report, Televisión Cubana forgets the case that Tomé is investigating and offers details of another crime: the assault by two young people in the Matanzas Viaduct. “They told us to give them all the valuable belongings we had, they took away our phone, watch, wallets,” says one of the victims, while an officer explains that they immediately “detected” the two suspects, who started running.

Hours later, the victims recognized the robbers in a group of four suspects. They were tried this week, and without revealing their faces, some images of the trial are transmitted. “You can’t lose the citizen tranquility that has been prevalent in this country for years,” Hernández says. “All people who commit these types of crimes will find a severe criminal response,” including life imprisonment.

Exemplary trials have become a new repressive tool in Cuba, although the word that Cuban Television prefers is “preventive.” On August 20, information was published about four trials held in the municipal court of Songo-La Maya, in Santiago de Cuba. The press did not reveal details about the cases, but it did underline its warning character.

“When we make exemplary judgments, we enhance communication so that the message we want to transmit reaches certain recipients,” said Geovanis Mestre, one of the judges of the provincial court of Santiago, interviewed by Sierra Maestra. It is essential, he argued, that criminals learn that the authorities have the livestock in their sights and that the punishments will be severe.

These trials were not chosen “at random,” Mestre said, but because of the “repetition” of the theft and slaughter of cattle in several areas of the country

These trials were not chosen “at random,” Mestre said, but because of the “repetition” of the theft and slaughter of cattle in several areas of the country such as Santiago and Matanzas. At a time when these crimes have been “calling the attention” of the Police, the court decided to turn them into a “behavior of priority in criminal legal confrontation.”

From the massive criminal proceedings of 1959 – not infrequently resolved with the death penalty – to the famous case of Arnaldo Ochoa in 1989, this practice has not lost its validity in Cuba. During the coronavirus pandemic, the Government also held many exemplary trials.

According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, in June 2020 the Police carried out “at least 67 arbitrary arrests,” especially in the provinces of Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Villa Clara, and 74 “repressive actions of another type,” in particular, harassment through police summons.

These arrests were followed by a “wave of exemplary trials” to “intimidate the population affected by the country’s poor economic situation. Several of these processes have been aired by the official media, so that citizens can see how relentless the system can be,” denounced the organization, based in Spain.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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

Both dengue and Oropouche have been increasing in the number of infections in the country. The reason, in addition to the hot summer and the increase in the presence of mosquitoes and jejenes (gnats), is that there are plenty of foci of contagion in the cities, in particular the mountains of garbage.

It was the US government that gave the alert about the presence of Oropouche in Cuba, and last month it identified 21 people affected on their return from the Island, three of whom had to be hospitalized.

These 21 cases were counted as of August 16, and in most of them those diagnosed showed symptoms between the months of May and July, without any deaths being recorded, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

Both dengue and Oropouche have been increasing in the number of infections in the country

Cuba, as a tourist destination, has been on red alert since last October after Ottawa’s warnings, when it advised caution in traveling to the island due to the “scarcity of basic necessities, including food, medicines and fuel.”

In May, the Canadian government stressed the increase in violence, assaults and financial scams, including credit card fraud and the risks associated with ATMs which frequently run out of cash.

Canadian authorities also reported that the Cuban health care infrastructure is critically deficient, with a marked lack of medicines, supplies and equipment, aggravated by insufficient hygiene practices and slow responses to emergencies.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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