Translating Cuba – Page 178 – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Cuban Freemasons Had To Hand Over Their Cell Phones Before Entering the Meeting With the Communist Party

Gustavo Pardo regrets the “inability of the brotherhood to solve its internal problems”

The Freemasons scheduled an extraordinary session for next September 21 at the Great National Masonic Temple / Supreme Council of Degree 33

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 2 August 2024 — The Communist Party refrained from making decisions this Thursday during the meeting that the head of Religious Affairs of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP), Caridad Diego, held with a group of Freemasons from the capital. Grand Master Mario Urquía Carreño, protagonist of the schism that divides the brotherhood, did not participate in the meeting. Caridad Diego limited herself to declaring that she “did not know anything about what was happening” before a public that had been stripped of their cell phones. She said that the fate of Freemasonry is the responsibility of the Registry of Associations, which depends on the Ministry of Justice.

In contact with several of the participants in the meeting, historian and Freemason Gustavo Pardo informed 14ymedio that the Party and the Ministry of Justice will make decisions about the Freemasons, but from now on “they will follow the guidelines provided by Caridad Diego.” For their part, the Freemasons have scheduled an extraordinary session for next September 21 in the Great Masonic National Temple, located on Reina Street in Havana, with a thorough agenda signed by the secretary of the Grand Lodge, Juliannis Reinaldo Galano.

Among the 54 points to be addressed will be a series of “motions outside the day’s agenda” that could, in Pardo’s opinion, address the heart of the crisis: the authority of Urquía Carreño, accused of the theft of $19,000 from his office and whose successive expulsions and rehabilitations have led to an unprecedented Masonic crisis. continue reading

“On the point related to motions outside the day’s agenda, several measures can be presented that can put Urquía Carreño in an awkward position,” Pardo said in an article published this Friday. He also noted that whatever decision is made by the Registry of Associations, it is up to the Supreme Council of Degree 33 and the Grand Lodge of Cuba – the main Masonic authorities of the Island – to be “governed by their respective laws” instead of blindly complying with the “frank and blatant intervention of the CCP Central Committee.”

With the prohibition on cell phones in the meeting, the Government assured that the disseminated version of what happened is “at the discretion of the state agencies”

For Pardo, who says that the meeting with Diego was carried out “as planned,” the Cuban Freemasons “evidenced their inability to solve their internal problems by applying their own laws” by asking Diego to “solve the problem.” In addition, he points out, with the ban on cell phones in the meeting, the Government assured that the disseminated version of what happened is “at the discretion of the State.”

José Ramón Viñas – leader of the Supreme Council of Degree 33 and accuser of Urquía Carreño – was also not present at this Thursday’s meeting. In addition to this absence, apparently voluntary, the writer Ángel Santiesteban and the independent journalist Camila Acosta, arrested by the Police, did not attend, as they denounced on their social networks.

The extraordinary session scheduled for the end of September serves as a repetition of the one held last March, which the Ministry of Justice declared illegal after the Freemasons tried to remove Urquía Carreño from his position of Grand Master. The state agency then asked that the process be held again, something that Diego highlighted this Thursday when she “made it very clear that the Supreme Council violated the law by not summoning Urquía Carreño to defend himself,” and the Grand Lodge did the same thing with Viñas, said Pardo.

According to the historian, “both judicial processes must be initiated again, with the exception that if the High Chamber” – in charge of the judicial process – “approves the decree that suspends the Treaty (of Friendship and Mutual Recognition between the Grand Lodge and the Supreme Council), Viñas will be facing a very serious event.”

If both Masonic bodies lose their bond, the Supreme Council, led by Viñas, would automatically become an irregular lodge

As Pardo explained to 14ymedio on a previous occasion, if both Masonic bodies lose their bond, the Supreme Council, led by Viñas, would automatically become an irregular lodge. “They don’t even own the place where their offices are located,” he clarified at the time.

“Urquía Carreño is the Grand Master with all the powers granted to him by the Masonic Constitution,” says Pardo. Until his departure from the post is achieved through legal channels, he has the right to stay there. The intervention of the Government, which so far has been on behalf of the Grand Master, does not augur anything good for the Freemasons.

Last week, at least 200 Freemasons from several provinces asked the Grand Master to leave his office and face those who asked for his resignation peacefully. Urquía Carreño’s response was to decree the suspension of three lodges in Havana and another in Artemisa. If the scales tilt in favor of the Grand Master, Pardo fears that the brotherhood on the Island will lose many members. Something similar to what happened in 2010, when it was learned that Grand Master Manuel Collera Vento was actually an infiltrator of State Security.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Communist Party Summons Masons to a Meeting Seeking to Increase Its Control

The regime takes advantage of the mistake made by the fraternity in its attempt to dismiss the Grand Master

A Masonic march chaired by José Ramón Viñas and other senior officials of the fraternity / Supreme Council of Degree 33 for the Republic of Cuba

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, August 1, 2024 — The eyes of the Cuban Freemasons are on the meeting that the members of the fraternity in Havana, including several senior officials, will hold this Thursday with Caridad Diego, the Communist Party’s head of the Office of Religious Affairs. The agenda: mediating the institutional crisis that began in January with the theft of $19,000 from the office of Grand Master Mario Alberto Urquía Carreño, which now threatens to stoke the schism between the two highest Masonic authorities in the country, the Grand Lodge and the Supreme Council of Degree 33.

The mediation of Diego, the eternal apparatchik of the regime in this position, assumes that the Masonic problem is already in the hands of the Communist Party and not of the Ministry of Justice, whose Registry of Associations has failed to resolve the crisis through successive interventions. For the historian and exiled Mason Gustavo E. Pardo Valdés, the Party has a clear objective: to create the image that “the Office of Religious Affairs is conciliatory and is the savior of Masonic unity.”

According to Pardo, several of the Freemasons on the Island believe that the Party will take “advantage and benefit” from the exchange. In any case, he explains, the meeting – which will take place at the headquarters of the provincial government of Havana – will be “very interesting.” “The Freemasons of the capital have been ’invited’ to this meeting. There you will be able to know or intuit who is behind this chaos,” says Pardo. continue reading

Entrenched in his office and with the support of several senior officials who recognize his authority – including his secretary, Juliannis Reinaldo Galano – Urquía Carreño has continued to legislate and issue decrees against the lodges that oppose him. Last week, at least 200 Freemasons from several provinces asked the Grand Master to leave his office and face those who asked for his resignation peacefully. His answer came a few days later.

The schism between the Masonic bodies presided over by Viñas Alonso and Urquía Carreño (left and right, respectively) is getting worse / Grand Lodge of Cuba

Four decrees, signed by Urquía Carreño and ratified by Galano, sanctioned two lodges that refused to accept his authority with a measure of suspension. The lodges are Evolution, in Artemisa, and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, General Guillermo Moncada and Luz, from Havana.

According to Pardo, Cuban Freemasonry has been shipwrecked for several months due to serious ethical and legal errors of its members, not only of the Grand Master. The four lodges that agreed to the non-recognition of Urquía Carreño acted, in the light of Masonic Legislation, illegally, whatever their intentions.

Pardo defended this opinion in an article published last Sunday, in which he reminded the Cuban Freemasons that they were bound by obedience to the person occupying the Grand Lodge. There were other legal remedies that should have been used to oust Urquía Carreño, and violating the Masonic Code, he emphasizes, only complicates the matter.

“Urquía Carreño is the Grand Master with all the powers set by the Masonic Constitution,” Pardo summarizes. Until his departure from the post is achieved through the legal channels, he has the right to stay there.

Pardo alludes to Title VIII of the Masonic Constitution, which provides that to dismiss a Grand Master it is necessary for no less than 50 lodges to formulate an accusation, which is sent to the president of the Supreme Court of Masonic Justice.

After the Supreme Court analyzes the case, an investigating judge will be appointed, who will take the relevant statements and submit the result to the president of the Court. The decision will have to be approved by at least two-thirds of the members of the Grand Lodge, who will make up the Grand Jury. This process was not respected.

It is not known for sure how many Freemasons support the current Grand Master. In Havana, Pardo explains, there are 111 lodges in which approximately a third of Cuban Freemasons operate. “If you look carefully at the recording of the protest in the Grand Lodge building, you can see that there are 140 to 200 Freemasons, many of them members of the Supreme Council.”

Cuban Freemasonry has a total of 324 active lodges and around 20,000 members

Cuban Freemasonry has a total of 324 active lodges and about 20,000 members. The Supreme Council, for its part, has between 3,500 and 4,000 members throughout the country, according to Pardo. Since 2010, when it was known that Grand Master Manuel Collera Vento was actually an agent of State Security, Freemasonry has lost about 9,000 members. “Now something similar will happen, because it will increase the control of the Party,” he says.

To be part of the Supreme Council a mason must go through the first three degrees – apprentice, companion and teacher – which is what is known as “symbolic” Freemasonry. Those three steps are the foundation of Freemasonry and are under the authority of the Grand Lodge. A Freemason cannot belong to the Supreme Council without being affiliated with the Grand Lodge; hence a schism between both Masonic bodies can be complicated, explains Pardo.

“In fact, if the Grand Master decrees it, the members of the symbolic Freemasonry cannot visit the Supreme Council, and they would not even have temples in which to carry out their work,” he explains.

Among the Cuban Freemasons there are those who have recommended that the Supreme Council definitively separate from the Grand Lodge and constitute a separate Masonic body – what is called the Great East. For Pardo, this path would be a mistake. If the Supreme Council carried out this maneuver, it would become an irregular Great East, which would start on the left foot and not have the slightest recognition by international Freemasonry.

The members of the Supreme Council of Degree 33, chaired by Viñas Alonso / Supreme Council of Degree 33 for the Republic of Cuba

“They don’t even own the place where their offices are located,” says Pardo. “Even the building of the Supreme Council in Jovellar 164, between Espada and San Francisco, belongs to the Washington Lodge, subordinate to the Grand Lodge.” In fact, Pardo observes, when Urquía Carreño suspended the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Recognition between the two Masonic bodies, he turned the Supreme Council, in practice, into an irregular institution in the eyes of international Freemasonry.

There is one way to oust Urquía Carreño: Masonic Law. That has not been the way that the Supreme Council has chosen. In Pardo’s opinion, the high court has made one mistake after another, starting with the management of the money of the Llansó Masonic Elderly Asylum, whose theft triggered the crisis.

Pardo is blunt: “There was a violation of the Asylum regulations by José Ramón Viñas, who presides over the Asylum and the Supreme Council.” Viñas, who has been in the sight of the State Security for his criticism of the Government, was the one who accused Urquía Carreño of stealing the $19,000. Since then, both senior officials have been in a struggle.

“There was a violation of the Asylum regulations by José Ramón Viñas, who presides over the Asylum and the Supreme Council”

“The Treasury of the Elderly Asylum had the obligation to deposit its funds – both in national currency and in foreign currency – in the corresponding branch of the state bank . Who participated in that violation? Viñas and his governing board, who agreed to deposit the currency in the safe that exists in the Grand Master’s office,” analyzes Pardo.

“Why wasn’t the money kept in the safe of the Grand Treasury? Wasn’t that money the property of the Grand Lodge? Freemasons know that the assets of the institution are managed in the way that best suits the officials in charge of them. But this opened the possibility that Urquía Carreño, who is not a saint, would be used as a scapegoat to unleash the current crisis,” he reflects.

If anything has become clear in the seven months of tension, it is that the problem is no longer just Masonic. The Government has tried to intervene – first from the legal angle, now from the Party – and has arrested or intimidated several Masons opposed to Urquía Carreño, such as the writer Ángel Santiesteban.

Pardo has no doubt that the Office of Religious Affairs and State Security has a large part of the responsibility in the crisis. “Since 1959,” he explains, “infiltration into Freemasonry has been a goal of the State. We now see that this practice is paying off.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cuban Army Runs Out of Recruits Due to the Exodus and Low Birth Rate

The absence of young people in the activities of Cuba’s Youth Labor Army, EJT, is noticeable

Since its inception, the Youth Labor Army has been assigned to work in agriculture and construction. / Telecubanacán

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 31 July 2024 — A bunk bed with a thin mattress, boots that he had to return when he was demobilized and a uniform that was not olive green were, for months, the main belongings of Abdiel, 20, who has just finished his Active Military Service (SMA) in the Youth Labor Army (EJT). In the shelters where it was previously difficult to find space, the young man barely came across “four cats” due to the mass exodus and low birth rate.

Abdiel, whose name has been changed to avoid reprisals, is part of the group of recruits who did “deferred” service, a total of 14 months from when he entered the EJT until he left to study a specialty at La Colina University in the Cuban capital. “I was lucky because although I didn’t get the degree I wanted, I was able to get one that allowed me not to have to spend the two years of Military Service,” he explains to 14ymedio.

A resident of the Plaza de la Revolución municipality and coming from a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses who do not even participate in the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, Abdiel ended up on the list of those who are not trustworthy for entering military units where they are in contact with “strategic information for the nation,” as he was warned by the Military Committee when he registered for the SMA. He was placed in an EJT base in East Havana. continue reading

Abdiel ended up on the list of those who cannot be trusted to enter military units where they are in contact with “strategic information for the nation”

“I thought they were going to send me to fight the Aedes Aegypti [the mosquito that transmits dengue] or to repair the railway lines, but all I did was waste my time,” Abdiel reflects. Founded in 1973, the EJT was nourished by the Centennial Youth Column and the infamous Military Units for Production Support (Umap), where everyone from religious people and homosexuals to those considered “disaffected” to the Government ended up. From its beginnings, the Youth Labour Army was assigned to work in agriculture and construction.

Fernando Ponce, 56, a resident of Miami, remembers his time in the EJT. “It was a way of doing the service in a less difficult way, so many parents used their influence to get their children to end up in the EJT. There were also those who invented an illness, a religious faith or said they were gay so they wouldn’t have to end up in hard military training, in one of those units lost in the middle of nowhere.”

Ponce went through the EJT and now his son has just left Cuba thanks to the family reunification process, escaping just before entering the SMA. “Last year we had many hard times because he was due to enter the pre-Service in August 2023, but last year when he finished high school, he and his mother, who still lives in Havana, moved and that turned things around.”

When young people turn 16 in Cuba, they are called to enroll in the SMA, which often coincides with the end of pre-university or vocational training, in the case of those who are still enrolled in the official educational plan. Ponce’s son was finishing his 12th grade and had no plans to continue with university education, but he took the entrance exams nonetheless.

“The visa process for family reunification was already underway and he even had an appointment date at the US consulate in Havana, but he continued to behave as if none of that existed and applied for a degree in History,” the father explains. Just before taking the entrance exams, the teenager’s family moved house, neighborhood and municipality.

When young people turn 16 in Cuba they are called to enroll in the SMA, which often coincides with the end of high school.

“Several of his classmates told him that when they went to the Military Committee they asked him if he knew where he was, but the summons to register never reached his hands, so he spent about a year between one thing and another: he never sat in the classroom at the Faculty of History, nor did he have to enter Military Service because they stamped his visa and I bought him the first flight after he left the Consulate.”

Now in Miami, Ponce’s son looks back and feels that he was saved “by a hair’s breadth,” says his father. In Havana, his bunk was empty the entire time that Abdiel and the few other young men in his EJT unit were mobilized. The other many beds that also had no occupants were probably those of emigrants or Cubans who did not even come into the world nearly two decades ago due to the drop in the birth rate.

With the demographic crisis and mass exodus, Cuba has lost 18% of its population between 2022 and 2023, according to an independent study by Cuban economist and demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos. “The first day I spent in the Unit there were not even ten new recruits,” Abdiel tells this newspaper. “I thought that as September progressed or October arrived more would join, but that never happened.”

At the first morning assembly with the heads of the military unit, the highest-ranking officers in charge showed their most inflexible face. “But that lasted until lunchtime,” the young man reports. “They immediately let us know that there was little food and that we could leave to eat and sleep in our houses because that would save the Revolution resources.” Quick to grasp the message, “that same day we stampeded.”

The rest of the SMA was “morning assemblies, training and harangues,” he explains. “We couldn’t go to inspect or fumigate in the anti-vectorial fight [against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito that spreads dengue fever] even once because there was no fuel to take us and the backpack fumigators were broken,” he tells 14ymedio. “We went to the unit, they saw our faces and we went home with the same smile. That’s how I lost a year of my life without doing anything.”

Quick to grasp the message, “that very day we stampeded”

The EJT troops were exhibited, during the years when Raúl Castro was Minister of the Armed Forces, as an example of administrative and productive management. In the Cuban capital, numerous agricultural markets were opened, such as those on 17th and J streets in El Vedado and Tulipán, in the Nuevo Vedado neighborhood, managed by that entity and which were displayed as the path to efficient production and trade in line with the purchasing power of the population.

But those days of glory are long gone. Most of the platforms in the EJT markets are now under private management and young people dressed in their uniforms — a beige colour that banishes any connection with war conflicts, and caps that resemble the outfits worn by Boy Scouts in the United States — are increasingly seen less often on the streets of the Island.

A friend of Abdiel, who lives in Jovellanos, Matanzas province, was not lucky enough to get a university degree program and ended up as a recruit for 24 months, spending the first year in a military unit run by the Revolutionary Armed Forces and assigned to defense, but is now with the EJT. “We have to take care of repairing the train lines but there are hardly any resources or people to do it,” he says.

“We have to take care of repairing the train lines but there are hardly any resources or people to do it”

“I’m in a shelter with other young people from Matanzas and there are also some from Mayabeque. We are a small group but the leaders have stayed in the old days and think they have an army. They stop to shout orders at us, they divide us into platoons and they have a command structure that makes it seem like there are thousands of us. It’s very ridiculous,” explains the young man on condition of anonymity.

The visits to see the family, which were spaced out in times of greatest tension, with a possible enemy invasion knocking at the door, are now “up to twice a week because what suits the bosses is that we don’t stay for lunch or dinner in the unit. Every mouth that doesn’t need to be fed is food that they sell elsewhere or take home,” he says.

However, the menu does not allow for much profit because of the small quota and the limited variety of products. “Rice that is mud, broth that looks like water and from time to time a piece of pumpkin or sweet potato,” explains the young man. “Not even the dogs in the unit eat what is put on the tray.” As an advantage over the few recruits in his hostel, “you can have seconds in the dining room if you want, but nobody is interested in that stew.”

Every now and then, recruits from various places meet at some official activity, where they are taken in civilian clothes to “make up the numbers.” Among the topics they discuss, in addition to their dreams for the day after demobilization, is the situation of the units and the lack of “arms to carry a weapon.” Meanwhile, the commanders act as if the shelters are full and the training areas packed. “Attention, soldiers!” Abdiel and the “four cats” of his camp heard them say until a few weeks ago.

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‘Our Patience and That of the International Community Is Running Out,’ the United States Warns Maduro

The Cuban Foreign Ministry demands, in a strident tone, that the “majority support of the people” for Maduro be recognized

Three young people walk with their hands up to avoid being arrested by the members of the Bolivarian National Police in a protest in Caracas / EFE/ Ronald Peña R.

14ymedio, Rosa Pascual, Madrid, 1 August 2024 –On the third day, the United States changed its tone on Venezuela. The caution which the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, expressed after the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed the victory of Nicolás Maduro in the elections of Sunday, July 28, ended this Wednesday, when the White House woke up warning about being fed up waiting for the tally sheets of the vote after going to bed with the request to recognize the opposition’s victory.

“Our patience and that of the international community is running out. We are tired of waiting for the Venezuelan electoral authorities to be honest and publish the complete and detailed data of this election so that everyone can see the results,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby at a morning press conference.

It was the preamble to the expression of some harsher words by Brian Nichols, in charge of the Department of State for Latin America, before the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS).

“With the irrefutable evidence based on the voting records, which everyone can see, it is clear [that the opposition] defeated Nicolás Maduro by millions of votes,” said the diplomat. The senior official referred to the electoral tally sheets published by the opposition in which it is observed that, with 81% of the documents provided, between Edmundo González Urrutia and Nicolás Maduro there are almost four million votes in favor of the first. continue reading

“With the irrefutable evidence based on the tally sheets, which everyone can see, it is clear [that the opposition] defeated Nicolás Maduro by millions of votes

“This is not a projection, even if Maduro wins 100% of the votes in the less than 20% of the votes that remain to be published, he could not surpass González,” stressed Nichols, who urged both the Chavista candidate and the other countries “of the world” to recognize the opponent’s victory. “Those who do not do it are allowing Maduro and his representatives to carry out an attempt at massive fraud and disregard for the order of the law,” he added.

However, the OAS, despite everything, did not reach an optimistic conclusion. The member countries did not have the necessary consensus to approve a resolution that asked the Venezuelan authorities to publish “immediately” the tally sheets of the elections. Although there was no vote against, the absence of Mexico and several Caribbean countries, added to the abstention of 11 countries, including Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia, led to the fact that the votes necessary to approve the document in an extraordinary session of the Permanent Council were not obtained.

The representatives of the member countries negotiated the document for more than five hours, but it was impossible to agree on a wording that everyone could accept. The resolution requested only that a “comprehensive verification” of the results be carried out “in the presence of independent observer organizations to guarantee the transparency, credibility and legitimacy of the results,” which had already been requested by “the relevant Venezuelan political actors.”

According to diplomatic sources, several countries that abstained asked to delete this last part, and others – such as Panama and Peru – opposed the deletion. Faced with that situation, unanimity was impossible.

Colombia’s abstention generated a wave of internal criticism from former Colombian presidents and politicians, who accused the Government of Gustavo Petro of being “an accomplice” of the “fraud,” which forced explanations from its foreign minister. Luis Ernesto Vargas pointed out that Venezuela has no representation in the OAS, so it would only be a “salute to the flag.” Bogotá, in addition, considers that the statements of the Secretary General, Luis Almagro, prevents the OAS from being an “impartial” organization.

This position is the same as that offered by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for not attending the meeting. Both countries are, along with Brazil, in dialogue with Chavismo “to create the necessary conditions and seek an agreement for coexistence and political peace,” according to the Foreign Minister. Other diplomatic sources say that the United States is working with these countries to find a negotiated way out for the regime. “This is the most important and difficult political operation of this century in America,” a participant in the talks told El País.

Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, along with the United States, are looking for a negotiated exit for the regime. “This is the most important and difficult political operation of this century in America,” say sources close to El País

This Wednesday, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, the United States, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Suriname and Uruguay voted in favor of the resolution. Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Granada, Honduras, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia abstained. Dominica, Mexico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago did not participate in the session.

Cuba, which also does not belong to the OAS, made a public statement through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs in which it accuses the OAS of a lack of “moral or legal authority to resolve matters that only concern Venezuelans.” The text denounces the “long history of the OAS in the service of American imperialism,” its interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states and its support for “coups d’état, military dictatorships, repression and torture.”

The Cuban Foreign Ministry emphasizes that the “dignified attitude of a group of countries prevented the interference document from being approved,” but when mentioning that “the Venezuelan people decided to maintain their majority support for the option founded by Commander Hugo Chávez Frías” it ignores that it is left alone in closing ranks with a Chavismo that it desperately needs, if only for the oil.

The isolation is so great that Argentina also adhered to the almost universal position among the international left. The Union for the Argentine Homeland issued a statement in which it considered “the publication of the election tally sheets essential” and pointed to Maduro as responsible “for ensuring that the scrutiny is transparent with the corresponding counting of votes and display of the tally sheets before national and international observers.”

Also in Spain there was a movement of position by the left closest to Maduro, especially from the political parties Podemos and Izquierda Unida (IU), which went from demanding immediate recognition of the official results on Monday to adhering to the Colombian position and demanding “transparency in the results.”

“Let everything be done with transparency,” said the general secretary of Podemos who demanded the publication of “all the tally sheets,” but at the same time denounced the “Venezuelan right” for making an “openly pro-coup” speech. The federal coordinator of IU, Antonio Maíllo, valued the position of the president of Colombia as a “sensible” proposal. “It’s a good way without a doubt. From the standpoint of friendship of the peoples and looking at the common good.”

“It’s a good way without a doubt. From the standpoint of friendship of the peoples and looking at the common good,” said the coordinator of Izquierda Unida

The members of the G7 (four European countries, the United States, Canada and Japan) also urged Maduro yesterday to “publish the detailed electoral results with total transparency,” and expressed gratitude to González Urrutia, for “his solidarity with the people of Venezuela and his call for the publication of the detailed electoral results.”

“From all corners of the world, they support the legitimate demand of Venezuelans to respect their decision to change in peace,” added the Democratic United Platform (PUD), as well as calling for the protection of María Corina Machado, whom Maduro wants imprisoned.

“If you ask me my opinion as a citizen, I tell you that those people should be arrested, behind bars, and there has to be justice in Venezuela,” said the head of state at a press conference.

“They should, instead of hiding, appear before the Prosecutor’s Office and show their faces, instead of fleeing like cowards and continuing to incite their criminal groups to insurrection,” Maduro added, despite the fact that neither of the two opponents is in hiding anywhere, since this Tuesday they led massive demonstrations in Caracas.

The president also asked, before a gathering of supporters, that citizens denounce those who participate in the protests for “altering public order.” “We are going to open a special window of the VenApp page, which we use for the 1×10 of the Good Government, at page 58. It will be opened for the entire Venezuelan population so that they can confidentially put in the data of all the criminals who have threatened the people, who have attacked the people, to go for them, so that there is prompt justice.” Although a multitude of opponents claim to have managed to get Google and Apple to suspend the service, there is still no evidence that the option was enabled yesterday, despite the unverified videos circulating.

The president also asked, before a gathering of his supporters, for citizens to denounce those who participate in the protests for “altering public order”

The Government describes the demonstrators as “terrorists” and has already arrested more than 1,200 people, according to official figures. The Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) affirmed, without providing evidence, that those people were “trained for some time” in Peru and Chile, and also in “Texas” and “Colombia,”with the aim of going to Venezuela to “attack and burn, which is terrorism.”

In an effort to delegitimize those who denounce the fraud, Chavismo has been forced to open the political arc of the “fascist right,” in which it now includes the Argentine president, Javier Milei – who is accused of saying “stupidities” – and his Chilean counterpart, Gabriel Boric, who is considered left-leaning.

“We don’t care what you say,” said Diosdado Cabello, number two of Chavismo, in his TV program Con el mazo dando. On the program he spoke out mainly against Boric, whom he called “idiot,” “dummy,” “crooked” and”sellout,” as well as “very sad puppy of imperialism.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Confirms the Presence of the Oropouche Virus in Its 15 Provinces

The Deputy Minister of Health pointed out that, for the first time, the simultaneous circulation of two arboviruses has been detected in the country during the summer season.

Among the main transmitters of the Oropouche virus is the ’Culex’ mosquito / 14ymedio

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 1 August 2024 — The cases of the Oropouche virus, which is transmitted through the bite of a mosquito, have spread to the 15 provinces of Cuba, the Ministry of Public Health reported on Wednesday on state television. The Deputy Minister of Public Health, Carilda Peña, pointed out that, for the first time, the circulation of two arboviruses (transmitted by mosquitoes) has been detected in the country during the summer season: dengue and Oropouche.

She also indicated that both have a very similar evolution in patients who go to health services and, in the case of Oropouche, she pointed out that very little is known about the aftereffects.

The first cases of the Oropouche virus were confirmed at the end of last May in two municipalities of Santiago de Cuba, and at that time more than 35,000 infections had been recognized.

One month later, the authorities activated the health system due to the increase in cases of dengue, whose transmitter agent is the Aedes aegypti mosquito, and Oropouche, which arrives via the Culex mosquito of the Bunyaviridae family, but also via the Culicoides, popularly known in Cuba as the jején (gnat). continue reading

Durán stated that until that moment all the identified cases had evolved in a “favorable” way with an improvement in symptoms between the third and fourth day of the disease

Oropouche had then been detected in 23 municipalities, but at the beginning of July, the director of Epidemiology of the Ministry, Francisco Durán, said that it was already circulating in 39 municipalities of 12 provinces and that the only territories without confirmed cases were Havana, Pinar del Río and Las Tunas, in addition to the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud.

Durán stated that until that moment all the identified cases had evolved in a “favorable” way with an improvement in symptoms between the third and fourth day of the disease.

So far this year, Oropouche fever has now been detected in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Brazil. To date, according to the Pan American Health Organization, no serious and critical cases or deaths have been reported, however the Ministry of Health of Brazil reported two deaths related to this virus on July 25.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Receives 32 Rafters Returned by the United States for a Total of 899 From Several Countries in 2024

The United States estimates that if the pace is maintained, by the end of the fiscal year some 245,000 Cubans will have entered.

The governments of Havana and Washington have a bilateral agreement so that all migrants who arrive by sea on U.S. territory are deported to the Island / EFE

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, August 1, 2024 — Cuba received this Wednesday 32 irregular migrants returned by the United States Coast Guard Service (USCG), which now totals 899 deported to the Island from different countries in 56 returns so far in 2024, official media reported. This new group is made up of 26 men and six women who had participated in an illegal exit from the country and were later intercepted by the US Coast Guard.

After their arrival at the port of Orozco, in the western province of Artemisa, an investigation was initiated against one of the rafters “for allegedly having committed a crime,” according to a statement from the Ministry of the Interior.

The governments of Havana and Washington have a bilateral agreement for all migrants arriving by sea on US territory to be returned to Cuba. continue reading

The governments of Havana and Washington have a bilateral agreement for all migrants arriving by sea on US territory to be returned to Cuba

Deportation flights were also resumed in April 2023, mainly for people considered “inadmissible” after being held at the U.S. border with Mexico.

According to a recent report by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP), in June there were 17,563 Cubans who arrived in the United States, the smallest number during a calendar month of the current fiscal year 2024 that began last October.

According to the data, there are now 180,925 Cubans who have entered the United States in the last nine months, and if this pace is maintained, at the end of the fiscal year (September 2024), there will be 245,000 Cubans who have entered.

Since the beginning of the year, Cubans have also been returned on commercial flights from the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.

In the last three years, Cuba has recorded an unprecedented migratory exodus both for the volume of migrants and the prolonged time period due to the serious economic crisis on the Island, with frequent and prolonged power outages, shortages of food, medicines and fuel, galloping inflation and a partial dollarization of the economy.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Havana’s Airport Dogs, A Sad Sequel to a Nation That Flees and Leaves Them Behind

“She was dumped here, some people who came to pick up their family left her,” recall the workers at the airport.

A dog at a gate at Havana’s José Martí International Airport / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 1 August 2024 — Lying next to the entrance to Havana’s José Martí International Airport, a dog waits for the owners who left with the mass exodus. “He’s been here for a while, ever since he arrived in a car with his family, they went in, traveled and left him,” says a cleaning employee at Terminal 3, from where most of the flights depart to Nicaragua, the gateway to Central America for many Cuban migrants.

Some workers bring him food and have given the dog a name. “Come here, Canelo,” says one who brings him leftovers from her lunch. “Pinto, have some water,” a taxi driver from the nearby taxi stand hands him a disposable cup. They all know something that the animal doesn’t: that his owners won’t return and if they do, it’s unlikely that they’ll go looking for him at that door where he waits day and night. Some protectors have tried to get him out of the place and find him a home, but the mixed breed, perhaps four or five years old, doesn’t intend to move from that entrance. Time is starting to take its toll on him and his skin is already deteriorating on various parts of his body. continue reading

Everyone knows something that the animal doesn’t: that his owners won’t come back and if they do, it’s unlikely that they’ll go looking for him at that door where he waits day and night.

A few yards away, on the dysfunctional boulevard that was built as an outdoor service and food sales area, a pack of four other dogs prowl around in search of food. The area, where travelers, taxi drivers looking for customers, and some relatives waiting for a relative arriving from abroad gather, is anything but comfortable. Without air conditioning, the outdoor
cafés are unbearable in these summer months and the prices of the products add degrees to the annoyance. A 500 ml can of Spanish Mahou beer costs 1,200 pesos and a half-litre bottle of water reaches 1,000.

Attentive to every person who comes and goes, four dogs, apparently a family: mother, father and two younger ones less than a year old, roam around the place.

Some workers give the dogs food and even give them names / 14ymedio

Speaking of the dog huddled by the door, an employee says, “That one was dumped here, some people who came to pick up their family left her and later said that the dog no longer fit in the car because the girl had brought too many suitcases.” Since then, the animal has had to adapt to the harsh conditions of the environment: vehicles that come and go all the time picking up or unloading passengers, little food available, hardly any water other than what some generous souls give them and the intense heat.

In a country where so many are packing their bags, the dogs at the airport are just one more example of a nation fleeing, leaving behind its homes, family photos and even its pets. “The last one to leave turn off El Morro” as the saying goes, referring to Havana’s famous historic lighthouse. It may end up not being done with the fingers of a human hand but with the strength of a canine paw.
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Concerned About the Risk of a New Exodus of Venezuelans, Colombia Asks for ‘Transparency’

The crisis for several countries of the continent has been exacerbated. Mexican President López Obrador sees no “evidence of fraud” and criticizes the “interventionism of the OAS.”

Gustavo Petro accused the United States of maintaining an “inhuman blockade” against Venezuela /EFE

14ymedio, Havana, July 31, 2024 — The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who had taken care to make statements about last weekend’s Venezuelan elections, finally expressed his official position on Wednesday. Although he calls for “transparent scrutiny,” the president is ambivalent on other key issues, but he did make it clear that “anything that happens in Venezuela will affect Colombia.”

So far, Petro’s government, through its Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, has refused to recognize any victory, either of the opponent Edmundo González Urrutia or of the current president, his political ally, Nicolás Maduro. Likewise, Murillo requested a review of the ballots and an audit of the results declared by the National Electoral Committee of Venezuela (CNE). However, the voice of the Colombian president, who during his term has guided a rapprochement with Caracas, was missed.

“The serious doubts that are established around the Venezuelan electoral process can lead the people to a deep violent polarization with serious consequences of division,” were the first words that Petro wrote on his X account, while calling on the neighboring Government to respect, with transparency, the result of the elections “whatever it is.” continue reading

“We respectfully propose to reach an agreement between the Government and the opposition that allows maximum respect for the party that has lost the elections. Such an agreement can be delivered as a Unilateral Declaration of State to the United Nations Security Council,” he added.

“We respectfully propose to reach an agreement between the Government and the opposition that allows maximum respect”

“I invite the Venezuelan Government to allow the elections to end in peace by allowing a transparent counting of ballots and a scrutiny of all the political forces of the country, with professional international oversight,” said the president, who did not miss an opportunity, however, to point out the “blockade” of the United States as “an anti-human measure that only brings more hunger and more violence than already exists and promotes the mass exodus of peoples.”

The concern about the mass migration of Venezuelans is a subtle constant in the president’s statement. Colombia has been affected in recent years by the stampede of those fleeing Chavismo.

“Free people know how to make their decisions,” is the point of Petro’s statement, and what shows the measure of their loyalty, even if they fall back on neutrality, is the hope that Chavismo will accept its “great responsibility” to remember the spirit of Chávez and allow the Venezuelan people to return to tranquility so that the elections end calmly and a transparent result is accepted.”

The statement – extremely careful – of the Colombian president, however, contrasts with that of other countries allied with Caracas, such as Cuba and Nicaragua, which did not hesitate to congratulate Nicolás Maduro for a re-election that many States of the continent and international organizations consider “fraudulent,” or that have remained on the sidelines, such as Mexico, which does not “see signs of fraud” but is waiting for definitive results.

Colombia awaits a response from Venezuela, which has asked for the withdrawal of diplomatic personnel from several countries that have doubted Maduro’s true victory, including Argentina and the Dominican Republic.

Much more critical positions have been taken by other governments in the region, such as Peru, which reiterated on Wednesday that the multiple irregularities committed in the Venezuelan elections constitute “an authentic electoral fraud.” Peru has now received a diplomatic note from Venezuela that finalizes the official decision to break diplomatic relations.

One day earlier, Dina Boluarte, President of Peru, recognized González Urrutia as the president-elect of Venezuela

One day earlier, Dina Boluarte, President of Peru, recognized González Urrutia as the president-elect of Venezuela, which the Peruvian Foreign Ministry defended again today, explaining that its commitment to protect democracy is “inescapable.”

In a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on X, the President indicated that Peru is coordinating with like-minded countries for the protection of its interests and Peruvians in Venezuela, in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Likewise, she said that she will continue to make efforts to serve the Venezuelan community that resides in Peru, estimated at 1.5 million people.

For his part, the acting president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is still waiting for the results, although on Wednesday he stated that “there is no evidence” that electoral fraud has been committed in Venezuela. He also questioned the Organization of American States (OAS) for its “interventionism.”

“We’re going to wait. I think that evidence has to be presented, the ballots, and I think they must have a record, even if it’s been carried out electronically. I believe that in the procedure there are ballots, there are data to know what happened,” the president said during his morning conference.

He also said that the Mexican Foreign Minister, Alicia Bárcena, will not participate in the meeting convened by the OAS because she does not agree with the organization’s attitude toward the Venezuelan elections. “Why are we going to a meeting like this? That is not serious, it is not responsible,” he emphasized. López Obrador also demanded the end of “interventionism,” the cause – according to him – of the “stagnation” of Venezuela and its problems.

Even the Carter Center, which participated as an observer in the Venezuelan elections after being selected by the ruling party itself, said on Tuesday that the process “did not fit” the international parameters and standards of electoral integrity. The organization, whose delegation left the country before issuing its statement and will present its detailed report in the coming days, was categorical in the advance of its conclusion: the election “cannot be considered democratic.”

“The Carter Center cannot verify or corroborate the authenticity of the results of the presidential election declared by the CNE of Venezuela,” it added. The organization stressed that the entity has not announced the results disaggregated by table, which “constitutes a serious violation of electoral principles. The process has not reached the international standards of integrity in any of its relevant stages and has violated numerous precepts of the national legislation itself.”

Venezuela also has strained relations with Argentina, whose embassy in Caracas is harboring six opponents as refugees since March 26. As those received at the headquarters denounced on Wednesday, Maduro’s “regime security officials” continue being on the outskirts with troops and “seek to take this diplomatic headquarters.”

“We alert the diplomatic corps accredited in the country about this serious violation of international law,” Pedro Urruchurtu, international coordinator of the opposition party Vente Venezuela (VV), said on X.

This is the second time that Venezuelan officials have surrounded the diplomatic headquarters

This is the second time that Venezuelan officials have surrounded the diplomatic headquarters, since, according to Urruchurtu, this Monday a group of police officers also intended to “take” the residence but then left, faced with the arrival of hundreds of supporters of the opposition leader María Corina Machado, in support of the asylum seekers.

Urruchurtu denounced that, since this morning, the presence of “patrols and regime officials in the surroundings” of the headquarters is being repeated, while the residence has had a “power cut” since Tuesday, something that the Government of Argentina described as “harassment.”

Meanwhile, the mood in the streets remains heated. As reported on Wednesday by Attorney General Tarek William Saab, at least 1,062 people have been arrested in the protests carried out by Venezuelans for several days after the CNE granted the victory to Maduro.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Fined 20,000 Pesos for Filming and Disseminating on Social Networks the Theft of Potatoes in a Field

Norberto Muñoz was fired from his job as an agricultural worker in Artemisa and had to hand over his cell phone to the Police.

The crops that characterize that area of Artemis are potatoes, bananas and legumes / Invasor

14ymedio, Havana, July 31, 2024 — Filming a video and uploading it to social networks has cost Norberto Muñoz Palomino a fine of 20,000 pesos, his job and the loss of his cell phone, which has been held for weeks by the Alquízar Police, in the province of Artemisa. The images transmitted by this resident of the community of Pulido, last February, showed a group of people looting a potato field.

In the video, published on Facebook, one can see the long furrows of potatoes belonging to a state company and dozens of area residents filling sacks with potatoes and taking them away. “Man, look at that, people ran into the field, and there is no one to stop them,” says the man posting the video.

Muñoz Palomino also adds that “they are so hungry, not even the special brigade is stopping them,” alluding to the troops of the National Special Brigade of the Ministry of the Interior, also known as “black berets.” The short film was quickly disseminated on social networks, independent news media and channels in South Florida. In a few hours, thousands of Internet users had seen the images.

“Shortly after that I was summoned by the police,” Muñoz Palomino tells 14ymedio. After an interrogation in the Alquízar Police Unit, he was fined 20,000 pesos under Decree Law 370 that allows the authorities to sanction social media users for the opinions they express or the content they disseminate. The agents also kept his cell phone and so far have not returned it. continue reading

“It’s been a hard blow because now I have been left incommunicado and without a job,” says Muñoz Palomino, who adds that after the incident he lost his contract in the state company and nobody in the area wants to hire him as an agricultural worker, a job he performed when he filmed the scenes of the potato theft. In the town of Pulido, on the outskirts of the city of Alquízar, the chances of earning a living, beyond the countryside, are scarce.

With a long and narrow street, Pulido has traditionally been a village of farmers, and after the nationalization of most of the land around it, its inhabitants work mainly in the Basic Cooperative Production Units of the area. The crops that characterize that part of Artemisa are potatoes, bananas, legumes and also garlic and onions.

The inhabitants of the town have been forced to seek their livelihoods in other municipalities

The nearby Pre-University Institute in the Socialist Republic of Romania Field, which in the 80s and 90s was also a source of employment for the residents of Pulido, ceased to function almost 20 years ago as a teaching center. The inhabitants of the town have since been forced to seek their livelihoods in other nearby municipalities such as Güira de Melena or in the municipal capital, Alquízar.

“Not being able to have a job here is a condemnation,” Muñoz Palomino tells this newspaper. In addition, he has already had to pay the 20,000 pesos of the fine to avoid the amount “accumulating and being greater.” That amount of money approaches half a year of the salary he earned as an agricultural worker. He sums up his annoyance: “Just for showing the truth; I didn’t deceive anyone.”

Now, his hope is that they will return his cell phone as soon as possible, but the police have told him that the device is being analyzed to “review its content and the contacts” that Muñoz Palomino has stored on his cell phone. Meanwhile, to communicate, he appeals to family and friends, but he is still unemployed.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Tobacco Growers of Sancti Spíritus Violate the Golden Rule of the Cigar

Three companies want to accelerate the curing of the leaf with solar heaters to increase production

The province wants to speed up the curing of the leaf to increase cigar production / Escambray

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 31 July 2024 — Sancti Spíritus has initiated a series of tobacco “experiments” that violate the golden rule of the cigar: never produce it in mass. The idea – supported by an “unpublished investment” of the monopoly Habanos S.A. – is to enhance the controlled curing of the leaf, a euphemism that hides accelerated production by artificial means.

The curing process, which normally requires between 45 and 55 days, will now take only one month. Three producers from the municipality of Cabaiguán – the tobacco-growing territory par excellence in the center of the country – are the “pioneers” of the new process, which aims, even if the official press does not mention it, to remedy the terrible results obtained by the province last year, the worst in its productive history. Only one-sixth of the tobacco that was harvested was good enough for export.

Now, and against the basic rules of a crop where there are no short cuts to achieve excellence, the province wants a quick curing of the leaf for more cigars and better quality. The “new project” has solar heaters to accelerate the drying, which Escambray celebrates because Habanos S.A. also paid for them as a strategy to “reduce the consumption of electricity and fossil fuel.” continue reading

The province’s Communist Party newspaper admits that the investment still has no “use value”

The first signs of failure are already there: the province’s Communist Party newspaper admits that – although they have been experimenting with this method for two years – the investment still does not have “use value” and that not a single cigar has been exported with the new method, although the producers say that there is “a high degree of progress” in the project’s infrastructure.

To recover the status of “leading territory” of the cigar, along with Pinar del Río, is the aspiration of the three state producers who have benefited from the investment. Yoandi Rodríguez, Aniskyn de la Cruz and Nelson González intend, in their words, to “bring technology closer to the field.”

“The cigar is less damaged” than when it dries naturally – a process with several centuries of implementation – argue the producers, who promise to increase the amount of exportable leaf. However, the result has to go through the review of the experts and Cuba’s very demanding international customers, who quickly detect any drop in the quality of a product that is very expensive.

The producers centralized the whole process in their cooperatives, from planting to curing

The producers centralized the whole process in their cooperatives, from the planting to the curing, drying and picking of the leaf that is then sent to province’s factories. Sancti Spíritus has tried to improve the fast-track production numbers at any cost, given that the regime chose the province as the venue of the July 26 events and the harvesters were required to be “up to the task” of the “honor.”

This was the case of the Roberto Rodríguez Cigar Factory for Export, which produced 4,000 cigars a day – 96,000 units a month – during the first quarter of 2024. The Roberto Rodríguez takes care of the premium cigars that Sancti Spíritus delivers to Habanos S.A., which end up in the luxury humidors of Spain, China, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

Its principal brands are Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo and Juliet, Partagás, Rey del Mundo, Bolívar, San Luis and Trinidad, the cigar “invented by Fidel Castro” that the regime has vigorously promoted this year.

Roberto Rodríguez’s tobacco growers are paid 27,000 pesos per month – in April there were 40,000 – thanks to the fact that international sales skyrocketed by “180%,” its director alleged. The money has contained the “fluctuation of the workforce,” as the official called the stampede of state workers that characterized 2023. Now the factory staff is “almost covered.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Example of María Corina Machado in Venezuela

Despots never forgive those who challenge them

Opposition leader María Corina Machado greets several supporters during a campaign event for opposition candidate Edmundo González, on July 5, 2024, in Caracas / EFE / Ronald Pena R

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 7 July 2024 — A paragraph from the Venezuelan national anthem exhorts citizens to follow the example of commitment to freedom that “Caracas gave,” a sign that is repeated today by the massiveness and spontaneity with which the population, from all corners of the country, supports the leader María Corina Machado in her effort to remove Nicolas Maduro and his front men from government.

I feel very proud when I see hundreds of thousands of citizens ignoring the limitations imposed on the electoral campaign by the autocracy of Maduro and Diosdado Cabello. These men and women know that they are being identified and can be victims of repression, just like those who call them to action. Despots never forgive those who challenge them.

On the other hand, it must be acknowledged with no less pride that Venezuelans have found inspiration in Maria Corina Machado. The work of the opposition is very complicated, especially when it faces despotism, which is why, establishing a leadership that represents a committed majority willing to fulfill the task at all costs is a luxury of power that very few people have been able to afford.

It is easy to see how these regimes share information and techniques of social control through the similarities in their repressive practices and legislation.

This woman’s commitment to freedom and democracy is hard to find in history, and although, as journalist Alexis Ortiz states, “María Corina will be the president of all Venezuelans by popular election at some point in our future,” it is difficult to find cases in which a candidate with such a notable ability to mobilize people unhesitatingly supports another candidate in order to achieve the common goal of freedom for all. continue reading

Machado’s love for Venezuela is unquestionable. She has given up her leadership in order not to deny the triumph of democracy if this is possible. An example that the opponents of Castro-Chavism in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba and even the rest of the Venezuelan opposition should follow.

The entire Venezuelan people, like the Nicaraguan, Bolivian and Cuban people, have been victims of an international organization of criminals who share tactics and strategies to achieve and maintain power with any subterfuge at their disposal, always preferring repression and violence.

It is easy to see how these regimes share information and techniques of social control through the similarities in their repressive practices and legislation. It is also assumed that Cuban officials, who over the years have assisted the Venezuelan repressors, are currently participating in the restrictions that have been imposed on the opposition campaign, particularly in the controls to which they subject María Corina Machado.

Machado has been able to interpret, like no other opposition leader, the spirit of rebellion of all the people who feel free in their country and who take to the streets to demand their rights, overcoming the natural fears generated by a struggle in which the enemy knows no scruples.

With this negative scenario, I wonder if the opposition, Machado herself, has thought about what to do if the despots act on their undemocratic conditions and deny their defeat.

However, I confess that I am not an optimist and believe that the enemies of democracy, the Castro-Chavistas , never recognize the rights of others and are always ready for any trick to remain in power and can decide, under any pretext, to suspend the elections or disqualify the opposition candidate as they did with Machado.

Furthermore, the Maduro government and its criminal associates are aware of the broad popular support that María Corina Machado has earned with great perseverance, courage and dignity, and that respecting the will of the electorate can remove them from power with all the consequences that such an event would entail, which could result in denying the victory of their opponents.

Given this negative scenario, I wonder if the opposition, including Machado, has thought about what to do if the despots act on their undemocratic conditions and deny their defeat. Is there any strategy on the part of the opposition to claim victory if it is rationally irrefutable? If Maduro perpetuates himself in power once again, I do not believe that the people will believe in elections again.

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The Suicide of the Venezuelan Dictatorship

At this early hour no one knows if the fascists will be able to get away with it. Let us hope not.

Chavismo, far from intimidating people’s desire for change, exacerbated it. / EFE

Humberto García Larralde (El Nacional reprinted in 14ymedio), Caracas, 30 July 2024 — Who in their right mind would believe that the person who devastated the country, ruined its economy, destroyed public services, caused the migration of a quarter of the population, ended the possibility that the majority could enjoy dignified livelihoods, repressed and mocked people with promises that he never fulfilled could win free elections? How can we believe that the Venezuelan people, after so much suffering, have rewarded at the polls the worst government that the country has known in its history?

The fascists never asked themselves these questions because, for them, they never made sense. As an expression of the best interests of the people – the “revolutionaries” – the election could only confirm their candidate. The people can vote, yes, but not for someone else! For months they have given themselves the task of committing all the abuse and crimes they could think of, disqualifying candidates, inventing conspiracies to arrest opposition figures, harassing activists, hindering, in any case, popular mobilizations, preventing the arrival of international observers, hogging the media and lying, lying, lying. But far from intimidating the people’s desire for change, they exacerbated it. Aware that they were going to be definitively defeated, they decided, then, to commit fraud.

Aware that they were going to be definitively defeated, they decided, then, to commit fraud

And they set up the farce. First, they would not give the opposition witnesses copies of the ballot counts in those centers where they could get away with it. Then they would prohibit Delsa Solórzano, Vice President of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission, from entering the room of the CNE where the votes were being tabulated. Before, in the hours when the vote was still going on, they would record Jorge Rodríguez and Diosdado Cabello, smiling, congratulating the “people” for the vote, at the same time that Oscar Schémel was posting on his site (Hinterlaces) – despite the alleged prohibition of announcing results before the CNE – an exit poll pointing out the “triumph” of Maduro in the same proportions as Amoroso, the Comptroller General of Venezuela, would finally announce.

And all this, despite the fact that video after video showed the people celebrating, in each voting center, Edmundo’s forceful victory over Maduro by two or three to one. Confirmed, in addition, by the reliable exit polls that were made known. But no, Maduro won! What cynicism, what disrespect and contempt for the will of the people. continue reading

One of the most odious characteristics of ideologically inspired autocracies – such as the fascist one in Venezuela – is their arrogance and overbearing manner. Owners of an indisputable truth built from the ideology with which they justify their rise to power, they are impervious to all criticism. Believing to have discovered the mysteries of history by having led a “revolution,” they unfold an alleged moral superiority to make fun of everything that refutes their rhetoric.

In possession of the machinery of the State, they do not acknowledge the rights of anyone who does not join them, protected by the conviction that they are “right” and will advance the “good” by “revolutionary” power. And as they are the “revolution,” the defense of their interests – their privileges, immunity and the spoils they have taken – absolves them from any abuse executed for that purpose.

The transcendent ends involved make History the supreme judge. And they are its custodians. And the more power they accumulate, the more they need to take refuge in the tricks with which they justify the dismantling of the rule of law and the imposition of a despotic exercise in which, par excellence, reason will always be on their side. The anomie of the powerful.

The classical Greeks referred to similar postures of arrogance and absolute power as hubris, an excessive pride and dangerous overconfidence with respect to one’s own limitations, which pervert a person’s treatment of others and their environment. It is the arrogance that blinds dictators, because, drunk with power, they confuse the real possibilities of something happening with their particular pretensions. And they make mistakes, undermining their position of dominance. Subsumed in their ideological bubble, they lose the ability (or interest) to correct themselves. It is reality that must adapt to their designs. The reason of force above the force of reason.

Now the first reactions at the international level require Maduro to make a clear accounting. The people cannot resign themselves to such a crude swindle

At this early hour no one knows if the fascists will be able to get away with it. Let us hope not. Democratic leadership feels, at the moment, the enormous weight of the responsibility it must assume to win freedom. Now the first reactions at the international level require Maduro to make a clear accounting. It is difficult for the people to resign themselves to such a crude swindle.

What “legitimacy” did the Chavo-Maduristas win with such a vulgar fraud? Who do they think they are fooling? Was “peace and tranquility” achieved? Was the path paved to attract investments and generate employment? Can the surrounding countries trust that the migratory flow heading their way will not increase? Will the sanctions be lifted? Will the International Criminal Court and the UN Human Rights Council desist from their investigations in the face of these results? Will the door of a transitional justice, conditioned on the return to democracy, still be open?

I repeat, it is very difficult to know what is going to happen. But I am convinced that the farce they mounted clearly seems to be their suicide. History will NOT absolve them!

Note: This text has been published by the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional, which authorizes this newspaper to reproduce it.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Protests in Venezuela Against Electoral Fraud Increase While Havana Supports Maduro

The number of deaths in the protests against the electoral result has now risen to 11, according to an NGO
Most countries on the continent and the EU insist that without the verified ballots, the victory that Maduro proclaims will not be recognized

Several statues of Chávez were demolished this Monday in Venezuela. / EFE

EFE (via 14ymedio), Madrid/Caracas, July 30, 2024 — The disputed official results of the presidential elections in Venezuela, which grant victory to President Nicolás Maduro, resulted in protests in Caracas and several regions of the country this Monday. Several have been repressed by the military, while the majority opposition ratified “the victory” of its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, with 70% of the votes.

Within the framework of the demonstrations, a total of 11 people have died, according to the non-governmental organization Foro Penal, which leads the defense of political prisoners in the country.

Of the total, five were “murdered” in Caracas, two in the state of Zulia (northwest), two in Yaracuy (west), one in Aragua (north) and one in Táchira (west). Two of them were minors, aged 15 and 16 years old, said Foro Penal, Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón (JEP), Provea y Laboratorio de Paz at a press conference.

The total for the protests is six deaths and 749 detainees who face various charges, including that of “terrorism”

Meanwhile, at least 749 people have been arrested in Venezuela. The Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, offered an assessment of the performance of the security forces within the framework of these demonstrations, which also resulted in 48 injured police and military personnel.

Saab did not talk about the injuries suffered by the demonstrators who were repelled with tear gas and battering rams, according to the EFE agency in the Venezuelan capital. In his opinion, the arrested demonstrators are “criminals” who did not participate in peaceful protests but generated violence. They are accused of the crimes of public instigation, obstruction of public roads, incitement to hatred, resistance to authority and, “in the most serious cases, terrorism.” continue reading

The Minister of Defense of Venezuela, Vladimir Padrino López, denounced a coup d’état “forged again” by “fascist extremist right-wing factors,” alluding to the protests. He says that the alleged coup d’état is supported “by imperial factors, American imperialism and its allies.”

In the country, sleepless due to the late announcement of the first bulletin, the demonstrations began after noon, especially after the National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed Maduro president, in power since 2013. He received, according to CNE, 51.2% of the votes, compared to 44.2% for González Urrutia.

EFE noted the passage of hundreds of motorcyclists through one of the main avenues of Caracas, the vast majority coming from Petare, the largest favela [slum] in the nation, some of whom dragged posters of Maduro’s campaign with the face of the Chavista leader. At the same time that there were multiple protests in other areas of the capital, as well as in 20 states, according to NGOs.

The anti-chavista leader María Corina Machado, González Urrutia’s main supporter, said that the protests were “spontaneous and legitimate expressions” of a people whose “future was being stolen by an illegitimate regime.”

In Caracas, citizens chanted slogans such as “You see, you feel, Edmundo is president,””Maduro we don’t love you” and “I don’t want bonuses, I don’t want CLAP (subsidized food distribution program), what I want is for Nicolás to leave,” among others.

Several people told EFE that the authorities have “stolen the elections,” which is why they decided to leave their homes to express their discontent.

“We are claiming our rights; the elections were won by Edmundo González together with María Corina Machado, and it turns out that the elections have been stolen once again in the country. We are now tired of that. We have children, we have grandchildren, boys who are studying, who will never get ahead with this Government,” said an elderly man.

EFE confirmed that troops of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) and the Bolivarian National Police used tear gas and fired buckshot

EFE found that members of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) and the Bolivarian National Police used tear gas and fired buckshot at the demonstrators who were peacefully protesting in an area of Caracas until the arrival of the troops, who arrested twenty of them.

During the day, in addition, at least four statues of the late President Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) were demolished.

Maduro, for his part, denounced “criminal” and “terrorist” acts, for which he blamed the majority opposition, grouped under the Democratic United Platform (PUD). He said that dozens of people involved in these actions have been arrested, which included – he pointed out – attacks on members of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB). According to the Government, at least 23 soldiers were injured.

González Urrutia promised Venezuelans that “the will expressed through their vote” will be “respected,” because “that is the only path to peace.”

“We have in our hands the ballots that demonstrate our categorical and mathematically irreversible triumph,” said the former ambassador, who thanked the international community for its solidarity and support.

Machado said that the majority opposition managed to obtain 73% of the votes cast in the presidential elections, which give, he said, the victory to González Urrutia, with an “overwhelming ” difference, contrary to what was announced by the CNE.

The former deputy indicated that, according to the percentage of ballots available to them, Maduro obtained 2,759,256 votes, while González Urrutia 6,275,182, and “they lost.”

Diplomatic sources cited by the newspaper O Globo claim that Maduro has promised the former Brazilian foreign minister, Celso Amorim, international adviser to the Brazilian president, Luz Inácio Lula da Silva, that he “will deliver the (electoral) ballots in the coming days.”

Maduro has promised the former Brazilian Chancellor, Celso Amorim, international advisor to the Brazilian president, Luz Inácio Lula da Silva, that he will “deliver the (electoral) ballots in the coming days”

Amorim, who has been in Caracas since Friday as an observer from Brazil, said before a meeting he had yesterday with Maduro, that he is “uncomfortable” with the possible lack of “transparency” of the process.

“I don’t necessarily doubt what is being said, but the (Venezuelan) Government said that it would supply all the ballots” from which Maduro’s victory has resulted, and “that has not yet happened,” said Amorim, who will be in the Venezuelan capital at least until this Tuesday and who also planned to meet with María Corina Machado.

Lula’s government emphasized that only when all the results are known will he pronounce on the victory attributed by the electoral authorities to Maduro.

For his part, Joe Biden will speak this Tuesday with Lula about the situation; the United States has expressed its doubts about the result. “By declaring a winner without the support of detailed ballots by district, the representatives of (Nicolás) Maduro have lost any credibility they might have about the alleged election results,” a senior U.S. official said in a call with journalists.

It’s the same position taken by the European Union, reiterated on Monday night by its chancellor, Josep Borrell, who pointed out once again that the results “have not been verified and cannot be considered representative of the will of the Venezuelan people until they are published and confirmed.”

The head of European diplomacy urged the CNE of Venezuela to “act with maximum transparency in the process of tabulating the results, including immediate access to the voting ballots of all the polling stations and the publication of the disaggregated electoral results.” According to Borrell, there are “reliable reports from national and international observers indicating that the elections were tarnished by numerous failures and irregularities.”

Meanwhile, the Governments of Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic expressed their deep concern about the development of the presidential elections and demanded the complete review of the results. All of them, along with three more, convened an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) to be held this Wednesday.

All of them, along with three more, convened an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) to be held this Wednesday

The Maduro Government has demanded that Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay “immediately withdraw their representatives from Venezuelan territory.” Peru responded by expelling the Venezuelan diplomats in Lima, giving them 72 hours to leave the country.

Caracas also announced the temporary suspension, from Wednesday, of commercial flights to Panama and the Dominican Republic.

Argentina, through its chancellor, Diana Mondino, thanked the Venezuelans who gathered in the vicinity of the country’s diplomatic headquarters in Caracas after being alerted to an alleged attempt to take over the diplomatic headquarters by a group of police.

The episode was denounced by one of the six opponents who have taken refuge in the official residence since March 26.

“Urgent. At this time, officers of the DAET (Directorate of Strategic and Tactical Actions of the Bolivarian National Police) intend to take the residence of the Embassy of Argentina in Caracas, where there are six asylum seekers from the campaigns of María Corina Machado and Edmundo González,” Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli, International coordinator of the opposition party Vente Venezuela (VV), denounced on X.

Leader María Corina Machado also warned about the incident during a press conference and said that she had been informed about the presence of “armed and apparently masked officers of the Bolivarian National Police,” before asking the press and the neighbors of the area to approach the place to ensure the safety of those who are sheltered there.

Cuba has also sent its “solidarity and support” in the face of what it described as “an imperialist siege, external interference” and “onslaught of the Right”

Meanwhile, Maduro received congratulations from countries such as Russia, China, Iran, Serbia, Nicaragua and Cuba, which has also sent its “solidarity and support” in the face of what it described as “an imperialist siege, external interference” and “onslaught of the right,” despite the fact that numerous left-wing governments on the continent and in other parts of the world have questioned the victory of Chavismo.

For the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, the criticism of Sunday’s process is part of a “media and political manipulation” aimed at “destabilizing and generating violence to attempt a coup against the Bolivarian and Chavista Government and the Civic-Military Union.”

He asked that “the popular will expressed in the results of the elections in Venezuela officially announced by the electoral authority be respected, in the face of the campaign of external interference that tries to ignore them.”

In addition, the Casa de las Americas has issued a statement from Havana in which, after congratulating Maduro on his alleged victory, it regrets that “Monroe’s spirit is still alive and active” and that the “new emboldened and euphoric fascism (…) reappears, with some sudden allies, to sow doubts about the cleanliness of the Venezuelan electoral authorities and request the intervention of the sinister OAS, always ready to legitimize the aggressions of the empire.”

On the other hand, the Christian Democratic Party of Cuba expresses its solidarity and “provides its full and unrestricted support to Edmundo González Urrutia” in a letter published on Tuesday in which it also expresses its support for international organizations to take charge of “the necessary and sufficient electoral claim, and to demand transparency to reliably recognize the decision of the Venezuelan people, in favor of their longed-for democracy.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Celebration of a Bloody Failure / Cubanet, Luis Cino

It is an aberration that the Moncada carnage, which began a nightmare that seems endless after 65 years of dictatorship, became a national holiday.

Celbration of 26th of July / Poverty in Cuba. (Fotos: Cubadebate / CubaNet)sdsd

Cubanet, Luis Cino, Havana, 26 July 2024 — A few days ago, writing in 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera recalled when Fidel Castro, appearing on a State TV “Roundtable” [Mesa Redonda] segment in 2000, admitted that he could have avoided the attack on the Moncada Barracks and gone up the Sierra Maestra to begin the battle against the Batista regime.

This would have prevented the loss of 86 lives: 22 military personnel and 64 revolutionaries — eight who died during the assault and 56 who were killed by the soldiers after being taken prisoner.

Fidel Castro’s plan of using 160 men armed with pistols and 22 carbines to take the Moncada Barracks—Cuba’s second military fortress, defended by a garrison of a thousand men—had no chance of success.

Even assuming that they had managed to take Moncada, and that a large part of the Santiago population would have joined the revolutionaries, and that they had also managed to take the barracks of the National Police and the Navy, Santiago de Cuba would have become a mousetrap for them. Even if the Fidelistas had managed, as they had planned, to also take the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks in Bayamo, they would not have been able to contain the army reinforcements that would come to Santiago. And it would have been difficult for the rebels to withdraw from the city, escape the bombings of government aircraft, and take refuge in the Sierra Maestra to start the guerrilla war. continue reading

But Fidel Castro, a delusional guy who was given to hatching the most outlandish plots, needed to make big headlines before taking up arms against the Batista regime. And he achieved that with the tragic debacle that was the attack on Moncada and, to top it all off, his subsequent statement with a title inspired by a quotation from Mein Kampf: “History will absolve me.”

Starting on July 26, 1953, and throughout the following decades, Fidel Castro’s specialty would be to take advantage of his setbacks and turn them into victories or, at least, into something that seemed like success or that he could present as such.

It is an aberration that the Moncada carnage, which began a nightmare that seems endless after 65 years of a dictatorship that has led Cuba to ruin, became not only the most exalted passage in Castro’s history but also a national holiday: the so-called “Day of National Rebellion,” the longest celebration of Castroism, with three holidays.

If it’s a matter of celebrating failures, they could have chosen, among many others, the Ten Million Ton Sugar Harvest that did not happen, the Havana Greenbelt [or Cordon], the energy revolution, the experiments that wiped out the country’s livestock, the destruction of the sugar industry or, more recently—in keeping with the post-Fidel-continuity regime—the Tarea Ordenamiento (Ordering Task) and its consequent uneconomic rearrangements.

But Castroism requires stories of martyrology, mourning, the cult of the dead. Like vampires, it needs blood.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

The Price of Vehicles Imported Into Cuba by Individuals Is Lowered but the Tariffs Will Be in Foreign Currency

According to the Minister of Transport, the proceeds will go to a fund to recover public transport and infrastructure

Vehicles like these, shown by Maravana, leave for Cuba from Miami, upon payment of the tariffs required by the company and Customs. (Maravana Cargo)

14ymedio, Madrid, 30 July 2024 — Cubans will be able to import vehicles from abroad at the same price as companies, although they will have to pay the tariffs in foreign currency. The measure is expected to take effect in November, as announced on Monday by the Minister of Transport, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, who advanced on Canal Caribe and the social networks of his department the general lines of the “update” of the rules, which are being carried out. Until now, individuals paid more than businesses, but when the reform enters into force the sales prices will be adjusted, said the official, “so they will not vary if the buyer is a legal or natural person”; therefore, “the prices will be lower than the current ones.”

This is intended, he said, to facilitate “people’s access, with the capacity to do so, to different alternatives to meet their mobility needs from their own resources.”

This is intended, he said, to facilitate “people’s access, with the ability to do so, to different alternatives to meet their mobility needs from their own resources”

With the money raised, Rodríguez Dávila said, a fund will be created, managed by the Ministry of Transport, which will be nourished by the tariffs and will be “destined for the recovery and development of public transport and its infrastructure.” continue reading

Among the novelties is the authorization to import mopeds and motorcycles that have a combustion engine or are hybrid as long as they are of low cylinder capacity, which opens the possibility of acquiring these vehicles, which until now had to be electric (the so-called motorinas). With this energy source, the options are extended to electric tricycles with more than two seats or with charging capacity, which can also be imported.

A special tax on the sale of vehicles is established that will depend on their type, ranging from 35% of total value for high-end ones to an exemption when it comes to electric vehicles assembled in Cuba. In addition, there will be a progressive tax, also, of course, in foreign currency, depending on the number of vehicles that people own above three for motorcycles, cars and trucks. There is a limit to the number bought in a period; people and companies are authorized to buy a maximum of six vehicles in five years.

Another novelty is the possibility of transmitting ownership of these goods, with the exception of state legal entities, which need authorization from the Council of Ministers to grant them to an individual, and foreign diplomats, who are governed by a special system.

In addition, “a onetime import of vehicles to people who are on official missions abroad is authorized, according to the conditions that will be established by their agencies.”

“A one-time import of vehicles is authorized to people who are on official missions abroad, according to the conditions that will be established by their agencies”

Finally, there is a measure aimed at the sale in national currency, detached from import, which is the possibility of acquiring the vehicles that are available in the Cuban market, including those that conclude their operation in the tourism sector, provided that they are in good technical condition. To date, the option has been limited by the low number of vehicles.

Thus, the authorities seem to have found the solution to the problems of the Cuban roads that, in the words of Manuel Marrero, are capable of “melting” quality cars. The minister believes that the new measures will contribute to “modernizing vehicles in the country, achieving greater road safety, stimulating national production and assembly, and the greater use of vehicles with clean energy.”

The statement has already been contested on social networks. “The same thing was said with the stores in MLC [freely convertible currency], that the money raised was going to be used to supply the stores in national currency. And nothing happened, it was just one more lie,” a user reacted to the Canal Caribe video.

Pending the articulation of these measures, what the authorities did let drop in detail is the painful road situation in which the collected currencies are allegedly intended to be invested.

In his speech in the National Assembly, the report of the Ministry of Transport delivered lethal data: of the 1,109,298 square meters of road surface affected by potholes, only 247,359 were repaired. Of the 127 kilometers of provincial and municipal roads planned for repair in the first half of the year, only 69 had been completed. Of the 25 hot and cold asphalt concrete plants operating in Cuba, 12 are “paralyzed by breakage.” This summary explains the high accident rate on Cuban roads, not to mention the shortcomings of public transport.

Last week, in an interview with 14ymedio granted by Alejandro Martínez, president of the car import company in Miami, Maravana Cargo, the businessman was optimistic about a possible legislative modification of the Cuban Government that, he considered, would be favorable to his interests. “It’s not about my optimism, it’s about being practical. Where there must be optimism is there, where the problems and the need exist. The impression I have is that it’s going to be the other way around. There will be a flexibilization of many things in that sense,” he said.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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