María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia claimed the opposition’s victory. / EFE
EFE (via 14ymedio), Caracas, 29 July 2024 — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado urged the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) to “respect the popular sovereignty” expressed in Sunday’s presidential elections, insisting that the candidate of the largest anti-Chávez bloc, Edmundo González Urrutia, won, and not President Nicolás Maduro, as announced by the electoral body.
In the opinion of the former deputy, the announcement of the National Electoral Council (CNE), which gave the victory to Maduro with 51.2 % of the votes, “was impossible”, since, according to more than 40 % of the reports they have received, González Urrutia obtained 70 %, while the head of State – said Machado – obtained 30 %.
For his part, the presidential candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, claimed that “all the rules have been violated” during the process.
“Venezuelans and the whole world know what happened in today’s election; here all the rules have been violated, to the extent that most of the minutes have not yet been delivered,” said the former ambassador.
The diplomat emphasised that his message and that of the coalition, the United Democratic Platform (PUD), still holds, that “reconciliation and change in peace” is still valid, and he said that they are “convinced that the great majority of Venezuelans also aspire to it”. continue reading
“Our struggle continues and we will not rest until the will of the people of Venezuela is respected,” he added.
Meanwhile, Maduro, in power since 2013, called for “respect for the will of the people” after being proclaimed re-elected president.
For his part, the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, said that the country is preparing to begin “a new stage” following the elections.
To ensure the security of the process, more than 388,000 members of the FANB and the different State security forces were deployed in the country, which is also maintaining a temporary “closure” “of cross-border movements, as well as the passage of vehicles through the land accesses with neighboring countries, Colombia and Brazil.
Translated by GH
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Knowing how the hierarchs of the regime live, what they eat, who they sleep with, the watches they wear, what jokes they tell, produces a poisonous effect: that is the true merit of Norberto Fuentes
A group of ’sweet Cuban warrior’ with Tony de la Guardia on the far left and Arnaldo Ochoa in the center/ CC
Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, July 28, 2024 — Arnaldo Ochoa was shot 35 years ago. Will anyone have remembered him on July 13, or Tony de la Guardia, or the others who shared lead, sweat and fear with him? I would also not have noticed the date if I hadn’t finally found, after two and a half years of searching, a copy of Dulces guerreros cubanos [Sweet Cuban Warriors]. I could never get the book in Cuba, with the photo of the executioner on the cover shooting his AK-47, a man making his way through history by fire and death. The exterminating angel.
Roberto Bolaño didn’t like that book. Bolaño, who probably only read the first pages – the condemnation of the reviewer out of necessity – dedicates to him the hardest words that have been said about Norberto Fuentes: “It is as if Raúl Castro today went into exile in Miami and wrote a book lamenting the injustices committed by his brother in forty years of dictatorship.” To Fuentes, the survivor par excellence of Cuban literature, there is no way to approach him without having an opinion. Few have read his work, but all of us – including me – read it with rage against Fuentes; we read to refute or get pissed off with Fuentes.
“It’s as if Raúl Castro went into exile in Miami today and wrote a book lamenting the injustices committed by his brother”
Bolaño fell into that trap. He criticized the ‘syncopated style’ of the book, its chronic imitation of Hemingway, the revolutionary double standard – two Rolexes, two houses, two women, two pistols, two passports – and the fate of someone whom the writer does not consider, a soul in pain. Going, not without disgust, through the 459 pages of that book does not transform the reader. There is no apology or excuse anywhere – that also displeased the Chilean – and the author doesn’t like it any better. Nor the man. continue reading
However, Fuentes delivers an outsider’s guide to the Cuban Revolution that is at the level of – and perhaps surpasses, because it is written by an old agent – other horror chronicles, such as the Mapa dibujado por un espía (Map Drawn by a Spy) by Cabrera Infante or the now worn out Antes que anochezca (Before Night Falls) by Reinaldo Arenas. As a writer, one regrets that Fuentes — obsessed with the center of power, with killing his Personal Jesus, ‘Fifo’ [a nickname for Fidel] — and enthroning the heroes, does not explore the margin any more. From that hive of minor agents, informers without salary, lovers with ration books, crazy scientists and useful idiots one wants to know more, because they still exist.
Ochoa’s phrase about the type of business that others do – ‘little boys’ things,’ little money – directs the focus to the right place, but Fuentes resists. He wants epic. He wants, with good reason, literature. ’There was death and regret for this book,” he cries.
It is a book about the toxin, the non-enjoyment, the dialogues that would annoy anyone. A new language for a new generation
Witnessing the intimacy of those bastards, knowing how they live, what they eat, who they sleep with, what kind of watches they wear and what they do to relax described to paroxysm produces a poisoning so effective that it is the true merit of Fuentes. A book about the toxin, the non-enjoyment, the dialogues that would annoy anyone. A new language for a new generation: “Viking. Buffaloes. Prophets. Ranger. Crossbow. Everest. Moccasin. Stuka.” Two images summarize that environment: Raúl Castro’s aluminum flask, which he continues to use to get drunk, and the breakfast scene of Fidel and Dalia Soto del Valle, the teaspoon of honey, the buffalo milk, the dictator’s slippers.
Ochoa, the mulatto philosopher, the Greek – although Raúl insists on calling him the Negro – plays with the essential powers, “the Party and the Mafia”; that is, the proverbial monkey* without his harmless chain. Ochoa is the man who laughs, the joker, who clashes with the Jesuit severity of the Castros. “The officer of the Armed Forces to whom I have drawn attention most times, whether sitting in front of him at a desk, at a family meal, in a corridor, is named Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez,” Raúl lectures in the famous recording. “And the first thing I started to criticize is that he is always talking, he is always joking, you never know when he is serious.”
The “tormented brain,” the “absent dream,” the installation in reality – “I went to brush my teeth in the bathroom behind my office”; the pathos – “I saw tears running down my cheeks”; the epic sprinkled with kitsch, rosy death: those are the qualities of the true revolutionary. “As you can assume, I was first outraged with myself. I immediately recovered and understood in the act that I was crying for Ochoa’s children,” he exclaims.
Bolaño failed to understand Dulces guerreros cubanos (Sweet Cuban Warriors) as the great epitaph of Tony de la Guardia, the Cuban Achilles
But Ochoa is the least in that book. Bolaño failed to understand ’Sweet Cuban Warriors’ as the great epitaph of Tony de la Guardia, the Cuban Achilles and, like Achilles, reserved for death. It is possible that Fuentes’ portrait is exaggerated, as all memories are exaggerated, but there is no doubt that it is moving. The lack of understanding of the panorama, the lack of warning in the face of disaster – they were the great strategists of the Army! – the assurance that death awaited them and was going to take them away, that those people were lost. The family portrait is so touching that one almost forgets that they were elite murderers.
A few years ago, when Patricio de la Guardia – Tony’s twin – left the dungeon where he had been locked up since 1989, Fuentes celebrated him. Patricio was already an old man, as weak as Raúl Castro or Ramiro Valdés, although he was born in 1939 and had the mantra of his clan tattooed on his forearm: Never say die (“Nunca digas morir”). With those three words, worn out on his transparent skin; with Raúl’s aluminum flask; with hundreds of dirty uniforms, broken pistols, frayed epaulettes, whose memory is not sweet; with all that dust and that shit, one hopes that the Cuban Revolution will finally end.
*Translator’s note: From a common expression in Cuba – referencing ordinary people’s relationship to power – “You can play with the chain but not the monkey.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The Government settles at least three protests by sending tanker trucks
Local residents set up a barricade of plastic jugs on Saturday night in Havana. / Facebook
14ymedio, Havana, 1 July 2024 / Residents of Central Havana took to the streets Saturday night to protest the lack of water. They managed to block Reina Street, closing off traffic at its intersection with Galiano Street. The demonstration marked the end of a week in which at least two other similar incidents occurred, one in Old Havana and another in Luyanó, which ended when water supplies were replenished.
In an online video, a group of people can be seen using plastic water jugs to create a barricade, blocking a tour bus that routinely uses the street. The Transtour bus was the first vehicle that could not get through, followed by cars that lined up behind it. Only a motorcycle was able to make its way through the barrier.
Police arrived at the scene and listened to the complaints of residents, who explained that they had gone for more than ten days without water. One particularly hard-hit resident reported that a number of water trucks showed up after the streets were closed and “filled everything up for everyone at 4:00 in the morning.” continue reading
On M0nday, residents of Old Havana, who had been without water for ten days, blocked the intersection at Egido and Acosta streets with plastic water jugs and stones. Traffic was impeded until a tanker truck, sent by the local government and guarded by police, arrived on the scene.
Sources in Luyanó, which has gone without water for ten days, report that a protest broke out there on Thursday. After residents took to the streets to complain, police and local officials showed up to talk to them and water supplies were delivered.
“Now people know what to do. If they protest because they are hungry, a truck shows up bringing them food. If it’s about water, a tanker truck shows up. That’s it. Life goes on, everyone is happy for a few days and then it’s the same old thing,” complained one user on social media.
Videos of these protests have been circulating on social media, where a multitude of posts complain of similar situations involving water supplies being delivered only every fifteen days, or as long as a month in many instances.
The water shortage in the capital has been aggravated by an electricity shortage. Havana’s water supplier, Aguas de la Habana, reported on July 20 that a tripped circuit at its Cuenca Sur plant caused a disruption in one of the conductors, which forced it to shut down operations in order to diagnose the problem, which in turn led to problems in several parts of the city.
The fuel shortage has also had an impact on water delivery by tanker truck. In March, the government provided data on the country’s water supply, revealing that only 48% of the population receives it on a daily basis at appropriate levels of quality, availability and accessibility. According to its own figures, only 5,400,035 Cubans out of the island’s 11,089,511 residents as of 2022 enjoy this human right.
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A program by the anonymous spokesman Cuban Warrior and the arrest of the writer Ángel Santiesteban form part of the measures against those who oppose the current Grand Master
Urquía Carreño, on the right, during an event in 2023 with several of the senior Masonic officials who protested on July 23 / Grand Lodge of Cuba
14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 26 July 2024 — The Cuban regime has demonstrated in the last 48 hours that the protest of Freemasons on July 23 in the building of the Grand Lodge, in Havana, did not go unnoticed. An official note from the Ministry of Justice, a program on the Freemasons by the anonymous spokesman Guerrero Cubano and the detention, this Thursday, of the writer and Freemason Ángel Santiesteban indicate that the Government is not willing to lose control of the situation.
The crisis revolves around the figure of the several times-expelled and rehabilitated Grand Master, Mario Alberto Urquía Carreño, whose leadership has been in question since the theft of $19,000 from his office last January. A large group of Freemasons, among whom are almost all the senior officials of the fraternity, have been demanding his dismissal since then, because they consider him to be a tool of State Security to weaken and infiltrate the organization.
After the protest on July 23, during which Urquía Carreño refused to leave his office, the Government hinted he would cede in a statement broadcast live by the independent press. The Ministry of Justice, in an ambiguous document signed that same day, said that after detecting “irregularities” in the sanctions issued against Urquía Carreño – his deposition as leader and his expulsion from Freemasonry – and the election of a new Master, Juan Alberto Kessel Linares, they should continue “to carry out those processes again in accordance with the statutes and the will of the members.”
At first glance, the text seemed a simple capitulation of the Ministry, which in the face of disgust with Urquía Carreño and the exodus of Kessel – who gave the seat again to his predecessor – recognized the right of the Freemasons to self-determination. However, subsequent events made it evident that the matter was not over. continue reading
In a subtle way, the Ministry emphasized the differences between the two Masonic bodies into which Cuban Freemasonry is divided
In a subtle way, the Ministry emphasized the differences between the two Masonic bodies into which Cuban Freemasonry is divided: the Grand Lodge – at the moment presided over by Urquía Carreño – and the Supreme Council of Degree 33, headed by Ramón Viñas Alonso, critic of the regime and accuser of Urquía Carreño. The Ministry had already clarified that it considered both bodies to be different institutions for legal purposes, and it has said that the Supreme Council operated illegally against the Grand Lodge, in the person of Urquía Carreño.
The strategy of dividing both bodies was, precisely, the one followed by the Guerrero Cubano [Cuban Warrior] YouTube channel, which is usually cited and reproduced by the official media. For 45 minutes, Cuban Warrior was dedicated to attacking Viñas Alonso and the Supreme Council, suggesting that they behaved “irregularly” and that they were the real culprits of the crisis, for revealing “Masonic matters to laymen” – that is, to those not initiated in the order.
The same accusation fell on independent journalist Camila Acosta, to whom Cuban Warrior mistakenly attributes a romantic relationship with Viñas. In the argument of the official government YouTuber, Acosta has disclosed – by order of the CIA, he affirms – Masonic secrets and has exposed the fraternity. In his opinion, the Ministry of Justice has done nothing more than to ensure compliance with the statutes.
Cuban Warrior directed its invective against a third person: the journalist and 33rd degree Freemason – the highest degree of Freemasonry – Ángel Santiesteban. Critical of the Government and close to Viñas, Santiesteban has been in the sights of State Security since before the crisis began. This Thursday, according to a message published by Acosta, his partner, he was arrested by the political police and released hours later.
Acosta said the arrest was “a direct affront to Freemasonry” and accused the Police of giving the July 23 protest “a political connotation”
Acosta said the arrest was “a direct affront to Freemasonry” and accused the Police of giving the July 23 protest “a political connotation” to justify the arrest of the Freemasons opposed to Urquía Carreño. “This is not only a blow to Freemasonry but also to the homeland. It is the implementation of a dictatorship within an institution that has been able to survive in a dictatorship and continue to promote freedom, equality and fraternity,” she said.
Santiesteban, she added, was about to go to Viñas Alonso’s house at 2:00 pm this Thursday when he was arrested. Both Freemasons intended to discuss the current situation of the fraternity and analyze the crisis due to Urquía Carreño’s insistence on remaining in office.
For his part, the Grand Master himself – who, entrenched in his office, did not want to talk to those who complained about his presence on July 23 – issued a new circular, reproduced by CubaNet. In the document, signed on the 24th, Urquía Carreño gave his version of the “Masons and laymen” protest, convened by “instant messaging groups.”
The title of the Secretary of the Grand Lodge, Juliannis Reinaldo Galano, along with that of Urquía Carreño, and the fact that no one has prevented him from entering the lodge, means that at least one group of Freemasons allied with Urquía Carreño continues to support his leadership.
According to the text, the cause of the protest was Decree 1761 – signed by the Secretary – which suspended the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Recognition between the Supreme Council for Degree 33 and the Grand Lodge, which dates from 1876 and is one of the oldest and most significant documents of Cuban Freemasonry.
Urquía Carreño complained that the protest, which had been called for the outskirts of the Grand Lodge building on Carlos III Street, “ended” on the 11th floor, knocking on the doors of his office. “The claims made within the alleged Masonic laws were not made at all in accordance with our precepts and oaths,” he alleged.
Urquía Carreño complained that the protest, which had been called for the outskirts of the Grand Lodge building on Carlos III Street, “ended” on the 11th floor
He also added fuel to the dispute between the two highest authorities of Cuban Freemasonry; he pointed to Santiesteban as a “representation ” of the Supreme Council, “who has had a leading role in the campaign of discredit and misrepresentation of the facts.”
He also alluded to Acosta – present at the protest – who, according to Urquía Carreño, was an instrument of Santiesteban to involve the independent press and expose “Masonic internal affairs,” an argument that Cuban Warrior had already put forward. Acosta “has attacked this Grand Lodge of Cuba and this Grand Master with information that a layman should not control,” he said.
Neither the Ministry of Justice, nor Urquía Carreño or Cuban Warrior has mentioned the theft of the money from the Llansó Masonic Asylum – and other sums whose loss was reported in the following months – that triggered the crisis in January. It remains to be seen if, in the coming weeks, the Grand Lodge will take literally the statement of the ministry that suggests turning the page and choosing a new Grand Master, or if the crisis will give the Government an excuse to suspend – and therefore, ban – the Grand Lodge and the Supreme Council from its Registry of Associations.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The specialists arrived in the country in 2022, after being originally hired for one year, although their stay was extended for two
An image of the Cuban doctors who arrived in 2022 in the state of Campeche (Mexico) / Heraldo Carmelita
14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, July 28, 2024 –In October, seven Cuban doctors will stop work in hospitals located in the Mexican state of Campeche. According to Eva Baeza Fuentes, president of the board of trustees of the María del Socorro Quiroga Aguilar general hospital, the doctors were informed of their return to the Island, and there is “uncertainty” among them because they do not know if they will return to Mexico.
Baeza Fuentes confirmed to the newspaper Por Esto! that two gynecology specialists, an internist, a surgeon and an intensive care specialist will leave the hospital where she works. An anonymous source specified that “the Cubans arrived in October 2022 with a one-year contract, which included a six-month period of leave; however, their stay was extended for another year, which ends in October 2024.” This does not rule out that it is only a change of headquarters.
Among the Cuban specialists who arrived at the María del Socorro Quiroga Aguilar general hospital in 2022 are Misleidy Bárbara Labrada Cedeño, Yisell Muñiz Cárdenas, Liliana Castro Goulet, Elizabet Valdés Hernández and Manuel de Jesús Molina Sánchez. continue reading
The governor of the state of Campeche, Layda Sansores, when receiving Cuban specialists in 2022 / Layda Sansores
These health workers are part of the group of the first 600 hired by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. For each of these professionals, the Island received, according to the agreement, $2,042 per specialist and $1,722 per general practitioner. The money was managed by the Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos, S.A. In the agreement with Mexico it was specified that this first stage was for one year, “with the possibility of extending the agreement.”
Of that money, Cuban doctors receive only “a stipend for their needs,” meaning that their “salary stays in Cuba,” denounced a specialist in February 2023. Of the amount paid by the López Obrador Administration that should be allocated for the doctors’ salaries , the Government of the Island receives the most. Organizations such as Prisoners Defenders have questioned the Government of Mexico for hiring Cuban professionals in “conditions of slavery.”
Baeza Fuentes said that in addition to the specialists at the Socorro Quiroga Aguilar hospital, a Cuban neurosurgeon who is working at the Escárcega Hospital and a surgeon established in Ciudad del Carmén will also leave.
According to Governor Layda Sansores, 51 Cuban specialists arrived in the state of Campeche. A group of 109 were sent to Nayarit and another 52 to Guerrero. The rest are in Baja California Sur (51), Chiapas (12), Colima (86), Michoacán (71), Hidalgo (39), Oaxaca (68), Quintana Roo (31), Sonora (60), Tamaulipas (15), Tlaxcala (105), Veracruz (25), Yucatán (3) and Zacatecas (28).
On July 16, the Government of Mexico announced the hiring of another 2,700 doctors from the Island. They will join the 950 who are now in the country
On July 16, the Government of Mexico announced the hiring of another 2,700 doctors from the Island. They will join the 950 that are now in Mexican territory, distributed in 23 states.
The Cuban doctors are part of Imss-Bienestar, the free health organization created in 2022 by the Government of the self-styled Fourth Transformation, headed by López Obrador, replacing the Seguro Popular, in power until that time.
A source confirmed to 14ymedio last Friday that a new group of health workers arrived in Mexico and were transferred to the state of Veracruz. These doctors are part of the 1,200 that were contracted last May.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The problem is due, among other reasons, to the fact that only 13 of the 25 asphalt plants are functioning
According to Rodríguez Dávila, even the prioritized repair plans fell through / Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila
14ymedio, Havana, July 27, 2024 –In Cuba there are “quality problems in road repairs, and a lack of discipline and organization in interventions.” The euphemisms to disguise the unfortunate state of Cuban roads – and the neglect of the technicians -, analyzed this Thursday by the Minister of Transport, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, was accompanied by alarming numbers: Of the 1,109,298 square meters of road affected by potholes, only 247,359 have been repaired. The data is just the tip of the iceberg in a triumphalist report – although detailed – of the situation, which promises a second part. Along with the usual complaints about the U.S. embargo and the fuel shortage, Rodríguez Dávila also implies that the State lacks money to carry out the planned repairs.
Of the 127 kilometers of provincial and municipal roads that they had planned to repair in the first half of the year, they have only completed 69. The numbers are “far below real needs,” Rodríguez Dávila explained, resorting to a new euphemism.
The minister admitted that there is not enough budget on the Island for the purchase of specialized equipment
The minister admitted that there is not enough budget on the Island for the purchase of specialized equipment, or for the indispensable spare parts. In addition, he complained about the “instability” both in the allocation and the availability of physical fuel, to start the machinery and solve logistical needs. continue reading
The origin of the problem is that of the 25 hot and cold asphalt concrete plants that operate in Cuba, there are 12 “paralyzed by breaks.” The result is damaged roads, which only received 10% of the hot concrete they need and 14% of the cold.
According to Rodríguez Dávila, even the prioritized repair plans fell through: only 8.3% of the roads that lead to the Island’s airports – and which are essential routes for the transport of tourists – were repaired with the asphalt mixture. The same failures are verified on the National Highway (whose repair is at 15%), the Central Highway (11%), the one that leads to the Special Economic Development Zone of Mariel (10.3%) and the one that leads to the Cayería Norte (18%).
The repair of bridges, many of them about to collapse, remained at 21%. Other roads, especially at the provincial and municipal levels, suffer “significant delays.”
The repair of bridges, many of them about to collapse, stayed at 21%
Rodríguez Dávila could only be proud of the “maintenance and repair of the tunnels of the capital,” in particular the tunnel of the Bay of Habana, and promised that soon those of Línea and 5th Avenue will be repaired.
The urgency is now to seek “better financial support” from the Government and to obtain “fuel and materials,” he said. He explained that many repairs now depend on provincial governments, which lack “completion of the number of positions”: a third euphemism that points out the lack of local leaders, a phenomenon that with the immigration stampede and the emergence of MSMEs, has become recurrent.
Active on social networks and on Cuban Television, Rodríguez Dávila’s face has become one of the most recognized in the Council of Ministers. His Facebook profile covers the ministry’s operations on a daily basis, in particular the development of one of its initiatives: a kind of “revolution of electric tricycles,” with which, he explains, he plans to alleviate the situation of urban public transport. The Achilles heel of the plan are the blackouts, which give no respite to state or private carriers.
Santiago de Cuba, a province that had not joined the tricycle fever, received its first ten this Saturday, which were paraded on July 26 before the first secretary of the Party, Beatriz Johnson Urrutia.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The silence of the regime suggests that Havana considers that in the process in which Nicolás Maduro sought reelection he lost
Hiding what is happening this Sunday in Venezuela is becoming difficult / Screen Capture
14ymedio, Havana, 28 July 2024 — Judging by the official Cuban press, Nicolás Maduro is going to lose the presidential elections in Venezuela. A sober headline dedicated to the 70th birthday of Hugo Chávez, a brief note on the opening of the polling stations in that South American country and several unfavorable comments, permitted, indicate that Havana considers the process lost.
The morning began in a subdued manner in the media controlled by the Cuban Communist Party. In addition to the traditional local anniversaries and the echoes of the July 26th event, the only thing that was added in the first few hours was a reminder of Hugo Chávez’s birthday. But as the morning progressed, the pressure of reality changed the editorial trend of the main news headlines. While Granma remained unmoved, clinging to its tradition of not publishing on Sundays, Cubadebate dared to narrate, on a delay, the electoral process.
Far from the front page, after four in the afternoon Havana time, the news item given by Cubadebate was still headlined with the phrase “Presidential elections begin in Venezuela: Maduro exercises his right to vote.” Concise, with the numbers from Miraflores and with few updates, the brief text was not updated for hours but, surprisingly, the strict moderators allowed the occasional wink in the comments section.
Several unfavorable comments, permitted, indicate that Havana considers the process lost
Further down in the article, it was stated: “The prestigious pollster Lewis & Thompson, in its midday report, declared Nicolás Maduro Moros the winner of the presidential election by 55% to Edmundo González’s 34%, with Antonio Ecarri in third place.” But the data did not seem to influence the opinion of readers too much, who, overcoming their suspicions about commenting in an official Cuban media outlet, let their doubts slip.
continue reading
While the official article was absolutely in line with Maduro’s wishes, the majority of Internet users went the other way. Sometimes peppered with irony and sometimes directly. “I had no idea of the love that the people have for Maduro… it is incalculable… Now I realize everything,” mocked one commentator, while another raised the stakes: “Fortunately, we have a truthful and unbiased news outlet. Cubadebate, which informs us that the Venezuelan people love Maduro and will liquidate these puppets of the empire to bring peace and prosperity,” another noted sarcastically.
Without live images, and with great care in everything that is published, the coverage of the Venezuelan elections is reminiscent of that of the official Cuban press in other elections that went unfavorably for the Plaza de la Revolución. The most famous, without a doubt, was in Nicaragua with the defeat of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in February 1990. Hidden in the national media of the Island, it had to be recognized when the international headlines warned of the revolutionary debacle and the excesses of the piñata reached the Island.
But there are many other examples, from the coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 in Germany, behind the media curtain of Havana, to the rewriting of events such as the Tiananmen Square protests in China that same year. Whenever possible, Cuban official propaganda delays news that is not favorable to it and glosses over results that are adverse to its interests.
Hiding what is happening this Sunday in Venezuela is becoming difficult. The streets of Caracas have filled with opposition supporters willing to vote regardless of the obstacles imposed by the Chavista regime. Their enthusiasm is so great that while they line up outside the schools that were converted into voting centers this Sunday, they sing their national anthem as a sign of victory over the Maduro government.
Maria Corina Machado says there is an ‘apocalyptic’ participation in the elections
The number of people who have gone out to vote in Venezuela is so large that the main opposition leader, María Corina Machado, celebrated the “apocalyptic turnout” that has been recorded so far, during the election day to choose the president for the 2025-2031 period. She stressed that, according to her own figures, by 1:00 p.m. local time, the turnout had reached 42.1%. “It’s wonderful, what is happening is very beautiful,” she stressed.
Interviewed by the media outside the Elena de Bueno school in Caracas, where she went to vote this afternoon, Machado explained that in her opinion, during this election, Venezuelans are “realizing a dream and a struggle for freedom, redemption and reunion.” She stressed that “as things are going,” in reference to the large voter turnout, the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela will announce “irreversible” results “very early.”
“What we are seeing is the most important civic act in the contemporary history of Venezuela. Venezuelans have gone out (to vote) in a massive, organized way, as a family, and they have surprised us (…) Today Venezuela is united, we have been for many years, in the faith that we would be free. Today it is a certainty, we will be free, we will bring our children back home. We will unite this country and we will have achieved the most important civic and liberating day in the history of our country,” she said.
She pointed out that in some polling stations the Chavista regime, headed by Maduro, who is seeking re-election after 11 years in power, has tried to impose a “directed” slowdown procedure. This is after a protocol was incorporated that was not originally contemplated in the electoral process, which is the scanning of the ID cards of the population that arrives at the polling stations. “People are not going to leave until they can vote,” she stressed.
Asked about some of the acts of violence that occurred during the day, she explained that the opposition election witnesses who are in charge of ensuring the hygiene of the electoral process reported incidents at 1,300 of the 30,020 polling places, where there were even “injuries.” In this regard, she highlighted the bravery of these volunteers, whom she called the “heroes of this process,” and stressed that in the face of adversity, “they fought hard, with the polling manual in hand.”
Finally, she denied that she had had any contact with the country’s high military command and made a special appeal to the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, asking them to experience the election day “with their eyes open” and to understand that they are all “one Venezuela.”
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This type of system is arrogant, it believes that it has everything under control and that it can tame the human soul. This leads them to make mistakes and miscalculate certain steps.
Since the early hours of the morning long lines of voters have been reported outside polling stations in Venezuela / EFE / Ronald Peña R.
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 28 July 2024 — The official Cuban press woke up this Sunday too silent on the main issue that affects all the inhabitants on this side of the world: the presidential elections in Venezuela. And while, in the homes and streets of this Island no one talks of anything but than the possible defeat of Nicolás Maduro in the elections, the media controlled by the Communist Party have preferred to go back 70 years, to that July 28th when Hugo Chávez was born.
To prevent Cubans from being aware of the details of this historic day, several activists and independent journalists have had their cell phone access to the Internet cut off. The satellite dish service that illegally provides the ability to watch television programming from the United States, Mexico and other countries in the region has also been conveniently suspended. The visits of agents from the political police to the areas with the greatest presence of these devices in Havana has dissuaded their administrators from providing a signal whose content the government cannot control.
The anguishing reality in which we live also acts as a distraction from what is happening at the polls in Venezuelan. The mountains of garbage that surround us, the inflation that hits our pockets, the constant farewells to those who emigrate, along with the flies and mosquitoes that have taken over our cities and our homes, it all gives us no respite and barely allows us to concentrate on anything beyond survival. However, people are attentive to the electoral process in that country that, for 25 years, has been intertwined with ours in the political, economic and diplomatic direction.
To prevent Cubans from being aware of the details of this historic day, several activists and independent journalists have had their cell phone access to the Internet cut off
We all know that what happens there will have an impact here. Chavismo has propped up the inefficient Cuban regime for more than two decades. It has given it the oxygen of a constant supply of oil, it has supported it in its delirious international campaigns, it has silenced many of those who criticize Castroism, either by buying their silence with fuel or by making use of that institutional bullying that is common to any authoritarian system. Both dictatorships have embraced, supported and shielded each other against their citizens’ questioning, dissent and the desire for change.
But even with an emigration that exceeds 7 million people in a decade, with most of its main opposition figures exiled, the Chavista collectives terrorizing those who do not join Maduro, and an official propaganda apparatus that has swallowed up practically all the news spaces in the country, Venezuelans still have the electoral resource to show their discontent and weariness with a model that has led them to national and personal ruin. It is an imperfect mechanism, rigged and controlled by the regime, but it exists, unlike in Cuba where all possibilities of a change through the popular vote have been severed.
That is why we are so attentive on this island to what is happening in the vast territory of Venezuela; we hold our breath, we call each other on the phone. There are those who have become emotional and, with watery eyes, have spoken of a future in which Chavismo no longer supports our misfortune, is not an accomplice of the executioner who is squeezing our necks, and who has made so many of our children pack their bags and leave the country where they have their roots.
“What if they succeed?” a friend asked me, his voice cracking. His question tested my skepticism about an authoritarian regime obeying the voice of the ballot box, accepting that it has lost the favor of its people and stepping down peacefully. But for once, I am hopeful. I also know that this type of system is arrogant, it believes it has everything under control and can tame the human soul. This leads them to make mistakes and miscalculate certain steps.
This Sunday I am in Havana, but as if I were in Caracas. If the Venezuelans can do it, why can’t we also rid ourselves of this long-standing tyranny?
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“The sad thing is, with the country the way it is now, we won’t even feel homesick.”
Many recent graduates migrate to the private sector in search of better job opportunities / IPS
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, July 24, 2024 — Amelia’s diploma from the Cienfuegos School of Medical Sciences has been hanging in her living room for exactly three years. That is about how long she has known that this was not a degree she would be using. Like many of her classmates, the 26-year-old fulfilled her social service obligations after graduation and now works as a waitress in a privately owned restaurant.
“All the while I was studying, I thought that a degree — even with all the problems like the teacher shortage and the outdated subject matter — would lead to a better future. But as soon as entered the real world, I was disappointed,” Amelia explains. At the end of her sixth year, her academic credentials should have landed her in one of the top spots for job placement. However, because of so-called “comprehensiveness” considerations — these take into account overall student performance, including participation in political events — many classmates with lower grades ended up with better jobs.
“I did manage, just barely, to land a job at the provincial hospital but ultimately I couldn’t handle the 24-hour shifts. Conditions were such that I had trouble eating, sleeping and bathing,” she recalls. Her salary was also not what she had expected. “I got the basic 4,200 pesos plus a little extra for working at night. The most I earned in one month was 7,000 pesos but it lasted only 15 days and I was exhausted from the daily grind. I’m not passionate about what I’m doing now but I earn almost twice as much,” she says. continue reading
Amelia earns 500 pesos a day working at a restaurant six days a week from 8:30 AM till 4:30 PM
Amelia earns 500 pesos a day working at a restaurant, Monday through Saturday, from 8:30 AM till 4:30 PM. That comes to 12,000 a month plus tips. “It’s still not much money but it allows me to both save and survive,” says Amelia, who is putting money aside for the same reason that she has never tried to specialize in a particular medical field. “I want to leave the country and, if I tried to get into surgery — which is what I would like to do — or something else, they would control me.”
Amelia’s sister Anet also works in a private-sector job. She got her chemical engineering degree five years ago but, like her sister, had to take a job with a privately owned business that sells wooden toys and other items. “As soon as I graduated, I was sent to a high school to teach contemporary history. I had studied chemical substances and processes but every day I had to talk about the October Revolution or the Second World War because there was a shortage of teachers,” she explains.
She did not dislike the job and stayed at the school for several year but had to quit once Covid hit. “Prices shot up, basic products disappeared and, by then, I had a very young son. I couldn’t stay at a place that paid me next to nothing,” she says.
Anet went through several private-sector jobs until a year ago when a friend, a business owner, suggested she sell her merchandise at the crafts fair
Anet went through several private-sector jobs until a year ago when a friend, a business owner, suggested she sell her merchandise at the crafts fair in the capital city. “They pay me well and the work is low-stress. It gives me time to do other things,” she adds.
A few months ago, Anet’s husband was approved for the US Humanitarian Parole Program. They both decided that he should go to the United States with their son while she stayed behind and waited her turn. I am happy because my son is with his dad but it was a very tough decision to make,” she says.
Anet bemoans the hardships that lead Cubans, especially young Cubans, to leave the country in search of a better life. And her case, she warns, is not even the worst. “I have classmates who managed to get scholarships in Germany or Chile and had to leave their families behind. It will take them years to get their children and partners out. At least I’ve already completed the paperwork and just have to wait for the answer.”
Engineers, doctors, intellectuals. . . the island’s list of professionals keeps getting shorter. “It’s a full-on brain drain. Almost everyone who studied with me and my sister now lives abroad,” says Anet. “Some will come back and apply what they learned but most of us will look for other ways to earn a living and have a decent life. The sad thing is, with the country the way it is now, we won’t even feel homesick.”
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In Florida, Melody González Pedraza will have to prove, after a first failed attempt, that she is eligible for political asylum
Several human rights organizations have demanded the release of the young people sentenced by judge Melody González Pedraza / Facebook
14ymedio, Havana, July 27, 2024 — The Provincial Court of Villa Clara will review on August 9 the sentence issued in Cuba by former judge Melody González Pedraza — who is now imprisoned in a detention center for migrants in Broward, Florida — against four young people accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at a vehicle and other police property in 2022. González Pedraza, who has a history of collaboration with the regime from her position in the Municipal Court of Encrucijada, will face a legal process in the United States, where she arrived and applied for political asylum last May, after she was denied humanitarian parole. The former judge will have to prove, after a first failed attempt, that she is eligible for international protection.
González Pedraza alleged in an interview that she had acted according to instructions “from above”
In turn, González Pedraza alleged in an interview with Diario de Cuba that she had acted according to instructions “from above,” although the evidence against the young people was not conclusive. Now, their families are appealing Sentence 4/2024, signed by the former judge, a process that will take place in the Chamber of Crimes against State Security in the Provincial Court, according to Martí Noticias. continue reading
The appeal document, published by this newspaper, indicates that the hearing will be held at 9:00 am “with the reproduction of all the evidence that was carried out in the trial of first instance,” which will be submitted for review.
Captain Miguel Martínez, First Lieutenant Ricardo Domínguez, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Luis Alfonso and a person identified as Ramón Benítez will testify as new witnesses – all members of the Police and State Security.
At the beginning of July, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), based in Madrid, Spain, asked for the acquittal of the young people after González Pedraza’s statements and her application for asylum in the United States. The conviction handed down by the former judge, said OCDH, is based only on the retraction of the confession by one of the accused and on testimonies provided by officials of the Ministry of the Interior.
“They gave me precise indications; I decided that the defense lawyers had presented important evidence”
“They gave me precise indications; I decided that the defense lawyers had presented important evidence, especially witnesses. But the order I received was that the evidence of the Prosecutor’s Office was sufficient and had more value. We had to keep them in pre-trial detention and punish them,” the former official said in her interview with Diario de Cuba.
OCDH presented “new reasons for acquittal and revocation of the sentences,” since “it is evident that it was not lawful and just to pronounce a criminal sentence.” The organization prepared a report, with six recommendations, addressed to the appointed lawyers of the sentencing of the Municipal Court of Encrucijada and the members of the Governing Council of the Provincial Court of Villa Clara, among other agencies.
“There was a violation of guarantees and fundamental rights to the detriment of those convicted, as well as the absence of a crime and the serious judicial misconduct of convicting them without a sufficient minimum of evidence. We believe that there are sufficient elements for imminent freedom measures to be adopted in favor of the appellants, as a definitive measure in justice,” explained the OCDH.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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“They put a policeman every ten meters around the block where the Party’s hotel is located”
Overflowing garbage on the corner of Consulate and Trocadero, next to what was once José Lezama Lima’s home, in Central Havana / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Mercedes García/Juan Diego Rodríguez, Sancti Spíritus, 26 July 2024 — This Friday there is no rebellion but much reluctance and indifference to the most important anniversary of the regime. Cubans will not feel like celebrating, but the Police and Security remain as active as ever and have demonstrated it, not only in Sancti Spíritus – the site of the regime’s celebration – but also in other cities of the Island. July 26 has become National Surveillance Day.
Pablo lives a few blocks from the place where Miguel Díaz-Canel and the other hierarchs of the regime are staying, who held a kind of vigil this Thursday for the anniversary. Pablo witnessed a “strong operation” that began in the afternoon. “They put a policeman every ten meters around the block where the Party’s hotel is located,” he tells 14ymedio.
The secured area occupied 500 meters, estimates Pablo, who also saw agents in the vicinity. “We feel very well cared for in the neighborhood,” he says, sarcastically, referring to how the neighbors had to ask for permission to enter and leave the perimeter. “They asked us where we were going and other details,” he explains. continue reading
“They,” says Pablo, alluding to the main leaders of the country, “arrived around 5:00 pm.” The meals were not made there. They had lunch at the Cayería Norte, according to one of his neighbors, a hotel worker who saw how the traffic in the area was interrupted for the entourage to pass.
Raúl Castro and Ramiro Valdés Mesa participated in the event, and the official press reported that 5,000 people had been summoned
“The Party’s hotel is not a big deal,” Pablo clarifies, “but they always stay there by protocol. The building was fixed and painted recently. New lamps and fence, repairs in the pool, and more comfort inside.”
At the event, for which the official press reported that 5,000 people and 140 foreign “friends of Cuba” were summoned, there were Raúl Castro and Ramiro Valdés Mesa, two of the few survivors of the group that, led by Fidel Castro, failed to take the second most important military barracks in the country. Castro transformed that defeat into a propaganda machine that, 71 years later, is still active although agonizing.
Like last year, the leaders again waited for dawn in between long speeches and the play of lights projected onto the plaza. It was Cuban Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa who was in charge of the celebration, which focused on Raúl Castro and the U.S. embargo. Less proactive than his government colleagues, Valdés Mesa said that Cubans will have to work “without waiting for miracles.”
This Friday, in the Cuban streets, no one expected a party or, even less, a miracle. On Obispo boulevard in Havana, only three people celebrated July 26. With the appearance of state workers or agents dressed in plainclothes, they walked the street again and again wearing red sweaters. On the back, a sentence on the fabric: “Nothing is impossible for those who fight. Fidel.”
In Havana there was little festive spirit, but there was a lot of garbage that no one will take care of “in greeting” to the anniversary. One of the most formidable trash dumps in Havana is on Trocadero Street, next to the battered house – today a museum – of the Cuban writer José Lezama Lima. Enthusiastic about the Castro Revolution in his first months, Lezama wrote a small text about July 26 in which he affirms that the date “brings happiness” to Cubans. This Friday, however, it has only brought garbage. And continuity.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Anyone who has to confess some collaboration is better off doing it now, no matter how small it is, keeping it in only causes pain on both sides.
Check-in area of Terminal 3 of Havana’s José Martí International Airport / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 27 July 2024 — It is not about revenge but about sincerity. I see them leaving every day, packing their bags, renouncing their ideology in silence and leaving behind the victims of their extremism, those punished by their ideological supremacy and those killed by their silence. No, it is not revenge, it is justice that they at least say something once they get out of the vicious circle in which they chose to be victimizers. Anyone who has to confess some collaboration is better off doing it now, no matter how small it is, keeping it to themselves only causes pain on both sides.
I have no list of names with whom to settle accounts. The accounts have already been settled by life: we have seen so many die crossing the sea, thousands have fallen due to lack of effective medical care, leaving to say goodbye are many more as a result of the malnutrition that has taken over the homes of this Island and we are hanging by a thread, due to the unhealthiness that hits us from all sides. At this point there are no longer winners or losers, only shadows that wander around.
They have left us their dead and their ghosts, their empty houses, their political shells, their lies that cannot be sustained because there is no one left… or almost no one.
They should, for once, be honest. They should say that they were wrong, that they supported a system that plunged us into national, human and family ruin. They leave and, in addition, they leave us with their indifference. They leave and change their names, they rewrite their past, they pretend to be tolerant where before there was only extremism. They put on makeup, they have cosmetic-mental surgery, they no longer say “compañero” but “mister” but they have not made the necessary revision that all human improvement, all steps forward, implies. continue reading
They have left us their dead and their ghosts, their empty houses, their political shells, their lies that cannot be sustained because there is no one left… or almost no one. They leave and continue attending the meetings held by Cuban embassies around the world to gather solidarity with Castroism, applauding the regime, accepting the repression and tightening the shackles they put on us, who are still here, every day on the Island. They leave and continue to be our executioners. One can cut a throat in many ways: by brandishing the axe or by remaining silent when another brandishes it.
Where are their cries, their demands, their thoughts about the drama they left behind beyond sending remittances to their families or trying to get them off the island?
If we have lost 10% of the residents of this Island between 2020 and 2023, it cannot be that this number of people was “clean” of having committed an act of repudiation, of having chivateado — snitched — on another through the perfidious mechanisms of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. It cannot be that this is the 10% most innocent of the barbarities that have been committed on this Island in this more than half a century. So, where are all these people? Where are their cries, their demands, their thoughts about the drama they left behind beyond sending remittances to their families or trying to get them off the Island? Where is their civility?
Is it perhaps that what remains is oblivion? Indifference? Every man for himself? I am here and I already see the worst scenarios. I am living them. Without the involvement, which entails an obligatory self-criticism, of those who were part of this machinery that suffocates us, I cannot imagine how we are going to get out of this. If we get out at all.
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It is the second time in eight months that the association has spoken out in support of the teacher
Alina Bárbara López Hernández during an interview in April 2023. (EFE)
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, July 5, 2024 — On Thursday, more than 50 academics from the Association of Latin American Studies (LASA) urged the executive committee of that group to publicly condemn the “political repression” in Cuba after the allegations of police violence against the critical intellectuals Alina Bárbara López and Jenny Pantoja. It would be the second time that the Association, historically considered favorable to the Cuban regime, has raised its voice for the professor.
Among the signatories are Mexican professors and researchers Alejandro Monsiváis and Carlos Torrealba, the Cuban American economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago, the Brazilian sociologist María Hermínia Tavares, the Cuban economists Omar Everleny, Pavel Vidal and Pedro Monreal, as well as the historian Rafael Rojas, brother of the former Cuban Deputy Minister of Culture Fernando Rojas.
The text, advanced by the independent website CubaXCuba (CXC), calls for LASA’s condemnation of “the political repression in Cuba, intensified during the last year and increased,” against López, historian, editor and member of the group, and against the anthropologist Pantoja.
Among the signatories are Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Omar Everleny, Pavel Vidal and Pedro Monreal, as well as the historian Rafael Rojas
Regarding López’s case, subscribers point out that since October 2022, “she has suffered persecution and various violations of her rights to free movement, thought and expression, among others. continue reading
In addition, they say that the renowned academic “has been a victim of practices that qualify as torture, and cruel, inhumane and harmful treatment to human dignity. Just for writing, expressing her critical ideas about Cuban reality and civic formation, and demonstrating peacefully.”
In a recounting of the situations that the 58-year-old historian has confronted with the local authorities, the last two refer to physical aggressions that have caused her bodily injuries.”
“The harassment has intensified,” they argue, pointing out that both events occurred when she was trying to travel to Havana – on April 18 and June 18 – after which she was taken by the political police to a police station in the city of Matanzas, where she lives.
Specifically, the academics urge the LASA council to reiterate “its position in defense of the freedom of expression,” “condemn the political persecution” against López and Pantoja, and any other person, and express their solidarity with both intellectuals for their “unjust prosecution.”
In December 2023, LASA, after weeks of doubt, took the step that its members expected to “condemn political repression in Cuba” in general terms, although the pronouncement then also came “in particular” for López Hernández, who had been found guilty of a crime of disobedience in November.
This fact was unprecedented since the organization was historically linked to the regime. In 2015, 14ymedio published a column by Manuel Cuesta Morúa, who was satisfied with the “turn towards ideological plurality” that the association had made. In his opinion, the process began in 2011, when it started to “open up to criticism of the leftists in power from the intellectual left.”
In December 2023, LASA, after weeks of doubt, took the step that its members were waiting for to “condemn political repression in Cuba” in general terms
However, in May 2021, a large group of at least 300 people signed an open letter criticizing LASA’s lukewarm statement in the face of the repression against the imprisoned artist, activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and several other Cubans. In addition, some of its members refused to continue being part of LASA.
That week, in a public statement, more than 200 writers and artists denounced the “police violence” against López and Pantoja during the arrests.
According to the account of both intellectuals, the police arrested them when they were going from Matanzas to Havana to protest. They were beaten, thrown to the floor, and forcibly put into a patrol car and taken to a police station, where they were held for hours.
López, who is co-director of CubaxCuba, has been arrested on several occasions in recent months for making symbolic protests. As a result of these actions, she was sentenced at the end of last year to pay a fine for the crime of disobedience.
The intellectual has declared herself in “contempt” of the sentence and refused to pay the fine, aware that this can lead her to jail, as she has written in different articles on social networks.
The NGO Prisoners Defenders, based in Madrid, said that the trial, “without guarantees,” had “political motivations” and sought only to “repress the exercise of the fundamental rights” of López, whom it described as a “victim of conscience.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuba Siglo XXI publishes a report signed by economist Emilio Morales
While Cuba received only 2.4 million tourists in 2023, a neighboring country, the Dominican Republic, exceeded 10 million / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, July 25, 2024 — In three key points – the collapse of medical service exports, the fall in remittances and the debacle of tourism – economist Emilio Morales deciphers the collapse of the “Cuban system.” In the most recent report of the organization Cuba Siglo 21, based in Madrid, the researcher says that there has been a drop of more than 50% in the Government’s main sources of foreign currency, which will “reach the 71st anniversary of the assault on the Moncada barracks with a country in “countdown.” Published this Thursday, the report documents how one of the most powerful foreign exchange inflows that Cuba had – the export of medical services – fell by 78% since 2013, when it generated 10.42 billion dollars for the Regime.
According to the report to Parliament by the Minister of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale, in 2023, Cuba lost 63.939 billion pesos, which, with the official exchange rate of 24 to 1, is equivalent to a loss of 2.664 billion dollars for the Island. The largest part of these revenues corresponds to medical services, managed by Gaesa, the economic arm of the Army, through the company Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos and the Banco Financiero Internacional y de Antex S.A, another company designed to handle contracts for the Cuban doctors in the exterior, says Morales.
Historical data on the income stream from the export of medical services, 2008-2023 / Havana Consulting Group
“Gaesa has pocketed no less than 69.8 billion dollars of the 108.5 billion it has collected from doctors’ salaries” between 2008 and 2023, summarizes the economist, who supports his conclusion with a graph. That money “never returned to the reconstruction of hospitals, acquisition of equipment and medical supplies, or to improve the conditions of patient care.” continue reading
The Government, in fact, invested only 1.7 billion dollars in Public Health in 2023, a figure that contrasts with the 24.2 billion invested in the construction of hotels. On the other hand, remittances also decreased in 2023. The entry into the country of 1.972 billion dollars represented a fall of 2.31% compared to 2022, and 46% compared to 2019. The cause – which Morales has referred to on more than one occasion – is not a mystery to anyone: the massive stampede after 11 July 2021 and the economic crisis of recent years. In addition, those who emigrate, instead of sending money to those who stay, prefer to take them out of the country as soon as possible.
Morales summarizes the data recently offered by Cuban economist Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos, who estimates that between 2022 and 2023, 1.79 million people left Cuba. With that exodus, remittances also fell. “In 2023, it is estimated that the exiled and excluded Cuban diaspora spent between 1.8 and 2.2 billion dollars to take out of the country the 200,287 Cubans who emigrated to the United States, and tens of thousands of others who are still on the way,” he analyzes.
Remittances to Cuba, 2014-2023. Data in millions of dollars / Havana Consulting Group
As for tourism, Morales analyzes its failure after the pandemic, in an international context characterized by the recovery of visitor levels. While Cuba received only 2.4 million tourists in 2023, a neighboring country, the Dominican Republic, exceeded 10 million. The regime has opted for Russian tourism, which, however, “has not compensated for the loss of European tourism, affected by Cuba’s support for Russia in the war against Ukraine,” explains the economist. To illustrate the debacle, Morales points out that the five main European countries – Italy, France, Germany, Spain and England – sent 67.45% fewer travelers to the Island. Cubans living abroad, indispensable for tourism, also decreased their number in 2023 by 42% compared to 2019: only 358,480 were c0unted.
The problem also has a political dimension, which is that both the Communist Party and the government structures in the country have been left without relief by the mass exodus, even of their own cadres. The Supreme Court, as recognized by the government, has only 69% of the judges it needs to operate in the country.
Arrival of tourists in Cuba, 2007-2023 / Havana Consulting Group
Morales blames Gaesa for the mismanagement of the country’s resources and says it has led a war against the MSMEs to limit their field of action and decrease their control. It is, clearly, a “dysfunctional” system, he says, which is pointed out even by Cuba’s allies, who no longer dare to launch a “large-scale economic rescue,” given the resistance to the change in leadership at the head of Cuban power. In a comatose state and grasping at partial and last-minute solutions, the Cuban Government – says the economist – has its days numbered.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Like any scarce and desired product, in Cuba the lime has gone to the foreign currency stores or to nourish exports / Facebook
14ymedio, Mercedes García/Natalia López Moya, Sancti Spíritus/Havana, July 7, 2024 — No, lime is not the basis of everything but it is an essential ingredient in many recipes of Cuban cuisine and cocktails. The Creole mojo that is put on the cassava, the marinade that is plastered on the pork before cooking and the mojito that is inseparable from bars and celebrations need that acidic flavor that stings your eyes and awakens the soul.
However, Persian lime, or lemon as it is also called, has become in the last decade an elusive guest at the tables and bars on this Island. Counting on it to prepare a dish could end in defiance and frustration. To alleviate its absence, all kinds of subterfuges have emerged, from replacing it with vinegar in some preparations to making use of that artificial imposture that comes in a bottle and is called “lemon juice.”
In the last 12 months, in the Plaza Boulevard market in the city of Sancti Spíritus, the most appreciated citrus has made it clear that no one can take it for granted. From November 2023 until last April, it was absent from shelves, and in the last year, according to the weekly compilation done by this newspaper, its price went from 100 pesos per pound to the current 250 pesos. continue reading
When it was most needed, the lime was not there. It was not on Plaza Boulevard when customers arrived searching like crazy for something to marinate the pork for the Christmas holidays, or to throw over a salad on the night of December 31. Nor did it appear for the lemonade on Three Kings Day.
On February 14, couples had to settle for other less traditional cocktails or drink a mojito with “plastic lemon,” as they call those extracts supposedly made from citrus but that look more like a product synthesized in the laboratory than something taken from a fruit that was once hanging from a bush.
The luckiest made do on those dates with some hard lime rind, dark green and with very little juice that would serve more to break a window than to season a dish. That rickety and dry version has generated several culinary methods to try to get some liquid out of them. From immersing them in hot water before cutting and squeezing them, to placing them on the floor and, squeezed tightly under the foot, rolling them on the surface so that their interior softens and produces something.
However, almost always those methods are so disappointing that you end up throwing the lime in the trash between swear words and curses, most of them dedicated to those who manage the Cuban fields, to the terrible policies implemented in agriculture and to an official “wise man” who, without blushing, considered the lime as “the basis of everything.”
From those heights of the Government, they blame the frequent disappearances of the lime and also the plummeting supply of oranges, grapes and mandarins on the negative impacts of pests, hurricanes and the U.S. ‘blockade’*. Of those citrus productions, which exceeded one million tons three decades ago, currently only the memory remains. If in 1990 the land destined for its cultivation reached 145,000 hectares, by 2020 it was barely 11,907.
Like any scarce and desired product, in Cuba the lime has gone to the foreign exchange trade or to nourish exports rather than humiliate itself by ending up on local tables. In the digital portals that sell to emigrants to supply their families on the Island, the product can be found more frequently and stably, but yes, at a price of around five dollars a pound.
Also, the very vain limes travel rather than remaining in the homeland. In September 2020, the official press announced that a farmer from Mayabeque had become the first private producer in Cuba who managed to export limes to Spain through the company Frutas Selectas.
Meanwhile, some online shops, which sell in foreign currency, began to offer limes from Panama, Mexico and the United States in the catalog of goods that Cuban exiles use to buy for their parents, grandparents or children who have stayed on the Island. As if national consumers could no longer aspire to the citrus that sprouts from their land and should be content with foreigners buying it for them.
As good news, in the forums where opinions are exchanged about these virtual stores, a criterion is repeated again and again: “Those Mexican limes are good, they have juice and you don’t have to hit them or put them in hot water.” The cassava mojo is guaranteed in this way for certain Cuban tables, but the limes can no longer be called “creole.”
*Translator’s note: There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in February of the same year, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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