Cuba’s water crisis is affected by problems with the electricity supply
In the capital, residents fill containers to face the urban drought / Radio Habana Cuba
14ymedio, Havana, 28 June 2024 — Havana continues with an intermittent water service, like that suffered by other provinces, in a water crisis that is marked by problems with the electricity supply on the Island. This Friday, if the residents of the capital turn on the faucet, they will surely find some dribbles of water that serve only perhaps, to scrub the floor and fill some containers in order to face the urban drought. The efforts of the Havana authorities to normalize the supply have not yielded the hoped-for results.
Everything dates back to Thursday of last week, when a pipe in Cuenca Sur ruptured from a power surge.
The water shortage has been aggravated these days by the effects on the electricity service, which on Thursday finally exceeded shortages of one thousand megawatts (MW). The Electric Union of Cuba (UNE) predicts for this Friday a maximum demand of 3,150 MW for an availability of 2,160 MW, which entails a deficit of 990 MW and an impact of 1,060 MW. The Antonio Guiteras plant in Matanzas, due to a breakdown in the boiler, is not providing service today, as announced by the UNE. This is nothing new; the plant has been out of service for months, and generation problems are also frequent. continue reading
Since last week the flow of water in Havana is improved by zone every fourth day
Faced with such a scenario, the Havana authorities made the decision last week to enhance the flow of water by zone every fourth days. “We are going to guarantee the service, but it will have a marked impact on the day that the water is not flowing,” the director of operations of Agua Habana, Rosaura Socarras, explained on Wednesday in a television interview.
After a meeting held on Tuesday between Havana authorities and state officials, it was reported that the water supply has not recovered its normal volume due to multiple causes; among them, the five motorized water pumping stations out of service – the 3, 4, 15,16 and Rincón 4, said the newspaper Tribuna de La Habana. In addition, the water levels have not yet recovered and are below average despite the heavy rains recorded in recent days.
The problems with the water supply (in Cuba) are not exclusive to Havana. This same Friday, the official press reported that in Villa Clara the Government has invested more than one hundred million pesos in the installation of ten kilometers (6.2 miles) of pipes. These works seek to connect the towns of Mataguá, La Yaya and Jorobada with the Paso Bonito pumping station, located in Cumanayagua, the newspaper Vanguardia reported.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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“Cuba is a country of great importance, not only for the Caribbean but for the world,” said Dennis Francis.
Dennis Francis, presidente de la Asamblea General de la ONU, junto a Miguel Díaz-Canel, este viernes / X/@UN_PGA
14ymedio, Madrid, 29 June 2024 — The official visit to Cuba of the current president of the UN General Assembly, Dennis Francis, shows that the Island has an undisputed ally in the organization. “Cuba is a country of great importance, not only for the Caribbean but for the world,” Francis said in one of his public speeches, where he also described the Cuban as a “great people.”
Through his official account on X, the diplomat, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, expanded his praise: “As a founding member of the United Nations, Cuba has always advocated for building a better, inclusive and egalitarian world. A world in which there is peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all. While we strive to achieve these objectives, I thank Cuba for its vision and leadership and I look forward to a future collaboration towards our shared goals.” Francis did not say, however, that the Island entered the UN under the presidency of Ramón Grau, in 1945, almost 14 years before the triumph of the Revolution.
Similarly, and according to the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, whom he met this Friday, Francis highlighted his “admiration” for the “achievements” of the Island in the health field and conveyed to the doctors “a recognition for keeping up the social conquests forged in Cuba.” continue reading
The three held a meeting with the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, in which he highlighted “Cuba’s commitment and contribution to multilateralism
For his part, Miguel Díaz-Canel, with whom the diplomat also met yesterday, described the meeting as a “fruitful exchange.” The Cuban president thanked Francis through his networks “for his recognition of Cuba’s performance and commitment to the search for solutions to the challenges of the nations of the South during our presidency of the G-77 and China.”
Earlier, the three held a meeting with the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, in which he highlighted “Cuba’s commitment and contribution to multilateralism,” according to the state agency Prensa Latina.
“In the countries of the South we know that this is the place where we are best heard and where, when we are united and act together, we can make the legitimate interests of humanity and the peoples prevail,” Rodríguez added at the meeting.
This Friday was the penultimate in a three-day visit by Francis to the Island.
During a speech on Friday afternoon at the University of Havana, he stressed that “the United Nations is in the DNA of Cuba” and that the Island has been a defender of “peace and respect for the sovereignty of all nations.”
He also thanked Havana for heeding the calls of the United Nations to send health personnel to countries such as Haiti and to regions such as West Africa during the Ebola crisis. There was, on the other hand, not a single allusion to the reports of several UN rapporteurs who described the conditions of Cuban doctors on the international missions as “forced labor.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Díaz-Canel calls the US report an “outrageous maneuver of war” against medical collaboration
Some 300 Cuban doctors in a meeting with Díaz-Canel/Cubadebate
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 25 June 2024 — On Tuesday, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel described as “manipulative” the report prepared by the United States that keeps the island among the countries that do not comply with the minimum standards to fight human trafficking.
The U.S. report points mainly in the Cuban case to the so-called international missions of Havana, which for decades has sent thousands of professionals – mainly doctors – to dozens of countries.
“The empire has once again listed Cuba in its manipulative report on human trafficking. Outrageous maneuver of the open war against Cuban medical collaboration. Enough of this cynicism,” Diaz-Canel wrote on social networks.
He added that the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, “is well aware of our policy of zero tolerance for this criminal practice.”
The United States considers Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to be among the countries with the highest levels of human trafficking because they do not meet the minimum standards for its elimination and do not make significant efforts in this regard.
This is reflected in the Trafficking in Persons Report 2024 (TIP Report) released Monday by the State Department, which divides countries according to their degrees of human trafficking and places the above-mentioned continue reading
countries, which were already at the most severe level a year earlier.
In this regard, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez also commented on social networks that “Cuba maintains a zero tolerance policy against human trafficking.”
“The inclusion of our country in unilateral and arbitrary reports by the U.S. government, only seeks to maintain and justify its criminal policy of economic asphyxiation against the Cuban people,” the foreign minister said.
The report calls on Cuba to ensure that “government-sponsored labor export programs comply with international labor standards, specifically that participants receive fair wages that are paid in full into bank accounts that workers can control.”
The US State Department considers that the missions of Cuban doctors abroad are “an indisputable case of forced labor.” That is why it keeps Cuba on its “blacklist” of countries that do not comply with the minimum standards for combating human trafficking.
The Cuban government considers “totally legitimate” the medical collaboration program that the island maintains in several countries and criticizes Washington for “committing a crime by trying to deny or hinder it for political reasons.”
Thousands of Cuban professionals have participated during the latter decades in missions in hundreds of countries. According to some estimates, they have become one of Cuba’s main sources of foreign exchange.
Translated by Hombre de Paz
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In February 2023, five activists took to the streets in Havana and displayed banners against the “failed state”
The five defendants were charged with propaganda against the constitutional order. / Facebook
14ymedio, Havana, 27 June 2024 — Five opposition activists – William Cepero García, Josiel Guía Piloto, Lázaro Romero Piloto, Alain Yosvani Cruz Suescum and Jesús Alfredo Pérez Rivas – were sentenced on June 20 by the Provincial Court of Havana to five to seven years in prison for the crime of propaganda against the constitutional order, for protesting last year against the Government, Prisoners Defenders (PD) reported Thursday.
According to the Madrid-based NGO, on February 13, 2023, the five activists, who have been members of different organizations for years, met in the municipality of Old Havana at the home of Josiel Guía Piloto, who is a member of the Republican Party of Cuba (not legally recognized). At that time, Guía Piloto asked his uncle, Lázaro Romero Piloto, to sew his lips together in protest.
Afterwards, the five men made posters with phrases such as “Cuba failed state,” “Díaz-Canel assassin” and “Homeland and life.” They took to the streets and began shouting “down with the dictatorship,” while waving the banners, which was also recorded, posted and shared on social media. continue reading
The five men were arrested by the authorities and transferred to the criminal investigation body, where they were handed precautionary measures without legal protection
According to the sentence, which discredits the protests, the five accused “planned to go out into the streets carrying posters with anti-constitutional, counter-revolutionary content in their hands, aimed to promote hatred and rejection among the population against the socialist government system embodied and approved in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba.”
The following day, the five men were arrested by the authorities and transferred to the criminal investigation body, where they were handed precautionary measures without legal protection and were subjected to interrogations without lawyer representation, according to PD.
The crime for which they were sentenced is the same in all five cases: propaganda against the constitutional order. Cepero Garcia, 59, got 5 years in prison.
Guía Piloto was sentenced to seven years. He had previously served five years in jail starting in 2016, for public disorder and contempt. In 2019, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted him precautionary measures* due to serious violations of his human rights in prison; that same year, Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience.
This case illustrates the complex relationship between the right to protest and restrictions imposed in authoritarian regimes
Meanwhile, Pérez Rivas got a five-year sentence. He was also arrested and imprisoned in 2016 along with Guía Piloto, although in his case, he was sentenced to six years. He was also granted precautionary measures by the IACHR.
Lastly, Romero Piloto, Josiel’s uncle, was punished with seven years behind bars, and Cruz Suescum received a sentence of five years of correctional work without internment.
“This case illustrates the complex relationship between the right to protest and the restrictions imposed in authoritarian regimes,” said the organization, which stressed that these acts of freedom of expression “should be protected and not criminalized.”
*Translator’s note: Source: A precautionary measure is a protection mechanism of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), through which it requests a State to protect one or more persons who are in a serious and urgent situation from suffering irreparable harm.
Translated by LAR
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In the official “summer mode,” people do not stay at home with a candle or a generator to overcome the blackouts
Screenshot of the video clip with which the government promotes summer in Cuba / Canal Caribe/YouTube
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 30 June 2024 — Before everything smelled different. The aroma that reached us during the months of July and August was that of the syrups from the slushies that refreshed, the cloying fragrance of the coconut lotion to tan on the beach, and the aroma of the pork rinds in the carnival kiosks. Now, Havana stinks everywhere and not even the official “summer mode” campaign can cover up the stenche of humidity, sewage and anguish.
This Sunday, a mountain of garbage on the corner of Neptuno and Campanario streets synthesized part of the essence of a city plunged into crisis and miasmas. Among the waste that overflowed the sidewalk and forced passersby to share space with the old collective taxis that pass along the central avenue, the box of a battery-powered fan stood out, a coveted object in a country where no one is excited about the end, in the short or medium term, of unwanted electrical outages.
In “summer mode” teenagers dance without worry, although in Havana’s slums parents advise their children not to go out at night
A few centimeters from the appliance packaging, a cardboard box labeled with the Mexican brand Richmeat reminded us of one of the foods most consumed by families on this island. A “mixed seasoning” mincemeat with little nutritional value and dubious composition that has come to replace in many Cuban dishes the unattainable beef, the very expensive pork, the unstable chicken or the disappeared fish. Another empty box, which once had imported yogurts, stood out on the mound of waste and completed a painful part of our daily life: those products that can only be consumed by those who have foreign currency or family abroad to buy them.
A stench that fills everything, that sticks to our clothes, gets into our noses and we take home stuck in our hair and attached to our skin / 14ymedio
The trash diver who rummaged through the bags and remains to try to save something to resell later could not be missing from this puzzle made from stench and debris. Both the poor collector with his frayed jacket and his extremely thin body, and the neighbors who passed by and sorted through the debris of domestic life, ended up impregnated with the smell of so much filth. A stench that fills everything, that sticks to our clothes, gets into our noses and that we take home stuck in our hair and attached to our skin. continue reading
None of that stench seems to reach the idyllic scenes of sand, sea and fun that the official media broadcasts these days as a preamble to summer. In the musical theme that serves as the soundtrack to the school holidays, joy overflows, young people do not assemble a raft of disappointment to jump into the sea, the singer fantasizes about having “a good beer” on the seashore, without alluding to the fact that such an act would cost a retiree an entire week of pension, and everything exudes the perfume of hope.
Everything smells brand new in that parallel reality that they invite us to believe in
In “summer mode” teenagers dance without worry, although in Havana’s slums parents advise their children not to go out at night because “a stab wound awaits you on any corner.” In “summer mode” the national obsession is not to buy a ticket to fly to Managua, and joy fills everything, displacing the popular weariness that does not sneak in anywhere in this stage set up to deceive the naive and the uninformed.
In the “summer mode” broadcast on national television, my city does not stink, people do not use a candle or a battery pack so their homes can overcome the blackout, and a lanky man with a lost look does not explore the dirt in search of of something salvageable or a little food to put in his mouth. Everything smells brand new in that parallel reality that they invite us to believe in. It has the aroma of a baby cologne trying to cover up the stench of collapse.
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They accuse “enemy platforms of sowing hatred” on social networks
The head of the General Police Directorate insisted that citizens should not see the agents as enemies, but as those who watch over their safety. / El Cubano Fiel/Facebook
14ymedio, Madrid, 28 June 2024 — State TV’s Round Table program convened a group of Cuba’s senior officials on Thursday to talk about violence and insecurity, two of the concerns that have emerged most strongly among citizens in recent years. The cast of guests included Colonel Eddy Sierra Arias, head of the General Police Directorate; Miriam Marbán González, first deputy comptroller general; Marcos Caraballo de la Rosa, deputy attorney general of the Republic; and Maricela Sosa Ravelo, vice president of the Supreme Court of Justice.
Having lost the monopoly on information and exposed the security problems that also affect the island, the authorities have had to face the facts and admit that Cuba is not as safe as they have been saying it is for decades.
Transparency, but not too much, thinks the Police, which has recently opted for the technique of providing on television the percentages of crimes tried – but not those reported – without offering the total figures. Thus, Caraballo de la Rosa broke down the data on cases punished on Thursday, namely: 94% of those accused of gender violence [femicide] were sentenced to more than 25 years in prison. continue reading
It is known that there were 182 restraining orders and 14 suspensions of custody of minors from these crimes
Of these crimes, it is known that there were 182 restraining orders and 14 suspensions of custody of minors. There was also a specific figure when talking about corruption: 122 cases resulted in a ban on working in the affected sector. “We have also confiscated cars and houses and carried out twelve exemplary trials. There are 702 people sanctioned with sentences that do not involve confinement who have had this measure revoked, based on the control actions that we also carried out to apply the greatest possible justice,” added Sosa Ravelo.
These were the sparsely significant figures offered, because the rest were again percentages. Of those accused of any crime 96% are punished, which proves to the judge how well investigations are carried out. Of “the most serious crimes” 78% are held in custody, she added, although she did not specify whether she was referring to violent or economic crimes, and it is even more complicated to determine the kind of people who make up the remaining 22% who are free. She did point out that in human trafficking and gender-based violence the rate of imprisonment is 100% and, without giving a reason why, the rate is 98% for murders.
Other percentages of detentions that Sosa Ravelo provided, in a useless barrage of figures, were those for drug trafficking (95%), robbery with violence and corruption of minors (94%), theft and slaughter of cattle (91%) and currency trafficking (90%). Only 18% of the accused leave the court with “alternative measures” and 4% with fines, despite which, Sierra Arias insisted widely that the Police apply a preventive approach and not just a punitive one.
The weight of the program fell on the head of the General Police Directorate, who tried hard to defend that “the blockade has an impact on daily life” and affects crime. Eddy Sierra Arias is, it should be remembered at this point, sanctioned by the US State Department for his role in the repression of ’11J’, the 11 July 2021 Island wide mass protests.
The official offered an extensive dissertation on the various crimes that affect Cuba, which are, as in most countries, economic, violent or drug trafficking, with the exception of some more indigenous ones: those committed against livestock. In this sense, he extended the responsibility also to the producers themselves, warning of the number of falsifications of records and violations of the norms that have come to light during the livestock census.
There are “manifestations of social indiscipline, derived from the breakdown of values in society in some sectors of the population
Sierra Arias warned that there are “manifestations of social indiscipline, derived from the breakdown of values in society in some sectors of the population,” an issue that needs to be addressed. Thus, he highlighted that there is an “issue that is vital”: the impact of social networks “on the intention and on the use that is often given to them, aimed at generating a state of aggravation, of insecurity.” He blamed the “enemy platforms” for this and asked the population to be aware to combat it.
“They seek to spread hatred, to make the population reject the agents of authority, especially the police authorities, to fragment that unity between the people and our institution that is an essential bulwark for this fight,” he alleged. He did not specify what he meant by the actions they have carried out to “contain a group of priority figures,” although it can be assumed that he was referring both to the policy of disseminating the regime’s own messages – through accounts such as Fuerza del Pueblo [People Power] – and the application of laws that punish criticism of the Government expressed through mere interaction on social networks.
Less interesting were the comments from the Deputy Attorney General of the Republic, who only participated to proclaim the guarantees of the Cuban legal system, but the first deputy comptroller offered one of the notable phrases of the night. Miriam Marbán González said that “the battle in the prevention and confrontation of indiscipline, illegalities and corruption is led by the Party,” a few days after one of the most recent cases of embezzlement came to light, which has completely destroyed the municipal food company in Guantánamo.
The official indicated that between 20% and 30% of the control operations carried out have a “deficient or bad” result and revealed that priority is given to the inspection of businesses that have foreign investment, although state companies are also reviewed by sector, as will be done in September and October in tourism, including suppliers.
“There is a deterioration in the ethical values of people who engage in this type of conduct. There is poor self-control in these entities and a lack of supervision at administrative levels,” she said. However, she alleged that in more than 76% of cases, harsh disciplinary measures are applied, such as “separation from the sector.” “When an alleged criminal act is detected, a special report is prepared and submitted to the competent bodies of the Ministry of the Interior and the Prosecutor’s Office. There is no impunity,” she said.
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The streets of the city of Matanzas have been filled with street vendors trying to survive
Freddy walks around the entire city of Matanzas from Monday to Saturday selling tamales / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 29 June 2024 — Under the sun, sweaty and with a Chinese Forever bicycle that he inherited from his father, Freddy rides around the city of Matanzas from Monday to Saturday selling tamales. In Pueblo Nuevo, in the Versalles neighborhood, and near the Faustino Pérez hospital, the 34-year-old man from Matanzas appears with his white container full of the dough wrapped in corn leaves. The bicycle on which he insistently pedals has a dual purpose: to cover as many customers as possible and to escape the reach of inspectors who are looking for a license that he does not have.
“I have two children to support. Three days of work now brings me the salary I earned in a full month teaching school. Giving up my profession was not easy, but I had no other choice. It is a matter of survival,” he admits. Before working as a salesman, Freddy did many different jobs, but none of them were stable. Now he rides his Forever brand bike knowing that he can be stopped and fined at any corner.
Having a self-employed license would make his job easier, but it’s been four months since his applied
Having a self-employed license would make his job easier, but he submitted the application to the Municipal Labor Office four months ago; the procedure takes a long time and Freddy has to “earn his bread.” His relationship with other street vendors has allowed him to learn some tricks of the trade, such as the places with the best clientele or the neighborhoods where the inspectors don’t go. “What I do is go to La Marina, El Kilómetro or the Iglesias neighborhood, areas where they don’t go,” he explains. continue reading
According to a Labor employee, the delay in applications is due to the fact that they are all approved in Havana, which imposes — equally — an average period of three months that everyone must wait. However, Freddy knows that there is an exception to this rule: “Those who leave a ’little gift’ have preference.”
Now the streets are full of many young street vendors / 14ymedio
Yanelis, a woman from Matanzas, is in a similar situation. She has converted the car she used years ago to take her daughter out for a ride, into a vehicle for selling the bread. Early every morning she goes up Monserrate Street with about 50 bags of the product that she must try to sell that day. “They give me bread for 250 pesos so I can sell the bags for 300. If I can’t sell it, I still have to give the money to the bakery owner, and then it’s very difficult for someone to buy old bread,” she says, so sometimes she has to go out in the afternoon as well, if she can get someone to look after her daughter.
The fines, which Yanelis herself has suffered at some point, range from 2,500 pesos to 10,000
The fines, which Yanelis herself has suffered at some time, range from 2,500 pesos to 10,000. “The worst thing that can happen is that they confiscate what you bring, because then you have to assume the losses and pay the owner as if you had sold everything,” she adds.
“People know that we are in need and they take advantage of that. Street vendors have to face suppliers on one side and buyers on the other. We are the weakest link in the chain,” she reflects. According to Yanelis, the possibility of selling is not guaranteed either, as it does not only depend on the clientele. “In my case, when there is no flour, there is no bread. And when there is no bread, there is no work.”
While a few years ago it was common for these jobs to be carried out by retired elderly people or the farmers themselves who came to the city to sell their products, now the streets are full of many young street vendors. It doesn’t matter if they have only been selling for months, like Freddy, or years, like Yanelis, resignation to their situation is something they quickly accept. “One day you are lucky and another you are not. The only thing that is certain is that you have to eat.”
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He denounces that the political prisoner Mario Alberto Hernández Leyva was brutally beaten
Cuban activist Yasmany González Valdés / Facebook
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 28 June 2024 — Political prisoner Yasmany González Valdés (“Libre Libre”) who is serving a four-year sentence in Combinado del Este in Havana, is “thin, emaciated, and toothless.” According to what she told Martí Noticias, his wife, Ilsa Ramos, went to visit him in prison on Wednesday and confirmed that González was only taken to the dentist once, but “they didn’t do anything for him.”
Ramos said that González Valdés “started losing his teeth during a demonstration (…). He lost some “because they threw him to the ground,” so her partner had to wear a dental brace, from which “his teeth have also fallen out.”
In November 2023, his wife reported that González suffered a fractured rib, following a beating by guards and inmates
The 30-year-old has also suffered physical violence in prison. In November 2023, his wife reported that González suffered a fractured rib after a beating by guards and prisoners. For these reasons, Ilsa Ramos is waiting for her partner to be given a minimum-severity regime, a benefit which should already be his: “They gave him four years, he has already served one and has three left, and they haven’t moved him to the minimum,” she said.
Libre Libre was arrested in April 2023 accused of being the author of several anti-government graffiti with the slogan “No to the PCC” [Cuban Communist Party] in different places in Havana. On trial, he was sentenced to prison for propaganda against the constitutional order. continue reading
This is the same crime for which five other activists – William Cepero García, Josiel Guía Piloto, Lázaro Romero Piloto, Alain Yosvani Cruz Suescum and Jesús Alfredo Pérez Rivas – were sentenced on June 20 to terms of five to seven years in prison.
On February 13 of last year, the five made posters with phrases such as “Cuba failed state,” “Díaz-Canel murderer” and “Patria y vida” and took to the streets to shout “down with the dictatorship,” while at the same time they moved the banners from one place to another, which was recorded and spread on social networks. The next day they were arrested.
Cubalex documented 706 incidents in 50 categories of repression, with 291 victims (207 men and 84 women) during May
The legal organization Cubalex documented 706 incidents in 50 categories of repression, with 291 victims (207 men and 84 women) during May. “Although these data represent under-recording, they demonstrate the systemic nature of rights violations in Cuba,” it noted in a statement issued this Friday.
A notable fact, the organization added, “is that there was not a single day in May without at least one repressive event being recorded. Among the main incidents documented are violations against persons deprived of liberty, arbitrary detentions, threats or coercion, acts of violence or harassment, police surveillance or monitoring operations, selective communications cuts, arbitrary summons and violations of religious freedom, interrogations and house arrests.”
Regarding the violations against people deprived of liberty, Cubalex also reported, also this Friday, that Mario Alberto Hernández Leyva, vice president of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic, was brutally beaten by other inmates of Prison 1580, “under the orders of the guards” and reported that he has not received medical attention after the attack.
During a visit on Thursday, Hernández Leyva’s wife, Maritza Concepción Sarmiento, found him with “obvious signs of beatings, swollen, with blood on his face and his head split open.”
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The virus is already spreading in 13 of the 15 Cuban provinces
The similarity of symptoms with dengue and the lack of test reagents make it difficult to treat / La Tijera/Facebook
14ymedio, Havana, 29 June 2024 — The Oropouche virus has spread throughout Cuba, fed by the poor hygiene of some neighborhoods, the accumulation of stagnant water due to the rainy season, and the constant blackouts. The authorities have accepted its presence in 13 of the 15 provinces of the Island, excluding Camagüey and Artemisa, where the official press also denied its existence .
In the local presses of the provinces where the presence of the virus has not been officially reported, there are reports from health offices about the existence of Oropouche Fever in their communities, thus confirming the multiple testimonies on social media.
In places like Matanzas an explosion is reported from week to week, with more than 500 cases of the fever from one to the next
“We realized that there were places with a wide explosion of fever cases and we also diagnosed the virus in the municipality of Matanzas (…). There has been an explosion from week to week, with more than 500 cases fever from one to the next. At the end of this week, there are 2,000, and we know that not all of them go to the Health centers,” the provincial director of Hygiene and Epidemiology of Matanzas, Andrés Lamas Acevedo, explained this Friday to the Girón newspaper. continue reading
The newspaper Tribuna de La Habana reported on a provincial meeting of directors held this Friday where the epidemiological situation related to the increase in cases affected by the Oropouche virus and dengue was discussed, this despite the fact that the capital is not among the nine provinces recognized by the Government with the presence of the disease.
“We have the experiences we obtained during the confrontation with the Covid-19 pandemic, which is why we must prevent the spread of the disease,” the first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Party, Liván Izquierdo Alonso, stressed during the meeting.
According to Tribuna de La Habana, Izquierdo Alonso warned that the contagion indicators are approaching critical numbers, which is why he urged an increase in the control of cases and the search for citizens with fever manifestations.
Since the beginning of June, 14ymedio has revealed the presence of the Oropouche virus in the streets of Havana, where it arrived after spreading to other provinces such as Santiago de Cuba, Cienfuegos and Mayabeque.
The epicenter of this pandemic is Santiago de Cuba
The epicenter of this epidemic is in Santiago de Cuba, where on May 27, after numerous complaints on-line, the Ministry of Health admitted the presence of Oropouche fever on the Island. Since then, the situation has worsened considerably in that eastern province, where undiagnosed cases, mosquito outbreaks in garbage dumps and stagnant waters, and even the alleged death of a 22-year-old young man have been reported.
One of those who has transparently shared his experience with the disease is the writer Arnoldo Fernández, a resident of the municipality of Contramaestre, who reports, day after day, on his ordeal and the severe pain throughout his body.
“I feel like dying, because the virus viciously attacks my body and I almost give up. I spend the whole day without eating anything, I just hydrate myself again and again (…) the Oropouche virus, although experts do not consider it lethal, is so invasive that it degrades the body as a system, making it the target of a merciless attack towards all its vital functions. If the person is not well nourished, diarrhea, excessive sweating, vomiting and very high fevers put his life in danger,” he detailed on his Facebook wall this Saturday.
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The statement came in response to claims by Cuban exiles that they are entitled to restitution for damage he caused them.
The Colombia-born former U.S. diplomat was arrested last December and later sentenced to fifteen years in prison. / EFE
EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 22 June 2024 — Federal prosecutors argued that the U.S. government was the only victim in a case in which Victor Manuel Rocha was accused of spying for Cuba for over forty years. A court in Miami found Rocha guilty last April and sentenced him to fifteen years in prison.
In a statement presented this week in response to claims by Cuban exiles seeking restitution for harm they believe Rocha caused them, prosecutors argued that, since the U.S. government was the only victim of Rocha’s crimes, there are no other parties entitled to restitution.
According to prosecutors, the 73-year-old Rocha was found guilty of “acting as unregistered foreign agent,” not of passing national security secrets to Cuba.
“None of the offenses for which the defendant was sentenced involve the accused unlawfully passing information to a foreign government about any particular individual, or that the recipient of the information then used it to cause measurable physical or monetary harm,” states the document to which EFE had access. continue reading
Federal prosecutors say that Rocha is cooperating with authorities
Federal prosecutors add that Rocha is cooperating with authorities and that no one has presented evidence to indicate they were harmed by his actions.
Rocha, who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia and held high-level positions in several Latin-American countries, admitted to conspiracy and to “defrauding the United States.”
The former Colombian-born diplomat was arrested in Miami last December and charged with a dozen other counts of fraud and falsifying documents.
Two months later, Ofelia Acevedo, wife of the late Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya, filed suit in Miami claiming Rocha’s espionage activities for the Cuban regime represented one of “the deepest infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent.”
Regarding Rocha’s sentencing, she wrote, “As victims of the harsh injustices of the Cuban dictatorship, [we are] deeply concerned by the possibility that the U.S. government is trying to limit the [judge’s] discretion.”
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The duty-free limit on certain imported goods remains at $500
Travelers at Terminal 3 of Havana’s José Martí International Airport / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 28 June 2024 — The Ministry of Finance and Prices has approved a new resolution extending its tariff exemption for food, toiletries and medicines intended for non-commercial use. Travellers arriving from overseas now have until September 30 to bring these items into the country duty-free.
The measure, which officials have described as “exceptional and temporary” in nature, has been extended several times since it was adopted in 2021. The latest extension retains the current duty-free limit of 500 USD for goods shipped to the country by private individuals.
This new ruling, which is dated June 26 but was issued on Thursday, applies to imports with a total value of no more than $500 or weighing no more than 50 kilograms, as determined by the Cuban custom service.
Similarly, the exemption applies to the first 30 dollars of a shipment’s value or 3 kilos of its weight. Anything above that will be subject to a 30% tariff. continue reading
The regulation stipulates that, to qualify for the tariff exemption, eligible items must be packed separately from all other products when presented to Customs
Food, toiletries, medicines and supplies being shipped by private individuals via air, sea or mail may enter the country duty-free if they are valued at less than 200 dollars and weigh less than 20 kilos.
The regulation stipulates that, to qualify for the tariff exemption, eligible items must be packed separately from all other products when travelers present them to Customs.
Current Cuban regulations on the importation of goods brought into the country as part of travelers’ accompanying luggage consists of a complex system of points and weight limits that sets tariffs on excess items.
Tariff exemptions for imports of food and medicine first took effect in July 2021, a few days after the widespread protests of July 11 (commonly known in Cuba as J11), when obtaining these products was extremely difficult.
Initially, the exemption was only supposed to last only until December 31, 2021. However, since conditions have continued to worsen since then, the government has felt obligated to extend it multiple times, for periods lasting three to six months
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“We saw that the crack that went from the roof to the balcony began to open more and the façade leaned forward,” say neighbors of the property at Consulado and Virtues Streets
The Building collapsed this Friday, at Consulado and Virtudes, Centro Habana / Facebook / Yuamari Morales
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, June 28, 2024 – The collapse of part of a two-story building, located on the corner of Consulado and Virtudes streets in Centro Habana, has set off alarms among the residents of one of the Cuban capital’s neighborhoods most affected by the deterioration. In the area, which is very busy and densely populated, there are numerous tenements and houses on the verge of collapse.
“We saw that the crack that went from the roof to the balcony began to open more and the facade leaned forward,” said a neighbor who witnessed, from her window, the fall of the first fragments of the wall, speaking to 14ymedio by phone. The woman lives across the street, in the building where the Havana Musical Theater used to be, which has fallen into ruin and become a public trash dump since it closed in 1989.
The building, built around the 1920s and in a neoclassical style, has experienced a lack of general maintenance
Vehicle traffic is closed in the area, both on Virtudes and on Consulado Streets, but “there is no good signage so that people do not walk here and you can see people passing by the rubble that fell, that is very dangerous,” she laments. The neoclassical style property, built around the 1920s, has suffered a lack of general maintenance and successive changes.
In addition to wooden platforms — colloquially called barbacoas [barbecues] — built in the rooms to increase the horizontal space, wooden or brick partitions have been added to divide the rooms. “A few years ago, several balconies collapsed, there were serious leaks and in the same corner you could see that the construction was very damaged, it was very damp.” continue reading
With the rains of the last few days, “the crack became wider and we all knew what was going to happen,” the woman stressed. On social media, other residents in the vicinity have lamented the danger that surrounds them. One of these is Yaumari Morales, who lives a few meters from the collapse: “it is on the same corner of my house where many people walk, where my son walks to get bread. How sad how this country is falling into pieces.”
“Now the garbage that is always on this corner has mixed with the rubble, we are going to need a fire ladder to enter our house,” laments another resident of the Havana Musical Theater building. Under its balconies, the mountain of waste borders the entire property and mixes with the pieces of wall that have fallen from the house directly in front.
The rains that have begun to intensify over the Cuban capital as the afternoon progresses this Friday have paralyzed the demolition work at various times
The rains that have begun to intensify over the Cuban capital as this Friday afternoon progresses have paralyzed the demolition work at various times. For the weekend, showers and possible intense precipitation are also forecast in western Cuba. A tropical wave that advances through the Atlantic towards the Caribbean Sea also keeps Havana residents in suspense.
The intense storm of recent days has caused dozens of building collapses in the Cuban capital, one person dead and several injured. Last Friday, an official source, who preferred anonymity, informed this newspaper that 19 partial collapses had occurred in the city due to rainfall, but in the following days the number continued to grow.
Last Sunday night, one of the most emblematic buildings in the capital, the Manzanares Building , suffered an internal collapse. Around 9:20 pm, a skid collapsed, dragging in its wake the entire bathroom and kitchen area of the lower floors, at number 912 San Francisco Street, one of the entrances to the apartment complex.
Just two days ago, it was the historic Casa de Doña Luz Godínez de Diago, the 19th century building located at number 1360 Calzada del Cerro, which suffered the collapse of part of its façade and roof.
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María Werlau has been recognized by the U.S. State Department for her “valiant efforts”
María Werlau, together with the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on Monday, collecting the award as a “hero” against human trafficking / U.S. Department of State/ Capture
14ymedio, Madrid, June 26, 2024 — María Werlau (b. Havana 1959) says she felt “surprised and moved” to learn that the United States named her one of the ten “heroes” in the fight against human trafficking, in the 2024 report presented by the State Department on Monday. She herself collected the award, granted, according to U.S. official Cindy Dyer, “in recognition of her constant and courageous efforts to amplify the voices and stories of survivors of forced labor and exploitation in Cuba’s program of export of services, including its medical brigades.”
“I do this work out of love and moral commitment. Without boasting, I am not concerned with payments, thanks or recognitions, much less by thinking about prizes, so knowing that the work is taken into account comforts and stimulates me,” the activist replied to this newspaper’s questions.
Founder and director of the Cuba Archive Project, she has been dedicated for more than a quarter of a century to safeguarding the memory of the atrocities committed by the Cuban regime. Thus, not only has she insisted on collecting all the information regarding Cuban international missions – characterized for years by different organizations as forced labor – but also, for example, the names of those who have died from the direct fault of the State. continue reading
The most frustrating thing about her work in these years, she says, has been the “lack of resources and time to do more for the victims and survivors.” Of all the victims she has documented, she does not mention any in particular: “They all shock me and each one is the most important when you work with her or think about the consequences.” Of course, she points out, “some premeditated atrocities with treachery are almost incomprehensible.”
“The dictatorship has had more than six decades with all the resources of the totalitarian state at its disposal for propaganda, diplomacy and international influence
As a collector of data and facts that should be incontrovertible, why does she believe that, despite this information, the Cuban Revolution still has such a good press? “I work a lot researching that topic,” she replies. “The dictatorship has had more than six decades with all the resources of the totalitarian state at its disposal for propaganda, diplomacy and international influence, and its priority has been to use them to stay in power at all costs.”
Despite her efforts and work for so many years, nothing has changed substantially, and this is something that frustrates and hurts her, but that also encourages her to continue: “There is too much human suffering in the middle. Human beings deserve their freedoms. We can never accept the violence and repression with which the Cuban dictatorship abuses people.”
She says this with knowledge of facts that are personal. Her father, Armando Cañizares Gamboa, who had fought in the Sierra Maestra on the side of the rebel army and worked at the Sugar Institute, immediately realized the twisted course that the Revolution was taking and, after going into exile, was part of the 2506 Brigade that assaulted Playa Girón [the Bay of Pigs] in 1961. He died there from gunshots, but his wife, did not find out until much later, according to María Werlau, when she saw a magazine in a doctor’s office: “There was a photo of a dead brigadier. And he was my father.”
The double struggle of her father is, in a sense, that of the Cuba Archive, which not only documents the deaths of Castroism but also those of Fulgencio Batista. Almost 12,000 victims, for different reasons, are collected in its database from March 1952 to date.
Oblivious to the name of Werlau, President Miguel Díaz-Canel hurried to criticize the report prepared by the United States, which targets Cuba’s international brigades, calling it “manipulative.”
In its report, Washington places Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as among the countries with the highest existence of human trafficking, since they do not meet the minimum standards or make significant efforts for its elimination.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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In Pinar del Río, inspectors detect 1,900 “illegalities” in livestock and 6,800 in land tenure
Pinar del Río only has 18 livestock control inspectors / Cubadebate
14ymedio, Havana, 26 June 2024 — Within the “exercise of control” over agricultural and livestock production carried out by the Cuban Government since March, the results for Pinar del Río, whose turn it has been these days, follow the trend of the whole country. According to the official state newspaper Granma this Wednesday, in the western province a total of 1,900 “illegalities” were recorded in the livestock sector and 6,800 in the use and ownership of land. “The main irregularities have been related to missing animals, undeclared births and people who have died and continue to appear in the records as owners of livestock,” explained Lázara García, head of the Department of Genetics and Livestock Registry of that territory. She did not detail, however, what those “irregularities” consist of.
The “serious difficulties in the control of livestock” in the municipality are due, she added, to the fact that Pinar del Río “only has 18 livestock control inspectors to serve a universe of more than 21,700 producers.” This makes one hundred percent inspection “impossible.”
“The main irregularities have been related to missing animals and undeclared births
The official explained that in the territory, according to the records, “there are 209,532 head of cattle and 71,900 horses, but in practice the figures may be very different.” Regarding land, she stressed that the main irregularities among the more than 9,600 tenants visited lie in illegal constructions, whose number is more than 4,000. continue reading
Since March 1, the Ministry of Agriculture has been carrying out a special control – which will continue until September 30 – to quantify the number of cattle in the country and thus “have a characterization of the current situation of the sector in Cuba.”
The previous control reported by the official press was in Las Tunas, where 26% of the farmers – about 20,000 – refuse to deliver their agricultural products to the State. Since the beginning of the year, progress in solving this situation has been “tiny.”
Meanwhile, data from the Government indicate that, until before this exercise, in the country there were more than 200,000 people, natural and legal, who own cattle and buffalo, and about 167,000 who have horses. To have current data, the ministry visits producers, owners and contracted workers within the sector and aspires to have an adequate counting of animal stocks, depleted by the alarming increase in theft and slaughter.
While these exercises are being carried out, slaughter and the private sale of meat are paralyzed; only deliveries contracted with the state sector are maintained
While these exercises are being carried out, slaughter and the private sale of meat are paralyzed; only deliveries contracted with the state sector are maintained. This limitation is significantly affecting the supply of beef in private businesses and on-line stores, which have more frequently resorted to imports to satisfy demand.
According to the latest Statistical Yearbook, published in 2023 with data from the previous year, there were 947,300 horses on the Island and 3,516,400 cattle, a figure that contrasts with the 6 million that were counted in the country in 1958. The next census is predicted to show poorer figures than those of last year.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Senior civil and military officials meet in Havana to prepare “the war of all the people”
Neighbors have been busy cleaning the mountains of garbage that invade their streets after the floods / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 24 June 2024 — The threat of another rainy day looms over the Cuban capital this Monday. Only the Eastern side of the Island is breathing with some relief, since at 3 in the morning the Meteorological Institute announced that this Monday will be “cloudy in a large part of the country, with some showers, rains and thunderstorms from late morning in the western half. In the afternoon, rainfall will spread to the rest of the national territory, becoming copious in the west and center. The rains can be heavy in some locations.”
It will rain over already wet surfaces, literally. In Havana the weekend has been devastating for the hundreds of people who have lived staring at the ceiling, hoping it wouldn’t fall on them, as has happened to about twenty families who have partially or totally lost their homes due to rainfall in recent days. The highest point of the situation occurred on Saturday, when, in just three hours, between 2 and 3 in the afternoon, 56 millimeters (2.2 inches) of water accumulated at Casablanca Station in Havana.
The most affected municipalities were Diez de Octubre, Old Havana, Centro Habana, Boyeros and Plaza de la Revolución, where residents were busy cleaning the mountains of garbage that invaded their streets and that, carried by the water, prevented drainage through sewers, causing water accumulation. Mosquitoes, happy in the humidity, were added to the waste, spreading arboviruses to the fearing population, who did not give up in their efforts to unclog the streets despite the authorities asking them for “prudence and discipline.” continue reading
Liván Izquierdo Alonso asked for caution and called for “common sense and for the people to be disciplined and not cross flooded streets”
“Multiple images were posted on social networks, essentially in the profiles of Havana residents on Facebook and X (previously known as Twitter), where the population can be seen in the streets, in waters above their waists, just like cars whose tires cannot be seen because they remain under the precipitated water,” said Tribuna de La Habana.
Liván Izquierdo Alonso, First Secretary of the Communist Party in the province, asked for caution and called for “sanity, and for the people to be disciplined and not cross flooded streets with the clear presence of downed cables.” His agenda that day, while the population entered the waters to clean up the disaster, had consisted of supervising the Territorial Defense Day in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, together with his deputy, Yanet Hernández Pérez, who is also Havana’s governor.
On the front lines, Major General Ernest Feijóo Eiró, head of the Western Army, called for “maintaining daily production and services, internal order: revolutionary surveillance in the neighborhood’s labor groups, all as an indispensable part of all the people’s war”.
The three, along with other military personnel, carried out the day’s program as if nothing else was going on. The official press describes a tour in which “places that have the essential potential to guarantee food for the population in circumstances determined by defense against an enemy attack were visited.” They also went to the April 19th polyclinic to “verify health professionals’ preparation to care for citizens who were injured by an enemy attack in the territory.” Not a word, however, about whether the necessary means are available for this. They also went to a school and the polygon “in which they witnessed a demonstration of skills for direct confrontation with those who try to invade this territory.”
The Havana authorities carried out the day’s program as if nothing was happening / Tribuna de La Habana
Feijóo Eiró spoke with the president of the Municipal Defense Council, Rolandis Rogríguez González, about the importance of “taking advantage of the reserves of experience in officers who are retired and have the necessary qualities,” while Izquierdo Alonso was interested in the “potential of a local organopónico”* and about crops, and spoke with authority about how to produce to feed the population. In addition, he said that “the functions of the different government structures must be preserved, permanently, every day, in coordination with the Defense Zones. This is where the concept of war of the entire people lies,” he stressed.
The surreal scene, recorded by the official press with as much detail and urgency as was lacking when talking about the building collapses, was answered with a more than premonitory comment. “It would be necessary for Defense Day to also be allocated to the collection of solid waste in the streets. The corner of Oquendo and Salud in Centro Habana has not collected the garbage for more than a week, it is impossible to live with the flies, mosquitoes and stench inside homes, even with everything closed,” warned a woman who identified herself as Karen Boffill, an affected neighbor.
Barely an hour later the strong storm began, which aggravated the situation of the previous days, and the unrest of Havana residents was visible on the networks due to the lack of opportunity of some authorities, who seemed more distracted in the “strategic conception defined by the Commander in Chief Fidel as All the People’s War” than in the rain and its consequences. “They have people wasting their time with a supposed war. War is what they have against the miserable people, and it’s now that rice for the month of June’s miserable ration book is arriving. Don’t fool people anymore and get to work, because that’s where they’re spending all your money”, said a resident of La Lisa.
“They’re still doing it. What war? We have the war right here, inside. Enough already about war. What needs to be done is start producing the land, planting sugar cane, which is what makes money”, another one cried. “The military is the one who has to prepare,” continued one user. They have to guarantee citizens security: from an attack from outside and the assurance of peace for the citizens. “They should do that, and not keep appropriating hotels and chain stores.”
Not a single word came from Cuba’s Presidency to those affected by the rains. This weekend, Miguel Díaz-Canel left two messages on X, one this Sunday, congratulating Cuban women engineers and another that same Saturday, to instruct the population of Unión de Reyes, Matanzas, where he was on an official tour, to work with the spirit of commitment to move forward.
Popular superstition has linked Díaz-Canel, since the beginning of his mandate, with bad luck. His arrival was preceded by the partial collapse, on Friday night, of a home on General Betancourt de Alacranes Street, in Unión de Reyes. A few hours later, another building fell on the other side of Matanzas, in Colón. Nothing strange for a province in which only the Varadero tourist resort is free of ruins. None of this appeared in the official press.
*Translator’s note: Organopónicos or organoponics Cuban-originated system of urban agriculture using organic gardens.
Translated by Norma Whiting
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14ymedio, Havana, 28 June 2024 — Havana continues with an intermittent water service, like that suffered by other provinces, in a water crisis that is marked by problems with the electricity supply on the Island. This Friday, if the residents of the capital turn on the faucet, they will surely find some dribbles of water that serve only perhaps, to scrub the floor and fill some containers in order to face the urban drought. The efforts of the Havana authorities to normalize the supply have not yielded the hoped-for results.
