14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana , 4 December 2021 — Castile melon, Chinese plum and even mangoes. The supply in the private market at 19th and B streets, in Havana’s Vedado district, has increased in recent weeks, as Christmas approaches. However, most buyers see this entire burgeoning variety as a mirage, because they cannot afford the high prices of the products.
“This market should be renamed and called ’all for one hundred’,” says a woman sarcastically at the entrance to the busy store. “A 4-pound piece of papaya costs 100 pesos, half a melon 100, a mango 100,” and she cries out: “A mango! Where are we going to stop?”
In this agricultural market, which some ironically call “the boutique” not so much for its assortment, greater than in other places, as for its prices. The prices of pork, at 195 pesos per pound, and some vegetables, such as carrots and beets, at 50 pesos per pound.
The outlook for the state-run 17th and K market was not much better as, although the products cost slightly less, there were only eight or nine for sale. In the case of onions, there was not even a difference with a private trade: in both places the price was 75 pesos per pound. “The onion here should cost less,” says one customer as he meticulously chooses small, medium-quality tomatoes. “Only in the case of the red onion the price is lower, and the lower quality tomato costs 40 when the individuals have it at 50. It does not make a big difference.” continue reading
In other small squares of Centro Habana visited by this newspaper, the situation was repeated: in San Rafael a pound of eggplant reached 40 pesos on Thursday, and the plantain, 7 pesos per unit. “Those days of drinking eggplant water for cholesterol are over,” says an old woman. “Two of the smallest eggplants can cost up to 60 pesos. What else can a retiree buy here other than sweet potato and pumpkin (at 10 pesos per pound)?”
The cost of all this, Cubans on the street agree, went through the roof with the Ordering Task*. Before these measures, in force for almost a year, you could find pork steak at 35 pesos per pound. “At most 50,” says a neighbor from Centro Habana. “I’ve never eaten a pork steak from January to now, and I don’t buy tomatoes either. If that’s me, and I’m not poor, how is it for the ordinary Cuban?”
*Translator’s note: Tarea ordenamiento = The [so-called] ‘Ordering Task’ which is a collection of measures that includes eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and others.
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The Cuban pig lacks flavor because of the animal’s poor diet. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 2 December 2021 — Pork legs from the United States, Spanish milk and Mexican beans. At the tables of Cuban families, imported products outnumber the number and quality of the few foods that come out of the nation’s fields and industries. Simply writing “imported” next to an offer to makes customers feel more confident and seduced.
“My sister bought me the plantain tostones from a place that brings them frozen from the United States,” says a 45-year-old from Havana. “Luckily she sent them to me, because here there are no longer large plantains that are used to make good tostones, and with this I am guarantee to have at least one fried food for Christmas.”
In the same digital site that sells the frozen product, one can also buy fried ripe plantains, ready to warm up in the pan and serve. “One grew up believing that the banana was something from here, we even made fun of those clichés that they saw us as people who were always eating bananas, and now we have to bring them from abroad.”
Where the needle of preferences points more strongly to what is imported over the national is in sausages and meat products. The nosedive in pork production, the ups and downs of livestock, which has not quite raised its head despite the most recent flexibilities in the sector, and the deep mistrust of diners reinforce this trend. continue reading
“Pork takes on the flavor of the food you give the animal,” says El Pana, a pig producer from Alquízar, in Artemisa, whom 14ymedio has tracked since he started in the sector until he ended up, last year, dismantling his corrals, tired of not getting feed and affected by the entry restrictions to Havana due to the pandemic.
“When I was able to get fishmeal and the animal spent its fattening time eating that, then you threw a steak in the pan and it seemed that it was frying claria,” he says. “People have lost their reference and don’t even remember what pork tastes like, but I’ve been in this business for many years and I know when a pig ate garbage and when they gave it something else.”
“In the fat and meat of the animal a lot of what it has eaten accumulates, as soon as you cut a leg or a shoulder blade, you can notice it by the tone of the upper. Imagine when you put it to cook, all that smell comes out and fills the house. I cannot sell what I myself would not eat, and here feeding a pig correctly is impossible.”
In El Pana’s opinion, this is one of the motivations for opting for the imported product. “You realize that they are younger pigs, because they managed to reach the weight for slaughter in the time it should be and not like it happens here that, as it does not have feed, tie passes and the animal is still skinny. You can’t kill that way.”
“Not to mention chicken, it’s been a long time since almost everything has come from abroad,” acknowledges the producer. “Here in the area surrounding Alquízar we had several poultry farms, there is nothing left of that. Even the roofs and fences have been stolen little by little.”
Something similar happens in livestock. The stores that only accept payment in freely convertible currency (MLC) and the digital sites that offer their merchandise for the emigrants to feed their families on the Island are full of cuts of beef coming mostly from Spain and Uruguay. An inquiry in one of those portals about the possibility of buying national meat yielded a brief answer: “We do not offer Cuban beef. It does not meet the quality requirements.”
In the same message, the customer was offered the possibility of buying a package of “chopped veal meat, ideal for skewers” or a tray of “ground beef fillet,” imported from Spain. Another “cheaper” option is “a kilogram of totally Iberian beef skirt.” Crossing the Atlantic seems to add more symbolic value to the merchandise.
While in many countries there is an increase in movements favorable to local commerce, which favors local products, in Cuba consumers are opting for imported food. Local consumption is barely concentrated in some produce, seasonal fruits and vegetables, but with the rise in prices in recent months, sometimes a canned or frozen product is cheaper.
“A pound of beans is above 90 pesos when you can find it,” says Victor Manuel, a retiree who frequently visits the agricultural market on San Rafael Street in Havana. “To give it flavor, I have to buy just a little chorizo or bacon, as well as add onion, garlic and other seasonings. When I take out an account, a fabada — bean stew — for my wife and for me comes out at more than 180 or 200 pesos.”
“My son, who lives in Miami, buys me cans of Asturian bean stew through stores and on the internet, which cost less than four dollars each. My wife and I eat with two without going back and forth to the agri-market and without so much mess with the pressure cooker. Cheaper and it has nothing to envy compared to what I could do in my kitchen with what little there is.”
“Before, at Christmas, almost everything that was eaten was from here, though perhaps the nougat or cider came from elsewhere, but now the table looks like the United Nations,” jokes Víctor Manuel. “What does not come from Mexico, comes from New Zealand. Crazy.”
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The lawyer Fernando Almeyda has been, since its foundation, one of the most visible heads of the Archipíelago platform. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 4 December 2021 — The lawyer Fernando Almeyda resigned this Friday as one the coordinators of the Archipiélago group. “Assuming this role implies a responsibility, which in the face of the latest events and decisions of the group I cannot assume,” he explained in a post published on his Facebook profile, in which he also claimed: “The political nuance of the platform and its coordinators, although I am sure that they benefit the Cuban cause, it is moving away from my ideas, my way of thinking and my political position.”
This does not mean, the jurist clarifies, that he departs from “the fight” and assures that he will continue “as one more island in the Archipiélago, as one more follower of this project.”
“The Archipiélago’s struggle represents one more force (not the only one) based on a greater good: justice, freedom, democracy and well-being for the Cuban people,” he concludes in his text. “I owe myself to that fight, and to all the projects and actors who share that vision.”
Asked by 14ymedio what he meant by “the political nuance of the platform,” Almeyda gave as an example “all the interviews that Yunior [García Aguilera] has given, whom I admire and respect, but whose dialectic as a leader I disagree with,” as well as that “on behalf of the Archipíelago, positions, ideas and alliances have been proposed that have not been brought to consensus” and that continue reading
“many of the things that have been decided by the majority are not followed, due to minority dissent, or it doesn’t represent the consensus by the veto of one or two people “.
On the first, he added: “I can also quote you the configuration of an agenda of Yunior that does not respond to the objectives and purposes of the Archipelago and over which the members have no real control.”
One of them was that of Daniela Rojo, who last Wednesday announced her resignation as coordinator of the platform. The young woman from Guanabacoa, mother of two young children, who was kidnapped by the political police on November 12 and spent five days in a house of the Ministry of the Interior under the custody of several agents, argued her decision on “personal and family problems.”
Before her, professor Leonardo Fernández Otaño, also a moderator of the platform , had publicly announced his departure from Archipielago , and confessed, like Almeyda, to not sharing “a group of political actions carried out by Yunior García Aguilera since his departure from Cuba.”
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“I remember when they finished the little interior paths of the house, that they had the pallets of pavers lying there, and boom, the solution was to remove the little grass separator from the Linea street divider.,” says the specialist consulted. (Cubadebate)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 2 December 2021 — The amount of investment made by the Cuban Government in the brand new Fidel Castro Ruz Center, in Havana’s Vedado district, whose works were in charge of the Office of the Historian of Havana (OHCH), is a mystery that has no signs of being revealed. “And even if it does come out, it will be very opaque, the final number will never come out,” a young architect with knowledge of the subject and who prefers anonymity tells 14ymedio.
However, the professional is sure of something: “There were excesses.” As an example, he says that “they spent a lot on paving stones that later they didn’t use and they had to find where to put them.” That was the origin, he says, of the cobblestones with which they paved a part of the gardens of Avenida de los Presidentes, also known as Calle G, the central Calle Línea and other places, such as Calle A in several of its sections.
“All those paving stones came from there,” says the architect. “I remember when they finished the little interior paths of the house, that they had the pallets of pavers lying there, and boom, the solution was to remove the little grass separator from the Linea street divider.”
In the summer of 2020, several of these works raised a cloud of dust on social networks between architects and ordinary Havanans, by eliminating the characteristic green of those streets and replacing them with the gray of concrete. continue reading
So much so that the authorities had to come out to give explanations. The official version given at the time was that the replacement was made for “pedestrian safety” and thus removed “some dirt from the earth and grass on the street.”
The architect consulted by this newspaper also details that the Department of Rehabilitation and Heritage Conservation of the OHCH, directed by Norma Pérez-Trujillo, is the same group that is carrying out the restoration of the Santa Clara convent and that it will be in charge, soon, of the restoration in the Palace of the Revolution.
For “interior design and paneling,” he refers, they hired the services of private sector workers.
He says that all the landscaping of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, as well as the proposal of trees and vegetation, was carried out by the specialists of the Botanical Garden. “The flower beds are very beautiful, in the style of the original El Vedado,” he says. “The trees that they put up respect the heights and other necessary characteristics, such as not giving off resins or that their leaves, fruits and seeds can damage the pavement. It is a pleasure to walk through there, if it were not for the aura that the building has as such,” he says sarcastically.
The Center was inaugurated last Thursday with a play by a children’s group and with the presence of Cuban government staff, along with Nicolás Maduro and Raúl Castro.
Although he specifically refused to answer a question about the cost of the opulent work posed by the international press, the head of Preservation of the Documentary Heritage of the Palace of the Revolution, Alberto Albariño, only said that a good part of the investment was covered with “donations received from other countries,” without detailing which, and that for that reason it did not involve a great expense for the State.
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The facade of the house, located on Infanta Street in Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 3 December 2021 — The face of Ernesto Che Guevara painted on the ground floor of a building on the centrally located Infanta Street in Havana has been left one-eyed by a window. The need of the residents of the house — located on one of the most important arteries of the capital, which connects Centro Habana and Cerro, but also one of the most degraded by time and government laziness — to open the wall of the facade in search for breeze, sunlight, living space, has been stronger than respect for one of the official images of the regime.
Above the ideology forced for more than six decades, pragmatism, the housing needs, always pressing in an increasingly deteriorated city, prevails. The creation of one, two, three windows has beaten the old slogans.
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“The news had been published on the networks that I had taken refuge in Colombia, and that is a lie, and I want people to know that I am still in prison,” says Luis Robles. (Capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 3 December 2021 — Luis Robles Elizastigui has again denounced that he is a victim of psychological and physical torture in prison. Activist Ángel Moya issued a call on Thursday for the “young man with the banner,” in which he asserts that Robles is still in the Combinado del Este, the maximum security prison in Havana.
Specifically, in “building three, in the north room, company 3406,” and he expresses with indignation: “The news had been published on the networks that I had taken refuge in Colombia, and that is a lie, and I want people to know that I am still in prison and I want the opposition to know it.”
“I am close to completing one year and I have not yet been tried, they have not told me anything, I do not know what they plan to do with me,” says the young man, who has been detained since 4 December 2020, when he peacefully demonstrated on the San Rafael boulevard in the capital with a poster calling for an end to the repression and the release of rapper Denis Solís .
He explains that he had a difficult few months in prison because he “had the police on top of him” all the time. “I received psychological torture from them, they chained me for no reason, for pleasure, just for speaking with the opposition they gave me a punishment cell, to prevent me from communicating with them.”
The punishment he refers to is “a system of handcuffs they call beads, and that tie hands, feet and waist, then they would leave me in a room for hours and if I sat down they would go and stand me up again.” In addition, “they have stripped me naked in front of other prisoners and that is very degrading.” continue reading
The complaints made by him previously, he says, have caused him to be sent to the punishment cell about five times. “The last two times I was there it was precisely for making complaints against the violation of human rights here inside the prison and the last time they had me without food for more than three days and they did not allow my sack to pass with my food.”
Similarly, he complains that inside the prison “there are many snitches” and because of them he has had “problems” with the police. You must take care of everything you speak and with whom you speak because there are common prisoners who, in exchange for some benefit, collude with the jailers and “tell them everything one talks or does and with whom.”
Before this call to Ángel Moya, Robles’ communication with the outside world was through his brother, Landy Fernández Elizastigui, but for a few months, he has been reluctant to speak to the independent press, because every time he does, they punish his brother.
However, Fernández tells this newspaper that this Wednesday he was able to visit Robles and that he did so accompanied by his son, who is just two years old. “He was very happy to see us and hug his child,” he says.
Last October, the Provincial Court of Havana for the fourth time denied Robles a change in the precautionary measure that keeps him in prison without trial. The oral hearing was originally set for July 16, but was suspended as a result of the July 11 protests and a new date has not yet been announced.
That same month, the United Nations issued an opinion in which it considers the case of Robles — as well as that of Solís, released in July and today in asylum in Serbia — as arbitrary detention and asks the Cuban government not only for his immediate release but also for compensation. “and other types of reparation, in accordance with international law” to the activists.
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Police officers arrest protesters in front of the Cuban capitol in Havana on June 11. (EFE)
14ymedio, Havana, 3 December 2021 –Joe Biden’s intentions to partially modify US policy toward Cuba were frozen by the July 11 crackdown, Juan González, director of the National Security Council for the Western Hemisphere, revealed in an interview with NBC News.
“After July 11, we pressed the pause button,” said the senior official, who considers the date of the anti-government protests a before and after. “Even the Cuban Americans who were in favor of the compromise said: ‘We have to wait, pay attention to this moment and see how to move forward from here’.”
Biden’s adviser attributed this pause to the US president’s “strong commitment to human rights and democracy… He is not one of those who thinks that change will come by simply letting things go.”
That July 11, when the Government of Cuba suspended communications on the island to try to prevent the circulation of information, Washington promised to study how to provide free internet to Cubans, an announcement that was technically almost impossible to comply with, as experts in their day already warned and Juan González admitted in an interview with NBC News. continue reading
“There is no really technical and easy solution, nor is there the technology to have internet connectivity, so we should focus on circumventing censorship,” he said after ensuring that the US Administration has invested a large amount of time studying the possibilities.
During the presidential campaign, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris pledged to reverse some measures adopted by Donald Trump with respect to Cuba, including the lifting of limits on travel and remittances.
Although the Plaza de la Revolución expected a restart of the thaw, the commitment did not go beyond that, but not only has it not materialized, but some new sanctions have been added against specific individuals, such as the suspension of visas for nine Cuban officials after the repression of November 15.
González was asked about the realization of the election commitments, but the official was vague in his answers and again resorted to the phrase that the US Government has repeated most often in relation to the Island. “We are analyzing all the politics,” the official insisted, adding that, according to Washington, “it is a regime that is afraid of granting greater rights and even of starting a debate.”
Regarding remittances, the official said that they are studying “innovative options” to guarantee that the money sent to the island by Cubans’ relatives does not fall into the hands of the military.
“How can we use remittances to support citizens without [the regime] benefiting from this? Much of the focus is on sanctioning people,” he said.
In addition, he advanced that they hope to resume normalized consular activity at the Embassy in Havana, but without giving deadlines. Cubans must apply for their visas in Guyana since the staff in Havana was reduced in 2017 due to the appearance of numerous diplomats affected by the “Havana syndrome.”
González also stated without giving more details that Washington and Havana have had “private” conversations about shipments of vaccines, oxygen and healthcare materials related to the pandemic, thus denying the accusations of the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez.
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Main facade of the luxurious Fidel Castro Ruz Center, in Havana. (Fidel Castro Ruz Center)
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 1 December 2021 — The police have found a homeless person huddled at the corner of Paseo Avenue and 11th Street in Havana’s Vedado. “Please give me something to buy a pizza, I’m hungry,” insists the woman, speaking to the visitors of the brand new Fidel Castro Ruz Center, living testimony of the failure of the story told in the museum behind the high wall where opulence reigns and and the annoying things are left out.
“They have put in a few million here,” a young woman whispered to her companion this week, when a 14ymedio reporter walked the corridors of this temple-like place dedicated to the god of the Cuban Revolution.
The cost of the monumental work is unknown, since the head of Preservation of the Documentary Heritage of the Palace of the Revolution, Alberto Albariño, refused to answer that question in a guided visit of the international press. The official preferred to say that a good part of the investment was covered with “donations that were received from other countries,” which he did not specify either, and that for that reason it has not represented a great expense for the State.
Exuberance reigns from the very entrance, with a garden that houses more than 11,000 plants brought from all over the country, but also from outside. Among them are those that form a forest like Birán, Castro’s cradle; trees of the Sierra Maestra, where his insurrection against Batista began; and a sample of his latest eccentricities, moringa, a protein plant to which he obsessively devoted himself in his later years. In addition, there are Venezuelan trees — perhaps part of a donation from Caracas — and rocks brought from the mouths of the La Plata and Carpintero rivers shape a waterfall that falls into a small pond full of tropical fish.
In the middle of this orchard, the jeep that Castro used in the Sierra Maestra appears. “It was driven here, the difficult thing was to put it inside,” says the essential guide that accompanies visitors through the Center. “This next room is designed for the little ones. So they play didactic games while they admire Fidel’s jeep,” the guide adds, pointing to the adjoining space. continue reading
“In reality it is a museum with a name of something else, you come to know Fidel from the time he was a child until his physical loss,” the guide to the Fidel Castro Ruz Center says as soon as the tour begins. (14ymedio)
The Center, was inaugurated last Thursday in the presence of the Cuban government staff, in addition to Nicolás Maduro and Raúl Castro, and began receiving scheduled visits a day later and, although it is open to the general public and admission is free, many of the visiting groups that coincided with 14ymedio’s visit were made up of officials and members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.
“Actually it is a museum with a name of something else, you come to know Fidel from the time he was a child until his physical loss,” says the guide as soon as they begin and after the visitors have completed the usual protocol for entering a museum, including security screening of belongings and a metal detector. In addition, one must provide an identification document from which the personal data is recorded in a book.
Televisions, interactive, touch and smart screens are distributed in each of the nine rooms that the mansion houses. (Cubadebate)
The mansion, which dates back to the last decade of the 19th century and belonged to a captain from the 1895 war, is under guard by guards in polished shoes, dark suits, and ear rings. They shadow the visitors, aided by dozens of state-of-the-art cameras.
A door from the time precedes another, apparently armored, glass sliding door that protects the air conditioning of the enclosure. The first room on the left, where the honors of the former president are displayed, is decorated replicating the original from more than a century ago. According to the guide, both the furniture and chandeliers as well as the paintings on the walls and other architectural details were restored in detail by managers of the Office of the City Historian.
Suddenly, in the nineteenth-century setting, the 21st century appears and the corridors of the house reveal phrases by Fidel Castro and José Martí in front of the visitor and an interactive painting shows a mosaic that, depending on the point of view, allows one to see the face of Martí or of Fidel. Although a worker at the Center said on television that the museum was built with Castro’s wishes in mind, this transmutation of his face into that of the Apostle contrasts with his declared intention that his image should not be worshiped.
Weapons, backpacks or binoculars used by the Maximum Leader in the Sierra Maestra dot the display, for which the creators have found, in an unusual event, a defect of Castro to expose: boots made by the same shoemaker who made the ones used by the former president in the mountains. “They are number 45 even though the commander wore 43. This is because Fidel had a problem with his right foot that forced him to wear a larger last,” explains the guide.
“At the moment and due to health protocols established by the pandemic, only the Center’s staff can interact with the touch panels,” he adds during part of the tour, “but our goal is for young people and children to make this technology their own and at the same time to take an interest in the life and work of our Commander,” he emphasizes.
The Fidel Castro Ruz Center is receiving scheduled visits and is open to the general public and admission is free. (14ymedio)
Televisions, interactive, touch and smart screens are distributed in each of the nine rooms that the mansion houses. A modern elevator with a panoramic view, but adapted to the architecture of the place, connects the two floors of the Center, and motion sensors that control the playing of multimedia content as the visitor passes complete the media display. But not all the island’s problems can be kept away: an electric shock that occurred a few days ago affected some of the screens and not all of them function normally.
The selection of the items on display has been careful and has avoided showing the setbacks and even the bad company. Going quickly through the fiascos such as those of the Revolutionary Offensive, the failure of the Ten Million Ton Harvest or the social outbreak of August 1994, the Center only shows the victorious side of Castro.
Notable in the exhibition is the absence of many of the people who once shared front pages with the leader is but who were ultimately cast aside. The passages with Carlos Lage, Roberto Robaina and Felipe Pérez Roque have been deleted or conveniently minimized.
The Center is defined as a public institution, destined to disseminate, study and investigate the thought and work of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, but it ends up becoming, no matter how much its creators and employees reject it, a temple dedicated to the worship of Castro.
The names of the rooms give an account of this: the Guerrilla room, to talk about the military Fidel; the Sala La Palabra [Room of the Word], to listen to the eternal speeches of the speaker Fidel; the Solidarity room, to tell about his profitable international campaigns; the Command room, which portrays places from which he directed operations; and even the amphitheater, soberly named “Fidel talks, I need you.”As a culmination, the Fidel is Fidel room, who made his brother cry last Thursday during the inauguration in his own words, in which video clips of people who speak (well) about him or, in the words of the Center, are played, testimonies “of how much he penetrated the soul of the people.”
Notable in the exhibition is the absence of many of the people who once shared front pages with the leader but who were eventually cast aside. (14ymedio)
During the tour made by 14ymedio, one of the visitors asked the guide if there was a cafeteria or space in which to buy something to drink or eat, as is usual in other museums. “For that we anticipated that there would be cafes around the Center. Most are private, have the capacity to serve many people at the same time and offer a good service,” explained the employee.
“Even if it’s water and coffee, they should sell it here, because the journey is long,” insisted another member of the group. “We plan to offer that service later, but nothing more, we do not want this full of people lining up to buy chocolates or bread with ham. Whoever comes needs to do it because they really want to know the life and work of our leader,” replied the guide.
The management of the Center seemed, in that gesture, to have decided to expel the merchants from the temple. But it won’t be like that at all. A 3D printer in the house will make miniature replicas of the Plaza de la Revolución and busts of heroes from the Independence struggles that can be purchased by visitors in the future store in which, however, and complying with the will of the former president, busts of the man who gives the temple its name cannot be bought.
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Sanitary pads are almost completely missing from the network of stores in Cuba that accept payment in the national currency. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 2 December 2021 — The long line that gathered this Thursday morning on Galiano Street was swelled by women and men, young and old, despite the fact that the product being sold had a more restricted audience. There, at a small kiosk a few meters from the Teatro América, packages of sanitary pads were being sold for 50 pesos.
The line was long, so several people, in anticipation, brought their own seats from home, something increasingly common among those who wait in front of shops to be able to bring home the basic necessities. Among them, what appeared to be a complete family stood out.
The sale of intimates in the small establishment had not ended when in some windows and doors near the kiosk the resale of the same packages was already observed. Only three times more expensive, at 150 pesos.
The sale of sanitary pads in the network of stores that accept payment in the national currency is practically non-existent. To acquire them, women must go to the black market or foreign exchange stores, in both cases at exorbitant prices.
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November 15th was “the first time in 62 years that the Ministry of the Interior, its paramilitary forces and the Federal Armed Forces found themselves in need of a complete occupation of all urban and many rural areas.” (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, December 1, 2021 — Threats from State Security and the deployment of the military throughout main streets in Cuba gripped the population with fear and thwarted the massive protests planned for November 15th (15N), but that same day, there were 79 protests in the country.
These were logged by the Cuban Conflict Observatory (OCC) in its last report, published on Wednesday, which includes a video that provides proof of some of those protests, filmed in motion or shared as photographs on social media.
The Miami-based organization reports 353 protests on the Island in November, 75% (266) of which were motivated by demands for political and civil rights, the remainder (87), were related to economic and social rights, such as exploitation of labor, excessive fines, femicide, the poor conditions in prisons or high prices for the basic food basket.
“That the protests have continued is significant, if you consider the extraordinary repression exerted against the population, the exemplary trials with extreme sentences for alleged and inconsequential crimes committed on July 11th, the threats of terminating the parental authority of those who are jailed for political reasons, and the impunity with which paramilitary groups, in videos shared on social media, flaunted their willingness to exert violence against any protester using firearms and blunt objects,” stated OCC.
The slight increase in protests last month, compared with those that occurred in October (345), maintains the upward trend since the Observatory began monitoring them, in September of 2020, when they logged 42 protests.
“Especially since the Government believed they’d quashed the resistance from the cultural sector with the assault on the headquarters of Movimiento San Isidro on November 26, 2020,” noted OCC. Since then, they continued, several dates have marked the “growing ungovernability” in Cuba, among which are included, clearly, 11J, but also 15N. continue reading
The NGO asserts that day was “the first time in 62 years that the Ministry of the Interior, its paramilitary forces and the Federal Armed Forces found themselves in need of a complete occupation of all urban and many rural areas, through police operations, deployment of member of State Security dressed as civilians, acts of repudiation, messages containing threats and selective disabling of telephone lines.”
To dissuade people from going out, the document states, “the Government continues announcing arbitrary and excessive sentences (including those against dozens of minors) for the July 11th (11J) protesters, fascist beatings on the streets and in prisons, threats of terminating the parental authority of possible protesters, psychological torture of the detained and their family members, and also pressuring known dissidents to leave the country.”
As a result, it concludes that “the reference for deciding to whom the victory of 15N belongs is not the number of citizens that went out to the streets, but rather, the number of effective troops, police, paramilitaries and resources the Government deemed necessary to avoid a new July 11th,” due to the financial and political cost of that operation, which OCC described as “devastating, nationally and internationally.”
As an example, the NGO stated that the repression previously exercised by the Cuban Government resulted in November 15 being closely observed by the European Union and the UN Human Rights Council.
“The Cuban reality is not lost potential investors, and even tourists, whom the government wishes to attract,” they reason in the report. “Who is more credible and strong today? The government which can barely mobilize a few of the dissidents’ neighbors to carry out an act of repudiation? Or civil society, ever more alienated from the government and the current governing regime?” they ask, and follow with this assertion, “The government didn’t ensure its own future in November, it placed it at even greater peril.”
In the report, the OCC exalts the “successes” of Archipiélago since it was created, in August, among these, demonstrating that “the people were willing to join a civic call to action on 15N and that the Government had no response to the citizen unrest other than the most obscene repression.”
Nonetheless, despite the space dedicated to the opposition platform in the document, there was no mention of its most visible leader, playwright Yunior García Aguilera, who surprisingly left Cuba for Madrid on November 16th, two days after State Security deployed a strong operation and organized agg acts of repudiation at the artist’s own house, preventing him from marching alone, as he had announced.
The report also does not reference the regime’s evident strategy toward the most recent dissidents: forced exile. The most recent of these being controversial rapper Denis Solís, who traveled to Serbia via Moscow last Saturday.
In addition to García Aguilera and Solís, artist Hamlet Lavastida and poet Katherine Biquet also find themselves in the same situation, today in Europe, as are Tania Bruguera, Camila Lobón, Claudia Genlui, Alfredo Martínez and Eliexer Márquez El Funky, one of the performers of Patria y Vida.
Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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Sentencing requests for some of the Cubans who protested in 11 July. (Cubalex)
Cubalex, 22 November 2021 — On November 22nd and 23rd, the judicial proceedings against 13 of the July 11th (11J) protesters are being held at the Provincial Tribunal of Artemisa. According to our sources all of the areas surrounding the courtroom are militarized. The police, red berets, black berets and State Security have organized a large-scale surveillance operation. For its part, the tribunal, in violation of established national legislation and international standards, has restricted public access and has only allowed the presence of one family member per accused.
Family members are devastated and discriminated against. Alarmed and worried due to the lack of media attention that these trials have had. To Cuban civil society, to the independent press, those who have business to conduct today at the tribunal, those who in one form or another can share information, we ask for your support to raise the visibility of the situation of these protesters and sensitize the international community. Let’s accompany the family members of the 11J peaceful protesters in these very difficult moments. Let’s not leave them alone, they need us today, now. Share the situation on your social media, if you have close neighbors in areas surrounding the tribunal, ask them to share information about what they are able to observe, including photos.
Justicia 11 and Cubalex condemn this and demand complete and immediate dismissal of the charges currently being processed by the prosecutor’s office, as well as the cases that have already been presented by the prosecutor to the tribunal, without trials. We request human rights organizations and those that protect journalists and activists to ensure the security of those within and outside of Cuba; who for their clear position of denouncement can become the targets of violence, harassment and repression by Cuban state and government bodies.
These are the names of those detained who are being processed: Javier González Fernández, Alexander Díaz Rodríguez, Yurien Rodríguez Ramos, Eduard Bryan Luperon Vega, Eddy Gutiérrez Alonso, Víctor Alejandro Panceira Rodríguez, Yeremin Salcines Janes, José Alberto Pío Torres, Leandro David Morales Ricondo, Luis Giraldo Martínez Sierra, Iván Hernández Troya, Yoslén Domínguez Victores, Yoselín Hernández Rodríguez.
Recommendations:
We continue to urge family members to constantly denounce these cases, based on the proven fact that raising the visibility has provided significant protection. Our political prisoners are not alone. We demand justice.
The independent journalist Camila Acosta, contributor to ‘CubaNet’ and correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ‘ABC’. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 30 November 2021 — Independent journalist Camila Acosta, in home confinement for more than four months, has had the charges against her changed for reporting on the July 11 protests, for which she was detained for four days later. The political police informed her this Tuesday, at the Zapata y C Police Unit, in Havana, where they summoned the young woman.
In a direct transmission, the CubaNet collaborator and correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC said that she was no longer being charged for “public disorder,” as they told her then, but “instigation to commit a crime,” a crime that, according to Acosta, was added to her file post-arrest.
“The [State] Security does what they want with these files and of course it is a false crime as well,” the journalist asserts in the video. She says that for the accusation she faces a sanction of three-months to one year in prison or a fine “from 100 to 300 quotas*.”
The reason for the summons, Acosta also details, was to inform her that the political police will check her phone, the flash memory and the hard disk that they confiscated, “as if they had not already done so,” she adds.
“There is a detail with this crime: they accuse me of instigating a crime, but it does not say what is the crime to which I am inciting other people to commit,” she protests, while denouncing that the Cuban repressive organs violate “what is established in its own legislation.” continue reading
“I made it clear to Lieutenant Ernesto Dávila Gallardo that at no time did they give me an official document in which they notified which were the teams that had been involved in that search, nor the reason,” she said. “The justification they gave me is that this document is given to the homeowner and they asked the owner if he wanted the document and the owner said no.” The journalist says that she consulted with Cubalex and the legal organization told her that she was the resident of that house and that the confiscated equipment was hers, so the document should have been delivered to Acosta herself.
Another opponent who was called by the political police is Carolina Barrero, who has not yet provided information on that summons. The art historian explained in a Facebook post that they are accusing her of “instigation to commit a crime” for asking that people march on 15N.
“Among other errors and faults, the summons did not have written the place where she should go. The officer told me it was Zapata and C, while acknowledging that he had no stamp and that he would return tomorrow,” she writes. “I want to remind the police administration that the subpoenas must be signed by the criminal investigator who leads the investigation or by a prosecutor or assistant prosecutor. It cannot be done by a third party who will not be present later. This is called usurpation of charges and is a crime, one too frequent in politically motivated subpoenas.”
*Translator’s note: The Cuban penal code sets fines as a number of ’quotas’, which allows it to change the value of all fines with a single change redefining the value of one quota.
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This year the province of Holguín it is barely expected to reach 2,566 tons of pork, compared to the 8,625 planned. (Granma)
14ymedio, Havana, 30 November 2021 — The state swine company Holpor, located in Holguín, has resurrected the recipe for liquid feed for pigs, which was discontinued since the Special Period, with the aim of making the animal’s meat cheaper and increasing its production. This year it is barely expected to reach 2,566 tons of the product, compared to the 8,625 planned, which is already very scarce for what the province demands
On Monday, Bismark Millán Maceo, current director of the state company, explained in the state newspaper Granma that the current price of dry feed is currently reaching 8,000 or 10,000 pesos per ton and that, even when it is the lowest cost, the figure reaches at least 3,000 pesos. Against this, the same amount of liquid feed will cost between 1,500 and 2,000 pesos according to the company’s calculations.
To make this food again, the company will have to start up the liquid feed plant, dismantled in the 90s due to the crisis of that time. Millán considers it sensible that production stopped at that time, but not that the equipment was dismantled and sold to other companies, including the recovery of raw materials.
However, both he and the general director of the company, Yosvel Sarmiento Peña, are in favor of the recovery of the industry, which is part of the projects that the Government has going out to 2030, since, in its opinion, it will lower costs of pork production.
The prices of dry feed have tripled compared to before the pandemic. As an alternative, Holpor is making feed with domestically produced corn, but the quantity falls short. “Currently, we are producing about 300 or 350 tons of dry feed per month, but we have the technological capacity to reach 2,000 in the same period.” continue reading
If the recovery plans for the liquid feed plant work, it will be possible to “have an alternative feed of high nutritional value for the pigs, basically obtained from the processing of agricultural crop residues and waste collected in social institutions, as well as in tourist facilities,” they explain.
The recovery of the State pig farms that were not exploited for a long time is one of more than 60 government initiatives to stimulate food production.
The company does not rule out being able to sell very young pre-fattening pigs to private producers who in the last year have suffered the interruption of the breeding and breeding chain due to the lack of food for the animals. Individual producers from Alquízar, in the province of Artemisa, explain to this newspaper that once the breeding line is cut it is very difficult to resume pig production.
“Once you eat the female before breeding her and taking her offspring, everything is over,” details El Pana, an Artemiseño producer who dismantled his pig pen more than a year ago due to lack of feed. The sale of young specimens by the State is already made to cooperatives and state farms but it is still under study to extend it to private ones.
Holpor intends to recover in Moa ten warehouses with a capacity for 5,000 heads that will be added to the 22 warehouses whose covers were restored at the Cuba Sí 1 fattening site in Holguín, which admits a similar number of animals.
The recovery of the liquid feed plant, a task that should be completed in 2023, will cost 7,000,000 pesos, although, they say, it will produce 95 tons per day. But the Communist Party newspaper already warns of the difficulties to finish it in the estimated term “because today only the battery of six tanks that was saved because they used it to store honey, as well as the laboratory premises, are in operating condition. It was preserved because they turned it into a semen center that, as is logical, will be relocated to other locations.”
For now, the process is in its initial phase and a boiler manufactured in Havana has been acquired, something rthe newspaper found remarkable, praising the ability to having been able to buy a Cuban product for its industry.
In addition, Holpor had set his sights on another possible place with similar characteristics: the old comprehensive pig farm in the municipality of Cueto. According to the company’s calculations, recovering this place, which was a victim of pillage after its closure, would allow the introduction of some 1,800 breeders, “which would be decisive for the meat increase plans.” Of course, part of them would not be precisely for Cubans, since the company plans to allocate an indeterminate amount to the “tourist pole that emerges in the Antilles.”
This plant would also be supplied with food waste from the hotel complexes in operation and the residues from the Cueto and Mayarí crops. But the Provincial Delegation of the Institute of Hydraulic Resources did not authorize it, considering that it would contaminate the Nipe dam, so Holpor is studying solutions to overcome that obstacle.
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Overflow of sewage waters in Mariana Grajales Avenue, in Santiago de Cuba. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 30 November 2021 — The residents of the South Central Popular Council, of the José Martí Urban Center, in Santiago de Cuba, swim in black waters. The situation is such that more than 70 people have fallen ill with diarrhea.
OnSunday, official journalist Cuscó Tarradell explained that on the afternoon of November 25 “there was a partial contamination” of the drinking water that is supplied in eleven districts of the South Central Popular Council, belonging to the José Martí Urban Center.
According to Tarradell, when trying to fix an obstruction in Avenida de las Américas, an excavation damaged the main water pipe, which together with a breakdown of the sewage network in the same place, caused a “crossing of the networks” and the consequent contamination of clean water pipes.
Despite the large number of people admitted to the hospital, the journalist assures that they were tested for cholera and were negative. Tarradell also says that on that same day, the contamination was eliminated and the fault repaired.
“We began to notice that the water that came through the pipe had a bad smell but it did not seem to be anything new to us because here it is often dirty,” Norma del Toro, a neighbor of the area most affected by the spill, explains to 14ymedio. “Luckily in our house we boiled the water but in this block several families had diarrhea.” continue reading
“For years here we’ve have to boil and then filter the water or buy it from the water carriers who bring it from places where it is cleaner,” explains the retiree. “You cannot trust the service and in houses where there are children or the elderly, it is best to buy it or take extreme measures.”
However, residents of the place published photos and videos in which they show that the situation is neither new nor limited only to the José Martí Urban Center. In one of these images, for example, Mariana Grajales Avenue is seen at the other end of the city flooded with sewage waters.
“Why is our city in this catastrophic situation?” the administrators of the Facebook group Turismo por Alcantarillados deSantiago de Cuba asked in a post. In it, they say that they had contact with a director of the state Aqueduct and Sewerage company, who wanted to remain anonymous, and who responded that the problem of the water system is “very complicated” because the sewerage system is very old.
“Some parts are more than 100 years old, others never foresaw the growth of the city and the growth plans have not counted on the adaptation of a new system for the final disposal of liquid waste,” this official is quoted in the publication. He also said that only a few of the breakdowns could be repaired “in the very long term” and with the risk of “new and greater breaks” in the meantime.
The solution, according to this manager, “is totally out of financial possibilities, because it would require millions in an investment as large and expensive as completely renovating 80% of the city’s sewage system, which is totally unaffordable.”
The group asserts that they have documented the overflows in Santiago de Cuba for decades, and that their page had 1,167 members in just the first month of its creation. “What has motivated such rapid growth in our group?”
The overflowing of the sewage is compounded by the abandonment of garbage collection by the authorities, a situation documented by this newspaper half a year ago, and which causes continuous outbreaks of scabies, lice and dengue.
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
On World AIDS Day, the day that the fight against HIV-AIDS is celebrated, complaints about the lack of condoms are mounting. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 1 December 2020 — Numerous citizen initiatives have arisen with the disinterested and laudable support of Cuban emigrants, mainly based in Miami, who, in addition to bringing medicines and medical supplies to the island, have included the sending of condoms that are distributed free of charge by activists, however the effort is not enough to reach everyone.
On the day the fight against HIV-AIDS is celebrated, complaints about the lack of condoms for sale in state establishments are increasing. “You go to a pharmacy and there aren’t any, you look for them on the classifieds site and a single condom can cost up to 40 pesos, a real madness,” a young man from Havana told 14ymedio.
Several citizen initiatives have emerged with the support of Cuban emigrants. (14ymedio)
“It is more expensive to buy three condoms in the informal market, than to pay rent,” says a young woman to her friend outside a pharmacy located on Avenida Carlos III. “My boyfriend can’t find them and they’re so expensive he can’t afford them, so we’re not using them and that’s what God wants,” she said anguished.
“We are in a country where the main weapon to stop the disease, which is the use of condoms, does not exist right now,” was one of the comments that could be read today on the social network Facebook, where Cubans criticized the poor performance of the State to comply with delivery plans to businesses.
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana , 4 December 2021 — Castile melon, Chinese plum and even mangoes. The supply in the private market at 19th and B streets, in Havana’s Vedado district, has increased in recent weeks, as Christmas approaches. However, most buyers see this entire burgeoning variety as a mirage, because they cannot afford the high prices of the products.
