Translating Cuba

Motorcyclists Allowed to Transport Passengers Again in Santiago de Cuba

As of May 26 public transport may operate for six hours a day, from 5 A.M to 8 A.M and from 4 P.M. to 7 P.M. (El Chago-Santiago de Cuba/Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 June 2021 — Authorities in Santiago de Cuba have lifted restrictions on motorcycles carrying passengers, part of a series of measures originally intended to contain an outbreak of Covid-19, which the city has been experiencing for months. In reponse to complaints from the public, officials released a statement on Saturday announcing that commercially licensed motorcyclists would be allowed transport one passenger.

With more than 7,200 of these vehicles operating in the city, the initial decision to ban the practice of motorcycle ride-sharing led to complaints and criticisms from residents. Faced with a decrepit and deteriorating public transit system, they have come to see the motorcycle as an essential means of transportation.

“This ban made no sense. For a lot of families it’s their only way of getting around. That goes for public and private sector workers as well. There are those who like to throw stones but some of those people have to make ends meet by transporting their relatives because public transportation here is so incredibly bad. It’s terrible,” complains one resident, who says he does not often use this service because fares have risen so much since January. continue reading

The Temporary Working Group, the agency handling the public health emergency, announced that motorcycles would only be allowed to carry paying passengers during the hours public transport in operating. They are considering whether or not to allow motorcyclists, with or without commercial licenses, to transport family members with whom they are living.

Authorities say the decision is intended to “alleviate the transportation needs” for city residents.

“As in times past, motorcyclists are still doing the rounds and avoiding the traffic police by operating mainly in areas outside the city center, like Santa Maria, Boniato and Caney,” reports one young man who works in construction in the city.

“Thanks to the motorcycles a lot of us are able to get around because public transport only runs for a few hours a day and you have to fight for your life to use it,” he adds.

As of May 26, public transport may operate for six hours a day, from 5 A.M to 8 A.M and from 4 P.M. to 7 P.M. Only vehicles which are distributing essential goods, transporting flour, or being used by Public Health personel for administrative functions may operate outside those hours.

On Saturday, Santiago de Cuba reported 180 new cases of Covid, putting it behind Havana at 422 cases and Matanzas at 192, on a day that saw a record 1,470 new infections. On that same day there were 12 deaths due to complications associated with the infection for a total of 1,087 deaths from Covid-19 on the island.

The Public Health Ministry announced on Sunday that it has recorded 157,708 positive Covid test results since March 2020. Since early May, new daily infections of SARS-CoV-2 have averaged more than a thousand, with 1,198 cases in June so far.

On Sunday, Cuba, with a population of 11.2 million, reached a Covid case rate of 152 per 100,000 inhabitants according to the Spanish news agency EFE.

Controlled trials of the two of the five vaccines developed in Cuba, Abdala and Sovereign 02, are being conducted in high-risk areas of the country.

Both pharmaceuticals are in the final phase of clinical trials, which determine the efficacy of a potential vaccine. They have not yet received emergency use authorization from the country’s regulatory agency but authorities are hoping to obtain it this month once the results of the clinical trials are known. If one or both are shown to be effective, a massive vaccination campaign will begin.

Cuba is not part of the COVAX project, a vaccine program created by the World Health Organization which allows low and medium-income countries to acquire vaccines they have not been able buy on the world market.

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‘I Felt They Were More Aggressive Than Before,’ Denounces Cuban Journalist Yoe Suarez

In his interrogation with State Security this Thursday, Yoe Suárez was “threatened with jail” by the officers. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 June 2021 — The independent journalist Yoe Suárez was detained this Thursday by the political police for three hours, during which he was being interrogated, the reporter denounced in conversation with 14ymedio.

The State Security agents tried to intimidate Suárez by threatening him with jail: “They told me that I could end up as a political prisoner and that nobody here cares about them, that I should think of my family.” “I felt them more aggressive than others. times, “says the contributor to Diario de Cuba.

The officers also told him that they will increase the pressure against him and his family. Suarez explained that he was interrogated by a lieutenant colonel “who calls himself José,” whom he had never seen before, who was accompanied by “Officer Jonathan,” one of the repressors who detained him at his home. continue reading

After the journalist’s arrest, his family and the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (Iclep) denounced that he was missing. Once released, Suárez said on his social networks that he was transferred to the police station at 7th and 62nd in Havana’s Playa municipality.

The journalist’s family told 14ymedio that they were looking for him at the police stations closest to his home, in the Siboney district, and did not get information on his whereabouts. Iclep recalled that Suárez “has been besieged lately for his work” and for denouncing “the repressive forces for their methods of torturing independent activists and journalists.”

On the other hand, Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, director of the Delibera digital platform, remains under arrest since June 15, first at the Zapata y C station, in El Vedado, and later in Villa Marista, according to family members and activists.

Valle Roca, a day before his arrest, published on the Delibera YouTube channel, a video of the tossing out of leaflets at the central corner of Zanja and Galiano, in Centro Habana, on the occasion of the celebration of Antonio Maceo’s birthday.

This Thursday, Eralidis Frometa, a human rights activist and wife of the independent journalist, denounced that several agents searched the house they share.

Also still remaining in pridon is the independent reporter Esteban Rodríguez, who was transferred from the Guanajay maximum security prison to a hospital in Havana on Tuesday, where he was admitted after testing positive for Covid-19.

Rodríguez, a journalist for ADN Cuba, was one of those arrested on April 30 in the peaceful demonstration on Obispo Street, in which Mary Karla Ares, a contributor to the community media outlet Amanecer Habanero, was also arrested. The reporter was able to return home under “home confinement” and denounced that, during the 27 days she spent in prison, she was the victim of “long hours of interrogation” and “psychological torture.”

Likewise, the CiberCuba activist and reporter Iliana Hernández has been besieged at her house by the police and State Security agents for about 70 days. In addition to being forbidden to go out, they have also cut off her mobile data internet service.

In the month of May alone, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights documented more than 900 violent actions, something that, they denounce, confirms a “broader and more personalized repression” against civil society with the aim of “silencing all dissent.”

After the increase in repression by the regime in the first five months of the year, some activists and organizations consider that the country is experiencing “a new version of the Black Spring” of 2003.

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Maykel Castillo Was Able to Speak From Prison After Eight Days Incommunicado

The rapper Maykel ’Osorbo’ Castillo is accused of attack, public disorder and evading arrest and is in preventive prison in the province of Pinar Del Río. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 14 June 2021 — After eight days in solitary confinement, rapper Maykel Castillo, known as Osorbo, was able to speak this weekend with his colleague Eliexer Márquez Duany, who is called El Funky. Osorbo is imprisoned in the Cinco y Medio prison in Pinar del Río, awaiting trial for the alleged crimes of “attack,” “public disorder” and “evading arrest.”

“I spoke with him on Sunday and also on Saturday, which was his first call after eight days in solitary confinement,” El Funky told 14ymedio. “He told me he was okay and has a lot of faith that he will get out very soon.”

According to the artist, the two communications lasted only five minutes. Osorbo detailed that he had not been able to call because he was not allowed to because “the officers had orders that he could not make phone calls.” El Funky also said that “the things that the family has sent to the prison are not given to him in full, only the things they [prison authorities] decide.”

“Two packages have already been sent to him and from them they have given him only what they wanted to. They have not given him all the cigarettes, only the food,” El Funky denounced.

The curator Anamely Ramos, a member of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), directly accused State Security, in a Facebook post, of appropriating part of Osorbo’s belongings and also pointed out that they were harassing the people who had supported him by bringing what he needs to Pinar del Río.

“State security and citizen insecurity: Yesterday you let Maykel call after eight days. It was a hasty call, but to guess your steps a person doesn’t have to have a lot of time or be very intelligent,” said Ramos in his complaint.

Osorbo was arrested on May 18 at his home and it was not until two weeks later that he was transferred to Pinar del Río. Before his arrest, he was subjected to a constant police siege of his home that lasted for weeks, in which he was arrested for no reason every time he went out on the street.

The artist together with El Funky, Yotuel Romero, Descemer Bueno and the Gente de Zona duo launched the song Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life) three months ago , which has become an anthem and slogan in protests against the Government.

On April 4 on Damas Street, in Old Havana, the police tried to arrest Osorbo, but the neighbors helped him avoid arrest. The handcuffs hanging from the artist’s wrist became a symbol of the unusual protest.

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Cuba: Another Harvest Lost: ‘Take Pictures of the Rotten Mangoes to Show the Evidence’ to the Government Company

Hundreds of boxes of mangoes were left in the fields in Camagüey in the current harvest of 2021. (Adelante)

14ymedio, Havana, 15 June 2021 — “We would have filled a cart (…) to go out [in the streets] and sell it, even in the nearby neighborhoods, but we do not have the authorization,” the mango producer Ricardo Montaña Téllez complained on Monday, talking about his 130 boxes of fruit that was rotting without the state company Acopio nor the municipal government of Camagüey doing anything to collect the harvest.

This is another year in which mango production in Cuba turns into days of anguish and disappointment for the farmers. This time the producers who run the UBPC (Basic Unit of Cooperative Production) Farms #12 and #17, knocked on all possible doors, but to no avail.

After the rains of the last days of May, the ripening of the mangos on the province’s farms accelerated, according to what the farmers told the local newspaper Adelante. In the case of the local UBPC, they had a contract with the municipal Acopio for a current delivery of 278 tons, which was going to be destined for the industry. continue reading

Agustín Garrido Ramos took advantage of the early ripening and together with his family picked the mangoes on Farm 17, but the days passed and neither the UBPC directors nor Acopio did anything to collect the harvest. The only response that the farmer heard, after calls and negotiations, was: “Separate out the rotting mangoes and measure it in boxes and take photos of it, so when Acopio comes to collect it, the evidence is available.”

Ten days later, on June 7, the official entities collected part of the merchandise, by which time 320 boxes (12,800 pounds) had gone bad. “I gave up on harvesting it. To have it piled up here and see how it is rotting, I just leave it. It hurts to see how food is lost and we can’t even give it away,” complains Garrido Ramos.

The same happened with the Montaña Téllez harvest on Farm 12. Of the 165 boxes that he was able to collect, only 35 could be used, the rest were lost.

Elio Veny Martínez González, president of the local UBPC, told the local newspaper that they were going to “make a demand” to the State to pay them the money they lost and to ensure that the workers would not remain unpaid.

The company Conservas de Vegetales de Camagüey cannot process all the mango grown in the territory. (Adelante)

“A breakdown at the El Mambí canning factory coincided with the days of early ripening and there was no destination for the fruit we had already harvested. We told Acopio and the provincial government but there was no solution. This product is very expensive in the establishments and for that reason it is offered for sale slowly,” explains Martínez González.

According to the local newspaper, the company Conservas de Vegetales de Camagüey cannot process all the mango production in the territory due to limited industrial capacity, lack of packaging and repeated breakdowns in one of the main factories, El Mambí, where the machinery they are working with is 50 years old.

Two other plants were only able to process “400 tons, more than the 100 planned” in May, and for this month they will exceed “800, of the estimated 200,” according to the directors of Conservas de Vegetales.

The farmers of the affected UBPC, after much fighting, requested a permit from the Council of the Administration of the municipality to sell 90 boxes in the Puerto Príncipe and La Belén districts, “but a week after having the mango harvested,” says Martínez González.

For his part, Orestes Martínez Hernández, who is in charge of the harvest in the production unit, says that Acopio “does not have the capacity to move everything.” However, he insists: “We are in the best disposition to work the shifts that are necessary and until whatever hour, so that it is not lost.”

Added to this problem with transportation is that, coincidentally, this UBPC, which owns one of the 32 mini-industries in the province subordinate to the Ministry of Agriculture with the capacity to process 200 quintals (1 quintal = 33 acres) a day, cannot do so due to the lack of packaging.

The loss of tons of mango coincides with a rise in its price in markets throughout the island, where the fruit sells for between 6 and 15 pesos a pound, depending on its quality. Despite the increase in wages as of January this year, many retirees and low-income people cannot afford one of the most emblematic fruits of the Cuban countryside.

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Short on Dollars, Cadeca Will Now Process Tax Collection and Retiree Payments

People waiting in line outside a Cadeca currency exchange bureau. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 June 2021 — Residents of Havana’s Nuevo Vedado neighborhood had been wondering why Cadeca, the state-run currency exchange agency, would be opening a new office in their area. They got their answer this weekend: the company will now be processing taxes and payments to retirees.

“All of us were surprised they would open an office here given the reduction in currency exchanges, especially now that they won’t be accepting dollars,” said one Plaza of the Revolution resident who lives near the corner of Tulipan and Estancia streets, where the office will be located.

A Cadeca employee told 14ymedio that, although the office is not yet operational, it will be processing payments to retirees, handling procedures for the National Tax Administration Office (ONAT) and servicing customers with bank debit cards who prefer not to withdraw their cash from an ATM. continue reading

This information echoes a statement the president of Cadeca, Joaquin Alonso Vazquez, made on Sunday to the official press, in which he said the company was diversifying its retail services after the government announced that customers would no longer be allowed to deposit U.S. banknotes in their accounts.

Alonso Vazquez indicated that, although he foresees a shift in the retail sector to other foreign currencies, the company was diversifying the range of services it provides. These involve “operational capabilities and alliances” with ONAT, the banking and postal systems, utility companies that provide electricity, water and mobile phone services, the credit card company Fincimex and the oil company Cuba Petroleo, “to offer their services through Cadeca offices.”

Alonso Vazquez stated that sales are high at stores that sell goods or services for Cuban pesos so the company is setting up operations, known as third-party deposits, with state-owned businesses to confirm customers’ bank accounts.

The only service he did not mention was the sale of pre-paid gasoline cards, which are currently not available in all provinces.

In late May the government suspended the operations of currency exchange bureaus at the country’s international airports, claiming it had run out of cash. Executives at Cadeca said that they had been operating within established limits despite a “significant shortage” of hard currency but had to shut down due to a “lack of liquidity” which had reached an “extremely unsustainable level.”

Only two weeks ago, on June 10, authorities announced they would temporarily stop accepting cash bank deposits in dollars, blaming tighter U.S. sanctions imposed as part of the ongoing U.S economic embargo, which prevent the country’s central bank from using dollars it collects in Cuba overseas.

Cadeca offices became an essential feature of Cuban life in the 1990s when use of the dollar became widespread throughout the country. The company opened branches in major cities, tourist destinations and neighborhoods. Their importance has diminished in recent years, however, especially with the unification of the Cuban peso (CUP) with the Cuban convertible peso (CUC), which is being taken out of circulation.

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European Union Turns Down Funding to Cuban University

Karla María Pérez González, a student who was expelled from the University of Las Villas for political reasons according to the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights. (Captura)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 11 June 2021 — On Friday the European Union announced it would not provide funding for the Central University of Las Villas after the school expelled students whom the Cuban government considers to be subversive. The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) also condemned the move on Wednesday.

“It is not a given that the EU will fund this university. The EU supports specific educational projects as part of its program of worldwide cooperation,” a spokesperson for the bloc, Peter Stano, told the Spanish news agency EFE.

This week the OCDH reported that in 2019 the EU gave three million euros to the Central University of Las Villas (UCLV), which official EU documents described as “the most repressive in Cuba.” It cited the cases of Karla Maria Perez Gonzalez, who left for Costa Rica after she was expelled from the school, and Professor Dalila Rodriguez, who was fired in April 2017. continue reading

Regarding the Cuban situation, Stano told EFE, “There is a specific program for renewable energy and efficient energy use that focuses on advancing applied research in the field of renewable energy through a consortium of Cuban universities, led in Cuba by the UCLV, linked to EU academic institutions.”

Stano, who serves the EU as spokesperson for Josep Borell, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said the funds are channeled through the Free University of Brussels, a Belgian educational center serving the Flemish community. He added that the EU is “tracking the implementation of this project through in-depth dialogue and monitoring its progress.”

In response to questions about the situation in Cuba during a debate on Tuesday in the European parliament, Borell told delegates that the EU does not provide economic cooperation funds to organizations controlled by the Cuban regime.

“We are providing 8.4 million euros to civic organizations, 7.6 million of which are managed by civil society organizations, which by definition are not part of the Cuban government,” Borell said.

He added that 800,000 euros are managed by Cuban civil society organizations “carefully selected” by the EU delegation in Havana under the condition that they serve the broader interest and act as mediators between the authorities and their citizens.

On Thursday the European Parliament approved a resolution sponsored by the European People’s Party, liberals and right-wing deputies which called for the release of Cuban political prisoners. Members also expressed regret that the island has shown little progress more than three years after entering into a political association and cooperation agreement with the EU.

Nevertheless, Borell defended the agreement in the parliamentary debate, saying it has provided a “stable framework for a ongoing political dialogue and cooperation that did not exist before” and allows the EU to “support the modernization and reform process in Cuba.”

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Cuban Regime Expropriates My Sister’s House, But Celebrates My Father’s Birthday / Juan Juan Almeida

Monument to Juan Almeida Bosque in Santiago de Cuba: “No one surrenders here” (EFE)

Juan Juan Almeida, 24 February 2021 — When my father died and they put on that little show in the Sierra Maestra, Raúl Castro promised one of my sisters – who lived outside of Cuba – that, as long as she “behaved herself,” he would respect her house.

He gave her a hug, they exchanged tears, and the pledge was settled at the feet of the deceased.

So then, complying with her part of the bargain, my sister behaved very well. And now, while the super homage is being paid to our father, she gets the notification from the court.

And when someone inquires at the office of Raúl Castro, to find out what’s happened with that pledge, he is informed that she did indeed behave VERY WELL – and for this, the General was most appreciative. However – and this is how they put it – the “pledge to Behave Herself also included controlling me and shutting my mouth. Therefore, through my fault, she is losing the house.”

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

‘We’re Facing a New Version of the Black Spring,’ Says Martha Beatriz Roque

The Human Rights report mentions the case of the reporter and activist Iliana Hernández, whose home has been surrounded by police for more than two months. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 10 June 2021 — A total of 13 new political prisoners were registered in Cuba during the month of May. According to the latest report by the Cuban Center for Human Rights (CCDH), led by the opposition activist Martha Beatriz Roque, it is the highest number since March 2003, which makes this repressive wave “a new version of the Black Spring.”

The document highlights that the greatest repercussions came from the forced hospitalization for a month of the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. The cruelty, says the CCDH, has been “targeted” with all the artists and activists who, like Alcántara, are linked to the song ’Patria y Vida’.

In any case, the report says, prosecuting opponents, no matter how well known the person is, has become “the latest way the dictatorship has adopted of reducing to the minimum those who do not support the system.” continue reading

The document also indicates that last month the non-payment of fines, together with the crimes of contempt, public disorder, disobedience, spread of epidemic, illicit economic activity or pre-criminal dangerousness, have been used to imprison and “remove from circulation” dissidents and human rights defenders.

The Havana-based organization explains that it is “very difficult” to collect information on political prisoners because, due to the Covid pandemic, prison visits are prohibited. The report also mentions “an outbreak of coronavirus” in the provincial prison of Sancti Spíritus where, according to reports, they have placed restrictions on visits and phone calls from prisoners so that information is not leaked, a “very difficult” situation for inmates.

People who are constantly besieged by the government and its repressive forces and who are not allowed to leave their homes without even having been given any document issued by the authorities, are also detailed in the report.

The Center also mentions the threat made by prosecutor José Luis Reyes Blanco on national television, when he said that opponents of the regime who are outside the island could be prosecuted and extradited so that they could be held criminally responsible for a crime committed.

With regards to “harassment” against the activists, the NGO details that it has been carried out on 102 people, 10 more than the previous month, and also notes that “repressive actions are increasingly intense.”

As an example, it cites the case of the reporter and activist Iliana Hernández Cardosa, who has had a police cordon around her home for more than two months, and those of Iván Hernández Carrillo, the Ladies in White, the members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba and of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic, who have been under siege for the entire month.

Regarding the economy and the crisis that the country is experiencing, the report indicates that every day “the amount of products and services” that are sold in foreign currency in state stores increases, as do “people’s complaints about exorbitant product prices.”

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Cuban Government Repeats a 1980s Scam, This Time with Dollars

Long lines began forming in the early hours of Friday morning in front of bank branches. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, June 11, 2021 — “I deposited everything I had: eighty dollars.” Reinaldo waited in line early Friday morning outside the Banco Metroplitano on Infanta Street in Old Havana to hand over his modest hard-currency fortune that he has been saving for emergencies.

Thousands of Cubans like him woke up worried, after learning the night before that the government would suspend cash deposits of dollars on June 21. “What’s the use of having this money if I can’t use it after that date?” a young man in the doorway of the bank asks.

“The bank really planned ahead,” he notes. “Normally there are only two or three tellers available but today everyone was there, ready to take people’s deposits.” continue reading

On the TV news/interview program Roundtable, officials described the decision as a necessary step to deal with obstacles created by the U.S. embargo. But the official explanation has failed to convince either ordinary citizens or economists, who expressed astonishment the day after the announcement.

At the end of May, the government suspended currency exchange services at the country’s international airports, claiming it had run out of cash. It indicated that, despite a “significant shortage” of hard currency, it had been able to continue operating within established limits but that a “lack of liquidity” had made those operations unsustainable.

Long lines formed again on Friday outside stores that only accept freely convertible foreign currency, especially those selling home appliances. Outside the Plaza de Carlos III shopping mall in Central Havana, dozens of people were already in line by 5:00 AM, when the pandemic curfew ends, eager to spend their dollars on a refrigerator, air-conditioning system or rice cooker.

“People are going crazy because they’re afraid they’ll be hit with more measures like this in a few days,” says one young man waiting in line to buy clothing at a foreign currency store in the capital’s biggest shopping center. “What this has done is create more doubt and given people the impression that the those at the top don’t know what they’re doing.”

Lines outside hard-currency stores were especially long after the announcement that banks would not be accepting deposits of U.S. banknotes for the foreseeable future. (14ymedio)

For many the situation has brought back memories of the so-called Houses of Gold and Silver. In the 1980s the government operated stores known as “Houses of Diego Velazquez” — a reference to early Spanish explorers who traded tiny pieces of mirrored glass for gold — in which customers exchanged jewelry, gemstones and precious metal objects for vouchers which could be used to purchase clothing, footwear and household appliances.

No figures were ever released on how much gold and silver was ultimately collected but the operation lives on in the Cuban imagination as a kind of institutional scam, especially since the merchandise bought with the vouchers turned out to be shoddy and wore out quickly.

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Temporary Closure of Cuban Oil Factory Makes Price Soar to 300 Pesos

About 15 days ago, the Santiago authorities announced repairs at the Edible Oil Refinery (Erasol). (ACN)

14ymedio, Havana, 9 June 2021 — With the paralysis of the Santiago de Cuba vegetable oil refining plant, one of the sources supplying the city’s informal market, residents fear that the price of the product will skyrocket even more due to shortages and will end up costing twice as much as they currently pay.

“A liter of oil costs 250 pesos and when it disappears, which is almost always, it goes up to 300 (12 dollars at the official exchange rate). Yesterday a friend who lives in Manzanillo called me and told me that she is paying 350 pesos per liter,” Dunia, a resident of Santiago, told 14ymedio.

About 15 days ago, local authorities announced repairs at the Edible Oil Refinery (Erasol) and, this Monday, the director of the company, Ricardo Lores Durán, confirmed to the Granma newspaper that “the available raw material was also exhausted.”

The official explained that the shutdown of the industry will last for several more weeks and that “due to financial restrictions” associated with the “US blockade” the arrival of “crude oil scheduled for March” had been delayed. continue reading

However, the vegetable oil crisis in the city has been dragging on since last year. Dunia says that before January, several times he paid 80 pesos for a pound of oil. With the rise in prices associated with the ‘Ordering Task’*, it became not only scarce, but “almost unattainable,” he says. In addition, in the stores that only accept payment in freely convertible currency (MLC) they hardly sell the product and the little that is sold in the network of stores in pesos “already has owners.”

“There are no possibilities for people to buy the little oil the stores put on the shelves because resellers monopolize the line. Here we have to buy everything at a premium. The street sellers don’t give anyone else a chance to buy anything and then they sell things at triple or quadruple their value,” adds the Santiaguan.

With the refinery shut down, the authorities warned that the unrationed sale of the product will be affected and that they will only be able to include oil in the basic market basket sold through the ration stores for the month of July. Santiago’s industry supplies that province and also Las Tunas, Granma and Guantánamo.

Although Durán assured that there is already a ship sailing to the port of Santiago with the raw material, he expects the cycle of regulated distribution to be reestablished next month, but did not refer to whether the sale in the network of state stores will stabilize.

Vegetable oil is widely used in Cuban kitchens, mainly sunflower, soybean and corn, a use that has been expanding as the traditional fat, mainly from pork, disappears from recipes, a sector in decline due to the lack of of animal feed.

Cuban culinary culture also abounds in fried foods and the lack of other products, such as sauces, various condiments or various dressings, force families to use vegetable oil in many dishes, a practice that several studies indicate as harmful to health due to its link to obesity.

However, in Cuba the lack of vegetable oil for cooking is associated in the popular mentality with the crisis, such as the one that the island went through in the 90s. Having to boil food or cook it “without fat” is considered by the vast majority of Cubans as a sign of misery and lack of resources.

In other eastern Cuban cities such as Baracoa, in Guantánamo, a liter of oil is sold on the black market for 200 pesos, and in Holguín, a resident of the Sagua de Tánamo municipality reports it is selling at “300 pesos and continues to rise.”

“There are many things here that have already changed their status. Science fiction literature in Cuba now is no longer about aliens or robot technology that is going to end the universe, here science fiction is oil, chicken, rice; and beans, corn, sweet potatoes enter into ancient and medieval literature, that is, they are only memories,” joked the man from Holguin.

Erasol is the only industry on the island that processes edible oil, while the companies located in Camagüey and Havana are only dedicated to packaging.

In the Cuban capital, at the beginning of last May, several complaints gained force on social networks after some Internet users published images of one-liter bottles of oil, made in Russia, with a label that read that the sale of the product because it belongs to a lot of donations from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).

The Ministry of Internal Trade then alleged that breakage in the domestic industry had prevented the product from being bottled for sale on the rationed market and that they would replace the WFP bottles as soon as possible.

*Translator’s note: The ‘Ordering Task’ [Tarea ordenamiento] 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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Cuba’s New Bank Resolution: More Shadows than Lights / Miriam Celaya

A line in front of a bank in Havana. (File photo)

Cubanet, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 11 June 2021 — An informative note from the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) presented on Cuban TV’s Roundtable program this Thursday, June 10, announced the temporary suspension of US dollar deposits in Cuban banks by individuals and legal entities.

As expressed in the note, this measure, which will go into effect on June 21, is “necessary for the protection of the banking system” and will affect cash, but not accounts in freely convertible currency (MLC), which will be able to continue receiving US dollars from abroad. The provision does not affect other currencies such as the Euro, Canadian dollars, Pounds Sterling, etc., in which deposits and other transactions can continue.

Presentations on the subject were given by Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Director General of the US Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Marta Sabina Wilson González, Minister President of the BCC, and the Vice Minister Yamilé Berra Cires. None of the interventions sufficiently clarified the implementation of this new edict. continue reading

Resolution 176 of the BCC is based on the impossibility of depositing physical US dollars in international banks in Cuba due to the restrictions imposed by the “extraterritorial nature of the blockade,” which makes it increasingly difficult to find banking institutions that will allow Cuba to carry out transactions in that currency.

According to Fernández de Cossío, with the tightening of the blockade applied by the Trump administration since 2017, but with greater force since 2019, “the US seeks to depress income and generate hunger and misery” in order to achieve a social outbreak that will do away with the Revolution. The emphasis on affecting the financial sector, laments the official, “has had surgical precision,” with “devastating impact.”

The official maintains that the limitation of remittances since 2019 and the suppression of the institutional channels to process them -he refers directly to the express prohibition of conducting of US dollar transactions through FINCIMEX — turns it into cash arrivals in Cuba, introduced by Cuban and foreign travelers, which causes a “disproportionate” circulation in that currency without being able to give it its due course.

The matter is confusing, especially considering the pernicious lack of liquidity that Cuban authorities often complain about, which was the reason given for the controversial opening of MLC-operating stores. Now it turns out that the “blockade” has generated an accumulation of dollars in Cuba which the government alleges it has no way to process.

According to Minister Wilson, an accumulation of physical money has been created that is without value because it cannot be circulated; “No foreign trade operation can be carried out with it.” She says that “the incisive effect on the financial system” and the loss of counterpart foreign banks is an additional damage caused by the US blockade against Cuban banks. “Placing Cuban entities on a black list implied the limitation of transactions with those entities”, she points out. Therefore, “people must understand that we have no other option” than the application of this resolution.

June 20 was established as the deadline for the public to make dollar deposits. It was also announced that the application of the new provision is temporary and that it will not result in penalties for holding dollars.

The duration of this measure, insists Wilson, “will depend on the duration of the restrictions imposed by the United States on Cuba,” which leaves the alleged “sovereignty” that the Island’s government authorities boast so much about in very bad standing.

For her part, Vice Minister Yamilé Berra was in charge of another array of calamities suffered by the Cuban banking system from the pressures established by Trump, which “Biden has kept intact.” Among them, he mentioned the conclusion of operations with Cuba on the part of 35 foreign banks, 12 of which were fined hefty multimillion-dollar fines under the Helm-Burton Act.

Berra also stated that, as part of the measures implemented since 2017 by the Trump administration, Cuban banking messaging system was canceled and several banking services have been closed operationally, including messaging and correspondent codes, and the refusal to accept Cuban operations using letters of credit.

“In 2020 alone, there were more than 190 actions by foreign banks against Cuban banks,” declared the vice minister, who regrets that Cuba is considered a risky country for these banks, a rating that has the “blockade” as one of its reasons. The official did not refer to other possible reasons -such as the recurrent defaults on the overwhelming debt- for the existence of such reserves against the Cuban banks.

In short, the statements by government officials on the Roundtable program, far from being enlightening, left many unanswered questions, in addition to omitting some questions of great interest. It would have been interesting to know if the non-acceptance of US dollars by Cuban banks includes the suppression of their purchase in the CADECAs at the rate of 24 x 1, given that this entity is part of the same financial system. It is assumed that the dollars collected by the CADECAs would also accumulate in bank vaults and thus lose their user value.

Another question corresponds to the statement of the CADECA management, a few weeks ago, about its lack of liquidity to change the national currency into foreign currency, as in cases of visitors who return to their countries of origin and try to get rid of the CUP. It turns out that — and is contradictory at a minimum — in a country where vaults are full of dollars that cannot be given their user value, it is not possible by a financial entity created for that purpose to exchange currency.

Nor can we ignore the possibility that the new resolution of the BCC has the unconfessed purpose of suppressing, or, at least, of limiting, the rampant illegal market of currencies, of which the most present is indeed the US dollar, a market that, among other secondary evils, encourages the development of illegal trade with products that are sold exclusively in MLC stores.

For the moment, in the days to come, corresponding reactions to these illicit activities should take place, typical of economies in crisis, as the Cuban case has been for decades. It is to be expected that the value of the dollar will tend to fall — at present it is around 70 CUP — while the Euro should rise considerably.

Attention, Cubans, new distortions are coming.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Cuban Banks to Temporarily Suspend Dollar Deposits

The measure will take effect on June 21. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, June 10, 2021 — Starting June 21, Cuba will temporarily suspend cash deposits of U.S. dollars according to a memo from the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), which made the announcement on the television news/interview program Roundtable.

The statement indicated the measure is the result of “obstacles” created by the U.S. embargo, noting that it will allow the country’s banking system to deposit hard currency it collects on the island in entities overseas.

“The measure will not affect previous transfers or cash deposits in other freely convertible currencies accepted by Cuba, which will still be permitted without restrictions,” the memo states. continue reading

It adds that this measure is intended to protect the Cuban banking and financial system and only applies to U.S. currency in cash, not to dollar denominated bank accounts or existing accounts in this currency, “which will not be affected in any way.”

The BCC claims that, for more than a year, it has been restricted from depositing U.S. dollars collected within Cuba’s borders in international banks.

The bank also claims that it is becoming increasingly difficult for Cuba to find international institutions willing “to receive, convert, or process cash” in the form of dollars because of “the extra-territorial effects of the blockade and additional measures adopted by the United States.”

“This is not about penalizing people for having dollars. What we are saying is that we have a problem with banks overseas,” BCC president Marta Sabina Wilson González said on Cuban TV’s Roundtable program, adding that Cubans had until June 20 to deposit foreign cash in their bank accounts

Carlos Fernández de Cossío, director general of U.S. affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, added that the reason for this decision is “the blockade,” whose aim, he noted, is to “depress foreign earnings and people’s standard of living.” U.S. measures towards Cuba, he observed, were intensified four years ago during the Donald Trump administration and have so far remained unchanged under Joe Biden.

The official statement concludes by noting that how long this measure remains in effect “will depend on the lifting of restrictions that impede normal procedures for exporting American currency.”

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Water Returns to a Havana Building After a Complaint on Facebook

The multi-family building is located on 19 de Mayo and Ayestarán, in the capital’s municipality of Cerro. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 9 June 2021 — After more than a week without water, the residents of a multi-family building located on 19 de Mayo and Ayestarán in the capital’s municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, were able to receive water through a watertruck, thanks to a complaint on social networks where they named the state company Aguas de La Habana.

Internet user Otane González made the complaint by sharing a company poster with the phrase “Water is like love, we cannot live without it.” With irony, the woman responded to the state company: “Very true Aguas de La Habana, without love you cannot live and without water, even less. Pay attention to what you say.”

In Gonzalez’s post also we read: “We have been a week without water and love wanes,” adding that despite the efforts made by the residents of the building they were unsuccessful. Those in charge of repairing the problem “trade in justifications and an important point is forgotten: this street is inhabited by living beings,” she said. continue reading

A neighbor who lives near the building told 14ymedio that after the complaint, a government leader saw the publication on the networks and they sent a watertruck. “Apparently there is a break [in the pipes] that they have not found, that is why the supply does not reach the residents of the building, but in the rest of the area there is water every day, from 5 am to 3 pm,” he said.

“It’s now better to write on Facebook than to call any institution to solve a problem,” explains a resident of the property speaking to this newspaper by phone. “When we were calling Aguas de La Habana and complaining to the area’s delegate, we only got the runaround.” However, “it was enough for her to go online for them to start running.”

The man adds that the lack of supply put them “on the brink of a hygienic crisis.” The high temperatures, the high incidence of the pandemic in the capital and the shortage of personal and domestic hygiene products “came together in a perfect storm,” he details. “Luckily I could go to my daughter’s house to bathe, but here there are people who have been barely cleaning their mouths all these days and that’s it.”

At the beginning of last month, the residents of the Havana districts of El Canal (Cerro) and La Víbora (Diez de Octubre) experienced cuts in the drinking water service when the capital authorities established that the supply would be provided every three days and not on alternate days as had happened up to that time.

The reason for the new supply pattern was due “to the intense drought that the country is experiencing,” said the state company, which adds that “the water tables of the main sources that supply the city are very depressed.” For this reason, there are “effects due to lack of water and low pressure in some areas and neighborhoods of the central system.”

A few days later, there was an electrical breakdown that damaged the Cuenca Sur source, affecting the municipalities that receive that water: Plaza de la Revolución, Centro Habana, Cerro, Diez de Octubre and La Habana Vieja, in addition to the Miraflores and Altahabana neighborhoods, in Boyeros.

The supply of drinking water is one of the services that, with the elimination of subsidies on January 1, increased considerably in price. In this case, from 1.75 pesos to seven pesos per cubic meter.

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Cuban University Plunges in International Ranking

14ymedio, Havana, 10 June 2021 — Finding Cuba among the 2022 university rankings published by the British company Quacquarelli Symonds is a daunting task. Universities in the U.S. and U.K. are once again at the top, followed by many others in the rest of the world. You will have to go far down the list, however, to find the top-ranked alma mater in Cuba, the University of Havana, which finds itself in the 501-510 category (out of a thousand).

The second highest ranked Cuban school, in the 531-540 category, is the Central University “Marta Abreu” of Las Villas in Santa Clara. The third highest is Havana’s José Antonio Echeverría University of Technology, in the 1,001-1,200 category. The official news agency Prensa Latina seems to have been impressed by these numbers. It published an article entitled “Three Cuban Universities among the World’s Most Prestigious”.

The official news website Cubadebate was more circumspect. Its headline read, “Three Cuban Universities Listed in 2022 Edition of the QS World University Rankings.” What was most noteworthy, however, were the seven comments at the end in which readers expressed pride in the superiority of the country’s educational system or in the particular institutions where they had studied if they had been ranked as “one of the 1,300 most prestigious universities in the world.” continue reading

The University of Havana now returns to the position it held in 2020, after having risen to 498 in 2021. The decline of the country’s most important center of higher learning has been precipitous if one takes into account that as recently as 2015 it held a respectable 83rd place.

In the global context, Latin America is not the highest ranking region. Not until you come to 69th place do you find one of the continent’s school’s, the University of Buenos Aires. Next on the list is the National Autonomous University of Mexico at 105, followed by the Universiity of Sao Paulo at 121, and the Catholic University of Chile at 135.

Topping the list globally (as it has for ten years) is the presitigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), followed by most of the traditional American and British universities.

Among the most striking things about this year’s rankings is the rise of Chinese universities, two of which are in the top twenty, in contrast to those of Japan, almost half of which fell.

The QS World University Rankings evaluates 9,000 universities throughout the world, chooses the top 3,000 and ranks them using several criteria: academic peer review, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, employer reputation, international student ratio and international staff ratio.

London-based Quacquarelli Symonds is a company specializing in education and overseas studies. It is one of the most widely recognized firms of its kind in the world.

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Cuba: Economic Indicators for Ciego de Avila Fall to a Minimum

The authorities want to increase “territorial self-sufficiency” with the planting of products that are in short supply, such as cassava, bananas and taro. (Invasor)

14ymedio, Havana, 7 June 2021 — The economic data of Ciego de Ávila does not leave room for optimism. Local companies in the city, the provincial capital, lost more than 53 million pesos until April, Roberto Obregón García, mayor of the Municipal Administration Council, told the local newspaper Invasor.

Among those with the worst indicators are those related to commerce, which has lost 28 million, and food services, 24 million pesos. The food service sector suffers, as in the rest of the world, because of the restrictions related to the pandemic and its sales have fallen by 68.8% in its traditional services. But also sales have fallen 61.9% in food delivery and take away purchases, which were adopted to allow the viability of these companies and which, however, failed to break through.

Another negative indicator is that of the sales of basic foods, such as pork and sausages, which reached only 22.3% of the forecasts, and eggs, which reached only 16.7%. In addition, the authorities want to increase “territorial self-sufficiency” with the planting of products that are in short supply, such as cassava, bananas and taro. continue reading

Tobacco also fell dramatically, making 54% of the forecast, as did construction materials (54.3%), agricultural inputs (7.7%) and household supplies (17.1%).

Thus, of the 304 million pesos in commercial circulation originally foreseen, only 225 million were realized.

Local authorities have drawn attention to the importance of making decisions to improve production and savings, although nothing was put on the table to suggest that there will be a change in such a negative trend.

Obregón García explained that during the first four months of the year 193 fines related to non-compliance with the decrees that regulate prices and sanitary measures have been imposed in the amount of 1,075,000 pesos.

Decree 30, approved in December 2020, establishes sanctions that reach 3,000 pesos for those who fail to comply with the health regulations provided to reduce coronavirus infections. On the 31st, and published the same day, sellers were fined between 5,000 and 7,000 pesos for not displaying on a board the products and prices they offer; between 8,000 and 10,000 for “withholding, reserving, postponing or not putting products for retail sale on sale,” and up to between 12,000 and 15,000 if the seller does not comply with the measures ordered against “abusive prices” and “speculative prices.”

“Municipal economic development has a short, medium and long term strategy planned, a fact that will facilitate better planning and in-depth review of each measure implemented to ensure the redistribution of scarce available resources and meet priorities,” affirmed the mayor.

Ciego de Ávila’s numbers are not surprising. At the beginning of this year the Ceballos Agroindustrial Company, one of the few jewels in the crown of the Cuban State and the main industry in the territory, ended the month of January in the red. The industry, which produces canned food and sells mainly in national currency, suffered from the lack of packaging and the rise in raw material costs.

The news of Ceballos’ nosedive was published at the same time that President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that “the business system of the Food Industry needs a shake up, to take advantage of the 43 measures to strengthen the socialist state enterprise and get the maximum benefit from the Ordering Task*.”

“We can do more: more production, more efficiency, more offers, better designs, different ranges of products, greater optimization of processes,” concluded Díaz-Canel then, during the meeting to analyze the work of the Ministry of the Food Industry during 2020.

But the province’s performance suggests that the measures have not yet yielded the expected results.

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