Translating Cuba

La Epoca Opens its Doors for Dollars on March 8th With a Very Long Line Waiting

On the corner of Galiano and Neptuno, in the centre, the place has been typical of a location with the most shops per square metre in all of Cuba. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, March 8th, 2021 – For weeks now, it has been known that the shop La Epoca, in Havana, was going to open its doors this Monday, and in dollars. And everybody has known that to be able to get in there you would have to join the line several days beforehand. This time the International Woman’s Day gift will arrive wrapped in greenbacks.

The morning of March 8th arrived, cold and humid, and with strong gusts of wind in the Cuban capital. But, in spite of the bad weather, and before the clock struck seven, the line to get in La Epoca was already nearly 1,000 feet long. Most of the people had spent days getting themselves organised to enter one of the most emblematic shopping centres in the city.

At that time, the police got the shoppers to go three blocks back from the main entrance of the place, to avoid crowd build-ups outside of the markets. But the distance and the fact that they could not see the entrance door, increased their anxiety and their fear of possible irregularities, and gatecrashers. continue reading

Situated on the downtown corner of Galiano and Neptuno, the shopping centre has symbolised one the areas with more shops per metre than anywhere in Cuba. With its breathtaking window displays, now hidden by metal shutters, its escalators which haven’t worked for years, and its several floors which used to be full of merchandise, La Epoca lived up to its name and became a symbol of business effort in the city.

But today’s La Epoca has little resemblance to its previous glamour. Two workmen up on a scaffold were still touching up the facade while the line was getting longer on Monday, the police keeping a close eye on the line and, at nine in the morning, the business still had not been able to open, producing protests and frayed nerves in the line. The agitation led to several trucks with black-capped troops arriving at 10 am to try to control the chaos.

The police make those waiting in line move three blocks back from the main entrance to the shop (14ymedio)

Many of the people waiting outside were women. “I came to see if I could get some cheese and yogurt for my kids, because the price of these things on the black market is more than I am prepared to pay,” 14ymedio was told by Yamile, a 42 year old woman from Havana. “But, to tell the truth, if I had thought about all the time I was going to waste here, it wasn’t worth it.”

Aymara is another one who spent days standing in line. The worst part has been hiding from the police patrolling the area in the early morning to enforce the strict curfew imposed by the city because of the pandemic. Between nine at night and five in the morning, you are not supposed to be out in the streets, so they had to look for other ways to avoid losing their place in line.

“We used a digital line, and, although every day you have to come to confirm your place at six in the morning, the rest of the time you do it through Whatsapp and also on a physical list held by the first people in the line,” explained a young woman. “And I have made all this sacrifice because I was told there is a much greater selection of things in this shop than the others and that they are going to open up with everything.”

But Aymara says she’s tired of waiting all this time and worn out by the situation. “I told my mama not to send me not one dollar more, because instead of sending me money to spend in these shops where everything is expensive and poor quality, she should save the money there so I can get out of this country, I cant stand any more.” The people around her agreed with her.

“And it isn’t worth going to the other dollar shops either. They have created a resellers mafia, employees who get paid to let their friends, or the coleros*, in first,” complains Luisito, who lives in nearby San Miguel Street. He tells me he started to wait in the line last Wednesday, when “a neighbour went past taking names of people who wanted to get in when the shop opened.”

“They told us early on that they were only going to open up the food market, home appliances, and perfumes”, says the man. “But nobody knows exactly because there is no notice or any detailed information on which parts of the shop are open this Monday. The blind leading the blind.”

After 11 in the morning, some employee came out and spoke to the people at the front of the line and said: “The shop isnit ready. Its going to open but we are still putting stuff on the shelves. The appliance section won’t be open today, but we’re doing everything we can to open the market”. They took the ID cards from the first people in the line.

Luisito wants to buy “detergent, some beans which have disappeared from the shelves of other shops, and a bag of milk powder”. But, from the start no-one has been clear about the new way of selling stuff in freely convertible currency. “Some people thought it was going to be a national currency. A bit naive. Been a long time since they opened any new peso shops in the city, hasn’t it?”

The shops selling in pesos are almost empty. Bottle of water, packs of dried fruits which look old, and extremely expensive bottles of tequila are all that is offered in a shop a few yards away from La Epoca. “They’ve been unloading trucks and trucks of stuff since early morning,” said an employee of the shop with nothing in it, indicating the new dollar business.

“Here they seem to have forgotten to stock up on the things that are going to these stores” complains an employee of the state store. “When customers ask, all I can tell them is to cross the street and buy things in the dollar stores.” She is interrupted by the shouting around La Epoca and she looks around to see what’s happening.

“It’s disrespectful. People are paying in a strong currency and they still think they are at liberty to hang about before they open the doors. It’s ten in the morning, and it.s cold.” “Why don’t they open up?” shouts a man who is there with his partner at the front of the line. The people up front are having a row with the police accusing them of “sneaking people in.”

In nearby Concordia the police start to separate out the first group who are going to go in, but time passes and their relieved faces change to frustration at the delay. It’s eleven in the morning and still nobody has managed to get in La Epoca.

*Translator’s note: Coleros are people paid by others to stand in line for them.

Translated by GH

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There Are Some 112,000 Hidden Rich People in Cuba, 1% of the Population

The interior of Casa Vida Luxury Holidays, which Raúl Castro’s granddaughter, Vilma Rodríguez, rents as a tourist accommodation. (Airbnb)

14ymedio, Madrid, 10 March 2021 — Beyond the fury unleashed on social networks, the appearance of Fidel Castro’s grandson, Sandro, showing off while driving a Mercedes Benz has exposed an issue about which little is known in Cuba: the figures relating to inequality. The data, impossible for the public to find, would reveal a gap difficult to justify for a government that, over 60 years ago, made a revolution to abolish social classes.

Although it has been clear for years that there are inequalities in Cuba based on professions (artists or athletes who went abroad), currency (the arrival of the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) and remittances versus those who must live on a state salary paid in national currency) and, more recently, employment status (self-employed versus state workers), there are no numbers that allow us to establish the dimensions of the gap, as Deutsche Welle has found in Spanish in an extensive article in which it has sought the voices of economists who provide insight about this issue.

According to Ricardo Torres Pérez, professor and researcher at the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy (CEEC) at the University of Havana, the number of rich people in Cuba may be around 1%, some 112,000 people, representing approximately 30,000 households. According to this expert, they are distributed among civil servants, small businessmen, farmers and artists. continue reading

The numbers are hidden and in Torres Pérez’s opinion, it is no coincidence that the few studies that exist are not public and are “very focused on certain communities.” Although he acknowledges that the phenomenon is not investigated, much less to regarding those who are in circles of power, he believes there is not a precise count of the entire privileged population is not there.

Because what is it to be rich in Cuba? For Torres, having a “large house in specific areas, a modern car, frequent trips abroad, including for pleasure, and the satisfaction in quality (not quantity) of basic needs.”

“Except for a very small group, the rest of the civil service nomenclature does not enjoy exorbitant privileges, and the reason may be that Cuba is a fairly poor country,” he says. In his experience, most officials, including those in the government, have no wealth of their own beyond their home and an old car.

“The day they leave their positions, they become fairly average citizens. And this explains why, although only in part, they cling to their positions: because it is the only way to have a significantly different standard of living from the country’s average and not have to worry about a lot of problems,” he tells Deutsche Welle.

The Cuban economist explains that Cuba’s own economic structure already differentiates the ways of measuring wealth. While in the rest of the world millionaires tend to be millionaires because of their wealth, or politicians amass money from corruption, in Cuba many of the privileges cannot be monetized and the equity value is measured in a complex way by the age of many possessions. But in addition, Torres points to another issue, the importance for senior officials of being able to escape regulations.

Another of the economists consulted by Deutsche Welle, Mauricio De Miranda Parrondo, a professor at the Javeriana University of Cali (Colombia), agrees with this opinion, and considers that wealth in Cuba should be measured largely by the ability to have what the majority do not have. “Enjoying goods or services that are not available to the rest of society marks privileges. And, in some cases, that could mean being considered rich in Cuban society, although not by international standards, in which, normally, wealth and economic privilege are associated with business property, real estate, or land.”

De Miranda Parrondo notes that, in the absence of public studies on income distribution and with the impossibility of conducting surveys independently, it is impossible to determine the proportions of inequality, although he believes that calculations could be made. They do not appear in the Social Panorama of Latin America prepared annually by ECLAC, since the Cuban government does not provide the necessary data.

Pavel Vidal, also an economist based in Colombia, adds another complexity. “We know that the reforms widened the levels of inequality, with individuals in the private sector earning around 10 times more than those in the state sector.” In his opinion, the complicated thing is to establish the influence of access to privileges and he points out that the income of mixed and foreign companies is very high, while hiring in this sector is controlled by government agencies*. “But there is no information on what that implies,” insists Vidal.

De Miranda Parrondo agrees that in the private sector you can access better salaries, but on the other side of the balance is the tax burden**, the risks faced by the self-employed, and the submission to greater control. In addition, with the exception of those who are well connected to the Power, they cannot benefit from the privileges granted by corruption or, in other words, the exemption from the controls that an official may have over them.

In so-called socialist societies (in which egalitarianism has been elevated to a value, although it was not for the founders of Marxism, because equality is not equal to egalitarianism), Mauricio De Miranda insists, that is a problem: “It wouldn’t be in capitalist or feudal societies, where privileges are part of the system, but it is in a society that calls itself socialist.”

Translator’s notes:

*As a rule, foreign companies operating in Cuba must hire through the government, which then collects the payments for the workers and passes on only a portion of that sum to the workers themselves.

** Commonly, licenses for self-employment come with a base monthly tax burden, regardless of income (or profit), plus additional taxes on income. For a license holder who cannot pay the monthly base tax (for example a private restaurant closed because of Covid), the only option is to surrender the license.

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Russia’s Reflexive Control in Cuba and Venezuela

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Cuban counterpart, Raúl Castro. (Kremlin)

14ymedio, José Azel, Miami, March 9, 2021 — Reflexive control is a disinformation strategy developed in Russia, in which “specifically prepared information is transmitted to opponents to encourage them to voluntarily make a decision desired by the initiator of the action.” All of the available original literature on reflexive control is written in Russian, a language I don’t know. For that reason, the following argument relies on publications in English.

Psychological studies show that when the brain is repeatedly exposed to the same piece of information, it begins to perceive it as true and discards contradictory evidence. The pioneer of the concept of reflexive control, in the 1960s, was Vladimir Lefebvre, a Soviet psychologist and mathematician. Reflexive control is based on a special type of influencing action: a sustained campaign that exposes an opponent to information selected so that he ends up “voluntarily” making the decisions that the initiator desires.

Reflexive control is taught in Russian military schools and in training programs, and it is conceived as a national security strategy. A key concept of reflexive control is that an opponent receives specific and predetermined information with the explicit objective of controlling the decision-making process. Unlike Western concepts of perception management, reflexive control seeks to control, not just manage, the perception of an opponent. continue reading

For example, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union convinced the United States that Soviet missile capacities were much greater than they really were. Using a series of disinformation techniques, the Soviets created an illusion of military power that forced the Western governments to devote more time and resources to their armed forces. Recently, in 2014, Russia confounded NATO and Kiev with its lightning success in Crimea. In three weeks and without firing a shot, the Ukrainian army turned over all its military bases in the Crimea.

On a research trip in 2019, I personally witnessed Russian techniques of reflexive control widely disseminated in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, where Russia seeks to stoke its ethnic minorities.

Additionally, during the 2016 American presidential election, Russia used techniques of reflexive control with the hope of manipulating our electoral decision-making process. Russia’s objective wasn’t to aid a determined candidate, but rather, fundamentally, to undermine our democratic political system.

The specific mechanisms of reflexive control are complex, but the strategy strives to imitate the reasoning of an opponent to encourage a decision that is unfavorable to the opponent himself. Specifically, it attacks our moral and physical cohesion to stir us to make decisions against our own interests. The Russian military theorist Colonel S. A. Komov has described the following basic elements of reflexive control:

Distraction: Create real or imaginary threats to force opponents to modify their plans.

Overload: Send with frequency a great quantity of contradictory information.

Paralysis: Create the perception of an unexpected threat to a vital interest.

Exhaustion: Force opponents to undertake useless operations.

Deceit: Force opponents to relocate assets in reaction to an imaginary threat.

Division: Persuade opponents to act against common objectives.

Pacification: Convince opponents that military actions carried out are only inoffensive training exercises.

Deterrence: Create a perception of superiority.

Provocation: Force opponents to take measures against their own interests.

Suggestion: Offer information that concerns opponents in a legal way, morally, ideologically, etc.

Pressure: Offer information that discredits opponents in the eyes of the people.

My readers in the south of Florida will recognize these techniques as those used by experts in the Cuban and Venezuelan governments under Russian tutelage. For decades, Cuba and Venezuela have successfully used reflexive control to distract, overload, paralyze, exhaust, deceive, divide, pacify, deter, provoke, suggest, and pressure their respective oppositions.

As a consequence, these citizens rarely unite cohesively to fight for their fundamental political liberties. The reflexive control apparatus has managed to control the decision-making process so that the popular point of view rests more on the economy than on politics. Today, the majority of criticisms and actions against the Cuban and Venezuelan governments emphasize the economic misery that the regimes create, instead of the freedoms they suppress. The people’s choice, incited by reflexive control, has morphed into fleeing, not fighting.

To my consternation and sadness, in these societies the discouraging observation of the Roman historian Sallust is evident: “Few men desire liberty; the majority of them only want a just tyrant.”

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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New Tourist Offer in Cuba: ‘Homeopathic’ Holidays’

One of the promotional images on the website of the Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos, SA aimed at tourism. (SMC)

14ymedio, Havana, 8 March 2021 — Interferon, homeopathic products, tai-chi, acupuncture and dance therapy are some of the new tourist offerings in Cuba framed as “health services,” which are, more than ever, a claim for one of the sectors most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The travel agency Taíno Tours, belonging to the state Havanatur, offers several packages from Mexico, at between 200 and 400 dollars a week in Varadero hotels “to prevent diseases and health problems” whose star therapies are Interferon, PrevengHo-Vir and Biomodulin T.

These are pharmaceutical products promoted by the Cuban authorities since the beginning of the pandemic to prevent the coronavirus and other infections but which, according to independent analyses, have no scientific consistency. While there are no published results for Interferon and Biomodulin T, PrevengHo-Vir is, directly, homeopathy. The island, on the other hand, has been facing a dramatic shortage of medicines for months

Despite this, Taíno Tours says that it makes “the wisdom and experience of Cuban scientists and health professionals available to travelers to improve their quality of life,” combining “a pleasant stay with one or more programs to prevent diseases and health problems.” continue reading

Program 1, for example, costs about $270 for a full week and includes, among other things, “self-care services,” “dance therapy,” “digital manuals,” and “lots of tips.”

Program Number 2, for $295, “stimulates the immune system with biological immuno-modulators in people with gradual deterioration of the immune system caused by aging (over 60 years) or in patients with chronic diseases of risk.” These travelers are given a 10 ml bottle of PrevengHo-Vir and are administered Biomodulin T “for the prevention of infections, including SARS-CoV-2,” says the agency’s advertising, which tells the tourist “You must transport the Biomodulin T in a thermos to keep the product at a temperature of 2 to 8 degrees.”

The same products added to Nasal Interferon alpha 2b are offered in Program 3, for nearly $400 a week.

Other packages include tai-chi, acupuncture or yoga classes, for almost $350, or dermatological treatments by Cuban Center for Placental Histotherapy, for about $272.

As options, more serious services are offered, such as psychotherapy, medical consultation or dental treatment, from advice on health issues for $25 to “general intensive whitening of all teeth” for $150, as well as another alternative treatment, ozone therapy, $140 for seven sessions.

The prices of the packages do not include plane fares, as an employee of Taíno Tours clarified to 14ymedio, which cannot offer it either. “I do not know if you have the possibility of buying the flights separately, because apparently right now Viva Aerobus was only leaving every 15 days, but today they sent us another notification that will see another readjustment and it will probably be one every month,” he told this newspaper. “The priority is to find spaces on the flights for certain dates and to be able to sell the package to make the arrangements in Havana.”

When asked if it is mandatory to take the medications included in the package, the operator answered yes, although she did not have precise knowledge. “It would already be reviewed if there are any restrictions or simply a response letter is prepared clarifying that any situation that happens is your responsibility,” he reported.

The sale of medical services, the island’s main source of foreign exchange through its foreign ’medical missions’ program, is not new to tourists. For years, Terminal 3 of the José Martí Airport in Havana has been covered with advertising from the Cuban Medical Services Marketing Company offering “healthy vacations,” “executive check-ups” and “psychological investigations” at prices equivalent to private healthcare in any capitalist country.

The pandemic has been lethal for tourism, one of the main engines of Cuba’s precarious economy — of the more than 4 million visitors expected for 2020, it only received around 1 million — but it is serving as an opportunity for a country that it has always been presented as a healthcare power.

A few weeks ago, the state agency Cuba Travel began offering “Covid packages,” with PCR tests included, to spend a week of vacation — and quarantine — in different hotels on the island, at prices between 250 and 600 dollars.

Before, in January, the authorities had launched the campaign “Beaches, Caribbean, mojitos and vaccine” as a claim, although this Saturday the director of the Finlay Institute, Vicente Vérez, acknowledged that the most advanced vaccine candidate, Soberana 02, will not be operational before summer.

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‘An Act of Repudiation With Music’ is the Official Response to ‘Patria y Vida’

The topic was premiered on the YouTube channel of the official government site Cubadebate. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 March 2021 — The Cuban government’s musical response to the video clip Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life) has not been long in coming. Two weeks after the release of the song, which harshly criticizes the regime in Havana, the island’s official media have broadcast this Monday Patria o Muerte por la Vida (Homeland or Death for Life) a replica to the rhythm of the conga and loaded with slogans.

The theme premiered on Cubadebate’s YouTube channel sung by the troubadour Raul Torres, the singers Annie Garcés, Dayana Karla Divo and Monier, along with rapper Yisi caliber. They all sing and dance with the Cuban flag in the background.

The title of the song, a slogan devised by Fidel Castro more than six decades ago, is a clear answer to the theme Patria y Vida, a collaboration of the duo Gente de Zona, Yotuel Romero and Descemer Bueno, with the musicians Maykel Castillo Osorbo and El Funky, which has caused a furor in the networks and is spread clandestinely within Cuba. continue reading

Torres, dressed in a guayabera, is the author of lyrics that constantly allude to the artists who participated in Patria y Vida : “It makes the shit profitable / The empire’s foolishness / It makes it profitable to lie / and confuse the people,” it says and assures that “the Revolution has more than 62,000 millennia left.”

The musician also does not miss an opportunity to advertise the vaccine candidates Soberana and Abdala. “Say what you want about me, all of it, I’m vaccinated. To the machete with Mambisa,” he warns.

“The lyrics are disgusting, they incite hatred, but I must say that they thought well of the music to get it out,” a musicologist told 14ymedio after seeing the video clip. “If this is the answer, I don’t think it will become a viral phenomenon as it happened with the other song. What young man is going to want to have all those slogans on his cell phone?”

The lyrics had already been published on February 18 by Cubadebate, which warned that it was a about a theme against an “anti-Cuban song.” “They have lost face again / The offenders of the people,” it says in one of his stanzas.

After seeing the video, highly criticized in some sectors on social networks, a Cuban singer who preferred not to identify himself told this newspaper: “That conga is actually a repudiation rally with music.”

Some network users have pointed out that the video clip tries to respond to that of Patria y Vida through symbolism. Thus, it resorts to the presence of numerous women, absent in its antagonist; the use of greater luminosity in front of the dark environment of Patria y Vida and the size of the flag, greater in the regime’s version.

In just two hours, the audiovisual accumulated more than 10,000 views on YouTube and more than a thousand “I do not like” in contrast to about 90 “I like.” According to the note that accompanies the video clip, the premiere on national television was scheduled for this Monday on the Roundtable TV program.

The singer-songwriter Raúl Torres has become the official musician closest to the Cuban Government and his presence at public events is frequent. He is the author of Cabalgando con Fidel, a song that sounded widely in the official media after the death of the former president. He also composed El Último Mambí, in honor of Raúl Castro; and El regreso del amigo, written for Hugo Chávez.

For its part, the song Patria y Vida continues to grow in popularity, with more than 2.5 million views on YouTube since it was released two weeks ago. In social networks, the phrase has become a label and has also been painted on some house facades and walls in some cities.

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Locked Up in My House by the Cuban Political Police on March 8

State Security agent who, this March 8, prevented Luz Escobar from leaving her house. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 8 March 2021 — As soon as the sun came up I got into my usual routine: making coffee, checking the news and starting my work as an independent journalist in a country that does not tolerate freedom of the press.

Sometimes there are days of long hours glued to the keyboard, other days are hours in the field, in “the heat of it” as a colleague says. Today was one of those days to review pending notes and organize the agenda for the week. But in Cuba there is a routine that nobody stops: going out to buy daily bread. Well, hardly anyone.

At the stroke of nine in the morning I grabbed my wallet, ration book, a bag, and headed out to the bakery. When I went down, a State Security officer was again at the entrance of the building to prevent me from going out into the street. He was the same one as on other occasions but, this time, he was accompanied by two women in the uniform of the Ministry of the Interior, tight shirts and olive green miniskirts. continue reading

“Luzbely, you can’t go out today,” the man told me, blocking my way when he saw me ready to cross the door. This time I didn’t answer him or ask him anything, I turned around and waited for the elevator.

“Oh, by the way, congratulations,” said the officer. Since he was wearing the mask, I didn’t detect if he said it sarcastically, but judging by the tone of his voice, he was more nervous than anything else.

In Cuba it is routine on a day like today to hear a congratulation for Women’s Day from every man who passes you by, even if he does not know you.

State Security officials have been harassing me for years, even long before 2014, when I decided to be part of the 14ymedio team. However, the open and direct fire against me began when I began to sign aticles, interviews and reports that bring to light the reality that power wants to hide.

In addition to locking them in their homes whenever they want, the political police use a repressive arsenal against women who work in independent media: arbitrary arrests, bans on leaving the country, threats to family and friends, and jail. They have threatened me about my daughters through the State Security Office for minors, using collaborating neighbors who have given false testimonies. They have harassed people close to me to try to scare them away.

All this happens before the eyes of my daughters, who today are already 11 and 13, and I find it impossible to hide what is happening to me. It hurts me tremendously that creatures who don’t understand half the adult world are subjected to states of siege under threat, so I try to explain as best I can. “Your mother writes about things that bother the government a lot and that’s why these things happen,” I tell them.

Also on the horizon is the violence of an act of repudiation like the one against Anyell Valdés recently; State Security has shown that it has no limits when it comes to exercising violence against women and their children.

We are running out of time and our children grow up and soon they will have to experience the repression in the first person. I experienced it as a daughter, now as a mother and a journalist, but I do not want, under any circumstances, for my daughters to also have to suffer this same thing in their own flesh.

That my daughters have found the strength to face it does not lessen the pain. They are the fuel to continue doing what I do, my motivation to fight for the better country that we all deserve.

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Holguin Residents Unite to Protect a Seller of Agricultural Products

The events happened on Mario Pozo Street in the Luz neighborhood, in Holguin. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 8 March 2021 — Several residents of the Luz neighborhood, in Holguín, prevented two inspectors from seizing several agricultural products sold by a vendor on a corner of Mario Pozo street, according to a footage released Monday on social networks.

Two videos posted on Facebook record how neighbors got together so the merchandise was not taken, which included several products that cannot be found in state markets. The inspectors, dressed in blue long-sleeved shirts, demanded the presence of the stall owner, but no one responded to the call.

“They want to confiscate everything from an unfortunate man who sells and he is the one who resolves things for us here in the neighborhood. How long is the abuse going to go on,” said a neighbor who apparently recorded the materials with her mobile phone. “That man has a sick daughter,” commented another, when she learned that the police had been called. “And he doesn’t even have the money to take her to Havana to be seen,” she added. continue reading

Peppers, strings of garlic and onions, tomatoes and cucumbers, among other products, were on a table that local residents surrounded to protect it. “No one is going to take anything here”, “the situation here is terrible, we are going to help each other”, “we are like cats and dogs, this does not give more,” the neighbor who registered the incident.

“Strength is in union. Rise up,” the woman said while other people collected the products, to safeguard the merchandise from the police. “If we unite, all this does not happen, it is an abuse.” “They want to confiscate everything, from the one who solves us in the neighborhood,” he protested.

“We are going to fight to be better because what is lacking here is humanity, there is no humanity. Damn, why are we going to disgrace a man,” warned the neighbor as the inspectors left and immediately asked for applause and everyone present obliged her. “This is how we have to be: united.”

After collecting all the merchandise from the sales table to move it inside their houses, several neighbors shouted “we won” and applauded the solidarity action.

The scenes of people in the streets defending private sellers from fines or seizures of their products are increasingly frequent, despite the fact that the media constantly blame the self-employed for raising the prices of goods or hoarding food from stores to later resell it.

At the end of February in Caibarién, Villa Clara, a sweet seller staged a protest after being fined 2,000 pesos. The man climbed on the roof of his sales cart, in the middle of a public road, and around him dozens of people from the town gathered to show their support for the self-employed seller.

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“Cuba has Helped to Bleed Dry Venezuela, the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg”

Hugo Chávez with Fidel Castro in Havana, in 1994. (Prensa Latina)

14ymedio, Yaiza Santos, Madrid | 27 February 2021– Throughout the past five years journalists, behind the pseudonym Diego G. Maldonado, documented in detail, with direct sources, newspaper archives and cross-public data, to what extent Cuba has blood-sucked Venezuela dried, stretching to the recesses of the Armed Forces and intelligence services. The result of this research is La Invasión Consentida (Debate) [The Authorized Invasion (Debate)], published at the end of 2019 in Mexico, and currently in Spain. Its authors answer, via e-mail to maintain safety, 14ymedio’s questions.

14ymedio. When did you think it was time to write this book?

Maldonado. The issue always caught our attention and the attention of so many people because of its political implications, and because we have never before seen Venezuelan Government’s attachment to another country, and so much deference from a president to another government. But we began to think about thoroughly investigating the relationship between Venezuela and Cuba in 2013, after the death of Hugo Chávez. The fact that the president had decided to receive treatment in Cuba rather than in his own country and that he agonized there, was quite revealing of the dynamics he had established with the Government of Cuba.

14ymedio. The book begins in 2009, “Year 10” of the Bolivarian revolution, and ends a decade later. What are the main data that show that in this time everything had gotten worse in Venezuela?

Maldonado. All socioeconomic indicators show that the situation has worsened. Venezuela is today one of the poorest countries in the region. We have had years with the highest inflation in the world, the national currency has practically disappeared, public services have collapsed, monthly salaries, which in 2019 were equivalent to about 8 dollars, today are less than one dollar a month, and more than five million people have left the country. Venezuela was one of the main oil exporters, and today the industry is ruined. You live through the unimaginable: in a country used to having the cheapest gasoline in the world – it cost less than water – there is a shortage of gasoline, and it’s now dollarized. The book details the crash of the economy. continue reading

During that decade, the political field circle was closed. For students of the process, it was clear that fraud and imposition would come by force once the popularity of Chavismo ended. Chavismo summed it up in the slogan “they will not return.” During a decade, we went from the 2009 approval of the indefinite reelection to Maduro’s great fraud in the electoral farce of 2018. In 2015, we saw the last free elections, when the opposition won the qualified majority in Parliament. From then on, with unbeknownst to the Assembly, the Government permanently removed its mask.

14ymedio. In the first pages, we see Chávez say: “Cuba is part of this homeland, of this union […] the infinite Cuba we love. For Cuba we cry, for Cuba we fight, and for Cuba we are willing to die fighting…”, but that outburst did not always exist. The Chávez of the first hour was the one who said: “I am not a Marxist but I am not an anti-Marxist. I am not a communist but I am not an anti-communist.” What was the beginning of Hugo Chávez’s idyll with Cuba?

Maldonado.There may have been a romantic idea of the Cuban Revolution since his youth, but it is very likely that the idyll, as such, began in 1994, when the Cuban Government invited him to the Island, receiving him as a celebrity. It was reinforced from 2002, after the coup, when Chávez decided to entrust Cubans with intelligence tasks to protect themselves against future military conspiracies. The Chávez of the first hour was a presidential candidate and a rookie in power, aware that the Cuban dictatorship was frowned upon among Venezuelans and, strategically, he navigated in ambiguity during the 1998 election campaign and in his two first years of government, when he presented himself as a politician with no other ideology than Bolivarian jingoism.

14ymedio. And vice versa? It is clear in the book that Fidel’s appetite for Venezuela – or Venezuelan oil – coincides with the beginning of the Revolution. The rivalry between Rómulo Betancourt and Castro as two opposing Latin American figures is very interesting: both liberated their countries from dictatorships, but one was a democrat who consolidated his country, and the other, a dictator who destroyed his. When does Castro discover that Chávez can be useful to him?

Maldonado. Everything indicates that it would have been starting in 1994, when Castro received him at Havana airport with State honors, and with greater security in 2000, when he signed the first major bilateral cooperation agreement, which guaranteed Cuba an oil supply under favorable terms and opened the door for all kinds of business.

14ymedio. The substance of the book, from its title, is that the Cuban regime entered Venezuela but not vice versa. Cuba has everything, oil, armed forces within the Venezuelan intelligence apparatus, and Venezuela?

Maldonado. If truth be told, Venezuela has never had any kind of influence on the Cuban government or its decisions. Maduro could not even prevent them from confiscating his participation in the Cienfuegos refinery, reactivated with Venezuelan funds during Chávez’s time. Nor in the Cuban Armed Forces. No Cuban officer is suitable for a Venezuelan one. Venezuela’s role against Cuba is completely passive.

14ymedio. It is known about the medical missions and the oil, but not the entire network of interference. What were you most surprised to discover?

Maldonado. It is a difficult question. Throughout the investigation, many things surprised us, but there were some that struck us in particular. For example, the Chávez government paid Cuban instructors, who had never left Cuba, to come to teach Venezuelan culture and to work on a supposed program to strengthen national identity. The Culture mission, designed in Cuba and bought by Chávez, was one of the grossest political indoctrination operations in poor neighborhoods. It was surprising to hear a Cuban say that he had taken a 15-day course to teach our traditions here as if it were a course in origami.

It was also shocking to discover that in a country with unemployment and underemployment problems, the Government was paying Cuban drivers and tractor operators to carry out land work, or that it imported workers, administrators and secretaries, and even clowns from Cuba, or that Fidel would personally take charge of the purchase of medical equipment for Venezuela and when spare parts could not be bought due to the embargo on Cuba, or that Venezuela would buy old dismantled sugar mills from Cuba as if they were new. There are many more things, but the saddest thing was discovering the scope of Cuban penetration in the Armed Forces and the submission of Venezuelan officers.

14ymedio. María Werlau’s book Cuba’s Intervention in Venezuela: A Strategic Occupation with Global Implications has the same purpose as yours, with the difference that your sources are not only bibliographic, but direct. Where did you find it most difficult to find these people?

Maldonado. There were many difficulties due to the fear that exists to speak about the subject on the part of Venezuelans and Cubans. It is understandable, but the investigation took five years, a long time. Many Cubans who worked in Venezuela and who escaped to other countries refused to give us their testimony for fear that we were agents of the Venezuelan or Cuban governments. Many Venezuelan public employees had great reservations against speaking and did not tell everything. The phone was blocked many times. The biggest difficulty was overcoming fear. Fortunately, some trusted that we would not reveal their identity and offered us valuable clues, information and testimonies to put the puzzle together.

14ymedio. Another thing that is not discussed so much is the working conditions of Cubans in Venezuela. Could you elaborate on this from your experience with the sources?

Maldonado. Certainly, this is not discussed a lot, and it is regrettable because, with the open complicity of the Venezuelan Government and those of other countries, Cuban workers are exploited by Havana, monitored and subjected to a semi-slavery regime. The book dedicates a chapter to explain their situation. They earn a tiny fraction of what Venezuela pays the Cuban government for their work. Out of $10,000 a month, they will only see $300, and the Cuban Government keeps the rest. The case of computer scientists is disgraceful, because Cuba charges for an hour or two what it pays them in a month. They accept it because it is ten times more than what they would earn in Cuba. It is unfortunate for a country to obtain its principal source of hard currency from the exploitation of its citizens’ work, in what Havana denominates “exportation of professional services”, which the world perceives as a legitimate and very normal activity.

14ymedio. In the book, you also show that the history of Cuban meddling in Venezuela is also a history of corruption.

Maldonado. Clearly. All agreements – there are thousands – are confidential, and there is no way to subject them to public control or scrutiny. Neither Cuba nor Venezuela are accountable. Many transactions have been made through companies in tax havens. In fact, some things have become known through document leaks like the Panama Papers. It has been possible to document the losses in some failed joint ventures for the amount that was allocated in the budget, but so far, it is impossible to have a global idea.

14ymedio. Despite the shortage in Venezuela, denounced by the opposition and international organizations, the Maduro regime continues to send fuel to Cuba. Why?

Maldonado. It is unusual that a country that subsidized Cuba, its greatest benefactor in recent years, ended up owing the Island. A government that is not capable of guaranteeing food for its own population, or public services or medicines, and that no longer even manages to produce gasoline to satisfy domestic demand, despite having the largest oil reserves in the world, has gone so far as to import gasoline to send fuel to Cuba.

What is Venezuela paying Havana? We can speculate, but there is no way to see the bill, to know what Cuba is charging, because both governments hide it with zeal. The only thing that is clear is Maduro’s relationship of dependence and vassalage towards the Cuban government. Chavismo turned Venezuela into a satellite of Havana.

14ymedio. Sometimes alarm voices are heard in other countries (such as Mexico, with López Obrador, or in Spain, with the Podemos party of Vice President Pablo Iglesias), who say “could this become Venezuela”? Do you think they are founded?

Maldonado. Each country has its specificities. They are fears that are latent but that we would have to document thoroughly in order to be able to give a proper opinion on whether they are founded or not. There are populist attitudes everywhere.

14ymedio. What are the red flags? How does a prosperous and democratic society start to rot?

Maldonado. I would say that the crisis of political representation, such as apathy or lack of confidence is a warning sign for anyone. Why do the citizens of a certain country stop believing in its institutions, in justice, why does part of the population begin to hear mermaid songs? In the case of Venezuela, the traditional parties took democracy for granted, they did not know how to renew themselves, they stopped meeting the demands of the majority, and they also engaged in personal political revenge. That, not counting the tremendous damage inflicted by corruption. It is not easy to notice the precise moment when the snowball begins to roll downhill.

14ymedio. “Well, Venezuela is not Cuba.” Do you agree with this statement?

Maldonado. Each time, there are fewer and fewer people who say that. In fact, we haven’t heard it in a long time. Venezuela is not Cuba – let’s say that technically there is one difference or another – but it is quite similar. Both countries share a lack of liberties and economic precariousness. And their peoples also share a lack of hope. That, perhaps, is the worst. The Venezuelan government has gone to great lengths to destroy what was once the richest country in South America, and the Cuban government has helped to bleed the goose that laid the golden egg.

14ymedio. Did Hugo Chávez die in Venezuela?

Maldonado. Due to the opacity with which everything was handled, Venezuelans have no certainty as to where his physical death occurred. We do not know if he took his last breath at Havana’s Cimeq or at Caracas Military Hospital, as the Venezuelan Government swore in March 2013. But, for all intents and purposes, the Hugo Chávez we knew died in Cuba. We saw him alive there for the last time. On that island, to which he gave everything, he disappeared forever.

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Editing Clarification: María Werlau, author of Cuba’s Intervention in Venezuela tells us that “it is incorrect” to say that her book is based “only on bibliographic sources.” “[My] book cites numerous direct sources as well as other publications of my authorship that were developed with direct sources”, she adds in an email sent to the Web.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Melia Abandons the Management of 3 of Its 35 Hotels in Cuba

The Meliá Cayo Guillermo hotel is one of those that the company has ceased to operate. (Solways Cuba)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 March 2021 — The Spanish chain Meliá stopped managing three of its 35 hotels in Cuba in the last months of 2020. According to its latest economic report, the decision is due to the “scarce commercial opportunities” of the tourist centers and “the operational problems faced over the last few years. ”

The hotels that the Spanish company will no longer manage are Sol Cayo Guillermo, Meliá Cayo Guillermo and Sol Cayo Largo, where the change was accomplished in the last quarter of last year, the report explains. With this reduction, Meliá went from 14,781 rooms in 2019 to 13,916 at the end of 2020.

As for the most affected markets, Cuba stands out, where 60% of the facilities were closed due to the pandemic, the chain says. “This is due to its high dependence on the international market.” continue reading

The income of the European company on the Island fell in 2020 by 84%, yielding only 1.9 million euros, against the 12.1 million it earned the previous year. The company also lost 3.9 million euros in taxes.

Meliá insisted that these results are due to the “closure of borders and internal movement restriction measures to face the pandemic” and recalled that “during the second quarter practically all hotels were closed.”

Among the prospects for 2021, the chain takes into account “the profound monetary reform put into effect in Cuba,” which introduces a devaluation of the Cuban peso against the dollar “whose official rate goes from one-to-one to 24-to-one.”

“As a result of the radical readjustment in relative prices, a notable improvement in the profitability (now measured in Cuban pesos) of export activity is expected, which will directly benefit the country’s tourism activity,” the report states.

Meliá expects tourism demand to recover “strongly” when the health situation normalizes, between this coming May and June, a period in which it foresees a rebound in the number of reservations in Cuba.

Last September, Meliá announced that it was working on a new type of accommodation for teleworking. The project would be aimed primarily at Canadian clients, the main source market for tourists. But the current report does not provide details about the project.

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‘Cubadebate’ Removes the Ordering Task Survey From its Website

The survey data was devastating, as 94% of Cubans cannot meet their needs with their salary. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 4 March 2021 — Cubans interested in the survey carried out by the State website Cubadebate, which garnered much success among readers, should consult the independent media to find out what the people of the island really think about the “Ordering Task*” (Tarea ordenamiento) and the dramatic economic situation in the country.

The survey, activated this Monday by the official media, found that the majority of Cubans consider that the Ordering Task “was necessary” for the country’s economy but that it has unquestionably damaged their lives.

The data were devastating. For example, 94% of people on the island say they cannot satisfy their needs through their salary (67% outright and 29% partially), and 78% judge the increase in all prices excessive. continue reading

Only 4% of of those surveyed claimed to have their needs covered with the salary they receive and only 1% agree with the new salaries. In addition, 92% of the survey takers insisted that the quality of life has not improved with the raises. The remaining 8% thought that they did see improvements in some cases, but no survey taker chose the option “Yes, in everything.”

“What happened to the Cubadebate survey on the Ordering Task?” the playwright Yunior García Aguilera asked in a tweet. “You can’t see it. Did they eliminate it?” the artist asked in a response to a tweet from the official media.

Also the user Monik (@ m0n1kfs) pointed out the survey’s absence in the publication, sharing some of the screen captures that she had published on March 1 with the results. “They don’t know how to live in a democracy!” replied Miguel Alejandro (@ miguel940521), another Internet user.

Since January, the Cubans’ ridicule in the street and at home has focused on the Ordering Task, which was clearly reflected in the results of the survey now eliminated.

The currency reform began on January 1 and since then the prices of many basic products have risen excessively, especially food, some basic services, medicines and cleaning products.

It is not the first time that the official pages have eliminated an article that provokes comments or reactions adverse to the Government. Last August, for example, after reporting the launch of the controversial Portero application to control the lines, the Havana Citizen Portal deleted the corresponding note.

*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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Cubadebate’s Readers Rebel Against a Manipulated Survey

“Do you think the salary reform managed to ’right’ the pyramid in every sector, so that each person is paid according to their work and capacity? [No, I don’t know, Yes]” (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 March 2021 — After withdrawing the results of the survey carried out at the beginning of this week on the Ordering Task, the State website Cubadebate has published an article this Friday with some of the trends that the responses to the survey showed, but hiding the most unfavorable percentages. The manipulation of this information is drawing angry criticism from commentators.

“I think that the results of the poll were not adequately reflected in this article. Rather, they were timidly reflected. We all saw the large percentage of voters who reflected their great disagreements in the first three questions,” denounced Octavio.

“Recognizing the problem is the first part of solving it. Let’s take off the blindfold and see the reality, leave the offices and walk the streets and neighborhoods, there is the answer to the survey,” added the reader. continue reading

In the Cubadebate text, when the survey is mentioned, it does not link to the initial poll page, which keeps showing an error message when trying to access it. However, at the foot of this Friday’s article a brief note clarifies that it was only used “as a journalistic tool” and that “it closed after two days of its publication, the time provided to collect responses and opinions.”

The survey, which included 14 questions, was online for two days, but was later withdrawn and its results were no longer visible. The more than 400 comments that the survey had accumulated were also withdrawn, most of which were very critical of the effects of the economic adjustments that began last January with the monetary unification.

The text of this Friday only includes a few results of these questions, the most favorable, among them that 72% of the participants considered the Ordering Task “necessary for the country’s economy,” along with 79% of the respondents who say they have kept their jobs during the time the economic measures package has been implemented.

However, they leave out other very unfavorable percentages, such as the more than 90% who do not see an increase in the quality of the products despite the rise in prices or the 67% of Cubans who cannot satisfy their needs through their salary, according to the results a few hours after starting the poll.

Among the great absentees in the survey questions were about the unpopular stores that sell goods only in freely convertible currency (MLC), which, however, starred in a good part of the complaints left by the Cubadebate commentators.

A reader identifying himself as Eday pointed out that in the comments of the survey many spoke of the impact of the stores in MLC but the investigation of the official site does not reflect the issue. “We do not all have MLC, it is unfair that the basic needs and things for children (yogurt, cookies, juices, sodas, malts, jams) are sold only in those stores. Those of us who do not have MLC are giving life to resellers.”

The Internet user claims to have paid 180 pesos for a packet of straws that costs 0.90 dollars in currency stores, and that the yogurt cup is between 25 and 30 pesos on the street. “As much as the people want to refuse the resellers, we have no choice, especially for those of us who have small children,” he laments.

For his part, Manuel criticizes that nothing is said about the “dual currency.” “The Ordering Task is still seen as that, ’a task’”, and that its success “once again” depends on “the discipline and imperative of the managers. “However, he affirms, the problem must be approached” as a natural process of real structural changes in economic relations. “

“They must do something soon, because inflation is going to swallow us up at any moment,” complains De_De. “In another scenario and with all the stores supplied, the Ordering Task would be a success.”

This newspaper made 14 screenshots with the results of the survey on Monday, March 1 at 3:00 pm, which are attached below.

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Education or Indoctrination?

In 1960 the control and unification of textbooks was implemented in Cuba, a tightening of the screw on the pedagogical process. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Eloy M. Viera Moreno, Havana, 6 March 2021 — Since the publication of his Aphorisms,José de la Luz declared the importance of teaching for the development of Cubanness: “We have the teaching profession and Cuba will be ours.” He demonstrated it on a personal scale from his school, El Salvador, training future fighters for independence. However, some students indifferent to politics also passed through there, and others were definitely opposed to our sovereignty. This education generated in its pupils their own thoughts and values and the teaching was based on the personal testimony of a life turned into a living gospel.

Later, the democratic experience of nations allowed the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and a power exercised in the past was conceptualized: “Parents will have a preferential right to choose the type of education that will be given to their children.” To facilitate the exercise of this right, in Cuba there were public, private and religious schools, with different methodologies and styles. From the time of Bishop Espada until 1959, the compass of the Cuban teaching profession was to create a school of science, conscience and virtue, all with a Cuban stamp.

With the turn to Marxism, the teaching profession took the Soviet course applied in all the socialist countries of Europe. The process was accelerated, despite freedom of education being among the freedoms granted by the Basic Law of February 1959, theoretically in force until 1976. continue reading

The campaign to nationalize education met useless resistance from educators and parents. A foreboding phrase from the Diario de la Marina of 1960, in addition to describing the moment, summarizes what happened in the last six decades of our reality: “The nationalization of education is nothing more than the enslavement of science at the service of power and subject to its interests. And this is an infallible tactic of every totalitarian government, beginning with the communist one. Consequently, what should be a simple means of spreading illustration becomes a weapon of a political party, of sectarianism, of personal passions. ”

It all started immediately after the triumph of the Revolution with the so-called education reform. For almost two years, the official speech was full of deception and demagoguery. A convoluted statement in October 1959 by the Minister of Education Armando Hart determined in a hyperbolic way that to use the fear of communism in reference to the Revolution was to go against the popular process; from which the terms “anticommunist” and “counterrevolutionary” were dangerously synonymous. Successive subsequent official declarations promised that private education would not be eliminated, especially Catholic, a treacherous campaign in which Hart himself played a prominent role.

First, in 1960 the regulatory power of the Minister of Education over both types of public and private education was defined, being subject to official orders. The control and unification of teaching texts was implemented, a tightening of the screw to the traditional methodological inspection of the State on the pedagogical process. Subsequently, the function of teaching was declared public and its provision free, and it was established that this function corresponded to the State, a measure from which only religious schools escaped. Later, the Educational Planning Commission began to operate under the direction of the minister and began to discard or modify the previous textbooks. Starting from nothing, communist intellectuals such as Carlos Rafael Rodríguez and Sergio Aguirre began to write the new textbooks to teach the History of Cuba.

The reform ended at dawn on May 2, 1961, when hundreds of militiamen, following Fidel Castro’s directions, occupied the surviving private schools. The Education Nationalization Law was issued a month later. It was officially announced that Russian would become a compulsory subject in our schools, for which a group of 2,300 teachers would be trained. That nonsense was finally unfulfilled thanks to popular resistance, although we were indeed able to study that language through broadcasting.

Today, the discourse of a government – which is the “continuity” of that one — labels independent journalists and opponents of the regime mercenaries at the service of powers beyond the seas. Following that line of thought, let us remember that thousands of miles of land and sea stretch between Havana and Moscow; our commercial relations had been minimal until 1959; our cultural contacts even less so; and the influence of their way of life in our history and national traditions absolutely null. Consequently, the leaders who then promoted the turn to Marxism deserve the same label.

From then on, I repeated at school: “We will be like Che!”, although my mother spoke to me later at home about his violent executions, hoping that her son was not like him. My children also repeated the slogan in their school, while their parents taught them in the shadow of the home all the aspects of the life and work of the “Heroic Guerrilla.” Finally, my first grandson, also a student of those centers of indoctrination, came to ask at home: “Dad, is that Fidel you are talking about, is he the same one they teach me about at school?”

This long chain of several generations indoctrinated by the “reformed” Cuban School, swimming in the depths of double standards, qualifies among the fundamental causes of the current loss of values of all kinds, especially those that promote citizen participation, the construction of the nation.
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Sandro Castro Apologizes for the Video Where He Was Driving a Mercedes Benz

Sandro Castro apologized through a video that he published this Thursday on the social network Instagram. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 4 March 2021 — Sandro Castro, the grandson of former Cuban ruler Fidel Castro, apologized this Thursday for a video in which he was driving a Mercedes Benz. In the filming, which generated an avalanche of criticism, he was seen driving at 87 miles per hour and bragging about the vehicle that he now says belongs to “an acquaintance.”

In just under two minutes, Castro wanted to offer a “big apology” to Cubans who are inside and outside the island, to people close to him, to his relatives and to all those who were offended by the images in which he boasted about the vehicle, as he explained in a post on Instagram that does not allow comments.

“I did not publish that video, I only put it in my WhatsApp status for my close, trusted and close contacts, but for reasons against my will it spread to other media,” he said. continue reading

Sandro affirmed that the car that appears in the recording belongs to an acquaintance who lent it to him because he likes cars and wanted to try it. “That’s when this video was actually shot.”

“When I referred to the toys I had at home, I said it as a joke,” he said, referring to a phrase heard in the video where he hints that he has other cars.

“I also want to clarify about a tweet about me is false, I do not have Twitter or Facebook, only Instagram. I am not interested in social networks or popularity. I am a simple person and that is how I consider myself. People close to me know that what I’m saying is real.”

A Facebook profile attributed to his uncle, Alex Castro Soto del Valle, and endorsed by official journalists, published this Tuesday that “one rotten potato does NOT indicate that all the potatoes in the sack are bad,” alluding to Sandro Castro’s video, which provoked dozens of comments of support from followers of the regime.

For his part, the Cuban singer-songwriter Israel Rojas of the duo Buena Fe, described Sandro as “irresponsible,” “rude” and “disrespectful… However, this would only be the stupidity of an immature man, of the many that swarm in social networks, if it were not for the fact that the protagonist is a grandson of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro,” he said.

This is the first time that someone linked to the Castro family has publicly apologized for any excess. In 2015, Antonio Castro, son of the former ruler, was photographed while vacationing with a luxurious yacht on the Greek island of Mykonos and in Turkey, but the fact was only aired on social networks and independent media.

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San Isidro Movement Calls for a National Dialogue Without Excluding the Cuban Authorities

Activists of the San Isidro Movement at the organization’s headquarters, in Old Havana, last November. (MSI)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 5 March 2021 — The San Isidro Movement (MSI) has launched the Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life] platform to convene a “national dialogue” with all actors in society, including the Government, and build a Cuba that represents “a safe home for all,” and to overcome the serious crisis that the nation is suffering through “peaceful and civic solutions.”

“The measures of the so-called Tarea Ordenamiento* [Ordering Task] have only exacerbated economic and social inequalities,” asserts the MSI in a statement published this Friday. “The role of the Government has been reduced to managing shortages, hunger, repression and violence in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic,” the text continues. “The Government continues to be incapable of guaranteeing respect for the human rights of its citizens.”

The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the most visible face of the movement, tells 14ymedio that the platform arises because of the “disrespect” that there is “on the part of the regime.” Despite this, he declares that “there cannot be a dialogue in Cuba without the systemic part, without the regime part.” Now, he asserts, “it has to be with character,” hence the motto Patria y Vida, which coincides with the viral song of that name and in whose video clip Alcántara himself appears wrapped in a Cuban flag: “Right now we are dead and we want life. It is very encouraging, we want life in the future of Cuba, a living Cuba, with its mistakes but alive.” continue reading

Alcántara referred to the reaction of the Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso, on January 27, when he attacked a group of artists who were demonstrating in front of the official building, “ignoring the voice of the citizenry.” However, he recalls that the attempts to approach the cultural authorities are not new: “Since Decree 349 and #00Biennial [in July 2018] we wanted a face-to-face a dialogue with the minister,” he says. “The authorities always managed to stir things up, but today we believe that it is no longer possible to speak from the cultural space, it is necessary to speak at the level of citizens, of civic responsibility.” And he asserts: “I cannot make my art if there is a dictatorship in Cuba.”

The MSI statement defends plurality in order to integrate the majority of citizens and overcome the crisis affecting the country. “The only thing we want to abound in Cuba is prosperity, progress and respect for our dignity as free human beings. We do not bet on conflict, we proclaim peace,” the text indicates.

The dialogue would have several phases, the first, which should last 21 days, begins this Friday. At this stage, the proposals of those who wish to participate will be collected through the email dialogonacional@movimientosanisidro.com or in the “Patria y Vida” tab of the San Isidro Movement website.

Alcántara pointed out that, based on initiatives prior to this one, the new thing that the MSI can do is to propose dialogue from the point of view of art “with a lot of inclusion and respect for the work of many people.”

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Life Gets More Difficult Every Day in the Cuban Capital

Centro Habana is considered the smallest municipality in the capital but the most densely populated. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 March 2021 — The streets of Centro Habana, one of the municipalities of the Cuban capital with the most covid-19 infections, record the desolation that reigns in many corners of the island.

Proof of this desolation is in this image – taken today by a photographer from 14ymedio – of a retiree rummaging through a garbage container looking for who knows what, like so many others. The elderly used to collect glass bottles or beer cans to sell to the Raw Materials Recovery Company. But this business, which made it possible to supplement miserable pensions a bit, has shrunk substantially with the widespread shortage.

Since the pandemic arrived, according to official data, the municipality has accumulated more than 2,300 cases positive for the disease. In its neighborhoods, yellow tapes constantly appear that mark off the residential areas to indicate that they are in mandatory quarantine, and one of its most important neighborhoods, Los Sitio, has been partially closed for two weeks. continue reading

This Friday, however, a tour by a team from this newspaper documented that despite the rise in infections in Centro Habana, life does not stop: you can find, as usual, all kinds of products on the black market and a lot of residents moving around trying to get something to put on the table.

The latest daily report from the Ministry of Public Health reports 777 new cases of Covid-19 in the country for a cumulative total of 54,085 cases since the disease arrived in March 2020. In Havana alone there were 333 positives, 26 of them from Centro Habana.

This area is among those selected to distribute Nasalferon, an immunoprotectant derived from interferon. Since dawn on Thursday, “22,000 vials of the immunoprotective agent have been distributed for those in home isolation, to which another 1,500 are added for isolation centers,” the official press reported.

To prevent the product from ending up being resold on the black market, the authorities have established the requirement that contacts of positive cases who receive the drug “will be obliged to return the empty bottle as proof that there were no deviations,” a measure that further complicates the work of the brigades that patrol the quarantined neighborhoods.

In the Plaza de Carlos III, which was recently closed due to a Covid-19 outbreak, the lines don’t get any shorter. This Friday, the foreign exchange store located inside the shopping center stocked flat screen televisions, washing machines and sets of bathroom fixtures, which resulted in a long line from the early hours of the morning.

The most popular agricultural market in the municipality, located on the central San Rafael street, can now only be accessed through a narrow corridor surrounded by quarantine tapes, due to an outbreak of Covid-19 in the surrounding area. The bad news is that in the immediate vicinity of this private seller area is one of the most dynamic areas of the informal market in Centro Habana.

“Here there was everything, things no longer found anywhere: powdered milk, eggs, sweet and salty cookies and even shampoo, but now there are only police and people watching,” an area resident warns this newspaper. “This is dead because the food market was the least of it, here the most important thing happened outside.”

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