Translating Cuba

Run Over in Havana by a State Car While in Line to Buy Yogurt

The white car, with official registration, ran over a man in his 40s who was line to buy yogurt on Ayestarán street, in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 5 March 2021 — Lines are no longer news in Cuba until they are. This Friday, a man who was waiting in a long line outside a store on Ayestarán Street, in Havana, was run over by a state vehicle. Anxiety to purchase some product in the Trimagen Complex had caused the crowd to overflow from the sidewalk around the door of the store.

The individual, in his 40s, was hit by a car with official registration and belonging to the National Archives of the Republic that was traveling in the direction of Avenida 20 de Mayo. By the time the vehicle passed the Trimagen store, a crowd of people filled the entire sidewalk and part of the street.

The shopping center, located in the municipality of El Cerro and managed by the military, opens early with hundreds of customers outside anxious to buy food. This Friday, the only things for sale were aerated soda, mayonnaise and yogurt, but the line stretched for almost two blocks. continue reading

“One minute we were all focused on the line, making sure that no one got in front of us, and a minute later it was all shouting,” a witness to the event tells 14ymedio. “The wounded man was taken to the hospital in a taxi that was behind the car that hit him and the police patrol took a long time to arrive,” he adds.

The National Archives vehicle was parked at the scene of the accident, which further complicated the organization of the queue, which was quite chaotic from the beginning. Despite the fact that only residents of the municipality can buy in these stores, due to the mobility restrictions imposed after the rebound in Covid-19 cases, the influx of customers is constant.

“Around here there are several areas that were in quarantine for more than a week and when the tapes were removed, people went out like crazy to buy anything,” says a resident. “There were many days of confinement and you have to take whatever you find.”

Others blame resellers for the crowds that are created every morning in front of the Trimagen Complex. “This place is full of coleros [people who others pay to stand in line for them] and people who come to buy as a business. They buy a bottle of a liter and a half of soda here and then sell it at three or four times its value in other neighborhoods. That is why this line is chaos,” comments another customer.

“That poor man, he went to the hospital today probably with a broken rib or clavicle and left without the product for which he had waited many hours. A real tragedy,” says a person who started the line at seven o’clock in the morning, and after noon he still had not managed to buy anything.

According to official data, in Cuba there is an accident on the public right-of-way every 55 minutes, one person dies every 15 hours and there is someone injured every 75 minutes. The accidents involving vehicles in poor condition, precariously patched together, in use as public transport are numerous and many times end with multiple deaths in a single accident.

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The Only Thing That’s Gotten Better in Havana Since the Pandemic is Transportation

Some Havana residents smile at the site of so many taxis on the streets during the pandemic, joking that they make the Cuban capital look like New York. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, February 26, 2021 — The pandemic has left an odd imprint on Havana. Bus stops, scenes of real chaos in pre-Covid times, now look deserted most of the day. While the situation is very different during peak hours, from 7:00 to 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 to 6:00 P.M., the stops are never as crowded as they were before 2020. An inspector at each stop is now there to make sure the number of passengers boarding the bus does not exceed the allowable limit and, as much as possible, that riders maintain a safe distance from each other to avoid contagion.

“The only thing that’s gotten better in this town in the past pandemic year is public transportation. I work at a bank and every day I go from Cerro to Vedado. Before, I would spend more than an hour waiting for a bus or a taxi. Now I don’t have to wait more than fifteen minutes here,” says 51-year-old Alicia Medina.

Indeed, in less than twenty minutes on Wednesday afternoon, the stop at the busy intersection of 27th and G streets was cleared of passengers. Three metro buses came by during that time. On two occasions, buses with routes that covered long stretches of the city — the P11, P16 and P2 — arrived, along with taxis. A lot of taxis, especially those popularly known as gazelles. continue reading

On Wednesday afternoon the bus stop at the busy intersection at the intersection of 27th and G streets had been cleared out within twenty minutes.

“I’d rather take a taxi. It’s more comfortable and… in my case it only costs three pesos more. The bus I take costs five so I’m happy to pay the extra. Lately I haven’t had to wait more than five minutes and the flow is constant. It looks like New York at rush hour, with all the streets full of yellow taxis like in the movies,” says a young woman who, according to her account leaves home every day because she works at a privately owned Italian restaurant on 23rd Street in Vedado which makes home deliveries.

The young woman has a point. The gazelles, which belong to Metrotaxi, are the stars of Havana’s urban landscape, plying the city’s busiest thoroughfares, especially during peak hours.

“The ones that never stop are the ones with Cubataxi, the yellow and black ones. I don’t know why but they never stop,” she says. The reason they are never available is simple: they now serve only hospitals and cab stations.

“They are the only routes we have now. The rates are for hospital patients and visitors. We charge 1.25 pesos per kilometer,” explains a Cubataxi employee.

Another company with a fleet of yellow cars is Agencia de Taxi, which used to charge in convertible pesos and whose customers are now mainly tourists. Their prices are much higher, which has made them less popular, but they help alleviate demand during peak hours.

“Our fares are the same as they were when we were charging in CUC based on an exchange rate of 25 pesos,” claims an employee, though he mentions that there are changes coming because the company has “decided to fix the taximeters” in every one of its drivers’ cars.

Another of the lines of yellow cars that circulate through the city are those of the Agencia de Taxi, which previously charged in CUC and were mainly focused on tourism. (14ymedio)

“Once the contract is up at the end of this month, we’ll be able to get the taximeters fixed and refurbished,” he says, though he points out that the company doing the repairs will only be servicing them at the Agencia de Taxis’ cab stands.

“If a customer files a complaint because a taxi driver is charging a higher fare than is allowed or is falsifying prices, he’ll be fined 5,000 pesos if it is a first offense. If he is caught doing it again, he’ll lose his commercial license for good,” he adds. Drivers can also be fined 2,000 pesos if they do not turn on the taximeter.

That won’t last long,” says one taxi driver. “Pretty soon people will figure out tricks to get around the rules. I’ve spent twenty-five years in this business and taximeters have never solved anything. The last time they tried it, it didn’t work. What never changes is supply and demand. And negotiating a price with the customer.”

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In Havana, Carlos III Plaza Closes Again Due to Covid Outbreak

**The Carlos III is closed due to a Covid outbreak, according to a worker at the shopping center. (14ymedio)**

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 25 February 2021 — For the second time in less than a year, the Carlos III Plaza, in Centro Habana, has closed its doors again due to a Covid-19 outbreak. The largest shopping center in the Cuban capital will not provide service “until further notice” and at least seven store workers have tested positive for the disease, an employee told 14ymedio.

“We have been told that they will open at the weekend but it has not yet been confirmed, and it seems almost certain that at first there will be no food services of any kind to avoid crowds within the premises,” adds the worker who preferred anonymity. “They are doing PCR on all of us and, at the moment, we are at home waiting for the results.”

The line to buy potatoes on Jesús Peregrino street in Havana. (14ymedio)

Outside the premises, on the centrally located Carlos III street, several uniformed members of the Prevention Troops, with their red berets, guard the area, but do not give customers details about the epidemiological situation. “Closed until further notice,” one of the soldiers repeated this morning to an elderly woman who was inquiring about the reasons for the suspension of service. continue reading

On one side of the building, which occupies an entire block, a military vehicle, a van, is located from the early hours of the morning just where, until a few days ago, the long line began to enter the supermarket located on the ground floor of the Plaza. Last week the place was abuzz with people waiting, but today it is deserted.

“Better not even ask, because if you start to investigate a lot they will look at you with a frown, as if they were expecting to buy” some chicken and a little oil. “A few minutes later, a radio placed in a nearby doorway could be heard playing this Thursday’s update with the Covid-19 figures on the Island.

Of the total of 670 new positive cases announced on Thursday, 364 are in Havana, which continues to be the epicenter of the current upturn in the pandemic on the island. According to Deputy Prime Minister Roberto Morales Ojeda, “from the explosion of cases” positive for Covid-19 in recent months, the territory “no longer has the capacity to isolate all the contacts” of the infected.

Quarantine zones and closures of markets or public institutions contrast with long lines to buy food, which have become even longer as shortages increase.

Black market potatoes sell for 120 pesos for five pounds. (14ymedio)

This same Thursday, on Jesús Peregrino Street, a few yards from the Plaza de Carlos III, dozens of people waited to buy the potatoes from the rationed market that have begun to be distributed in the neighborhood at three pesos a pound. With two pounds per capita, the arrival of the tuber has become an event due to the fall in the supply of other products such as rice and bread.

“You have to have something to put with the little you can put on the plate,” complained Amarilys, a 79-year-old retiree who started the line before “the sun came up.” Despite the authorities’ calls for the most vulnerable people not to go out in the streets, most of those waiting were elderly and there were also some people with disabilities.

Others, however, have not had to line up to get some potatoes. “It hit the black market first,” says a young man from a balcony. In the same area yesterday, five-pound bags of potatoes began to be sold at 120 pesos. The price can go up if the customer wants the purchase delivered to an area closed by confinement, as is the case of the Aramburo block between Zanja and San Martín, which has been closed with metal quarantine fences.

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The Magazine ‘Vocabulo’ Reappears After a Six Year Pause

Cover of the magazine ’Vocablo’, of the Association for Freedom of the Press. (APLP)

14ymedio, Havana, 2 March 2021 — The magazine Vocablo of the Association for Freedom of the Press (APLP), which stopped printing in 2015, has been published again, this time in PDF format and with a selection of the best of the Cuban free press.

To prepare this first issue of the second stage, its current coordinator, Julio Aleaga Pesant, summoned various independent journalists so that each one could choose a text published in 2020. From now on the magazine intends to publish a monthly issue and maintain the system of selection by the authors.

The collection, presented with a sober design, brings together articles featuring analysis and opinion, chronicles, interviews and humor published in various independent media.

José Antonio Fornaris, president of the APLP and director of the magazine, told 14ymedio: “We thank those who have sent their work for the trust placed in us and we reiterate that it does not matter whether the collaborators are within or outside the country. If someone is willing to allow us to publish their articles, we will welcome them. Everyone is welcome to this party.” continue reading

Since its foundation in 2006, the Association has been subject to pressure and threats from State Security. In 2018, the organization’s headquarters suffered a police search that resulted in the seizure of two computers, two external hard drives, twelve USB sticks, three printers and dozens of documents.

In February of that same year, four members of the APLP, who were going to Trinidad and Tobago to participate in a journalism workshop, were informed they could not leave the country because they were ’regulated’. In addition, they were threatened during interrogations with the aim of having them abandon their work.

The Association for Freedom of the Press (Asociación Pro Libertad de Prensa) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that helps promote freedom of the press and expression on the island. In December 2017, the group sent a report on freedom of the press in Cuba to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

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Crowd in Caibarien Shows Support for a Sweet Seller Fined 2,000 Pesos

“Cancel the fine,” demand several voices. “Abusers,” say others who also repeat “Enough abuse already.” (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 February 2021 — A sweet seller staged a protest this Saturday in Caibarién, Villa Clara, 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 locality gathered showing their support for the self-employed seller, as reported by Yeko Rodríguez.

In a live broadcast via Facebook, made by Rodríguez, the man is seen perched on the roof of a three-wheeled vehicle adapted as a point of sale for sweets and trinkets. “That man who is up there has just been fined 2,000 pesos for selling sweets, sweets that are not available in the stores,” says the young man.

“He sells cupcakes and meringues,” adds Rodríguez as dozens of people approach, shouting at the authorities. “Don’t get off. Homeland and life,” a passerby is heard saying. Shortly after, several police vehicles with uniformed men arrive at the scene and try to make the seller get down. No success so far. continue reading

“Cancel the fine,” cry several voices. “Abusers,” we hear others say, who also repeat “Enough abuse already.” “The only thing that man does is work and they make him out to be an enemy,” adds Rodríguez. “I’m not going to get off,” insists the private worker while the solidarity around his sales cart increases.

The vendor begins to distribute his sweets to the crowd for free and the broadcast cuts out.

A litle while later, Yeko Rodríguez reappeared in a live broadcast on Facebook denouncing that his account had been hacked and the two videos of the protest deleted. The young man identified the seller as “Miguel” and insisted that many asked him about what finally happened with the seller of sweets. “I do not know, as I understand a government official said that they were going to cancel the fine.”

“Maybe I can’t broadcast more today. From what I see on the networks and the repercussion this has had, at any moment someone comes and quotes me and I will go, because all I have done is show the truth,” said Rodríguez in a short video.

As of January 29th, the Cuban authorities established fines of up to 15,000 pesos and the confiscation of their merchandise as a punishment to merchants who contravene the new rules on prices and rates published in the Extraordinary Official Gazette.

The decree-law establishes different penalties, ranging from 5,000 to 7,000 pesos for not having a display board with the products and prices they offer; penalties from 8,000 to 10,000 for “withholding, reserving, postponing or not putting up for sale the products meant for retail marketing”; and from 12,000 to 15,000 if they do not comply with the ordered measures, for what is considered “abusive prices” and “speculative prices.”

The measure was published amid a growing shortage in the country’s agricultural markets, where many products have disappeared from the market stands to plunge into the informal market.

A few hours later a video filmed by another witness was released in which the crowd is seen gathering around the police car to prevent the arrest of the seller. When the patrol car leaves the scene, several dozen people follow the vehicle. “We are going to the Government,” shout some who are heading towards the headquarters of the People’s Power in the municipality.

A local source confirmed to 14ymedio that several representatives of the local government left the building to inform the crowd that the self-employed person had been released and the fine had been withdrawn.

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‘Patria y Vida’ Gave Cuba Back a Pulse

Moment from the video clip of ’Patria y Vida’ (Homeland and Life). (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Asiel Babastro, Havana, 26 February 2021 — [Note: Asiel Babastro, director of the video clip for the song Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life] presented the following text this Friday at an event of the European Parliament sponsored by Vice President Dita Charanzová and MEP Leopoldo López Gil, the Renew Europe Group and the European People’s Group, and organized by Cuban Prisoners Defenders. Led by one of the creators of this song that has goe viral, Yotuel Romero, the meeting was attended, live and in an unprecedented way, by the Venezuelan Juan Guaidó, the activist and academic Anamely Ramos, the writer Wendy Guerra, the scientist Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, the actor Alexis Valdés and the musicians Arturo Sandoval and Willy Chirino, as well as Maykel Castillo Osorbo through video, among others.]

I am Asiel Babastro. I was born in 1989, the year of serious faces*. I grew up with my index finger covering my mouth. As I left the parades I picked up little Cuban flags from the ground and put them in a book. I also repeated slogans.

I come to talk to you about my land and it would not be fair without mentioning its diaspora: the almost three million Cubans scattered around the world. Cuba is also the people who did not fit in, who could not and cannot. I do not speak for them, but I do name them.

Triumphalism is a coward, a sensationalist. My land is an island that has obeyed for 62 years. But there are other compatriots who have been waiting for something for 22,630 days, whereas while many things happened in the world, few things happened in Cuba, almost nothing. continue reading

And the regime does nothing more than postpone dreams. What homeland is the power proposing? It is still a mystery. How many years will the country we want cost? Who helps Cuba in its disaster? These are questions that I ask myself often. Because freedom is always small.

It is terrible how badly revolutions age, said a teacher. And the Cuban women grew old with their leaders in power, with the poetry of the past invoking a dead person who still governs. Communism, when they talk about the future, changes the conversation.

There is no land in sight, nor a transition to democracy. The dictatorship practices the culture of cancellation. The independent press is not recognized. They are watched, attacked, deprived of their rights, prohibited from leaving their homes. There are also testimonials.

Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life] gave Cuba back a pulse. But the regime has few words to mention the differences: “scums,” “traitors,” “worms,” “stateless,” “whores,” “opportunists,” “little blacks.” With those words there is no dialogue or speech.

In Cuba there is racism. I have seen it, I have felt it. That is the aftermath of slavery. Although ideological blindness denies it, there is racial subordination. The exclusion of the black individual through jokes, phrases (“advance the race,” “do not bring him to my house”). The attacks are very sneaky and difficult to detect.

What can minorities do against majorities, against false unanimity, self-censorship? What do we do against acts of repudiation? What is the number of permissible errors? Social and economic situations can condition the value of a right.

The Revolution has cost us the Homeland. Article 4 of the Constitution says: “The defense of the socialist homeland is the greatest honor and supreme duty of every Cuban. Treason is the gravest of crimes. Those who commit it are subject to the severest sanctions.”

This Constitution makes a mistake: it says that the country is socialist. That is ideological rhetoric and it contradicts the Apostle, José Martí. And I quote him: “I want the first law of my country to be the worship of the full dignity of man.”

Translator’s note: 1989 was the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the precursor of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc in Europe, ultimately leading into the Special Period in Cuba.

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Cuba’s Worst ‘New Man’: With a Luxury Car, a Powerful Surname and Little Education

Sandro Castro, Fidel’s grandson. (Instagram)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 2 March 2021 — He alternates his gaze between the road and the camera recording him. He smiles. He flaunts the luxurious vehicle that he drives at high speed and tosses phrases at a spectator he assumes must be salivating at such luxury. The protagonist of this scene could be any Parisian, New York or Berlin influencer, but he is a young Cuban who was born cocooned by the most powerful surname on the Island. He is Sandro Castro.

Few are surprised by the opulent Mercedes Benz driven by the grandson of the one who imposed on us, by force of slogans and economic offensives, austerity as a standard. Nor is the speedometer needle surprising, as it marks the excessive speed with which the tires cover the asphalt. None of the obscene attributes of power that the young man boasts about are shocking to a people who, for a long time, have known that the sacrifice their leaders proclaim from the platform are an entirely different thing than the wealth of their palaces.

The most unprecedented thing, then, is not the car nor the speeding, but the way the bully speaks behind the steering wheel. Each phrase he pronounces shows him to be a person consumed by consumption, fascinated by the material, with very little education, a minimal vocabulary, and a great need to flaunt his wealth. Is this the “New Man” incubated in the same clan that sent us to schools in the countryside, treated us like serious soldiers, and forced us to renounce our individuality? Is he the son of the son of the man who always loved us humble and obedient?

Este video de Sandro Castro llega mientras el hambre pulula en Cuba, después de #PatriaYVida y de la carta de los militares.

¿Quién filtró el video y por qué? pic.twitter.com/jHTBoO27lK

— Norges Rodríguez (@norges14) March 1, 2021

[Twitter text: This video of Sandro Castro comes while hunger is rampant in Cuba, after #PatriaYVida and the letter from the military officers. Who leaked the video and why?]

Was everything they took from us dedicated to raising these arrogant beings, who have not even used their wealth to read books, to cultivate or expand their narrow referential horizons? Are the grandchildren of those who came down from the Sierra Maestra continuing to be like their great-grandfather, the peasant from Birán – despotic and conceited – but now with mansions in Havana, absolute impunity and privileges unattainable for other Cubans? Have they spent part of this country’s resources to support these capricious and rude brats? Was it all for this?

Children should never have to pay for the guilt of their parents, much less their grandparents, but each person exhibits in their behavior much of the ethical and moral values taught to them by their family. A person’s home is noticeable in the first sentences, the education received – whether from the poorest of bricklayers or the most devoted of seamstresses – sprouts from every pore. What emanates from Sandro Castro allows us to see, as in a detailed X-ray, the skeleton of the Cuban regime, and it reeks.

The lineage that should have been the model to follow, proclaimed every day as the example, has only borne rotten fruits: empty-headed pimps.

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‘Cuba Compulsively Trains Mediocre Doctors’

The real Cuban health system, the one for ordinary Cubans, is far from being what is sold to the world, and it is nothing more than a sham that does not overcome the scarcities suffered by the population. (EFE)

14ymedio, Rodolfo Santacruz Castillo, Camagüey, 20 February 2021 — A few days ago, I attended one of those useless union meetings that, as a dogma, we have converted into a common practice in the workplace, where supposedly we have to discuss non-conformities and talk about something as sacred and at the same time as outrageous as the collective agreement. Meetings that have lost their essence and are the ideal platform for the bureaucrats to direct, fight and order their workers to continue on and end up praising the Revolution as always.

I decided to listen and try to interpret that row of words that came out in order, almost perfect, almost copied, almost real, almost thought for themselves by someone who, from the comfort of a desk, and with air conditioning, directs the miracle of production.

Making uncomfortable jokes, the official gave us her perception of the events of the San Isidro Movement and the youth of 27N [27 November]. “We will not let the conquests of the Revolution be taken away from us,” she said, surely alluding to the usual cliché: that we have free health and education. The truth, however, is that every day there are more of us who observe things differently.

The daily shortages in all areas invite us to reflect: seeing ourselves in the 21st century suffering from these ills, in a land as rich as Cuba, can only be a symptom of bad administration, of a total lack of progressive economic actions. continue reading

Madam director, executive, civil servant, boss, and however many names can be obtained, let’s talk about healthcare, free healthcare: do you know how many countries in the world that are not socialist have a public, free and quality health system? There are many. If you go out onto the streets of Cuba today, try to find, in that conquest of the Revolution, various medications for conditions as normal as a headache or an infection. “There is nothing,” accompanied by a shrug, will be the answer from behind the pharmacy counter.

In how many dental clinics is the care provided to the population suspended due to lack of water? In how many hospitals in Cuba are elective or not so urgent surgeries suspended for this same reason? Or for lack of gloves, tape, sutures or because important equipment is broken and the part to fix it are delayed, or for thousands of reasons that all of us at some point have heard and even suffered firsthand.

The current physical state of hospitals, polyclinics and medical offices is dire, the feeding of admitted patients leaves much to be desired, getting an appointment for specific tests that use advanced technologies is so complicated and time consuming that it can be classified as lacking humanity.

Is that the revolutionary conquest that you show off to the world, offering a service this mediocre for free, full of deficiencies, badly set, badly directed? I am not talking about the healthcare that appears in the news, which ordinary Cubans cannot access (the Cimeq, the Clínica Internacional Cira García, the Censam Marine…)..

The communist double standard is a latent fact, since it promotes what is convenient for it. The hidden face of these achievements is a people who pay the astronomical salaries of those who neither produce nor are capable of making a better society. It may be that this is a conquest, forgive me, Madam Chief.

The real Cuban healthcare system, the one for ordinary Cubans, is far from being what is sold to the world, and it is nothing more than a sham that does not address the scarcities suffered by the population. A huge percentage of competent doctors need to go to another country to look for what they cannot acquire in their own country, and for a few years they have been compulsively training new doctors, discarding the standards and skills for a profession as dignified as this, giving space to mediocrity and the possibility of being a doctor to people who shouldn’t be one.

And that is the other famous achievement of the Revolution, education. With the desire to make everyone a professional, we find a society that has thousands of mediocre people who believe they have a degree, who shame those who did deserve it and made an effort by the correct means, and at the same time they cannot lower themselves to work the land.

Real teachers have disappeared from education, and a television set tries, during the pandemic, to replace the irreplaceable. The schools in every municipality are falling apart and the children learn half of what they need to know, because doubts cannot be resolved by unmotivated new teachers, who simply chose that career in many cases so as not to spend two years in military service.

And what about the current status of boarding schools in pre-university study centers (those that still have boarding schools), or the housing conditions in Cuban universities, or the food of the country’s future professionals? If seeing it is despicable, living it is more painful than can be explained in a simple publication.

The greatest achievements of the Revolution are, today, its great shame. Even so, we try to cover the sun with a finger. It is sad that because what you fought for and suffered so many nights of insomnia over does not provide you with a dignified life, it does not give you what you need to start a family and rejuvenate the aging Cuban society. It is painful to see that your efforts are slowed down by deficiencies and, on many occasions, by those achievements that the senior management wants to continue defending.

Cubans, there are no such achievements, they are only the facades of an incapable, immoral, corrupt and overwhelming system, a conglomerate of pirates and criminals that has been violating and subduing a suffering people for years and that is losing its essence. We continue with our heads down, standing in line for everything, trying to survive and fighting, while at the top they observe us like feudal lords, disguising with the word socialism or communism a useless ideological monstrosity that has never worked and never will work.

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Cuba Will be the Last Country on the Continent to Vaccinate its Population

Cuba’s Soberana 02 Covid vaccine will not start the third phase of trials until March 1st, when all other nations on the continent will have already started immunizing their populations. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 25 February 2021 — Fabrizio Chiodo, the only foreign researcher involved in the development of Cuba’s Soberana 02 vaccine for Covid, reported to the international press this Wednesday on the promising development of the vaccine candidate, which will pass to phase 3 of clinical trials this coming Monday. This announcement confirmed that Cuba will be the last country on the continent to begin immunizing its population.

The researcher could not say how long this final stage would take, as it is foreseen that it will also take place in Iran, thanks to the established collaboration between the Finlay Institute and the Pasteur Institute of Tehran. Mexico may also participate in the study, according to a statement from the Mexican Ambassador, Marcelo Ebrard, advancing conversations between the Cuban laboratory and the Ministry of Health.

Regardless, even the countries the furthest behind in inoculating will have already received doses from various laboratories by the end of the week. Cuba, on the other hand, has yet to complete the most important step toward an approval that, in any case, is assumed to be a given because of the vaccine’s success in previous stages. This caboose of vaccinating countries is formed by Uruguay, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras. continue reading

Uruguay, the last to vaccinate in all of South America, will receive the first doses from Sinovac, the Chinese laboratory that has produced more than 1.7 million units, this Thursday night. Furthermore, the arrival of almost half a million acquired from the German-US lab Pfizer and the reserve of 1.5 million financed by the COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access) initiative is expected.

Guatemala and Honduras are another two at the end of the line that are receiving a small donation from Israel today. The Mediterranean country, which is the global leader in vaccinations, is sending 5,000 doses from the US Moderna lab to each of the two Central American countries, which have noted a delay in receiving the doses from COVAX.

Guatemala should have received more than 800,000 doses from the British lab Astro-Zeneca in the middle of February (overwhelmingly the largest contributor of vaccines to COVAX) and awaits a shipment from Pfizer in April with a special fund of 1,500 million quetzals (around 195,000 dollars) authorized from the government for this purpose.

Honduras, for its part, has bought 70,000 units of the Russian Sputnik V that is close to arriving, and 1.4 million from AstraZeneca that are not expected to arrive before May. From COVAX, 24,000 units planned to arrive in February, have not yet arrived.

Nicaragua has also not yet received vaccine doses from the international fund. However, a shipment of Sputnik V arrived at its airport this Wednesday, although the opaque Daniel Ortega administration has yet to announce the quantity.

The rest of the countries of the continent have already been vaccinating for days, including small territories such as Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Jamaica, with Chile leading with over three million immunizations, 16 percent of its 19 million inhabitants.

This situation puts Cuba in a delicate position. The medical power that has spent months promoting its vaccines will be the last to start the process with almost total security, even though it is certain that, once it is approved, the country will be able to act swiftly. As the vaccine is nationally produced, distribution will not require transport, delays, or dependence on foreign laboratories, although it will depend on the provisioning of complementary materials.

Cuba has had a difficult time accessing direct purchasing of those vaccines most utilized in the west, such as Pfizer, Moderna, or AstraZeneca, and its lack of liquidity complicates the acquisition of those developed by friendly countries, like Russia (Sputnik, already in use in Venezuela) or China (Sinovac and Sinopharm). Regardless, it could have accessed the COVAX mechanism and submitted to it. Despite the delays, the majority of the doses acquired via this route are or will be available in a few days, while Soberana continues onto a pending phase.

The rollout process is of prime importance. Medical personnel, who have been the first to be vaccinated in the majority of countries, could have benefited from doses acquired from COVAX, allowing them to continue facing the uptick that they face on the island in optimal conditions. The irony is that Cuban doctors in Venezuela have already received the Sputnik vaccine, while those still on the island continue to wait.

Once Soberana is ready to be distributed to the population, it will be necessary to know the Government’s plans for the vaccination process. Global health recommendations, in general, advise starting with medical professionals and the eldest (in Europe, where many deaths from the first wave were in rest homes, vaccinations started with rest home residents).

In Venezuela, a vehement outcry was unleashed when the Government of Maduro decided to start vaccinations with the 277 members of the National Assembly rather than medical professionals.

In the case of Cuba, it remains to be seen who will be the first to benefit, although Chiodo revealed something unusual this Wednesday. Soberana 02 will be administered to people between 35 and 80 years of age. So, what vaccine will the old guard of the Communist Party use?

Translated by: Geoffrey Ballinger

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The Marxist Philosophical Roots of Repression

In the most elementary courses of Marxism-Leninism one learns that in society there are antagonistic contradictions that can only be solved through the violence that generates a revolution. (Minrex)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 February 2021 — Many find it hard to believe, or understand, how it is possible that the ideas of such cool and sexy thinkers as Marx and Engels can be used to justify such decadent (cheas) attitudes as repressing young creators, holding rallies of repudiation or prohibiting the free exercise of professional activities and the independent dissemination of information and opinions in journalism.

Where does the deep justification come from; to what philosophical concept can be anchored the unbridled repression whose most “subtle and sophisticated” expression is articulated in national television programs where those who think differently are grossly denigrated, without the right to reply?

In the most elementary courses on Marxism-Leninism, after studying the three fundamental laws of dialectics, one learns that in society there are antagonistic contradictions that can only be solved through the violence that generates a revolution.

According to that dogma, an antagonistic contradiction is only resolved when one of the contenders achieves the extermination or annulment of the adversary. continue reading

It should be noted that in the original texts of Marx or Engels this apothegm is not found, not as it appears in the previous paragraph. Dialectics of Nature was an unfinished work of Engels that only saw the light in 1925 when it was edited by the academics of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, right in Stalin’s time. It was they who systematized, in order to simplify them into manuals, Engels’ philosophical sketches scattered in notes and complementary notes.

Three years later, forced cooperativization took place in the USSR, and it is no coincidence that that horror, which gave continuity to the “red terror” implemented by Lenin, appeared later in the hackneyed manuals as an example of a solution to an antagonistic contradiction, whose purpose was the definitive extermination of the kulaks. Many of these texts are available today on the Internet.

The decision of a small group of people to implement a socialist system in Cuba was in contradiction with the existence of private owners of the fundamental means of production. In less than a decade the owners were dispossessed by violence, and those who resisted ended up in exile, were imprisoned or died in combat.

The owners disappeared but socialism did not appear. At least its fundamental laws of “satisfying the ever-growing needs of the population” and “eradicating the exploitation of man by man” were not fulfilled.

Such plundering to exterminate the antagonistic owner was of no worth. The “blood spilled on the sands of Playa Girón [the Bay of Pigs] to repel the bourgeoisie who came to recover what had been confiscated” was worthless; the militiamen in the Escambray Mountains killing peasants who had risen up because their lands had been taken away from them were worthless.

All those supposed victories ended in an economic defeat because the socialism of the books failed to establish itself as a system in reality, and finally the rules of the market had to be recognized. It was also an ideological defeat because the desire of Cubans to be owners and to express themselves freely never disappeared.

In present times, this is the most acute contradiction that comes to the surface. It is no longer the one, artificially sustained under the concept of class struggle, which was solved in the material sphere by confiscating properties. What the Government is trying to do now is to put a brake on those who promote the proposal to expand the productive forces against the backdrop of maintaining a planned economy as the last redoubt of the frustrated “socialism.”

The “philosophical question” is whether this is an antagonistic contradiction and whether the idea of the extermination of the opponent as the only solution to antagonism is still valid.

Those who aspire to change things in Cuba, who are the most dynamic element of this contradiction, are divided between those who aspire to the violent overthrow of the dictatorship and those who believe in a gradual, bloodless change, the result of a dialogue.

The bad news is that the only thing that those in charge in Cuba understand is that they must annihilate their counterparts, radicals and moderates, put without distinction in the same bag, because they see in each and every one of them their future exterminators. In order to put into practice what they have learned in theory, they are willing to limit, with all available violence, the freedom of expression of their citizens, interpreting that any discrepancy should be considered as complicity with imperialism.

It is a task for the present and for the future to answer the question of whether Marxism was perverted by politicians or whether all this theoretical scaffolding constitutes a perversion of thought.

Beyond this subtlety of a definition of contradictions, the fruit of the subversion of Hegel’s dialectic, it is easy to find in Marx unfounded statements such as the belief that by implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat not only would the class struggle end, which would result in the disappearance of the State, but also that the aspiration to be owners would be erased from the minds of men, and all this he deduced from his study of the 72 days that the Paris Commune lasted.

The saddest thing is that, possibly behind the repression that subjugates Cubans in the 21st century, there are not even vestiges of elevated thought that can be considered the force of reason, but simple ambition for power backed by the reason of force.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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We the Prohibited

Several professionals signed a statement in which they ask the Cuban Government to remove both architecture and engineering from the list of 124 private activities that were recently prohibited in Cuba. (14ymedio)

Carlos Manuel’s grandfather was the owner of a funeral home in the middle of the last century; his upstairs neighbor founded a law firm in the 1950s; and his mother started out as a dentist in a private clinic. However, this 48-year-old from Havana will not be able to carry out any of these labors outside the control of the State. He had to live in a Cuba with greater restrictions for the self-employed worker than the one his ancestors knew.

For several days, a disturbing list has been circulating around the Island. The list contains the 124 occupations that the Government has vetoed from being exercised in the private sector. In most cases, these are professions linked to sectors that are a state monopoly and range from the private extraction of crude oil, to making sugar, to practicing as lawyers, architects, doctors and journalists on one’s own.

Carlos Manuel has kept his civil engineering degree in a drawer for a long time. He had the illusion that, with the deep economic crisis that Cuba is experiencing, the authorities would raise the flag and allow him to work privately in the profession that he is passionate about. Together with an architect friend and another designer, they fantasized about creating a company, medium or small, to offer their services in the construction and remodeling of hotels, private businesses and homes. continue reading

But instead of the expected opening, the three graduates were stunned when reading the list that excludes them from receiving a self-employment license to dedicate themselves to the trade they love. “In a country where it is urgently necessary to recover the architectural beauty of the cities, we have been excluded from being able to contribute with our own effort,” he wrote to a friend, as soon as he read the list. That same night, he called his brother who lives in Uruguay to tell him that “at the slightest opportunity” he would emigrate. Another professional who escapes, unable to fulfill his dreams here.

Several colleagues of Carlos Manuel have joined and signed a statement with the title “Independent architecture should not be ignored in Cuba”, in which they ask the Government to eliminate both architecture and engineering from the list of those 124 expressly prohibited activities. by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. But they harbor little hope that the Plaza of the Revolution will back down from that decision.

In short, the list of prohibited occupations summarizes the fears of a regime that is known to be disadvantaged in offering its workers attractive wages, good working conditions and freedom for innovation or for the free expression of opinions within its institutions and companies. It senses that an independent lawyer will not tacitly accept the violation of his client’s rights; that a free publisher will not allow himself to be censored or that an independent reporter will not sweep uncomfortable news under the rug for power.

The Government also fears that allowing the private exercise of certain professions will not only unleash an exodus of employees from the state sector, but would mean a significant loss of political control over thousands of Cubans. They are not just people with degrees who will gain autonomy, but over whom the power will cease to have influence in such a decisive way as it does now.

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This text was originally published in Deutsche Welle for Latin America.

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“The Spring of a New Cuba Is Coming and It Is Unstoppable,” Says Cuban Priest

Alberto Reyes Pías (David Ramos / ACI Press)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 February 2021 — Camagüey priest Alberto Reyes has once again issued harsh criticisms of the situation Cubans are currently experiencing. In a text published this Sunday on his Facebook account, the priest warns that “this people has been giving signs for a long time that it does not want continuity.”

Reyes describes the Cuban population as tired “of this sterile ‘spirit of revolution’, of an absurd ‘resist and win’, of ‘doing more with less’, of ‘battles of ideas’, of ‘no one surrenders here’, of ‘socialism or death’, and even of ‘homeland or death’.” He also regrets that the Island has been mired for “years and years among slogans of war, while we long for times of peace.”

“I do not see a people eager to give their lives to build a revolution, but a people desperate for the so-called ‘revolution’ to give them breathing space to build their lives,” adds the priest who has gained notoriety in recent months due to his periodic reflections published on social networks. continue reading

In a part of his text, the priest addresses the Cuban authorities. “You, who hold the reins of political power on this Island, don’t you see this people crying out for a change? Aren’t you going to have the courage and intelligence to initiate those changes, so that a peaceful transition can be achieved, and in the end we can all come to an accord from peace? ”

For that longed for economic and political change, Reyes considers that “the best, the most sensible, as well as the most elegant, would be a proposal from the power structures. Because when the rivers overflow, they only leave destruction and death in their wake.”

In the texts that he disseminates through Facebook, the priest has previously questioned that in Cuba there can only be one ideology, a single party, a single way of educating, and has denounced the “great theater” that the Island is today, “where we lie to each other as part of a play that no longer needs to be rehearsed.”

“Don’t you see? Don’t you listen? Don’t you understand that we cannot continue like this, and that in a country that is adrift no one is safe, neither you nor your children?” Reyes continues to question in his most recent publication. “Don’t you see that nobody trusts that we are on the ‘right path’ anymore, or that we will be able to build a happy and prosperous society?

“And if we all become a little more humble, and recognize that we need a change of course, a new space in which everyone has a place?” proposes the Camagüeyan and, in just a few minutes, his reflection had already accumulated dozens of supportive comments. “Cubans are not a spiteful people, and they have shown it. The tone of the demands from this people is still that of dialogue and inclusion.”

“We do not want violence, we do not want shouting, we do not want disqualifications, we do not want acts of repudiation. But we do not want to submit more, we do not want to turn our life into a lie, we do not want to continue insulting our intelligence,” he says.

Reyes concludes his text by recalling some verses by Pablo Neruda: “They will be able to cut all the flowers, but they will not be able to stop the spring.” A quote to which he adds: “I deeply believe that the spring of a new Cuba is coming, and that it is unstoppable.” Furthermore, he describes that moment as one of “harmony, color, light, joy, peace.”

Last year one of the chronicles published by Reyes caused a great impact because it asked the people to stop being afraid, not to fall into divisions, and it addressed the Catholic bishops, whose “silence” they suffered. “This country needs a change, it needs a transition, it needs to live and stop dragging its existence, and at this moment, in my opinion, only the Catholic Church is in a position to lead a dialogue and propose a transition,” he declared then.

His criticisms earned him an attack in the official Cuban press that questioned that some priests of the Catholic Church used “the pulpits to launch strong questions at the Cuban Revolution, blaming it for the economic crisis that the country is going through, without touching who is truly responsible, the United States.”

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“They Assaulted the Block with Almost 200 Agents, Trucks and Water Trucks,” Denounces Jose Daniel Ferrer

José Daniel Ferrer, leader of Unpacu, at the door of his home, also the organization’s headquarters, in Santiago de Cuba. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 February 2021 — José Daniel Ferrer, the leader of Unpacu, denounced this Saturday that his house in Santiago de Cuba, headquarters of the opposition organization, continues to be besieged by State Security, which prevents the residents from circulating in the area.

“The communists, the henchmen, the instruments of tyranny remain here, from acts of repudiation,” the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba denounced in a video published on his social networks, after being detained for a few hours this Friday, after which his home was raided by several plainclothes officers.

Friday, according to Ferrer, was “historic.” “They invaded with more than 180, almost 200 agents,” in addition to trucks and water trucks with hoses, he said, with the excuse that they were going to “sanitize the block because there is Covid-19” and they were going to paint the facades of all the houses. “A lie!” the opponent cried: “It turns out that they just ended up painting, with a disgusting paint that we are going to erase as soon as possible, the facade of the Unpacu headquarters.” continue reading

On that wall, the activists had written in large letters the slogan “Homeland and Life”, which has gone viral from the song of the same name by Gente de Zona, Yotuel Romero, Descemer Bueno, Maykel Castillo Osorbo and El Funky. When it was being erased, says the leader of the Unpacu, the activists rewrote the phrase with charcoal.

“Here nobody is afraid, here nobody is intimidated, here nobody is scared,” emphasized Ferrer, who explained that the attack “was with the intention of seeing if they can put an end to what we do here for the elderly, for the sick, for alcoholics, for people living in extreme misery.”

“Not even by killing us can they stop our work,” said the opponent. “Not even by killing us can they put an end to our fight for freedom, for democracy and for a better future.”

José Daniel Ferrer has been under house arrest since April 2020, after spending six months in preventive detention, for the crime of assault that several international organizations consider “prefabricated.”

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Armando Trujillo is Being Tortured by his Jailers, States Cuban Prisoners Defenders

Armando Trujillo González was sentenced to three years in prison for the false crimes of “robbery with force” and “disobedience”. (CPD)

14ymedio, Madrid, 17 February 2021 — On Tuesday, Cuban Prisoners Defenders (CPD) denounced the situation of prisoner of conscience Armando Trujillo González, who is serving a three-year sentence in the Agüica maximum security prison in Matanzas.

Trujillo, an activist of the Movimiento Independiente Opción Alternativa (Independent Movement Alternative Option), has been held incommunicado since his admission to prison on July 4, 2019, states CPD, and his health “is very, very deteriorated with a coronary problem for which he does not receive medical attention or medicine.” He is also not allowed to receive food, clothing or medicine from his family.

In a legal report, which it submitted to the UN, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the European Union, the organization based in Madrid, demonstrates that Trujillo was arbitrarily convicted of a false crime of robbery with force, and disobedience. continue reading

In prison, CPD claims based on internal sources, “he is harassed, threatened and coerced through psychological and physical torture to leave human rights activism and betray his organization,” trying to force him to record a video that “will serve as social blackmail in case he is released from prison.”

In addition, Prisoners Defenders says that the political authorities of the prison instigate the most dangerous inmates to “rape him in exchange for perks for themselves,” with the aim of “undermining his morale” and “creating a state of constant physical and psychological torture,” in order to “ensure that Armando, to defend himself, may at some point be charged with some additional crime so they can increase his sentence.”

Recently, CPD denounced that prison authorities use “severe torture, beatings and isolation at unusual levels” which, coupled with tempting offers, seek to get prisoners to agree to film compromising videos in which they “confess to being mercenaries and accuse the leaders of their groups.”

The recordings would be used against them if they resumed their human rights activism, the organization said.

The detailed report is similar to the one CPD prepared in the case of protest rapper Denis Solis, sentenced last November 11 in a “summary proceeding” to eight months in prison for an alleged crime of “contempt”. Solis’ imprisonment was the origin of the protest by members of the San Isidro Movement who went on hunger strike at the collective’s headquarters in Old Havana for more than a week, and the subsequent peaceful protest by more than 300 artists in front of the Ministry of Culture to demand dialogue with the authorities.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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Architects Working ‘Under the Table’ are Called Party Decorators in Cuba

“Havana survives because it was very well built under capitalism, with excellent professionals who have been banned since 1959”, defends an architect, while the city increasingly displays its makeshift construction practices. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 24 February 2021 — Since the Cuban Government released the news that Architecture is among the 124 activities that individuals are prohibited from engaging in privately, the profession has not stopped looking for spaces to express its discontent, sometimes from pessimism and disenchantment, other times from searching for solutions.

After two weeks of public debates among professionals, 14ymedio sought the opinion of some of those Cubans who have built their homes “by their own effort” without ever having seen an architect. 14ymedio has also consulted experts about the consequences that this practice can bring for the urban environment of the city.

“But who said that an architect is needed to build a house?” Iván Calvo, 52, of El Cerro, counterattacks, when asked if he had hired the services of a professional to build his home.

In 2018, after nearly a decade laying one brick over another, Calvo finally finished building his house. Every afternoon he goes up with his friends to the terrace to play dominoes and feed the pigeons that he raises with his 17-year-old son. continue reading

In 2021, the prohibition of the private practice of architecture and engineering was expressly established. (14ymedio)

“My life is my home, along with my family and my birds. I raised it by myself, with only the help of some cousins of mine who came over some weekends. I never needed an architect, beyond the bureaucratic paperwork with the house, the bricklayer I hired and I did all the work”, he concludes.

Rafael Fornés, a Cuban architect residing in Miami, declares that building without the guidance of a professional leads to “structural dangers” in the property that can later “cause collapses”.

“Havana survives because it was very well built under capitalism, with excellent professionals, who have been banned since ‘59. The legacy, the heritage and the wonder city are the result of the experience of Cuban architects and builders.”

Silvia lives in the house right next to Calvo’s, a young woman barely 26-years-old who, together with her husband, built a house on the roof of the property of her in-laws, but she sees it differently.

“The community’s architect is supposed to be there to develop the project but I wanted to do something decent so I looked for another way. I went to a friend with an Architectural degree who drew up the plans for me under the table, and then he just bribed the Housing official to get his signature, which is the only one approach the authorities recognize”, he explains.

Silvia’s friend makes a living in a professional studio that she founded three years ago with two colleagues. “Everything is very absurd, he has an Architecture degree, but in order to legalize his business and pay taxes he had to get a party decorator license,” said the young woman.

“Everything is very absurd, he has an Architecture degree, but in order to legalize his business and pay taxes he had to get a party decorator license”

The event has given rise to anecdotes such as the inauguration of the Monument to the Cuban Decorator, created in 2019 by the independent Arquitectura Infraestudio project as a “tribute” to that legal figure that allows them to exist and earn a living from their studies.

For architect Rafael Muñoz, the country needs construction professionals to “take charge” of the cities again. “We are submerged in an urban chaos that is annihilating the nation’s immense construction heritage”, stated the professional from Berlin, the city where he now resides.

“There is no insurance and no insurance companies in the country for professionals (to practice without them is suicide), there are no laws that specialize in real estate issues, there are no bids for public works, but contracts get awarded in a murky way or, worse still, they are ordered from overseas. There is also no transparent and binding pricing policy, there are no bank loans that allow the purchase of equipment or software licenses. No professional should practice with pirated software. If we want to be respected, we must respect the work of the others”, he specified.

Architects believe that they can contribute little to their colleagues’ statement from the Group of Cuban Architecture Studies (GECA) in which they demand of the Government, from an architectural and city point of view, to conduct this activity independently.

However, he claims “to address the issue from another point of view no less important, the human side and the ethical side” because he considers that recent laws “reinforce the deformation of the inverted pyramid” of Cuban society.

“The more you know, the more you study, the more you learn, the less chance of a decent life the country offers you. This discourages study and efforts to improve. Any young Cuban who chooses to enter university studies knows in advance that he will be choosing to be placed at the lowest level of that pyramid voluntarily. They are less and less willing to do so”, he explained.

The architect provides specific information about his generation but that illustrates the phenomenon in a general way: “In July 1989, 101 young architects graduated from the Cujae School of Architecture (José Antonio Echeverría Technological University of Havana). Today, more than 80 have left the country. This phenomenon, which nobody talks about, is repeated in every graduation and in every university degree in Cuba. Cuban universities are a machine for creating emigrants”.

“We are submerged in an urban chaos that is annihilating the immense built legacy of the nation.” (14 and a half)

Muñoz calls on those who “are at the helm of national ship” to give young people the opportunity “to assume their own future” or they “will continue to leave the Island en masse.” For him, the long-awaited legalization of Architecture and Engineering studies in the country faces “challenges that colleagues should not underestimate either.”

Architect Ruslan Muñoz, professor at La Cujae, published on his Facebook profile on the 11th a list of government measures that, in his opinion, have damaged the profession since 1960.

Among them, he highlighted the intervention and nationalization of construction companies and all their related industries in 1960, the closing of the planning companies and the gradual emigration of professionals between 1960-1963, the closure of the National College of Architects in 1967 and the Revolutionary Offensive in 1968 that nationalized all the remaining private business in the country, right down to the shoe shiners. He culminates his list in 2021 with the prohibition of the private practice of architecture and engineering, although he urges his colleagues to provide more data.

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