Translating Cuba

The Cuban Regime and its Propaganda Apparatus Prefer Death to Life

14ymedio, Havana, 18 February 2021 — Covid-19 offers no truce — 923 cases and 5 deaths in the last report — but Cuban authorities seemed more concerned this Thursday about the surprising success of the video clip Patria y vida, which has gone viral on social networks. All the official media, starting with Granma, the daily of the Communist Party, dedicate several articles to denigrating the authors.

“Cuba will not renounce the slogan ‘homeland or death’, a declaration of principles of the historic leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro,” said Abel Prieto, former Minister of Culture and president of the Casa de las Américas, according to the Prensa agency. Latin.

Even the president of the Provincial Defense Council of Havana, Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, spoke about it in his daily meeting. After highlighting the effort “of the medical and paramedical personnel, various specialists, experts, the Police and the people in this contest, in which Cuba makes a difference with the rest of the world, due to the way it faces the pandemic,” the official insisted that “many people today repudiate counterrevolutionary songs on social networks created by artists who sold their souls to the empire and live under it. continue reading

Torres Iríbar called for “continues fighting against enemies, under the slogan of ‘homeland or death’ and the conviction that we will win, because the only way to win is by fighting,” the official press reports.

According to testimonies collected by 14ymedio, the authorities are calling for figures of the national culture to record a video singing the notes of the national anthem and conclude the song with the official slogan “homeland or death,” proclaimed for the first time by Fidel Castro in 1960.

“We are making a call that starting today at nine o’clock at night, in addition to the applause to support our doctors, we want our heroic anthem and the phrase ’homeland or death’ to be heard,” a Communist Party militant said this Thursday morning at an emergency meeting with retirees from a neighborhood in Havana’s Plaza municipality.

“We are not going stand by, because we have the last word,” said the pensioner in front of a dozen militants over 65 years old.

In the midst of the worrying panorama of the pandemic, the authorities, who in recent days had expressed certain self-criticism, acknowledging failures in the detection of the virus and calling for greater observance of health standards in institutions and work centers, have taken up the triumphalist tone to attack the song composed by Gente de Zona, Descemer Bueno, Yotuel Romero, Maykel Castillo Osorbo and El Funky,

Despite the strict measures, which include the confinement of the neighborhood with the highest incidence and the night curfew, the capital remains at the forefront of infections. Santiago de Cuba, which the previous day had a lower figure, returned to second place, with 117 cases.

Among the positives of the day, only a minority, 36, were imported. The accumulated number of positives since the pandemic began, in March last year, amounts to 41,688, and the number of deaths has risen to 282.

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

‘Patria y Vida’, a Soundtrack for Change in Cuba

The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, with a Cuban flag, behind El Funky and Maykel Castillo ‘Osorbo’, in a scene from the video. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 February 2021 — The video was released on social networks on Tuesday night and just twelve hours later it already exceeded 200,000 views on YouTube. No one expected anything less: for the first time Gente de Zona, Yotuel Romero and Descemer Bueno, residents outside of Cuba, work in a collaboration with the musicians Maykel Castillo Osorbo and El Funky, on the island. Together, they turn the most necrophiliac motto of the Revolution and create a rebellious song: Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life).

The theme is, mainly, a tribute to the San Isidro Movement (MSI) and the protests it has triggered.

The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the MSI, who appears with Osorbo in the video hugging a Cuban flag, declares to 14ymedio that the most important thing about “this action” is “to draw attention to society, the Blacks of the San Isidro neighborhood, the Blacks of the Cerro neighborhood, those who stand in endless lines.” In his opinion, the video clip “helps to create that project of a country where these people feel identified, included.”

“They broke down our door, violated our temple and the world is aware that the San Isidro Movement continues to be in place,” says one of the verses of the song, in reference to the eviction that MSI suffered on November 26, after more than one week on hunger strike for the imprisonment of rapper Denis Solís, which was the trigger for the peaceful protest on November 27 in front of the Ministry of Culture. continue reading

The audiovisual, directed by the Cuban director Asiel Babastro, collects several moments of the repression that Cuban artists have suffered in recent months, both in acts of repudiation and in arbitrary arrests. It also includes, for example, a fragment of the protest carried out on Calle San Rafael by Luis Robles, who today is serving prison for the crime of “acts against the security of the State.”

Note: The version of the video above is subtitled in English. The version below offers the options of choosing subtitles and seeing the lyrics in the original Spanish.

In addition, the theme denounces the precarious economic situation of the country. “What do we celebrate, if people are quickly exchanging Che Guevara and Martí for hard currency?” Sing the reggaeton players, alluding to the recent monetary reform and the creation by the Government of foreign currency stores to which most Cubans do not have access.

“No more lies, my people ask for freedom, no more doctrines. Let us no longer shout homeland or death but homeland and life,” Alexander Delgado, from Gente de Zona, is heard saying at another point in the song, which has raised a wave of support on the internet with the hashtag #PatriayVida.

In the live online presentation, the musicians sent a message of solidarity to the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, El Funky and Osorbo. They managed to establish contact with them, but very briefly because communication was cut off.

For Yotuel Romero, Patria y vida is “a song to freedom, a song to life, a song to love for our land, for our Cuba.”

“We cried making the song, making the video,” confesses Romero. “I want you to listen to the song, internalize it and say along with us: it’s over, the lie is over, the deception is over, the torture is over, the incarceration is over, the prison is over, not letting you be you is over.”

Descemer Bueno, for his part, claims to be “super happy to be making history” because for him this issue “marks a before and after” for the generations that follow. “People are already realizing what is happening and are feeling firsthand what the end of this dictatorship is going to be,” he predicts.

With a career full of successes in Cuba in the video clip universe, Asiel Babastro considers this work as “the icebreaker,”,by including artists censored in Cuba and having a rebellious discourse. The director said that it was a “tremendous responsibility” for him “to bring together these people who have been around the world.” The director also speaks of the importance of connecting “with the message of the song, with people who are doing real things to have the right to have rights.”

“I have always believed that a government that tells lies does not deserve to be there, I believe that the truth is for everyone, there is no need to go further, the video talks about that, it shows with the honesty of these artists, their speech, we want to have the right to think differently, to see a change,” he asserts.

The regime has not been long in replying to the viral video clip, in an article that, in line with the campaign carried out by the state media against the San Isidro Movement and the 27N, it tries to denigrate the authors of the song by calling them “moochers.”

____________

Cuban Government Must Normalize Relations With Cubans Before Doing So With The U.S.

The petitioners’ demands are directed to politicians of both countries. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, February 15, 2021– Cuban citizens residing inside and outside the Island have published a letter asking the U.S. Government not to normalize relations with Cuba as long as the Cuban Government hasn’t normalized relations with its own citizens. The text is also addressed to the Cuban Government and the U.S. Congress.

The signers say that they were disillusioned with the thaw between the U.S. and Cuba that began during the presidency of Barack Obama in 2014. They learned something from the frustration of that moment, and their petition is based on these lessons.

“During normalization, there were no advances in human rights on the Island. National and international organizations documented high levels of repression against civil society and opponents of the Regime. Many activists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and artists who supported normalization have since gone into exile,” they emphasize. continue reading

The petitioners consider that totalitarianism is inherent to the Regime, and they point out that since Joe Biden was elected President of the U.S., and especially since he took office, the arrests and harassment of several people from civil society have increased.

In addition to alluding to the repressive nature of the Cuban authorities, they refer to problems related to the economic system, which weren’t resolved in the previous reestablishment of relations and, on the contrary, deepened the inequalities. “During the previous thaw, it’s true that a certain urban middle class grew that maintained an attitude of non-confrontation or collaboration with the Regime, but the impoverished majority of the country didn’t benefit.”

In the text, the activists declare themselves committed to the democratic advancement of Cuba and support a new negotiation between the governments of Havana and Washington, but with six conditions, which are, in their opinion, “minimal and indispensable.”

First, they call for diverse groups in civil society to actively participate in the normalization process. In addition, they request that the negotiations be transparent and that what is addressed in the meetings be made known to citizens of both countries and disseminated by the press, without a distinction between the official and the independent press, in the case of Cuba.

“The process should be accompanied by mediators of credibility and experience such as the Vatican, Norway, and the European Parliament, and it should multilaterally involve governments and civil society in Europe and Latin America,” they claim.

The third condition is that there be official recognition of the “civil, economic and political” rights for Cubans, and that the Cuban Government ratify the international agreements on human rights.

They also demand that the human rights agreements have specific goals that can be evaluated and supervised by other governments, and that the process of normalization be discontinued in the case of violations.

The immediate release of political prisoners and the legalization of civil and political organizations should be, they assert, the first requirement, without which no negotiating process should be initiated.

With regard more specifically to the U.S. Government, the document also calls for the restrictions on travel and the sending of remittances “by civil means” as well as through consular procedures to be repealed.

Meanwhile, the Cuban side must eliminate “the prohibitions from leaving and entering the country for doctors, athletes, professionals, dissidents, activists, and all people who are unjustly deprived of these rights.”

“Let Cuba insert itself in the world as a truly sovereign country, respectful of human rights and democratic, something that today is far from being a reality. All negotiations must be focused on this objective,” concludes the text, signed by more than 300 Cubans from inside and outside the Island, among whom are Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Anamely Ramos, Maykel Castillo Osorbo, Camila Lobón, Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, Henry Constantín, Carlos A. Aguilera, Armando Chaguaceda, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo , Rosa María Payá, Eliécer Ávila, and Rafael Rojas.

The letter comes a week after another letter addressed to U.S. President Joe Biden requesting the restoration of dialogue and normalization of relations between the two countries. In that case, the petitioners were around more than 300 scientists, intellectuals, artists and entrepreneurs, who said that the Cubans expect the President to “take the first step and unconditionally lift the sanctions imposed on Cuba.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

For Washington, Cuba is Not a Priority / Ivan Garcia

Independent journalists Iván García Quintero (left) and Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina on a street in the capital city of the United States. In March 2018, the two were invited to participate in a program on journalism sponsored by The Dialogue, a center founded in 1982, based in Washington, DC, and considered one of the leading think tanks on US and foreign policy.

Iván García, 15 February 2021 — As he drives a ramshackle Soviet-era Moskvitch down a central avenue west of Havana, Samuel, a retired athlete, explains why doing business in Cuba is very difficult. Eleven years ago, when Raúl Castro kicked off the expansion of private work, Samuel used the money he saved plus a loan from his New York-based brother to buy two Willys jeeps manufactured in the 1950s, but updated with modern engineering.

With his earnings from deploying those jeeps as collective taxis, Samuel acquired a brand-new 1958 Impala convertible that he would rent to the tide of North American tourists, who – seduced by the reestablishment of diplomatic relations and the free marketing provided by the generous Obama Doctrine – rolled in on planes and cruise ships to get to know the communist Island of the Caribbean. Samuel had a fleet of two jeeps and two cars and was planning to buy a truck, recondition it, and use it for interprovincial transportation. But he never had legal backing.

“That is the main problem with opening a business in Cuba. There is no agreement or deal, a notarized document spelling out your rights and duties. All that happens is the State one day will tell you that it is authorizing this or that business (which usually was already operating illegally) and then it imposes a severe tax on you and too many controls. You can’t count on a wholesale market, and with every passing year – with no justification – your taxes go up and the inspectors make your life impossible,” Samuel asserts, and adds this: continue reading

“Because of certain circumstances, the government has been forced to authorize private work. This has never been to promote free enterprise, so that the most talented will prosper and generate wealth. No. It has always been a concession by the State, forced upon them by their inefficiency or, like now, because they are trapped in an economic crisis and they will let you run certain businesses – but always while pointing the finger at you and not allowing you to gain too many profits.”

Six out of nine entrepreneurs interviewed agree that self-employment is not usually to the liking of the regime’s apparatchiks. “It is a necessary evil that allows the State to reverse the economic depression and attract the half million state workers who between 2010 and 2012 lost their jobs. But, ideologically speaking, we are out of context. We are annoying. The usual suspects who engage in speculation, tax evasion, and personal enrichment. They see us as potential criminals or dissidents of the system, “says Geovany, owner of a body shop, a business that for many years has been in legal limbo.

Manuel, an economist, believes that if a society is committed to the progress of the country and the creativity of its people, then “private work should not be a problem. It is desirable for taxes to be as low as possible so that those business that are the genesis of future small and medium-size enterprises, and even of large companies, can flourish. Under Cuba’s circumstances, it would be very difficult for Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos to become what they are today. They would not have passed the startup-in-a-garage stage. And if they had made a lot of money, they would have been accused of illicit enrichment or embezzlement.”

Onilio, a software programmer, prefers to give the regime a chance. Just one more. “I would like to believe that, this time, the announced opening of more than two thousand private jobs will unleash the creativity of Cubans. I intend to set up an electronic payment gateway for food, clothing and household appliances. But for that to work, the government must authorize imports. Either legalize the “mules” – or else make it so that we private entrepreneurs can purchase goods abroad on our own. If the level of importation is too high, then call upon the State-run import companies to manage it. We should have wide autonomy. And bet on ventures that have added value. Not just services.”

At the moment, the regime maintains some restrictions that prevent free importation. An entrepreneur who met with US President Obama during his visit to Havana in March 2016 is skeptical of the current Cuban government strategy.

“I hope I’m wrong and the authorities this time are serious and don’t put the brakes on private work. But the evidence and history make me pessimistic. I remember that as soon as I left the meeting with Obama, the ONAT (National Tax Administration Office) officials began to inspect my business. If there is no structure where to acquire raw materials, free import and export or doing business with foreign entrepreneurs is impeded, it is very difficult for businesses to be transparent. It is the regime itself, by not creating a specific legal framework and by imposing high taxes, which caused the self-employment sector to be distorted. To change things, the government must change its mentality.”

Ramiro, an analyst, considers that the expansion of private work as more a political strategy to seduce the current White House administration than a project to involve private entrepreneurs in Cuba’s economic future. “Too many coincidences. Recently, the government informed the president of Colombia of alleged terrorist plans by the ELN (Army of National Liberation), most members of which reside in Cuba.

What is the real intention here? To distance themselves from the Colombian terrorists? The Cuban government will probably leave the ELN to its own devices, sacrifice it in its attempt to negotiate with Washington. But I am left wondering if the efficient Cuban intelligence services did not know in advance of the attack on a police cadet school in Bogotá in January 2019. It is clear that this move is a message to Biden: that Cuba is willing to negotiate on any topic. It would be necessary to see if they do not sacrifice a bigger piece, such as [Nicolás] Maduro [the contested president of Venezuela]”, the analyst emphasizes and adds:

“Internally, regime leaders know that the White House’s policy guidelines favor relations with the private sector and dissidents. They yield on the issue of the private sector, hence the bait is tossed to expand self-employment, so as to continue repressing the opposition. The government knows it is racing against the clock. The historical figures of the revolutionary process will cease being valid interlocutors within a couple of years, since they are already of retirement age and close to death. It is the new breed of leaders, in my opinion, which must draw up a functional economic policy and a consequent foreign policy. The White House knows this. And within Cuba some things are no longer the same. As a result of the ‘tarea ordenamiento‘* – a strategy about which the people were not consulted – discontent, controversy and criticism from the population have changed the correlation of forces,” and he concludes:

“More and more citizens and sectors are betting on dialogue, transparency and democracy. This segment of civil society is not even dissident – something that has caught the government – which is aiming its media cannons at the opposition – by surprise, being that it is a vast majority of Cubans who seek to dialogue with the regime about the future of Cuba. And not for the regime to negotiate on its own with the United States.

On February 9, a bipartisan resolution presented in the United States Senate by Democratic legislators Bob Menéndez, Richard Durbin and Ben Cardin, and Republican Marco Rubio, expressed solidarity with members of the San Isidro Movement and requested the Cuban authorities to initiate a dialogue process with independent artists. The text also demanded the release of rapper Denis Solís, the cessation of repression against Cuban artists and the immediate repeal of decrees 349 and 370 as well as the other laws and regulations that violate freedom of expression in Cuba.

Local political operatives will choose to negotiate directly with Washington, trying to avoid a national dialogue. They believe that it is possible to return to the honeymoon period that lasted between 2014 and 2016, when the flags of the stars and stripes waved on the balconies and old collective taxis. A rupture that provoked the dictatorship itself, especially after Obama’s historic speech in Havana.

The bulk of the measures approved by the White House at that time benefited the private sector and the Cuban people, not the military companies. But this time the game board is different. The Island is caught in an extensive economic and social crisis. And on Biden’s agenda, Cuba is not a priority.

*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.

Two Ways to Get Rid of CUCs in Cuba: Line Up at the Bank or Give Tips

Getting rid of the CUC is still very difficult. (Progreso Weekly)

Vice President Marino Murillo celebrated on the Roundtable TV program on State TV that Cubans have already disposed of half of the 600 or 700 million CUC that are expected to be put out of circulation between January 1 and June 30 of this year.

“We designed that the CUC was going to be alive for six months, that it would be changed at the bank and collected in a group of commercial entities. What is happening is that the information was not good and it did not say exactly where it is collected and where it is not, acknowledged the person in charge of the “Ordering Task,” which includes monetary unification and the disappearance of the convertible peso (CUC). “This lets people know exactly how fast they have to get rid of their CUCs.”

Murillo also warned that between now and the 180-day period expires, the number of establishments that accept CUC, all state-owned, could decrease. On January 12, the authorities had announced that a total of 500 businesses would accept the currency, including those of the Caracol chain, the Palmares Extra-hotel Company and the Artistic and Literary Promotions Agency (Artex), in addition to the Cimex and Caribbean chains. continue reading

However, there are numerous complaints from customers who go to these establishments and find that they reject chavitos (as CUCs are called informally), despite the fact that at the entrance there is still a sign that says “CUCs continue to be accepted in this place.”

Getting rid of the CUCs remains, in short, very difficult. Most of the private businesses and services no longer accept the currency which, until a few months ago, was the most precious of the two kinds of pesos that circulated in Cuba. Food service menus and offerings from the self-employed sector have been mostly updated and are now show prices only in CUP or directly in dollars, as the reference currency.

In these establishments, there is still a way to get rid of the convertible pesos. “I have been tipped more in recent weeks than in half a year,” jokes a pizza delivery man from home. He works with the Mandao courier service in the Cuban capital. “People want to get rid of the CUC coins and give them to me so that it is my problem.”

This “problem” is, fundamentally, the lines at the bank to change the CUC. These have not abated since the beginning of the year. Customers who are waiting to get Cuban pesos, are joined by those interested in opening an account in freely convertible currency (MLC) to be able to buy in foreign currency stores, and by those who seek to pay any paperwork or overdue debt with the National Tax Administration Office, as well as those who have come to the bank to collect a transfer from abroad.

“Where’s the end of the line?” repeats a customer outside a bank on Ayestarán Street, in Havana. “If you come to change CUC you have to stand in this line because the other is for those who come to do other operations,” warns another user who is waiting outside the branch.

“I have tried to pay with these chavitos but nobody accepts them, so today I am not leaving here until I can get rid of them,” says the customer who arrived more than three hours ago to exchange 25 CUC, in two bills, one with the image of a sculpture by Camilo Cienfuegos and the other with the equestrian statue of Antonio Maceo. Convertible pesos, unlike their cousins the Cuban pesos, do not have the faces of heroes but monuments.

“They never showed their faces,” jokes a young woman who also hopes to “liquidate the few” CUC that she has not been able to spend. “I kept two bills, the one for one peso and the other for three because I want to keep them to remember what they looked like,” she says. “It is not that I collect anything, it is that since I was born this was the money that was needed to buy what was really worthwhile and now it is not. It is like saying goodbye to a relative.”

____________

Cuba’s Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso and Me

Fidel Castro, Alpidio Alonso y Abel Prieto. (La Jiribilla)

14ymedio, Yamil Simón-Manso, Gaithersburg (Maryland) | 13 February 2021 — Cuban artists and intellectuals recently staged a protest in front of the Ministry of Culture. The diversity of writings on the Internet referring to the same thing renders any analysis redundant, and we Cubans are up to here in redundancies. In addition, I have not visited Cuba for a long time and although Gardel’s song repeats that “twenty years is nothing,” for me, twenty years is an eternity. In terms of human development, Cuba seems to be stranded where I left off in 1994, particularly in terms of a lack of tolerance for dissent and diversity, as evidenced by events following the protest and the involvement of the Minister of Culture. But I don’t particularly want to write about that either. That’s obvious. Instead, I want to tell a story; the anecdotal is always more interesting and revealing than any academic writing.

I met the current Minister of Culture of Cuba, Alpidio Alonso, during our pre-university studies. I should add, as an aside, that I always addressed him as Elpidio until someone from way out there, from La Dalia, Yaguajay, corrected my error. We ran into each other several times while at the Central University of Las Villas, and I saw him for the last time when he worked at the Mechanical Plant in Santa Clara. Although we are more or less the same age, while we were pre-university, I was one year ahead, and I assume that, with the nonsensical stuff of that age, and if no special motivation exists, one does not pay much attention to students of the lower grades, thus I don’t remember us having much interaction at that time. continue reading

He approached me smiling and the first thing he said was something like: “Sh.., how great to see you, you have no idea how much I admire you”

That is why I was surprised when one day, traveling on bus number 3 to the university, I ran into Alpidio. He approached me smiling and the first thing he said was something like: “Sh.., how nice to see you, you have no idea how much I admire you.” I have never believed myself to have special attributes or people skills, so I’m indifferent to this type of comment. However, I admit that his words moved me, they were fair and sincere. After all, it was a conversation between hicks, and in La Dalia, as well as in Punta Diamante, where I was born, the tradition was to speak the language without disguises, and to smile with the soul.

Why did Alpidio admire me at that time? I will try to be brief. It turns out that in the summer of 1980, in the pre where we were enrolled, an act of repudiation was organized against a student who was leaving school to be part of the Mariel Boatlift and against his father’s wishes, who came to pick him up. The director of the school summoned to his office groups of students responsible for the Federation of High School Students (FEEM), the Union of Young Communists (UJC) and various agitators, who were soon joined by almost the rest of the school, moved either by curiosity or simply being morbid. To leave the school and reach the road that connected the nearest municipalities you had to walk about two kilometers along a dusty embankment. This route became an unexpected and unimaginable Stations of the Cross that would last hours for that pair of defenseless beings.

Initially, the students only used shouts of “scum,” “traitors,” “pin, pon, fuera, down with the maggots.”

Soon, the verbal aggression turned into physical violence and they were thrown to the ground, dragged and beaten. Until that moment, I had been nothing more than a passive spectator accompanying the march, but then I began to feel uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. I jumped into the middle of that Roman circus and screamed out to Papito, the main instigator, with all my might. “This is a shame, whoever lays a finger on them again will have to answer to me.”

I do not have an intimidating physique at all, but I must have been very convincing, because the mood became more serene, although Papito later insisted on retaliating, wanting to strip the uniform off the boy and forcing him to stand on a concrete pile that The Coaxial Cable Company had abandoned and sing the National Anthem. I was also opposed to this, but they did it anyway.

Although I feel that I did the right thing at the time and I could even be proud of the way I reacted, the truth is that my attitude did not respond to heroic intentions, far from it. It was clearly an outrage, except for a blinded and debased mass. I treasured that experience and, although I never had too great an interest in a political career within the Cuban system, there is no doubt that this event would affect me enough to reject it when it was within my reach. It is not difficult for people with a modicum of dignity to choose between forced convenience and decency. That day on the bus I thanked Alpidio for remembering that sad event, because bad memories are plentiful in Cuba.

On that occasion, I asked him about his career as an electrical engineer and, with his feet on the desk and smiling, he replied: “I write poetry.” I asked him about induction furnaces and he told me: “What furnaces? Those have not been turned on since the days of Ñañá Seré”

The last time Alpidio and I met, it was by chance. Pedro Miret Prieto had visited the university bringing the trendy messianic plan, to produce stainless steel, and a group of university professors were sent to “explore” the Mechanical Plant. On that occasion, I asked him about his career as an electrical engineer and with his feet on the desk and smiling he replied: “I write poetry.” I asked him about induction furnaces and he told me: “What furnaces? Those have not been turned on since the days of Ñañá Seré” [the year of the flood].

He gave me the impression of being frustrated with his situation, but he was kind as always. The memory I have of Alpidio is that of someone intelligent, sensitive, as well as a decent person I liked. We said goodbye and I didn’t hear from him again until recently, when I found out that he is the Minister of Culture and the protagonist of certain events related to the protest, which makes him unrecognizable to me.

I do not intend to teach morality lessons or question anyone’s motivations for acting one way or another. We all know of the limitations Cuban leaders have to effect any change. All, without exception, have been trapped and survive immersed in (and to) serve a stupid, useless, foreign, extemporaneous and malevolent ideology that encourages them to repeat over and over again the sad events at Camarioca, El Mariel, Guantánamo and at the same time feel certain pride in the chaos.

My advice to the Cuban minister and leaders would be to reject that ideology that recently destroyed the richest country in Latin America in just fifteen years. Stop trafficking in “dead souls” and embrace the present so that our people can know and value it. An abyss has been created among Cubans, and the responsible party is that ideology which, more than a religion, is the result of a mental disorder. Reject it. All the Cuban people, from here, from there and from everywhere will be grateful.

Who am I to suggest such recommendations? Well, I could respond with some of the minister’s verses: I “drove a stake into the evil eye of The Giant, yet I’m still a Nobody.” I live happily somewhere in this world where I can freely separate folly from understanding, virtue from evil, but more importantly, I can separate fear from love.

This modest writing has no other claim than to make an appeal, from the site of the common citizen, to avoid violence, including the all-embracing State violence, exercised following the precepts of an ideology. There is nothing worse for a country than the attempt to shape intelligence from power. I clarify that I do not know Latin nor do I give a crap, but, for years I have preserved a phrase that sums up the intention of my message and that can still be read in the Rector’s Palace in the old city of Dubrovnik, former seat of the Government and Prince’s residence: Obliti privatorum publica curate. The approximate translation is: Forget the private and worry about the public. I believe that this exhortation, to be public servants and not sovereign handlers of power, fits the minister and the Cuban leaders very well.

Translated by Norma Whiting

____________

Hope Reborn for Cubans at Southern U.S. Border

Cuban migrants in Ciudad Juarez, after finally deciding to stay and work in Mexico. (EFE/Capture)

14ymedio, Lorey Saman, Mexico, 12 February 2021 — The announcement by Joe Biden’s administration to reopen the cases of asylum seekers who were sent back to Mexico, as of Feb. 19, has renewed hope for many Cubans who remain at the southern U.S. border in the expectation of being able to access an immigration court.

“In almost two years, it’s the only positive news we’ve had,” Luis Hechavarría, who is stuck in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, tells 14ymedio. “In the Trump era all the news was negative; all the executive orders that came out were to make the process difficult for us and to leave us here in Mexico, but now a new path is opening up for us.”

Hechavarría does not stop harboring some doubts and recalls that there is a lot of desperation among Cubans since last January. “They have wanted to force their way to U.S. soil and that’s no good. Violating the national security of a country like the United States is a serious crime and I don’t want to add federal charges against myself.” continue reading

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Thursday that it will reopen asylum cases as part of a program “to restore the safe and orderly processing” of immigrants who remain at the southern border under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) known as Permanezca en México, established through an agreement between Donald Trump and his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The DHS estimates that some 25,000 people have active cases, as is the case with Hechavarría, who has only been able to attend court once. “I have known people who have had to attend up to four times, it is unfortunate and very stressful this situation.”

“Many of these people prefer not to show up at the border again so as not to be deported,” he says. Many like him cannot afford legal counsel, nor do they have sufficient knowledge to defend their cases. Hiring an immigration lawyer, he says, costs between $6,000 and $8,000 and “that service does not guarantee you a favorable resolution.”

Since the pandemic arrived in the United States, the courts have suspended their hearings on several occasions. “They haven’t worked for months and the new administration suspended them altogether.”

Faced with this panorama and the uncertainty of being deported to the Island, some Cubans along the border have decided not to appear before an immigration judge and have opted to apply for residency in Mexico, says the man, who is originally from Holguín (Cuba).

The violence and social insecurity on the Mexican side keeps Hechavarría on alert because of the large number of murders, but he admits that the people have been very welcoming to the Cubans. “We behave well and just work. If we were misbehaving there would be more deaths, but since I’ve been here I’ve only heard of two murders in our community.”

Hechavarria, who has been working in a restaurant for a year and a half, left Cuba for Guyana in 2018. “I have a daughter and I saw myself at 27 years old and with nothing in my hands, with no future to give her. In me, the pain of that last hug and that last kiss always remains,” he says. “But well, you know, one must be made of stone.”

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

____________

After a Two-Hour ‘Blackout’ in Cuba, Internet and Mobile Data Return

The last blackouts like this were in August 2019. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 12 February 2021 — Cuba was cut off from the world for two hours by an internet blackout. Telephone communications were also affected in the capital and in all areas of the country.

The 14ymedio correspondent in Spain lost contact with the Havana Newsroom shortly after 12 noon but was able to establish communication with a number in Cienfuegos, although it was very interrupted.

In addition, no official websites could be opened, from the Granma newspaper to the pages of the ministries, through all the provincial media, as well as social networks and messaging services.

“The internet went down in Cuba, I can’t communicate either by WhatsApp or by Telegram with anyone in my family,” said a Cuban resident in Ecuador. “It does not load Ecured or other .cu pages that I have tried to open from here, I even sent an SMS to my mother’s phone and the Ecuadorian operator has not confirmed that it reached her.” continue reading

“I have sent messages through various applications to my family without receiving responses for more than an hour,” confirmed another Cuban who lives in Spain.

The causes of the blackout are unknown, and, for now, the Cuban Telecommunications Company (Etecsa) has not reported any breakdown. “We had a technical interruption in voice and SMS services, as well as Internet access, they are restored. We apologize for the inconvenience caused,” the company limited itself to tweeting almost an hour after the internet returned.

It is known that, after two hours, the connection was still intermittent and that the problem extended to sending text messages (sms), calls between mobiles and communications abroad from landlines. “The number 118, for Services and Repairs of Etecsa, did not work either,” a woman in Havana tells this newspaper after the service was restored.

“On the 1 pm newscast, almost at the end of the broadcast, they gave brief information that there were technical problems with the internet connection,” says the same source. “They transmitted that information just after giving a very triumphant news report where it was stated how well the Transfermóvil service was working to pay for some services, from cell phones that have data.”

Among the services affected were also sales in stores in freely convertible currencies (MLC), due to not being able to access the network that checks cards in national and foreign currencies.

Internet outages are frequent on the island, as is the blocking of some pages, such as 14ymedio, which the Government finds ’uncomfortable’, and of some services such as Telegram. However, a network crash of this nature and extent is unprecedented.

Cuba, which for years was one of the most disconnected countries in the world, began in 2015 a gradual expansion of internet use, which until then remained forbidden to the majority of the population.

At the end of 2018, the mobile data service arrived, which has triggered access to the network in the country. According to a report from the Ministry of Communications, currently 7 million Cubans access the internet through different channels, 4.2 million of them through mobile data.

____________

Ceballos, One of the ‘Crown Jewels’ of the Cuban State, Registers Losses

Ceballos’ flagship products have been in high popular demand for years, especially its tomato sauces and canned sweets. (Ceballos Company)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 February 2021 — The Ceballos Agroindustrial Company, from Ciego de Ávila, one of the few jewels in the crown of the Cuban State, ended the first month of 2021 in the red. It was not planned: as the official newspaper Invasor notes, Vice President Marino Murillo, architect of the “Ordering Task,” had insisted that Ceballos would not be among the 426 entities that could end up with losses this year.

With the start of the new economic measures, the company went from the most demanded to the most reviled, when buyers observed that the prices of its products had quadrupled.

The entity did not put new products on sale until the third week of January due to lack of packaging, according to Invasor, but the rest of the month, no profits were generated, so the 5,000 workers of the company received only the basic salary. continue reading

Claudio Enrique Delgado Montes, director of Human Capital of Ceballos, told the local newspaper that with the salary reform of the Task Ordering, the salary increase was double, when the national average was 4.9, through having implemented piece-rate pay. “Therefore, our company’s increase wages must come hand in hand with profits, which is what is uncertain today.”

The problem, says the official newspaper without mincing words, “is precisely that the real cost of things conflicts with the express decision not to apply shock therapy and protect people’s purchasing power,” because “if it is important not to affect to the consumer, it is also important to maintain profitability.”

A reader responds to this in a comment: “Obviously, either the rules of the game change or the industry is bankrupt. If there is business autonomy, there can be no price limits against the logic of costs.”

Ceballos’ flagship products have been in high popular demand for years, especially its tomato sauces, canned sweets and other foods that are sold in various sizes of cans, including large ones. But, the opinions about the state company’s product line are not unanimous.

“I don’t buy their tomato puree because it is not good, they mix it with carrots and sometimes with beets to stretch it and the final flavor is not tasty. I think there is little left of the Ceballos industry of a few years ago, because the quality has fallen through the floor,” comments a customer, who frequently buys these canned foods through the market of the Youth Labor Army on Tulipán Street in Havana, speaking to this newspaper.

In the Cuban capital, the price of a can of tomato paste produced by the company has risen to more than 300 pesos, triple what the product cost last year before the monetary unification and price adjustments. Due to the new prices, the product is now piling up on store shelves without much demand.

The news of the the agro-industrial complex’s losses was published the same day that the governor Miguel Díaz-Canel insisted that “the business system of the Food Industry needs a shake-up, to take advantage of the 43 measures to strengthen the socialist state enterprise and get the most out of the ’Ordering Task’.”

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

____________

A Vacation in Cuba Without Leaving Your Room Can Cost Up To $600

Hotel Meliá Habana, one of the six establishments that offer “confinement packages” in the capital. (EFE / Ernesto Mastrascusa)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 13 February 2021 — Enjoying five nights and six days in a hotel in Cuba is now more than ever within the reach of any international traveler, with packages ranging from 250 to 600 dollars. With one problem: the guest cannot leave the room.

These “confinement packages” include airport transfers and accommodation with full board in establishments of between three and five stars, in addition to medical attention and the number of PCR tests necessary so that the client can be released on the sixth day if the Covid-19 infection is ruled out. It is the island’s response to the collapse of tourism due to the pandemic.

Since the middle of last January, the island has suffered a harsh second wave of infections: it has not dropped below 500 daily positives and on some days it has touched a thousand. continue reading

Six hotels in Havana (Vedado, Parque Central, Capri, Tulipán, Meliá Habana and Comodoro), one in Varadero (Starfish Las Palmas) and six more in other provinces (Granjita and Los Caneyes in Santa Clara, Sol Cayo Coco in Ciego de Ávila, Plaza in Camagüey, Mirador de Mayabe in Holguín and Versalles in Santiago de Cuba) have hosted clients of various nationalities who have contracted this offer since last weekend.

To contain contagions, which in this second wave were attributed mainly to travelers from abroad, everyone who arrives in the country is obliged to undergo isolation until they have had rwo negative PCR tests at least five days apart.

There are two isolation options: the free one, which is to spend at least a week in state institutions in places such as campsites and student residences, and the paid one, with one of the new packages that can be purchased online at the traveler’s origin or directly at airport arrivals.

There are two isolation options: the free one, which is to spend at least a week in state institutions in places such as campsites and student residences, and the paid one, with one of the new packages that can be purchased online at origin or directly in the room of airport arrivals.

Cubans and residents on the island can choose between both options, but foreigners who arrive as tourists or for other purposes do not have the option of going to a state center and must spend the isolation period in a hotel.

“We are promoting it through social the networks so that the client comes with the purchased package,” declared the marketing director of the state agency Havanatur, Isabel Docampo, in a meeting with Efe and other international media in Havana to explain the new initiative.

So far, most of the hundreds of travelers who have purchased one of the “confinement packages” are Cubans residing in other countries, mainly in the United States, who return to visit their relatives, according to Docampo.

There are also Cubans who return from personal or work trips, as is the case of Madeline Hernández, who this week arrived from the Dominican Republic with her family and is staying at the four-star Comodoro hotel in Havana.

“I travel for work and my company pays for the package for us, so we don’t have to go to an isolation center, where the conditions are different,” this 49-year-old woman, who works for a foreign company , explains from the balcony of her bungalow in the Cuban capital.

Although Cubans currently occupy the vast majority of hotel rooms reserved for travelers in isolation, in Havanatur they believe that their offers could also be attractive to European, Asian or American tourists who want to escape the cold and the harsh restrictions imposed in their respective countries.

“The tourist who arrives and buys the package spends those five nights and six days in isolation and, if they are negative, they can continue making a tour around the country or continue doing the program they came to do here,” says the representative of Havanatur.

Some hotels, such as the Comodoro or the neighboring Meliá Habana (five stars), never closed due to the pandemic and now house travelers in isolation, so they have had to adapt part of their facilities to the strict hygiene and security that these types of guests require.

Marino Elorza, general director of Meliá Habana, explains the basic rules to avoid contagion: “Physical barriers, such as screens and gloves on workers, maximum observance of all processes set by Public Health and continuous communication with our team of doctors within of the hotel.”

These doctors visit each guest in isolation twice a day to check their health and take their temperature.

“I always tell customers: now here the boss in the hotel is the white coat, the doctors are, because the priority is that we all take care of ourselves,” says the director of this hotel, which reserves 90 rooms for travelers in isolation, currently 22 of which are occupied.

____________

Cuban Exiles and Opponents Ask Biden for Democratic Changes Without Concessions

Rosa María Payá, from *Cuba Decides* said that they are in favor of “direct” remittances without the intervention of the Cuban government. (EFE / Giorgio Viera)

EFE/14ymedio, Miami, 12 February 2021 — On Friday, Cuban exiles and opposition groups in Cuba urged United States president Joe Biden and the US Congress that the review of the policy towards Cuba should be based on democratic change without “unilateral concessions” to the government of President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

For several weeks, Cubans “committed to democracy” drew up a plan with 162 proposals that they sent this Friday to the White House, the State Department, and Congress, according to Rosa María Payá, from Cuba Decides, speaking to Efe.

The activist also rejected “aggressive” requests made by the Cuban government and other actors on the Island to the new US Administration of Democrat Biden. continue reading

Payá expressly rejected the removal of sanctions against the financial corporation Fincimex, linked to the Armed Forces

Among them the recent one by a group of Cubans and Americans, such as Alan Gross, who asked Biden to resume the rapprochement with Cuba promoted by President Barack Obama (2009-2017) and to withdraw the sanctions on Cuba toughened by his successor, Republican Donald Trump.

Gross was released in 2014 after five years in prison in Cuba for bringing telecommunications equipment into the country.

Payá expressly rejected the removal of sanctions against the financial corporation Fincimex, which is linked to Cuba’s Armed Forces and handles remittances received from the United States.

She added that they are in favor of “direct” remittances, without the intervention of the Cuban government.

Payá stressed that “it is only up to Cubans to define and decide the destiny of our nation.”

For Cubans who contributed ideas, among them the Ladies in White, the Cuban Republican Party and many other civil groups, the new policy towards Cuba “must be in support of democracy and free and plural elections, without making unilateral concessions, but conditional on irreversible steps towards the recognition of human rights.”

With Biden’s arrival at the White House, politicians and groups of Cuban exiles have asked him not to repeat the mistakes made by the last two administrations, including that of President Obama, which promoted rapprochement with Cuba and in whose administration Biden served as Vice-President.

With Biden’s arrival at the White House, politicians and groups of Cuban exiles have asked him not to repeat the mistakes made by the last two administrations

The proposals were published this Friday by the Pasos de Cambio [Steps of Change] platform, which include the impressions of Cuban opposition organizations and civil society, as well as citizens living on the Island and in the diaspora.

They all agree that “any eventual negotiation process involving the current Cuban regime must recognize the members of the opposition and civil society as interlocutors.”

They point out that, to this end, the regime must first comply with the unconditional release of all political prisoners in Cuba and end all violence and repression.

Similarly, organizations such as the National Human Rights Foundation and the Opposition Movement for a New Republic, urge respect for fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, association and public demonstration.

To this end, they asked the Biden Administration to “publicly express the will to authorize and promote humanitarian aid from the American people to Cuban citizens and its civil society, preventing the intervention of or benefit to the regime.”

They asked the Biden Administration to “publicly express the will to authorize and promote humanitarian aid from the American people to Cuban citizens and its civil society

They also insisted on political, financial, diplomatic and judicial sanctions against collaborators and those responsible for repression and for policies of human rights violations.

They suggested considering the use of the Global Magnitsky Law on Human Rights Responsibility, aimed at imposing political and economic sanctions against agents involved in serious abuses.

The proposals include calling on the international community, including the countries in the Americas and multinational organizations (OAS, UN, European Union), to show their solidarity with the Cuban people and “their right to decide democratic change.”

On the other hand, State Department spokesman, Ned Price, said this Friday at a press conference that the US Government’s policy towards Cuba will be guided by respect for human rights and the empowerment of the Cuban people “so that they can determine their future.”

Price reiterated the Biden Administration position by emphasizing that “Americans, and especially Cuban-Americans are the best ambassadors of freedom and prosperity in Cuba.”

Translated by Norma Whiting

____________

Creators of Independent Cinema Are Not Self-Employed, Insists Cuban Film Industry

Juan Carlos Cremata, from the G20 collective that demanded a law for independent cinema, during the meeting with a T-shirt that says “censored”. (Luz Escobar / 14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 February 2021 — The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic) published a note this Thursday in which it specifies that audiovisual production is not an activity for the self-employed , although it appears on the list of jobs not allowed for the private sector officially announced this week.

According to the agency, this activity is governed by Decree-Law 373 in which independent production that does not comply with the Government’s provisions was explicitly prohibited. The audiovisual creators who do not work for the state, says Icaic, are not self-employed but artists.

The Decree-Law, which develops the activity, does recognize three activities that, without being artistic, are essential for the development of an audiovisual project. These are the occupations of operator and/or lessor of equipment for artistic production, casting agent, and artistic production assistant. In these cases, all three can be performed by the self-employed. continue reading

Icaic clarifies that the fact of considering cultural creation as an artistic and non-self-employed activity was the result of a “broad debate” with professionals in the sector and it was thus agreed to emphasize the creative nature of the profession.

In June 2019, the Government gave the green light to Decree-Law 373, which regulates the work of audiovisual creators not linked to the state sector. At that time, the professionals were very satisfied with the fact that they had managed to wrest this legislation from the Government, for which they spent several years fighting, but the disappointment set in as soon as they read its content.

To become an audiovisual and cinematographic creator, the applicant must be registered in a registry that depends directly on the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industries (Icaic) and the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT). Both institutions make up the admission committee responsible for approving and evaluating applications.

The text makes explicit that the candidate must demonstrate having the conditions, abilities and skills required by the committee, which, de facto, implies passing through an ideological filter of the arbitrary State and that prevents any critic of the regime from having access to develop their work in an independent way.

____________

Cuba’s Private Sector Workers Seek Government Jobs to Get Them Through the Crisis

According to official figures, job listings in the private sector are approaching 35% of the total listings. Sign Text: Area for Self-Employed Workers.(EFE/ Ernesto Mastrascusa)

14ymedio, Havana, February 9, 2021 — “Are you calling about work in the public sector?” asks a voice on the other end of the phone at one of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security’s employment offices in Havana’s Cotorro district. “You have to bring your I.D. to look at the job openings we have,” explains the employee.

She is talking to a young man who graduated three years ago in accounting. He had been working for only a few months at a privately owned business. The opening that best fits his profile is with the Pasture and Forage Research Institute, far from his place of residence, which does not appeal to him.

“I called because they told me the job included transportation but the salary was less than I wanted. What they were going to pay me would only have covered some groceries, the electricity and a few other small things. The problem was I would have had to be there for eight hours a day, Monday to Friday, without time to find something else on the side to make ends meet,” he explains. “I’ll keep looking.” continue reading

The young accountant is one of 92,651 Cubans who have sought employment since new salaries were announced following monetary unification. So far, however, only 52% have accepted available job offers.

As a result of the national economic crisis, monetary unification and a long shutdown of the private sector, even formerly undesirable positions in the public sector are starting to look more attractive, though prejudices against working for the state remain. In interviews with 14ymedio at least a dozen people said they were “looking for something in the short term, without a long-term commitment.”

“I want a job so that I’m not stuck at home with nothing to do, making no money, but only until the paladar (private restaurant) where I worked as a waiter reopens. Once I can go back to working for a private business, you won’t see me at a state job anymore,” admits Mauricio, a young man who until a few months ago was waiting tables at a privately owned restaurant on Infanta Street.

“In a private sector job I work more but I feel better. The salary is one thing I notice on a day-to-day basis, in things I can buy and pleasures I can afford. Plus, there are no trade union meetings or murals,” he points out. “But something is better than nothing, so for now I’ll have to take some state job, though I haven’t liked any of the listings I’ve seen so far.”

A position as a night watchman or custodian at a Havana clinic pays a 2,200 pesos a month and requires a ninth-grade education. The difficult job of railroad repairman pays 2,960 while that of a driver for the Havana port facilities pays 2,540. Most of the available jobs require a great amount of physical effort, are in blue collar fields and, as such, are more suited to people who are young and in good health. But there are also listings in banking, auditing and design.

Employment listings vary by search area. For example, Plaza of the Revolution, with its high concentration of government ministries, has few listings, with most being clerical or service related. Guanabacoa only has listings for truck drivers, mechanics and crane operators. Meanwhile, in Central Havana there are at least three listings for tobacconists at salaries ranging from 2,660 to 2,810 pesos a month.

According to a recent report by academic Carmelo Mesa-Lago, given the choice between closing money-losing state companies or doing “fictitious monetary reform,” Cuban authorities opted for the latter and have decreed “a transition period of one year, during which time companies operating at a loss will continue to be subsidized in order to adjust to the new conditions, avoid unemployment and guarantee the production of essential goods.”

“We’ve been told to hire more people,” explains an employee of Cuba Petróleo (Cupet), “but all we have are positions for which there is very little interest, such as for instructors in our training center. We don’t have anything at gas stations. Some of our staff are working remotely or getting paid without really doing much of anything. How are we going to hire more people under these conditions?”

Between the months of April and October last year some 150,000 workers were unemployed due to business shutdowns resulting from Covid-19, though they continued collecting their salaries. Some 250,000 freelancers and private sector businesspeople also suspended their licenses. That is a total of 400,000 workers, 8.7% of the active workforce.

Despite official figures which predict there will be 32,000 new job openings this year, with at least 22,000 in the public sector, voices like those of Mesa-Lago predict a more uncertain outlook in which “total unemployment could exceed 30%.” It is possible, however, that “if self-employment is allowed to expand without obstacles or excessive taxes, it could absorb state unemployment.”

It is a complicated task given that Covid-19 has been especially damaging to this sector. The economist Pedro Monreal warned on Twitter that although “there is insufficient date, available information suggests that the self-employed labor market has been the segment most strongly impacted by the economic crisis linked to the pandemic.”

Monreal explains that the the negative impact is being caused by “the relatively high dependence of private sector employment on tourism… hindering the recovery of private [economic] activity.” And indications are that the number of foreign visitors to the island is not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon.

To facilitate the search for employment, the government has launched a mobile app, TrabajarEnCuba, with listings in both the private and public sectors. However, problems such as sudden crashes, security alerts on the Android operating system indicating it has not been validated for the Google Play store and a scarcity of listings for private sector jobs have caused many users to give up on it.

“I downloaded it and it worked for two days, but not after that,” noted a commentator on an official site that promoted TrabajarEnCuba. “I found out about a job but when I went went to see the human resources manager, I was told me that they weren’t hiring for that position,” complains another by the name of Lázaro. Although 14ymedio has not found any job openings at privately owned companies in the Havana municipalities of Plaza, Central Havana or Old Havana, official data indicate that up to 35% of the positions being offered are in the private sector, 17% of which are in cooperatives.

Other workers have, nevertheless, managed to find employment opportunities in spite of the app’s technical problems. “I was interested in a bank supervisor’s position at the Focsa Building, which is close to my house,” says Maylin. “If they accept me, it will be the first time in fifteen years that I have worked for the state. I used to be a housewife and, until not long ago, a self-employed hair stylist.”

This Havana resident’s plan is “to keep working until things get back to normal and then reopen the hair salon.” For now, however, she says that “it’s better to work for the state than not because no one knows how long this will last.”

____________

Prohibiting to Prohibit

More than half of the homes built in Cuba, between January and October 2020, were built by individuals; private architects remain expressly prohibited. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 11 February 2021 — The house is flat and ugly, with a makeshift structure because of the haste. To build it, its inhabitants could not hire a private architect, nor would they be able to in the future. The list of self-employed occupations prohibited in Cuba not only includes those professionals, but also journalists, film producers, lawyers, undertakers, scientific researchers, and vehicle manufacturers.

The list of private activities banned on the island was finally published this Wednesday and its content managed to exceed the most pessimistic forecasts. Not only does it expressly prohibit work that until now was done in the field of illegality, such as the management of private galleries or accounting, but it also strictly sets the limits that the State does not want private initiative to cross. It is, in short, a list of the fears of a political system that seeks to continue to control the main spaces of the lives of its citizens.

This list is proof of the backward mentality that governs decision-makers on this Island. They continue to think that they can prevent a musician from building a small recording studio in their bathroom to produce their records and those of other colleagues; they believe they will be able to prevent someone from taking wheels and casings to build vehicles; or to keep legal counsel from a defendant. They fantasize that they will be able to clip the wings of someone who lays out a book of poems, or who twists tobacco to sell on their own. continue reading

The list with these 124 banned occupations also reveals the arrogance that imbues those who wrote it, so much an arrogance that it is difficult to connect the image with that of an economically bankrupt regime with huge international debts, a chronic crisis of shortages, without the capacity to create wealth or to satisfy the demand for basic products. It is worded as if a great number of avenues to generate employment, prosperity and development could be allowed to be discarded, when they have brought the country to beggary and the brink of humanitarian crisis.

This is not a list made from an economic point of view, nor even a legal one: it is made from the desire to control. Perhaps the section where the ideological inspiration is shown most crudely, is the one entitled “artistic, entertainment and recreational activities.” The first condemned activity on the list is journalism, that thorn that for years has put into check the state monopoly on news dissemination, exposing innumerable events that the regime would want swept under the carpet and exposing the servitude of the press controlled by the Communist Party.

What can be expected from such a list? A dead letter or strict application? Witch-hunting against many economic phenomena that had been spreading under the shadow of illegality? A repressive slap that buries all those privately-run spaces now banned? Difficult to foresee what will happen. By now, it is clear that they have succeeded in uniting in outrage the film producer, the freelance reporter, the engineer and the frustrated architect who sees cities full of botched roofs and flimsy walls. They have just confirmed more than a hundred trades as enemies.

____________

Angel Santiesteban’s Personal War

Santiesteban makes film scripts, practices journalism and is very active in the Freemasons. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana | 7 February 2021 — Ángel Santiesteban Prats (1966, Havana) is perhaps the living Cuban writer, residing in Cuba, who has had the most problems with the political police. He is also one of those who has garnered the most recognition for his literary work. He writes film scripts, practices journalism and is intensely active in the Masons. He doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t drink alcohol or coffee, he doesn’t speak ill of anyone and he spends the day working.

Reinaldo Escobar. In August of last year, you received the 2020 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissidence. You had already finished the script for the film Plantados and had turned the script into a novel. What has happened since then?

Ángel Santiesteban. When I was awarded the prize, the film was already finished, but could not be released in 2020 as planned due to the COVID-19 misfortune, as Lilo Vilaplana says, the director of the film “the year of broken dreams.” The jury considered that I would find myself in trouble with the regime for having participated in the writing of the script. Anyway, within a dictatorship, if you don’t wave official flags, you always have problems. continue reading

Reinaldo Escobar. Is this the first time that you have taken a film script to the novel genre?

Ángel Santiesteban. It is the second novel that I wrote after making the script; a process that is commonly done in reverse, but I have always had a knack for seeing the scenes and describing them. All my literature is a movie that I describe. In my mind, I make up the scene, see the characters do everything and see all that surrounds them. They are actors and actresses on stage in my mind.

We have worked on Cuba’s social and political problems associated with the dictatorship that has oppressed us for the last 61 years

Reinaldo Escobar. And what’s on your desk now?

Ángel Santiesteban. Once the film Plantados was finished, and during this whole wait to show it, I completed another script at the request of Lilo Vilaplana about the events of the Tugboat 13 de Marzo [March 13^th]in 1994, that vile murderous act that was forged against innocent victims.

In both scripts, we have worked on Cuba’s social and political problems associated with the dictatorship that has oppressed us for the last 61 years.

Next March, the movie Plantados will be released in theaters in Miami. Let’s hope for the much-needed reception to excite the producers so we can continue to make a denouncement film, a film that tells the truth about Cuba. All on the basis of art, that is our first demand. Lilo and I have tried to do it in the best possible way, from our artistic resources.

Reinaldo Escobar. Does the novel Plantados have a publication proposal, and if so, where and by when?

Ángel Santiesteban. Lilo was approached by an important publishing house and he proposed to publish a novel. He knew that I was at a creative moment, and he told them that I would let him know, but I have let it rest, other urgent creations have emerged simultaneously, such as the script for the 13 de Marzo and a novel that I had started writing before, which is very advanced and I need to finish so as not to drag out truncated projects.

I hope to return to the Plantados novel which I finally titled “La Ciudad Desnuda” [The Naked City] because that’s what they called the part where the semi-naked planted prisoners lived together, refusing to wear the common prisoners’ uniform.

Reinaldo Escobar. What other scripts are you working on?

Ángel Santiesteban. After finishing 13 de Marzo, we have made another one about the current Cuban reality, and, in addition to a couple of stories for medium-length films, we are now working on a kidnapping that the former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, ordered some criminals in Colombia to carry out. The Colombians later revealed the whole plot, and those involved who have been able to be brought to justice have already been convicted, except for Correa, who is in Europe, in a country without an extradition agreement with Ecuador.

At this moment there is another proposal for a budgeted script, which is very important because filming is assured.

After finishing the script about the events of Tugboat 13 de Marzo in 1994, we have made another one about the current Cuban reality

Reinaldo Escobar. Parallel to your activity as a writer, you have an important presence in Freemasonry. How have you evolved in that fraternity?

Ángel Santiesteban. It is a passion for the family tradition that I inherited from my mother. Since I was a teenager, I was busy looking for literature about the Masons; José Martí and most of the heroes of the independence were Masons. I started in Freemasonry at the allowed age: 21. Since then, it has had a fundamental place in my life. It has been a school contributing to my formation as a human being, as an artist and as a Cuban.

The Masonic fraternity is a family that occupies us, and that brings a lot of personal satisfaction. I was presented at my lodge “Knights of the Sun” in 1987, and since then I have ascended the steps to become Venerable Master of my lodge on two occasions, I have been Grand Dean of the Meritorious Association of Veteran Masons for two periods too, where I have been able to represent those who have been in the fraternity the longest and have sacrificed the most, and that fills me with great pride to know them as extraordinary people. And it is to such an extent that in 2012 I was serving my first term as Grand Dean and the political police waited to incarcerate me until I handed over the position in January 2013, in February of that same year. They knew that it was very strong and that Masons could be hurt and start a confrontation.

I am the Representative of my lodge before the Masonic High Chamber and the Spiritual Father of my lodge, and perhaps the outside world may not know the meaning and importance of these positions, but Masons do.

On the other hand, I hold the effective 33^rd degree, which decides the fate of Scottish Freemasonry. It occupies a lot of my time, but it has been a life vocation, an emotion that in these 34 years of permanence, remains like the first day.

Reinaldo Escobar. Why did you abandon your blog Los hijos que nadie quiso [The Children Nobody Wanted] (The last post is from October 2017)?

Ángel Santiesteban. Because when I started the blog in 2008, it was the most sensational thing I had found up to that point. I was never able to access it from Cuba, because they had it blocked. Other friends managed it from overseas. After producing my writings and sneaking them out of prison while managing to evade the guards – I wrote them by hand – they digitized it and sent it abroad to be uploaded to the blog.

I always remember the blog fondly because it gave me the visibility I needed to face the injustices of the dictatorship

Reinaldo Escobar. Was it then that you started independent journalism?

Ángel Santiesteban. After I got out of jail, I started to collaborate with Cubanet and no longer posted my writings on the blog. Until I had direct access to the internet, and since then, I have been working on Facebook, which I take on as a fighting tool. I interact directly and with immediacy, so now it seems more effective than the blog. For the last three years, literary work and scripts have consumed me, so I had to stop working for Cubanet. But I always remember the blog fondly because it gave me the visibility I needed to face the injustices of the dictatorship.

Reinaldo Escobar. How do the political police treat you now since you have been released from prison?

Ángel Santiesteban. Once they released me in 2015, they tried to re-imprison me for the same alleged crime, even accused by the same person, who continued to lend herself to such infamy – though today she has asked me to forgive her by admitting that it was a truncated passion, something that was spoiled and she did not want to understand at the time – then came the kidnappings by the political police, the threats, all that tension with which we have had to learn to live.

Reinaldo Escobar. You have said that in prison you acquired conditions that affect your health. Can you give details?

Ángel Santiesteban. Upon my release from prison, I took care of having surgery on lipomas I had detected since my confinement. They had appeared on my body and grew incessantly. I noticed them because the same political police always insisted about the state of my health until they exhorted me, with marked intention, for me to examine my body. I did it once and found those bumps that grew incessantly.

My departure was complicated. On one occasion they sliced a lipoma open and closed it again without touching it, which was a very bad sign. I began to think that perhaps I was reaching my end, and it did not occur to me to do it in any other way than to continue striving to work harder and better.

I am proud to have accompanied them on 27N. I stayed with them until the last moment to run their luck

Reinaldo Escobar. A new wave of young artists has assumed a very critical position against the regime. How does that affect you?

Ángel Santiesteban. I am proud to have accompanied them on 27N. I stayed with them until the last moment to run their luck. A Mason brother invited me to join the group, I thanked him, but I explained that they were not contaminated like me, that this was their moment and their space, that I was there to support them. He was there because at that time he thought that the more people in the crowd, the fewer blows per person.

It is the first step backwards that I have seen the dictatorship take, of the many that it will have to continue taking in the nearest future. Many communicated with me and cried, they believed it was the end. When I saw them go inside the Ministry of Culture and that the political police did not repress that, I thought we were also close. But I soon understood that they were buying time, that they knew that allowing repressors to enter the ministry could cost lives, and that the next day there would be thousands. They understood that they were in the most dangerous moment of the “revolution,” and I think they came out in the most intelligent way. They were deceived.

Reinaldo Escobar. Despite everything you have suffered, you remain in Cuba. Is it an irrevocable decision?

Ángel Santiesteban. I maintain a personal war with the regime. It has never occurred to me to leave Cuba and I don’t think I will at this point, unless the dictatorship falls and I am absent for a long time to share with my wandering family around the world, like many, and take care, as I should, of my literature.

Translated by Norma Whiting

____________

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: