English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Luis Zúñiga, Miami, 5 February 2022 — On June 5, 1960, Fidel Castro ordered the nationalization of the Texaco company’s oil refinery in Cuba. The following month, on July 5, he ordered the seizure of the two remaining US refineries, Shell and Esso. Castro let the owners know that there would be no monetary … Continue reading “The True History of the United States Trade Embargo on Cuba”
14ymedio, Madrid, 31 January 2022 — The Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba has proposed to the European Parliament that it award the 2022 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Expression to José Daniel Ferrer, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Félix Navarro Rodríguez as representatives of the July 11th Demonstrators from the spheres of politics, culture … Continue reading “Petition to the European Parliament to give the Sakharov Prize to the Cubans of 11J”
14ymedio, Frank Calzón, Miami, 18 November 2021 — The imponderables make historical predictions difficult, but from the moment, in April 1961, when Fidel Castro proclaimed the Marxist-Leninist character of his revolution, the collapse of the regime began. The collapse may still be delayed, but it is inevitable, as it was in racist South Africa, Pinochet’s … Continue reading “The Imponderables of History, Fidel Castro and Diaz-Canel”
14ymedio, Havana | 2 Septiembre 2021 — The writer Mario Vargas Llosa on Wednesday added his signature to a petition on Charge.org for the freedom of Cubans, particularly those detained after the massive protests on July 11. The initiative, published by the writer Enrique del Risco as “SOS Cuba,” is a letter addressed to Miguel Díaz-Canel in … Continue reading “Mario Vargas Llosa Signs a Petition for the Release of the July 11th Detainees in Cuba”
14ymedio, Havana 29 July 2021 — Tons of aid that partner nations are sending to the island will be distributed to Cuban families starting Friday. The process will begin in Havana, epicenter of the July 11 protests. It will continue in other provinces with large populations and where demonstrations were significant — Matanzas, Ciego de … Continue reading “To Calm Cubans, Discontent, Distribution of International Aid Donations to Begin Tomorrow”
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, 4 October 2020 To my friend, the writer Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo I don’t like Trump, first of all, because I don’t like his character as an arrogant and oppressive person (a bully) who lies or exaggerates. “Trumpologists” estimate that he has said more than twenty thousand lies, deformations of reality … Continue reading “Why I Don’t Like Donald Trump”
Abel Sierra Madero, Hypermedia Magazine, 15 May 2020 — Yuri Brokhin, a Soviet filmmaker who defected in 1972 and settled in the United States, described his experience trying to purchase a Volga automobile in the late 1960s. In all of Voroshilovgrad, Ukraine, there were only twelve of these cars available for sale to the public, … Continue reading “From the Gulag to the UMAP: Official History and the Control of Memory”
14ymedio, Havana, 4 June 2020 — The flight announced organized by Russia, by which Cubans stranded in the country could return to the Island, arrived in Havana last night, but only 23 of the 83 passengers who got off at José Martí International Airport were trapped tourists. The bulk of the group was made up … Continue reading “The Majority of Cubans Trapped in Moscow Can’t Return Home Because of the Cost of the Ticket”
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 12 February 2020 — Cuba will continue to build hotels as a long-term strategy despite the decline in tourism. The Minister of Tourism, Juan Carlos García, answered the question that many ask themselves, one that, without a doubt, he wanted to answer, since it was asked this Tuesday during his appearance on the … Continue reading “Cuba Justifies Construction of More Hotel Rooms as a Long-Term Tourism Strategy”
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 7 October 2019 — The owner of a spacious restaurant in Vedado walks around the premises carrying a fan to place it near a table where some customers are sweating buckets. “I am very sorry but they have put me a fixed quota of electricity and I can barely turn on … Continue reading “Blackouts for Cuba’s Private Restaurants But Not for State Hotels”
14ymedio, Havana, July 24, 2019 — Russia isn’t waiting time. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s tour through Latin America, which began this Tuesday with his arrival in Havana, sent the clear message that the old ally maintains with the Island a “deep agreement on the international agenda,” said the Minister of Foreign Relations, Bruno Rodríguez, during a … Continue reading “Lavrov Closes Ranks with Havana and "With the Cuban Leaders"”
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 17 February 2019 — The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (that is, Raúl Castro) is very concerned. It has published in Granma, the Party’s newspaper, a Declaration of the Revolutionary Government with the objective of “stopping the imperialist military adventure against Venezuela.” [Link to Spanish text.] Cuban political operatives based in Venezuela … Continue reading “The Venezuelan Panorama Seen From Cuba”
14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, West Palm Beach | 20 December 2018 –Health professionals were not the first to suffer a slavery system organized by the Cuban government itself. Long before, and without the media noise caused by the controversial departure of Mais Médicos from Brazil, sailors have been the invisible victims of the same abuses on … Continue reading “Seamen, Invisible Victims of the Cuban State”
Miriam Celaya, Cubanet, West Palm Beach, 4 November 2018 — When, at the end of last October, it was learned through various media outlets that Russia would grant 50 million dollars to the Cuban government for the purchase of weapons, alarms went off. Immediately, nervous headlines began to appear, stirring the old unburied ghosts of … Continue reading “What “Armaments” Can the Castro Regime Buy in Russia? / Miriam Celaya”
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, La Habana |19 July 2018 — Sand, sun and Cubans. The three elements prevail these days in many spas on the Island where national tourism takes advantage of school holidays and fills the gap left by the fall in foreign visitors. The employees of tourist facilities are least enamored with the domestic tourists, these expert seekers of … Continue reading “"One ‘Yuma’ Less, Two Cubans More," the Arithmetic of Cuban Tourism”
