English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Havana, 8 August 2021 — “I haven’t been able to sleep all night, moving the fan so my child can rest,” Heidy Vázquez, from the Aguada de Pasajeros municipality in Cienfuegos, comments to this newspaper, speaking about a blackout that lasted six hours due to technical failures they are affecting the whole country. In the midst … Continue reading “Cuba’s Electric Union Announces Countrywide Blackouts”
14ymedio, Havana, August 6, 2021 – Ariel González Falcón, one of the main promoters of the #SOSCuba label, has been forced to delete all messages tagged with that “call for help” after State Security detained him on Wednesday for about two hours in a police station where he was taken without a summons. The medical … Continue reading “The Cuban Police Intimidate Young People to Force Them to Delete Content on Their Social Networks”
14ymedio, Havana, 5 August 2021 — On the avenue of the Malecón heavily guarded by the police and under the intense summer sun, the second official call to support the Government was held this Thursday in Havana since the protests against the Cuban regime broke out on July 11. Low attendance and health questions marked the … Continue reading “Cuba: Lots of Police, but Few Ordinary People, in the Official Caravan on the Day of the ‘Maleconazo’”
EFE, via 14ymedio, Miami, 3 August 2021 — U.S. Senators from both parties approved on Monday the naming of the Washington street in front of the Cuban Embassy in honor of the late Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá (1952-2012). Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio said yesterday that the change pays “a tribute to the life and … Continue reading “The New Address of the Cuban Embassy in Washington is Oswaldo Paya Way”
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 1 August 2021 — Since Friday, the line has not stopped outside the bodega (ration store) at 251st and 50th streets in Punta Brava, a Havana neighborhood of La Lisa. But unlike other times, customers only need their ration book and a bag, because the food module that is distributed is … Continue reading “‘Free Rice Will Not Silence Us,’ Say the Residents of Punta Brava, Cuba”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Lorena Cantó, Havana, August 2, 2021 — The Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, winner of the 2015 Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature, considers his novels “some of the most radical documents that could have been written” about a Cuba today in turmoil, whose problems “must be resolved among Cubans.” “I believe that … Continue reading “Padura: ‘Cuba’s Problems Must be Resolved Among Cubans’”
14ymedio, Yaiza Santos, Madrid, July 31, 2021 — The singer, composer and music producer Pavel Urkiza was born in Kiev (Ukraine), but right away, when he was three months old, he was taken to Havana where he grew up. His parents, both engineers, were part of the first Cuban student brigade in the Soviet Union. … Continue reading “The Change in Cuba Has No Turning Back”
14ymedio, Havana, July 30, 2021 – “They tremble, freedom advances.” The phrase appeared this Friday on the face of Ernesto “Che” Guevara painted on a mural at the National University of Comahue, in the province of Neuquén, Argentina. The young human rights activist Agustin Antonetti shared on his Twitter account an image of the graffiti, … Continue reading “Che Guevara Goes from Defeat to Defeat”
14ymedio, Jorge Ferrer, Ginés Górriz and others, Barcelona, 29 July 2021 — We have witnessed a popular uprising in Cuba like no other that has been known in the last 60 years. The inertia and fear generated by decades of that sinister cocktail that is made by mixing enthusiasm with repression — the exact symbolic reverse of … Continue reading “‘Call the Dictatorship by its Name’, Ask Cubans Living in Spain”
14ymedio, Havana, 29 July 2021 — Gilberto Antonio Cardero Sánchez is the sixth military man to die in Cuba in less than two weeks. The national television news program confirmed this Wednesday the death of this “Rebel Army fighter” who came to occupy the position of commander. Before him, five generals died in nine days, … Continue reading “Cuban Military Figures Continue to Die: Commander Cardero Sanchez Makes Six”
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, July 29, 2021 — The Cuban communists announced in the State newspaper Granma that they have begun the distribution of food products that have come from international donations (Russia, Mexico, etc.) into the network of state warehouses. An insistent rumor had been circulating on social media: the products will end … Continue reading “Distribution of Donations: Bread for Today, Hunger for Tomorrow”
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, July 27, 2021 — On Tuesday a rare scene unfolded on the corner of San Lazaro and Soledad streets in Central Havana. The fish market on that corner, which had been poorly stocked for months, suddenly had items which generated expressions of astonishment and long lines. Customers saw lobster, ground … Continue reading “Lobster and Ground Meat to Calm Tensions in Havana”
14ymedio, Mexico, 23 July 2021 — This Sunday, Mexico will send two vessels of the Secretariat of the Navy to Cuba with health aid such as syringes, T-type oxygen tanks with 9,500 liters and mouth coverings, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) said in a statement. The shipment also includes foodstuffs — powdered milk, beans, … Continue reading “Mexico Will Send Cuba Two Ships With Medical Supplies and Food”
14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 24 July 2021 — Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was tortured and killed by the Russian political police in 2009. He had denounced tax fraud for more than 200 million dollars in his native country. They killed him or left him to die in his cell. It’s the same thing. In 2012, … Continue reading “Biden Opposes Cuban Communism”
EFE / 14ymedio, Washington, July 26, 2021 — The governments of 21 countries, including the United States and five Latin American nations, condemned on Monday the “mass arrests and detentions” of protesters in Cuba and demanded respect for human rights on the island. The declaration was signed by the foreign ministers of Austria, Brazil, Colombia, … Continue reading “Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and the United States, Among More Than 20 Countries That Condemn Mass Arrests in Cuba”
