Translating Cuba – Page 613 – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Rescuing Jose Marti from His Kidnappers

Part of the image from the cover of the book The One and Only José Martí: Principal Opponent of Fidel Castro.

14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, January 28, 2019 — Photographs of José Martí were never missing from the offices of any of the Cuban presidents. It didn’t matter if their actions contradicted the ideas of that great master who would have pronounced these words from the prophet Isaiah with respect to the Castro regime’s leaders: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

They considered Martí “the intellectual author of the attack on the Moncada Barracks,” and although many of those who fought and died in that action felt truly committed to those ideals — The Centennial Generation, they called themselves — they were all betrayed when that leadership not only prolonged the wrongs against which they had fought by not restoring the Constitution or holding free elections. continue reading

It deepened with the installment of a military dictatorship with absolute powers and institutionalized the violations of fundamental rights and freedoms, something that they want to reaffirm now with the approval of a spurious Constitution.

Much repeated is this phrase: “Martí promised it to you and Fidel fulfilled it for you.” In my opinion this is the worst mockery and the worst calumny that can be thrown against any honorable man. Now, to top it off, this thing that they call “Revolution” is described as “Marxist, Leninist, and Martí-ist.”

Under this regime the Seminars for Martí Studies are held each year, and a center for the study of his thoughts was created. Although more than a few intellectuals hide behind Martí to make a covert complaint against Castroism, his appropriation by the oppressors was carried out with the pretext of his Latin American and anti-imperialist ideas.

It is true that Martí advocated the unity of the peoples of Our America, for what he conceived as a great homeland (“From the Rio Grande to Patagonia there is no more than one people”), and that he opposed the expansionism of the United States (the “seven-league giants”). But he himself had expressed that he loved “the land of Lincoln” just as he feared “the homeland of [Augustus K.] Cutting,” two interests at odds still today.

These aspects of Martí thought were taken advantage of by the group installed in power with the intention of gathering the support of the Latin American peoples and of maintaining, in the international arena, the idea that the Cuban problem was summed up in the contradiction between a small country that was supposedly fighting for its sovereignty and the aims of a large empire that was trying to subjugate it, to conceal the real contradiction: a group that has turned an entire country into a large fiefdom and a people subjected to the most humiliating conditions.

Many thousands of Cubans have passed through prisons without having attacked or insulted anybody, without destroying even a lightbulb, only for having expressed ideas different from the policy dictated by the ideological secretariat of the governing party, be it under the cause of “enemy propaganda” or that of “contempt,” something diametrically opposed to the ideology of Martí.

In Martí’s conception of democratic revolution, the right to free expression is sacred. This key principle in his thought, which is an insurmountable wall between him and that leadership, can be read repeatedly in his Complete Works. “Respect for liberty and different thought, even of the most unhappy entity, is my fanaticism: if I die, or they kill me, it will be for that,” he wrote. Or: “I feel as if they kill a child of mine every time that they deprive a man of his right to think.”

Another type of Martí’s thoughts that the authorities try to sidestep are those that refer critically to ideological aspects that touch them closely. Of those, the one that they have most dared to cite is that of Martí’s reservations about Marx, because along with the criticism there is some praise, like this: “Profound observer of the reason for human miseries and the destinies of men and man eaten by the yearning to do well.”

But he also declares: “He went in a hurry and a little in the shadows, without seeing that children who have not had a natural and laborious gestation are not born viable, neither from the womb of the people in history, nor from the womb of the woman in the home,” which seems to indicate that Martí reflected upon the importance of a development process of civic consciousness in order to achieve, peacefully, a just social order, which he reiterates when he says: “Shameful the forced turning of some men into beasts for the benefit of others, but a way out of indignation has to be sought, so that the beast ceases without getting out of control and frightening.”

Martí, it is necessary to clarify, was not only an apostle for independence but also of social justice, but he didn’t stop harshly criticizing those who, in the name of that justice, intended to raise themselves up and lord over humble people.

In the article Future Slavery, about an essay by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, Martí refers very clearly to the model known as state socialism, later incubated in the gloomy Russia of Stalin and which Cubans have been suffering for 60 years.

In these societies where all riches would be under the control of the state, he warns, “the number of public employees [would increase] in a terrible manner. With every new function, a new stock of officials would come.” He adds: “From being his own servant, man would pass to become the servant of the state. From being the slave of capitalists, as they call him now, he would go to being the slave of officials.” And he concludes: “The servitude will be lamentable, and general.”

Another text is the letter to his friend Fermín Valdés Domínguez in 1894. The latter had communicated his participation in activity for May 1 along with socialists and anarchists, and Martí warned him about “the dangers of the socialist idea.” Among them “the arrogance and furtive rage of the ambitious, who to raise themselves in the world begin by pretending to be, to have shoulders on which to rise, fierce defenders of the helpless.” But at the same time he warns him that such objections do not mean the abandonment of the ideal of social justice, because “of how nobly must be judged an aspiration: and not for this or that wart that human passion puts on it.”

Today, when the citizenry is expected to approve by referendum the constitutional institutionalization of the violations of their fundamental rights and liberties, it’s necessary to rescue Martí from those kidnappers with the same bravery with which Agramonte rescued Sanguily in the middle of the scrubland. To make very clear that the emblematic image of those rights and liberties is that of Martí, and that, as a consequence, we, defenders of those guarantees, have more right than they to claim it.

If all those groups opposed to that sacrilege meet in a place of cyberspace in a campaign to vote No on the Constitutional referendum on 24 February, and declare themselves in permanent convention, even to face the tasks that duty will set for us after the referendum, that cause itself must carry the name of José Martí.

No image brings together more Cubans than his does. Martí unites. Martí includes. As far as I’m concerned, that convention in honor of Martí not only must be created, but must not be dissolved until those rights and liberties have achieved a definitive victory.

If its members claim that name before global public opinion and do not respond with insults to their offenders, nor resist arrest before their oppressors, it would be a great victory if the international media reports that the followers of Martí, only because of their being that, are being persecuted and harrassed in the homeland of Martí.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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Cuba’s Political Police Threaten the Organizers of an LGBT "Kiss-In"

Despite police pressure, on Sunday some activists arrived in front of the church. (Cortesía)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 January 2019 — A “Kiss-In” organized by the LGBT community last Saturday, in front of an evangelical church on 25th and K streets in Havana, ended with several activists and independent journalists threatened by the political police, according to reports that reached the editorial office of 14ymedio.

State Security threatened to expel Jancel Moreno, a medical student and one of the activists who launched the call on social media, from the university if he attended the public action. “I was threatened with my career, telling me I could be arrested,” he explained.

On Friday night, two State Security officials told the 19-year-old that the counterrevolution was looking to “put on a show” with the Kiss-In and that he could end up being arrested if “the police arrive and pick up everyone.” continue reading

Other activists and a journalist from this newspaper also received threats from the political police to not approach the place of the event. “If you go, you’ll spend all day at a police station,” a State Security official assured the reporter.

The Kiss-In is part of a campaign to reject the actions of various religious denominations against same-sex marriage in Cuba. Evangelical groups have organized marches and distributed propaganda of support for the “original design of the family.”

Despite police pressures, on Sunday some activists arrived in front of the church. Among them was the designer Roberto Ramos Mori, who took a photograph with two other friends a few meters from the entrance. “There was a police operation and a lot of cars, but no one messed with us,” he told this newspaper.

A police operation was maintained throughout the weekend in the vicinity of the church and, as told to 14ymedio by some neighbors, the atmosphere “was tense.”

The trigger for this initiative was the publication in social media of a music video produced by the church with a strong homophobic aspect. The audiovisual was denounced on Facebook by LGBT groups that consider its content as inciting hatred.

Ramos Mori believes that when the song calls to extract “evil, yes, but by the root” it promotes violent actions, a message reinforced because “while stating that phrase the singer runs his hand across his neck as a threatening sign.”

Towards the end of last year, on the eve of the National Assembly approving the draft of the new constitution, a score of Protestant churches came together to sign a document where they stated their position on marriage between people of the same sex.

The evangelicals affirmed in their declaration that “the family, as the word of God teaches, is a divine institution through marriage as the exclusive union between a man and a woman.” They also alleged that “equal marriage is totally incompatible with the thinking of the Fathers of our country.” Finally the religious group managed to collect 180,000 signatures in opposition to Article 68 in their places of worship.

The National Assembly did not approve the inclusion of the controversial Article in the proposal for the new constitution, yet another reason that LGBT activists have found to mobilize before a scenario they consider unfavorable for that community.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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The Tornado Has Come and Gone but How Long Will it Take to Fix This

The Luyanó neighborhood, one of the most affected by the tornado. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 January 2019 — As soon as the first rays of the sun appeared, the inhabitants of Havana began to understand the magnitude of the damage caused by a tornado that crossed several areas of the capital and so far has left three fatalities and more than 170 injured. Havana is paralyzed and without electricity. Complete neighborhoods are cut off from access to roads.

In the year in which the 500th anniversary of the founding of the town of San Cristóbal de La Habana will be commemorated, the tornado wind gusts have caused considerable damage to the homes in Regla, Guanabacoa, Luyanó, Lawton and other areas of the municipality October 10th. All these neighborhoods stand out for the deteriorated state of their buildings, some dating from the nineteenth or early twentieth century. continue reading

In many parts of the city fallen trees have cutoff access to streets and sidewalks.(14ymedio)

Evelio, resident of Maia Rodríguez Street, in La Víbora, woke up in the middle of the night because of the noise made by the wind. “When I looked outside, everything was chaotic and my car was heavily damaged by a branch that fell on it and other objects that flew and broke the windshield and several side windows,” he told this newspaper.

He fears that the insurance on the vehicle won’t cover the damage caused. “It’s an insurance that reimburses in national currency and everyone here knows that to repair a car you have to use convertible currency,” he says. The car is valued in the informal market at 25,000 CUC (roughly equal to $25,000 US), but Evelio fears that, if the insurance does pay something, “it will not be enough to even buy a new tire.”

In the social media, several Cubans living abroad have asked the General Customs Office of the Republic to allow more flexibility in the rules regarding personal importations in order to send aid to affected relatives and friends on the island. Others have demanded the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (Etecsa) lower the price of calls so that the citizens of Havana can speak with their relatives abroad.

In Luyanó neighbors have joined forces to start clearing the rubble from the streets. (14ymedio)

However, so far the authorities have not articulated a position on these demands and neither has there been a call, from the Government, for a collection of aid for the victims.

Luyanó, in the municipality of 10 de Octubre (10th of October), took one of the worst hits in the destruction left by the tornado. A helicopter was flying over the neighborhood at noon on Monday, where neighbors were trying to clean up debris inside homes, on the rooftops and on the roads.

Numerous wooden facades, typical of the area, had been reduced to pieces and in the streets many people waited for the arrival of aid, especially water and food. According to the Institute of Meteorology, the extratropical low that reached the western region of the island Sunday had wind gusts of over 100 kilometers per hour and was accompanied by hail.

Tons of rubble and tree limbs fill the streets of Regla. (14ymedio)

“This is the most terrifying thing I have lived through in my 82 years,” says Lidia, whose house was damaged by the fall of a tree limb that broke the water tank on the roof and broke off a window. Now the main concern of the retiree is “to have water and food, because all the bakeries were closed in the morning and I have not been able to even eat breakfast”.

The Cuban capital has experienced a severe shortage of basic products such as flour, oil and eggs in recent weeks that has complicated the domestic economy. Now, with the devastation left by the intense storm, fear has spread among the inhabitants of the capital city that the situation could get worse.

Leonor, another resident of Luyanó, recalls Sunday night as one of the worst of her life. “We were watching the news, coincidentally the weather report, when we felt a noise like an airplane and some yellow lights,” she tells this newspaper. The woman tried to close the doors and windows but was unable to due to the the force of the wind.

“The tornado has come and gone but now how long will it take to fix this,” she asks herself, relieved and worried at the same time.

Doris, a resident of San Jose Street, between Remedios and Quiroga, described the noise that the tornado produced “like a train crash.” In her house “everything shook and the doors of the display case shut by themselves,” she now recalls in one of the areas most punished by the wind gusts.

In Doris’ block several neighbors rescued a man whose house collapsed. “We took him out from under the rubble with the back of the chair around his head” and, although he was hurt, his injuries were not serious. The woman explains that the pipeline that supplies gas “broke but they have not disconnected the service” and, despite several calls to the state company, nobody has arrived to repair the problem.

In Regla, at the end of Havana Bay, the neighbors this morning crowded the polyclinic of the area to take advantage of electricity, supplied by a group of generators, to charge their mobiles and communicate. Several state stores disposed of the last of their merchandise for fear that the lack of refrigeration would damage the products.

The main damages are in the peripheral districts of Regla, with many trees and downed power poles. All the testimonies collected by this newspaper assure that the tornado lasted less than a minute and that it did not allow time to react.

Throughout the day the neighbors have shown their solidarity with the victims, helping to repair the damages without anyone having to ask them to mobilize.

The lines to buy food extended out in front of the few shops that are open in town, especially to buy bread, crackers and eggs. In the streets there is a large presence of police, along with the frantic movement of trucks and motorized equipment for removal of the debris.

Matilde, a neighbor of the La Colonia quarter, tells 14ymedio that she was already in bed when she heard a noise “like the howl of a monster”. She went out to look and immediately heard a noise behind her because her house had collapsed in the wind. She is now out on the streets and some neighbors have helped her with a little coffee and words of encouragement.

This is one of the worst natural disasters that Havana has suffered in recent years.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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Venezuela Will Not Host the 2019 Caribbean Series

The Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation will announce in a few hours the new site for the tournament, which will be delayed by two days.(Efecto Cocuyo)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 January 2019 — The 2019 Caribbean Series, which was to be played in Barquisimeto (Venezuela) next week, will be held “in an alternate venue.” The decision was made by the Commissioner of the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation (CBPC by its Spanish acronym), who reported on Sunday that the resolution is “official” and irrevocable.

Three of the four full members of the CBPC voted to withdraw the series from Venezuela, with the only opposing vote cast by the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League (LVBP by its spanish acronym). continue reading

The organization based the decision on three reasons, the first of which is the information provided by the Venezuelan executive, in which a state of “usurpation of powers” as well as “acts of a foreign enemy, hostilities and coup d’etat” is being experienced. These facts, the CBPC argues, “are outside the control or influence” of the LVBP and the organizing committee of the event.

Another of the reasons given by the Confederation is the rupture of relations between Venezuela and the United States, which makes it impossible to “obtain visas to Venezuela for US citizens who form a major part of the teams that will eventually participate.”

Finally, and also as a consequence of the above, the recommendation that Major League Baseball (MLB) officially made to its affiliated players “not to remain in Venezuelan territory, compromises the participation of a large majority of players,” the statement said.

The organization recognized the “enormous effort” the Venezuelan league and the organizing committee have made to date, and said they did not make this decision before conducting “the deepest analysis of its impact and consequences” for professional baseball in Venezuela and all the leagues that are members of the Caribbean Confederation.

The organization also confirmed a slight delay with respect to the dates of the tournament, now scheduled for February 4-9, instead of the originally scheduled February 2-8. The Venezuelan champions of the 2018-2019 season, the Lara Cardinals, will be unable to play in the sporting event on their home turf.

The new venue for the event and details of the game dates, the competitors and the schedule format will be announced in a few hours at a press conference. Some of the options under consideration are Mexico, Dominican Republic, Colombia or Panama.

The announcement coincides with the one made by the Cuban baseball authorities, which offered Sunday to host the Caribbean Series venue in 2020 or 2021, if it achieves approval as a full member of the CBPC.

During the act of presenting the flag to the group of players that will represent the Island in the upcoming 2019 Caribbean Series, the president of the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB by its Spanish acronym), Higinio Vélez, said that after attending as an invited guest five editions of the event Cuba will reiterate its request to join the CBPC.

Velez said that there is no longer any impediment for Cuba to gain membership at the next meeting of the CBPC after the signing of the agreement between the FCB and the Major League Baseball on December 19.

Cuba was one of the founding nations of the Caribbean Series in 1949, when its club, Almendares, was crowned champion, the first of eight titles, seven in the period from 1949 to 1960, and another in 2014 after its return to the series as a guest nation.

This year, the Island will participate in the Series with a selection made up of members of the Leñadores de Las Tunas (Las Tunas Lumberjacks) team — winner of the just concluded national championship — reinforced with players from other squads.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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Hundreds of Emigrants Protest in Front of Cuban Consulates In Several Countries

“The Protest for all the Prohibited” promoted slogans like #YoVotoNo (I’m Voting No) to the Constitution and the hashtag #Ni1+ (Not One More) in reference to the years that the Cuban regime has gone on.

14ymedio, Havana, 26 January 2019 — Between Friday and Saturday thousands of Cuban emigrants have protested in front of consular centers for the Island in at least ten countries. The unprecedented demonstrations have focused on denouncing the migratory obstacles, the lack of citizens’ rights, and the new text of the Constitution that will be put to a referendum on February 24.

What began as a spark ended up igniting a vast array of dissatisfactions, complaints, and questioning that for decades has been accumulating in the Cuban exile. Initially the march was going to occur only in front of the Island’s embassy in Washington, but emigrants in other places joined the initiative. continue reading

“The Protest for All the Prohibited” promoted slogans like #YoVotoNo (I’m Voting No) to the Constitution and the hashtag #Ni1+ (Not One More) in reference to the years that the Cuban regime has gone on. Although it also accommodated other demands.

In the American capital, despite the temperatures below 5 degrees Celsius this weekend, more than 400 Cubans answered the call from the Somos+ (We Are More) movement and participated in the march, after spontaneously coordinating the move.

The initiative, promoted by the leader of the movement Somos+, Eliécer Ávila, was also supported by several exile groups, along with the campaign Cuba Decides. Initially it demanded the right for Cubans to “enter and leave” the country “without restrictions, or blacklists.”

Among the organizers of the march in the United States were also, among others, the presenter Alex Otaola, the exile Amaury Almaguer or “Siro Cuartel,” author of the political satire blog El Lumpen (The Underclass). The actor Jorge Ferdecaz also joined the initiative.

Other cities where protests also occurred were Madrid, Sao Paulo, The Hague, Barcelona, Quito, Montevideo, Geneva, Holland, Santiago de Chile, and London. In total hundreds of Cubans protested against the new constitutional reform and demanded “to have a passport at a price accessible for everyone,” the “existence of marriage equality,” a direct vote for the presidency of the country, and the “end of the dynasty.”

The event had a wide impact on social media where its call circulated with the hashtags #NoMasProhibidos (No More Prohibited), #YoVoteNo (I’m Voting No), and #Ni1+ (Not One More). At the meeting point near the diplomatic headquarters in Washington, participants held a symbolic vote that produced 413 No votes for the new Constitution.

For the activist Eliécer Ávila, “Today’s great protagonists were the Cubans and their families who traveled for hours, many 20 hours to be here, many young people, 90% of whom were around 25 or 30 years old,” he explained to 14ymedio.

“It was a huge message of hope and optimism,” added the leader of Somos+. The dissidents called on people to “not let languish” initiatives of this type and “every month do something bigger and we propose that this 2019 Cuba enter a phase of social pressure that brings about a political response.”

Among those joining the march were actors, musicians, and creators like the artist Geandy Pavón, who recreated his performance Nemesis on the facade of the Permanent Mission of Cuba in front of the UN in New York this Friday night.

Massiel Rodríguez, a Cuban who has lived in Spain for a year, told 14ymedio that at the Cuban Embassy in Madrid they sabotaged the activity from the diplomatic headquarters playing music on full blast toward the exterior of the building. “They mostly put on Silvio Rodríguez but between blocks you could hear La Guantanamera and Carlos Puebla.”

The emigree explained that all along the sidewalk there were police officers posted to guard the area to prevent the demonstrators from getting close to the embassy. Inside the embassy there were many older people who as far as it was known were celebrating the birthday of José Martí and the 60 years of the Revolution, she said.

“We hugged each other, there was a lot of cordiality and respect, it was really nice and we made contacts to organize to do this type of thing, that link was good so that there can be an action group for whatever is needed,” Rodríguez said. “There were people who arrived organized in groups that came from other towns, but also some didn’t notice.” The dissident Rosa María Payá, leader of Cuba Decides, joined the action.

In Sao Paulo, several demonstrators reported that upon arriving in front of the consulate they bumped into groups from the Brazilian Communist Party, who with flags and slogans took the place. “They became aggressive and more than 200 people fell upon us to hit us,” an emigrant who participated in the protest told this newspaper.

So far the official Cuban press hasn’t published anything about the demonstrations, which happened a few hours after the Cuban government confirmed that emigrants and temporary residents abroad will not be able to vote in the constitutional referendum unless they return to the Island. Polling places outside the Island will only accept those working on an official mission.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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When A People Unites, No Dictatorship Can Prevail / Somos+

Making the sign of “L” for “Libertad,” Cubans abroad demonstrating for the right to vote in the Constitutional Referendum scheduled for 24 February.

Somos+, Richard Shirrman, 27 January 2019 — This January 26 we watched as thousands of Cuban citizens and lovers of liberty and democracy came together with one voice demanding our rights, it was more than one march or protest against that dictatorship that robs us all alike of our liberty, that subjugates, and that represses our people and dissidents who protest peacefully. It was a unanimous cry of NO!! Of Enough already! Not one year more!

All those of us who do not forget our country, we feel proud of each Cuban who raised his voice. It set a standard in the fight for the freedom of Cuba, and it said to the ruling regime on our Island what we Cubans have carried guarded in our hearts for 60 years. This 26th of January history was made, we managed to gather thousands of Cubans in the world and it was shown that united, we can do anything. continue reading

But this doesn’t end here! We will keep working with all our brothers and sisters who want with all their hearts to see our Mother Country free and prosperous, this rebellion is the beginning of the path to follow, because when a people lets itself be defeated by tyrants, any dream and longing for liberty will perish, let us not allow ourselves to be intimidated by lack of faith in ourselves and by external agitators, it’s necessary that every Cuban who loves his Mother fight for the liberty, democracy, and prosperity of our nation.

That is why we ask for the union and cooperation of all for the good of all and to fight until the end of the dictatorship that robs us of our most elemental rights and the peaceful coexistence between our different ideologies, creeds, and positions on life.

The enemy is only one, my friends, it is that criminal and murderous regime that has killed our dreams, our future, and our human dignity. There are never words to persuade when one is fighting for a just and true cause. Let us all unite as children of the same mother! Because if we don’t do it, the dictators and politicians will do whatever they feel like with us.

Cubans, brothers and sisters, José Martí fought in exile for many years until achieving the objective that was always the light in his thoughts, an inheritance that leaves us the path toward liberty, that thought and path that the murderers and vile, ambitious men of power have covered up so that we do not see it, and have placed stones in our path so that today the people of Cuba lives without decency and human dignity.

And today on the eve of the birthday of our greatest Cuban of all time, I dedicate to all those Cubans who protested against the vile and cruel dictatorship that has oppressed us for more than 60 years. And quoting José Martí:

…Thus we want the children of America to be: men who say what they think, and say it well; eloquent and sincere men.

…A man who hides what he thinks, or doesn’t dare to say what he thinks, is not an honorable man. A man who obeys a bad government, without working for the government to be good, is not an honorable man. A man who complies with unjust laws, and permits men who mistreat the country where he was born to tread its soil, is not an honorable man.

…There are men who live content although they live without decency. There are others who suffer as in agony when they see that men live without decency around them. In the world it is necessary to have a certain quantity of decency, as one must have a certain quantity of light. When there are many men without decency, there are always others who have within themselves the decency of many men. Those are the ones who rise up with terrible force against those who rob the people of their liberty, which is to rob men of their decency. In those men go thousands of men, goes an entire people, goes human dignity. Those men are sacred.

Long live free Cuba!

José Julián Martí y Pérez

National Hero of the Republic of Cuba

God, Homeland, and Liberty!

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

Venezuela: Six (And A Half) Men and One Destiny

“It’s very difficult to fear or respect a character who speaks with birds,” says Montaner (@NicolasMaduro)

14ymedio, Carolo Alberto Montaner, Miami, 26 January 2019 — Maduro will have to go peacefully, or he will die as a consequence of an attack by his own group, as happened to Maurice Bishop. Let’s look at the conflict’s six key factors.

Juan Guaidó, President of the National Assembly and acting President of Venezuela until elections are held. He has the backing of the OAS (Organization of American States) and of 20 important nations. Among them, the biggest or most accredited democracies: Canada, United States, England and Switzerland. Also Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Educador and Paraguay. Not only are some of his own group against him, but some of them, secretly, would like to become candidates and win elections against Chavismo. For them it would be reassuring if Guaidó were to announce primaries in which he would not participate. Since he is a young man, he has plenty of time and opportunities to become president. continue reading

Nicolas Maduro has a well-earned reputation as an idiot. That is very serious for his allies. The Prince is feared or respected. Maduro is neither feared nor respected, in spite of the violence that usually accompanies him. And Venezuelans also have good reasons for that. It is very difficult to fear or respect a character who speaks with birds. Inflation is the unceasing lightning. It has pulverized wages, food, medicine. Water and electricity are missing; phones and internet fail. Sometimes even oil is missing. The country is broken and falling apart. Sixty-four percent of Venezuelans lost 11 kilos in 2017. More than 24 pounds. Faced with this scenario that has caused the exodus of more than three million desperate Venezuelans, Maduro responds with economic “tricks” like the petro, a useless virtual currency.

Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the OAS, is the greatest ally of Juan Guaidó and of free Venezuelans. He has thrown them on his back, like Christ and the cross, with the intention of saving them from their political sins. He proceeds from the left, and that is convenient. He is Uruguayan. He comes from a small and decent country that, unfortunately, has aligned with Maduro, which will cost him votes in the presidential elections to the carnivorous left that governs in Montevideo. No one in his right mind will accuse Almagro of selling out to Wall Street or Yankee imperialism. Nevertheless, his former comrades expelled him from the sect without even listening to him. Never have so many owed so much to one person.

Donald Trump is no saint to me, but there is no doubt that on the Venezuelan topic he has acted as a statesman committed to democracy and human rights, and that is something to be appreciated. It is true that the Trump administration’s Venezuelan policy has been drawn up by Senator Marco Rubio, Secretary Mike Pompeo, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart and Vice-President Mike Pence, but without Trump’s backing it would all be useless, and the Chavistas and their accomplices could assassinate or jail members of the National Assembly. In short: If Trump stays firm in his support of Guaidó, the National Assembly has everything to gain.

Raul Castro and Miguel Diaz-Canel (the half man) know that it is a matter of time, little time, before the collapse of the Maduro regime if they don’t do something urgently. The two — and almost the whole Cuban power structure — have a terrible opinion of Maduro as a statesman. He seems to them a good but stupid boy. Havana is panicked at a confrontation with the United States and seeing itself dragged into the conflict because of the colony’s incompetence. They still remember what happened to them in Grenada in 1983 when they faced the Marines. There were 800 Cubans who ran quickly. Now there are almost 100,000, including the doctors, health personnel, and thousands of counter-intelligence workers. Although “the Cubans” know that their best option is to continue exploiting the Venezuelans, they are prepared for an orderly retreat in the face of the possibility of clashing with the Americans.

Vladimir Putin has jumped into the Venezuelan crisis in support of Maduro and has threatened the United States. That blunder guarantees that Trump cannot abandon Venezuela without suffering a serious loss of credibility. Therefore: He will stay. In reality, Putin wants to restore the prestige of the Russian Federation and cover the debts contracted by Venezuela, but without coming to a confrontation with Washington. Russia has the economic structure of a third world country. It exports gas, oil, wood and imports manufactured products. It is one of the planet’s biggest countries, with 144 million inhabitants, but with a per capita GDP like that of Costa Rica. The US GDP is almost 20 trillion. That of Russia is approximately that of South Korea (more or less 1.6 trillion). It is a poor country. Maduro begged him to come scare the Americans. He will not be able to. He is a false bodyguard.

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Translated by Mary Lou Keel.

Sixty Years On From Fidel Castro’s First Trip To Venezuela

Visit by Fidel Castro to Caracas in 1959 (Archive photo)

Cubanet, Luis Cino, Havana, 23 January 2019 – Right around this time, 60 years ago, Fidel Castro was making his first visit to Venezuela, in what was also his first official foreign trip as ruler.

Fidel arrived in Caracas on 23 January 1959, accompanied by a large delegation. It was only 15 days since the revolutionary leader’s entry into Havana a week after the dictator Fulgencio Batista fled from the country.

Absorbed in what he called “Operation Truth,” Fidel Castro — self-proclaimed prime minister as well as commander-in-chief — was trying to convince the world that reports about the summary trials and executions of hundreds of soldiers and police officers of the former regime were tall tales spun by the international (especially the American) press. continue reading

The visit to Venezuela ended up being a success, despite the bad omen of a tragic accident on the Maiquetía airport runway, when Francisco “Paco” Cabrera — a commander of the Cuban rebel army who was hurrying nervously to take his place as Fidel Castro’s bodyguard — was utterly decapitated by the airplane’s propeller.

In Venezuela — where exactly one year before, on 23 January 1958, a civil-military movement had overthrown the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez — the Cuban revolutionary leader was welcomed as an idol. A fascinated crowd listened, unwaveringly and enthusiastically, to the bearded revolutionary’s seven-hour-long speech.

Fidel Castro’s itinerary in Caracas was exhausting. But more exhausted were those individuals charged with protecting him, who — despite the warmth evinced by the Venezuelans — thought they detected potential assassins at every turn.

As can be seen in some photos taken by Raúl Corrales of the Cuban delegation, the Comandante’s bodyguards — all of them bearded and with a wild look about them in their slovenly, olive-green field uniforms, with weapons always close at hand — turned the Cuban embassy in Caracas into a replica of the guerrilla encampments of Cuba’s Sierra Maestra.

Some years later, after Fidel Castro would include his old host, President Rómulo Betancourt, in the list of his most hated enemies, the Venezuelans would again see Cuban soldiers — clean-shaven this time and on the warpath — landing around Machurucuto to penetrate the Falcón, Yaracuy and Lara mountains, where Arnaldo Ochoa, later executed by his Cuban bosses, earned his appointment as Deputy Commander of the General Army Staff of the Revolutionary Armed Forces

Who could have imagined that half a century after the disaster, Cuban military and security types, by the thousands, would be all over the place in Venezuela, providing consultation in the repression of dissidents, to shore up the shamelessly illegitimate regime of Nicolás Maduro?

Nobody could have known what Fidel Castro was referring to, in that seven-hour speech in Caracas, when he thanked the Venezuelans for the welcome they gave him and the weapons that Admiral Larrazábal had sent to the Sierra Maestra when, in turn, they had received nothing from him.

Forty years later, they would receive — besides subversion and guerrillas — they would receive his adoption of Hugo Chávez, who would turn Venezuela into the replacement for the Soviet Union to subsidize the Casto regime at its most critical moment.

Hugo Chávez’ ascent to the presidency following a failed coup attempt — and thanks to Venezuelans’ fatigue with the politicking and corruption of the Democratic Action and Copei partisans — was the consummation of Castroism’s conquest of Venezuela, which begin on 23 January 1959, when a smiling and friendly Fidel Castro stepped foot on the runway of the Caracas airport.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

The Rigor of Hell: Prisoners in Cuba / Ángel Santiesteban

Ángel Santiesteban, Havana, Cuba, Thursday, October 25, 2018 — Whoever commits a crime in Cuba should be certain that it won’t be enough to complete the punishment that the court decides for him, that isolation and prison will not be sufficient. One who breaks the law on this island has, beforehand, the certainty that the guards will put all their effort into making him feel like he is in a Hell in which the character of a uniformed Lucifer recurs.

The common prisoner also pays dearly in his stay in that diabolical underground, almost as much as he who goes to prison for “political reasons.” There any human rights are not respected, although the official discourse tries to show the opposite and brags of the virtues of Cuban prisons, and even seems to embrace theUnited Nations Charter of Universal Human Rights. That figure known on the island as a common prisoner is used as slave labor, and those who receive some economic benefit know very well the treatment that the military dedicates to them. continue reading

Beatings are commonplaces in those spaces of confinement, insulting the prisoner is the dish that the guards cook best. The beatings never have justification; beating is a right given to them by a government accustomed to repressing and pounding since it seated itself on the throne. A prisoner can be beaten with impunity becaused the uniformed don’t recognize the rights of the inmates. Their frustrations and ignorance are viciously taken out on the convicts.

Didier Cabrera Herrera is now thirty-nine years old and serving a sentence for a homicide he committed in self-defense. Didier was attacked in his own house. Didier used to make yogurt and sell it in his home, until a delinquent from the neighborhood asked him for a tube and later refused to pay for it. The assailant took out a knife and, making a show, attacked the vendor, and from the show passed to a more real aggression, to unforeseen violence. The criminal intended to thrust with the knife; first at one point, then another, without counting on Didier’s dexterity.

Then would come the struggle in which Didier was more skillful and managed to grab the knife from his aggressor and use it in self-defense. Didier defended himself, stuck the attacker with the sharp point, but didn’t compromise any organ, but a blow fractured a rib that damaged some vital organ, according to the determination of the pathologist. Thus Didier went to prison to serve a sentence of five years.

Traveling to the prison with the prisoner were the certified doctors, those who warn that this man suffers from a “personality disorder of emotional instability of a moderate intensity, and of an organic base,” that had already prevented him from fulfilling the obligatory military service. The medications to keep him calm are: Carbamazepine, Sentraline, and Clonazepan, but they are not always administered with the regularity prescribed by his doctor, despite the fact that authorities are aware that the patient attempted suicide before entering prison.

The first prison that received him was “Combinado del Este,” where he kept good discipline, despite how irregularly he was returned to his medication when they moved him away from his mother. Doctors attributed the carelessness to the lack of those medicines, even though they didn’t accept those that his mother, Iris Josefina Herrera López, with many pleas, tried to give them.

Didier was then sent to a prison in Manacas, in the province of Villa Clara. His mother traveled there for each visit, negotiating all the obstacles of the island’s bad transportation. And many were the pleas of this woman for authorities to permit her son to return to Havana or a closer place. She asks and asks at the National Directorate of Prisons at 15 and K, in Vedado, but so far she hasn’t managed to bring her son closer, like Leonor Pérez did achieve in the 19th century, when the Governor General of the island, following the “plea of the mother,” responded to Leonor’s entreaties.

This man is still here, so far from his mother, suffering humiliations in punishment cells and even rape attempts from “Calandraca” and “Calabera,” two dangerous prisoners who scour the prison displaying knives without receiving any punishment. Who was punished was this sick man, who was transferred to Guamajal prison, on the outskirts of the city of Santa Clara, where he spends his days in the atrocious imprisonment of another punishment cell, in which two guards beat him with so much force that his left eye was affected.

To top it all, and despite so much abuse, Major Cepero just informed the mother that he had been denied parole for a year, without letting her know the cause, although she supposes the reason is the many telephone calls her son made saying that they were not giving him his medication. Thus survives this sick young man, faced with the apathy and injustices of the authorities of the law and of Cuban “justice” that isn’t interested in putting right those effronteries that could put an end to the life of Didier Cabrera Herrera, a very sick young man.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

Nicolas Maduro Clings to Power With No Concern for the Cost to the Country

On the second night of protests this January, in San Felix in Bolivar State, the demonstrators set fire to the statue of Hugo Chávez. (Cocuyo Effect)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 26 January 2019 – If the populists share something, in addition to believing that they embody an entire nation, it is their inability to cede power when their project is exhausted. The decision to cling to the helm, no matter what the cost, has been shared by numerous caudillos in Latin America, but Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela is the most recent and dramatic case.

Repudiated by a good share of Venezuelans, designated as a dictator by a large number of governments, and proven incapable of getting his country out of an economic quagmire, the successor of Hugo Chávez ignores all signals. Maduro is wedded to power more to save a ruling elite than to seek the wellbeing of more than 30 million people. continue reading

He believes that if he remains in the presidential chair, Venezuelans will end up wearing themselves out and that exhaustion, together with the repressive blows, will pacify the popular protests that have shaken the South American country in recent days. He is playing the card of not accepting that his time has passed, and of baring his teeth to anyone who advises to him to get out of the way, call elections or seek asylum.

In part, he clings to the presidential chair to avoid the judicial process that awaits him for plundering one of the richest nations in the world, for having pushed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans into exile, and for having ordered the armed forces to use their weapons against ordinary people. But while trying to delay the judgment of his compatriots, Maduro leaves Chavism with no chance to escape the judgment of history.

Every day that he remains in the position of president, a position he usurped after an election riddled with irregularities, he destroys what, in the collective imagination, could still be his predecessor’s legacy. Neither opponents nor right-wing governments in the region have been as effective as Maduro in dismantling the myth of Hugo Chávez.

It’s no wonder, on the second night of protests this convulsive January, that demonstrators in San Felix, in the state of Bolivar, set fire to the statue of Hugo Chavez, the one-time commander of a Parachute Battalion who managed to install himself in the Miraflores Palace. These flames were directed at the entire Chavista myth which, at the end of the last century, installed the first bars of the cage that Maduro tries to keep shut today.

By proclaiming himself interim president of Venezuela, the young politician Juan Guaidó, who as of this month is president of the National Assembly, has not only managed to bring the Venezuelan issue to the center of international attention, but has forced all those who supported the eccentricities of that soldier who sang in his speeches and believed himself a reincarnation of Simón Bolívar to look in the mirror. Not a few of those fervent followers have hastened to chant a belated mea culpa in recent days.

Today Nicolás Maduro is Chavism’s main gravedigger, the most effective resource to dismantle a whole system which, in the beginning, attracted applause from millions of followers all over the planet.

However, along with that ideological funeral, every day in which the Venezuelan ruler remains in charge, the tragedy of the country deepens. Until last Thursday, the non-governmental organization The Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict (OVCS) estimated the total number of deaths in protests against Maduro at 26. The economy is paralyzed and thousands of citizens are escaping across the borders every day.

The stubbornness of a handful of Boliburgueses – the new rich ‘bourgeoisie’ of Chavez’s “Bolivarian Revolution” – has spread the uncertainty about where the country is headed and fanned the specters of a bloodbath. The support they enjoy from the military leadership could bring this bloody scenario closer, because – like all populists – they prefer to drag down the country they once claimed to represent before acknowledging that they failed.

It is up to the international community to guarantee that, in the historical abyss into which Nicolás Maduro is plummeting, there is room only for the gang that governs Venezuela and for the authoritarian Chávism that elevated it.
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Cubans Who are Abroad for Personal Reasons Will Not be Able to Vote in the Referendum

The February 24th referendum ballot was shown on Thursday in the television program Mesa Redonda (The Roundtable). (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 25 January 2019 – Cubans residing on the Island who are away from the national territory on February 24 will not be able to exercise their right to vote in the constitutional referendum, unless they are fulfilling an official mission of the Government, according to several officials who confirmed it this Thursday in the Cuban television program Mesa Redonda (The Roundtable).

“For the individuals who are fulfilling an official mission abroad, it is impossible for them to travel to Cuba and vote in their places of residence, as this would mean that they would no longer perform the functions for which they were appointed,” said Marcos Fermín Rodríguez Costa, President of the Special Electoral Commission of the MINREX. continue reading

The Minrex has organized 122 Electoral Commissions Districts that will manage the process in each country where Cuban personnel work and 1,051 polling stations will be deployed. The process will be carried out in advance, on February 16 and 17, to guarantee the countng of these ballots on the same date as the voting on the Island.

Alina Balseiro, President of the National Electoral Commission (CEN by its spanish acronym), stressed that in the electoral stations abroad specifically “Cuban diplomats, all Cuban collaborators abroad, Cuban scholars in those countries and citizens who are fulfilling official missions” will vote.

Significantly, she reiterated the scenario that Cubans residing in the country who are traveling abroad for personal reasons can only exercise their right to vote in Cuban territory on February 24. She was referring to the thousands of citizens who have left Cuba after February 24, 2017 and who, having not exceeded the 24 months established by the immigration law, keep intact all their rights as Cuban citizens.

These restrictions make it impossible to vote for those Cubans who are studying abroad apart from the national education system, those who have left to buy goods overseas or those who are receiving medical treatment abroad.

A protest march of Cuban citizens living outside the island proposed for January 26 in front of the Cuban embassy in Washington and other countries will demand the right to participate in the referendum.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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Papua New Guinea Prepares to Receive the Assistance of Cuban Doctors

A group of Cuban doctors will travel to Papua New Guinea, one of the nations in the Pacific region with the most precarious infrastructure. (OPS)

EFE via 14ymedio, Sydney, 25 January 2019 — The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Peter O’Neill, said a group of Cuban doctors will arrive in his country to help improve the health services systems, in an interview published this Friday.

“The diseases are not confined to a single area or a region, we need doctors all over the country,” O’Neill told the Papuan newspaper, The National, specifying that the Ministry of Health’s approval of the recruitment process is pending. continue reading

The arrival of the doctors is contemplated by virtue of a memorandum of understanding signed in 2016 between O’Neill and the former president, Raúl Castro, to provide assistance in training, medical research, technology and medical tools, financing, infrastructure, among other matters.

Papua New Guinea, a nation that gained its independence from Australia in 1975 and currently has more than 8 million inhabitants, has the most precarious infrastructure in the region, as well as a fragile healthcare system that must deal with a high incidence of polio, malaria and tuberculosis.

Its infant mortality and malnutrition rates are among the highest in the Pacific region, in addition to having little access to water sources, sanitation infrastructure and hygiene services, among other problems.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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Cuban Dancer Carlos Acosta Named New Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet

In addition to the good news about his new position, dancer Carlos Acosta has been nominated for the Goya Awards Best Actor for his role in the film ’Yuli’ (EFE)

London/Havana, EFE/14ymedio, 15 January 2019 — Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta was appointed as the new director of the Royal Ballet of Birmingham today, according to the company, one of the most prestigious in the United Kingdom.

Acosta, 45, who will assume the post in January 2020, was selected in a competition overseen by a group of international experts, the Royal Ballet of Birmingham said in a statement.

The tenure of the Cuban will begin after the current director, the British David Bintley, announced his retirement for next July, at the end of the season. continue reading

With regards to this new responsibility, Acosta declared that it is “a great honor and a privilege” to have been appointed to head the Birmingham Royal Ballet, which has its headquarters in the Hippodrome theater of that city, a building tailored to the needs of dance.

“I am a great admirer of its heritage and what David Bintley has done to establish the company as one of the leading classical ballet companies, following the wonderful foundations established by Sir Peter Wright. My desire is to build on its classical traditions, expand its repertoire and reach new and more diverse audiences,” he added.

The dancer wants to define what it is “to be a leading ballet company in the world in the 21st century.” He also reaffirmed his commitment to Acosta Danza and the Carlos Acosta International Dance Foundation, which he says “remains unshakeable.”

“I believe that my appointment as the Director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet can only improve and develop the opportunities I can provide to both, and that, in turn, that experience will help me develop the Birmingham Royal Ballet,” he said.

Added to this good news at the beginning of the year is his nomination for best actor in the Goya Awards for his role in the film Yuli, directed by Spaniard Iciar Bollain. The film was presented at the Havana Film Festival, although the book which inspired the film has not been sold on the island.

In his autobiographical book, No Way Home, Acosta denounces the racism he suffered within the National Ballet of Cuba and especially from its director, Alicia Alonso. The Cuban edition titled Sin mirar atrás was to be published by the Arte y Literatura publishing house but it was rejected because of the criticism towards the prima ballerina, according to the writer Jorge Ángel Pérez.

Acosta also wanted to promote the rescue of the buildings of the Dance Faculty at the University of the Arts (ISA) in the Cuban capital, which in recent decades have suffered from lack of maintenance, but still retain the architectural beauty of their origins.

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Viengsay Valdes to Direct National Ballet of Cuba

Viengsay Valdés has been The National Ballet of Cuba’s prima ballerina since 2001. (Facebook / Carlos Villamayor)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 January 2019 — The National Ballet of Cuba (BNC) has a new artistic deputy director, Viengsay Valdés, who since 2001 has been its prima ballerina. Alicia Alonso maintains, nominally, the position of general director although, at 97 years old, she is not engaged the regular work of the company. This means, in practice, that Valdés is the leader of the prestigious artistic institution.

According to Cubanet, the decision was made last Friday after a meeting of the Board of Directors with the Vice Minister of Culture Fernando Rojas. Participating in the meeting were Redento Morejón (executive deputy director), Miriam Vila (chair of Dance), Giovanni Duarte (orchestra director), Mauricio Abreu (press and publicity), Dayron Darias (general secretary of the Union of Young Communists), Daylis Moya (legal advice), Heriberto Cabezas (public relations), Salvador Fernández (technical deputy director), María Elena Llorente (head maître) and Miguel Cabrera (historian of the BNC). continue reading

At the meeting, the Board of Directors was informed of the forthcoming creation of an Artistic Committee headed by the new deputy director and in which the decisions about the company’s work will be made.

According to sources cited by Cubanet, the decision has set off some turmoil in the bosom of the National Ballet of Cuba, where Valdés is considered a person of strong and individualistic character, although “everyone has always recognized her extreme seriousness, her great capacity for work and her high professionalism, apart from the ‘in group’ and power management, concentrating only on ensuring that what she does has the highest possible quality,” the newspaper said.

It remains to be seen what direction the BNC will take now, not only in the artistic field, but also in matters of major importance from the point of view of civil rights, since the management is responsible for deciding who travels abroad on a tour, for example, a decision that has not always been based strictly on performance criteria.

The artistic institution has suffered, on the other hand, numerous defections. Since 2007, about 40 dancers have applied for asylum in the US and other countries, according to the figures from the Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami. The artistic director of the company, Pedro Pablo Peña, who died in 2018, insisted that the incessant leak of desertions shows “the absolute discontent” of the artists with the Cuban regime.

In 2014 nine dancers fled in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where they were participating in the show The Magic of Dance. Two years later, three more dancers left for the USA, where they debuted just a month after their departure a performance of Giselle, under the direction of Peña.

Valdés has been the National Ballet of Cuba’s prima ballerina since 2001, after a 15-year career that began at the Alejo Carpentier Provincial Ballet School. During the so-called Special Period after the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of its financial support for Cuba, this young girl with an exotic name, which in the Laotian language means “victory,” graduated with a ‘Golden Title’ from the National School of Art.

Valdés has been a guest star with the most prestigious ballet companies in the world, such as the Marinski Theater Ballet of St. Petersburg; the Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow; the Royal Danish Ballet and the Royal Ballet of London. In 2016 she stood out especially during her performances in the 25th edition of the International Ballet Festival of Havana, held between October 28 and November 6.

An extensive tour of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia completed her 2016 schedule, a year in which she also played the character of Kitri during a season of the classic Don Quixote. The critics said that it was the most emblematic role of the dancer’s wide repertoire.

For all these achievements, 14ymedio chose her one of its 2016 Faces of the Year.

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Pure Burlesque Theater / Fernando Damaso

Fernando Dámaso,24 January 2019 — Around the vote “Yes” campaign in the upcoming referendum, the government has unleashed demented propaganda, which tries to influence citizens to comply with their wishes. The absurdity reaches the point that, even when it is assumed that the vote “is individual and secret”, the “characters” interviewed and presented in the official media declare without equivocation and without the slightest shame that “they will vote Yes”, leaving aside these rights. In addition, the vote in the referendum, which should be Yes or No for the Constitution, has turned it into the vote “for the Homeland”, “for socialism”, “for the Revolution”, etc., changing its meaning completely.

We know that the referendum, like the Constitution approved “unanimously” by the National Assembly of People’s Power, constitutes a farce, one of the many that we have by now grown accustomed to, to keep us entertained and make us believe that the “system” is irrevocable and eternal, which constitutes sovereign nonsense negated by history, which shows that everything changes sooner or later. continue reading

This referendum replaces the carnival celebrations that were traditionally celebrated during February, which were moved to July by the work and grace of the “supreme maker” since disappeared [Fidel Castro], although the official media ridiculously pretends to keep him alive.

It seems 2019 will be lavish in the works of this theater of the burlesque, taking into account the string of laws that will have to be elaborated and approved, to apply what is already established in the Constitution.

Of course, in terms of economic development, of solutions to the problems that have piled up during six decades and in the improvement in the standard of living for the citizens, it will be even more disastrous than in 2018.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria