Translating Cuba – Page 69 – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Haydée Santamaría’s Farewell Letter

Haydée Santamaría committed suicide two days after the 27th anniversary of the Moncada Barracks attack. (Celso Rodríguez)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 28 July 2020 [delayed translation] — Forty years ago today, Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado committed suicide.

Her self-immolation occurred two days after the 27th anniversary of the Moncada Barracks attack. That commemorative event was held in the plaza named after her brother, Abel Santamaría, in the province of Ciego de Ávila. It was also the birthday of Melba Hernández, the other woman linked to that attack.

The official version states that she died in the house she shared with her children as a result of a gunshot wound to the head. Despite being considered a heroine and a member of the Council of State and the Central Committee, her remains were not laid to rest in the Plaza de la Revolución, as they should have been, but rather in a funeral home in Vedado, Havana.

In the political code of those who rule in Cuba, suicides do not deserve to be honored, perhaps for this reason those who attended her funeral shared the feeling that they were committing an act of disobedience. continue reading

The reason for her decision is attributed to the fact that her physical and mental health was very deteriorated, as she had never been able to overcome the trauma of having lost her brother and her boyfriend in that action in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953.

Her depression, almost permanent, was affected by what happened a few months earlier when the Peruvian Embassy was taken over by more than 10,000 Cubans who no longer wanted to live in Cuba.

Her depression, almost permanent, was affected by what happened a few months earlier when the Peruvian Embassy was taken over by more than 10,000 Cubans who no longer wanted to live in Cuba, and then more than 100,000 embarked through the port of Mariel for the United States. The infamous repudiation rallies, in which the protesters were humiliated and mistreated, must have seemed like an atrocity to her. Her colleagues at Casa de las Américas, which she chaired, noticed that she would spend weeks at a time without going to her office.

It’s hard to believe that in the final minutes of her life, Haydée Santamaría didn’t want to leave a written record of the profound reasons for her dramatic decision. It is significant that no one has ever dared to deny the existence of a letter that was most certainly addressed to Fidel Castro.

Cubans under fifty today are probably no longer interested in learning the content of a probable confession of disappointments. They barely care about knowing anything about the lives of those who dreamed of a utopia, much less the reasons they had for killing themselves. What does it matter, since today almost everyone is disappointed?

This disinterest, this neglect, is like the second death that awaits those who founded a project without a future. If that letter, which those of us who wanted to know about it never saw, is ever declassified, it will remain a historical curiosity… and it’s only been forty years.

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Haydée Santamaría, An Almost Forgotten Symbol of a Revolutionary Suicide

In 1980, the human stampede towards the Peruvian embassy left her stunned.

“That tall guy who dropped his cigarette ash all over the floor I had cleaned.” Haydée Santamaría 3rd from left. / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 28 July 2025 — Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado shot herself in the head on July 28, 1980, two days after the 27th anniversary of the Moncada barracks attack. It’s even said that the bullet could have been fired on the 26th itself, but the hairy men of the nomenclatura would never allow a suicide to spoil their celebration.

There were no honors in the Plaza. No national mourning was declared. Nor was there any mention of the weapon, the farewell note, or the most serious wound, that of disillusionment. She was bid farewell with a routine phrase in the official newspaper Granma: “after a prolonged physical and emotional illness.” A small feat for a founder of the Revolution, for one of the few “heroines” of a testosterone-doped process.

She was probably a Fidelista until the last minute of her life. In a sect, nothing is allowed but fanatically and unconditionally worshipping the leader. But there are also no second chances for a first impression. And when Yeyé — as she was called — met Fidel, she saw him as “that tall guy who left his cigarette ashes all over the floor I had cleaned.”

Dozens of women – including 14 mothers – who remain in Cuban prisons today could well remind their jailers of this fact.

It is well known that, after the failure of the Moncada attack, her brother and boyfriend—Abel Santamaría and Boris Luis Santa Coloma—were killed. What the official press doesn’t often repeat is that the cruel dictator Batista only sentenced her and Melba Hernández to seven months in prison. The dozens of women—including 14 mothers—who remain in Cuban prisons today for peacefully protesting against the regime might well remind their jailers of this fact.

When Haydée was released, she was sent to the United States to buy weapons from the mafia. Although she later confessed to feeling “terrified,” she did so without remorse. She also proudly recounted how she entered Cuba with her skirt full of fake pockets… and bullets. With a profound humanist vision, she also recounted her role in organizing attacks: “When someone had to plant a bomb during the struggle, and even in the underground, sometimes I was the one who had to decide who would do it […] I always chose the best, the one with the greatest conscience, the best human qualities, so that whoever it was wouldn’t get used to planting bombs, wouldn’t feel pleasure in planting them, so that it would always continue reading

hurt them.”

It is fair to recognize that she protected, as far as possible, some Cuban artists that the macho-Leninist sugar mill itself was trying to turn into guarapo

Perhaps it was her semi-illiteracy—she barely completed sixth grade—that allowed her to shine at the head of the Casa de las Américas. There she received Mario Benedetti, Cortázar, and Galeano. She protected those who wrote strangely, those who thought differently, as long as they didn’t challenge dogma too much. It is also fair to recognize that she protected, as much as possible, some Cuban artists whom the same macho-Leninist sugar mill was trying to turn into guarapo [sugarcane juice].

But by the late 1970s, Haydée no longer believed. She had learned to keep quiet inside. The repression was getting tougher; the culture was becoming more and more instrumental. And in April 1980, the human stampede toward the Peruvian embassy left her stunned. Cuba was beating those who left. Repudiation rallies were organized. Mobs shouted insults at the “worms” from the doors of the revolutionary vigilance committees.

Haydée broke down. She sent a letter to Fidel. She asked him to reflect. She denounced the violence in the streets. But she never received a reply.

Those who knew her say that her gaze was already hollow, that she spoke little, that she had lost hope.

She no longer attended meetings. She kept to herself in her home. She had been in a car accident shortly before. Those who knew her say her gaze was already hollow, that she spoke little, that she had lost hope. Until that July morning, she asked her driver to leave her alone. She closed the door. She took out the gun she had kept since her years in hiding. And fired.

Fidel didn’t utter a single public word. Nor did Raúl. Juan Almeida was the only one who dared to say it clearly: “In principle, we revolutionaries do not accept the decision to commit suicide. The lives of revolutionaries belong to the cause and the people. But those of us who knew her… knew that the wounds of Moncada had not healed.” It was an exception to the official silence.

Lamentably, the tragedy continued

Her two children, Celia Hart Santamaría and Abel Hart, died in a mysterious car accident.

Twenty-eight years later, on September 7, 2008, her two children, Celia and Abel Hart Santamaría, died in a mysterious car accident in Havana’s Miramar neighborhood. They were traveling in the same car. The vehicle crashed into a tree, and both died instantly. The official press reported the incident briefly. No in-depth investigation was conducted. Nor was there a memorial service.

After the accident, rumors began to swirl. Was it a real accident? A planned suicide? A desperate act in the face of ideological suffocation? There’s no proof. But the tragedy resonated like the echo of their mother’s gunshot.

The death of Haydée and her children are not isolated episodes. They are chapters in an emotional story that has never been told before. A story that doesn’t fit into school textbooks or official museums. It is the story of the human price of silence, of dogma… and of disillusionment.

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Boluarte Says She Avoided ‘A Failed Country Like Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia’

“Out of my deep love for our country, I resigned from a political project that led to unhealthy polarization.”

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte reviews troops upon her arrival at Congress in Lima on Monday. / EFE/Paolo Aguilar

EFE/14ymedio. Lima, 28 July 2025 — Peruvian President Dina Boluarte asserted this Monday, during her final address to the nation, that upon coming to power from the vice presidency after the impeachment of former President Pedro Castillo, she prevented Peru from becoming “a failed country like Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia” by renouncing “a political project that was leading to destruction.”

In her speech before the full Congress, interrupted several times by cries of “murderer, murderer” and banners from leftist groups demanding Castillo’s freedom, Boluarte asserted that “it was not this president who sought to disrupt the constitutional order to place Peru on the path of destruction and failure.”

The head of state was referring to Castillo’s failed coup attempt on December 7, 2022, which led to his removal from office and imprisonment. Boluarte, who was his vice president, took office amid a wave of protests whose repression left more than 50 dead. continue reading

“”What would have happened if I hadn’t taken office and acted with full respect for democratic order and institutions?”

Boluarte, who was elected in 2021 as Castillo’s vice president for the Marxist Peru Libre party, decided to remain in office with the support of a group of conservative forces, mostly right-wing, that control Congress.

“Out of my deep love for our country, I resigned from continuing a political project that led to unhealthy polarization, fratricidal confrontation, and the destruction of Peru,” the president said.

“Many criticize me for having preferred the constitutional duty to preserve democracy, freedom, property, respect for human rights, and democratic institutions,” Boluarte stated, amid frequent interruptions from leftist parliamentarians who shouted “murderer, murderer” at her while demanding Castillo’s release.

“What would have happened if I hadn’t taken office and acted with full respect for the democratic order and institutions? The country would be mired in a power vacuum, with serious consequences, elections held amid violence and an authoritarian and improvised government to draft a new Constitution, a pretext for those who are traitors to the country,” she added.

The leader considered that during her term she has been “the target of constant criticism and motions for impeachment not motivated by objective facts.”]]

The president insisted that those instigating the protests against her “wanted to turn Peru into a failed country, that is, into an international pariah.”

“However, between preferring the incomprehension of some and my mandate to the country, I chose to fulfill my duty to recover the country,” she reiterated. Boluarte added that “in Peru, there will never be ration cards with which the State tells citizens what and how much they should eat.” “We achieved this by staying united,” she added.

The leader considered that during her term she has been “the target of constant criticism and motions for impeachment motivated not by objective facts, but by other types of interests.”

“The narrative that has been constructed has sought to turn the president into a scapegoat. (…) History will judge these unhealthy intentions that do not weaken us in our quest to save the country. We will remain steadfast,” she commented.

She noted that her decision to remain in power in the face of criticism meant facing “the powers that be and countless investigations and prosecutions.”

“They thought that by extending this harassment of officials in my government and members of my family, they would weaken my commitment to all Peruvians, but I am a president firm in the face of adversity and I remain standing in service to the Peruvian people, with my unwavering commitment,” she concluded.

The president enters her final year in office as the most unpopular president in Latin America, with an approval rating that, according to polls, hovers between 2% and 3%.

Boluarte faces several open investigations by the Attorney General’s Office for deaths during protests, for receiving luxury gifts such as Rolex watches, for undergoing a series of surgeries without publicly announcing that she would be temporarily incapacitated, for alleged prohibited financing of political organizations, and for allegedly covering up for fugitive Vladimir Cerrón, leader of Perú Libre.

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A Cuban Grandmother Receives a Deportation Order After 30 Years in the US

She worked for 27 years at the University of Tampa and fears being sent to a third country because her Cuban passport has expired.

Pérez fears leaving her children and grandchildren behind. / Screenshot

14ymedio, Havana, 27 July 2025 — Yelenis Pérez, a 63-year-old Cuban resident in Florida, is facing a deportation order issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after living in the United States for three decades and working for 27 years at the University of Tampa. The decision, which surprised her family and colleagues, was announced at her last immigration appointment on July 14.

Pérez was under a C18 migratory status, a category that allows a permanent supervised stay in the U.S. despite having a final deportation order, as long as immediate removal is not viable. However, according to Noticias Tampa Hoy, on this occasion, the ICE officer informed her that she must leave the country within 90 days.

“Since that day, I’m not the same. My life has changed completely,” the Cuban woman confessed through tears in an interview with local media. “I’ve never failed, I’ve always done my part. You can check my papers, my history. I’ve been 100% honest with my case.”

“Since that day, I’m not the same. My life has changed completely.”

One of the main obstacles she now faces is renewing her Cuban passport, which has expired. She explained that the Island’s consulate informed her that the process could take months. Furthermore, since April 1, 2025 , the Cuban government has not allowed citizens with expired passports to enter the country, placing Pérez in immigration limbo.

“My fear is that Cuba won’t accept me and then ICE will decide which country to send me to. That’s what I don’t want,” she said. If she fails to continue reading

renew her document within the established deadline, immigration authorities could consider deporting her to a third country. Recently, two Cuban migrants lost their appeal in the US and were unable to avoid being sent to South Sudan.

Pérez has publicly asked the Donald Trump administration to reconsider her case. “I would like to stay in the country because I have my children. What will become of them without me?” she said, referring to her family in Florida, which also includes her husband and grandchildren.

The case has sparked a wave of reactions on social media and among immigrant rights advocates, who are calling for a humanitarian review. Meanwhile, uncertainty grows for Pérez.

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Cuban Workers Regret Having Voted To Eliminate the Cafeterias

The decision was approved in line with Raúl’s policy of eliminating subsidies, but now, in the midst of the current crisis, it is creating a hard time for employees.

An employee displays the broken and dirty plates that no one wants to eat off. / Trabajadores

14ymedio, Madrid, 28 July 2025 — More than 15 years ago, 85% of Cuban workers did what was expected of them: they ratified the proposal from above to eliminate the workers’ cafeterias. The idea, framed within Raúl Castro’s plan to eliminate subsidies, included a compensation measure that seemed very convincing to the employees at the time: they would receive a “stipend” of 15 pesos a day in return, which could double their salary.

At the time, a worker told the Associated Press, “For me, it’s much better if they give me the money and I manage. I don’t eat what they give me now; it’s awful, and I bring my lunch from home.” The older workers viewed the measure with skepticism, “but it will be good for the country,” the man said. Nothing could be further from the truth. During the time of the Ordering Task, these payments were required to be limited to no more than 18 pesos, while the price of meals only increased, and today the situation has deteriorated so much that the Special Period brings back fond memories.

“This is an issue that the unions need to revive. This was achieved during the toughest years of the Special Period, thanks to the initiatives of cooks, assistants, and employers,” says Roberto Betharte Mazorra, head of the Labor Affairs Department of the Cuban Workers’ Central Union—the only legal union in Cuba—who blames the situation on the organization of which he is a leader. This Monday, the newspaper Trabajadores published a report reviewing the state of the workers’ cafeterias and their precarious operation in the places where they have been maintained.

“This is an issue that the unions must revive. During the toughest years of the Special Period, this was achieved thanks to the initiatives of cooks, assistants, and employers.”

Among the reported cases, one of the most notable is that of the Special Workshop for People with Disabilities in Holguín, which maintains its service more in theory than in practice. Nelvis Pérez Rodríguez and Maylén Batista Almira—the center’s manager and cook—claim that they have lost their status as a protected sector and reveal that since February, they have not received rice or peas, there is only sugar to make tea, they have no cooking gas, and the electrical appliances they could use to cook in—if the blackout allowed—are in very poor condition. continue reading

In Matanzas, contracts with MSMEs (private businesses), the self-employed, and some state-owned meat and vegetable companies are keeping 22 soup kitchens and 43 distribution points open, feeding employees of the Ministry of Energy and Mines. According to the provincial Director of Economy and Planning, Gilberto Castel, the priority of these “allocations” is for childcare centers, hospitals, nursing and maternity homes, and hospitalized children and residential education centers. The rest must make do “with local, indigenous production and thus compensate for the shortage of rice, grains, and cooking oil,” the official urges.

This is why the director of the company that feeds energy sector employees, Inti Tabares López, has even traveled to Camagüey himself to buy rice. “I need eight sacks a day, and the Wholesale Food Products Company hasn’t supplied anything for over a year, while the Oil Services company, to which we belong, provides us with some soft drinks, sometimes meat and grains, and we are consistent with our responsibility to guarantee four to five meals a day. Our workers deserve the best,” he laments to the official weekly.

Workers and union leaders claim that the credit for these employees—including those working on the recovery of the Supertanker Base, which was burned in 2022—being among the few who eat well in Cuba is due to Tabares himself, thanks to his strategy. “The workers eat very well here; they are offered two main courses… the service is of high quality, and the charge is only 18 pesos, despite the high cost of the menu. The company covers the rest,” they explain.

That is why the director of the company that feeds employees in the energy sector, Inti Tabares López, has personally traveled to Camagüey to buy rice.

The same thing happens at the Cuban Medical Equipment Company in Havana, where they generate enough profit to cover the cost of the cafeteria. “For a meal that costs around 200 pesos, the worker pays 18,” they explain. Although such cases are not common.

At Antillana de Acero, the industry revived with Russian collaboration, the cafeteria is functioning, but complaints abound. Trabajadores complains that the food is repetitive: rice and minced meat. More serious, however, is what one of the employees interviewed reveals: no one wants to use the broken and dirty plastic plates they distribute, and the workers bring their own dishes.

Michel Cabrera Madrazo, general secretary of the company’s union bureau, states that the quality of the food is questioned at every meeting, but the director of the factory that produces it—located in the factory itself and serving six others—stands by her words. “We never go below three courses; the snacks remain stable, although the soft drinks have fluctuated slightly. Based on suggestions from members of the contingents, who are working on the structural improvements of the facility, they have been offered optional food, and workers who choose to eat it pay directly,” she maintains.

The official unexpectedly reveals a detail that, despite the country’s dire state, is still surprising. Inputs are expensive, and her efforts are aimed at ensuring that the company, “which is going through a difficult economic situation because it is not producing,” does not exceed its budget. Antillana de Acero, located in Havana, reopened in 2023 thanks to a multimillion-dollar Russian investment —an initial $111 million—and its inauguration received significant coverage in the official press, which highlighted its potential to employ more than 500 people and produce “between 220,000 and 230,000 tons of liquid steel annually.” There were warnings at the time that the factory would not be fully operational until 2024, but statements by Tania Caridad Rodríguez Tellería indicate total inactivity.

The inputs are expensive and their efforts are aimed at ensuring that the budget allocated by the company, “which is going through a complex economic situation because it is not producing,” is not exceeded.

“When many gave up and removed the cafeteria, it remained in Antillana despite everything,” says a union leader from the center. According to Trabajadores, the majority of companies that decided to maintain the workers’ cafeterias—despite the high costs and complaints—were industrial and nickel companies, while others eliminated them, to the chagrin of their current employees.

“It gave me something hot to eat,” says one worker who voted in favor of the newspaper’s elimination. “After the Ordering Task, my workplace cut off food payments, and we had to bring lunch from home. To that expense, I have to add the transportation to my center, and the math just doesn’t add up,” laments another. Norquides Guerra Montoya, a mechanic who voted against, remains in his position even though it’s useless.

“At the bucket factory in our sector, they complained and they brought it back. Why isn’t the same thing happening here? We’d be better off not having to go out and see what we could find, with everything being so expensive. What if I raised it with the union? Of course, and nothing gets resolved. Nothing.”

Roberto Betharte Mazorra says the intention was never to eliminate cafeterias, “but rather to eradicate subsidies, relieve the State of all free services,” and encourage companies to create gardens, self-consumption measures, and other options. “In the case of global organizations, the State assumed a stipend that, after the regulation, appeared to be included in salaries. It is no less true that, given current conditions and the prevailing speculative prices, this tends to be a permanent demand…” he adds.

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José Martí Was Not the Mastermind Behind the Attack on Cuba’s Moncada Barracks

In the early years of his tyranny, Fidel Castro attributed to José Martí all imaginable civic virtues, not out of respect for the patrician, but to use him as a wild card in the construction of the totalitarian system.

Statue of José Martí / Abel Padrón Padilla/Cubadebate

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Havana, 27 July 2025 — I have the firm conviction that one of the most regrettable events in the history of Cuba, with grave repercussions in numerous countries far from our shores, was and is the 26th of July 1953, the date of the attack on the Moncada Barracks and the day Fidel Castro entered national history to destroy the future of a now-defunct republic.

Fidel Castro, since his days as a university gang member, counted on a small following of loyalists, but he never enjoyed the popular support to achieve any of the many elected positions he always aspired to, including the presidency of the University Student Federation (FEU), or the same position in the Faculty of Law, or Representative to the House of Representatives, the latter ambition cut short by the disastrous military coup of March 10, 1952.

It is presumed that Castro welcomed the military coup. His many failures in the electoral races convinced him that it was easier to fight with arms than to participate in an electoral contest in which the loser disappeared ingloriously and the winner had to periodically submit to the popular will.

Hence, one of his first slogans, on the very days of the attack on the barracks, was that “José Martí is the intellectual author of this revolution.”

In the early years of his tyranny, Castro attempted to diminish the historical value of our wars of independence, arguing that the patriots had acted out of petty interests, excluding only Martí, to whom he attributed every imaginable civic virtue, not out of respect for the patrician, but to use him as a wild card in the construction of the totalitarian system. Hence, one of his first slogans, on the very days of the attack on the barracks, was that “José Martí is the intellectual author of this revolution.”

Castro, a notable disciple of the best propagandists of Marxism and fascism, loudly proclaimed the virtues of Martí, constantly claiming that the Maestro had been his inspiration while denying one of the apostle’s* most sublime thoughts: “Let us place around the star, on the new flag, this formula of triumphant love: With all, and for the good of all.”

Castro’s lies and the usurpation of Martí’s life and work to justify continue reading

totalitarianism led Carmen Gómez de Toro to organize a conference with scholars specializing in the life and work of this eminent Cuban, which she later compiled and published under the title we have hijacked for this column.

In the introduction to her book, Gómez de Toro affirms aspects of Martí’s gospel, such as freedom, sovereignty, and human dignity, which are diametrically opposed to the Cuban totalitarian system. She reminds us of the apostle’s comment: “The right of the worker can never be the hatred of capital; it must be harmony, conciliation, and a common understanding of one another.” She adds that Martí divided men into two camps: “those who love and build, and those who hate and destroy,” as has been the result of Fidel Castro’s life and work, which devastated lives and property.

Castro’s lies and the usurpation of Martí’s life and work to justify totalitarianism led Carmen Gómez de Toro to organize a conference with scholars specializing in the life and work of this eminent Cuban

The scholars on José Martí’s life who participated in the conference were Eduardo Lolo, José Raúl Vidal, Emilio Sánchez, and Daniel Pedreira, who demonstrated in their respective presentations that this first slogan of Castro’s totalitarianism is a fallacy without the slightest semblance of authenticity.

In the book, Dr. Emilio Sánchez states: “The distortion of José Martí’s ideas for political purposes immediately emerges upon a careful reading of his splendid work.” Dr. Eduardo Lolo, for his part, notes: “A revolution is still necessary, one that does not make its leader president, the revolution against all revolutions.”

This approach to José Martí, sponsored by Carmen de Toro, is further enriched by the expression also recalled by Dr. Daniel Pedreira: “The homeland belongs to no one, and if it belongs to anyone, it will be, and this only in spirit, to the one who serves it with the greatest selflessness and intelligence.” The book closes with a lecture by a young Cuban, José Raúl Vidal y Franco, who, although he grew up under totalitarianism, had the intelligence and courage to free José Martí from the slanderous lies of Castroism, recalling a fragment of what the illustrious Cuban wrote about Karl Marx upon his death: “The task of casting men upon men is terrifying.”

*Martí was and is referred to as the “Apostle of Cuban Independence”
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These Poor People Who Annoy the Cuban Government So Much

These poor people who annoy the Cuban government so much.

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Pepe Mujica, the Revolutionary Who Criticized Authoritarian Excesses, Dies

Upon learning of his passing, I couldn’t help but remember how close I was to shaking his hand, but the demons of political intolerance prevented it.

José Mujica, former president of Uruguay and emblematic figure of the Latin American left, has died at the age of 89 / EFE/ Gastón Britos

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, 14 May 2025 [delayed translation] – – This Tuesday, one of the few Latin American leaders who, after serving as president, maintained a regional prestige free of accusations and scandals, died. He had been a man who was a model for the politics of service so lacking on our continent. José Pepe Mujica, former president of Uruguay and emblematic figure of the Latin American left, passed away at the age of 89. Upon learning of his passing, I couldn’t help but remember how close I came to shaking his hand, but the demons of political intolerance prevented me from doing so.

It was 2015, and I was visiting Montevideo, invited by the local journalists’ association. The tour’s agenda included visits to media outlets, conversations with reporters and graphic artists, and an extensive cultural program that lasted late into the night. One of the highlights of that stay in Uruguay was, precisely, meeting Mujica, a respected political oracle who delivered opinions and teachings with great ease and a fair amount of authenticity. The moment was also transcendent.

That year, hopes for a possible democratic transition in Cuba had reached a peak. Just a few months earlier, in December 2014, a diplomatic thaw between Washington and Havana had been announced, and the world’s eyes were focused on what was happening on the island. Fidel Castro, recovering from the illness that removed him from power in 2006, barely received visitors, and Mujica was one of the few chosen to access Punto Cero, the heavily guarded estate where Castro spent his final years. The Uruguayan was very reserved about those encounters, but had begun to slip in criticism of the authoritarian nature of the Cuban model. continue reading

Talking to Mujica was an opportunity for me to hear the opinion of an informed and sincere political actor who knew my country closely and had a vision of everything that was happening in the region.

Talking with Mujica was, for me, an opportunity to hear the opinion of an informed and sincere political figure who knew my country closely and had a vision of everything that was happening in the region. But we were never able to have that conversation.

One day before the scheduled date for the exchange of views, Pepe told the event organizer that he had to travel a few weeks later to a tribute where he would receive at the Casa de las Américas in Havana. “You know how Cubans are; I don’t want any trouble with them,” he excused himself before canceling the meeting, alluding to the Cuban regime’s traditional intolerance toward any gesture of dissent. The journalist who heard that excuse later told me that the former president was embarrassed and annoyed at having to accommodate the sensitivities of the Castro regime.

That official tribute took place, and Mujica shone before the audience with his ease, but in the years to come, the Uruguayan increasingly distanced himself from the Cuban establishment. In an interview, he revealed part of the chasm that had opened between the pluralism he had embraced and the single party imposed by Castro. “It doesn’t work, this doesn’t work,” he declared with his usual frankness. Reading his words, I felt I was listening to him, and that frustrated meeting had, in fact, taken place, and that we had been talking in Montevideo or Havana for long hours about life, liberty, and the future. Buen viaje, Pepe.

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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Deutsche Welle in Spanish.

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I Like, Pepe, That You Dislike It

“I haven’t cultivated hatred in my garden for decades, because I learned a hard lesson that life imposed on me: that hatred ends up making you stupid,” said Mujica.”

José Mujica on the farm where he lived for more than 35 years and asked to be buried. / EFE/ Sofía Torre

14ymedio, Federico Hernández Aguilar, San Salvador, 19 May 2025 [Delayed translation] — It is not easy to find balanced obituaries when certain public figures die. Some are praised or disparaged, sometimes without nuance, depending on the ideological radicalism of the person writing about them. Sometimes, these somewhat hasty words, cobbled together by journalists and columnists in the wake of a recent death, tell us more about their authors—their likes and dislikes—than about the figures being profiled. This has been no different with former Uruguayan President Pepe Mujica, who died of cancer on May 13.

I open the digital version of a newspaper that includes the word derecha— right—in its name and find the following headline: Pepe Mujica, the man who hid a past stained with blood and violence. The article criticizes the “wise peasant” and “pacifist grandfather” profile that the former Tupamaro leader has “sold,” reminding us that his guerrilla organization was responsible “for multiple acts of armed violence in the 1960s and 1970s.” Later, the article states that Pepe “did not show a single gesture of remorse for his crimes” nor did he apologize to the victims of his attacks. The final sentence is damning: “Mujica was not a hero: he was a terrorist recycled as a president.”

In another newspaper that includes the word izquierdo—left—in its name, the column I’m reading calls the former Uruguayan president a “repentant revolutionary” in its headline. Nor does this obituary—written from the opposite side of the street—offer its readers much room for maneuver either: Pepe was a “defender of the institutions of the capitalist system,” an “extreme expression” of a deradicalized Latin American left, and someone who “played a central role in reconciliation with the military responsible for crimes during the dictatorship.” The author describes Mujica’s speech as one that served as “a defeatist and disciplinary message (sic), which contrasts drastically with the revolutionary ideals of his youth.” continue reading

In another newspaper that includes the word “left” in its name, the column I read calls the former Uruguayan president a “repentant revolutionary” in its headline.

I recognize the interest aroused in me by the confrontation of these feverish obituaries, so completely separated by their respective ideologies and yet so unusually united in their contempt for the figure. I confess, I like the disgust that Pepe Mujica provokes at both ends of the Spanish-American ideological spectrum. The old man must have done something right, I imagine, for the reptilians on both sides to rush to criticize his legacy, portraying him as an unrepentant bloodthirsty man who should be given no credit, or as a shameful comrade who ended up sugarcoating the socialist ideal for which he had fired rifles and dropped bombs.

I suspect radicals have many reasons to feel uncomfortable with Mujica. They find it very difficult, for starters, to claim him as their own. No one who still believes in Marxist postulates about violence could explain why Pepe, toward the end of his life, spoke more about the great ethical battle of our time than about the Jurassic class struggle. “The old left,” he wrote, “lives too much on nostalgia… It has a hard time understanding why it failed and has great difficulty imagining new paths.”

On the other side, it also stings that Mujica was a living example of moral coherence. He challenged what he called the “culture of selfishness” with more than just catchphrases, embodying sobriety in countercultural, almost lacerating ways. Body and soul, he lived contradicting the atavistic desire for profit and luxury. “The poor are those who want more,” he said, “those who can’t afford anything. Those are the poor, because they’re in an endless race.” Someone so detached from all baggage, of course, hardly fits in anywhere.

But without a doubt, the worst burden Pepe shed was hatred. In his days as a guerrilla and criminal, hatred for those who thought differently was an indispensable condition for struggle. Che Guevara, in those chilling words addressed to the Tricontinental (1967), granted the revolutionary legitimacy that was the cloak of that youthful criminal fury: “Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy.”

That’s why he went so far as to say that Venezuela and Nicaragua were “indefensible,” accusing their leaders of “playing at democracy” while perpetrating electoral fraud.

Upon his release from prison in 1985, however, Mujica had also freed himself from the mental shackles that justify excess. And he never again yielded to them. That is why, last year, he once again distanced himself from the “dictatorship of the proletariat” entrenched in Cuba for more than 60 years with two words: “It’s useless.” That’s why he went so far as to say that Venezuela and Nicaragua were “indefensible,” accusing their leaders of “playing at democracy” while perpetrating electoral fraud.

That is why, upon leaving his seat in the senate in 2020, he recalled that, although he had many flaws, there was one he was proud of redeeming. “I’m passionate,” he said then, “but I haven’t cultivated hatred in my garden for decades, because I learned a hard lesson that life imposed on me: that hatred ultimately makes us stupid, because it makes us lose objectivity in the face of things. Hate is blind like love, but love is creative, and hatred destroys us.”

Due to ideological distortion and historical inertia, socialists have gardens littered with corpses because resentment has taken over their consciences. Pepe Mujica understood, with a stroke of clarity, that it is impossible to change the world this way. And his lesson is everlasting.

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Official Data Reveals the Magnitude of Cultural Decline in Cuba

In 2024 a general decline was recorded in almost all of the country’s cultural indicators: in production, creativity, active spaces and audience attendance.

Archive image of film production organised by independent producers in Cuba. / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 18 July 2025 – A nation’s culture is not measured in kilowatts, but when the lights go out in its theatres, its libraries and its cinemas, the resulting darkness has no need of metaphors. And even if artistic quality doesn’t figure in any quantifiable economic indicators of state, the coldness of the numbers is enough to illustrate a map of the disaster. Cuba’s 2024 Statistical Yearbook offers a cold but revealing picture of the structural deterioration that the nation’s cultural ecosystem is suffering.

The diagnosis is severe. Data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei) shows a general fall in almost all cultural indicators: production, creativity, active spaces and audience attendance. But among all the headlines, the one concerned with books destroys any triumphalist speeches given by Alpidio Alonso – head of Culture – who comes precisely from the book sector himself. Whilst in 2023 six million book copies were printed in Cuba, in 2024 the figure fell dramatically to 1,355,500. It isn’t just down to a shortage of paper, but a shortage of political will, and priorities.

Cinema, for its part, confirms the sombre tone. In 2024 there were 6,647 fewer screenings than in the previous year, and 15 cinemas completely disappeared from the map. Production contracted in size too: there were fewer shorts produced and the overall total of animation films was reduced. continue reading

According to the Onei itself, not one feature film was actually completed – a statement contradicted however by the actual facts themselves

According to the Onei itself, not one feature film was actually completed – a statement contradicted however by the actual facts themselves: at least two films were recognised by critics as being the best films of the year: ’An Evening With the Rolling Stones’, by Patricia Ramos; and ’Maisinicú, Half a Century Later’, by Mitshell Lobaina. Both productions, completed in 2024 under the hallmark of the Cuban Institute for Art and Cinema (Icaic), were simply ignored in the official figures, which – it’s worth adding – are compiled using data from the Ministry of Culture.

The lack of insight goes even further when you look at independent filmmaking. Invisible for the Art & Cinema Institute, the National Office of Statistics, the state-run media and all the state-run cinemas of the country, this sector develops audiences beyond the usual margins – at international festivals or on digital platforms. Two titles particularly stand out in this area: the documentary ’Cronicles of the Absurd’, by Miguel Coyula, and the fiction debut of director Marcos Díaz Sosa, ’Natural Phenomena’. Two works which demonstrated that, even if they didn’t cross the thresholds of the national cinemas, art itself needs no permission to exist.

And theatre, traditional object of suspicion and censorship by the cultural police, has also given ground. Although the number of venues increased marginally, from 85 to 87, more general figures invite pessimism. 48 actual theatre companies were lost, along with 440 professionally-active performers (reducing from 2,103 to 1,663). The country registered a deficit of 1,205 performances, and 195,700 fewer theatre attendances than in the previous year. Neither the heroic efforts of theatre creators nor the enthusiasm of loyal theatre audiences have been able to reverse the decline.

Music is suffering a parallel fate. Some 334 bands disappeared and there were 1,691 fewer working musicians than there were in 2023. The number of live concerts, clubs and related cultural activities decreased from 90,033 to 62,162 – an equivalent loss of more than 6 million concert attendances. The silence is not only falling upon theatres but also on parks, cultural centres and community spaces.

Music is suffering a parallel fate. 334 bands disappeared and there were 1,691 fewer working musicians than there were in 2023

This newspaper has monitored complaints from musicians across a number of provinces, many of whom are victims of prolonged outstanding payments from state entities such as Artex. Some artistes have gone for months without pay, whilst the company boasts about an optimistic balance sheet. The paradox is revealing: company income is growing but cultural activity is decreasing. They are saving on culture, as though culture were something dispensable. Even worse, the company (state-run, ’socialist’, so they say) gets richer, whilst its artistes are exploited and go unpaid.

Geographical inequalities are also notorious. Holguín survives with just one theatre. Las Tunas is seeing its network of cinemas and libraries diminish. In Mayabeque some libraries are barely managing to cling onto existence. Ciego de Ávila turns out to be the province with fewest museums, and Sancti Spíritus has only hung on to two art galleries. Beyond the larger urban centres, culture has been reduced to mere wreckage and nostalgia.

So 2024 was more than just a poor year for culture, it was a year of cultural famine and darkness. Not for a lack of cultural creatives, nor through any public apathy, but because of a worn out model that administers culture as though it were just another office of state. What the National Statistics Office can’t measure – nor dares even to name – is the spiritual price of this shutdown. And as they’re so keen to quote José Martí so often, they ought also to remember this one: “The mother of decency, the lifeblood of liberty, the conservation of the Republic and the solution to all its ills is, above all else, the propagation of culture”.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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“I Need To Do Everything Possible To Get Him To End His Hunger Strike, Because His Life Is a Priority”

Duannis León Taboada’s mother obtains a promise to see her son, sentenced to 14 years in prison for 9/11.
Rapper Nando OBDC, arrested for “propaganda against the constitutional order,” is also in custody.

Yenisey Taboada Ortiz, mother of political prisoner Duannis León Taboada. / Facebook

14ymedio, Madrid, 25 July 2025 — Yenisey Taboada Ortiz, mother of 11J political prisoner Duannis León Taboada, who is a on hunger strike at Combinado del Este in Havana, managed to get the warden of the maximum-security prison to give her “his word” that she would be able to see and speak with her son this Friday. The woman had spent several hours “planted” at the prison gates the day before.

According to a report this Friday from the activist Tania Tasé, a resident of Germany, a doctor examined Taboada, who had “low blood pressure and chapped lips,” and determined that his general health was “good.” The appointment for the “dynamic” she was promised, with Duannis in attendance, will be at noon today.

“I am calm, but make no mistake, I am steadfast. I cannot keep waiting for a call. What do you want, for my son to die?” the woman told Martí Noticias after announcing that she wouldn’t leave the prison gate until she was allowed to see Duannis. “As a mother, I need to see him, to do everything possible to get him to end his strike, because his life is a priority for me.” continue reading

According to the Cultural Rights Observatory, Duannis León remains in his usual cell without medical attention.

According to the Cultural Rights Observatory, citing sources from other inmates, Duannis León, who has been held incommunicado since Monday, remains in his usual cell without medical attention. “In the morning, they said he was weak but stable, lying in his bed. By the afternoon, the prisoners reported that he could barely open his eyes,” was one of the statements collected by the organization.

Duannis León Taboada, who is serving a 14-year sentence for sedition for his participation in the 11 July 2021 protests, went on a hunger and thirst strike a week ago. His mother told 14ymedio on Tuesday that he drank water that same day but felt “very weak.”

After exerting pressure and staying at Combinado del Este until seven at night, they allowed her a phone call, the woman also said. “I want my freedom, Mom,” Duannis told her, adding that he started the strike “for all the protesters and for the mothers who continue to suffer.”

The young man, who will turn 27 on August 19, was working as a self-employed barber when he participated in the massive Island-wide protest, specifically at the emblematic Toyo corner, where an overturned police patrol car and protesters waving the Cuban flag became a symbolic image of that day. The Diez de Octubre Court that tried him, along with 32 other defendants, in January 2022, was implacable with the sentences, which reached up to 30 years in prison.

Rapper ’Nando OBDC’ has been in pretrial detention for almost seven months without the Prosecutor’s Office even issuing a request.

Another prisoner on hunger strike is rapper Fernando Almenares Rivera, known as Nando OBDC, who has been in pretrial detention for almost seven months without the Prosecutor’s Office even issuing a petition. According to his wife, Adrianna Machado, “he’s been there since the 20th.” The artist is accused of “propaganda against the constitutional order,” for being involved in “subversive activities,” and for having ties to people who promote “terrorism against the Cuban state.”

Nando OBDC was arrested on December 31, 2024, at his home in the Havana municipality of La Lisa and held in Villa Marista, the State Security headquarters, for over a month. He was later incarcerated in the mixed prison for AIDS patients Cuba-Panama in Güines, Mayabeque, whose conditions have been denounced by organizations such as Cubalex.

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Journalism Without Pay and With Censorship: The Other Face of Telesur

If someone wants to find out what is really happening in Venezuela or Cuba, the healthiest thing is still to change the channel.

Telesur was founded in 2005 as a move by then Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to counteract “the media hegemony of imperialism.” / Telesur

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 25 July 2025 — For two decades, Telesur has insisted on calling itself “Latin America’s news channel.” But just five minutes of viewing is enough to notice that they don’t even hide their bias. Their editorial line is a rearview mirror stuck in the dystopia of 21st-century socialism. What they present as journalism is, in reality, a script written by Castro’s ideologues and dressed up with Bolivarian histrionics. If anyone wants to find out what’s really happening in Venezuela or Cuba, the best course of action is still to change the channel. Or better yet, turn off the television.

The multi-socialist-state company was born in 2005 as a move by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to counter “the media hegemony of imperialism.” They dreamed of a kind of Caribbean CNN, with a guerrilla accent and insurgent spirit. What they created, however, was an audiovisual tableau where each bulletin seems like an act of faith, and each presenter an evangelist of failure.

However, even the most fervent revolutionaries have to pay rent. And Telesur, like every socialist project, is burdened by unpaid bills, job insecurity, favoritism, and a staff that increasingly disbelieves in what it broadcasts. Journalists from the English-language station have denounced years of falling wages, subsistence working conditions, and a toxic environment where the only ones who prosper are the loyal, not the talented. To ‘resolve’ the problem, as we Cubans say, they turned to students from the island to provide translations and subtitles for prices so low they would make even the most greedy capitalist blush. continue reading

Even those who once believed in the project and still retained their dignity ended up jumping ship.

Even those who once believed in the project and still retained their dignity ended up jumping ship. Leandro Lutzky, an Argentine journalist and the news program’s prominent figure, resigned when the channel applauded the Venezuelan elections as if they were a demonstration of Scandinavian civility. Seeing Telesur declare that Maduro was elected “transparently” in 2024 was, for Lutzky, the limit. He left. And he said it out loud.

And then there’s Walter Martínez, the man with the eye patch, who for years greeted “the crew of our beloved, contaminated, and only spaceship” from Dossier. A journalist with decades of experience and a memory that ended up bothering the amnesiacs in power.

Martínez accused former minister Andrés Izarra, the channel’s first director, of appropriating other people’s ideas and the public funds that were intended for Telesur’s infrastructure and the launch of the Simón Bolívar satellite. “Izarra embezzled the State,” Martínez said. In his calm style, he made it clear: surviving in that ecosystem today requires “very agile hands.” And everyone understood.

But the most personal part would come later. In 2020, Martínez denounced the station’s current president, Patricia Villegas, for withholding payments, hiring fellow citizens with salaries in dollars, and excluding him from the Venezuelan Television (VTV) channel under the pretext of protecting him due to his age during the pandemic. “She doesn’t want to compensate me for my work, but she brings in fellow citizens paid in dollars,” he said. And as always, there was no response.

Martínez also revealed that Villegas requested eight million dollars to establish a Telesur channel in Ecuador, because—according to her—that country “deserved more media coverage than Venezuela.” A statement that, coming from the president of a supposedly Venezuelan channel, spoke volumes.

From the forced departure of Aram Aharonian to the current silent purge of journalists, the channel has shown that the only thing it does not allow is dissent.

Censorship also came knocking on Martínez’s door. His program was taken off the air on VTV by order of Minister Jorge Rodríguez after he attempted to interview an opposition figure. The guest was yelled off the channel. And Martínez’s microphone was turned off.

According to him, Patricia Villegas runs the channel as if she were more powerful than Maduro himself. She calls assemblies, appoints vice presidents, distributes resources—in dollars, of course—and acts with the tacit support of the leadership. She doesn’t run a television station; she administers a doctrine.

From the forced departure of Aram Aharonian, one of its founders, to the current silent purge of inconvenient journalists, the channel has shown that the one thing it doesn’t allow is dissent.

If it was once a promise, today it’s merely a caricature, a monotonous newsletter where pluralism is a crime. And like any dogmatic sect, it has only two options for apostates: exile… or invisibility.

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A Former Cuban Judge Who Refused To Convict ’11J’ Protesters Could Be Deported Back to Cuba and Face Treason Charges

Ottawa bans Yosniel Alginis Villalón López from entering the country despite his marriage to a Canadian woman.

Yosniel Alginis Villalón López and his wife Stéphanie Penta. / Facebook/Stephanie Penta

14ymedio, Havana, 25 July 2025 — The future of former Cuban judge of the Havana Provincial Court, Yosniel Alginis Villalón López, is in limbo. Canada denied him legal entry on July 2 and a day later handed him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He is being held at the detention center in Buffalo, New York, where he awaits his deportation hearing in late August. If he is returned to the island, he could be charged with treason for refusing to condemn the 11J protesters.

Villalón took office as a judge just a month before the outbreak of the Island-wide protests that shook the Cuban streets on 11 July 2021. “It represents a great honor for me, an award I receive in return for so many years of study, dedication, and sacrifice,” he told the official outlet Tribuna at the time. “It represents growth in my profession with the great responsibility of administering justice from the bench.”

Upon reaching the US border, he applied for asylum and settled in Miami, Florida.

Threats from the regime and harassment from State Security, which reminded him of his refusal to join the Cuban Communist Party, led Villalón to go into exile in early 2022. Upon reaching the US border, he applied for asylum and settled in Miami, Florida. The 34-year-old Cuban received a work permit, performing various activities in the mornings and cleaning a courthouse at night.

In October 2024, he met Canadian Stéphanie Penta through social media. After several months, the woman traveled to Miami to meet him. The relationship became more formal when Villalón met his partner’s daughters and in May, they decided to get married.

According to Villalón López, who spoke to the Montreal Gazette , an immigration lawyer informed them that Villalón qualified under the family exception to the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), so he decided to move. On July 2, he headed to the Lacolle crossing in Quebec, one of Canada’s busiest land borders. However, what he thought would be the start of a new life ended in a nightmare. continue reading

Yosniel Alginis Villalón López during the swearing-in ceremony for Havana’s permanent professional judges in June 2021. / Roly Montalván

Immigration experts told the Canadian newspaper that the Cuban’s case is part of “a growing wave of failed crossings” at the Canada-U.S. land border. This is because the STCA requires an individual to apply for asylum in the first safe country they reach—in this case, the United States.

Villalón presented the Canada Border Services Agency agent with a marriage certificate, a criminal background check, and joint bank statements, among other documents. The interview focused on his relationship with Stéphanie, his personal history and asylum claim in the United States, and whether their marriage was genuine.

“He said Stéphanie and I got married so I could immigrate to Canada.”

Villalón showed the agent a photo of himself with Stéphanie and their daughters in New York, but the officer felt it wasn’t enough. “He said Stéphanie and I got married so I could immigrate to Canada.”

Ottawa immigration lawyer Heather Neufeld noted that it is common for border officials to say an individual doesn’t have the correct visa when they don’t believe the marriage is real.

The Canadian Immigration Minister’s office defended the official interpretation of the STCA in handling asylum applications. While the agreement allows for family-based exceptions, “the burden of proof rests with the asylum seeker.”

The lawyer has tried to reach an agreement with the Canadian authorities.

The case of the former Cuban judge is being defended by attorney Hana Marku, who acknowledged that the appeal could take more than a year. She has therefore attempted to reach an agreement with Canadian authorities so that her client can re-enter Canada and present his case again.

The problem is that ICE must release him first, and starting only this month it has tightened its rules: “Immigrants should be released on bond before their hearings only in exceptional circumstances.”

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Controversy in Italy over Cuban Doctors ‘Jumping Ship’ for the Private Sector

A politician points out that “cases of abandonment continue to multiply” among the group of 370 health workers from the island deployed in Calabria.

Cuban healthcare workers with Governor Roberto Occhiuto / Facebook/Roberto Occhiuto

14ymedio, Madrid, 25 July 2025 / The political opposition in Calabria, Italy has lashed out against the regional government for hiring Cuban doctors after a local newspaper, La Nuova Calabria, reported that at least five Cuban physicians had left the public hospitals where they had been working. This week, Ernesto Alecci, a council member from the opposition Democratic Party, formally asked Governor Roberto Occhiuto of Forza Italia (the right-wing party founded by Silvio Berlusconi), to clarify the entire cooperative healthcare arrangement the region has with Cuba.

Alecci cited the case of a Cuban orthopedist who recently left his job at the Jazzolino Hospital in the town of Vibo Valentia for a position at Villa dei Gerani, a private clinic. “Just the tip of the iceberg” is how the Calabrian media outlet that reported the story described the incident. “This new case of job-hopping is one of many. In addition to those who have left for the private sector, there are others who have gone on vacation and never returned, those who preferred the Spanish healthcare system and those who simply disappeared.” said Alleci, who claims that “the numbers do not seem to be adding up.”

He points out that in its 2022 agreement with Calabria, the Cuban state-owned company Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos S.A. agreed to provide the region with 497 doctors. However, as of May there were only about 370 on duty, “with cases of quitting continuing to multiply.” This led Alecci to submit his letter to the regional government. “I am trying to determine how many Cuban doctors are still working in Calabria, how many have left, what controls have been put in place to monitor the program’s progress, and whether there are plans to review the terms of the contract, which provides for a gross salary of approximately €4,700, of which only €1,200 is goes to the doctor,” he said, referring to the conditions of the Cuban healthcare workers, who are accredited by international continue reading

organizations such as Archivo Cuba, Prisoners Defenders, and Human Rights Watch.

“Given the circumstances, it is worth asking if this form of cooperation adequately benefits the Cuban doctors

“Given the circumstances, it is worth asking if this form of cooperation adequately benefits the Cuban doctors serving in our hospitals,” he says. “If we care about public health, we must do more than simply ’import’ doctors. We must make them feel part of a program in which they are on par with their Italian colleagues.” To Alecci it makes sense that , upon arriving in Calabria, some health workers “realize they can find better opportunities elsewhere.”

The former president of the Calabrian Regional Council, Domenico Tallini (a member of the same party as Occhiuto), also questioned the governor’s agreement with Cuba. In La Nuova Calabria he writes that the reported “escape” of two specialists from Vibo Valentia— one of them the aforementioned the orthopedist—”only raises doubts about the contractual arrangements put forward by various international associations, under which the Caribbean doctors hired by President Occhiuto receive only a fraction of the enormous sums the region of Calabria is paying. The rest ends up in the pockets of the regime in Havana.”

Hence the request for “a sincere word” with the governor, asking him to explain to the people of Calabria where the resources allocated to the Cuban operation are going.” Tallini asks, “Why did the two Cuban doctors working in Vibo Valentia choose other career options?” Was it because the thought of handing over the bulk of their income to Havana became intolerable?” He notes that President Occhiuto chose not to respond.”

However, the newspaper Sierra Maestra, a “friendly Italian-Cuban association,” did respond. It expressed surprise that a former official such as Tallini would have access to “sensitive data that should be held exclusively by the Regional Health Department” and that he would be demanding explanations about the procedures carried out by Cuban doctors instead of “concerning himself with with dignity of their compatriots.”

In a “careful reading” of the figures, the Sierra Maestra article raises some issues: “If Cuban doctors only participate in medical activities — for example, the 7,103 surgical interventions mentioned — it means that they are simply helping their Italian colleagues. In such a case, the region of Calabria is paying a considerable amount of money to cover the salaries of Cuban doctors, who are simply relieving the workload of Italian doctors. Only the Ministry of Health can clarify this crucial aspect to determine whether the contract with Cuban doctors was a good investment.”

According to La C, a local Calabrian media outlet, at least three other physicians have left their posts in addition to the two in Vibo Valentia. They had been working in the areas of Cosenza, Corigliano Rossano, Cetraro and Paola. “There has been no news of them and no one has seen them return to work for months. The other members of the team deployed to Corigliano Rossano are living quietly in a prominent hotel in the center of town and can often be seen walking towards the nearby Hospital Giannettasio,” La C reported.

The article reveals, however, another possible though prohibited reason for one doctor’s disappearance: marriage

The article reveals, however, another possible though prohibited reason for one doctor’s disappearance: marriage. It claims his colleagues were even invited to the wedding. “Such a union might prevent him from ever returning to Cuba,” the La C report concludes.

La C cites an in-depth investigation by the independent, Miami-based news site CubaNet, which reported on June 27, 2024 how Havana had flouted Calabrian law by “finding ways to make withholding of 71% of professionals’ salaries and other forced labor practices look legal.”

Rather than scaling back, Calabrian officials seem proud of their agreement with Cuba. Last April, they even attended the 5th International Cuba-Health 2025 Convention, where they reiterated their desire to “deepen bilateral collaboration.”

“The Cuban healthcare model, with its focus on primary care and prevention, is similar to ours and has been essential for guaranteeing service in remote areas,” said Francesco Lucia, director of Prevention and Public Health in Calabria. The region first imported Cuban doctors in 2023 due to a personnel shortage.

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Cuba: Dumb, Clumsy and Bad

Why is this so terrible? Why this agony of a joyful country?

Garbage dump behind what used to be the Musical Theater in Central Havana. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Ernesto Cambiaso, Buenos Aires, 24 July 2025 — Over the years—I’m 81—I’ve been to Cuba five or more times. From the Special Period to the ongoing extermination. I’ve logged hundreds of hours reading about Cuba, enjoying its writers, visual artists, and its formidable music. I can find no reason to have done so except for love at first sight on my initial visit, years ago, which still lingers, transformed into mourning for a loved one. It was an absolute absurdity of the finest Bohemian crystal. Its fineness condemned it to be brittle.

I saw their houses in a state of abandonment, then deterioration, then ruin, and finally collapsed upon themselves because the beams and pillars had been pulverized by the salty wind from the sea.

On my last trip, shortly before the pandemic, I tripped over a tree root that had pierced the sidewalk, creating a trap for walkers. I fell to the ground and hurt my knee. I was bleeding profusely. Luckily, I wasn’t alone, as my son was with me. Not knowing what to do, we hailed a taxi, and the driver kindly took us to the diplomatic pharmacies and other pharmacies he considered privileged, looking for alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, gauze, and adhesive tape to keep the bandage in place. I couldn’t find anything I was looking for. A young man from the Ambos Mundos Hotel gave me the best possible solution: we poured rum on it. I extrapolated my accident to Cuban citizens in general and was terrified.

I saw the most capable flee their beloved homeland first, and then those whose abilities were diminished as time went on.

I saw the most capable flee their beloved homeland first, followed by those whose abilities were diminished as time went on. Those who remained in Cuba were the least prepared, without special skills or the strength of character to face the path that sometimes crossed the Darien Jungle.

Today’s photos and videos posted on social media, coupled with the insistent pleas from friends to not even consider visiting Cuba unless I was determined not to leave the hotel due to the unsanitary streets and squares, where filthy garbage accumulated and would endanger my health, led me to put an end to my visits to my beloved Havana. The pieces of Bohemian crystal lay on the ground.

These losses rob you of sleep. And in the darkness of the endless night, with open eyes, the “whys” appear, followed by a question mark. Why this terrible thing? Why this agony of a joyful country? Are those who have governed Cuba since the beginning of the Revolution stupid, clumsy, or evil? Because the prediction that everything was going to fall apart and stop working was increasingly proven over the decades. China and Russia proved it. And the more I thought, the less I found the answer. Until in an instant, the light dawned, fiat lux — let there be light — and I understood that I had refused to see the simple answer.

Those in power were and continue to be stupid, clumsy, and evil, all at the same time. Clumsy, because they inexplicably missed the path. Clumsy, because they walked the wrong path with such clumsiness that the error turned into a catastrophe. And bad, because they have been and continue to be indifferent to the suffering of the people whom they see decomposing and suffering, without batting an eye, knowing for a fact what must be done to make people better.

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