Category Archives: Cuba

Cuba braces for unrest as playwright turned activist rallies protesters

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The Communist party has banned the planned string of pro-democracy marches, saying they are an overthrow attempt

The Cuban playwright Yunior García has shot to fame over the past year, but not because of his art. The 39-year old has become the face of Archipelago, a largely online opposition group which is planning a string of pro-democracy marches across the island on Monday.

The Communist party has banned the protests – which coincide with the reopening of the country after 20 months of coronavirus lockdowns – arguing that they are a US-backed attempt to overthrow the government.

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Guantánamo prisoner details torture for first time: ‘I thought I was going to die’

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Al-Qaida courier, who could be freed next year despite 26-year sentence, tells court of interrogators’ horrific treatment

For the first time, a Guantánamo Bay prisoner who went through the brutal US government interrogation program after the 9/11 attacks has described it openly in court, saying he was left terrified and hallucinating from techniques that the CIA long sought to keep secret.

Majid Khan, a former resident of the Baltimore suburbs who became an al-Qaida courier, told jurors considering his sentence for war crimes that he was subjected to days of painful abuse in the clandestine CIA facilities known as “black sites” as interrogators pressed him for information.

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Baracoa review – a poetic journey through bittersweet childhood

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This part fiction, part documentary film captures the spontaneity of young friends Leonel and Antuàn

Directed by Pablo Briones, Sean Clark, and Jace Freeman, here is a film that blurs the lines between fiction and documentary as it accentuates bittersweet childhood connections, full of teases, mischief and innocent tenderness. Following Leonel and Antuàn, a pair of friends who grew up in the small Cuban town of Pueblo Textil, this mesmerising promenade through abandoned landscapes doubles as a journey to the cusp of adulthood.

With a script based on the real-life relationship and conversations between the two friends, Baracoa has an authentic spontaneity of children’s interactions so rarely captured in fiction films that rely on precocious child actors. The camera quietly observes the pair’s wanderings through ruined and deserted compounds whose austerity is transformed by the boys’ imagination. At one point, Leonel and Antuàn pretend to drive as they sit atop a broken down, rusted car frame. The moment is poetic, yet also full of melancholy. Soon, they will not find such childish daydreams so entertaining.

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Cuban scientists say ‘Havana Syndrome’ theories ‘violate laws of physics’

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A 20-member panel questioned whether a single explanation fitted all symptoms and raised possibility of psychological suggestion

Cuba has issued its most detailed report to date from prominent local scientists criticizing allegations that US and Canadian diplomats were subject to mysterious attacks while posted on the island and developed health problems.

Related: Microwave weapons that could cause Havana Syndrome exist, experts say

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Cuba review: American history of island neighbor is telling and timely

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As Ada Ferrer writes, ‘Cuba – its sugar, its slavery, its slave trade – is part of the history of American capitalism’

In July, the eruption of unexpected protests in Cuba, sparked by food shortages and growing frustration with the government, unsurprisingly met with a corresponding flood of commentary from its opinionated neighbour.

Related: Forget the Alamo review: dark truths of the US south and its ‘secular Mecca’

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Cuba’s health system buckles under strain of overwhelming Covid surge

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A lack of medical supplies is crippling the Covid response, amid an economic crisis sparked by the pandemic and US sanctions

Julia, a community doctor in Havana, was drafted to the intensive care unit soon after Covid-19 first reached Cuba.

Last week, her cousin died from the virus. This week, she also tested positive amid a surge in cases which has pushed the island’s vaunted health service to its limits and prompted rare public criticism from Cuban doctors.

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‘New wave of volatility’: Covid stirs up grievances in Latin America

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A new series on Covid’s global political impact starts by looking at how the pandemic has fuelled turbulence in Latin America and the Caribbean

For Filipe da Silva, hitting the streets was about staying alive.

“Unfortunately, Brazil elected a murderer,” the 28-year-old declared as he and thousands of fellow protesters streamed through the seaside city of Fortaleza last month to decry the president’s bungling of a Covid epidemic that has killed more than half a million people.

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If the US really cared about freedom in Cuba, it would end its punishing sanctions | Helen Yaffe

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Critics dismiss Cuba as a failed state, but don’t accept how badly it’s hamstrung by the US blockade

The violent protests that erupted in Cuba in early July were the first serious social disturbances since the “Maleconazo” of 1994, 27 years ago. Both these periods were characterised by deep economic crises. I was living in Havana in the mid-90s and witnessed the conditions that triggered the uprising: empty food markets, shops and pharmacy shelves, regular electricity cuts, production and transport ground to a halt. Such were the consequences of the collapse of the socialist bloc, which accounted for about 90% of the island’s trade.

Betting on the collapse of Cuban socialism, the US approved the Torricelli Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 to obstruct the island’s trade and financial relations with the rest of the world. Meanwhile, more sophisticated and multifaceted “regime change” programmes were developed, from Clinton’s people-to-people programmes to Bush’s Commission for a Free Cuba. From the mid-1990s to 2015, US congress appropriated some $284 million to promote (capitalist) democracy.

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Why the internet in Cuba has become a US political hot potato

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After Havana shut down online access for 72 hours, the battle is on to keep the country connected

Cubans used to joke about Napoleon Bonaparte chatting to Mikhail Gorbachev, George W Bush and Fidel Castro in the afterlife. “If I’d have had your prudence, I’d never have fought Waterloo,” the French emperor tells the last Soviet leader. “If I’d have had your military might, I’d have won Waterloo,” he tells the Texan. Turning last to Castro, the emperor says: “If I’d have had Granma [the Cuban Communist party daily], I’d have lost Waterloo but nobody would have known.”

The joke no longer does the rounds. With millions of Cubans now online, the state’s monopoly on mass communication has been deeply eroded. But after social media helped catalyse historic protests on the island last month, the government temporarily shut the internet down.

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Five Cuban generals dead in recent days – is the Covid spike to blame?

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Observers fear pandemic could be responsible for deaths, adding intrigue to freedom protests taking place in Cuba and US

Five mostly elderly and retired Cuban military generals have died in recent days in mysterious circumstances, the country’s communist regime has confirmed, adding intrigue to a new round of freedom protests taking place in the island and US.

Related: Leftwing rural teacher Pedro Castillo sworn in as president of Peru

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About 100 CIA officers and family have been sickened by Havana syndrome

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Director William Burns has initiated a taskforce to investigate the syndrome and tripled the size of the medical team involved

About 100 CIA officers and family members are among about 200 US officials and kin sickened by “Havana syndrome”, the CIA director, William Burns, said on Thursday, referring to the mysterious set of ailments that include migraines and dizziness.

Burns, tapped by Joe Biden as the first career diplomat to serve as CIA chief, said in a National Public Radio interview that he had bolstered his agency’s efforts to determine the cause of the syndrome and what is responsible.

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US sanctions Cuban security chief and special forces over crackdown on protests

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Biden moves to pressure government over alleged human rights abuses amid biggest demonstrations in decades

The US has imposed sanctions on a Cuban security minister and an interior ministry special forces unit for alleged human rights abuses in a crackdown on anti-government protests this month.

The move marked the first concrete steps by Joe Biden’s administration to apply pressure on Cuba’s Communist government as it faces calls from US lawmakers and the Cuban American community to show greater support for the biggest protests to hit the island in decades.

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‘I’m surprised it took so long’: Cubans find anger in their souls

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Thousands took to the streets last week in unprecedented protests. Our writer meets some of those trying to force change

There’s a man from the government playing love songs in the park. Orlando Fuentes has a table, an awning against the hard Caribbean sun, and a sound system from which floats Silvio Rodríguez’s Cita con Ángeles. A woman says that she can’t listen, that it’s a beautiful song ruined by being played at too many government rallies.

After 16 months of pandemic and a week of unprecedented protests, the Cuban government wants to soothe the anger. Music is being played in parks across the country.

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Marcus Rashford mural and Cuba protests: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Turkey to Colombia

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High-profile Cuban musicians show rare public support to protesters

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Historically musicians steered clear of addressing political topics that risk reprisals at home but Sunday’s explosion changed that

High-profile Cuban musicians from salsa band Los Van Van and jazz pianist Chucho Valdés to pop star Leoni Torres have offered rare public support to protesters and criticized Communist authorities’ handling of the worst unrest in decades.

Thousands of Cubans joined rare protests nationwide on Sunday over shortages, Covid-19 and political rights. The government blamed US-financed “counter-revolutionaries” exploiting economic hardship caused by US sanctions.

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Cuba cracks down on protests as rallies spring up across US in support – video

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Cuban special forces have begun a widespread crackdown on anti-government protests. The historic demonstrations were sparked over food shortages, high prices and other grievances against the government. Meanwhile, rallies have been held in several US cities, with hundreds of people waving Cuban flags and calling for change on the Communist-run island

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At least 140 Cubans reportedly detained or disappeared after historic protests

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Activists, protesters and journalists, including a reporter for one of Spain’s leading newspapers, reportedly in custody

Scores of Cuban activists, protesters and journalists, including a reporter for one of Spain’s leading newspapers, have reportedly been detained as Communist party security forces seek to smother Sunday’s historic flare-up of dissent.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Americas director, said at least 140 Cubans were believed to have been detained or had disappeared in the aftermath of Cuba’s largest demonstrations in decades.

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Why have Cuba’s simmering tensions boiled over on to the streets?

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Anti-government protests have rocked the communist-ruled island, supercharged by shortages, social media and sanctions

Liuba Álvarez leaves her house three times a week at 3.45am to queue outside her local supermarket for basic goods like meat, oil and detergent. Her last queue was “relatively short”: after eight hours she came home with some minced meat in time for lunch. Other days she doesn’t get back until 5pm.

Related: Thousands march in Cuba in rare mass protests amid economic crisis

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Cuban president claims protests part of US plot to ‘fracture’ Communist party

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Cuban officials blame the US for Sunday’s demonstrations as Biden calls on island’s leaders to hear citizens’ ‘clarion call for freedom’

The Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has attacked the “shameful delinquents” he claimed were trying to “fracture” his country’s communist revolution after the Caribbean island witnessed its largest anti-government protests in nearly three decades.

As Cuban officials blamed the US for Sunday’s demonstrations, Joe Biden called on the island’s leaders to hear its citizens’ “clarion call for freedom”.

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