José + Onaikel face years in prison for criticizing regime in memes and posters . . . Regime importing more cars and less chicken—and making a killing. But Cubans can't eat cars.
19—25 September 2024
Hola, welcome, y gracias for being here.
One of the earliest memories I have of my Cuban life is of my Abuela Cuca’s hens. She kept a handful in her backyard chicken coop, and they thanked her with a reliable supply of eggs. I chased those hens down every day after school, running them ragged, my cousin Andresito kicking up the dirt beside me. Abuela Cuca would then chase after us, trying to put an end to our hen-harassment. It was hard to tell who squawked more, Abuela Cuca or her hens.
Today, chicken, a main source of protein for most Cubans, is scarce and costly on the island. Yet the regime is importing less chicken and Cubans are seeing more— and more expensive—cars being sold by MIPYMEs, the small private businesses the government allows to operate. During a time of hunger for many Cubans, that shift in priorities is more than just troubling. It is dire.
You’ll find the reason for that imbalance in Número Tres, below.
Números Uno y Dos, are related. Two desperate tales of the regime’s crackdown on protests of any kind. In Uno, you’ll meet a José, a barber who thought he could vent his frustration with the government by sharing funny—but critical—memes of revolutionary leaders.
In Dos, you’ll meet Onaikel, a Havana man facing 15 years in prison for draping a sheet with anti-regime slogans from his mother’s terrace.
Their families are working hard to save them. I know they’d want you to listen to their stories.
I hope you will.
I also hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Hasta la semana que viene . . .
Ana
Número Uno
Prosecutors want 2.5 year sentence for man who shared anti-regime memes with his family on WhatsApp
Prosecutors are asking for 2.5 years sentence for a Cienfuegos barber and activist who shared anti-government memes with a WhatsApp group of 11 friends and relatives, and for allegedly selling dollars on the black market.
Fifty-two-year-old José Manuel Barreiro Rouco had already endured more than a year of pre-trial detention—six months imprisonment followed by house arrest—when he was finally tried on 16 September in the Provincial Court of Cienfuegos, Cuba.
The first charge, made known to Barreiro Rouco’s family two days before the trial, is for collecting and distributing “offensive” memes which impact “the honor and integrity of revolutionary figures,” among them Cuban head of state Miguel Díaz-Canel. According to prosecutors, Barreiro Rouco published “images with degrading epithets” of Díaz-Canel and Raúl and Fidel Castro, and sent messages with Patria y Vida [anti-revolutionary slogan] and Down with Communism.
Regarding the illegal sale of dollars, court documents indicate the activist “in the first half of June of 2023 . . .sold $1,000 and received 200,000 Cuban pesos outside of the legally established channels . . .”
Most Cubans (75%) work for the government, which pays in pesos, but they need dollars to buy basic goods in state-run hard-currency-only stores or on the black market. Cubans rely on the black market’s better exchange rates (in August, 320 pesos = $1) rather than those of the Central Bank of Cuba (24 pesos = $1).
Jam Pérez, the activist’s nephew, wrote on Facebook that his uncle was first “accused of being part of a group that wanted to subvert the constitutional order of Cuba,” but the family was able to prove his complete innocence to investigators, so “they fabricated other charges that also didn’t hold up . . .” He said his uncle is “one of the most intelligent, friendly, and affectionate men” he’s ever known and that the group with which he shared the memes is, as the name (Family) indicates, made up of family and close friends.
Shortly after Barreiro Rouco’s arrest in June, 2023, regime loyalist Humberto López divulged the activist’s supposed links to subversive groups on his TV show. Neither the activist nor his family were given a chance to respond to the televised denouncement.
Last December, after six months in prison without any formal documentation or case number, the activist was released to house arrest to await trial.
In August, Madrid-based NGO Prisoners Defenders reported 1,105 documented Cuban political prisoners. The group issued a statement on Monday emphasizing the “horrible conditions in which the prisoners are held, starving, ill, without medical attention, and tortured.”
Barreiro Rouco’s sentence is expected to be announced later this week, but unexplained court delays and postponements are common, especially in political cases like this.
Número Dos
Man faces 15-year prison sentence for hanging sheet with anti-government slogans from building
“When he took off his shirt I started to cry,” Sujay Acosta Toscano, wife of jailed protestor Onaikel Infante Abreu.
Havana prosecutors are seeking 15 years imprisonment for Onaikel Infante Abreu, who was violently arrested on 27 October of 2023 in Havana after hanging a sheet with the anti-regime slogans “Patria y Vida,” “Libertad,” “Down with the Castros,” and “Food for the people” over the terrace of his mother’s building. Infante’s wife, Sujay Acosta Toscano, has been posting details of the couple’s ongoing nightmare, which is being documented by NGO Cubalex and other independent media as her husband awaits trial.
Cubalex reported that, despite the peaceful nature of the Infante’s protest, special forces fired rubber bullets at him and beat his head violently when they arrested him. Due to his injuries, Infante—who is 35 years old and suffers from epilepsy—was taken to a military hospital, where he suffered convulsions that went unattended. He was later brought to the much-feared Villa Marista and interrogated by State Security. Eventually he was transferred to maximum-security prison Combinado del Este to await trial.
The protestor’s wife, mother of five children, said she went from prison to prison after her husband’s arrest seeking information but got no answers. Eventually she was informed verbally that the prisoner was accused of “altering the constitutional order,” but there was no documentation or details of the charges until almost a year after his arrest, on 11 September.
In a social media post, the young mother said an unknown State Security agent had threatened her if she went public with her husband’s case. She received another threat from a man who did not identify himself that she could be evicted from her home of 13 years, an abandoned office where she has lived due to the severe housing shortage in Havana.
Acosta Toscano was given an appointment to visit her husband on 6 February at 12:30 pm. The guards did not permit the visit until 2:30 pm, despite having a baby in her arms. She described how a prison “re-educator” warned her to “stop causing problems for herself” after she reached the jail’s rooftop and shouted anti-government slogans to protest the abuses against her husband.
Cubalex reports that Infante has been held in isolation cells and has been beaten by guards and other prisoners as punishment for continuing his protests inside prison.
After almost a year of imprisonment, prosecutors finally identified what he was being charged with: disobedience, assault, and propaganda against the constitutional order.
Acosta Toscano told Martí Noticias last week that “A supposed psychologist prescribed a pill that he takes at 6 pm and he doesn’t wake up again until 6 am, and I’m worried about what kind of medicine they’re giving him that he’s asleep for so many hours.“
The NGO Institute for Cuban Freedom of the Press reported that after a 17 July visit with her husband, Acosta Toscano said “he had obvious signs of the violence against him.” She told ICLEP that “Today I saw Onaikel and his lips were split and he had bruises on his back and ribs.”
On 14 July, Infante had cut his finger and written in blood Libertad" and Patria y Vida. As punishment, the guards put him in “shakiras,” shackles that bind the hands, waist, and feet, and the next day he was beaten.
“When I saw him without his shirt, I started to cry,” Infante told ICLEP. The ongoing beatings and cruelty have left her fearing for her husband’s life.
It’s common for the regime to promise reduced sentences to prisoners who confess on live TV, something authorities have offered to Infante. “But he says he will not change, that he does not agree with what is happening in his country, that he will not stay quiet,” Acosta Toscano told Martí Noticias on Tuesday 18 September.
After nearly a year in prison, Infante has yet to receive a court date.
Cubalex, Diario de Cuba, Martí Noticias, ICLEP, Diario las Americas.
Número Tres
More American cars, less American chicken. Regime chooses “guns” over “butter.”
For months ships with American cars have been arriving at Cuban ports, while those carrying food must anchor outside of the harbor, waiting for the regime to pay for the cargo.
The regime’s tight cap on food prices and its withdrawal of tax and import exemptions granted MIPYMEs* are driving some of these newly approved private businesses to reduce or stop importing food, especially American chicken.
Instead, the state-approved MIPYMEs (micro, small, and medium businesses) are investing millions of dollars in American car imports—which are not price capped—and selling them for private or commercial use on the island at high markups.
For months, ships with cars from the US have been arriving at Cuban ports and unloading, while ships with food, mainly frozen chicken, have been anchoring outside the harbor to wait for the regime (the only entity that can import) to pay cash for the cargo.
Many see this as an obvious sign that 1) the regime lacks the cash to pay for basic foods and 2) it is prioritizing imports of high profit margin cars over low profit margin chicken.
Average Cubans are enduring what many see as the worst economic crisis in post-revolutionary history. They know they can’t eat cars, yet that’s what’s being unloaded in record numbers in Cuban ports, while the much-needed American chicken has nearly disappeared from store shelves or is exorbitantly priced on the black market.
MIPYMEs had been filling a gaping hole in the supply chain by importing cheap American chicken. But the price caps and loss of subsidies have made them pivot to more profitable alternatives.
It’s important to remember that MIPYMEs cannot directly import cheaply priced chicken from Kansan producers, who offer the best prices. MIPYMEs must go through the GAESA, the Cuban military’s Panama-based conglomerate, which charges import fees of at least 20% to 30%, has a monopoly on all imports, and frequently adds charges for its “services.”
GAESA therefore earns much greater amounts for the higher valued American cars (e.g., a 2020 heavily used Tesla sells for $70,000 in Cuba) than for cheap American chicken.
It’s no wonder the heavily regulated private sector has shifted to more profitable imports.
As an example, a MIPYME may import a used American car valued at $20,000, and pay GAESA 30%—a yield of $6,000 for GAESA. The MIPYME will then sell the car to Cubans at $50,000, not the $20,000. The MIPYMEs and GAESA win—and Cuban buyers are nailed in a big way.
The average Cuban yearly salary is roughly $1500 (using the official government exchange rate of 24 pesos = 1 dollar). It is reasonable to imagine that the main consumers of these cars are either the government elites or successful MIPYME owners.
The American pro-business US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council reported a quadrupling of US auto imports by Cuba in the first semester of 2024, valued at $36 million compared to $10 million for all of 2023 (when auto purchases were authorized under a license from the US Treasury Department). Auto imports are estimated to exceed $50 million by the end of 2024.
In the capitalist world, the average profit of car sales agencies ranges between 4% and 7%, according to specialized sources. But in Cuba the profit margin, which is often deceitfully masked, reaches up to 150% and more. Something unique worldwide.
The business of buying used cars from the "enemy" is lining the pockets of state officials with green backs that will likely fly gracefully to the bank accounts of "revolutionaries” overseas.
Cuba a Diario, Translating Cuba, Diario de Cuba
* MIPYMEs are controversial for many Cubans in and outside of Cuba. They distrust the recently approved entities. They know that no one who is not in the regime’s good graces—let a lone a dissident, activist, or former political prisoner—would be granted a MIPYME license. And there are MYPMEs with known links to the regime (e.g., family and friends, if not former political elites). But the private sector of 10,000 MIPYMEs is the only bright star in the Cuban economy, which is crumbling and considered a disaster by many. The Biden Administration, which says it carefully vets MIPYMEs, has been responding to MIPYME requests for import licenses, access to credit markets, and other kinds of aid. They see it as the best way of keeping Cubans from starvation. On the island, Cubans eye the MIPYMEs with suspicion as well. Where did these people get that kind of money?
This article South Florida’s NPR affiliate, offers more details on the promising but controversial MIPYMEs.