Articles by: Rosa Miriam Elizalde

Cuba: A Tale of Two Hurricanes

Cuba: A Tale of Two Hurricanes

Ernest Hemingway learned in Cuba that the best way to get through a hurricane is to have your ears tuned to a battery-powered radio and keep your hands busy with a bottle of rum and a hammer to nail down doors and windows. The American writer appropriated the typical jargon of Cuban meteorologists and fishermen who speak of “the sea”[Read More…]

by 14/10/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Storms at the Summit of the Americas

Storms at the Summit of the Americas

June 7 was a bad day for Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS). During the ninth Summit of the Americas, a young man declared to him what he is: an assassin and puppet of the White House, instigator of the coup in Bolivia. He said that Almagro cannot come to give lessons on democracy when his hands are stained[Read More…]

by 10/06/2022 Comments are Disabled World
The Heroes of Hotel Saratoga

The Heroes of Hotel Saratoga

At first, there was an explosion. The six-story building vibrated, and a few wires snapped with the force of a whiplash. Immediately afterward, more than half of the facade collapsed without any warning, with each floor swallowing the one above as the ceiling crushed against the floor and the floor against the ceiling during the explosion, and a cloud of[Read More…]

by 13/05/2022 Comments are Disabled World
The Blockade Against Cuba Turns 60

The Blockade Against Cuba Turns 60

It’s easy to say, but it’s been six very hard decades that began with disconcerting lightness and the belief that the United States government’s blockade of Cuba would not last long—a couple of years, maybe. On February 2, 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy called his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, and gave him an urgent task: “I need a lot of [Cuban][Read More…]

by 04/02/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Cuba: Five Years After Fidel

Cuba: Five Years After Fidel

Fidel Castro died five years ago, but I feel like decades have passed in Cuba since November 25, 2016. Trump arrived and passed slowly with his string of sanctions that have felt worse than ever because of the pandemic. Then came Biden with his faint-hearted court, reeling us each day with veiled or direct threats, without daring to fulfill his[Read More…]

by 25/11/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Why Is the U.S. Fueling the November 15 Cuba Protests?

Why Is the U.S. Fueling the November 15 Cuba Protests?

On September 20, letters began to arrive at eight Cuban municipal or provincial government headquarters announcing the holding of “peaceful” marches on November 15 by a group called Archipiélago. The motivation for these marches was a call for change. The letter was not a formal request to occupy the busiest streets of some cities in Cuba, but rather a notification by the group[Read More…]

by 13/11/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Photograph: Yander Zamora / EFE

The U.S. Has an Unhealthy Obsession With Cuba

The piggy bank was rattled again. In September 2021, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) gave $6,669,000 in grants for projects aimed at “regime change” in Cuba, a euphemism to avoid saying “direct intervention by a foreign power.” The United States’ current Democratic administration has especially favored the International Republican Institute (IRI) with a bipartisan generosity that Donald Trump never[Read More…]

by 30/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Western Union closed down their operations in Cuba at the end of 2020 due to sanctions imposed by Trump.

The money that never arrives in Cuba

Cubans living abroad have been unable to send remittances to their loved ones on the island due to the unilateral coercive measure imposed by Donald Trump just before leaving office With the money she earns cleaning houses in the morning and an office at night, Virgen Elena Pupo, a 47-year-old Cuban migrant, has managed to raise her family in Washington,[Read More…]

by 09/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World