Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Thursday 17 augusT 2017
Cuba struggles to keep professionals from leaving Venezuela links

ex-prosecutor
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press Ortega to graft
PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba (AP)
— Calle Marti is a modest CARACAS, Venezuela (AP)
half-mile boulevard split by — Venezuelan authori-
a simple winding flagstone ties said Wednesday they
path that’s bracketed by would seek the arrest of
green grass, pine trees ousted chief prosecutor
and curving blue cement Luisa Ortega’s husband for
benches. allegedly running a $6 mil-
But the project is part of a lion extortion ring with cor-
fragile experiment whose rupt prosecutors under her
success or failure might supervision.
help determine if Cuba Tarek William Saab, who
is able to pull itself out of replaced Ortega after she
years of economic stagna- was removed by the pro-
tion and brain drain. government constitutional
The central avenue in the assembly, said the criminal
western city of Pinar del Rio, ring squeezed a range of
population 150,000, was defendants as well as busi-
redesigned over the last nessmen in the nation’s oil
three years by a private firm industry to protect them
of three 20- and 30-some- from prosecution.
thing architects hired by In this July 26, 2017 photo, Cuban architects Yasser Jimenez, left, Oriesky Bencomo, center, and He held up bank records
Jose Luis Valdes, right, pose at the site of one of their urban designs in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. The three
the communist provincial architects thought they’d work largely for private citizens renovating their homes as bed-and- that he said were evidence
government — a contract breakfasts. However in 2014, the team learned that the provincial government was asking state- that Ortega’s husband,
that would have been un- run engineering firms to bid on renovating the median strip of Calle Marti. They bid for the design formerly pro-government
imaginable in Cuba just a of the project and won, convincing officials it could do the work quickly and more efficiently. lawmaker German Ferrer,
few years ago. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) opened a $1 million ac-
Over the last decade, Cu- inequality, from society’s In 2014, however, the firm como, 37, and Jose Luis count in the Bahamas last
bans making state salaries costly investment in free learned that the provincial Valdes, 27. year with a prosecutor in
of less than $25 a month education. government was asking All three were born and charge of the nation’s big-
have moved by the hun- Professionals looking for state-run engineering firms raised in Pinar but gradu- gest corruption case.
dreds of thousands into better lives have emigrated to bid on renovating the ated from the prestigious “What we’re exposing to-
the private sector — open- by the tens of thousands or median strip of Calle Marti. architecture program at day is the tip of the iceberg
ing stores, restaurants and turned to unskilled but high- Agora bid for the design of Jose Antonio Echeverria of a cartel,” said Saab,
bed-and-breakfasts that er-paying work like waiting the project and won, con- University in Havana. adding that Ortega, while
have been among the few tables or driving taxis. vincing officials it could do All three took state jobs in not herself formally ac-
sources of growth for the The experience of Agora, the work quickly and more architecture and design cused, surely knew of the
island’s moribund centrally the three-year-old bou- efficiently. before founding Agora in crimes taking place.
planned economy. tique design firm in Pinar State workers are now fin- 2014. Agora isn’t officially Saab’s call for Ferrer’s ar-
Graduates of Cuba’s re- del Rio, offers a glimpse at ishing the project, and to- an architecture firm — the rest came minutes after
nowned free universities an alternative future. day thousands of Pinarenos government doesn’t yet socialist party leader Dios-
have been mostly left out The three architects be- a week stroll and sit in the permit that. Jimenez, Ben- dado Cabello appeared
of private jobs in their fields, gan Agora, a Greek word shade along the newly re- como and Valdes are indi- at his office to denounce
because the state sees the meaning public space, built avenue. vidually registered as self- the alleged ring, leading
privatization of professions thinking they would work “We really appreciate the employed decorators and many to conclude the ac-
like architecture and ac- largely for private citizens open minds of those in artisans. cusation is an attempt to
counting as unacceptable renovating their homes as the government who re- That leaves them and oth- silence Ortega.
in Cuba’s socialist system. bed-and-breakfasts in Pinar alized they needed help ers like them legally unpro- Before being removed,
The government has ar- and the town of Vinales, a from people,” said Yasser tected and vulnerable to Ortega had sought charg-
gued that individuals major tourist attraction 30 Jimenez, 36, who founded the whims of bureaucrats. es against the wife and
shouldn’t profit, feeding miles away. the firm with Oriesky Ben- q mother-in-law of Maduro’s
former transport minister,
Haiman El Troudi, who has
Guatemala: denied any wrongdoing.
Saab and Cabello said
At least 7 dead in alleged gang attack on hospital the ring laundered money
from the extortions through
a network of offshore com-
By SONIA PEREZ D. Roosevelt Hospital in the surgery and was in critical “You heard a lot of shots,” panies and foundations in
Associated Press capital, said an unknown condition. Villatoro said. “I was in the Panama and Colombia.
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — number of attackers en- National Civil Police said emergency room when He asked the constitutional
Gunmen stormed one of tered the facility in the the five men in custody I felt a stray bullet hit my assembly, whose creation
Guatemala’s largest hospi- morning and began shoot- were members of the Mara foot. I saw a man hit in the this month has been con-
tals and opened fire early ing. The jailed suspect, who Salvatrucha gang. Via Twit- face by another bullet. It demned by dozens of for-
Wednesday in an assault had been brought there for ter, the agency showed was terrible. Everyone ran eign governments as an
staged to free an impris- lab tests, was at large. photographs of assault rifles for cover.” illegitimate power grab,
oned gang member, of- Deputy hospital director seized from the attackers. A body lay in the parking lot to strip Ferrer of his con-
ficials said. At least seven Marco Antonio Barrientos Astrid Villatoro was at the outside afterward covered gressional immunity from
people were killed and five told reporters that 12 peo- hospital waiting for her son with a plastic sheet, next to prosecution. There was no
were arrested. ple were wounded, includ- to get an X-ray when the an assault rifle and blood immediate response from
Carlos Soto, director of the ing a child who underwent gunfire broke out. drying on the pavement.q Ortega or Ferrer. q