Category: Reinaldo Escobar

In the halls of the fair contrasts abound. Officials dressed in impeccable guayaberas smile and encourage the exhibitors to showcase their products. The number of delegations has grown this year and Japan has come with its sophisticated equipment from Panasonic. But one also gets the feeling that the trade event is a useless showcase without concrete results.

What happened with the Oggún tractors recalls other cases in which expectations of doing business on the island have remained intentions or headlines. A situation that contradicts the economic emergency in the country, where the economic growth forecast for this year has fallen below 1% and there is a need to attract foreign capital at a rate of two billion dollars a year.

The process of investment is marked by slowness and timidity. So far, the ZEDM has only laid the first stone of the joint venture to produce Brascuba cigarettes, formed by Brazil’s Souza Cruz company and Cuba’s Tabacuba. If they meet their objectives, it will be the end of 2018 before the industry produces 15 billion cigarettes a year.

Among business groups, frustration and impatience is growing. “They don’t know how to do business, everything goes very slowly and many have become tired of waiting,” a businessman of Cuban origin based in the United States commented outside the ExpoCuba fairgrounds, on one of his occasional visit to Cuba. “I’m about to throw in the towel,” he added.

“They promise a lot, but little has materialized after two years,” he explained, under conditions of anonymity. He notes that he came looking for “something more than words.” After several months of exploring the opportunity to position his firm in the domestic market, the entrepreneur believes that “it is still cheaper and faster to install a factory in Mexico or in Jamaica. What would be the advantage of doing it here?”

In his speech to present the new version of the Business Portfolio, Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz, was forced to chase away the fears: “Foreign investment is not a necessary evil, we want it for the country’s development. It is a sovereign decision of Cuba that no one is imposing on us, we are doing it because we are committed.”

However, the ideological discourse of recent weeks has risen in tone and become more belligerent against the US administration. Television alternates reports in which there is talk about investment, businesses and joint ventures, with other material in which capitalism is demonized and the neighbor to the north is accused of “overthrowing” the Cuban system.

“Companies complain, with reason, that the negotiations need to be sped up,” Malmierca admitted to the investors. However, the slowness is also established in Guideline 64 approved by the 8^th Communist Party Congress, where it establishes that “who decides is not negotiable” in international economic relations.

The Cuban officials attending FIHAV can appear to be in the best mood, with the widest smiles and business cards filled with responsibilities, but the foreign entrepreneurs know they are powerless intermediaries without the ability to make any decisions. Their task is simply to explore the proposals and generate illusions among the people they speak with.

It is not only bureaucratic sluggishness that makes investors lose momentum. “The dual currency system and the state monopoly over payrolls* are discouraging many people,” a Guatemalan businessman attending FIHAV explained to 14ymedio. “We are not used to not being able to contract directly* with our own personnel,” added the visitor.

The restoration of relations between Cuba and the United States has been one of the main causes of the flood of entrepreneurs who have visited the island in the last two years, but that undeniable push does not constitute a source of permanent energy. Every day that the Cuban government fails to take advantage of the momentum from the rapprochement between the two neighbors, it drags the country towards economic inertia and sinks it in failure.

*Translator’s note: The Cuban government acts as the employer in this situation, hiring the workforce, assigning individuals to jobs, and collecting the wages for their work. In exchange for this ‘service’ the government retains a large share of the wage income, passing on only relatively small portion to the workers. International firms are not accustomed to working in an environment where they have no ability to choose their own workers or to motivate them through the incentive of salaries.

In just two hundred pages, the authors describe the state designed from the populist perspective. Like any authoritarian father, it nullifies the individual who tries to differentiate himself. To do this it spreads the obsession for egalitarianism and the idea that all accumulated wealth is the fruit of plundering others. This phenomenon is identified with concrete and contemporary examples. Chile, Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela, and even the Spain proposed by the Podemos Party, find amazing coincidences and common points of departure.

One of the most striking aspects of this book is the definition of the role played by “organic intellectuals” in the process of building and financing populism. The project, developed by Antonio Gramsci (1891-1927), is based on the assumption that intellectuals can construct a cultural hegemony to sensitize the masses and lead them to socialism.

“Twenty-first century socialism” as an antidote to neoliberalism and the strategy developed by the Sao Paulo Forum are identified in this study as populist developments to which we must pay more attention. The roadmap of Latin America’s leftist movements was drawn in the 1990 Forum led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his Workers’ Party of Brazil — he was then president of the Party and later president of the Brazil. Just when socialism seemed definitively buried, the Forum achieved a renewal of thought among the Latin American left.

If The Populist Deception weren’t so obviously apologetic of liberalism as a political doctrine, it could find a wider audience precisely among those deceived by populism. This, at least methodologically, seems to be its weak point. Demonstrating the dichotomy between freedom and security is, in reality, a false dilemma; the real contradiction is between the proposal of a system that promotes happiness and one that ensures the right to achieve it.

The most valuable thesis of this book may be that populists governments concentrate power in the hands of the state, supposedly so it will have the resources to allow it to deliver happiness to its people; meanwhile “the others” create a state of law in which it is assumed that each person may have at therr disposal the resources to build their own personal happiness.

History has shown that populism does not achieve its goals and ultimately poverty and corruption prevail. But contemporary liberalism also has unfinished tasks. The book that would explain this in detail, free of ideological propaganda, remains to be written.

Jorge Luis García Pérez, known as Antúnez, Berta Soler, on behalf of the Ladies in White, and Antonio González Rodiles, from the Forum of Rights and Freedoms, all promoters of initiatives based on direct confrontation with the repressive forces of the regime, fraternized there with the crème de la crème of the historical exile, including Cuban-American politicians Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz Balart and Miami mayor Tomas Regalado, all prominent members of the Republican Party and militant opponents of Barack Obama’s policy toward Cuba.

Emphasizing the smallness of the timid reforms undertaken by the government of Raul Castro, this group insists that the change must be “real” and distances itself from the more moderate opposition sector that doesn’t see Obama’s policy as a betrayal of the opponents and aspires to solutions that don’t spill blood, including plebiscites or the use of electoral resources and dialogue with the current government.

Among the arguments most reiterated by the enemies of the thaw is the “increase in repression” that they attribute directly to the supposed “blind eye” of the United States government and the European Union in the face of the arbitrary detentions, beatings, confiscation of resources, threats, police operations to prevent the holding of meetings and other actions. This repression is carried about by troops from the political police, the Communist Party and the “mass organizations.”

However, the apparent relationship of cause and effect between the thaw and the undeniable increase in repression does not necessarily imply fault on the side supporting the thaw. It is worth asking to what extent the repressive temperature would rise if the United States agreed to the demands of the hard-line opposition and strengthened the embargo, promoted increased funding for the most energetic opposition groups and returned to the times when they parachuted arms into the Escambray mountains and promoted military initiatives such as the 2506 Brigade that invaded the Bay of Pigs, through the Central Intelligence Agency.

The whole arsenal of measures implemented today by the government of Raul Castro against opponents would then be seen as lukewarm and the return of the old days of confrontation between the United States and Cuba would bring back the executions, the long prison sentences, the literal beheading of the political opposition and the loss of an opportunity to change something in Cuba peacefully.
And would the US government also be blamed?

The All For A Free Cuba event had among its many merits appearances by musicians and comedians. Among these was the excellent artist Alen Lauzán, who showed some disturbing cartoons where we see penguins in Havana protesting the thaw.

Like any artistic production the images are provocative and polysemic. What is more appropriate in today’s Cuba: to thaw the environment or behave like a penguin?

Canek couldn’t imagine, on arriving on the island, that he was coming to a reality on the verge of abrupt change. In the far off Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev was consolidating Perestroika, while Fidel Castro was arguing for the defensive move of a “rectification of errors and negative tendencies” in which agricultural markets were demonized, and calling to not “build socialism with capitalist measures.”

The guerrilla’s grandson found a country in which “nothing works but it doesn’t matter,” as he described in the pages in 33 Revolutions. This clash between the propaganda and the life on the streets fills the book that he worked on for more than a decade and that only saw the light of day after his premature death, at age 40 due to complications from heart surgery.

A friend of designers, admirer of some songwriters who didn’t even appear in state venues, and immersed deeply in Havana’s nightlife, Canek was a rare specimen of a “daddy’s boy.” If in the clans of the comandantes, the generals and the high officials, everyone focused on getting the greatest perks, the scion of Che’s daughter preferred the shadows, making every effort to pass unnoticed.

He was born in Havana in 1974 and was the fruit of the union of Hilda Guevara Gadea and the Mexican Alberto Sánchez Hernández, a young man from Monterrey who was active in the Armed Communists League and who came to the island after hijacking a plane. Many friends would later joke with Canek about the fact of rebellion being written in his genes… but Cuba was no longer territory for rebels.

Instead of joining the official choir, the grandson of Che honored his name, which in the Mayan language means “Black Snake,” and slipped silently and without deceit through a Cuba where every door opened at the mere mention of his grandfather’s name. To the powerful, of course, they didn’t like this young man’s fascination with “the underworld,” and with ordinary people without military rank nor biographical feats.

The stories told in 33 Revolutions distill much of what the author confessed in an earlier autobiographical text, dated 2006: “Living in Cuba: I loved and hated as only you can love and hate something valuable, something that is a fundamental part of you.” He would live through the most difficult years of the Special Period on the island, witness the 1994 Rafter Crisis and in 1996 decided to move to Oaxaca, Mexico, where he performed most of his work as a writer, designer and cultural promoter.

Years later, he explained that his departure from Cuba was largely due to “the criminalization of difference,” which took place in his native country, especially the “persecution of homosexuals, hippies, freethinkers, trade unionists and poets,” and the enthronement of the “socialist bourgeoisie (…) fake proletariats,” to which he did not want to belong nor contribute.

This October, the news of the appearance of his book from a Spanish publisher promises to tarnish the hypocrites of the official tributes, who honor his grandfather in Cuba on the occasion of his death on October 9, 1967. The headlines of the official press repeat over and over, ameliorated by the news of hurricane Matthew, the old formulas of “heroic guerrilla” and champion of freedom, which they awarded Guevara de la Serna, “el Che.”

However, it’s enough to walk the streets of Old Havana to see Canek’s Grandpa turned into a tourist fetish, his face stamped on every shirt, ashtray or fake piece of primitive art — memories and dreams for sale. In each bar filled with Americans is heard the chorus, “here it is clear, the treasured transparency of your beloved presence Comandante Che Guevara, remains,” which brings applause and tips, many tips.

It is the musical band of the failure of Utopia. Tired chords repeated over and over again and that the grandson of the controversial guerrilla collects aptly in his book, where the life in Cuba of Fidel Castro was never more than that: “A scratched and dirty record. Millions of scratched and dirty records. His whole life life is a scratched and dirty record. Repetition after repetition, the record scratched by time and filth.“

Site manager’s note: 33 Revolutions is available in English for pre-order; it will be released in 2 days on 11 October 2016. 

At this point, the pact needs to be revised under new principles. Some of these have already been set out by President Juan Manuel Santos in his first speech after learning of the failure of the plebiscite. The president has offered to maintain the bilateral ceasefire and revitalized his commitment not to give up until peace is achieved

Among the competing opinions explaining what happened, no one suggests that the rejection of the agreement is because the voters see it as too favorable to the government and too damaging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Quite the contrary, the negative feedback is based, among other things, on the belief that the guerrillas received too many prerogatives and indulgences.

Those who opted for “No” reproach Santos for giving the guerrillas the same legitimacy as the state and for granting impunity in order to convert them to a political force.

The results seriously damage the guerrillas’ dreams of recycling themselves as a political party without having to pay for their crimes.

The question everyone is now asking is what is going to happen after the adverse outcomes to the agreement. The FARC have not surrendered their weapons, but have taken steps difficult to reverse. They are a failed guerrilla movement, with no future and with little popularity.

The lesson for us this Sunday is that people do not seem willing to pay any price for peace, especially if the cost includes renouncing their desire for justice.

Among the losers of this plebiscite are also the entire international community and, in particular, the Government of Cuba, which was not only a neutral guarantor but a driver of the demands of the guerrillas. Raul Castro convinced the FARC Commander in Chief Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, known as Timochenco, to yield in some respects and promised the government negotiators that the FARC leader would honor the pact. This Sunday Colombians have also voted against Cuba’s general-president.

The question is whether that sacred right of the people “to decide” includes the option to “change” the system, regardless of whether the proposed changes coincide partly or completely, with some external proposal.

The first historical example in the case of Cuba was the change that occurred in the early twentieth century when we replaced the colonial regime, which subjected the people’s will to the will of the Spanish metropolis, to a new system in which the island became a Nation, established as a Republic. That change, imperfect, incomplete, truncated, responded on the one had to the popular will and on the other hand to the interests of a foreign nation, the United States of America.

The second example was the regime change proclaimed in April of 1961 when Cuba became “the first socialist country in the Western Hemisphere.” That substantial modification, which had not appeared clearly indicated on the revolutionary program that overthrew the brief dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, was only submitted to citizen consultation, through a vote, 15 years later, when there was no private property left in Cuba, no entity of civil society, no independent press media and only one permitted political party.

The millions of Cubans who, with their secret and direct vote, approved the 1976 Constitution, where the new social regime was enshrined, which also coincided with the interests of a foreign nation, the Soviet Union, to support the presence of socialism “under the noses of imperialism.” The USSR did not hesitate to offer everything: food, arms, troops, oil, credits and whatever diplomatic and political support needed.

At the turn of the years to socialism in Cuba, the Republic passed away. Although no one had baptized it pseudo-socialism or mediated socialism, it has been necessary to add an “our,” at the risk of committing the revisionists’ sin.

That system approved by popular vote 40 years ago does not greatly resemble what is described today in successive guidelines issued by the only legally permitted party, but the changes introduced have only been discussed with the party membership and other representatives of certain previously chosen institutions.

Among the possible commonalities between the Party Guidelines and the interests of foreign nations, say China or the countries of the ALBA bloc, could be a sterile exercise of political speculation, especially in a globalized world where almost no country enjoys total freedom to dictate laws while turning its back on the interests of the rest of the planet.

The right of Cubans to maintain the regime is only legitimate if their right to change it is also recognized. The desire for uniqueness, the obsessive vocation of not resembling the other, of not coinciding with the interests of anyone, would be a difficult caprice to satisfy and an impossible one to pay.

Addressing regime change now, introducing changes to the regime or leaving everything as it is, requires a prior exchange of opinions and a subsequent approval. Only if there is freedom to debate and guarantees of a free vote, would it respect the sacrosanct right of the Cuban people to decide which system they wants to live under.

However, the biggest setback for the organization, which includes half the world’s population, is having turned a blind eye at several transcendent moments in its history. The most notable of these was not strongly condemning the Soviet Union’s armed intervention in Afghanistan, which joined NAM in 1961, early in its existence.

This oversight was most striking during the 6^th Summit, held in Havana in 1979, when Fidel Castro was named president of the movement. The presence of occupation troops from the Kremlin continued to 1989, but the leader of the organization never made any gesture of disapproval.

This September the silence has been repeated, in complicity with one of NAM’s most fractious members. At the summit, held in the Venezuelan Caribbean to which 120 member countries were invited, no pronouncement was made on the nuclear test recently conducted by the Pyongyang regime.

The Non-Aligned Movement has not only looked the other way as famine and lack of rights has affected the North Korean people, but has also been silent about the danger posed by the more than 20 nuclear bombs and almost a thousand ballistic missiles of different types that have reached the hands of Kim Jong-Un. The Movement did not make a forceful statement against the only country that has tested weapons of mass destruction in this millennium, though it dedicated considerable time demanding “peaceful settlement of disputes and refraining from the threat or use of force.”

NAM now proposes a “refounding” of the United Nations that seeks to expand the Security Council and to transform of the workings of the international organization. But with such oversights and its history of double standards it is difficult to promote a more democratic global and effective entity.

Instead, it could bring to the United Nations the same convenient blindness that it has been practiced for decades.

In December, if the deadlines are met, a plenary session of the PCC Central Committee will put the final touches on the these directives, perhaps with some modifications or additions. The principles that govern the country’s economic activities in the coming decades will not have been subjected to the scrutiny of a significant number of citizens.

This Monday one of these debates took place with several district delegates selected from the Santa Clara’s People’s Council. According to the official newspaper Granma, among the most debated topics was Paragraph 104 of the Conceptualization, which rejects the idea of “the concentration of property and wealth in natural or legal persons.”

As the official Party organ, Granma usually chooses with care the opinions it publishes, and in this case it published the opinion of several delegations about “the need to define how far it will allow this phenomenon [tenure of property and wealth] to go, and the imperative of defining limits.” Others called for “strict supervision by the competent bodies, with their control system to prevent the proliferation of new rich in Cuba.”

Such fears are consistent with the implementation of a new measure where it is stipulated those receiving monthly salaries exceeding 500 Cuban pesos (CUP, about $20 US) must make a special contribution of 5% to Social Security. A decision that also includes workers at state enterprise earning up to 5,000 CUP (about $200 US), who will have to also pay a personal income tax of 3%.

However, a self-employed person who has a personal net income of 60,000 CUP a year (an average of 5,000 per month) faces a tax rate of 50%. This is a clear obstacle to the development of private entrepreneurs, which the government has had to tolerate given the economic collapse of the country, but against whom it maintains a stubborn animosity.

Following the recent closed-door discussions, it is probable that the limits of wealth concentration in the hands of Cuban citizens will be defined with more precision. It is very likely that when the definition is written precedence will be given to the voices insisting “this is and will remain a Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble.”

With this thundering no one can sleep, grow or prosper. If, given that a successful entrepreneur who manages to earn the equivalent of about $200 US a month will be placed on the top of the food chain and pay the highest tax rates, what can be expected from the corrective they will reserve for those who start a small or medium sized business?

During the five years in which the Guidelines from the Sixth Communist Party Congress were in effect, Point 3 of the economic management model was designed to prevent the concentration of property. Some analysis suggested this point would be eased in the Seventh Congress, but instead it was strengthened by adding the word “wealth.”

A superficial glance could lead to the conclusion that those incapable of creating, moved by envy, want to tie the hands of those who through risk, imagination and personal effort put their goals above the prosperity managed by the generosity of a paternalistic and controlling state. Surely there are better arguments to explain these blunders.

Translator’s notes:
*“Base” in this context refers to what in other, non-totalitarian contexts, would be called the “grassroots,” that is Party organizations at the local level.
**”Mass organizations” refers only to government controlled entities such as the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the University Students Federation (FEU), and so on.

The argument put forth by Meisi Bolaños Weis, vice minister of the Ministry of Finance and Prices, is that thanks to this contribution people “will receive direct or indirect benefit in the medium and/or short-term, through the Social Security System,” but this does not satisfy those so far have opted to work longer to receive direct benefits immediately.

The Special Social Security Contribution (CESS) consists of a fixed tax rate of 5%. It applies to all those working in the state enterprise system who earn more than 500 Cuban pesos a month (about $20 US), provided that this amount falls under one of the following: a) additional payment from enterprise’s budget, b) implementation of pay for performance, c) distribution of profits as a stimulus for business efficiency.

Anyone with a calculator handy will notice that a worker who earns 501 Cuban pesos in a month only receives 474.95 after the 5% for social security is taken out, a reduction of 25.05 Cuban pesos, for having earned 1 peso more than 500. In the event a person earns 525 Cuba pesos, they get 474 pesos and will be losing 26.25.

Obviously Cuban employees will be watching that their salaries don’t exceed these ranges, because, paradoxically, from now on to take home 500 Cuban pesos a person must earn at least 535 pesos.

In the case of other taxes on personal income (SIP), under the provisions of the Tax System Law 113 the proceeds will go to the budgets of the municipalities in which the companies are located, paying for healthcare, education, public lighting and other services.

Thus, if the worker does not live in the municipality where he or she works, as is common, especially in Havana, they will not benefit directly from their contributions. They will not enjoy the improvements in infrastructure and services that they have helped to pay for.

According to the official figure, the average salary in the state sector today is around 779 Cuban pesos a month, but the ISIP is only applied at approximately three times this figure, starting at 2,500 Cuban pesos, where the earner will pay 3%, while those making more than 5,000 Cuban pesos will pay 5%. All those contributing are subject to an additional 5% for the CESS.

It is notable that the application of these new tax collections are not explicitly reflected in the Guidelines of the 7^th Communist Party Congress, where mention of the issue is limited to generalities relating to perfecting the tax system.

Now everyone is paying attention, because work hours and earnings of this month will be reflected in October, when the taxes will begin to be levied. The only good news is that to pay the taxes you will not have register on some site or stand in line at the bank, the company will kindly deduct the contributions on the day you are paid.

The emblematic Cuban ability to find a way to cheat for every new law will be tested with this new provision.

The blackboard showing the arrival times for each flight was removed from outside the airport this Tuesday, where it is now possible to read only the departure times. A measure that no employee could explain, although some of those waiting commented jokingly that it was “to avoid despair.”

As word spread that JetBlue’s Flight 387 had departed from Fort Lauderdale the journalists jockeyed for the best spots at the terminal door and excitement gripped the crowd.

Arriving in the plane was Anthony Foxx, US Secretary of Transportation, but the biggest hugs went not to the officials but to the passengers whose family and friends were waiting outside. The plane leaves for US soil this Wednesday at 1:15 in the afternoon, so those booked on the return flight were already at the airport.

Everyone was trying to make out the blue of the JetBlue logo, because the Santa Clara sky was one of dense grey clouds, associated with the ninth tropical depression of the season that has struck Cuba for several days, especially in the central and western parts of the island.

“Right now you can’t book a passage here,” Caceres told this newspaper, but “you can do it on the internet.” A piece of information supported by Nestor Nuñez, JetBlue’s manager, who added that the Santa Clara airport office is the company’s “only one right now,” on the island.

With a capacity for 220 passengers, the JetBlue flight marked a milestone with a 99 dollar one-way fare, a price that includes the insurance payment the Cuban government requires from visitors to the island.

“This is going to help put an end to the abuse,” commented Silvia, who was waiting for another flight outside the Santa Clara terminal, but who out of curiosity joined the welcome for the passengers coming from Fort Lauderdale. “For decades the prices for such a short trip have been abusive,” she explained. “My son travels frequently to the Caiman Islands and it costs more than three times as much,” complained the woman. With the recently inaugurated JetBlue service, “our family will be over the moon,” she said.

Pedro, a taxi driver waiting for a couple of Americans coming in on the flight, sees other advantages to direct commercial flights. “It will be easier to bring luggage now, because before firms like Havanatur [one of the companies managing charter flights to the island] took advantage of it to set very high fees for every last pound.”

Economy class tickets on JetBlue to Cuba carry a fee of $25 for the first suitcase, $35 for the second and $100 for the third. So for a total of $160, passengers can bring in around 90 pounds of luggage, good news for those who are bringing donations, gifts and other products unavailable on the island.

“If this continues,” Pedro begins to say with a certain suspicion, “we’re going to see all those Cubans with Spanish passports going to Miami and buying things to bring back on these flights.” The route of the “mules” is now through the Bahamas, the Caiman Islands or through charter flights. “It’s going to result in lower prices on the black market,” the taxi driver speculates.

A customs employee told this newspaper that “after a process of improvement, the airport has the capacity to serve 600 passengers an hour.” A figure still far below the number of travelers that could result from 110 daily commercial flights from the United States to Cuba, approved by the US Department of Transportation.

The audacity of those who dare to criticize or share a criticism is usually grounded in the infinite confidence that the sentiments expressed are going to contribute to improving the situation. To warn at the time that “this is not the way” is a serious responsibility, one that is only assumed when we suppose that the guide who is leading us is listening to us, because he believes in our good faith. To say publically a necessary truth, disobeying the order of those who impose silence, is not only a gesture of courage, but above all of honesty.

When the response to the criticism is punishment, when the high-minded guide is disposed to expel the troops who question his decisions, when the exposed truth forces an unmasking because its nudity offends those who feel harmed, then the daring critic has only two choices: make a retraction or slam the door.

Someone once said that the lost sheep that escapes can return to the sheepfold, but can never return to the flock. The obedient flock can only see in its rebellion bad intentions or sinister aims of betrayal. With that grim admiration that underlies envy they will remain attentive to the final decision of the pastor.

If the insubordinate sheep is sacrificed, they squeal with happiness while applauding the verdict, if forgiveness comes, or even better the recognition Jose Ramon was right, he did the right thing, they will approach submissively patting him on the shoulder, while behind his back they will comment that everything was preplanned, it was all a dark operation of the upper echelons of power.

Really, who wouldn’t want to be in the skin of this Holguin journalist.

A question as basic as whether the stage between 2016 and 2021 will be characterized by an economy that leans toward the market or toward centralized planning can only be answered after determining what is missing and what is included, and weighing the nuances of the new wording that has been introduced in each concept.

After reconstructing the loose pieces, it is clear that the State will maintain majority control over production and services. The only positive innovation introduced in this edition is the appearance of “second degree cooperatives,” the characteristics of which are not explained, but which seem like the boldest step the Party is willing to take.

Some presences are easier to detect looking at the 16 pages of the brochure, such as the inclusion of the word “wealth” in the third point in the chapter on the economy. Not content with having determined at the 6^th Congress to prohibit “the concentration of ownership” for non-state forms of production, the new version from the 7^th Congress adds that neither will the concentration of wealth be accepted.

In a country where no one has ever made a formal declaration of their possessions there is no way to calculate what each person has, either in goods or in cash. The absence of regulatory mechanisms with regards to the possession of wealth, especially among natural persons, makes the control of assets a real mission impossible.

Such an alarming addition is nothing more than a potential threat, and even a formula of commitment to satisfy those most concerned about the growing inequality which has worsened in the country over the last two decades. Perhaps it is a crumb to please the hardliners within the Party, a wink and a nod to the old guard.

The disappearance of some guidelines, the rewording of others and the inclusion of new ones, makes it difficult to research which of the guidelines are in the 21% the authorities claim to have met, and which are in the 79% that are “in the implementation phase.” As if reshuffling the dominoes makes the readers unable to detect which tiles are missing.

As the artist Arturo Cuenca said one say, “the takes can be more important than the puts,” especially when the points that are missing or reduced in some of their essential aspects, don’t appear on the list of things accomplished, but in the sub-paragraphs of the problems, of those objectives that have been set aside.”

The first guideline to disappear is number 4 which mentions the idea that structural, functional, organizational and economic changes will be made “informing workers and listening to their opinions.”

Another striking and highly provocative example is the evaporation of an objective reflected in Guideline 57 of the chapter on fiscal policy, which in 2011 proposed to establish “higher taxes for higher incomes, to contribute, also in this way, to mitigating inequalities among citizens.”

Has the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) met this objective with the taxes imposed by the Office of Tax Administration (ONAT) or has it just abandoned tempering inequalities through the treasury?

The text is not without its absurdities, like the commitment outline in the change on economic integration of “giving priority to the participation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the People’s of Our America (ALBA),” a regional organization that has lost prominence since the death of Hugo Chavez and seems doomed to an early demise.

A new chapter entitled Demographic Dynamics is reduced to the issue of the aging of the population and efforts to stimulate fertility, but omits the most serious problem facing the country today: the uncontrolled emigration that robs it of its human capital.

In other parts of the document, the inclusion of a concept reveals the pressures of certain sectors, such as the demand to “comply with medical ethics” in the chapter regarding healthcare, or the unexpected appearance in the section on culture of a point for the implementation of “the policy regarding the transformation of Cuban cinema.” A clear response to the demands of the numerous artists who joined together in the so-called G-20 group that is demanding a new Film Law.

When we contrast the wording of the 6^th Congress guidelines with those now updated, details such as “attention to cruise ships” jump out. Along with more subtle references like changing the proposal to delete the ration book by “the orderly and gradual elimination of products in the ration book,” a way of making the subsidized market languish, instead of eradicating it all of a sudden.

The warning regarding “progressively decreasing the levels of subsidies” runs through a good part of the document like a thin strand of steel, like that emphasized in point 58 focused on achieving the principle of “subsiding people and not products.”

The update of the Party Guidelines is far from meeting the expectations of those who want to see in its pages a clear path to the dismantling of the centralized economy and the freeing up of the productive forces in Cuba. But also to distance itself from the paternalistic tone that once characterized the five-year plans on the island.

One step forward and two steps back? Or simply a Party that seems to be running in place