Category: Reinaldo Escobar

In most cases, these decisions involve family dramas and the relocation of the “deserter,” sometimes temporarily, other times permanently, into a workplace far from their capabilities and personal ambitions. However, the hemorrhaging of talent does not stop and at times increases in a threatening manner.

If Cuba had not lost all the creative potential that has chosen emigration, today we would be one of the countries with the greatest human capital in the world. Because, unfortunately, those who leave are the entrepreneurs, those with the necessary self-esteem to believe, right or wrong, that they can survive and thrive in a competitive environment.

All of them had to choose between two betrayals, one against the system that supposedly formed them and one which they would have made against themselves if they had remained faithful to a project they had stopped believing in.

If Cuba had not lost all the creative potential that has chosen emigration, today we would be one of the countries with the greatest human capital in the world.

After having tried every arbitrary measure possible to prevent doctors from abandoning the country, the Cuban government just announced that “Health professionals (…) have the opportunity, if they wish, to rejoin our National Health System” and in a parallel manner they let be known other immigration modifications to increase the grounds for repatriation of other emigrants who are affected by the restrictions.

Now, in a gesture promoted as an act of generosity on the part of the Revolution, they are trying to replace Cubans who once escaped in search of better destinations, in a situation to reverse what the government classified as treason but which, in the majority of cases, was simply the renouncing of wearing a mask.

The question is, why not just once and for all abolish all the absurd migratory restrictions; why can’t Cubans see in their country a safe and welcoming home to return to and leave whenever they want, and for whatever length of time best suits them.

The Cuban government is the one who is lost, not because it must choose between two betrayals, but because it cannot allow itself the luxury of choosing to respect the most elemental rights. They have no choice but to change everything or to continue to behave as vulgar dictators.

The leaders affected by these protests, whatever political color they may be, defend themselves wielding the supposed legitimacy they once achieved at the ballot box, dismissing the demonstrators and claiming they have been confused or bought by foreign powers, or they send their supporters out into the streets to compete in numbers with the opposition.

Curiously, neither of the two analysts includes the case of Cuba. It gives the impression that the Caribbean island does not belong to Latin America, or that the uniqueness of Cuba merits its own separate study.

Of the dozen grievances enumerated by Montaner only one, the violation of human rights, has a permanent presence in the Sunday marches of the Ladies in White or the demonstrations of UNPACU in Cuba’s eastern provinces. The rest of the topics, except for the shortages, seem to be postponed until we have an imperfect democracy, although any one of them is worthy of an entire day of protest.

Another curiosity that comes to mind after reading “Soft Coups,” signed by Rojas, is that the Cuban government is on the only one in the club of Latin American leftists that has never used the descriptive “coup supporters” in the long list of insults it launches against opponents on the island or in exile. And this is despite the fact that from the most radical sectors of the opposition there is no attempt to hide the desire to “overthrow the dictatorship.” Not for one second does it occur to the managers of official propaganda that those in uniform would be against them.

The only military coup that might be expected in Cuba would have come from this recalcitrant left that frowns on timid openings in the market, rapprochement with the United States through an eventual normalization of relations, and any concession to multiparty democracy.

The presumed protagonists of this coup option would not go out into the street with posters or gladioli, but rather with tanks and machine guns. But this is an improbable hypothesis, just as much as is the sudden appearance of an enlightened leader who would drag the people to a restorative platform through the instrument of revolutionary means.

The Cuban government’s first endorsement of the scope of these measures is expressed every time it classifies as mercenaries, employees of the empire and other similar labels any opponent, civil society activist or independent journalist it sees.

Those who believe that the Cuban government is democratic are the same ones who claim that our principal problem lies in the dispute between the governments of the United States and Cuba. For those who differ from the Communist Party line, the fundamental contradiction is the conflict between the Party-State and the legitimate rights of citizens.

There is an unbridgeable gap between American interests, which demand the return of confiscated property or compensation, and the demand for freedom of association and expression, made unanimously by all opposition political trends, whether social democrats, anarchists, liberals or Christian Democratic.

The point of agreement is that, as long as the current leaders remain in power, both things seem impossible, and that “common cause” has promoted, on the one hand, logistical support to armed invasions, the supply of military equipment, diplomatic pressure or trade embargoes, and on the other, riots, sabotage and, more recently, peaceful and political structures attempting to organize protests.

It is a fragile and uneven alliance and the first to want to break it is the Cuban government. So the Communists had two paths: open political space to opponents on the condition of “maintaining sovereignty,” or reforming the market to attract American capital. Faced with the dilemma, they chose the second option.

Consequently, some leaders of the opposition environment feel betrayed because they believed they had some sort of pact for democracy with the US government. The main argument put forward is the continuation of repressive acts against the Ladies in White and other peaceful activists who support them with their actions, just days before the formalization on the Havana Malecon of the restoration of relations between the two governments.

For others it is about a sovereign decision by President Obama backed by the idea that confrontation has not brought results. The concept of changing methods without renouncing objectives, proclaimed publicly and without nuance by the Americans, is a complete challenge for the Cuban government, which sees itself forced to maintain its repressive and confrontational methods to achieve its only objective: maintaining itself in power.

The United States maintains diplomatic relations with countries where there are not democratic regimes, which does not mean friendship or support for a totalitarian model. Now, in the case of Cuba, it remains to be seen if it will maintain, in the embassy, the internet rooms, the communications courses, the refugee program, invitations to celebrate Independence Day on the 4^th of July, and all the contacts programmed by the former United States Interests Sections, now belonging to the embassy.

There are more than a few who fear “being abandoned in the dark of the night,” left to the excesses of an intransigent government. The new interests created between the old contenders are economic and everyone will do their best to protect them. Perhaps the Americans will keep the opponents at a distance to not annoy the Cuban leaders; perhaps the repression will give way to please the investors, be they real or potential.

What will not arrive by this route is democracy, as real independence will not come by way of American gunboats. The political system we deserve must arise from our own efforts, independent of solidarity that comes from outside.

Emilio Roig would not have written his famous book if a few miles from Santiago de Cuba the American ships had returned home and those troops had never landed. But history is the enemy of the subjunctive, and similar conjectures lack any value.

Hopefully a historian will never have to clarify that Cuba owes its democracy to the United States.

I had been led to believe that those Burundians were a “savage people” and suddenly I see them walking the streets in an enviable gesture of civility to protest the intentions of President Pierre Nkuruziza to get himself re-elected for the third time (which succeeded in controversial elections last July 21). The opposition managed to unite although they continued to disagree about whether to participate in the elections and about the decision of whether to occupy seats in the parliament.

It was the Prensa Latina agency that released a report saying that the main opposition leader Agathon Rwasa would take his place in the Assembly with 20 members of his coalition. Meanwhile the leader of another opposition group, Charles Nditije, declined to occupy the 10 seats he won in the elections.

The newspaper Granma surprised many last Wednesday with the following comment on the elections in Burundi:

“Seven days after the presidential elections, the commission of UN observers concluded that the election was not “free, credible and inclusive.” In its preliminary report, the commission said that the vote was marked by violence and there were obstacles to freedom of expression, assembly and association. In addition, it stated that “freedom of the press suffered severe restrictions” and that “the public media did not guarantee a balanced coverage of the candidates.”

What might be the “preliminary report” of a commission of observers from the United Nations if it were allowed to witness an electoral process in Cuba? Would they say it was free, credible and inclusive? Would they dare to assert that there were no obstacles to the freedoms of expression, assembly and association? Would they notice the severe restrictions on press freedom and note that the public media did not provide balanced coverage of the candidates?

I apologize to the people of Burundi. We have fallen to a level that is below that racist category of “savage people.” We have provoked a greater prejudice, that of being a tamed people.

On the ration card, every citizen gets five eggs a month at a price of 15 centavos. In the free market, a 30-egg carton costs 33 Cuban pesos, and in the “shopping” – as we call the hard currency stores – they cost 3.60 convertible pesos (CUC), almost triple what they cost in the free market. In the black market, which functions according to the strict rules of supply and demand, eggs will always be more expensive than in the ration stores and cheaper than in convertible pesos, with their price rising and falling according to their presence or absence.

In March of this year, a high-profile corruption case came to light in which 19 officials from a State company were sentenced to prison terms of between 5 and 15 years for their involvement in the diversion of more than 8 million eggs to the illegal market, with an economic impact of over 8,907,562 pesos. But no one can believe that once those lawbreakers were discovered the racket ended. It was enough for the scarcity to come up with a new fiddle in which each played his or her role of greater or lesser risk, greater or lesser effort and hence, with greater or lesser profit.

The official media try to blame all the scarcities on private entrepreneurs

At that time private restaurants and snack bars were not authorized, the underground market in eggs was limited to door-to-door sales, offering the merchandise to people in their homes. I’ll never forget one day when a woman came to my house accompanied by a child with a beach ball. “Do you want eggs?” she asked me. “Give me ten,” I said and then, as if by magic, she took the eggs out of the ball. Now the owners of paladares – private restaurants – and especially those who make sweets, monopolize the purchase. The official media try to blame all the scarcities on private entrepreneurs, and even hold them responsible for the frequent detours, almost like kidnappings, of what leaves the warehouses headed to the markets.

The cyclist in the photo walked several miles along Rancho Boyeros Avenue in Havana with his precious cargo. At first he tried to pedal, but the height of his construction made him lose his balance. Throughout his journey he suffered every kind of joke from taxi drivers and truck drivers, but he was lucky not to stumble into a police patrol.

Which explains that Murillo will “put it to the test” as teachers say to their students when they present them with some new significant detail of the subject at hand. And recently he pointed out something revealing to the deputies of the 8^th legislature of the Cuban Parliament: Cuban companies are governed by the fundamental law of capitalism. Clearly, he didn’t formulate it like that, but for someone with a degree in Economics who studied in the Soviet Union, the statement that the fundamental law of the capitalist system is to profit through capital gains is something that is learned like a catechism.

Therefore – and I am quoting from memory now, when he said that the basic objective of companies (Socialist State companies) was to produce, sell and make profits, it was like setting aside what the theorists enunciate as the fundamental law of the Socialist system which is expressed in the proposition of “satisfying the needs of an ever growing population.”

Not content with that, two days after he appeared before the delegates of the 10^th Congress of the Young Communist Union, and after clarifying that the growth of 4.7% in the GDP is still not reflected in the domestic economy, it is understood on the shelves and in the refrigerators of every home, he said that, “for this to happen the GDP needs to grow at a sustained rate of 5% to 6% over several years.”

And he added, “We must concern ourselves with creating wealth, because the economies with the best results are those that have been able to sustain production. The model must start from the idea that all the economic actors  and the productive forces are working equally and non-stop.

Murillo is the loudest voice against the chorus loyal to Fidel, he said that the time will come when people can live on their wages

Perhaps I have not been attentive to the evolution of the official discourse and I’ve forgotten something, but I don’t recall the moment in which a self-criticism was made to what was, in its time, the magnetic north of the Revolutionary compass: “It is not to create conscience with money or wealth, but to create wealth with conscience.” (Fidel Castro, speech delivered on 26 July 1968).

If that has changed, Murillo is the loudest voice against the chorus loyal to Fidel, proof of that is in the same speech delivered to the Party pigeons, Murillo said that the time will come when people can live on their wages, which will increase depending on the ability to create wealth. “We have to make efficient use of the Socialist State enterprise to create wealth, which will be returned in salaries,” he stressed in case anyone had not understood.

Murillo is absolutely right, although he stops short, or perhaps he is measuring his steps. What I can’t understand is why this Minister of the Economy doesn’t mention “socialist emulation” or “moral incentives”… am I missing something?

However, now Juan Carlos has gotten into serious trouble. Saturday the 3^rd and Sunday the 4^th of July a work directed by him was staged by the group El Ingenio in the Tito Junco hall of the Bertolt Brecht Theater in Havana. The play was The King is Dying*, by the French-Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco, the story of a king who resists the idea that death can touch him any day.

The leadership of National Performing Arts decided to suspend the play and accused the prize-winning artist of the worst insults. But, unlike others, Cremata did not choose to remain silent and responded, leaving nothing out.

Defending the censored artist could be dangerous in the short term, but silence, or even worse, complicit approval, would be disastrous.

Now it only remains to see the reaction of the Cuban intellectuals in the face of this despotic display of censorship. Defending the censored artist could be dangerous in the short term, but silence, or even worse, complicit approval, would be disastrous.

The youngest among us, those who do not know the work of the Soviet journalist and narrator Boris Polevoy, will be tempted to search for “A Real Man” in the digital dictionary Wikipedia, but will be surprised to find there that is a CD by the group Alaska y Dinarama. Some relationship will be found with the polysemic playwright, but those who read the odyssey of the mistreated pilot and who read the arguments of this courageous artist might conclude that, like Alexey Petrovich Maresyev, Cremato will once again fly and fight.

Translator’s note: The play has been staged in the United States under the name “Exit the King”

 

Elevating the tone of nationalism, putting the political discourse of sovereignty above the wellbeing of the population, and slamming the door to the creditors make up a part of the script that the Castros have been acting out for decades and that now has a good disciple in the leader from Greece’s Syriza Party. A way of governing that prioritizes fanfare in discourse above effectiveness in actions and calls for national sovereignty even though the individual is left out in the cold.

Tsipras (b. Athens 1974) has put his country on the brink of breaking away from the European Community and on the possible path of returning to the drachma, but Havana wins this game. It hasn’t even managed to reunify the two circulating currencies as it has projected it would do in more than one official economic plan. Both countries have broken economies, inflated growth numbers, dysfunctional financial systems, and, in the halls of power, leaders with more arrogance than pragmatism.

However, while the Greek government managed a nearly 62% acceptance of the referendum against the powerful troika (Central European Bank, European Commission, and International Monetary Fund), the Plaza of the Revolution has no need to submit its decision to a referendum. In the case of having to do it in the short or medium term, it would engage in its known mechanisms of coercion to ensure an overwhelming ninety-plus percent popular approval.

In the eighties, the Soviet subsidy made the most optimistic among us dream that Cuba could become a kind of Athens of the Caribbean. Today Raul Castro applauds Greece to send a message to the current geopolitical poles of the planet. A direct wink, with something of the flirt included, threatening the suitors in the struggle to approach the island with “falling into the arms of another.”

The enormous difference is that the European Union, the United States and NATO are more concerned over Greece’s approach to its contenders, than that far off Moscow or distant Peking could be interested in what happens in Havana. Where Greece wants an out because it cannot pay, is where Cuba would like to enter, which it demonstrates with this funny way of knocking at the door.

The results of Raul Castro’s accolade to “comrade Alexis Tsipras” may be one of those shots that backfires. At a time when the country is demonstrating its desire to attract investors and receive credits, it doesn’t help to give pats on the back to someone who hasn’t met its financial commitments. This is not the time to try to look like Athens.