Translating Cuba

As of Monday, a steep increase in the tariffs on importing goods took effect in Cuba. Resolution No. 122 of 2012, from the General Customs of the Republic of Cuba, establishes new fees for shipments to the Island by air, sea, post, or courier. It also stipulates that these duties will be paid by Cuban nationals in convertible currency, which is a severe blow for the residents of the country. The new measure establishes high tariffs for the entry of certain goods and has provoked strong discontent among wide sectors of the Cuban population. The articles affected by the charges range from clothing to toiletries and food, and even flat-screen TVs and computers. Few goods escape the increase.

The resolution contradicts the government’s intent to encourage small private businesses. For many self-employed workers these imports are a significant supply source. Every week thousands of pounds of raw materials, repair parts and appliances arrive on the Island, which end up in the non-State sector of production and services. They come in parcels, in the suitcases of Cubans who have been abroad on official missions, and also with the so-called “mules.” These latter are Cubans, primarily from Miami; emigrants whose trips home are paid for by agencies who arrange for them to – openly – carry goods for others to the Island.

Although the Cuban authorities insist that these new tariffs are similar to those of other countries, the absence of a wholesale market in Cuba has led many to consider the measure “a huge mistake.” The discontent and confusion have reached a point to where the official media have had to explain the details over and over. In an article appearing this Monday in the official newspaper Granma, they offered “some clarifications about the new rates.” Among these, we find that all products valued between 50.99 pesos (about $2.50 U.S.) and 500.99 pesos (about $25.00 U.S.) will be charged customs fees to enter the country of 100% of their value. If the traveler does not present a receipt for the object, then the value will be determined based on the “Customs Valuation List For Non-Commercial Imports.”

Among the objects most in demand by Cubans right now are flat-screen televisions and washing machines. When maritime shipping began to be allowed between Florida and Havana last July, these appliances were the most shipped. The ship “Ana Cecilia” that links the two shores, transporting parcels sent by exiles, could be seriously affected by the new customs tariffs.

Self employed are hardest hit

Many Cuban families sustain their domestic economy thanks to parcels sent from abroad, but it is among the self-employed where this has the greatest influence. The new General Customs resolution will negatively impact these emerging entrepreneurs.

In a pizzeria in Central Havana Juan Carlos, the owner, accumulated imported cheese in his pantry in anticipation of looming shortages. According to Juan, a good part of the dishes on his menu are made with Parmesan cheese, grated, packaged and sent from Florida by his brother. “To buy it here in Cuba in a store selling in hard currency, I would have to pay triple,” he says. But now the import of that product will raise his costs and he won’t have the profits necessary to ask that it be sent from abroad.

“For now I am planning to increase the prices of everything that uses ingredients brought by mules.” One only has to look at the menu of the busy restaurant to realize that the prices of many items will soar. Pasta with pesto now costs the equivalent of about $4.35 U.S., but soon Juan Carlos will increase it to $5.00. “The customer is going to have to pay the consequences of this absurd measure,” the young entrepreneur predicts, while overseeing the temperature of an enormous pizza oven.

Not only will it affect food businesses, the new customs duties are going to be a hard blow to the informal market in clothes and shoes. A thriving informal network brings in tons of pants, women’s blouses, underwear and shoes from nearby destinations such as Panama, Mexico and Ecuador. A profitable trade supported especially by counterfeit apparel.

For now, the informal market and self-employment sector are waiting to see how much damage they’ll be caused by the increase in import taxes. Already some have begun to talk about this possibly being a part of Raul Castro’s “counter-reform.”

4 September 2012

They have gone from being persecuted, insulted and accused of being traitors during the first three decades after the Communist revolution to becoming the main pipeline for the dollars that prop up the regime.

The story of the Cuban diaspora in the last 53 years is marked by verbal lynchings, graffiti and artillery attacks of rocks or rotten eggs on the houses of those who were leaving the country, years in jail for those who tried to leave, and an irate Fidel Castro at a public trial calling them “worms, low-lifes and scum.”

Taking a plane to Florida or setting off on a rustic craft with a sailor’s compass meant unleashing Castro’s implacable fury. During the 1960s would-be emigrés were made to work long hours doing agricultural work before the government would issue them exit visas.

A letter received from or sent to a relative on the other side of the pond would prompt an urgent meeting of the trade union or the party, and the person would be accused of “ideological weakness.” Underprivileged blacks would be intimidated with tales of racism. If they abandoned the fatherland, the Ku Klux Klan and its dogs, trained to eat Negroes, would mercilessly tear them apart.

According to the Castro-controlled media, the first wave of emigrés were bourgeoisie, businessmen, misfits or people who had earned their money taking advantage of the poor. Later they were low-lifes, good-for-nothings, convicts, prostitutes and faggots incapable of becoming examples of the New Man in an “unparalleled society, the threshold of heaven on earth.”

After the fall of the Berlin Wall Cuban professionals and athletes defected the first chance they got. The offensive language has now been shelved, but acts of repudiation have been revived as a weapon against dissidents.

Those who leave Cuba are still written off by the official media. There are no reports or in-depth articles about achievements of Cubans overseas.On the island there was no impact from the two home runs,from both sides of the plate in the same inning, by Kendrys Morales. Of the awards and prizes given to writers and poets in exile, not a word has been published.

As Rubén Martínez Villena said, they are only useful once they are dead. LikeCabrera Infante or Celia Cruz. The nation’s press has not reported on an article written by prominent academics at the University of Florida, whose data and statistics provide evidence of the strength of the Cuban exile community.

When leafing through Juventude Rebelde (Rebel Youth), nowhere will you find any mention that in 2011 the country received more than two billion dollars in remittances. Cuban Americans spent a similar amount during vacation trips to Cuba and in endless purchases of consumer goods for their impoverished relatives.

Radio Rebelde says nothing about a study by the Pew Hispanic Center which reports that the median income for Cubans in the United States over the age of sixteen is $26,478, greater than the estimated $21,488 for the rest of the Hispanic community.

It is undeniable that, thanks to the Refugee Adjustment Act*, members of the Cuban diaspora enjoy privileges that other Latino immigrants do not. But the gains they have achieved are undeniable. They are leaders of important companies, are a force behind Miami’s growth and vitality, and constitute a handful of politicians with Cuban backgrounds. Eleven delegates to the Florida legislature are Cuban.

The official press maintains a low and ambiguous profile with respect to the exile community. Foolish rhetoric would have us believe that people emigrate only to get a car and a well-furnished, air-conditioned apartment. Yes, people leave in order to have decent salaries, satellite antennae and unrestricted access to the internet.

But they also leave the country to be reborn as free men. Hold a plebiscite among the more than two million exiles and, I am quite certain,the results would confirm that a majority do not want to retain the Castros in power.

The regime knows this. It is aware of the danger that closer ties and a loosening of emigration restrictions would pose. The exiles’ economic power and business know-how would put an end to the shoddy workmanship and habitual idleness of Cuban factories. They would become a potential threat to the status quo of the governing class, which now controls all reserves of hard currency.

To the Castros the only thing about emigration that interests them is the money. Exiles can come visit Cuba and spend a lot. Every time they bring in more dollars. But they do not like them too much. There can be no investments in strategic economic sectors. It’s better to keep burdening them with brutal tourism taxes and let them send packages to the island. Castro has no desire to treat emigrés fairly.

They will never allow overseas Cubans to hold political office or vote in elections. It is very difficult to change this mentality. These autocrats have always viewed the diaspora as a time bomb, a bunch of “worms,” a legion of traitors.

When exiles learn how to use their economic power as a weapon, it will force the government to change the outdated dialog and the anachronistic laws. In the meantime, it needs them only to fill the collection box.

Photo: Taken from the Gold Alert website.

*Translator’s note: A U.S. law, passed in 1966 with amendments added later, that allows Cuban refugees to apply for permanent resident status after living in the U.S. for one year.

September 1 2012

Breathing once again on the other side of the bars and dim light of a station, province of a capital, province of a country, province of a provincial history with the grandiloquent title of Revolution…

September 2 2012

The Society of Cuban Musical Artists (ACDAM) is failing to fulfill its primary reason for being, which is to pay artists who belong to the organization in a timely and appropriate manner.

Over the course of a year, as I have been told by one of those affected, they have only been paid for the first trimester. Payment is made in the so-called “national currency”—those pesos that make up salaries and pensions and that cover only very few expenses. The other currency is commonly known as the chavito or CUC (and formally, the Cuban Convertible Peso). While both are national currencies, the latter is more difficult to acquire and the only one that can be used to buy essential goods in state-run hard currency stores— the only places to find certain everyday consumer items, which are sold at highly inflated prices.

As justification for this failure the ACDAM alleges that ARTEX (Artistic and Literary Promotions Management) has not yet settled accounts with them. In other words, the old “run-around.” This money, however, has now been in state coffers for a while and not in the pockets of the people who are supposed to be paid for their work. A swift solution to this problem is imperative since in many cases the payments are the only means of support for these Cuban artists’ families. It is not acceptable to keep “playing with funny money.” This situation, and others like it, suggest the country is dealing with a serious lack of liquidity.

September 1 2012