Author: Juan Juan Almeida

The Fraud of Cuban Business Consultants / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 5 October 2015 — Why deceive US businessmen by assuring them they can come to Havana and, just like that, set up shop in Cuba?

The Cuban government is cautious and equates the word freedom with a certain brashness. For a foreign business to establish itself and do business in Cuba, it must fulfill requirements so complicated that most businessmen ultimately tire of the process or end up feeling cheated.

Any country that formally announces it is open to foreign investment knows it must face the challenge of improving its quality of education and legal infrastructure.

In contrast to what the revolutionary government proclaims, bureaucracy, corruption, poor teacher training, disorganization and certain practices such as fraud have become the norm and are reasons for the decline of the educational system. continue reading

South Korea, by contrast, was a country that for fifty years was as poor as Haiti. Without resources other than its human capital, it was forced to invest in its own people, achieving a transformation based principally on primary and secondary school education.

Cuba did just the opposite, investing most of its educational resources at the university level. It was a misguided emphasis that demonstrated an excessive preoccupation with the future of the country. For the most part, it favored college students, who ended up being instructed but not well educated. The result was discouragement among graduates and a significant reduction in their numbers.

In terms of the legal system things are no better. The Cuban government has a well designed plan to snare investors through an advertising campaign that highlights business opportunities in a wide-range of economic sectors. But despite an alarming spread of optimism that seems to have infected American businesses, the country does not have credible institutions, clear regulations or a legal code that would protect foreigners who invest in the island. What it does have are hundreds of “hucksters” who take advantage of ignorance, exaggerate their own expertise and have the nerve to call themselves “Cuban business consultants.”

As an old friend often says, “The danger is not in the lie; it’s in the credibility it creates.”

In fact, these clowns — with their freedom of expression, impertinent blather and corporate pretensions — should be jailed for selling the idea to American businesses and businesspeople that in two or three years they can come to Cuba and set up shop.

It is true that the executive branch of the US government recently approved regulations relaxing the sanctions on the island by, among other things, allowing people under the American jurisdiction to establish and maintain a physical presence on the island such as an office, retail outlet or warehouse, and to employ people in Cuba. But none of this is easy.

The Cuban government is cautious and equates the word freedom with a certain brashness. As a result, for a foreign company to establish itself and do business in Cuba, it must first be approved, endorsed and registered by the Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of Cuba.

Only approved companies are allowed to rent space in commercial office buildings, buy vehicles on the domestic market or import them from overseas for business purposes, open commercial banking accounts, do business in Cuba and hire Cubans, which they must do through official employment agencies such as Acorex, Palco and Habanaguex.

I should clarify that, according to government regulations, any Cuban represented by an employment agency must not be unemployed and must also meet the questionable, controversial but essential requirement of “suitability.” In other words, foreign companies, including those from the United States, may not hire their own employees and must accept those hired and previously approved by the Cuban government.

While there are freelance workers, they are illegal by government decree and barred from engaging in business meetings with buyers, sellers, managers or any other official from the business world.

In order for a foreign company, no matter the country, to be listed on the official registry of the Chamber of Commerce, it must first have been doing business in Cuba for three years and have generated a shocking amount of business during that time period.

Fulfilling this requirement does not guarantee getting the desired approval from “the great beyond.” It is mystery comparable to the legendary enigma about which came first, the chicken or the egg.

All this explains why most serious businesspeople who visit the island ultimately tire of the process or end up feeling cheated. Reason enough to ask the “so-called” consultants: Why deceive US businessmen by assuring them they can come to Havana and, just like that, set up shop in Cuba?

After the Presents… Then What? / Juan Juan Almeida

Raul Castro at the United Nations

Juan Juan Almeida, 28 September 2015 — Cynical, bitter and misanthropic, Raul is also a man who knows all too well how to sell himself.

The Cuban nation inhales the scent of a dangerous power vacuum and exhales a weird tension. More or less everyone on the island senses it: those on the top and those on the bottom. Some want it to happen sooner; some hope things stay as they are. Cuba, the state that until recently was the most authoritarian in the region, has begun emitting a disturbing sound, the result of a curious melding of dissident voices which had previously been silenced or sidelined. It represents the disenchantment of a country which now knows that its “brighter future” is not on the government’s agenda, that top leadership positions give birth to and nurture a desire for power within the rank and file, that an overwhelmingly elderly population — stifled by fear and apathy — is hampering productivity, that a constantly evasive youth — exhausted by lies and pressure — poses questions that have no answers. It was under these circumstances that Raul Castro arrived in New York. continue reading

But despite of a few protests, the general’s visit was unquestionably a resounding personal success. Though cynical, bitter and misanthropic, Raul is also a man who knows all too well how to sell himself, and at a reasonable price for the people he needs to bedazzle.

Protocol dictates that the Cuban president’s agenda while in the United States include meetings which yield no shortage of gifts. To facilitate the work of his cordial staff members, friends, family members and hangers-on, I am pleased to report that the general would be grateful to receive “gifts or donations” in the form of articles of practical value. He detests knickknacks, eschews medals and, while he adores awards, prefers simple homages and tributes.

Raul is a man who values comfort, an iconoclast. For bedtime, he prefers gifts of scented Amber hand and body lotion, Frette and Pratesi sheets, cotton pajamas and Haro-brand underwear, which he has shipped from Switzerland to Madrid to be embroidered with his initials, R.C., which — not coincidentally — just so happen to be the initials of Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli.

But the principal dilemma for the current president of Cuba is not the United States, nor the great publicity he derives from this trip, nor gifts that inspire visions of imperial grandeur. The greatest challenge facing Raul Castro is awaiting him in Havana, where his inability to accelerate the pace of change as quickly as people are expecting has hurt his standing with his own political base.

The challenge in coming home is how to strengthen his authority within Cuba without causing injury or breaking apart the fragile system that brought about his reforms. He must also resign himself to an inevitable loss of his power as he deals with an ever-growing libertarian streak in a population that is discovering it has rights.

I cannot guarantee anything; the scenario is complex. But, even though it would lead to domestic conflict, an attempt to return to oppressive centralization and increased repression in an effort to maintain control cannot be ruled out.

Cuban Homecomings: Raul Castro’s New Business / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida,14 September 2015 — Homecomings are a big business.

The same problems can often be seen in different cities, states and regions, but comparable solutions to those problems often yield very different results.

Convincing certain people to travel or return to Cuba — whether it be for family, vacation, work or out of sexual desire — is yet another obvious strategy by the government of Raul Castro. It amounts to a kind of de-marketing campaign intended, among other things, to capture people’s attention and enhance its image by using us to its advantage while downplaying the significance of exile. continue reading

I cannot blame Cubans who want to come home, even after having been oppressed by a government which deprived them of their status as Cubans. This is normal. But using public opinion, advertising and media to encourage the return of “Cubans who in some way can have a significant impact the political, social or economic environment” has become a government priority.

A controversial article published recently in Granma included an official announcement that Cuban doctors who have left the country or abandoned their medical missions abroad may, if they so desire, return to Cuba and to guaranteed jobs in the national health system under conditions similar to those they previously had.

It is an old but effective strategy. The trick is in distinguishing between the various people or groups the government wants to attract. With respect to health care professionals, if doctors choose not to return to work, the measure will have a boomerang effect in a country with an unstoppable brain drain and a shortage of trained specialists.

While it is a problem that shows up in different cities, states and regions, comparable solutions often yield very different results. In the 1980s, for example, more than half a million Chinese were studying in other countries. After the Chinese government instituted a new policy, nearly a third of them returned home. It was a program that was direct and aggressive. After identifying more than 70,000 Chinese living abroad, it contacted them with offers of short-term visits back to China as well as opportunities for repatriation. In some cases it even made them feel like “privileged citizens,” with the promise of financial incentives to “start afresh at home.” In mid-2001 Uruguay instituted a similar program in hopes of luring back its educated emigrés, though without the same results.

Some time ago the Cuban government launched an “incubation” program. Its aim was to send the children and some acolytes of the country’s top leaders to study overseas, including the United States, in fields related to technology and business. I do not want to name names for fear of starting a witch hunt, but let’s just say they are young and, though in no way implicated in the misdeeds of their family members, well-indoctrinated. Essentially, they are being prepared — I don’t know if it is correct to say “repaired” — to  have a valid role in the national economy upon their return.

The most sensitive, or rather the most vulnerable, aspect of this strategic program — one which strikes me as being potentially more costly than the ramshackle Juragua nuclear plant — is the government’s inability to offer these kids working conditions and salaries attractive enough to motivate them to return to the island, where they can only enjoy the epicurean pleasures of their former lives, once they have graduated. Their priorities have changed.

General Raul Castro’s Plastic Bag at the Papal Mass / Juan Juan Almeida

At the bottom right of the photo the general-president’s plastic bag can be seen.

Juan Juan Almeida, 22 September 015 — When, before a crowd gathered in the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana, Pope Francis celebrated the first of three Masses on his visit to Cuba, in the first row was the elegant Lorena Castillo de Varela, first lady of Panama, and next to her General Raul Castro, and on his other side the president of Argentina Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. And, in the row behind, between the legs of the famous bodyguard and grandson Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, almost hidden in a corner, the inseparable representation of Cuban culture, la jaba — the plastic bag.

Perhaps no foreigner noticed this detail. Reasonable, for the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language defines la jaba as: a dark stain on the lumbar region with which some children are born; a box specially made for carrying bottles, china or other fragile objects; a kind of basket made of woven reeds or palm leaves; and/or a bag of cloth, plastic, etc. to be carried in the hand. Of course, the scholars cannot imagine that the word jaba, in Cuban, has a special dimension, almost solemn, representing much more than any of its forms. continue reading

When the paper bag died for lack of paper back in the ’70s, la jaba became an indispensable part of the life of every Cuban, so much so that today it deserves a monument. It is a necessity that cannot be associated with a race, nor a sexual orientation, nor a gender, creed, ideology or level of intellect. Walking out without a plastic bag is like walking alone, like listening to an Andalusian tune without good company, like drinking non-alcohol beer or smoking nicotine-free cigarettes.

For some it is synonymous with poverty; for others, status, opulence and progress. An old and redundant joke says, “The body of any Cuban is not divided into three parts, but rather four: head, trunk, extremities and jaba.”

The plastic bag is used by everyone. It is the perfect addition: for errands; to protect your shoes in the rainy season; as an automotive sealant; as a hairdresser’s accessory (for making highlights); as well a form of payment [with goodies in the bag] for some workers in the system of state-owned businesses.

And, as shown in the photo, it can hide a Coca-Cola, the essence of Cuban change. General Raul Castro, putting himself on the level of the humble, has asked his bodyguards to bring his snack in a jaba.

What Does Alejandro Castro Espin Do? / Juan Juan Almeida

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Juan Juan Almeida, 30 September 2015 — Alejandro Castro Espín’s intrusion into Cuba’s political scene has led to a whirlwind of Homeric fantasies in which his biography emerges as a genuine epic poem. This is quite normal; it is how myths are created. But be careful. To either demonize or idealize someone is to make the same mistake: It mythologizes a figure who will later end up embarrassing us.

Alejandro is not, nor will he be, the person who succeeds his father. There is a popular joke that goes like this: Eight out of ten Cubans complain about the government; the two who do not are Raul Castro’s grandson-bodyguard, Raul Guillermo, and his son-advisor, Alejandro.

Popular wisdom. Vilma and Raul’s son was born on July 29, 1965. I do not want to rehash the past — there has already been a ton written on the subject — but it is worth recalling that he began his university education at IPSJAE (José Antonio Echevarría Polytechnic University), only to abandon his studies in refrigeration engineering barely two years later to focus on a less demanding and more promising military career. Perhaps this earned more gold seals for his resume than the appellation on a bottle of cheap wine. continue reading

A lover of sports and bad habits such as digging into other people’s lives, a man with a face like a vegetarian takeout sign, Alejandro is credited with having earned engineering degrees, a doctorate in political science and a masters in international relations as well as being a writer and researcher on issues related to defense and national security.

No doubt he has many more but what is striking is that even the island’s official press seems unsure of the positions and responsibilities held by the youngest of the Castro Espíns’ offspring.

On April 11, 2015, during the Seventh Summit of the Americas held in Panama, the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) stated, “Cuba was represented by Chancillor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla as well as by Alejandro Castro Espín and Juan Francisco Arias Fernández, both from the Defense and National Security Commission.”

He was mentioned again on the same MINREX website on September 29, 2015 — almost six months later — in reference to a meeting between President Barack Obama and the Cuban president. While the organization remained the same, his position in it seems to have changed:

“Cuba was represented by the minister of foreign affairs, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, and by Alejandro Castro Espín and Juan Francisco Arias Fernández, advisor and deputy-advisor respectively of the Defense and National Security Commission.”

Alejandro’s job is either beginning to take shape or, worse, becoming distorted. The Council of National Defense, as stipulated by the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, “is made up of the President of the Council of State, who presides; the Vice-President of the Council of State; his Vice-President; as well as five members appointed by the Council of State at the suggestion of its President.”

Alejandro is not among its members. He holds no designated post. His job, for now, is simply to be an empty bottle. The answer to the puzzle is easy enough: Raul Castro is to nepotism what Albert Einstein is to relativity.

A New Treaty Between Cuba and the U.S. for the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 3 August 2015 — In redundant speeches, more rhetorical than combative, the Cuban Government has requested — among other things — the return of the territory where the Guantánamo Naval Base is located.

But given present circumstances, since Washington and Havana have decided to stop being best enemies to become respectful neighbors, it’s worth asking if the U.S., by delivering that territory, would lose control of the zone and its regional influence.

History tells us the Naval Base was established in 1898, when the military occupation of the U.S. on the Island took place, after defeating Spain in what many of us know as the Hispano-Cuban-American War. continue reading

Later, the signature of the first President of the Republic of Cuba, Tomás Estrada Palma, on February 23, 1903, granted that unusual and controversial condition of perpetual lease, which also was ratified with the rubric of the Treaty of Relations on May 29, 1934.

It originated as a historic anomaly and, today, now that without Tylenol even the Cold War caught a cold, the Base appears to lose its military meaning. Some need an unequaled gesture of neighborly coexistence: that the Pentagon return to MINFAR the 117.6 sq. km. of territory in dispute and, in passing, savor the opportunity to close the center of detention and its so-questionable reputation.

Seen like that it sounds convincing. However, everything is not as it seems. The moon was smooth and perfect until Galileo appeared. He modified the telescope and let us see a lunar surface chock-full of dark craters and unsuspected irregularities.

Yes, without doubt, for Cuba to recover this space, which geographically forms part of its “Sovereign State,” could mean a political victory that would convert Guantánamo into one of the most attractive national destinations for researchers, film crews and tourists. But the Cuban Government won’t stop at that. Lacking naval resources and potential cash to exploit the installations of a base that includes two airfields, docks, jetties and moorings with the capacity for different types of cargo ships, it would have to solicit bids, and that would bring a pack of wolves.

Sufficient indications reveal the marked interest of Russia and China for grabbing the Caribbean, and experts on terrorism agree on the authentic danger of certain groups — radical Islamists — known for spreading panic in the Middle East, who look for means and ways to extend their regional religiosity into this zone in order to bring it closer to the U.S.

For that reason and much more, I believe that today, strategically speaking, the Guantánamo Naval Base has special importance and should be immovable. But circumstances have changed, and the conditions of the contract could also change. Since July 20 and the reopening of embassies, there is no political, diplomatic or military argument to impede Washington and Havana from conversing and remaking a treaty, beneficial for both (and  for the region), through which the U.S. delivers the occupied territory, and Cuba, with new contractual criteria, would permit the North American soldiers to continue operating the base.

Which is a long way of saying that, by reaching an agreement, the U.S. could augment its influence in the region; Russia, the terrorists and China would remain outside this hemisphere. The internal Cuban emigration would change direction if Guantánamo, as a province, increased its GDP with the rent that today it neither charges nor enjoys, and the up-to-today forgotten municipalities of Caimanera and Boquerón would immediately be converted into the aurora borealis of Cuban entrepreneurship.

I like that idea; I don’t know about you.

Translated by Regina Anavy

Million-dollar Robbery at the Cienfuegos Refinery / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 24 August 2015 — More than 500 barrels of fuel disappear daily from the terminals or storage tanks of the Camilo Cienfuegos refinery, located in the province of Cienfuegos on the south-central part of the island.

The theft, in addition to being really ingenious, has an organization that shows even seasonal patterns, revealing that there are fewer robberies in summer than in winter.

The Cienfuegos industrial enclave, after being shut down in 1995 and later materializing in the ALBA accords, with a remodeling and modernization project that cost over $83 million, reopened its doors in October 2007, as part of a large, mixed binational business between Cuba and Venezuela. However, with a processing capacity of over 8,000 barrels a day, the thefts are crippling and, let’s say it, frightening. continue reading

The authorities say that the Cienfuegos Polo Petrochemical project continues being a priority for both Governments, that they are consolidating their methods and doing everything possible to lower the statistics for fuel theft that continue to emerge. It’s known that part of the leakage occurs in “vampire operations,” which are nothing more than premeditated perforations in the pipes, where farmers clandestinely take small quantities of diesel for local farming activities and/or private provincial transport.

But those filterings are minimal and controlled by a systematic cross-checking of plant security, an efficient anti-theft offensive in conjunction with the national police.

The more important, apocalyptic, robbery, which doesn’t seem to interest any authority nor be suspected of being committed by a criminal with a Robin Hood complex, and whose distribution is the result of misdeeds and illegal gains at the service of the community, is centered on industrial quantities of refined gasoline being taken out of the refinery.

With the same notoriety as a polar bear hibernating in a Holguín park, “without anyone seeing anything,” hundreds of daily barrels of gasoline are packed in waterproof bags that normally are used for industrial waste or to guarantee the organoleptic stability of specified products.

There’s nothing discrete about it. The packages continue to mock the sophisticated security system, and they hop, like lice on the heads of babies, until they fall into the channel that flows into the Bay of Jagua.

Gasoline has a less specific weight than water; the packages float and the tide finishes the work. Of course some bags break, and the spill becomes a contaminant that directly affects the ecological equilibrium of the zone. But that, it appears, isn’t important either.

What’s interesting, or at least surprising for an illegal traffic impossible of being executed by a common criminal without having help is that, as in a Spartan task of extraordinary implications, it’s the efficient members of the border troops who finally pick up the floating bundles on the sea.

Who receives so much stolen gasoline? I don’t know; I couldn’t find out, and the more I asked, the more no one wanted to answer. Only one informed person told me:

“It neither returns to the refinery, nor is it lost in the black market.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

Raul Castro’s Grandson Expels a Spanish Businessman from Cuba / Juan Juan Almeida

Raul Castro with his grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro

Juan Juan Almeida, 18 August 2015 — Esteban Navarro Carvajal Hernández is a serious, respectable Spanish entrepreneur, who has done business in Cuba for twenty years. He has a trading firm, legally registered with the Chamber of Commerce, and a Cuban family. He lives on 30th Street, between 5th & 7th Avenues, in the Miramar neighborhood of Havana, next door to the Canadian Embassy.

As a good businessman, clever and calculating, he seized the moment and the new opportunities presented. Convinced also that the revolutionary government needs infusions of capital from private enterprises, he expanded his business beyond his commercial ties to several enterprises on the island, and associated separately with three Cuban citizens to create the following companies:

1. Up & Down, the bar-restaurant at the corner of 5th Street and Avenue B, Vedado, Havana, open daily from 3:00 pm to 3:00 am

2. Shangri-La, the tapas bar, party room, and nightclub located on 21st between 40th and 42nd, Playa, Havana

3. El Shangri Lá, in the province of Las Tunas.

And so, like foam, the gentleman entrepreneur grew. During that boom, without realizing he was walking down a dark and slippery path, he met the grandson of Gen. Raul Castro, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who became a nightly regular at Shangri-La. continue reading

But the budding friendship ended, like Hector and Paris, with the Spanish entrepreneur pitted against the powerful Raulito in an unfair competition to win the attention (and everything else) of a beautiful young woman whose attributes, some say, surpass those of the mythical Helen of Troy.

The younger Castro lost and, genetically wrathful, used his boorish manners plus the power conferred by his lineage, transforming a simple personal problem into a police thunderstorm. Esteban received a punishment more predictable than the August weather forecast for Havana: “Deportation with indefinite denial of entry into the country.”

Unfortunately, Esteban’s is not an isolated case. His was preceded by a series of very similar stories (some even worse) of entrepreneurs expelled for Machiavellian reasons, such as the Panamanian Rodin, the French-Italian Garzaroli, the Uruguayan Gosende, and others.

The Cuban government, shameless and without decency, is like a comic opera, where business prospects, potential commercial projects, and investment opportunities offered to foreigners, are intertwined with the adventure of investing in a country where they face not only the risk of the lack of legal support and many structural, banking, and financial abnormalities, but also the challenge of living with that totalitarian touch that, paradoxically, is seductive musk for many investors attracted by power and political ties, who forget that, as the saying goes, “The sun shines from afar but burns up close.”

Always, of course, at its own convenience.

Translated by Tomás A.

Alarming And Strange Increase In Illness Among Cuban Colleagues In Venezuela / Juan Juan Almeida

“Outbreaks of illness increase and official silence persists.” (YA!@Ya_Venezuela)

Juan Juan Almeida, 11 August 2015 — The suspicious increase in certain inopportune illnesses is now the most sensitive factor for the normal development of the Cuban medical mission in Venezuela.

During the present year, and especially in these last weeks, an alarming and strange increase has been reported in the number of Cubans who get sick while fulfilling their “internationalist” service.

Undisclosed official data reveal that up to week 28 of 2015, there have been 514 cases of Cubans affected by respiratory infections, mainly caused by outbreaks of H3N2 influenza, Rinovirus, Parainfluenza and Metapneumovirus. The states with the highest rate of those affected are the Distrito Capital, Barinas, Monagas, Falcón, Sucre, Nueva Esparta, Mérida, Trujillo, Vargas, Carabobo, Bolívar, Yaracuy, Amazonas, Cojedes and Lara. continue reading

It’s equally noticeable that by the end of week 29, also this year, there were already 33 new cases of dengue fever reported versus 33 in the previous week, bringing to more than 900 the total figure of those affected since January. And much more curious is that during the same time period, 17,391 Cubans have been under quarantine; of these, 12,870 have been in contact with dengue fever, suspected of having contracted Chikungunya fever and other undiagnosed fevers, while 4,184 colleagues were under watch for cholera.

The Party ideologues and the paranoiacs of MINIT do not hold cards without playing them and already have organized a whole novel of pathological persecution. They are taking advantage of the occasion to implement the usual model of fear, blaming such an anomalous situation on the premeditated undercover actions of their everlasting and eternal enemy, the CIA.

In spite of this melodrama, the reality is worrisome. Ever more so when, coincidentally, in the States of Aragua, Carabobo, Zulia, Distrito Capital and Cojedes during the same week, 90 nurses, 23 doctors, 29 laboratory technicians and 20 dentists, through negligence and/or bad manipulation of needles, scalpels and biological waste, suffered what are defined as “occupational accidents through exposure to patients’ blood and bodily fluids,” contaminating themselves with infections that are sometimes diagnosed and sometimes unknown.

The Venezuela medical mission is an important bulwark for Cuban propaganda, and the Cuban authorities, in addition to losing credibility, aren’t acknowledging a failure in this field. Then, in the face of so much going wrong, they developed in Havana in record time a detailed plan that they took to every head of the mission in the different Venezuelan states: a document of alert entitled “Epidemiological Update,” from which I took all these data.

The text orders the reprogramming of biosecurity courses among staff and requires all personnel (doctors, nurses, laboratory assistants, dentists, podiatrists, etc.) to pay special attention to secure methods in treating patients, as well as directing them to maintain constant communication and interchange with the new epidemiology monitoring centers.

In the Cuban health system, like the war in Angola, the casualties aren’t counted; the only thing that matters is victory.

Translated by Regina Anavy

Cuba’s Illegal Manipulation / Regina Anavy

Cuban Institute of Radio and Television

Juan Juan Almeida, 13 August 2015 — The Cuban media today will even use illegal techniques (indoctrination through subliminal means) in order to manipulate the population and oblige it to associate Fidel’s birthday with the opening of the U.S. Embassy.

Translated by Regina Anavy

Cuban Doctors are Sent to Brazil Without a Stopover in Cuba / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 25 May 2015 — To ease the growing popular discontent, soften Petrobras’ recent and resounding scandal and regain credibility, President Dilma Rousseff, taking into account that “improving health” was the principal demand during the June 2013 demonstrations, wants to repeat history. She has asked the Cuban authorities to increase the number of physicians in order to help strengthen the “More Doctors” program and calm the majority who, as always, are the most needy.

According to official figures, up to April 2015, the health project “More Doctors” counted 18,247 professionals in more than 4,000 municipalities. And I celebrate this: healthcare should be the right of everyone without exclusion; it’s a pity that commercialization puts at risk the lives of those who can’t pay for lack of resources. It’s difficult not to consider the Brazilian request, which, although clearly without half-measures, conveys a clear Party intent, requiring the Cuban Government to send only experienced doctors. But the Cuban rulers, using and abusing an effective disloyalty, without consulting the Bolivians, respond without delay to the chords of this samba, even affecting the long-term commitments they have with the Venezuelan health programs. continue reading

So it is, because to earn money, the Cuban State always remains more open than the doors of an airport restaurant. This past Saturday, May 9, from a poorly lit corner in the office of the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, Roberto Tomás Morales Ojeda released a signed circular directed at each manager of ASIC (Areas of Integral Public Health) in Venezuela, and at the managers of the medical missions in the different states, so that through their CENREC and the Centers of Attention (or vigilance) collaborators, they contact, with strict discretion, the first Cuban doctors, who, by the sole fact of having the approval of State Security, already have been selected to travel directly to Brazil without the need to return to the Island or embrace their families.

The doctors selected have the right to say no, since — according to this document — some of them have already fulfilled the time of the “mission” and are waiting for their relief; but, like subliminal blackmail there is a catch: they have to give a written argument explaining the reason for their refusal.

The list of names is extensive. It includes specialty, medical category, passport number, identity card, province of origin and more. But for obvious motives of security and understandable ethics, in addition to protecting my sources, it’s not prudent for me to publish the document in question in total.

Those interested, above all those who have family members working in the Cuban medical mission in Venezuela, can contact me. I have in my hands the list of the Cubans chosen, who, without even knowing it, have already been selected; and during this whole week, from today the 18th up to the 22nd of the current month, they will be convened and ordered to accept transfer to this new mission, “More Doctors for Brazil.”

The motive is convincing; the logic is repugnant.

Translated by Regina Anavy 

Cuba’s Automotive Heritage Has Been Virtually Plundered / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 11 May 2015 — With the relaxation of relations between the United States and Cuba, speculation has been unleashed and is causing mischief. Some experts guarantee that several U.S. companies are ready to buy the famous “almendrones”* on the island. It could be the arrangement is real; there is always some nostalgic person whose passion, need or disinformation makes him confuse reality with desire or imagination.

Absolutely out of focus, Cuba’s automotive heritage has been virtually plundered. Most of what remains – Cadillacs, Chevys, Studebakers, Pontiacs, Thunderbirds and Buicks – which still circulate on the island, had their engines replaced to be used as collective taxis (“boteros”), and upon losing originality, they also lost their exceptionalism. continue reading

In the middle of the ‘80s, the Cuban business, At the Service of Foreigners (CUBALSE, for its acronym) capitalized on the large amount of collectible cars that existed in the country. It acquired them by referring to their technological importance (Spanish-Swiss, 1930 Cadillac V16), 1918 Ford T, 1930 Baby Lincoln), or their universal historic significance.

I don’t think it’s necessary to explain that CUBALSE bought them at laughable prices; for a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing, or a Jaguar or Bugatti, it paid with Russian vehicles.

Several of these rolling jewels are found today in the Automobile Museum located on Oficios Street in Old Havana; others, like “The Little Pink Shoes”** are guarded and excellently maintained in the private garages of the upper elite. The rest were sold at very good prices, mostly to Swiss collectors.

At the end of the ‘90s, there were almost no cars on the island of the 100 percent original collection in the hands of the population. CUBALSE stopped buying, and the baton of patrimonial rape passed to an exclusive group of artists, who didn’t sell their works at the prices they do now but knew how to cash in, with more than innate talent, on their government connections in order to buy antique autos, adorn them with four strokes and, under the status of “work of art,” take them out of the country and sell them in the exterior.

Thus, by sea, like rafters but with special permission, American cars left Cuba at the request of a foreign market that demanded, fundamentally, 1946 Chevrolet trucks, 1941 Ford Mercurys, 1956 Buick Roadmasters, Chevrolet Corvettes and 1957 Chevys.

In the craze for antique four-wheelers, Cubans and foreign residents with commercial vision came together. Then, with an economic option, the Government retook the business with companies like Cubataxi, which acquired antique cars with a certain national history, not to sell but rather to rent, at the price of a prostitute, to tourists who would pay to ride a Harley Davidson that Camillo Cienfuegos used, the Chevrolet Impala that belonged to Almeida, and what some say is only a fake version of the Chaika limousine*** that Fidel used for years.

Putting together these simple pieces of the commercial puzzle of the car in Cuba, it’s very easy to understand that, of the almost 60,000 antique cars that still circulate on the island, with certain isolated exceptions, in the possession of some nationals there remain only hybrid autos, armed with the loose criteria of an ingenious mechanic, which of course he could sell, but they are not even approximately the gold mine that their owners believe they are.

Translator’s notes:
*“Almonds,” because of their shape.
”**A poem by José Martí that school children learn and that often is satirized.
***A Soviet brand car.

Translated by Regina Anavy

Exploring the Role of Alejandro Castro in Cuba’s Future / Juan Juan Almeida

Alejandro Castro Espin, son of Raul Castro, in Panama

Juan Juan Almeida, 22 June 2015 — The prestigious agency Reuters is exploring the role that Alejandro Castro Espin could have as his father’s successor, drawing on three sources: a former CIA official who supports his views with experience studying a still-unknown family—their fears, habits, tastes, preferences, mores, and even the personality of each of its members; a former Cuban ambassador now living in Brussels in fear because one day he decided to provide refuge in the diplomatic residence to two of his grandchildren and a daughter married to a former Russian citizen who fled the armed conflict in Chechnya; and a Canadian historian who wrote a book about Raul Castro the strategist.

It is absurd to assume that Alejandro, just because he is Raul’s son and is a colonel, has the support of the military high command. It is like believing that Nicolae Ceausescu could have ruled indefinitely in Romania and then have been civilly succeeded by his beloved son Nicu. continue reading

I find it extremely disrespectful, or at least ill considered, to analyze the future role of a significant figure ignoring that he is Cuban; that he lives in Cuba; that our island is located in the area of influence of the United States; and that there is no doubt that although U.S. policy has erred on many occasions in its position with Cuba, the changes that will occur will be along Western lines. Cuba is not North Korea, geopolitically in the sphere of influence of Russia and China.

Alexander came to the fore long before December 17 but, despite his six-foot-two stature, he is a bland character, absolutely incompetent at communicating or commanding attention.

To compare the way Fidel Castro used his brother Raul with the way that Raul uses his son Alejandro, is to display a lack of intelligence, a total ignorance of national history.

Sure, Raul Castro inherited Fidel’s political base, but he participated in the attack on the Moncada Barracks, he went into exile, he journeyed on the yacht Granma, he was chief of the eastern guerrilla front in the Sierra Maestra Mountains and, although he was not highly educated, fifty years of practicing in the ruling elite of the Cuban dictatorship taught him the trade, or rather the art, of power.

The male heir of the Castros, as history tells, is not career military, let alone a combat veteran. He is not a member of the National Assembly nor of the Central Committee. They can do it, of course, but it won’t matter; the only way that Alexander could transcend his father would be through a pact with the future government, using it as a guarantee to protect the immunity of Raul and the family.

If the Cuban opposition continues doing what it has been doing, and if the government continues ruling as it has until now, the chances of a real political change in Cuba are minimal. But it is one thing to say that expectations are low, and quite another to admit that they are nonexistent.

In recent months, Raul Castro has been injuring his own political base, by slowing the adopted reforms and by his clear failure to manipulate the levers of power. Alejandro is more awkward still, his presence will suck the air out of the room among that group (ministers, military hierarchy and government officials) that now supports the power and will begin to destroy the appetite of tomorrow.

General Raul Castro may be unaware of the scholar Brian Latell, the professor Carlos Alzugaray, or the historian Hal Klepak, but it is certain that he knows exactly the limitations of each of his children, and also knows that to promote his son Alejandro as a possible successor, passing over so many other personalities with the same ambitions and better characteristics, would be counterproductive even for his own family.

In gathering information to write this note I spoke with a senior Cuban army officer and asked him about Alejandro. He replied: “Juan Juan, you surely know the famous Latin phrase cogito ergo sum. Well, the Cuban economist and historian Regino Boti said that in Cuba we use a freely paraphrased version of the French philosopher René Descartes’ ’I think, therefore I am’ and call it ’I command, therefore I know.’”

And that is Alejandro Castro, the argument taken to the absurd. So can the Fidel Castro model be repeated in Cuba? No.

Art Is A Bridge That Unites Miami And Havana / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 1 June 2015 —  In 1984, at the suggestion of Armando Hart and Marcia Leiseca, Lilian Llanes, then the director of the Wilfredo Lam Center, the Biennial of Havana was created, and since then, the dialogue of the Revolution with Cuban culture has seen itself obligated to change, passing from an intense tone to a prudent one, and it’s truly regretful that our opposition hasn’t ever managed to capture the attention of this brotherhood.

The Government knows that no respectable social movement exists without artists in the vanguard, and it also knows that the Biennial is the place where artists get together to promote art.

What’s interesting is that this cultural rendezvous, the Twelfth Biennial, in addition to converting Havana into a world center for contemporary visual arts, and invading Havana with an artillery of paintings, regiments of video art, battalions of sculptures, squadrons of installations and platoons of performance art, is creating a new manner of communication and collaboration among artists residing on the Island and in Miami. continue reading

It’s good to know that the works of Manuel Mendive, Arles de Río, Roberto Fabelo, Rafael Pérez, Osmany (Lolo) Betancourt, Eduardo Abella and Luis Camejo, who these days get the attention of everyone on the Havana Malecón and other seats of the Biennial, were made in Miami, in the studio-casting ASU Bronze (Art & Sculpture Unlimited).

The question is: Why is it practically impossible in Cuba for drawings and sketches of plastic artists to materialize in the art of casting?

There’s a surplus of talent in Cuba. But the quality of production work in other places, the shortage of materials and inefficiency of the State, plus the fatigue from facing the constant complexity of everything associated with the production of a work in Cuba make the elaboration of a piece on the Island an exhausting process that doesn’t make it easy for artists to organize to fulfill commitments or establish deadlines for exhibitions.

Unfortunately for them (the artists) and, hopefully, new entrepreneurs will take note, there is only one business in all of Cuba that is dedicated to these requirements. To cast art is complicated: you need specific machinery, tools that are fabricated for a determined work, special instruments, access to raw material and other gear to complete the structure. Nor does there exist in the country a photography laboratory capable of offering a wide range of services that include printing on metal, wood or methacrylate.

Today Cuban artists make magnificent art that they try to show to the world, but when they leave Cuba and face the mega-exhibitions in New York or Paris – to mention only two examples – they find that the works exhibited have a deadline that they can’t meet on the Island.

To introduce works in international circuits, each time more demanding, requires fulfilling parameters and patrons of artistic production who they can only meet in workshops like the Factum Arte in Spain, which is dedicated to producing art for artists.

Then the Art & Sculpture Unlimited (ASU Bronze) appeared in Miami, which, in addition to being geographically and operationally closer to Cubans, offers solutions, accessible prices and competent completion. It counts on the exquisite supervision of Lázaro Valdés, an excellent sculptor who, by being educated in Cuba, understands perfectly the language of his profession, his nation and his generation.

Author: Juan Juan Almeida

Licensed in Penal Science. Analyst, writer. Awarded a prize in a competition of short stories in Argentina. In 2009, published “Memories of an Unknown Cuban Guerrilla,” a nonfiction work where he satirizes the decadence of the upper elite in Cuba.

juanjal@yahoo.com

Translated by Regina Anavy

 

Access to International Banks: Cuba’s True Objective in These Negotiations / Juan Juan Almeida

Josefina Vidal, Cuban negotiator
Josefina Vidal, Cuban negotiator

Juan Juan Almeida, 25 May 2015– For many, it was a surprise that the United States and Cuba should conclude its new round of negotiations without achieving the expected agreement, the reopening of new embassies–more so when both delegations described the recently concluded meeting as “respectful, professional, and highly productive.”

Thus does the Island’s government operate; it maneuvers with painstaking craftiness any process that entails sociopolitical transcendence for the country.

I hope (although at times I doubt it) that the US State Department and US authorities involved in these proceedings clearly understand that not Josefina Vidal–member of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party and director for the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations director for relations with the United States–nor José Ramón Cabañas, chief of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, nor any other member of the Cuban delegation, have decision-making authority. They are simply employees who have been given precise instructions: explore the actions and reactions of their counterparts, buy time, maximize media coverage (which they easily do because all media around the world are covering the big story), and show toughness. continue reading

For the Cuban government–sorry, for the 7 or 8 individuals who today comprise the center of power–reestablishing relations with the US is simply the “rice” in the chicken-and-rice pot. The compass of this process–the “chicken” of this meal–is directed towards two goals: removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and press for the end of the “Embargo.” All the rest is just part of the same theater showcasing well-rehearsed acting.

It is not hard to understand that to remove Cuba from that list will unleash an immediate effect on the banking institutions, which will cease to view the largest of the Antilles through the “anti-terrorist lens” and, concurrently, erase the shock of receiving a sanction for doing business with Cuba.

I cannot state with certainty that as of today our country conforms to the definition of a state that sponsors or supports terrorism. Although I have heard Fidel and Raúl denounce terrorist acts such as that visited on Charlie Hebdo;  and a high ranking Cuban military officer describe how a representative of these terrorist groups lives a comfortable and relaxed life, very near to the residence of the Spanish ambassador; and a good friend recount an amusing anecdote in which one day, through no fault of his own, he found himself turned into a gift to the Middle East, where he was presented to a group of Islamic leaders with hyper-radical tendencies who, through an interpreter, wanted to know personal stories about his father who, even in death, continues to be an icon of history, hysteria and schizophrenia.

The end of the Embargo will open to the country the doors to credit and funding and, with them, the real possibility of buying and exporting weapons, services, information, medical personnel, medicines, or any other product–harmful or not to world peace.

I have no doubt that Cuba will emerge from this controversy in a ready mode, will reestablish its relations with the US, and, if the wind continues to blow in the same direction, the Embargo will be lifted. Is this right? I do not believe so, but I learned to be pragmatic because, as my grandmother used to say after lighting up the same cigar butt for the fourth time, “In this world there is no justice, God forgives everyone.”

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison