14ymedio – Page 285 – Translating Cuba

Cuba: There is No Time Left, You Have to Act

Pre-Covid, tourists take pictures in the Havana’s Plaza Vieja. (EFE)

Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, July 22, 2021 – No one should be deceived. The Spanish or Italian tourist who travels to Cuba for pleasure and vacation has as much interest in the current political situation on the island as those legendary Swedes who came to Spain in the 60s in search of sun, sand, and the “macho Iberian.”

Those Scandinavian women didn’t know who Franco was, didn’t give a damn that freedom fighters in the cities were being arrested by the secret police, or that the trade unionists were seeking sanctuary in churches to claim holy ground and avoid repression by secret police.

They were going to spend a week or two in Benidorm, the Costa Brava, Marbella, or Mallorca; in short, more or less the same thing that happens with Italians and Spaniards in Cuba, who choose Varadero, María La Gorda, or Holguín to enjoy paradise.

Since the “Special Period,” tourism trends to the Island have been adapting to the times, but rarely does a tourist seek out activists or dissidents, and in many cases they even reject continue reading

them. Here we also find no differences with the “Swedish”.

I remember not long ago that some Spanish friends who visited Cuba told me that when they saw the Ladies in White marching with their gladioli near the church of Santa Rita, the tour guide informed them that they were crazy, or rather, mentally ill, and simply recommended ignoring them, let alone approaching them. When they returned to Spain and learned who those brave women were, they couldn’t believe it.

The same thing happens with foreign investors. Spaniards, Canadians, Italians, or Dutch come to Cuba to do business, involving very large sums of money, deal with people who are Party leaders holding positions in the Administration bureaucracy. They are trapped in a vicious circle that they escape at the earliest opportunity. Even those who try to take advantage of the benefits offered by the Government for those doing business in the Port of Mariel Special Benefits Zone, find that they cannot freely hire the most qualified workers, but must resort to a state entity which, at its discretion, supplies them with the employees that they designate. And they leave.

In Spain, the manufacturers of capital equipment and intermediate goods established during the Franco dictatorship continued to expand their scale of production during the democratic stage, and few if any businesses left the country forced by political change and supposed situational requirements.

One might think that tourism and foreign investment could open for Cuba an opportunity for growth and development similar to the one that Spain experienced for decades in order for it to reach its current levels of prosperity. It’s not advisable to think that it’s the same. Because it’s not.

There are very important differences that explain why those small coastal hotels on beautiful Mediterranean beaches could be transformed into international hotel chains with thousands of well-managed and profitable shopping districts. Or, that the small open-air cafes could evolve and end up obtaining several Michelin stars. Similarly, car and truck manufacturers and foreign companies established in the 60s and 70s did not leave the country during democracy–quite the opposite–and reached significant levels of development.

In Cuba, no one should wait for these processes. Where does the fault lie? Of course, it’s not necessary to think about the blockade or embargo, which is always the standby argument of the communists. The responsibility is much closer than what is believed, and has to do with the economic and social model that governs the country, based on the Marxist-Leninist ideology that turns the human being into a slave of state political power. A system that has proven to be a failure, and for this reason it has been disappearing in all the countries of the world where it was implanted by force, allowing economic capabilities to appear that have improved the quality of life and prosperity of their inhabitants.

Cubans see that the years pass, and that the communist ideological obsession prevents things from improving. Tourism, which set the goal of 5 million travelers years ago, struggles to survive the Covid-19 pandemic without approaching the figures cited in any year. Foreign investment stagnates and, what is worse, decreases, not only because of the global economic crisis, but because the regime does not offer attractive alternatives, nor does it allow international entrepreneurs to do business freely with self-employed workers.

If the economy prospered in Spain, yet doesn’t in Cuba, despite both betting on similar drivers, it’s necessary to wonder why. And it’s not necessary to go very far to discover that Cuba’s 2019 constitution maintains a Marxist-Leninist model in which ownership of the means of production is in the hands of the state, and the market as an instrument of allocation is subject to government intervention.

And that this model is precisely what prevents the Cuban economy from loosening up and improving the living conditions of the people. This model is a backwardness, an anachronistic element that no one wants to maintain, as the Chinese or Vietnamese have done, and that Cuba, its authorities, will have no choice but to do the same, and more drastically and without so many detours.

Social protests throughout Cuba have clearly indicated which path the communist authorities should follow: negotiate and disappear. Nobody wants communism, nobody wants it to continue the same as it is now. Cubans want change, and they are willing to fight for it. The way is clear. You have to get to work as soon as possible. One minute wasted in this process can be terrible.

Translated by Tomás A.

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At the Youth Music Awards, ‘Freedom’ for Cuba was Loudly Heard

The Puerto Rican singer Farruko during his performance at the Premios Juventud, this Thursday in Miami. (Capture)

EFE / 14ymedio, Miami, July 23, 2021 — The 2021 Premios Juventud (Youth Awards) ceremony, this Thursday in Miami, was marked by the call from Cuban artists about the situation that exists on the island after the protests unleashed on July 11th in dozens of cities.

To the shout of “Viva Cuba libre” (Long Live Free Cuba) by Emilio Estefan and Pitbull, the singers Joncien, Lena, Malena Burke and Yailenys Pérez performed Libertad (Freedom), while Gente de Zona and Yotuel Romero offered a special version of Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life), the theme that has been turned into an anthem for those, inside and outside the island, who call for the fall of the Castro regime.

Earlier, a message had been transmitted from Cuban artist Camila Cabello, wearing a T-shirt that read “Patria y vida,” who made an appeal in Spanish to American and Latin American youth to support protesters in Cuba.

“I feel very proud of my Cuban blood and even prouder of those who have taken to the streets to lead the change, despite the repression, despite the fear. Let us unite our voices with theirs, Patria y Vida!” Cabello said.

Previously, the Puerto Rican artist Farruko had come on stage wearing a T-shirt that read “Miguel Díaz-Canel singao” (motherfucker), an insult widely used continue reading

these days to refer to the Cuban president.
But one of the most emotional moments of the gala was when the audience at the Watsco Center welcomed Venezuelan artist Chyno Miranda, who appeared for the first time on television after more than a year fighting severe health problems.

The moment also marked the return of the Venezuelan duet Chyno and Nacho after their separation in 2017. The artists performed a medley of their greatest hits such as Mi Niña Bonita and Andas En Mi Cabeza, and later they sang Queriendote, the new single from their new album.

Miranda, who was always a great dancer, had serious movement difficulties due to peripheral neuropathy and encephalitis that he suffered as a result of his covid-19 infection in March 2020.

The night’s guest of honor was Puerto Rican reggaeton performer Daddy Yankee, who received the “agent of change” award for his fight against child hunger, as well as his help to families affected by the onslaught of Hurricane María.

The Colombian artist Karol G won six Juventud prizes out of the twelve awards to which she was nominated, the same number as her compatriot Camilo was nominated for, but he won none.

The interpreter of “Bichota and 200 cups” won the awards for “young female artist”, “the catchiest ” and “the most trendy”, among others, while Bad Bunny followed closely, with five awards, including two most coveted, “album of the year” and “song of the year.”

From Mexico, Grupo Firme finished with four awards, while Natti Natasha received three, and Becky G and Los Dos Carnales took two each.

Other artists who left the Watsco Center in Miami happy tonight were Puerto Ricans Jhay Wheeler and Franchesca, who were recognized as the best new artists.

In previous years, the songs performed at Premios Juventud were traditionally the most popular of the moment. However, the absence of concert tours in Latin America seemed to stimulate artists to present new music on stage.

During the ceremony, mention was also made of the collapse of the residential building in Surfside, Florida, where about a hundred people died this month, and the use of masks and vaccination against Covid-19 was urged, because it was a night in which music was not detached from the problems of these times.

Translated by Tomás A.

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Foreign Tourism Businesses Complain About Cuban Government Repression

Arbitrary arrests in Cuba contrast with the image to attract tourism, say foreign companies in the Cuban tourist business. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 23 July 2021 – Tourism businesspeople from several countries (Germany, the United States, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) complain about the violence inflicted by the Cuban Government by pointing out that the “arbitrary arrests” during the demonstrations of July 11 contrast with the image promoted abroad by Cuban authorities to attract visitors.

Through an open letter sent to the Cuban Minister of Tourism, Juan Carlos Garcia Granda, they express their annoyance with the Government, their “commercial partner,” for “silencing the voices in the capital as well as in towns in the interior of the country.”

Their disagreement, they say, has also been asserted in the past against laws and regulations that limit the right of both Americans to travel to the island, as well as the prohibition against Cubans entering hotels reserved for tourists.

They are in favor of “dialogue, freedom of expression, unrestricted Internet access, truth, and unrestricted travel, including continue reading

for US citizens, when COVID-19 conditions allow it.”

In the message sent to García Granda they emphasize that as promoters of Cuba “we treasure its people, culture, history, and the natural beauty of the Island. Together, we have welcomed and accompanied more than a million visitors from more than 100 countries.”

And due to the increase in coronavirus infections, in July the Cuban Ministry of Tourism extended the suspending of reservations for tourist packages made by Cubans residing on the island.

According to data from the National Statistics and Information Office (Onei), 114,460 visitors were received from January to June, only 11.6% of the 985,199 visitors received in the same period of the previous year.

More than half of the tourists who came to the island are Russians (72,304 of 114,460), followed by the Cuban community from abroad (12,207), Germans (4,719), Spanish (3,753) and Canadians (2,296).

Among the requirements to visit the island, a tourist must present a PCR test from less than 72 hours before entering, submit to another test upon arrival, and isolate for five days in a hotel.

Among the signatories of the letter sent to the Cuban Minister of Tourism are: Eddie Lubbers, of Cuba Travel Network (Netherlands); Karel Pérez Alejo, from Okori Digital (Netherlands); Michael Sykes, from Cuba Cultural Travel (United States); AJ Leon, from Misfit (UK); Rainer Klee from Aerticket GmbH (Germany); IJede van der Kooij, Cuba Travel Network (Curaçao); José Luis Herrera, from Thruads (United States); Reinder Hartholt (Netherlands) and Georges Druon (France).

Translated by Tomás A.

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What Led the Cuban Regime to the Current Explosive Crisis

The same resource is used again to justify the tidal wave of mass protests throughout the country: the “imperialist blockade” is blamed for the lack of food. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, 20 July 2021 — The model born in Stalin’s Russia and imposed by communist parties in each country where they have succeeded, carries, by its very nature, a degenerative evil that makes it unsustainable: since there are no private owners, only administrators appointed by the state leadership, real productive stimulus does not exist.

These bureaucratic administrations are not officially allowed to take full control of the profits of the companies they run, but they do have access to them, so the State also requires other officials in charge to carry out audits.

But auditors are also human beings, vulnerable to corruption. Thus, a corrupt bureaucratic caste is being generated which is responsible for constant “deficiencies” and resource diversions that are undermining the economic system and giving rise to a permanent, structural crisis.

Consequently, the Party-State elite will always need two external supports to survive: an ally with sufficient resources to subsidize its survival and an external enemy to blame for the situation of precariousness of the population finds itself in and for provoking internal protests.

If the first one is missing, a terminal decomposition process begins. If the second is lacking, the Party-State elite remains naked before continue reading

the population and international public opinion as the main culprit of the internal evils.

A corrupt bureaucratic caste is being generated which is responsible for constant “deficiencies” and resource diversions that are undermining the economic system and giving rise to a permanent, structural crisis

In Cuba, these two supports were taken into account for many years. In the first two decades there was not much need for the first one, because they counted on the high prices of sugar in the international market, profits that were used in military adventures, especially in Africa and in support of Latin American guerrilla movements. Meanwhile, here at home, the population suffered housing and transportation crises and shortages of food and clothing, not to mention the successive blackouts, something similar to what would later occur in Chávez’s Venezuela despite the high prices received for the oil exported by that country.

When the so-called socialist camp in Europe collapsed, the Cuban economic system appeared in its true nature. The critical period that began then was not, in fact, a “Special Period”, as Fidel Castro baptized it, it was the same as always, a structural and permanent crisis, but without the subsidies the Island had received until then.

Then, “on the edge of the abyss” — these are not my words but Raúl Castro’s — they managed to find a new ally to sponsor them: Chávez’s Venezuela. Thus, they were able to postpone the implosion of the system for a while longer. But as Venezuela followed in Cuba’s footsteps, it began to endure more and more of the same mayhem. Halfway through, some Venezuelans lamented that they were “hitting rock bottom.”

I told them in an article: “No, we Cubans know that you are not there yet.” Until they finally did learn what it was like to hit rock bottom. Many wondered how a country so rich, so prosperous, has fallen into such misery.

For Cuba, this meant the loss of the subsidiary source once again. And of course, the start of a new “special” period was announced. But since that word brought traumatic evocations, the term “conjunctural” arose, with the implied additional meaning of “temporary.” Whatever it is called, it is the system just as it is, with no one to subsidize it. As no new sponsor appeared, the country collapsed and the people took to the streets.

How did they not realize that this was going to happen? Many inside and outside of Cuba warned and advised them: you have the solution in your hands: open the markets, lower taxes, let the agricultural workers sell their products to whoever they want and at market prices, allow “roundtables” so that people voice their opinions and we all look for solutions. But they did not listen.

Now, when the people cry out for the resignation of those who are truly responsible for the disaster, they bring out the police, the Black Berets, the riot forces and the paramilitary mobs with batons, bats, firearms and even anti-aircraft guns. The exact number of detainees, and of the wounded and dead, is not yet known.

“No, we Cubans know that you are not there yet”. Until they finally did learn what it was like to hit rock bottom

From that moment on, the second resource – the external enemy to blame – was required more than ever: “the imperialist blockade.” When you say “blockade” you tend to think that all ports are obstructed by military ships to prevent the entry of food and other merchandise, but in reality, it is about another nation that refuses to trade with Cuba due to the property confiscations carried out at the beginning of that regime. That said, many still wondered how there is also a shortage of countless food products produced in the country itself that were never lacking on Cuban tables.

Cuba has diplomatic and commercial relations with around 70 countries in the world, and, as if that were not enough, after the end of the Cold War, the United States became Cuba’s main trading partner in terms of agricultural products, though under the condition that Cuba must pay for its purchases in cash, simply because it has lost the trust of its creditors due to an astronomical debt that Cuba has not been able to pay.

Many opponents have naively argued that the embargo should be maintained because it can be used as a “bargaining chip” to achieve concessions from the regime, but a bargaining chip only serves when the one to whom it is offered is interested in receiving it, and that leadership has repeatedly shown that it wants just the opposite. To pressure Cuba, instead of intensifying the embargo, it would be preferable to threaten to lift it, because despite the fact that Cuba publicly condemns it, behind the scenes it uses its continuation as a justification.

Many examples could be cited from Gerald Ford’s presidency, when Carlos Rafael Rodríguez secretly negotiated with Henry Kissinger for a rapprochement like the one made with China, but it was sabotaged by Castro himself when he sent Cuban troops to Angola.

Then, there was another process in Carter’s time, starting with the dialogue in ’78 and cut short in ’80 with the Mariel exodus.

In 1996, when the Helms-Burton Bill to intensify the embargo was about to suffer a crushing defeat in Congress, Cuban forces shot down two civilian airplanes operated by ‘Brothers to the Rescue’, resulting in the death of four exiled young men, which only hastened approval of the Bill.

Negotiations with the Obama Administration led to the reestablishment of diplomatic relations and could have culminated in neutralizing the fangs of the embargo, but the Cuban leader, now officially retired, forced a political turn with his critical ‘Reflection’ article, titled Brother Obama.

A bargaining chip is only useful when the person to whom it is offered is interested in receiving it, and that leadership has repeatedly shown that what it wants is the opposite

Now the same resource is being resorted to again to justify the tidal wave of mass protests throughout the country: the “imperialist blockade” is blamed for the lack of food and medicine that has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, including many children and the elderly, and the despair of a large portion of the population.

Even the decision to take to the streets was diabolically forged abroad by the “empire and its lackeys.” Of course, they don’t mention that they repeatedly denied permission for aid from abroad and even from a humanitarian corridor, because Cuba, a “medical power,” does not need it.

But the vast majority of protesters were humble people with very low resources whom no one can accuse of being wage earners of the “empire.” If at this point, after 62 years of a Revolution supposedly in favor of the poorest, there are so many “confused” people, better pack your bags, because this country has already begun to write its own history.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Garage Sales and Installment Plans Legalized in Cuba

Permits for this type of business activity must be obtained from a Municipal Administration Council office. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, July 22, 2021 — Garage sales, a retail option that many Cuban shoppers have been using for some years, have been legalized according to an announcement that appeared on Tuesday in the Official Gazette. Another resolution also allows customers to purchase items using installment plans from retail stores that offer them.

The Ministry of Internal Commerce issued Resolution 97/2021, which legalizes these sales, describing them as “as a form of occasional retail activity” and establishes regulations that operators must follow.

These authorizations are part of a package of conciliatory measures the government adopted in response to a wave of countrywide protests on July 11. The first of these measures, t he unrestricted import of food and medicine, came just three days after the unprecedented continue reading

demonstrations.

The resolution states that a commercial or self-employed license is not required to operate garage sales but does indicate that items to be sold “must be for domestic and personal use, used, pre-owned or new.” Transactions must take place in garages, covered entries or other residential areas so as not to obstruct sidewalks and roads.

However, the sale of large consignments of imported and domesctically produced items as well as animal skins, rare woods and food is not allowed. Permit applications to conduct garage sales must be submitted to the Municipal Administration Council office at least one week prior to a sale’s scheduled date.

The resolution states that permits can be issued both electronically and in person. A minimum fee may be charged for the permit, the proceeds of which will go to the local government, but will never exceed fifty pesos.

As though these regulations were not enough — in other countries, such as the United States, this activity is conducted freely and informally by private individuals — municipal government authorities will determine what days these sales can be take place as well as the hours, locations and maximum number of consecutive days of operation. A retailer will be able to submit one application for all dates scheduled within a year, half-year or trimester.

In 2013 the government prohibited the sale of imported goods in private stores, with regulations that made the sale of clothing brought into the country by so-called ’mules’ from countries such as Mexico, Panama and Russia impossible.

Garage sales have become more relevant for many Cubans in the last two years due to acute shortages that prevail throughout the network of state-owned retail stores. With the start of the pandemic, promoters of these sales have organized into WhatsApp groups which, in some cases, provide home delivery.

Some groups, such as those involved in animal protection, have used garage sales to raise money for the rescue, medical treatment and adoption of dogs and cats found on the streets. Until now, this type of activity was conducted without legal protection but it is becoming more and more common.

Along with garage sales, the Ministry of Domestic Commerce also legalized retail installment plans, but only for individuals and only for products such as furniture, mattresses, bicycles and home appliances costing more than 2,500 pesos.

To take advantage of this form of payment, purchasers must be Cuban citizens and permanent residents, must reside in the province where the items are being purchased, be over eighteen years of age, and be able to make legal and financial decisions. A customer must also be able to demonstrate that he or she has a regular, steady source of income.

To qualify for an installment plan, a purchaser must provide proof of identity and certification from a guarantor that he or she has the financial means to make the payments. Also necessary is certification from the purchaser’s employer indicating his or her salary or, in the case of self-employed workers, a personal income tax affidavit. State employees can use installment plans through “payroll discount” through prior agreement between the store and the employer.

Pensioners or social security beneficiaries who want to buy something in installments will have to provide an income statement from the state Labor Office or the National Institute of Social Security.

The maximum interest a person may be charged is 2.5% over the purchase price. The buyer will be required to make a downpayment, which is negotiable but can never be more than 20%. The payment period may not be longer than one year.

The regulation states that, if a customers fails to fulfill the terms of the original or revised contract, the store is authorized to “repossess the item” without providing a refund of the amount already paid.

Installment plans will not be available, however, at stores that only accept payment in freely convertible foreign currency, which are among the few state-run retailers still selling home appliances and hardware amid severe shortages plaguing the network of peso stores.

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Cubans With ‘Illegal Residencies’ Will Receive an ‘Exceptional’ Rationbook

The Ministry of Internal Trade specified that the rationbook will be marked with the word “Covid” on the first page. The sign in the photo essentially says, “Do not ask to cut into the line.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 July 2021– People who live ’irregularly’ in a province — that is, without a registered address — and receive the ration system ’family basket’ in their place of origin, can access an “exceptional rationbook” with which they can purchase regulated products.

The new measure contained in Resolution 96/2021 of the Ministry of Internal Trade, will be in force until December 31 of this year, and will take into account those people who “do not maintain an updated address,” do not have the “Certificate of the inhabitability of the dwelling where they currently reside” and have never been “registered or repatriated” before.

This decision comes when the country is experiencing a humanitarian drama that especially affects people in an illegal living situation. It particularly affects people especially in Havana, whose relatives in the provinces, the majority of them in the east of the country, have been sending them the “ration box” to which they are entitled from their home address. This shipment may contain more than one month’s products, and is sent by rail or bus.

With the closure of interprovincial transport due to the Covid-19 pandemic, these people have not been able to access their boxes continue reading

for months. In addition, with the suspension of the unrationed sale of many products such as rice, sugar and grains, which are now only found in foreign exchange or ration stores, the survival of these people has become increasingly precarious.

The Ministry of Internal Trade specified that the rationbook will be marked with the word “Covid” on the first page, and consumers will have the right to meat, eggs, milk, cleaning and hygiene products, and to rationed bread, but not to domestic fuels.

Entire families have been affected since the pandemic began in March 2020, and the decision, although it has been well received, comes late. There are thousands of people have not had have access to the rationed market because they lived ’informally’ in the capital, where Cubans are required to have permission to live.

“The limitation in the movement of people and the maximum reduction of the paperwork that would support their mobility,” in addition to “the impossibility of consumers acquiring” rationed products, were the justifications alleged by Internal Commerce in the resolution.

In order to obtain this new document, several requirements must be met, which may be requested at the same Consumer Registration Office (Oficoda) where the process will begin. According to the authorities, if it is verified that the information provided is not true, the rationbook will be canceled and “the head of the nucleus [local authorities] will be notified.”

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Cuba Detained 757 People on July 11, Including 13 Minors

A young man is arrested by police and State Security agents in the July 11 protests in Havana. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 23 July 2021 — As of this Friday, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) has registered 757 people detained since the demonstrations on July 11 in dozens of cities throughout the island. In a face-to-face and virtual press conference, the director of the organization with headquarters in Madrid, Alejandro González Raga, detailed that of those arrested, 13 are minors .

For the Observatory, its director said, it is difficult to accept the figure of a single person dying in the riots, the only one recognized by the regime, “basically because it comes from a government that has never accepted anything in the direction of clarifying facts,” always preferring to appeal “to interference in the internal affairs of the Island” and that “it considers that anyone who opposes it” falls into a subcategory of human being “against whom” any type of violence can be used.”

The demands of the peaceful protesters that Sunday, González Raga said, “are inalienable rights” that should not only be recognized but also guaranteed by the Cuban government. Instead, he continues, the regime ordered “a hunt throughout the national territory” for people who had participated in the protests, using “all available instruments from its long inventory of articles of repression” and even continue reading

releasing “new technology.”

The OCDH noted that those arrested were identified through videos posted on social networks and were taken to “ad hoc detention centers,” some of them, prisons that were previously unused.

The number of detainees — 601 men and 156 women — the organization specified, was collected “amid digital blackouts” and “intimidation campaigns.” To arrest “a peaceful opponent,” González Raga said, the government uses “spectacular military operations” in which it uses more than 20 agents, patrols and trained dogs. “They are not arresting a delinquent, or a murderer, or a criminal,” he said.

The director of the OCDH conceded that in some places there were “events of public disorder,” but they are not the vast majority. Meanwhile, the news that the organization has is that all the people who have been tried have been accused of “public disorder,” sentenced to one year in jail or held under house arrest with precautionary measures until they are tried.

The Government is also prosecuting some arrested, they reported, for “transmission of epidemics,”,when, denounced the Observatory, the Government has just summoned its “acolytes” to participate in “tumultuous marches,” which are in no way different from those held on July 11.

That the relatives are not informed where the detainees are being held, is “forced disappearance” said González Raga — something denounced by the UN last week — “arbitrary detention” and “torture.”

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What is Cuba Going to Celebrate This 26th of July?

Raúl Castro embraces his successor on the July 26, 2019. (EFE)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 22 July 2021 — For many years, Fidel Castro’s speeches at the events of July 26, the anniversary of the attack on the Moncada barracks, became a source of speculation for the “fidelologists.” Everyone wanted to predict what would be the presumed tiller of the Commander-in-Chief, both in international politics and in domestic affairs.

On the 26th of July 1989, the “maximum leader” predicted the end of the Soviet Union and in 1993 he announced the dollarization of the economy, or to put it more closely to the discourse, the decriminalization of the possession of dollars. Years passed and on July 26, 2007, in the former cattle province of Camagüey, Raúl Castro proclaimed that every Cuban had the right to have, at least, a glass of milk for breakfast.

These are the reasons why Cubans now await, with some expectation, what President-designate Miguel Díaz-Canel will say on such an important date, especially after the July 11 protests and their aftermath of arrests. continue reading

There are two aspects in the forecasts: the opening and the closing.

When one speaks of “opening,” one can suppose the announcement of measures at the economic level, such as the definitive burial of that State entity called Acopio, allowing agricultural producers to decide what to produce and at what prices to sell. Or another thing, to finally start up the many-times-announced small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). If it were more demanding or more optimistic, it could be expected that private companies would be allowed to import for commercial purposes and that professionals could practice their specialties working as self-employed.

Politically, the least that could be expected, which deserves to be classified as open-minded, would be the immediate and unconditional release of all those detained during the protests, either through the recourse of a pardon, an amnesty or a release from prison. Apologies for the repression should not be expected, but rather acts of greatness based on “revolutionary generosity.”

When talking how the speech might close, it is easier to imagine. It will suffice to repeat the old slogans: “No one surrenders here” and that we cannot trust the imperialism [the United States] not ’one little bit,” and that we must “rigorously apply revolutionary justice against the enemies paid by the empire.”

What they cannot do is act or speak as if nothing had happened. That is why it is worth speculating about what they will say on July 26, and even wondering about the selection of the location for the central ceremony, which is traditionally chosen to reward compliant provinces, will take into account the detail of where there were fewer protests, or if they will reward those who were more combative against those who protested.

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Costa Rica Expands the Special Category of Asylum for Cubans

Cuban migrants stranded in Paso Canoas, in 2016. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 July 2021 – On Tuesday, the Costa Rican government expanded the scope of the special category of asylum for Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans, which it began to implement in mid-November of last year. In order to protect those who are denied refuge and “are in a vulnerable condition,” the General Directorate of Migration and Foreigners (DGME) extended the measure.

The procedure will take into account those migrants who “have requested refugee recognition after January 1, 2010 and before March 18, 2022” and remained “continuously in the national territory during the same period. In addition, to qualify there must be proof that that person was denied shelter between January 1, 2010 and December 15, 2021.

With this new expansion of the special category, the Costa Rican authorities intend to provide migrants with legal permanence in the country and provide the corresponding documentation so that they can carry out work activities. Applications will be received until February 28, 2022. continue reading

The DGME justified the decision based on its migration statistics projections for this year, in which it estimates that some 26,863 people from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela “could benefit from this category.”

Migration added that there were months in which few applicants were reported, such as February, when only 597 people completed the paperwork for the category, so it determined to make these “modifications, in order to achieve greater access to the category.”

In 2020 the immigration authorities states that the situation in these three countries prompts it “to carry out a differentiated approach to the migratory situation of people who, due to their own situations, will not receive refuge or the authorization of legal permanence, but who will not leave the national territory, both due to the situation of the global pandemic caused by Covid 19, and the precarious situation in their countries of origin.”

In addition, they note that, since 2014, Costa Rica has registered a considerable increase in applications under refugee status by Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Cubans. Regarding the latter, they say that “they are changing their migratory behavior” and are seeking to establish themselves in the Central American country.

In 2018, Cuba and Costa Rica signed an agreement on migration matters to enhance cooperation between both countries in the fight against irregular migration, human smuggling and trafficking, as well as associated crimes.

At the beginning of last June, a group of at least 150 Cubans who were traveling irregularly on three buses in southern Costa Rica was intercepted by immigration agents. The island’s nationals declared to the authorities that their intention was to continue to Costa Rica’s northern border on their way to the United States.

Hundreds of nationals of the Island who live in countries such as Guyana, Suriname, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Ecuador, are heading to the north of Mexico to cross the border and request political asylum in the United States, after the election of Joe Biden and the announcement of a more tolerant policy on immigration.

Between 2015 and 2016, thousands of Cuban migrants were stranded for several months in Costa Rica and other Central American countries waiting to be able to continue their journey to the United States and after Nicaragua decided to close its border with Costa Rica on the grounds of avoiding a humanitarian crisis and illegal emigration.

The wave of Cuban migrants to the United States grew by almost 80% in that period, in the face of the fear that the thaw between Washington and Havana would put an end to the migratory advantages enjoyed by Cubans under the Wet foot/dry foot policy, eliminated in 2017 by Barack Obama.

Months later, the migrants were able to fly to the southern border of the United States thanks to exceptional coordination by the governments of Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama.

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Silvio Rodriguez Will Ask for ‘Amnesty’ for Cubans Arrested Who ‘Were Not Violent’

The government-supporting Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, in 2019. (EFE / Archive)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 July 2021 — The playwright and actor Yunior García Aguilera said that Silvio Rodríguez promised to “advocate for the release of all the prisoners who participated in the protests.” The young artist met the official singer-songwriter this Wednesday in his recording studios – called Ojalá for its most famous song – after having urged him to do so through an “open letter to the owner of a lost unicorn.”

García Aguilera himself commented about the meeting on his networks, in which, he says, “neither invited the other to renounce their positions or principles.”

“We are focused on how to contribute, right now, to the good of Cuban society, as a whole,” wrote the playwright, who asserted that the singer “pledged” in front of him and the wives of each of them, to advocate for the detainees. “He gave his word, convincingly, that he will do everything in his power to achieve that goal,” Garcia Aguilera said.

Silvio Rodríguez, however, qualified this commitment in his version of the meeting, also published continue reading

on Facebook. After referring, without further details, to an occasion in which he requested amnesty for prisoners in the so-called Anti-Imperialist Tribune, thanks to which, supposedly, 70 prisoners were released, he said: “I do not know how many prisoners there will be now, they say hundreds. I ask the same for those who were not violent and I keep my word.”

For the singer, “the most painful” part of the meeting, which he described as “good” and “fraternal,” was “hearing that they, as a generation, no longer felt part of the Cuban process but something else.” He did not allude to an announcement that García Aguilera had made in his post: the coming together of both in “a project (in due course it will be made public) that could serve for the beginning of a truly plural, inclusive, civic, respectful and broad debate.”

In the letter sent to Rodríguez via social networks, García Aguilera told him that he would have loved “that on November 27, when hundreds of young people went in search of a real and transformative dialogue, you would have come with your guitar, to sing with us , in the midst of so much uncertainty.”

“From time to time you surprise us with genuinely revolutionary opinions (in the deep sense of that term) and you return to mend our dreams and hopes,” he questioned. “But I’ll be honest: other times you raise an unbridgeable chasm between your utopias and ours. Not everything you say is a lie, nor is what many of my friends and I defend a lie.”

For this reason, he asked him: “Give us those 15 minutes that the ICRT denied us,” in reference to the demonstration of some artists on July 11 in front of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television, artists who ended up imprisoned by the Police.

On his social networks, Yunior García has been very critical of the repression of the regime since last July 11, showing solidarity with those detained after the protests. “How dictatorships are alike! It does not matter what color they are presented to us or with what hand they give the orders!” he wrote this Tuesday.

Two days earlier, he sent a harsh message to “the silent left” that defends the Cuban government in the world. In it, he ruled that the power in Cuba, which he describes as “sinister”, “is not on the left.” “The state monopoly capitalism in Cuba uses the word ’socialism’ to support a class dictatorship that despises the poor,” he argued in his post. On July 11, he continued, the Government mobilized the military and Black Berets “to defend their stores in foreign currency, their air-conditioned offices, their cars, their mansions with swimming pools, their positions, their privileges. And they sent a group of poor Cubans to repress other Cubans who have nothing.”

In addition, he notes that “the Power cut off our internet, threw us in trucks, in patrol cars, locked up hundreds of us (there are no official figures) and then came out with the greatest cynicism in Cuban history to deny in front of the world a social outbreak unprecedented in this archipelago, in almost 100 years … of solitude.”

In Cuba there is no democracy, he declared, “neither socialist nor of any other kind,” and told socialist sympathizers that “Cuba is more complex than a semi-destroyed colonial Havana where you walk around in a convertible with a cigar, a mulatto woman and a Che shirt … Let’s grow up! — The United States is not interested in sending its troops to this country, we don’t have oil!” he wrote. “The bourgeois with Bolshevik berets and the Cuban thinki tanks have sold them a soap opera that has nothing to do with the reality of this country.”

When most of García Aguilera’s friends, he said, fleeing Cuba, hear the word left, “their stomachs turn over.” When they hear it, “they remember the failed, controlling, inefficient, corrupt, fake, macho, vigilant system … that made them jump into a sea full of sharks, that made them cross the Central American jungles looking for LIBERTAD [sic],” a word that, he asserts, cannot coexist with “left.”

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The Anguish of the Relatives of the Young People Arrested in Cuba on July 11

Nine days after the first protests, the government has not provided numbers for those injured and detained. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 20July 2021 — “They are young, they are not criminals or bandits who went to throw stones or loot stores, they went to fight for the things they lack, that they are drowning.” Berta Baruch, 58, is one of the mothers who gathered on Monday in front of the 100th y Aldabó prison, in Havana, to find out the whereabouts of her children, detained after the protests on July 11.

Her daughter Yanay Bárbara Solaya (39 years old), her niece Annia Romero Fonseca (47 years old) and her son, Mikel López Romero (27 years old), took to the streets of Centro Habana that Sunday. They were arrested that same day. According to the niece in a last call she made, they were arrested around 8:45 pm on Avenida Carlos III and taken to the Zanja police unit.

“They are decent, hard-working people, they don’t have a criminal record,” Baruch told 14ymedio,” and now they tell us that they have to go to court and that we have to find a lawyer.” The woman received a complaint number and the crime they are charged with: disturbance of public order.

The family, who lives in La Lisa (Havana), waited for a demonstration in the municipality, after seeing on the networks how protests had multiplied since the first one that took place, in San Antonio de los Baños. But when they saw that it wasn’t happening, the three members continue reading

left for the center of the capital.

“I’m on Facebook day and night looking for the videos where she appears because I would like the video of when they were arrested,” she says. “It makes me very helpless to see how they tear gas them inthe face, I saw them there helping each other. I would have liked to have been there to have defended and protected them and it makes me angry to see many men who were filming, instead of helping to keep the police from taking them away.” Berta is desperate: “I am very distressed, I am very anguished, I have no more to give.”

Heissy Celaya Pérez is in the same situation, as the mother of Amanda Hernández, who, at 17, is one of the minors who have been detained since that Sunday.

Celaya learned of the arrest from the young woman herself, a senior high school student and dancer. “She called me to tell me that she had to get out of the car that was taking her to her dance classes on the corner of Prado and Malecón because there were many people on the street and the car could not move forward,” she tells this newspaper while waiting in a line to hire a lawyer for her daughter.” There he warned me that I would be walking back home.”

Knowing the situation, Celaya, who was working, asked Amanda to hurry, but the girl “evidently, on her return, took out her phone and started filming the protests.” Five minutes later,s he called her again, “hysterical, breaking into tears,” to tell her that they were putting her in a police car.

After that call, she did not hear from his daughter for more than 24 hours and since then, she has not seen her or been allowed to speak with her. “The next day I managed to reach the fourth station in Cerro, at Infanta and Manglar,” she continues. “There they told me that my daughter had been transferred to 100th y Aldabó”, a piece of news that felt like a bucket of cold water but did not paralyze her. “On the same Monday I flew over there. They told me to bring toiletries, as if she were a common prisoner,” she laments.

Hernández is charged with the same accusation made against Berta Baruch’s relatives: public disorder. Her little daughter, she says, “is experiencing the same thing and hugs me every five minutes and says I love you when she sees me like this.”

Other testimonies are those reported by the relatives of the young Gabriel Alfonso González, detained in the vicinity of the Havana Capitol, and those of Daniela Rojo, mother of two children aged four and seven who are now in the care of their grandmother.

Because they not only arrested well-known activists, such as José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Unpacu, and the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, but anonymous Cubans who simply peacefully manifested a desire for change. “I am destroyed,” Celaya confesses.

“Daniela is not a traitor, nor does she support an interventionist aggression against Cuba,” wrote Rioger Guilarte in his networks defending the cause of his friend. “Neither is she pro-imperialist nor is she a ’worm’*. Daniela is an anti-communist and does not mince words. She is a dissident, because dissent is a vital option for development and evolution, it is an ideological decision and not a crime.”

If there are detainees who are outraged, it is precisely the youngest, who abounded in the protests. The activist Salomé García Bacallao has compiled a list of the nine minors arrested from the demonstrations: in addition to Amanda Hernández Celaya, there are Brandon David Becerra (17 years old), Giancarlos Álvarez Arriete (17), Glenda de la Caridad Marrero Cartaya (15), Jonathan Pérez Ramos (16), Katherin Acosta (17), Leosvani Giménez Guzmán (15), Luis Manuel Díaz (16) and Yanquier Sardiña Franco (16).

“Education in Cuba is compulsory up to the upper secondary level, therefore it follows that all those under 18 are students,” García Bacallao wrote in a Facebook post. “When is the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Cuba going to be interested in these minors? For some of them, the station where they are detained is not even known, so they are considered disappeared.”

Nine days after the first protests, the government has not provided a number of injuries and detainees. To date, the legal organization Cubalex documents a total of 34 victims of forced disappearance – the United Nations last week estimated them at 187 – and a total of 500 detainees, although other independent lists determine that 530 have been arrested. Laritza Diversent, executive director of the NGO, detailed this Monday to Cibercuba that, of all those arrested, 74 have already been released and for 108 the detention center where they are held is known; the whereabouts of another 284 remain to be confirmed.

On its networks, Cubalex issued a call to collaborate to those who have any information about or charges against those arrested since July 11.

Translator’s note: “Worms” (gusanos), is a term Fidel Castro chose to describe the first wave of people who left Cuba after the Revolution, and it has been repeatedly applied to anyone who doesn’t support the government ever since.

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Released and Awaiting Trial, Cuban Chess Player Arian Gonzalez

González receiving a prize in Portugal in 2020. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, July 22, 2021 — The Spanish-Cuban Grand Master Arián González was released this Thursday after spending more than ten days in detention on the island for participating in the protests of July 11, his wife Massiel Hernández confirmed to 14ymedio. The chess player, who faces trial soon, is charged with the crime of “disrespect,” Hernández said.

At the time of his release, González was in La Pendiente prison, in the province of Villa Clara, where he was held after his arrest and carried out a hunger strike for several days.

The 32-year-old chess player, residing in Orense, Spain, arrived on the island at the beginning of July to take care of his mother, who is diabetic and lives in the Villa Clara municipality of Camajuaní. Like so many thousands of others, he joined the demonstrations last week, with the difference that he did it alone, and got no support from of any of his neighbors. continue reading

Regarding González’s arrest, his colleague Leinier Domínguez said: “I know that in addition to being a brilliant and talented chess player, he is an excellent person. Far from being a criminal, he is right at the other extreme, the good one, that of virtue and decency.”

In turn, former world chess champion Garry Kaspárov asked the Spanish authorities on Wednesday to comment on the case of Grand Master Arián González.

“Are there updates on the arrest in Cuba of a Cuban/Spanish citizen, Grandmaster Arian González? He was there visiting his ill mother. Has Spain been silent about the latest crackdown on human rights in Cuba?” he wrote on Twitter.

Kasparov thus responded to another message on social media in which the Ecuadorian chess player Carla Heredia had tagged him. “Our friend and colleague GM Arian González needs us, chess players around the world to speak up. Hopefully Kasparov can send his solidarity to Arian and bring attention to this case,” commented Heredia.

At the moment, different groups and entities have expressed their concern about the situation of the chess player. Meanwhile the Embassy and the Consulate General of Spain in Havana contend that they are limited because he is a person who has dual nationality.

On social media, several chess players criticized the arrests recorded during the protests on the island against the increasing food shortages during the pandemic. One of them, Sandro Pozo Vera, asked “all the people of Camaguey in exile” to share his post “to get our brave brother out of prison,” referring to González.

For its part, the Liceo Academia Postal de Orense club, where González plays, sent a letter to the Cuban ambassador in Madrid conveying its “concern and desire” that “as soon as possible” the chess player can return to Galicia, where He has lived for about five years, after a long stay in Catalonia.

The Spanish Chess Federation also contacted both the Higher Sports Council and the Cuban Chess Federation to check on González’s situation.

The chess player, who won the Spanish University Championship and who combines chess classes with law practice, planned to return to Galicia in August and compete in the Marcote Chess Memorial, which will take place from August 15 to 22.

Translated by Tomás A.

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‘The Government of Cuba is a Macabre Thing’, says Chess Player Leinier Domiguez

The chess player, living in the United States since 2018, confesses that he was always pessimistic about solutions. (@STLChessClub)

14ymedio, Havana, July 20, 2021 — Cuban chess player Leinier Domínguez is the latest figure to speak out against the repression unleashed as a result of the protests on July 11 in more than 40 cities in the country and has called for the release of all detainees.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, he refers in particular to his colleague Arián González, a native of Santa Clara and a resident of Orense, Spain, who arrived on the island at the beginning of July to take care of his mother, a diabetic, and who like so many thousands, joined the demonstrations.

Domínguez is forceful in his rejection of the accusations of the regime that calls the protesters “criminals”: “Those of us who’ve lived part or most of our lives in Cuba know that the reality is that people can no longer take it, and have begun to lose their fear,” he says.

About González, he says: “I know that in addition to being a brilliant and talented chess player, he is an excellent person. Far from being a criminal, he’s right at the other extreme, the good one, that of virtue and decency.”

And about the evangelical pastors he knows, he says: “Criminals? Opportunists? Not even remotely continue reading

close. They are humble and very decent people, who live mostly serving others and preaching the Gospel. Right now they are in prison and have little children who cry for them, and run to the door al the time hoping that it will be their father returning home.

“I was convinced a long time ago that the Government of Cuba is a macabre thing,” the Grand Master says in his post, in which he recalls that he had never expressed himself politically in public.

“The famous Revolution and its leaders were given a status that is above human beings, almost divine, beyond all ordinary respect,” argues the Grand Master. “This ignores of course that human nature is not good and therefore every government of men will always have problems to a lesser or greater degree. But in any case, the logical consequence of that revolutionary ideology is that no one has the right to think otherwise, and they use the power to literally crush (in the name of the just and infallible revolutionary cause) everything that opposes it.”

For Domínguez, this is the root of the problem and “what has led to the destruction of the country from almost every imaginable point of view.”

The chess player, settled in the United States since 2018, confesses that he was always pessimistic about solutions. “I always thought that we Cubans simply do not protest (with some exceptions of people with great courage). Most either leave (among whom I obviously include myself) or remain silent in Cuba and try to survive. But that changed just a few days ago, when thousands of Cubans practically all over the island got tired of it and took to the streets to demand freedom.”

Translated by Tomás A.

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Remittances to Cuba: A Detailed and Cogent Explanation

Many families use remittance money to remodel their homes. (14ymedio)

Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, July 21, 2021 – President Biden has ordered his Administration to carry out a rigorous study of the remittances that are sent from the United States to Cuba. The objective is to determine how residents of the United States can send money to the country without benefiting the framework of the communist regime. The idea is that remittances should serve to provide a better quality of life for Cubans and not benefit the regime, an idea that stumbles over unquestionable facts.

The Cuban economy is completely controlled and determined by the state. The means of production are state-owned and the loopholes that exist for private enterprise are very narrow and complex because they require resorting to the black market while also operating in the crosshairs of State Security.

This being the case, this Remittances Working Group created by Biden will have a difficult time solving the Sudoku puzzle that will allow “identifying the most effective way to send remittances directly to the Cuban people.” without going through the control of the regime. Others have tried it before, and ended up throwing in the towel. continue reading

There is no doubt the remittances that Cubans living in the United States send to their relatives on the island have become the main source of foreign exchange for the Cuban economy during the pandemic. Without tourists, without oil from Venezuela to re-export, with limited income from doctors posted abroad, without foreign investment and exports of goods, the regime has devised a series of measures to drain this flow of remittances into the state coffers.

At each step taken by the control mechanisms established by the United States Administration to ensure that remittances reached the desired destination, the Cuban regime responded with harsh slaps, showing its absolute opposition to losing control of the money that enters the country by this route. There have been months of intense boxing, in which no one has emerged victorious. Only the people of Cuba who have relatives abroad have been harmed by the measures that have been adopted, on both sides of the Straits of Florida.

The subject of remittances and their effects is well known in the economic literature. So President Biden’s working group would do well to read all the work published by The Havana Consulting Group in recent years, where they work out the dynamics of the economic processes behind such financing.

By way of summary, I advance some conclusions. Remittances are necessary for many Cuban families to get out of situations of misery. But they cannot be used as investment capital or allocated to businesses except in a few cases. Nor can they easily be used for housing, because there is no legal framework for it.

Remittances tend to be spent on essential goods bought in MLC (Freely Convertible Currency) stores, and when they reach a certain level, families use them to indulge in some additional pleasure, in privately run but state-owned restaurants or hotels.

In general, they do not involve improvements in domestic equipment, in the motorization index or even help to finance bank loans, due to the prices and the insecurity that such expenditures generate, almost always associated with explaining where the money comes from. For all these reasons, a good part of the money from remittances moves in informal markets, both in exchange and goods. Even under these conditions, the state exercises its control.

The most obvious example is that the communist economy of Cuba has been prepared by the government to reduce and drain the remittances that reach Cubans, but it is incapable of generating added value with them.

For this reason, remittances in Cuba have not meant an improvement in economic development, well-being, or development of the population, as occurs in other countries, but rather they generate a vicious cycle of dependency that can in no way be considered positive for the national economy.

From the above, it can be concluded that 80-90% of the remittances that arrive in Cuba end up in the hands of the regime, recycled for its operations, almost always of unproductive current expenditure. It is unavoidable. The owner of the productive assets of the country all he has to do is open his hands so that the dollars fall. The control exercised by the communist government over the financial and banking system is absolute. Banks in fact function as state offices with direct links to state security as information agents.

Moreover, communications and new technologies are also under state control, because they are also owned by them. Sending money to Cuba through the financial system and new technologies is to place it directly in the coffers of the state, which Biden does not want to benefit with remittances. If others have failed in this endeavor, what are the possibilities now that the money of Cubans who fled the country which they didn’t want to live in, will serve to support its authoritarian government?

The protests that have rocked the island since July 11 may be a valid argument to advance this issue. Chronic shortages of basic products, restrictions on civil liberties, and the government’s poor management of the Task Order, coupled with the outbreak of the coronavirus, have increased levels of social unrest to unexpected heights. And the government knows it. Its violent and uncontrolled reaction is disproportionate to the social protests that are fully justified by the economic situation. Ceding numantine* positions in matters of reserves is within reach because the regime needs them.

But if nothing is expected from a government used to getting away with it for 63 years, perhaps a little more proactivity could be interesting. Suspending remittances for a time until those responsible for the repression of the demonstrations are identified, or stopping any shipment until the more than 500 who were detained after the protests leave prison, can be a good way to start playing with a firm hand, a game that the communist regime will have lost before it started.

Its dependence on remittances in the current environment in which Venezuela can no longer meet its commitments is critical. Linking the continuity of remittances to steps that the regime would never take on its own initiative can be a good lesson for everyone to understand what is first and foremost in the framework of relations between the United States and Cuba.

It is the carrot and stick doctrine that authoritarian regimes reluctant to grant reforms are perfect for. Then there will be time to facilitate a supposed development of diplomatic and consular relations between the two countries.

If the White House succeeds in its endeavor, so be it. Everything that can contribute to facilitate a transition to democracy, freedoms, and human rights for Cubans is primary.

Someone could say that remittances are essential for the Cubans who receive them and they would be absolutely right.

But freedom, democracy, and political pluralism are fundamental for all Cubans. And that is the message that has to be transmitted to the tyranny. Let’s see if they want to understand.

*Translator’s note: The Spanish expression Defensa numantina may be used to indicate any desperate, suicidal last stand against invading forces. (Source: Wikipedia)

Tomás A.

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Cuban Agriculture and Valdes Mesa, Where the Water Enters the Coconut

Salvador Antonio Valdés Mesa, first vice president of Cuba’s Council of State Council. (Trabajadores)

Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, July 23, 2021 – Valdés Mesa seems to have finally discovered “where the water enters the coconut.” Cuba’s State newspaper Granma took a headline from a phrase he used in a meeting with farmers in the provinces of Sancti Spiritus and Ciego de Ávila: “The first one who has to win is the agricultural producer.”

Yes. He’s right. Since the time of the French physiocrat Juan Francisco Quesnay back in the 18th century it has been known that the land has to win, basically because otherwise it is abandoned. That’s easy. Physiocracy* encouraged economic thought for decades to place agriculture at the center of economies, and well into industrialization and later, classical economists relied on agriculture to explain their various models. There is no doubt that the agricultural sector has to produce, and also to be efficient doing so — to earn money, to be profitable.

In Cuba, Valdés Mesa, who judging by his age must have known the flourishing Cuban agriculture before 1959, must be suffering from the unbearable feeling that he is witnessing the end of an economic model that never served any purpose. continue reading

His visits to provinces throughout the country to evaluate the conduct of agricultural production and its immediate prospects must have shown him the harsh reality of failure. For example Ciego de Ávila, with sufficient water reserves due to its geography and water table, as well as workers experienced in the agricultural sector, is trying to boost agricultural production, but gives the impression it is unable to achieve even a self-sufficient supply of food.

Therefore, seeing that the case is lost, wherever he goes Valdés Mesa launches into the same “harangues” (which have already been referred to in earlier entries in this blog). Now, in his rally speeches, attended by everyone from prominent party members, the Minister of Agriculture, and provincial governors, to leaders of state-owned companies and a long list of authorities, everyone listens carefully, applauds, and supports everything the communist leader says.

In this final act, he has returned to the idea that the first and most important thing that farmers and other agricultural producers must achieve “is to produce more food for the people,” and for them “they must win.”

Isn’t it strange that no one looked surprised at these assertions, since it’s well-known that if Cuban agriculture doesn’t produce more, it’s not because of the farmers, but because of the innumerable impediments, obstacles and interferences that the regime imposes to subjugate the producers and limit their earnings to prevent them from getting rich.

It’s one thing to say there are difficulties and shortcomings, as Valdés Mesa does, but another that those problems are always there, that they’re never adequately addressed, and that Cubans continually complain that food doesn’t come. This is something that has to be solved. Now.

The harangue of the old communist leader to increase production addressed the question of the fit of the famous 63 measures approved by the regime to try to boost the agricultural sector, which are not giving the predicted results, since food is still lacking. It’s not strange that the authorities are concerned, because the engines that drove the protests of July 11 are still there, and, at least for the moment, no solution has been found to correct the mess.

That’s why Valdés Mesa said that “this process is slow” and added that “we lack dynamism, we have bureaucracy, and the biggest obstacle is that we haven’t had the capacity to reach all the producers, and if someone should be clear about the measures it is the agricultural producer.”

It’s good that occasionally someone from the regime accepts responsibility, even if it is with a small mouth and a quiet voice. The truth is that immediately afterward, the blockade was trotted out as the first cause of all the evils, to which were added the financial difficulties and the importation of products and services that are necessary. And back to square one, because if we weren’t facing an inefficient agricultural sector, these problems would surely not exist.

The key is that Cuban land produce and make money, as the French Physiocrats of the 18th century wanted. The good thing is that the farmers clearly understand this, and some brave people, annoyed by the tone of his assertions, told Valdés Mesa so.

Cubans have lost their fear, and this is manifested even in notes published by Granma, which admit positions that in many cases are contrary to those of the regime.

What is inconceivable is that areas of Cuban geography specially prepared for agriculture have difficulty achieving stable and continuous production. It would be necessary to consider whether the current design based on mini-industries, or socialist state companies, such as Agropecuaria La Cuba, Isla de Turiguanó Livestock, and Ceballos Agroindustrial, is the most appropriate to produce more. Without a doubt, less state economy and more empowered private sector would provide much better results.

The farmers (such as Jaime de León López, from El Vaquerito Credit and Services Cooperative (CCS); Martín Alonso Gómez, from Reinaldo Maning CCS; Rolando Macías Cárdenas, from CCS José Antonio Echeverría; and Carlos Blanco Sánchez, director of Agropecuaria La Cuba) who participated in the event know that in order to increase production, another less interventionist model is needed, with fewer obstacles, and from which the state withdraws, granting decision-making capacity to the private sector. And above all, to make money, that the land be profitable, and that the scale can be increased through investments.

Needed structural transformations are being delayed unjustifiably and prevent achieving rational and efficient production processes that allow the farmer to “win”, as Valdés Mesa said. The calls of the communist leader to avoid “empty lands”, to promote productive centers, to comply with crop diversification plans, and in short, to follow the 63 measures approved by the government, sounded like an empty coconut after explaining his idea of where the water enters. One more waste of time, and problems that don’t allow procrastination.

*Translator’s note: Physiocracy is an economic theory developed by a group of 18th-century Age of Enlightenment French economists who believed that the wealth of nations derived solely from the value of “land agriculture” or “land development” and that agricultural products should be highly priced. Wikipedia

Translated by Tomás A.

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