14ymedio – Page 302 – Translating Cuba

When Can We Freely Debate Phasing Out the Party?

In the face of growing uncertainty, a risk-averse congress once again seeks stability by promoting rigidity under the guise of flexibility. (EFE)

14ymedio, Pedro Pablo Aguilera Juarrero, Toronto, April 19, 2021 — The leader of the Cuban Communist Party, Raúl Castro, is on his way to fulfilling a promise he made to the Cuban people eight years ago when he announced his retirement. Unlike his egotistical older brother, Raúl’s tenure has been characterized by a peculiar pragmatism.

Shortly after taking the reins of power, he proposed transforming the stagnant, centralized economy by adopting policies that would allow for greater economic flexibility and lead to a more hybrid market. He was able to placate loyal military officers, joint venture CEOs and a tiny but emerging class of self-employed workers by abandoning the Cold War mindset. He even agreed to a mock plebiscite which clearly demonstrated that unanimity was just a myth. However, the structure of the totalitarian regime remained just as rigid and self-censoring as that of his closest ally.

Today the country faces its most critical juncture since the demise of the Soviet bloc. The pandemic has only made the nation’s economic crisis worse. Cubans do not know how to put food on their plates or where to buy aspirin, and the worn-out excuse that imperialism is to blame has no resonance or support among ordinary Cubans. Popular dissatisfaction is palpable and only state media seems to ignore this reality. continue reading

Meanwhile, the number of dissidents, independent journalists and disaffected artists continues to grow and their voices grow louder. On the other hand, Cubans in the diaspora and in exile have organized like never before to demand an end to the brutal repression inflicted against all those who think differently.

These are the circumstances faced by the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba from which some hope to hear less demagoguery and more concrete solutions. The most optimistic of them hope that the change will lead to substantial reforms that in the long term could lead to the democratization and effective unleashing of the Island’s productive capacity.

Those of us who have studied the complex dynamics of power within the Cuban Communist Party understand perfectly that it is not only the people who are afraid. Many leaders also lose sleep worrying about being fired and choose to remain silent. Totalitarian regimes can change leaders or, more sophisticated still, change their narrative but the system never really evolves.

The organizational design of the Soviet-stlye Cuban Communist Party does not allow for change. The day solutions to problems can be freely debated will be the day the party ceases to exist. According to Darwin, it is not the most intelligent or the strongest species that survive but rather the ones that are most adaptable to new circumstances or conditions in a new environment.

As it turns out, the Cuban state is an organism that either does not know how to adapt to changes or adapts too slowly. This is part of its makeup, of its authoritarian nature. Intolerance does not allow it to make real changes or adaptations, even when its leaders know they need to update the system. But this isn’t like doing an update on an iPhone. It’s more like installing an old version of Windows95 on a computer with a 486 processor that already had problems when it left the factory

Reboot and format that hard drive. But, remember, there won’t be an update as long as those who devised this algorithm remain in power.

The new generation of leaders will have to confront the legacy of an outdated ideology. The illegitimate president of Cuba, Miguel Diaz Canel, pretends to be a reformist by continuing to call for the end of the bureaucracy and encouraging decision-making based on science and technology.

However, as a new monetary order hastens the end of the paternalistic state, Cubans are witnessing more clearly than ever the enormous gap between the communist elite (the pinchos*) and the rest of society. Clearly, official speeches that support private initiative and foreign investment are one thing; looming hyperinflation is quite another. To talk about investments in a country that does not even have a stock market is a joke. It will all be just a mirage until there is a constitution that establishes true rule of law, one that protects private property and other fundamental freedoms that every country must defend.

As Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said so well, “People do not eat plans.” I would hasten to add that the people do not eat ideologies either. Mind you, good governments with sane planners, insightful public policies, and sensible strategies can reverse the hunger of an entire country. But on an island where ingenuity has been key to each individual Cuban’s survival, no one entertains the thought that the party might come up with measures that will yield any results. What Cubans long is to hear is that the nation’s capabilities will not be squandered on repression, propaganda, surveillance, and senseless censorship.

Congress attendees understand perfectly well that now is the time to end the state’s monopoly on business and to allow the private sector, which is much more efficient at creating wealth, to assume a more active role. But as usual they will accept any guidance and not even dare to murmur the one word to put an end to all this debacle. That word is and always will be freedom. At the moment this is almost unimaginable.

With the nation’s institutions so weakened, a culture of democracy that does not exist, and human capital that is not allowed to enjoy the individual rights so fundamental for the growth and future of a country that demands concrete changes, it is difficult to imagine that anything will be accomplished.

Once again, ideology clouds all prospects for the future. It is not a failure of reason on the part of the common man but the irrationality of a state lost in time that will once again halt progress and stifle the dreams for a truly free Cuba.

Faced with growing uncertainty and wanting to avoid any risk, this congress once again opted for stability, for rigidity disguised as flexibility. No one should expect dictatorships to make fundamental changes — only the most naive fall into that trap — but we do know one thing: with his customary pragmatism, Raúl Castro has already visited his own grave. It remains to be seen if his successors have the guts to once and for all let the Cubans hold a real congress.

*Translator’s note: “Pinchos” literally translates as “skewers,” and in this context means “bosses.”

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Cuba’s Political Police Lock Up Opponents in Their Homes and Cut Off Their Phones

The artist Tania Bruguera had to postpone an online talk organized by Harvard University after Etecsa cut off its internet service. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 April 2021 — The Cuban government unleashed a repressive wave against independent activists, artists and journalists this weekend, while the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba was held at the Palace of Conventions in Havana.

The artist Tania Bruguera, who had planned to give an online conference last Friday on art, activism and censorship in Cuba for Harvard University, had her internet service cut off by the State telecommunications company, Etecsa, minutes before the event. Therefore, the talk had to be rescheduled.

“The conversation with Harvard has not been canceled: it has been postponed, and when it is done, I will no longer have to start by explaining to the public that the Government of Cuba is a dictatorship and that the telecommunications company Etecsa is a department of State Security. Everyone will know,” Bruguera said in a column for Hypermedia Magazine. continue reading

This Sunday, a representative of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Havana, Bastiaan Engelhard, visited the journalist Luz Escobar and the artist Julio Llopiz-Casal, on a day on which both had State Security surveillance on their homes and, in the case of Escobar, her telephone line was without service.

During the meeting, the diplomat was interested in current Cuban issues and the challenges of civil society.

The diplomat’s gesture was seen by many human rights defenders on the island as a show of support for those who today suffer any kind of repression by the Government, with the aim of silencing them or preventing them from doing their job.

On that same day, the executive director for the Americas of Human Rights Watch (HRW), José Miguel Vivanco, asked Havana to end its human rights violations.

“While the congress of the Communist Party is being held, the artists of the San Isidro Movement are under surveillance and deprived of liberty in their own homes. We demand the cessation of these serious and repeated human rights violations,” Vivanco wrote on his Twitter account, “Why is the regime so afraid of independent artists and journalists?”

Vivanco mentioned the cases of Tania Bruguera, Carolina Barrero, Amaury Pacheco, Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, Camila Acosta and Luz Escobar. “All my solidarity to them,” he said.

Similarly, the organizers and participants of the First Citizen Conference, organized by the Cuba en Plural platform and scheduled to take place virtually on April 18, 19 and 20, also remained under police surveillance and faced telephone service cuts.

The event will be held on Zoom and according to a statement issued by the platform, “prominent exponents will participate who, from a citizen perspective, will provoke a conversation about the future of Cuba.”

The text is signed by María Elena Mir Marrero and Zuleydis Pérez Velázquez, from the Network of Community Leaders; Manuel Cuesta Morúa and José Díaz Silva, from Propuesta2020; Dariem Columbié Grave de Peralta, from the Otro18 Platform, and María Mercedes Benítez Rodríguez, from Citizens Observers of Electoral Processes.

On Sunday, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was detained again for a few hours when he tried to leave his home, which had been besieged by the political police for almost a month. The artist, coordinator of the San Isidro Movement, asks that the works of art of his authorship that State Security stole last Friday, when they raided his house, be returned to him.

____________

Diaz-Canel at the Ibero-American Summit: The Failure of a Speech

Diaz-Canel speaking at the Ibero-American Summit. (en.escambray.cu)

Elias Amor Bravo, Economist, 22 April 2021 — Bad. Very bad. The first international speech from Miguel Díaz-Canel, from his new position of First Secretary of the Communist Party, as well as president of Cuba, at the forum of the Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, on April 21, 2021, held in Andorra. Analysts say only first two minutes were correct, when he expressed appreciation to the host authorities for organizing the event in the complicated conditions of Covid-19.

Later, everything fell apart into a string of nonsense that left Díaz-Canel’s profile as a political leader very effected. Between the acoustic difficulties and the nonsense he spouted, Díaz-Canel appeared as what he is, or what he intends to achieve, a low-level provocateur who is looking for handouts, without showing any interest in making things easier for Cuba to return to the concert of nations.

Because to whom did Díaz-Canel address his speech at the summit? It is not an easy answer.

He could have dedicated his speech to what he has done every time he has participated in an international forum, “selling medical and professional services” wrapped up in a false international cooperation. But from the first moment, he must have understood that the occasion was not the most propitious. And having the brilliant speeches by the presidents of Chile and Colombia before him, the repetitive proposals of a “Cuba that has experience to offer and gives special relevance to innovation for a 2030 sustainable development goal,” he turned around and, without further ado, began to release poison. continue reading

The first axis of the speech: a complaint that little progress has been made in the 2030 Agenda, but what does he know about the progress of this program in the most advanced countries and the investments that are being mobilized in this regard? What does he know of President Biden’s summons to 42 leading countries in the world to propose immediate progress on this matter? Once again, as in the times of Fidel Castro, Díaz-Canel threatened the world with chaos, total disaster and the disappearance of humanity if his positions are not followed.

Despite the long time that has passed, the alarmist speech-making of Fidel Castro remains anchored in the genes of the successors of the regime. A shame. With what Diaz-Canel knows about innovation and technological development (his doctoral thesis is about that, precisely, and he even allowed himself to recite his 2014 speech at the summit on these same topics) he did not give a single explanation and/or reference to this matter, which he passed over as if it were nothing. With headlines, and little else.

The second axis of the speech was another classic of Fidel Castro, the debt and its unbearable weight. While other countries requested deferrals or more flexible and creative ways to pay, Díaz-Canel focused on eliminating his country’s commitments. He cares little about what may be behind Cuba’s foreign debt, and he even denounced “the impact of unilateral coercive measures that violate International Law and obstruct our legitimate right to development.” Well then, speak up, denounce in international courts that someone from the Club of Paris or London would do well to remember him or Cabrisas.

The third axis was the “fair, democratic and equitable international economic order” that the communists spend their lives demanding from the rest of the world, but which they rarely respect in their own countries. For example, see the political repression in Cuba, which does not stop, even with Covid-19 running rampant throughout the country. It is still nonsense for Díaz-Canel to say that the “Sustainable Development goals will continue to be a chimera for most of the peoples of the world,” and not stop for a moment to explain the lack of food that exists in Cuba, the lines, the desperation and the climate of uncertainty and social unrest that spreads through the country.

Surprisingly, making use of his “personal honesty,” he denounced “the current development paradigms, because they cause poverty and exclusion of the majority due to their irrational patterns of production and consumption that, under the designs of the market, disdain what is most valuable: life and human dignity.”

The market, the neoliberal order, the anathemas of Castroism always have an outlet in these speeches, but they rarely refer to the internal situation of Cuba where the other paradigm, the Marxist and Leninist communism, continues to rage for 62 years. I understand the surprise of foreign investors in Cuba, startled to hear this kind of thing from the president of Cuba. Some would have the opportunity to quickly pack their suitcase and go home.

Díaz-Canel did not miss the opportunity to speak about a vague series of issues such as an inclusive Ibero-America, insisting on financial and technology transfer from developed countries to the poorest, the situation of the pandemic and the healthcare and social protection systems, where he took the opportunity to attack some “petty interests of a few,” while claiming once again the role of the state, why not?

He even had the audacity to announce the five vaccine candidates available in Cuba, two of them, Soberana 02 and Abdala, in Phase 3 of a clinical trial and announced the goal of immunity to the entire Cuban population before the end of 2021 with said vaccines to emphasize the prominence that Cuba gives to science and technology.

He could have stayed on this ground until the end, but incomprehensibly, he turned the speech around. And the time has come to attack the United States in a thousand ways, which he identified as “an enemy of Cuba due to the intensification of the blockade and its support for acts of violence and disrespect for the law to promote social and political instability in our country.” He even attributed to the United States alleged campaigns of “discrediting and boycotting Cuba’s medical cooperation.”

But not satisfied with this untimely intoxication, the reference to Venezuela arrived. It was surprising, but to be expected. Díaz-Canel defended the legitimacy of the Maduro government because it “emanates from the express and sovereign will of his people,” which implies accepting the result of what they call elections in that country. And he contrasted it with what he called “pressure from foreign powers” in clear reference to the United States.

This part of the speech could not have been well-received by the US Secretary of State and it is most likely that it has opened a parenthesis difficult to close in possible relations with Cuba. President Biden has information to know what to do. It is not lawful to have normal relations with a country that takes advantage of its presence in any international forum to launch unjustified attacks against its northern neighbor.

And this was what happened in this part of the speech, in which Díaz-Canel not only said that it was unfair to blame the Venezuelan government for the economic and social situation facing the country, to denounce, once again, “the application of cruel unilateral coercive measures , projected and applied by the United States accompanied by several of its allies, with the aim of causing suffering in the population.”

I can only imagine what the organizers of the forum, and especially the presidents of democratic countries, should think of such an annoying presence. And not satisfied with the above, he ended by saying that, “it would be useful and sincere to recognize that the US design of intervention in Venezuela failed miserably and placed other countries that supported it in an unsustainable political and legal situation.”

He didn’t have to say anything else to say in the speech. At that point, when Díaz-Canel sided with the political power that leads Venezuela and commits the crimes denounced in international democratic forums, such as the European Parliament, he excluded himself from the international order.

In Díaz-Canel’s opinion, “it should be recognized that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a sovereign State, and the interference must cease, acting with respect to the United Nations Charter and the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace.”

Precisely what the governments of Cuba and Venezuela do not practice with their own peoples. Diaz-Canel dixit.

____________

At Least One Serious Injury in the Collapse of Buildings on Havana’s Malecon

The two buildings that completely collapsed are on what is officially called Maceo Avenue between Águila and Crespo streets. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 22 April 2021 — At least one man was seriously injured on Thursday when two buildings completely collapsed and part of a third also fell on Havana’s Malecón. The buildings were semi-dilapidated, fenced with metal, uninhabited, and at the time of the collapse they were being demolished by construction workers.

The two buildings and the fragment of a third that collapsed are located on what is officially called Maceo Avenue between Águila and Crespo streets, very close to the Prado de La Habana. According to a nearby resident, “the workers demolishing them were using a jackhammer when what was left of the buildings fell down.”

“At least one man was seriously injured, because he was passing by on the sidewalk and the metal fence gave way with the pieces that fell. Half of his body was buried under the rubble and other people also suffered minor injuries,” detailed the neighbor, who also added: “It was a danger even for the cars passing on the street.”

#Cuba El derrumbe este jueves en el Malecón de La Habana. https://t.co/kaTjmzlIGh pic.twitter.com/JbSm9KIsRG

— Yoani Sánchez 🇨🇺 (@yoanisanchez) April 22, 2021

continue reading

“There wasn’t any good signage telling people not to pass by,” a neighbor told this newspaper, noting that “not only were the buildings collapsing, but there were electrical cables on the sidewalk and every time I passed by I had to step off the sidewalk, but this a street with fast-moving traffic and every time you step off the sidewalk your life is at stake.”

“Everything around here is grim, the day will come when we will see the entire Malecon collapse,” laments another neighbor. “They don’t fix things here, they just paint them when an important visitor is coming, or tear them down to build hotels,” he complained. “This demolition work should not have been done without closing the block.”

“The east building has just collapsed right now, right here in front of me,” a passerby reported through a live broadcast on the social network Facebook, and who also recorded the moment when the injured man was taken from the place in a vehicle heading to a hospital. “It fell on a man,” he explained in the video.

The images show a group of people trying to rescue the injured man from under the fragments of the building. “The debris reached to the other side of the street,” explained the internet user in a transmission of slightly longer than a minute.

The collapsed building is located in the municipality of Centro Habana, one of the most populated in the capital and which for decades has been an area characterized by the high presence of tenements, with infrastructure problems and overcrowding. Many of the buildings are from the early twentieth century and have not received repairs for more than fifty years, not even painting on their facades.

In the vicinity of the Malecon, the buildings have suffered especially the effects of the salt air which, together with the lack of maintenance, have turned the housing stock in the area into one of the most damaged in the Cuban capital. The successive programs launched by the Government have not resolved the increasingly frequent collapses.

It has been three years since the Government acknowledged a deficit of almost one million homes on the island, a very serious situation that it aspired to alleviate in a period of ten years. However, the shortage of materials due to a persistent crisis exacerbates a problem that continues to leave millions of people in suspense, not knowing when they might see their roof coming down.

According to a report from the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights last October, almost half of the homes in the country need repair, and 11% of families live in places at risk of collapse.

____________

Marxism Disappears From the Central Report of the Cuban Communist Party Congress

“It is necessary to increase revolutionary militancy and intransigence and strengthen their contribution to ideological work,” said Raúl Castro during the congress. (Granma)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 19 April 2021 — A cursory glance at the central report to the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba could be reduced to the fact that the most significant were the limits imposed on the reforms and the disappearance in the text of any allusion to Marxism-Leninism, underlined by the absence of images of Marx, Engels or Lenin in the gallery of the Convention Center.

Raúl Castro was precise when he pointed out that the private practice of certain professions and private commercial importation “in the spirit of establishing a non-state system of internal trade” would be among those limits that should not be exceeded “because the consequences would be irreversible and would lead to strategic errors and the very destruction of socialism and therefore of national sovereignty and independence.”

He reiterated the urgent need to maintain the “unique” character of the Communist Party that according to him “guarantees and represents the unity of the nation” while redefining the role of civil society recommending that it was necessary “to revitalize its actions in all spheres of society and update its functioning in correspondence with the times we live in …” and, just in case, he emphasized: “It is necessary to increase revolutionary militancy and intransigence and strengthen its contribution to ideological work, the confrontation with the subversive plans of the enemy and the creation and consolidation of values.” continue reading

He warned about the growing presence on the internet of opinions contrary to the Government and consoled himself by stating that “the streets, parks and squares do and will belong to the revolutionaries and that we will never deny our heroic people the right to defend their Revolution.”

With these thunders, no one dreams of openings to the market or to democracy, although Marx, Engels and Lenin no longer appear in the iconography nor are their postulates mentioned as a catechism in Party documents.

Anecdotally, it is worth noting the veiled announcement that Marino Murillo seems to have fallen out of favor, given the criticism of the performance of the Permanent Commission for the Implementation and Development of the Guidelines, which, according to the report, “failed to organize, in an adequate manner, the participation of the different actors involved in the implementation of the Guidelines and assumed functions that exceeded the mandate given by Congress…”

As if he were responding, with his customary ambiguity, to those who predict that he will remain in the shadows, Castro made two things clear: one, his decision not to accept proposals to remain in the higher organs of the party organization, and another, that “while I live I will be ready, with my foot on the stirrup, to defend the Homeland, the Revolution and Socialism.”

Another detail that should not be overlooked was his insistence on recommending Miguel Díaz-Canel as his probable successor who, according to “the assessment of the Party’s leadership,” has been carrying out his position as president with good results.

Shortly before asking his audience to applaud the president, the army general mentioned that Díaz-Canel “before a call from the Commander-in-Chief, voluntarily performed military service in antiaircraft defense units to assimilate the new technique, after graduating as an electronic engineer from the Central University of Las Villas “

Without wishing to deny the general or the version given by his recommendation, it should be clarified that the referred “call from the Commander in Chief” to join the ranks of the “strategic weapons” occurred on March 13, 1962, when Díaz-Canel still had not completed two years and his entry into the Antiaircraft Rocket Troops (TCAA) was not voluntary, but obeying the law of military service in 1982, when “the new technique” was approaching obsolescence.

There are three aspects to analyze in this congress: what will happen with the guidelines, what will be the final version of the conceptualization, and the list of the new members of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau. As boring and sterile as it may seem, we will stay tuned.

____________

Otero Alcantara Demands $500,000 from Cuban Government for Damage to His Works

For Otero Alcántara, the fact that State Security will not return his artworks is a great absurdity because he never signed an act of confiscation. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 21 April2021 — The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has been besieged for more than two weeks in his home in Old Havana, headquarters of the San Isidro Movement (MSI). “I have been here for 17 days without being able to leave my house. I try to leave and the political police detain me,” he explains to 14ymedio.

Since last Saturday, a day after State Security raided his home on Damas Street and detained him for 16 hours, the artist has been arrested every day at four in the afternoon when he tries to go out to demand the return of the works of art that the officers took away.

“Today they are still on the corner and do not let anyone in, it is still the same here,” he explained to this newspaper this Wednesday and insists that the increase in repression leads him to demand more from the authorities. “The first demand is that I want $500,000 for damage to my works.” continue reading

The seized and damaged works are part of the series Despite being a good boy, I did not know the Three Wise Men, in which the artist illustrates in large format coverage of some of the sweets that he ate in his childhood, at a time in which jams intended for children’s have disappeared from stores in national currency.

Otero Alcántara already has an idea of what to do with those resources: “I am going to spend that money on remodeling the houses of the people here in San Isidro. So don’t tell me that the situation is difficult, if you want them to take money from the hotels they are building on all sides.”

Last Monday, while he was detained in the El Wajay police unit, south of Havana, he was interrogated by Lieutenant Colonel Kenia María Morales, an officer accused of participating in the repression against independent artists. Morales showed him photocopies of some of the works. “We have them and we will return them to you if a judge decides,” he said.

The artist recalls: “I was inside my house, they came in and took me out and put me in a patrol car and I didn’t know anything else until I returned the next day. Those works of art are my children.” Since then he has not had mobile data service on his cell phone either.

This Tuesday he was arrested again and, this time, he was taken to the Cotorro police unit and they kept him in the cells there until 10:30 at night when they took him home. The operation that surrounds his house prevents him from going out and talking to the neighbors. A situation that they consider intolerable.

“After this, what can I put up with? That they shoot a colleague? No, this is something unacceptable, after they enter your house and take your works of art, what can you expect tomorrow? I can’t move, I can’t draw, nothing, and if they’re looking for me to leave the country, they’re wrong, I’m not going to go anywhere,” he insists.

“It is very unfair everything that the neighbors here are going through too. On the day of the raid they took a neighbor’s son into custody because he was filming, but they already released him,” he details. His perceptions of Damas Street these days, where he lives, is that “it has been half phantasmagoric, with few people on the street but as of yesterday it has already begun to regain its normal rhythm.”

This Tuesday, on social networks, several Internet users denounced the presence of the State Security bus parked on the same corner as the MSI headquarters. It is the same bus that State Security used on January 27 to arrest artists and journalists who were protesting in front of the Ministry of Culture, a complaint that was confirmed by an investigation carried out by the independent Inventory project .

The bus was identified as being of the Chinese Yutong make and with the number 5604, belonging to the Provincial Transportation Company of Havana, an image that was shared on Facebook by the artist Salomé García.

____________

Raul Castro’s (presumed) Political Testament

At the end of the Eighth Congress, he will be 45 days away from entering the venerable condition of nonagenarian. (EFE)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 8 April 2021 — Raúl Castro has been getting his retirement ready for five years. He announced it in April 2016 when he warned that the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) would probably be “the last where the historical generation would be present.” Presumably, he is now feeling the temptation to bequeath to his successors some kind of political testament and the ideal setting to make it known will be the Congress, which will meet next week.

The Army general knows that all the large press agencies already have the main paragraphs of his obituary in advance. According to the ideological inclinations of each one, they will classify him as a nonconformist reformist or the continuator of a dictatorship. He also knows that his last appearance as the legitimate heir of the Castro regime may have the capacity to delay or advance the inevitable: change.

It is embarrassing that the immediate future of a nation is subject to the whims of a dictator who may try to tie everything up before retiring, but that is the harsh reality. continue reading

To delay what is clearly inescapable, all the retiring first secretary would need to demand from his successors is a firm commitment to “keep the flags of socialism flying high.” To advance it, to “anticipate the future,” as a poet would say, a slight hint by Raul would be enough to call for the completion of the reforms that he could not or did not know how to carry out.

Will he act as a leader or as his brother’s predecessor, as a statesman or as part of a family? He alone knows the answer

At the end of the Eighth Congress, he will be 45 days away from entering the venerable condition of a nonagenarian. Of the historical generation, he is the only one who has the ability to send a message that redefines the forces of power. With his death, the last specimen of the clan that has gripped the Island for more than half a century will be extinguished: his farewell would have to be a very well-played card.

Only Raúl Castro can bury the memory of the man who led the country to the abyss he is glancing at today. Will he act as a leader or as a brother to his predecessor, as a statesman or as part of a family? He alone knows the answer.

If, true to the family-man reputation that his minions have carved out for him, he wished to leave his biological descendants a country not to be ashamed of, Raúl Castro would have to choose to “open the cages,” as the peasants metaphorically refer to economic and political apertures.

If he is more committed to a sterile Numantine posture so that he is not blamed for the capitulation; if he is not willing to take responsibility and self-criticism for the accumulation of errors through which he accompanied his brother for decades; if he cares more about appearing on the last page of the past rather than starring on the first one of the future, then he will clench his fist and shout some well-worn slogan.

The silence in which he has locked himself since the last time we heard his voice heralds the continuity of his silence. The absence of a political will to clear the way for the changes demanded has a huge advantage: We won’t have to be grateful to him for it.

Translated by Norma Whiting
____________

Congress or Funeral? In Cuba, You Never Know

Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel during the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. (Revolution Studies)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 20 April 2021 — In the illegal Cuban lottery, the number eight means death, the same number as this edition of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) Congress that concluded on Monday in Havana. The conclave has had all the solemnity of a political funeral for a generation that is vacating its high positions, but it has offered few optimistic signs for our national life which is going through its worst crisis in this century.

The departure of Raúl Castro from the secretariat of the most powerful organization in the country is not surprising. The irremediable footsteps of biology have pushed him to step aside, at least publicly. Even so, although no one at the top of the Party now bears the surname of the family clan that has ruled Cuba for 62 years, it would be naive to think that the lineage that came from the small town of Birán will not try to continue to control the national destiny.

To remain at the helm of the ship without being visibly in the main cabin, Raúl Castro drew up a plan in advance that is consistent with the methodical discipline of his personal motto: “without haste but without pause.” The naming of Miguel Díaz-Canel to lead the Communist Party, a ‘favored youngest son’ trained to maintain the continuity of the system at all costs, has been a fundamental step in this plan for the transfer of public responsibilities. continue reading

The intrusion into the Political Bureau of Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, Raul Castro’s former son-in-law and head of the military consortium that controls a large part of the island’s tourism business, suggests that the priorities of the outgoing Party leader are to prevent a reformist turn of events from collapsing the system with the result that the family would lose the management of the most succulent pieces of the national economic pie.

This is the roadmap that the general has defined to spend his last days safe from courtrooms and prison bars, but it is not enough. The country that has been passed along, at least nominally, is experiencing its moment of greatest citizen dissatisfaction with, and unrest over, the political and economic model. The absurd bans, centralism and poor productive management have contributed to a material disaster that the pandemic has deepened in the last year.

Public demonstrations of disagreement are no longer exclusive to the opposition and rare is the week in which a street protest, a confrontation between the people and the police, or a denunciation of the excess of State Security is not broadcast on social networks. The entire nation seems like a vast expanse of dry grass under the inclement sun of misery and repression, which could be ignited with a small spark or lead to another of the many migratory crises that Cubans have cyclically lived through.

In this Eighth Congress, the outgoing leaders of the Communist Party preferred to send the message of persistence on the current path instead of promoting change, and opted to stick to the script of passing on the ideological baton to the detriment of announcing a plan of openings that a part of the population was expecting. In the coming weeks, as more details of the event are released, there will be a few who will rub their hands, many who end up assembling a makeshift raft to emigrate, and others who will light a candle for the nation that continues to expire.
____________

In Cuba Marino Murillo Falls, Raul Castro’s Ex-Son-in-Law Rises

Among the most high-profile demotions is that of Marino Murillo (left), whom the foreign press had dubbed Cuba’s “czar of economic reforms.” (EFE)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, April 19, 2021 — The most striking development of the Eighth Communist Party Congress, which concludes on Monday after a four-day meeting with hardly any news, will be the retirement, at least officially, of the old guard. For the first time, no one with the last name Castro will hold a senior position. Additionally, the position of second secretary will be dissolved. The entire senior leadership of the Party Congress will leave office and more than 20% of Politburo members will be new.

The Central Committee will add fifty-five new faces — among the standouts are Manuel Marrero and Lázaro Álvarez Casas — who will also join the Politburo. Among the new members is a former-spy: Gerardo Hernández Nordelo. The military will gain nine new generals.

The list of those leaving comes to eighty-eight, all members of the so-called historical generation (Raúl Castro, Ramiro Valdés, Guillermo García, Leopoldo Cintra Frías, Julio Camacho Aguilera and Ramón Pardo Guerra), and some “younger ones” such as Mercedes López Acea, Rodrigo Malmierca and Víctor Fidel Gaute López. continue reading

One unsurprising Politburo appointment is General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, head of Gaesa, the military consortium that controls a significant portion of the island’s tourism-related business and other strategic sectors. Analysts had long been predicting that Raúl Castro’s former son-in-law would be promoted to a position near the pinnacle of Cuban leadership.

The appointment of López-Calleja to the Politburo — the most senior position in the Communist Party held by any family member, at least in an official, public way — represents a gesture of defiance towards Washington. Last September the U.S. Office for Control of Foreign Assets added him to its list of “blocked persons.”

Among the most significant departures is that of Marino Murillo, whom the foreign press had dubbed “the czar of economic reforms” and who headed the Commission for Regulatory Implementation and Development. A civil servant, he was the face of currency unification, a package of monetary reforms that began taking effect in January.

However, popular dissatisfaction could have been the cause of his fall from grace, as outlined in a report in which it was claimed the commission “did not manage to adequately coordinate the participation of different actors involved in the implementation of the regulations and assumed functions that exceeded the mandate given it by Congress.”

Among the new additions is TV presenter Humberto López, whose career had a meteoric rise last year when he went from anchoring the first newscast of the day to hosting the program Hacemos Cuba, which focused on attacking independent activists, artists and journalists.

López has been routinely denounced on social media for smear campaigns for which his targets have no right of reply. The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba also recently added him to its database of “violent Cuban repressors.”

There has also be a change in overall numbers. Counting the fourteen members of the Politburo and five in the Secretariat, the Central Committee now has 114 members, down from the previous 145 members, a significant reduction in the typically bloated party bureaucracy.

But what has been most discussed is the abolition of the post of second-secretary of the Politiburo, a position that until yesterday was held by the veteran and very orthodox José Ramón Machado Ventura. A novelty unique to Cuban communism that did not exist in any other Soviet bloc country, its phase-out may be due to the fact that it was an invention by Fidel Castro who, with his brother in a position of such close proximity, was looking for a way to protect his back.

Now, with the departure of Raúl Castro as head of the Communist Party, it makes no sense to preserve the position. And finding someone who would be sufficiently trustworthy would be a difficult proposition.

____________

Alvaro Lopez Miera to Replace Leopoldo Cintra Frias as Minister of Armed Forces

Álvaro López Miera, Cuba’s new Minister of the Armed Forces. (Juventud Rebelde)

14ymedio, Havana, April 15, 2021 — On Tuesday Alvaro López Miera was named the new Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, replacing veteran Leopoldo “Polo” Cintra Frias, one day before the start of the Eighth Communist Party Congress. Lopez Miera, 77, the son of Spanish Loyalists, is described by analysts as a member of the “reliable clan.”

“As proposed by the First-Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Army General Raul Castro Ruz, and the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel, the Council of State has approved a request by Army General Leopoldo Cintra “Polo” Frías — Hero of the Republic of Cuba, with an extensive and brilliant record of service to the fatherland from an early age as a combatant of the Rebel Army — to be relieved of command as Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces,” reads the official announcement.

“The proposal to name Army General Alvaro López Miera — Hero of the Republic of Cuba, who has been serving as First-Deputy Minister and Chief of the General Staff, and who has enjoyed a long and fruitful career from a very young age in the Rebel Army — as Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces has been approved.

In official jargon, dismissal notices have their own grammar. The phrase “request to be relieved of command” is almost always associated with unsatisfactory performance or an exit from something other than the front door.

Polo, a man extremely loyal to Raul Castro, used to be considered “the youngest of the old guard” compared the octogenarians and nonagenarians who hold the most important positions in Cuba’s power structure.

____________

Retail Sales of Beef to Begin after State Orders Are Filled

The sale of beef has been illegal for decades. (tiempo21.cu)

14ymedio, Havana, April 14, 2021 – Cuban authorities will allow retail sales of beef once the state’s orders have been filled and the livestock supply is stable, a measure similar to one governing milk and its byproducts, whose retail sale is conditional on certain indicators being met.

Both changes are part of a package of sixty-three measures announced on Tuesday which are intended to boost food production, though some independent economists think they will be insufficient unless they are accompanied by more fundamental reforms.

Deputy Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca proposed some of these measures, including a reduction in electrical rates for all agricultural activities. The new rates will remain in effect regardless of fluctuations in the price of oil or water. Costs for both will be covered in the state budget at a figure estimated to be between 240 and 400 million pesos. continue reading

Changes will be made in procurement procedures to guarantee that contracts with individual producers regarding planting, production and sales are fulfilled. Prices for raw materials and some products, local development projects, certain financial issues and taxes are other measures to be explained in greater detail, presumably on Wednesday, during the next broadcast of the State TV Roundtable program.

Tapia Fonseca claimed the changes “were not drafted in an office” and, according to official press reports, “the broadest possible range of opinions” was taken into account in their preparation. However, input from independent farmers’ associations has never been taken into account, either in meetings with authorities or in proposals they have made through open letters or written statements.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel himself, who was present at the meeting in which the new measures to increase food production were announced, said the package of reforms is a result of a “democratic, participative and inclusive exercise which took into account the opinions of both state and non-state producers as well as those of experts, academics, research centers, agricultural company directors and many other voices in the country.”

“We all have to do something for the country at this time. We all have to dedicate ourselves to defending the Revolution,” the president added.

Elias Amor, a Madrid-based Cuban economist, argues on his blog Cubaeconomia that these measures have come about “because of the terrible design of the currency unification process. “They have closed one hole but opened a much bigger one in the form of uncontrolled public debt.” [Related article here.]

The expert believes the changes are a response to protests from producers but sees them as little more than “populist patches” that will solve nothing.

“Anyone who works the earth, increasing its value and improving it, wants it to be his, to be able to use it as he freely chooses, in whatever way he deems appropriate, without any communist oversight… The path of freedom begins with property rights to land. From there, progress can then be made towards efficiency and food security, and even the export of surpluses, as in Vietnam,” he argues.

Another economist, Pedro Monreal, is more optimistic though he is waiting to see the details. He believes it is too early to come to any conclusions because this may only be the beginning of a process, with more significant changes to come.

“It is difficult to evaluate these new measures — they represent an experimental approach, which is not the same as an experiment — without a broader discussion of economics and politics. But the key aspects to look at it will be supply and price stability,” he said on his Twitter account.

In Monreal’s opinion, the eventual success of these measures could encourage adoption of other changes that would impact production, such as the direct distribution schemes of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), “which would benefit small and medium sized businesses.”

____________

Cuba: Taking Control of Your Own Health in Times of Rampant Inflation

Spice seller in Havana, this Thursday. Sign: “Attention! The products went up to 10.00 (pesos), please avoid malicious comments.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 15 April 2021 — Among sales kiosks run by the military, a private seller of spices in the Youth Labor Army market on Tulipán Street seems to have found the formula to prevent his premises from becoming a parliament of complaints to the “Ordering Task” and the rise of food prices, which have skyrocketed since the beginning of this year.

To take control of one’s own health, the self-employed person hung up a sign that reads: “Attention! The products went up to 10.00 (pesos), please avoid malicious comments.” His poster is not excessive.

Along with inspectors who fine sellers who dare to raise prices too high, the government has also thrown countless Communist Party militants and loyal Committees for the Defense of the Revolution members — known as ’cederistas’ from the initials CDR — into the streets to gather information on “unscrupulous merchants,” customers outraged by the cost of living, and anyone who lines up in a public square to complain against the Plaza de la Revolución.

These are days of talking quietly and taking care of each other, and the spice salesman knows it well.

____________

Castro Leaves, Castroism Remains

The responsibility of carrying out the urgent reforms that Cuba needs rests on the shoulders of the successors appointed by Raúl Castro. (EFE / ACN)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 17 April 2021 — A few hours before the start of the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), there were those who insisted that the conclave would be canceled and Raúl Castro’s departure from office postponed. The hypothesis was not entirely far-fetched but it failed to take into account two very important aspects of the man who, until yesterday, was secretary of the PCC: his mediocre predictability and the almost 90 years that weigh on his shoulders.

Without surprises, as one who carries out a long-drawn up plan down to the smallest details, Castro not only opened the Party meeting but also confirmed that his name will no longer formally head an organization placed above any institution or entity of power on this Island. He had long prepared for that moment and postponing it was to risk dying on the job.

Since the announcement, the international media has been filled with headlines about a farewell to a surname that has ruled the country for 62 years, but without perceiving that Castroism is more than a man and his clan. It is a way of managing politics, controlling the press, managing the economy from the military sector, defining education plans, managing international relations and structuring ideological propaganda. continue reading

Now, when Raúl Castro says goodbye to his secretariat in the Party and goes through the last stretch of his finite biology, he remains looking over the shoulders of the successors to whom he designated the responsibility of carrying out the urgent reforms that the country needs. But embarking on the path of these changes implies dismantling, to a large extent, Castroism, that system marked by voluntarism, inefficiency and intolerance.

Molded and promoted by Fidel Castro and later touched up by his brother with the flexibilities carried out in the past decade, Castroism has ended up establishing itself as a way of behaving. Hence, it does not matter if the surname that gives the system its name will no longer be in the minutes or documents. As long as the heirs to power do not dismantle such a legacy, it will be as if both brothers were still in command of the national ship.

Is Miguel Díaz-Canel willing to dismantle that strict network of controls and absurdities in which Castroism has gripped an entire country? Does he want his legacy to be as a continuist who sank the Island, or as a reformist who prioritized the well-being of the people over the dark task of prolonging a dysfunctional regime? As long as Raúl Castro breathes, those questions are unlikely to be answered, and by then the situation is likely to be even more catastrophic.

In order to say goodbye to Castroism, it is necessary to remove the fundamental pillars that make this stale populism, disguised as sovereign nationalism, an evil deeply rooted in Cuba. They would have to dismantle their hatred of difference, that deep allergy to any criticism or dissent that has been one of its most characteristic signs. But its end would also have to eliminate the economic centralism with which they have controlled everything from the sugar trade to the importation of a vehicle.

In order to say goodbye to Castroism, it is necessary to eradicate the confusion that national independence is only possible from the socialist management model and, incidentally, set aside the fallacy that something similar to a system of social justice and equality for all governs in Cuba. Burying Castroism involves opening the parliament to plurality, the newsstands to the diversity of the press, and the schools to other versions of history.

Raúl Castro’s farewell eulogy this Friday in front of a party organization increasingly diminished in number and social descent, is not enough. The true end of the Castro era will come with the eradication of that constant hatred of the other, of prosperity, wealth and freedom, that one family managed to sneak into the DNA of an entire country.
____________

Cuba: 27N Makes Public Four Demands to Build the Country it Dreams of

More than 300 Cuban artists and intellectuals gathered at the doors of the Ministry of Culture on November 27^th. (Reynier Leyva Novo)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 April 2021 — The group, known as 27N (27th November) because of the date they held a protest in front of the Ministry of Culture, has released a manifesto this Monday in which they express their idea of Cuba the country, and summarize the four fundamental demands through which to achieve it. 14ymedio is reproducing it in full below.

27N Manifesto

On November 27^th, 2020, more than three hundred intellectuals, artists and journalists went to the Ministry of Culture to demand the recognition of our freedoms and citizen rights; and to express the rejection of state violence, sustained for years, and increased in recent months. The trigger for this demonstration were the events that occurred in the San Isidro neighborhood the night before, from the need to continue the path of demands that began on that day, and from the will to participate in the present and future of Cuba. The 27N evolves from this.

We are an open, diverse community, driven mainly by young artists and intellectuals, brought together by chance and united by the desire to build a more dignified and just country for all Cubans. Constituted horizontally, we try to replace the verticality of traditional leaderships through debate and the generation of consensus that respond to the diversity of its membership and not to the unanimity of criteria, which encourages more democratic, plural and inclusive practices.

We are not a political organization or movement, but a civic one, with artistic creation and intellectual work as our main tools. Through decisions taken collectively and under constant interaction, we organize ourselves into work groups, voluntarily integrated by activists according to their time availability, their talents and abilities, without implying hierarchy or privilege within that community that grows each day and of which any Cuban citizen can be part of, regardless of their ideology, occupation, place of residence, etc., provided that they are accompanied by honesty, civility and respect for freedom of expression. continue reading

We do not act in secret because we do nothing illegal, we make our ideas visible on our digital platforms. We do not accept discriminatory pronouncements that promote political hatred or violate the freedoms and rights defended by our community. Our actions are civic, peaceful, supportive, with exchange of ideas, committed to the sufferings of current Cuban society and its aspirations for a future of democracy and well-being. There are no profit motives or influence of foreign interests or political organizations, the only thing that governs is the will of the Cuban citizenship.

We base our existence on the political and legal principle, contained in the International Bill of Human Rights, as well as in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba approved on April 19^th, 2019

We base our existence on the political and legal principle, contained in the International Bill of Human Rights, as well as in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba approved on April 19^th, 2019, that the citizens of a State must have guarantees to enjoy with full equality of all rights and freedoms, without distinction of race, color, gender, sexual identity, political position, level of economic access, social origin, place of birth, religion, disability status or any other condition. In this way, we assert our right to express ourselves, associate and demonstrate freely, condemning before Cuba and the world any act that violates these human rights. We demand that the Cuban government take responsibility in its administration to listen to the citizens and to promote peace and respect for our rights.

The country we dream of:

We want an inclusive, democratic, sovereign, prosperous, equitable and transnational country.

We want a nation where expressing oneself freely is not an act of courage, but a natural consequence of autonomous thinking, where there is no political hatred, police violence, repression, censorship, media manipulation, violation of privacy or acts of repudiation. In short, the abusive practices of power exercised by a centralized, military and partisan political leadership, which discriminates and annuls those who disagree, violating their human rights. We claim the legitimacy of open and free discrepancy and critical thinking as a vital exercise to avoid immobility, corruption and wrongdoing by officials or any other entity in society that threatens their development. As a country, we need to heal the damage that has been caused by indoctrination, replace the learned lies and bad habits with the will and commitment to rescue honesty and love of truth as a principle.

Cuba requires a change and, for this, it needs to build a more participatory citizenry with a greater degree of awareness which the political and economic future of this country depends on ourselves. In order to rebuild our nation, honesty must serve as a fundamental principle. It is urgent to decentralize and recover the political power that has usurped from us, and that our future Cuba be designed according to the needs and desires of all Cuban citizens, with equal rights to participate in its design, regardless of their ideology, political affiliation or place of residence.

Consequently, we advocate for laws that guarantee our right to develop as a heterogeneous society, where laws created for the benefit of the majority do not restrict or disregard the rights of minorities.

We need to reaffirm ourselves as different people among each other, as ecumenical citizens, tolerant, respectful of the opinions of others. Consequently, we advocate for laws that guarantee our right to develop as a heterogeneous society, where laws created for the benefit of the majority do not restrict or disregard the rights of minorities. We are not enemies, but Cubans who dream of a better Cuba to bequeath to our children, which will be with all and for the good of all.

We aspire to work for a society with social justice and well-being, where each Cuban can live in his country from the fruits of his work, where the productive forces are freed and bureaucratic parasitism is replaced by a capable and proactive civil service. That we may leave behind the misery and shortages imposed by the incompetence of the prevailing system, and that the rights to a decent life be guaranteed, with assurances – among other things – to health and public education.

In order to advance in the construction of the country we dream of, our community is setting the following objectives:

To promote citizen participation for the re-acknowledgement of rights

We seek to vindicate rights and freedoms, violated by the political power in Cuba and constitutionally endorsed. For this, citizen participation and the exercise of personal freedom are essential in the face of censorship, repression and any attempt to subject the Cuban people to the will of an authoritarian and exclusive government.

Create, strengthen and promote conditions for the creation of consensus

We intend to work with various groups of the Cuban civil society, associations and actors in general in order to find common concerns, interests and strategies, to establish spaces for debate, alliances, projects and goals together, to collaborate with each other, and move forward together – from each one’s diversity – in the construction of a better country.

Promote the legalization of independent positioning

By asserting the right to free association, we claim and exercise the right to create public and private spaces, both physical and virtual, that allow greater collective and personal autonomy.

Our main demands are:

Political rights:

We demand respect for the legitimate right to freedom of expression, of creation, of protest or peaceful demonstration, of political representation and participation, of association and mobility, of open and public debate in the search for citizen consensus. Political freedom is essential to be able to exercise any human rights, given their interdependent nature. There can be no prosperity or freedom of creation in any sphere of society without political freedom.

We demand that all people who have been tried for expressing ideas contrary to the political system be released. We advocate that the norms of criminal due process in Cuba be complied with, and that the Criminal Procedure Law be updated in terms of providing the accused greater guarantees than those that exist today.

We demand the cessation, by the institutions of the State, of repression of citizens who think differently. We demand a stop to media discredit campaigns against independent creators, political, cultural and civic activists and against civically active subjects in any area of society who claim unrecognized rights, including the right to protest.

Economic freedoms

We affirm the right of every citizen to different forms of economic participation, ownership and management. We recognize the role of private initiative and the exercise of economic freedoms that enable the promotion of productive capacities and are generators of essential goods and services for the nation’s development.

We defend the right of every citizen to enjoy decent work and the fruits that it generates. We consider any form of work legitimate as long as it does not harm human dignity or other citizens’ rights and their ability to prosper. We are convinced that, without the consolidation of a decent material base, well-being and social equity cannot be achieved.

Legalization of independent media

We urge the Cuban State to legalize the so-called independent press media, so that they can achieve legal status and register as such. By abiding to Cuban laws, these media could count on legal norms that would protect them, harassment of their journalists would cease, and they could transparently render accounts to society, complying with their ethical, technical and tax responsibilities. In a climate of tolerance and legality, a relationship between the State, the press, and society would be generated where the imperative for all the media would be truth in the news and rigor in their focus.

Right of association

We claim the right to generate communities to actively participate, without further delay or pretext, in the construction of a better reality, where our considerations and expectations are taken into account. We understand that the right of association is essential to achieve true citizen participation in the economic, social and political processes of the country.

We demand that the freedom of association that Cuba has endorsed in Convention No. 87 of the International Labor Organization and in the Labor Code of our country be respected, for the protection of the labor rights of all citizens, linked or not, with the State, through employment contracts, without distinction of race, gender, creed, or political position.

With the conviction that winning these rights begins with the will to defend them with bravery, we encourage all Cubans, whether they are in Cuba or elsewhere, to maintain union and peace, understanding and communication, to search for the truth by expressing what one thinks and feels, defending in solidarity those who are repressed and defamed for expressing themselves freely. 27N was born out of an act of solidarity, and it continues to live by its sense of responsibility, creating and adding, for the right to have rights and so that love and poetry may unite our people.

Translated by Norma Whiting

____________

Last Castro Speech in Cuba

Brothers Fidel and Raul Castro before Fidel’s death.

Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, April 16, 2021 — There is expectation, and even a certain morbid curiosity, about what Raul Castro will say in his speech before the upcoming Communist Party Congress, a conclave that will serve as his final farewell as leader. The feelings are understandable given that he will be the last Castro to occupy such a prominent position in Cuban political life.

His brother Fidel used to have the starring role at these events, eliciting tears and applause from many of his followers, both national and international, without saying much of anything. Can we expect the same of Raul. I don’t think so.

Do not expect a panoramic speech, with dramatic overtones and triumphalist rhetoric, full of revolutionary fervor and messages intended for domestic consumption. No one buys that stuff anymore. From 1971, when the first speech was given, to 2021, our year of living dangerously, these speeches had to be carefully crafted if they were to reach their target audience. They are now aimed at those who still do not understand the collective madness of trying to assimilate into society a political party whose propaganda has continually distorted political and social reality. continue reading

And that’s Raul’s problem. Having survived for so long, anything he says at this congress will be applauded by the opportunists. But it will not reverberate with large segments of the population whose minds will be elsewhere and who long ago learned to tune out the official dogma. The revolution and everything it represents have grown old, which is why preparing the speech now requires so much care.

The reasons?

First of all, Cuban society has changed. People want to move forward, improve their quality of life, increase prosperity, end poverty. They know the government is responsible for the never-ending system of rationing, that it is a tool the regime uses to keep the population under its economic control. How to get out of this quandary, not even Raul Castro knows. Who would ever have imagined that Cuba’s communists would one day open foreign currency stores to sell basic products? Let’s see if Raul says something about that in his speech.

Secondly, at this point it is hard to fool people with obsolete, outdated messages which have no relevance in the face of worldwide trends such as globalization, digitalization and a new industrial revolution. Cubans have travelled overseas, they own cell phones and personal computers, they talk to foreign tourists. They are not isolated they way they were during Fidel Castro’s first congress. It is a historical oddity that Raul Castro, the person responsible for restoring some basic freedoms, became the victim of a process he started. That’s how it goes.

Thirdly, there is the issue of time. There is no going back, no matter how much we might want to do so. The train only moves in one direction, towards the final destination. Rewinding the clock is not an option. One could talk about the present but it is complicated, difficult, chaotic, and there are no concrete solutions. No one is interested in the future because all that matters now is getting by day to day. And any mention of past congresses is just a waste of time.

We will have to keep in mind what he says is largely determined by what the scribes, the guardians of official ideology and the bootlickers allow him to say. They exercise their influence by correcting speeches and inserting their own thoughts and ideas into the words of others. It would be a shame if this gang were responsible for Raul Castro’s last words to his party comrades. I am still hoping that the last of the Castros will pull a rabbit out of his hat and then retire to his eastern refuge.

The dream of any matador is to leave the bullring through the main gate of the plaza after a great performance, basking in the adulation of the crowd. But a time of severe economic crisis unlike any in the last five years is no time for communist fanfares. The people, the masses, would not understand. Though the crowd will not reward Raul with spoils of battle, he can at least try to leave the communist conclave with a good taste in its mouth. What will matter to the rest world, which in this case will be listening in, is that this will be the last time.

Therefore, if I were writing Raul Castro’s official farewell speech, I would recommend that he acknowledge the following:

That he did not have the courage to see the reform process he started to its conclusion. That he ended it too soon, succumbed to pressure and left things unfinished, with only 13% percent of the workforce employed in the private sector.

That he made a mistake in choosing his successor. That Diaz-Canel has not been up to the job, working on his doctorate in the middle of a crisis.

That the Castro family is out of control and possibly in danger. That they can be seen coddling their puppies while driving their high-speed luxury cars and hosting lavish banquets while most Cubans go hungry.

That, like his brother, he will not write anything in his final years of life. That he will retire and go fishing. That he will be happy.

That he has missed the chance to leave Cuba a big inheritance. That he no longer blames the U.S. embargo, or “blockade,” admitting it was always a secondary issue, that it was his brother’s thing, not his.

That he has left the nation’s economy in much worse shape than he found it. That he was not able reform the system and make it viable. That he acknowledge it is not viable and that he is leaving it to those who come after him to change it. That he insist this is something that must done.

That the momentum to restore relations with the United States faltered because he lacked political will and because his brother used his position as an influential writer to wreck the process from the sidelines. That there were too many missteps before Trump came along and everything fell apart.

That he has been unable to overcome the legacy of his brother, no matter how hard he tried. That people now speak less and less about Fidel and that, for this, we should all be grateful.

That there were too many years were spent stalling for time. That, yes, things should have changed during Perestroika, but Gorbachev upstaged Fidel, and Fidel never let anyone get in his way.

That, with him, the Castro dynasty ends. Once and for all. That he does not really care might happen to them other than that they stay safe, that he will leave them what he can. That they do not cry for him, that he doesn’t deserve it, that he be cremated and his ashes scattered in the Sierra Maestra, that they forget about him as though he had never existed.

That he ask forgiveness and walk away in silence.

____________

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: