Jeovany Jimenez Vega, 31 July 2019 — No, Mister Administrator, Cuba does not need to make peace with the United States in order to move forward, because this country’s future cannot be dependent on its relations with any foreign government, but on maintaining flexible and interactive relations with the largest possible number of commercial partners, with a dynamic economy truly open to the world, and with independent politics, as befits an archipelago, without any subordination or blackmail.
Perhaps when I say that, there are, in your subconscience, reverberations of long decades of absolute dependence on foreign economies — today called Venezuelan Chavomadurism, and yesterday Soviet Stalinism — and during that time the natural vassalage of the Havana regime was tied to an uninterrupted line of parasitism, without which the Cuban construct would have collapsed in just a few years, buried under the undeniable mediocrity of its architect in chief.
Nevertheless, Mister, in spite of everything, Cuba does not need the dictatorship you lead to normalise its relations with the United States. Cuba only requires, and very urgently, that those people, who so brutally misrule it, decide to normalise its relations with its own people. And to do that it isn’t necessary to look to the north for agreements with Washington, or down south to grab oil from Caracas, or to Mao in the far west, or to the new Czars of the post-Perestroika east. Just look to Cuba, to get out of the abyss, and enjoy a proper rule of law.
In a proper rule of law, Cubans could get together in different parties which, with their different points of view, would propose different ways out of the dreadful problems created by of the ankylosis of the ancient octogenarians, and could set up a proper basis for a participative democracy. This would produce a thriving civil society which would oblige the government to properly account for its acts, not like now, where it is judge and jury. But, seeing as this is hardly likely to happen, I would like to offer you here, Mister Administrator, another way out which, as you will see, does not involve the resignation of the government, but only improvement in the standard of life of my people.
To achieve that, all that would have to be done would be to free up the domestic market, create a legal framework for a reliable contractual process for all types of producers, with guaranteed due reward for their work; provide legal personality for all private and family businesses, so that they can run and market their businesses with real autonomy within and outside Cuba, without the interference which torments them now, as well as creating a fiscal system which guarantees fair, universal and organised taxation, with no exemptions.
They should authorise and unconditionally stimulate, and prioritize over everything, large scale investment by our expats, entirely in line with their natural right as Cubans, although they should also open up the country without fear, redesigning the legal framework, and always looking after our national interest, for an essential inward flow of investment, but on a realistic basis, and without the unfair regulations imposed by the current Law 118.
In line with more civilised social norms, any person, exercising freedom of opinion, would be able to denounce any abuse of the freedom of the press, or commence due legal process against any authority infringing his rights. All of this would create ideal conditions in which, in a short space of time, our small and medium private businesses would prosper, and, without doubt, in just a few years, our rate of development would rocket, for everyone’s benefit, and not just for the foul entrenched bourgeoisie. But such a new Cuba couldn’t flourish unless the despots, who now pull all the political strings, perpetuating the autocracy created by the obsessive neurotic who betrayed his people 60 years ago, move over. And that, Mister, is something the masters of this dive are not about to do.
As and when we come to it, any true solution to the Cuban problem has to include the abdication of the historic nomenklatura which continues to obstruct our progress, so that they can devote their time to raising jutias (a kind of large Cuban hamster), getting out of the way of a new reformist government, which is able to think in terms of the country and not just a political sect.
To achieve that, it needs you, Mister Administrator, to start asking your masters to get out of the way of this people who detest them, and you will see how, in the course of a single generation we will have a country which is unrecognisable, with a booming, prosperous economy, because we are yearning for our liberty, which is not so much held back by the embargo, fertilised by Fidel Castro’s litigant speechifying, but more by the internal blockage which you have just begun to notice, like someone who has just discovered cold water.
To cut a long story short, it would be something if your government, Mister Administrator, ratified the International Convenants on Civil and Political Rights, and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which, with chameleon-like cowardice, Raul Castro first signed, then shelved, more than ten years ago, which, obviously, tells you that you need to comply with legal obligations on human rights which affect millions of Cubans.
Mister Administrator, when we stop worrying about banana phantoms (Mexican banana and chocolate treats for kids, which look like ghosts), it will be a whole new day. Get rid of the dictators, and we will see a Cuban miracle in a few years! For this to come about doesn’t mean you have to normalise relations with the United States, but rather that the moribund Castrismo, which you are currently and passively managing, stops playing the neighbourhood bully, stops behaving like a totalitarian police state, and decides to coexist in peace with its own people.
Finally, and in short, start by putting together, from square one, all the country’s political and economic strategies, break away from this appalling stasis, and create conditions in which all our countrymen, in the island and outside it, without political discrimination, can start the urgent work of developing the Cuban nation.
Translated by GH
