Freedom House study reveals optimism in Cuba about economic reforms

The Freedom House report on Cuba released today finds that Cubans see real economic change there, and more Cubans now would rather work for themselves than hold once-prized state jobs.

When Raul Castro announced radical changes to the economic structure of communist Cuba, the country was in a semi-daze.

Many Cubans were excited about the prospects of economic change, particularly opening access to self-employment. But, as state jobs were slashed, many were also worried about going it alone after a lifetime of stable, if paltry, government salaries and subsidies.

But a new Freedom House survey released today shows a radical change in perceptions. Forty-one percent of Cubans say the country is making progress, compared to only 15 percent who felt optimistic about the country’s future when Freedom House last conducted field research in December 2010. In fact, today more Cubans say they would prefer to work for themselves than for the government, the survey shows.

Less than a year ago, Cubans were “very skeptical about change. They doubted real change would happen,” says Daniel Calingaert, deputy director of programs at Freedom House and co-author of the study. This survey was carried out in June, after reforms were implemented formally at the Sixth Communist Party Congress in April. And now, Mr. Calingaert says, Cubans see “change is real.”

This economic opening is the “most significant positive change to have taken place in Cuba since communism was introduced half a century ago,” the new survey concludes.

At first glance, Cuban optimism could be a good sign for the Castro government. But it could also pose additional challenges. Cubans who have tasted economic freedom say they want more, and a bit of stability has also allowed them the luxury to think beyond the day-to-day economics of feeding a family. “It’s opening people to new possibilities,” says Calingaert. “There is more interest in individual freedoms.”

Indeed, one of the more surprising findings is that, when asked what reforms they most wanted, Cubans said increased freedom of expression and the freedom to travel (28 percent). This is a radical change from the most recent study, when economic reform topped the wish list of respondents.

The Cuban government has a long way to go on the freedom front. Most Cubans continue to get their news from the government. The poll showed that only 40 percent of Cubans surveyed knew what happened to Egypt’s leaders, while only 36 percent knew how the revolution in Tunisia ignited.

Here are some of the survey’s specific major findings:

• 79 percent say they have noted visible change in the past six months in Cuba, including more self-employed on the streets.
   
• 63 percent of respondents favor the reforms introduced under Raul Castro. The report quotes an ice-cream vendor: “Imagine, I can make more money selling ice cream than I ever did as an accountant for the government.”
   
• 49 percent say that it is better to work for themselves, compared to 44 percent who say a government job is better.

That is not to say that Cubans aren’t wary of changes ahead of them. For example, the field research culled commentary from Cubans voicing concern about unsteady incomes, having enough funds to start their own businesses – especially those without family in the US to help – and growing resentment among less successful entrepreneurs.

“The changes are causing a sense of insecurity and resentment among some Cubans, as might be expected in a country where citizens were almost entirely dependent on government for their material needs and had no experience of market competition,” the report says. “Such insecurity and resentment accompanied the shift from communism to market economies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. While the insecurity and resentment presents a challenge for reform in Cuba, it is also a reflection of how profound are the changes that are currently underway.”

By Sara Miller Llana

Source: CSMonitor

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Cuba, Venezuela pose subtle, but real dangers to United States

Havana Malecon, summer 1994

This bicoastal discussion with a colleague began on Twitter. We are often — to avoid the absolutes — on different sides of most issues. This one exchange over the weekend was no different.

We were tweeting along, disagreeing respectfully, when she came up with a question that was difficult to answer in 140 characters. What danger do Cuba and Venezuela represent to the United States?

This was not a question of human rights, or of democracy, or even of communism. The question was simple and direct. I was stumped, particularly when limited in space. I have to admit that, in that Twitter conversation, I was check-mated.

This is why I resort to a lengthier format; one in which I am more comfortable in responding to my colleague.

Cuba and Venezuela do represent a serious dangers to the United States, but not directly in a militaristic way.

Cuba did at one point represent a very real danger to the United States — during the 1962 Missile Crisis, when armed with Soviet missiles the world came closer than ever to a nuclear war. That, however, was almost five decades ago — it will be 50 years ago in October 2012. Certainly, that is not the case now.

Still both Cuba and Venezuela, each in its own way, present a real and present danger to the United States today. No, the danger is not of a military invasion, or of terrorists attacking this country, or even of invading other countries in the region. Still, they represent a real and present danger to this country in many other ways.

First, let's start with Cuba. The Cuban regime has repeatedly used its people as weapons against the United States. It has done so at least three times, and could do it again at any point as a way of relieving the pressure from its failed economy. South Florida felt the brunt of its fury in the 1960s when Fidel Castro opened the Port of Camarioca in 1965, forcing the United States to adopt an orderly flow of exiles from Cuba that brought 270,000 Cubans to the United States over the next seven years.

Fifteen years later, Castro did it again when he opened the Port of Mariel and allowed 125,000 Cubans to cross the Florida Straits in less than five months. And in the mid-1990s, he allowed more than 33,000 people to flee on rafts in a few short weeks.

Back in the 1980s, then-Ambassador Victor Palmieri, director of Refugee Affairs in the State Department when Jimmy Carter was president, wrote in an unpublished paper that Mariel had been "an act of war." And this is a weapon Cuba can always use on the United States to test the will of a U.S. president.

Venezuela and Hugo Chávez, Castro's most advanced disciple, represent an enormous danger to U.S. diplomacy in the region. In much the same way that Castro tried to oust regimes in Latin America by helping guerrilla movements, Chávez now is the chief financial officer of the movement to elect socialist leaders in countries to set up an anti-American block in Latin America. For starters, we can talk about Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. All have been helped by Chávez, whose petrodollars feed anti-American sentiment in the region.

Cuba and Venezuela still support Iran, as well as Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who is now probably fighting for his life in the city of Serta against Libyans rebelling against his regime. They also back the Palestinian effort to be recognized as a nation, and quietly oppose the state of Israel.

Furthermore, Venezuela's armed forces have billions in new weapons purchased from Russia to please its generals, who are now heavily Involved — albeit secretly — in the drug trade. As Colombian rebels have lost power, it has moved across the border to Venezuela where its own armed forces supervise the drug trafficking to Europe and the United States.

The elected authoritarian regimes rising in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua are not a direct danger to the United States. They do represent, however, represent a danger to the freedoms of people in the hemisphere. Freedom of the press and human rights are constantly violated in these countries. People live in fear of their governments and thousands have been forced to flee their homeland.

But no, none of this represents a clear and direct danger to the United States; just to the type of government we would like our neighbors to our south to have. So point, set and match go to my colleague on the West Coast. Or does it?

By Guillermo I. Martínez

Source: Sun Sentinel 

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Cubans Escaping Castro's Economic "Reforms"

Cubans continue to "vote" against the Cuban regime

The number of Cubans intercepted at sea trying to reach the coast of Florida more than doubled in the last fiscal year according to figures released by the Department of Homeland Security. In the previous fiscal year, 422 Cubans were intercepted at sea by the Coast Guard, while in the fiscal year 2011 (which just ended on September 30th), 1,000 Cubans were caught. Moreover, the number of Cubans who actually reached the U.S. shore increased by 70%, from 409 in fiscal year 2010 to 696 in fiscal year 2011. This is the first rise in illegal Cuban immigration by sea in 3 years according to authorities.

This is yet another sign that the much heralded economic “reforms” announced by Havana aren’t working. The massive layoffs of hundreds of thousands of public employees undertaken by the government of Raúl Castro were meant to be absorbed by Cuba’s almost non-existent private sector. The Communist regime tried to ease the pressure by allowing private employment in 178 economic activities, such as masseurs, clowns, shoemakers, locksmiths, and gardeners. However, as I warned over a year ago, it capped the number of permits for these private activities at 250,000 while also penalizing the new entrepreneurs with stiff tax rates. It doesn’t take a Nobel Prize winner in economics to realize that Cuba’s nascent private sector wouldn’t be able to make room for all of the newly unemployed. What then for these people?

Earlier this year I talked to an official from the U.S. Interest Section in Havana who told me that we shouldn’t be surprised if we see a steady increase of Cubans trying to escape the island towards the United States. Faced with a dilapidated economy, hundreds of thousands of unemployed, and growing social unrest, the Castro regime wouldn’t hesitate in letting more Cubans use the “escape valve” of emigration. We might be seeing the first signs of this.

by Juan Carlos Hidalgo

Source: Cato@ Liberty

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Jackie Kennedy Held American Marxists Responsible for Castro

JFK and Jackie -1960 

While most of the media have focused on the Jackie Kennedy tapes as they pertain to such figures as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Lyndon Baines Johnson, there are fascinating parts of the conversations that demonstrate the anti-communism of President John F. Kennedy. In this context, Jackie singles out The New York Times for criticism for helping bring Castro to power.

One reason for the lack of attention to these excerpts may be that they shed light on one of the worst performances of the liberal media in the history of journalism. Partly as a result of the coverage of the Castro revolution by Herbert Matthews, the Times correspondent in Cuba, the Cuban people have been saddled with the Castro regime, which once hosted Soviet nuclear missiles targeting the U.S., for over 50 years.

National Review had published a caricature of Castro over the caption, “I got my job through the New York Times,” alluding to how the paper tried to promote classified advertising to job-seekers.

A book by Anthony DePalma, described as the dramatic story of “how a New York Times reporter helped Castro come to power,” referred to Matthews as “The Man Who Invented Fidel.”

Humberto Fontova’s book Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant explains how Matthews’ coverage helped Castro. “This is not a Communist revolution in any sense of the word,” Matthews wrote in 1959. “In Cuba there are no Communists in positions of control.” Matthews added, “Fidel Castro is not only not a Communist, he’s decidedly anti-Communist.”

Jackie indicates that the Kennedys accepted the view of one of their family friends, Ambassador Earl E.T. Smith, that The New York Times and the State Department were largely responsible for Castro’s rise to power and the fall of Fulgencio Batista.

Smith said that the U.S. government facilitated Batista’s downfall by withdrawing support for his government. But Smith also said that “Until certain portions of the American press began to write derogatory articles against the Batista government, the Castro revolution never got off first base.”

Smith said that Matthews’ columns “eulogized Fidel Castro, portrayed him as a political Robin Hood, and compared him to Abraham Lincoln.”

While JFK had no sympathy for Batista, he thought it was “awful” that President Eisenhower, a Republican, had permitted Castro to visit the U.S. after his seizure of power in Havana, said Jackie, going on to cite Smith’s book, The Fourth Floor, on how the U.S. State Department had paved the way for Castro’s takeover. The title is a reference to the officials responsible for Cuba policy who were on the fourth floor of the State Department.

Smith wrote that the Fourth Floor had a “close association” with the Times’ Matthews, “who gave the impression by his editorial conduct of advocating Batista’s downfall.”

Smith, ambassador to Cuba when Castro took over, spoke at an Accuracy in Media conference in 1979 when Castro’s communist comrades in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, were threatening a takeover of that country. Nicaragua was Cuba all over again, Smith said.

He signed a copy of his book to this columnist by saying, “To Cliff Kincaid in memory of ‘Accuracy in Media.’” It was a commentary on the failure of the Times to accurately depict Castro as the communist he was and the continuing failure by the media to factually describe the nature of communism and its adherents.

“We knew Earl Smith then, who’d been Eisenhower’s ambassador at the time,” said Jackie in the tapes featured in the book Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy. “When we were in Florida—that’s all Earl could talk about. Yeah, then Jack was really sort of sick that the Eisenhower administration had let him [Castro] come in and then The New York Times—what was his name, Herbert Matthews?” Jackie adds, “I can remember a lot of talk about it and wasn’t—didn’t even Norman Mailer write something?”

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who was interviewing Jackie, interjects, “Norman Mailer was very pro-Castro, yeah.”

When Schlesinger noted that Smith had written a book about Castro being a communist and working with the communists, Jackie replied, “Yeah—The Fourth Floor? Well, he was always saying his troubles with the State Department—I remember there was a man named Mr. Rubottom he kept talking about. And how hard it was—warning against Castro and how just it was like, I don’t know, dropping pennies down an endless well. He just never could get through to the State Department. So, I suppose he thought he was a Communist, yeah.”

Roy Rubottom was the Assistant Secretary of State at the time of Castro’s seizure of power.

Smith wrote in his book, “It cannot be maintained that the government of the United States was unaware that Raul Castro and Che Guevara, the top men of the 26th of July movement, are Communists, affiliated with international communism. There was ample evidence to that effect. I have shown in this book that it was impossible for Assistant Secretary of State Roy Rubottom, his associate William Wieland, and the Fourth Floor not to be aware of Fidel Castro’s communist affiliations.”

Wieland, the State Department’s chief of Caribbean affairs and a friend of Herbert Matthews, was accused of being a communist agent. Citing Nathaniel Weyl’s book, Red Star Over Cuba, Fontova says Wieland, who had partly grown up in Cuba, had been active in the Cuban Communist Party in the 1930s and had used the name “Guillermo Arturo Montenegro,” an alias he kept secret when he filled out a national security disclosure form. Wieland resigned in disgrace.

Analyzing U.S. policy, Smith wrote, “To make my point clear, let me say that we helped to overthrow the Batista dictatorship, which was pro-American and anti-communist, only to install the Castro dictatorship which was Communist and anti-American.”

Smith noted that, in a national broadcast on December 2, 1962, Castro declared, “I am a Marxist-Leninist and will be one until the day I die.”

Although JFK authorized an invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, Jackie alludes to the failure to follow through with adequate military force. “I mean,” she said, “the invasion in the beginning and then no air strike—half doing it and not doing it all the way…” The result was a slaughter of anti-communist Cubans in the invasion force and a victory for the Castro regime.

By Cliff Kincaid

Source: Gulag Bound

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Cuba After Castro

Social networks and media outlets have been spreading rumors on Fidel Castro's alleged death the past few weeks.. The speculations started in early August after an infected virus-email depicted the Cuban leader lying in a coffin. The fact that Castro has not appeared in public since the Communist party meeting in April 2011, and that he has stopped writing his editorials in the Cuban paper Granma elicited further suspicions about the status of his health. According to an op-ed in the Venezuelan paper El Universal, Castro's health situation is deteriorating; this could be the reason why Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez decided not to go back to Cuba to continue receiving chemotherapy, and instead decided to go to Hospital Militar Carlos Arvelo in Caracas for treatment.

The Venezuelan state-run media, however, assured everyone that Castro is alive and healthy. On September 7, the program La Hojilla, run on Venezuelan Television, aired an interview with a Fidel Castro looking in good shape, putting to rest rumors about his health. "Those who are at this moment enjoying and believing that Comandante Fidel had a stroke, I'm sorry to inform you that he is alive and kicking," said Mario Silva, the program's host. In the interview, Castro joked about the rumors about his death: "They've killed me off any number of times," he said. "The guys who make these predictions make me laugh, as if for me death would be bad news."

Future Scenarios

After the revolutions in the Arab world, some opinion makers have wondered whether Cuba could be also hit by a spontaneous uprising against the regime, in which the economic crisis might deepen, despite policies of liberalization.

The Spanish political magazine Atenea argued that after the death of the Comandante, a possible scenario for Cuba could be the continuation of market liberalization's reforms while at the same time trying to keep alive the ideology of Catroism. Last April 2011, during the 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, Raul Castro took further steps towards economic reform and political liberalization. Reuters reports that Castro's brother "in public statements… has accused government cadres of laziness, corruption, neglect and ideological rigidity and has repeatedly urged them to reject old revolutionary dogma and embrace new ways of thinking."

The death of a charismatic leader such as Fidel Castro, along with the pursuit of economic liberalization, could, however, lead to the disappearance of Castroism, and with it, the dictatorial regime -- but not without a price to pay. Raul Castro lacks charisma, historical legitimacy and the needed consensus among the government's elite. This is why the after-Fidel time could be characterized by a power vacuum and instability, followed by uprisings and infighting. If such a situation emerged, there is a risk that Cuba could become a failed state if the international community would not help its transition. Of course, that would totally depend on who did the helping. A failed state in Cuba would be am extremely dangerous scenario: drug cartels could take advantage of the instability on such a strategically-situated island.

According to Atenea, a possible political scenario for the post-Castro-era in Cuba would be a negotiated transition. If Raul Castro will not manage to continue his rule on the island, the Cuban economic and military elite – pressured by the socio-economic crisis – could be willing to share power-quotas with other sector of the society. Following the example of South Africa, where a negotiated transition was led by Nelson Mandela, Atenea suggests that a Cuban dissident could be the means of democratizing the country. Again, the success of that, for Cuba and for the world, would depend on which dissident.

The path thorough democratization will not be easy for Cuba, a country for five decades under the grip of a dictatorship. Unless the Cuban people suddenly start an uprising against the regime, however, the Castro brothers have no intention of giving up power. As Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said, Fidel Castro is more alive than ever, and willing to continue the fight against "Imperialism." Any popular revolt would be instantly repressed by the powerful Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, who now control 60% of the economy. In order to avoid giving up to this privileges, they will defend Castor's regime to the death.

Economic Liberalization

The fake news about Castro's death succeeded in bringing back the question of whether the ideology of Castroism can survive after Castro. Many analysts argue that Catroism is doomed to disappear: the island has no other choice but to liberalize its economy to overcome its current economic crisis. Some cautious measure towards the openness of the market has already taken place in Cuba under the presidency of Fidel Castro's brother Raul. Even Fidel Castro himself admitted that the Communist economic model failed: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he confessed last September, 2010.

As pointed out by a University of New Mexico paper by Mario Rivera, Cuba found it necessary long ago "to put into effect market-oriented policies," especially to address the severe economic crisis triggered by the loss of Soviet support after 1989 that left the country with nothing to sustain it. However, "even the most spontaneous and forceful change is occurring within revolutionary bounds, and… the fits and starts of liberalization policy have simply manifested the tactical agility of Cuban leaders. In this view, the cyclical nature of economic policymaking in Cuba is not cause for concern so much as a corollary of pluralism—of a plurality of intersecting and competing interests within the confines of a socialist civil society. The creation of mixed enterprises, joint ventures, and other hybrid forms of commerce, and the rise of managerial, entrepreneurial, and other social networks in the economy, is an indication of a potential for the development of capable institutions, both public and private, in a democratic direction," the paper noted.

by Anna Mahjar-Barducci

Source: Hudson New York 

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Cuba: Situation created at Havana church as dangerous as Waco

The church has been surrounded by a tight cordon of police forces.

A top Cuban church official told CBS News the situation created by a Pentecostal pastor who has barricaded himself along with an unspecified number of followers in his former Havana church is "as dangerous as Waco," the 1993 FBI siege and assault on the "Branch Davidian" sect in Texas.

The Cuban government on Sunday issued a statement on what it called "the unusual situation" in the Pentecostal Church in Centro Habana. The statement said more than 60 people, including 19 children and four pregnant women, were voluntarily locked in the building on a "spiritual retreat."

Authorities were able to convince those inside to allow doctors in to check on the pregnant women, the statement said, but expressed concern over their condition should they remain in the church for a prolonged period. The statement also expressed concern for the children who are missing classes.

The statement was the second news item on state-run television's evening newscast Sunday. It said the Pentecostal Church that had relieved the church's pastor, Braulio Herrera Tito, of his duties.

The Rev. Marcial Hernandez, President of Cuba's Council of Churches and himself a pastor of an Evangelical Pentecostal Church, says he doesn't know the exact number of people inside with Pastor Braulio, but other sources put the number at 62.

The building, which houses the Assembly of God Pentecostal Evangelical Church of Cuba, has been surrounded by a tight cordon of police forces since Friday evening. All traffic and including bus routes have been diverted and only those people who can show proof that they live in that area are allowed through police lines.

Residents of the heavily populated and rundown neighborhood of Centro Habana where the church stands say the pastor told his followers the end of the world is coming and only by locking themselves into the church with him could they be saved.

The leader of another cult, who did not want to be identified, said that he and his congregation had been allowed to share the space of this church for their activities until two weeks ago when the pastor threw them out. Neighbors reported that large quantities of food and water were taken into the church before the doors were locked from the inside.

Hernandez says Braulio "regrettably" wandered from the canons set by his church and for the past year disobeyed orders from the National Assembly of Pentecostal Churches to return to doctrine leading to his dismissal.

Braulio has refused to leave the building, which belongs to the Pentecostal Church from which he was expelled. The National Assembly of Pentecostal Churches took the case to the Cuban courts which ruled in their favor.

Hernandez took Braulio to task for "not wanting to respect either the laws of his Church or of Cuba." He suggested the man was arbitrarily acting on impulse and because the Pentecostal churches are organized by congregations, Braulio has his followers who he convinced to lock themselves in with him.

The Council of Churches, Hernandez says, has not had any contact with Braulio, respecting the jurisdiction of the National Assembly of Pentecostal Churches to handle the situation. However, he said the Council would step in if that body asked for help, which it hasn't yet done. He voiced the opinion that Braulio needed psychiatric help.

All denominations of churches in Cuba have swelled since the economic crisis of the 1990s. The number of evangelicals in Cuba has grown from roughly 70,000 to more than 800,000 today, out of a population of 11 million, according to church sources.

Analysts say that modern evangelical Christianity with its boisterous music and passionate sermons is more appealing to Cubans, particularly poorer ones, than the more conservative practices of the Catholic Church and traditional Protestant denominations. Santeria and other Afro-Cuban religions also retain a strong hold over the population.
 
By Portia Siegelbaum

Source: CBS

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Chavez's illness spells trouble for Cuba

Hugo Chavez back in Venezuela, last Monday, the 4th July.

Cuba depends on Venezuela for billions of dollars in subsidies that could disappear if Chavez doesn't recover.

As Hugo Chavez boarded a plane here early Monday for his return to Caracas, he stood on the tarmac with Raul Castro and offered some parting words of reassurance: “Venezuela and Cuba are the same thing, the same country,” he said.

And that, precisely, is what’s at stake for Cuba with Chavez now battling cancer. Billions in Venezuelan subsidies to the island — and other regional left-leaning allies — are riding on his recovery.

Two decades after the Soviet Union’s implosion brought chronic blackouts to Cuba and sent the island’s economy into a ditch, Havana is once again highly dependent on foreign largess to keep the lights on. Chavez provides Cuba with more than two-thirds of its petroleum needs, and the island earned an estimated $3.5 billion in trade last year with Venezuela, its largest source of hard currency.

Chavez, 56, has not disclosed what type of cancer he has, or what the prognosis is, only that he had a growth described as a pelvic abscess removed and that “cancerous cells” were discovered by Cuban surgeons.

When he landed Monday in Venezuela in preparation for his country’s bicentennial celebration, Chavez appeared upbeat and energetic, sending out messages to his 1.7 million Twitter followers and assuring television audiences he was “devouring” his meals.

But in Havana, it has been the start of concern. Chavez’s imperiled health brings new attention to the fragility of Cuba’s economy, at a time when 80-year-old Raul Castro is struggling to put the island’s finances in order and proceed with carefully managed, incremental liberalization measures.

Cuba’s communist government is planning to lay off hundreds of thousands of state employees over the coming years and is allowing the expansion of small private businesses and cooperatives. One big reason Havana can afford to conduct the reforms at its own pace is the dependable revenue coming from Caracas.

If Chavez’s rule were to end because of his illness or impact his December 2012 re-election bid, the return of 40,000 Cubans now working in Venezuela — mostly in the health care sector — would create still more financial strain for the Castro government.

Of greater worry is Cuba’s energy supply. Steady oil shipments from Venezuela have largely eliminated the chronic blackouts that plagued Cuba in the early 1990s and led to riots in Havana, as well as the chaotic departure of thousands of rafters for the U.S.

Back then, Fidel Castro was still at the height of his political powers, taking to the airwaves almost daily to pull Cubans through the crisis by the sheer force of his will. Now he’s 85, and far too frail to rally the country once more.

Public unrest in Cuba is closely linked to the power supply — especially during the torrid summer months — and over the past decade, Cuba has stabilized its electrical grid by installing a series of relatively small fuel-burning power plants. They run mostly on Venezuelan crude, and even as oil prices climbed over $100 a barrel in recent months, Cuba has continued to enjoy a reliable energy supply.

Cuba isn’t likely to find a quick alternative to Venezuelan oil, either. The island produces about 50,000 barrels of oil per day from domestic sources, used mostly for generating electricity. Spanish oil consortium Repsol is planning to begin drilling in offshore beds along Cuba’s north coast in the coming months, but even if it has a major strike, experts say it will take years to bring the crude to market.

Then there are hundreds of other commercial and trade agreements with Venezuela that could be jeopardized if the country’s next president isn’t as simpatico. Cubans privately worry those arrangements may be only as healthy as Chavez himself, a man who views Fidel Castro as his political father figure.

Other socialist allies around the region, like Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, are also highly reliant on Venezuelan oil diplomacy, along with the 19 nations of the Petrocaribe alliance, whom Chavez buffers from the global oil market’s volatility.

Chavez insists he is fine, and on the path to full recovery. In a written “Reflection” dedicated to Chavez’s illness Monday, Castro said the Venezuelan president had launched “a decisive battle” that “will lead him and his country to a great victory.”

But that victory now depends on the Cuban oncologists tasked with saving Chavez. While the location and stage of his cancer has been kept secret, experts speculate the area of affliction could be Chavez’s colon or prostate. A late-stage form of colon cancer would be extremely dangerous.

Chemotherapy treatments could force Chavez to withdraw from public view again, so his return to Caracas this week may also be a final attempt to put his political team in order before a lengthy absence.

Nick Miroff 

Source: Global Post

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Cuba to allow foreigners, migrants to buy and sell homes

"For Sale"

The Cuban government is to allow private individuals, including foreign residents and Cubans who moved abroad, to buy and sell homes and cars by the end of the year, the Communist Party daily Granma said Friday.

The Council of Ministers made the decision last weekend, as it sought to build on the economic recommendations made by the recent Communist Party Congress.

'The agreements that were made by the Congress will not be shelved away,' Cuban President Raul Castro was quoted in Granma as saying to government officials.

Castro has long insisted on the need for economic reform in communist Cuba, particularly to strengthen the private sector. He sees this as the best way to overcome the serious financial difficulties that currently affect the country.

Cubans who live on the island and foreigners with permanent residence within its borders will now be allowed to buy, sell, exchange or donate homes.

'It will be possible to transfer to partners, ex partners and relatives to a fourth degree of kinship the homes belonging to Cuban individuals who leave the country for good, as long as they have permanently lived with the owner for five years,' the report said.

The new policy, according to Granma, seeks among others 'to contribute to solving the home-deficit problem' in Cuba.

Source: M&C

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Clouds in my Cuban coffee

The writer returns to the country of her birth, only to have her illusions met by hard reality.

Our family was lucky. Or at least that’s what my parents told me, over and over again. “We got out of Cuba just in time.” First my mother, with my two siblings and me in 1960. Then my father, shortly before the revolutionaries appropriated the family business. My grandmother waited the longest, emigrating the following summer. She left her husband behind, forever as it turned out. He stayed in Havana to take care of a younger brother who had been imprisoned by Castro’s regime for “collaborating with the CIA.”

After I married and had children of my own, I began dreaming of returning to Cuba. My situation was complicated, though. First, because I am now a U.S. citizen. Second, because both sides of my family had been part of the hated bourgeoisie before the Cuban revolution and had openly opposed Fidel Castro.

I called my uncle in Washington, D.C., for advice. He’d been the mayor of Havana and ambassador to the United States under former president Ramón Grau. He discouraged me from going, warning that it would not be safe for any member of our family to return. My father agreed. He knew Fidel well — he had crossed paths with him every day in the hallways of their private Jesuit high school. “He was a bully then,” he said, his face darkening, “and he is a paranoid bully now. You might get in, but you might not get out.” Still, one afternoon, he drew a map of Havana with an engineer’s precision and carefully marked a half-dozen places of interest in red pencil: the family business, our home in Havana, my grandparents’ houses.

My maternal grandmother lived with us in New Jersey after she emigrated. One summer morning, she patted a spot beside her and told me a secret. Just before she fled Cuba, she whispered conspiratorially, she had hired a master carpenter to hide a few precious belongings under the staircase of her home. A box of photographs. A bundle of letters. Family heirlooms, nestled in velvet and gold-brocade drawstring pouches. “Si regresas a La Habana,” my grandmother concluded, squeezing my hands too tightly, “If you make it back to Havana . . . promise me, Ali, that you will go to my house and get my things.”

Twice, in my 30s and again in my 40s, I wrote letters and submitted applications for entry as a visiting journalist. I didn’t get very far, and I set aside my dream — until my eldest brother died unexpectedly, at age 51. He was cremated, and we scattered his ashes in the Atlantic Ocean hoping the sea would carry him to Cuba, his homeland. As the dark clot of cremains dissipated in the lapping waves, the familiar longing rose in me. Suddenly, nothing seemed more important than returning to Cuba.

I quit my publishing job of 27 years. I found a new job in education that qualified me to conduct research in Cuba.

I spent long hours online and on the phone investigating potential itineraries. Finally, on the off chance that I’d satisfy both countries’ requirements for legal travel, I paid a well-connected Cuban travel agent to process a thick stack of forms and documents.

It was madness, but it worked. At the 11th hour, I received a phone call from the agent, who told me she was holding in her hands the Cuban government’s entry permit. She was as surprised as I was. “The Cuban officials must not have looked closely at your application. You’re very lucky.”

Three weeks later, on Aug. 1, 2009, I stood in line at Miami International Airport with a lively group of Cuban families waiting to board a chartered flight to Havana. The minute our plane lifted off the runway, the passengers broke out in applause. Flushed with excitement, my seatmate said, “Life is very, very hard in Cuba, but we miss it terribly all the same. There is no more beautiful place on Earth.”

At José Martí airport in Havana, I breezed through the H1N1 screening line, customs line and luggage tax line. As I approached the fourth and final line, I eyed the exit. “Wait!” the official I’d handed my declaration card to commanded. “What is this?” A hairy index finger stabbed the line where I’d written “U.S. citizen.”

“I have my passport right here,” I stammered, confused by his tone. “I can show it to —”

“No!” he barked. Then he theatrically shredded the declaration card and called over another official to cover his post. When he led me away to a private area of the airport, I panicked. But he simply whipped out a fresh form and helped me fill it out “correctly.”

“Look, your U.S. citizenship does not mean anything here,” he explained. Eres cubana, entiendes? “You are Cuban, got it? You might have a house and some official papers in America, but you will always be Cuban. That is what you must write here.”

I expected smooth sailing from then on. I was wrong. As I stepped outside the airport into suffocating heat, I found myself, like Alice in Wonderland, mystified by the strange, new world I’d tumbled into. Only this was no wonderland.

The experiences of the next seven days were deeply disorienting. When I told the cab driver my destination was the Hotel Habana Libre, he said bitterly, “I am not welcome in your hotel, because I am dark-skinned. The government thinks tourists are more comfortable around light-skinned people. Even when my relatives from America come for a visit and stay here, I am not allowed to go up to their room.”

I was genuinely surprised. Given that Cuba’s population is over 50 percent black and the government prides itself on equality and the common good, I thought race relations would be better. I asked the driver if this hotel was an exception. He snorted and bounced the cab over a curb and into the hotel’s circular driveway.

Still, nothing could dampen my spirits. I was here! And I was about to enter the famed “Havana Hilton,” as the hotel was originally christened. My father’s first cousin launched his career as an architect here, designing one of the grand ballrooms. My young parents had strolled through the magnificent lobby, undoubtedly admiring the three-storey atrium. I was born in April 1958, just one month after the grand opening. Perhaps I had walked through these very doors myself as a toddler.

But as I approached the main entrance, I tensed. Uniformed guards flanked the doorway. Plainclothes police with poorly hidden earpieces moved silently through the lobby. Glancing around as I waited in line to register, I spotted the cold eye of a surveillance camera tucked among plastic foliage.

Never far from watchful eyes, I followed the pre-approved itinerary exactly. I attended canned lectures, toured designated schools and interviewed teachers and university professors for my “research project.” I learned little of any consequence in these government-sponsored venues. A few hours online would have been more fruitful.

It was not easy to access the Internet, though, even in the hotel. Guests had to turn over their passports to the computer-room clerk before using the shared computers, and the Internet connection was extremely slow. Phone calls were monitored, too, in the glass-enclosed booths of the hotel telephone centre, where a helpful operator dialed all calls and, I’m told, listened in.

Some days, though, the itinerary allowed for a few unscheduled and unsupervised hours to rest or shop. On these days, I quickly changed into a simple housedress and sandals and struck out alone. It was these solitary excursions — and the spontaneous encounters they occasioned — that made my visit worthwhile. I walked slowly, taking in the rich colours and scents of royal purple bougainvillea, blood-red hibiscus and the fiery blossoms of framboyan trees, and greeting the Cubans squatting in doorways and loitering in storefronts, striking up random conversations. A surprising number were friendly and willing to talk, to tell their stories.

It’s true, these Cubans told me, that the government provides free health care and education. Every Cuban has a roof over his head and food on her table. But since the 1990s and the fall of the Soviet Union, the shortages in medicine, housing and food have eroded confidence in the regime. “It got so bad,” one woman told me in a hushed voice, “little children got horrible diseases. Some people became blind, and some people” — she formed a noose with a hand cupped around her neck — “you know. They just gave up.”

A Cuban lawyer complained about the lack of access to world news. “How many channels can you watch in your hotel?” he asked me with boyish curiosity. He peppered me with questions about U.S. President Barack Obama, the American economy and our education system. The popularity of a half-dozen Cuban bloggers and Raúl Castro’s promise to make the Internet and mobile phones more accessible had led me to believe that information from the outside world was seeping into Cuba. But my casual acquaintances howled with laughter when I asked if they had mobile phones. “I can’t afford eggs for my children or a tin can of paint for my house,” one said. “Those things are only for the military and high officials.”

One rainy day, an elderly woman invited me inside her kitchen for a cup of café cubano. Spotting a crucifix above the table, I asked her about religious practice in the country. “It is easier now,” she told me, “but if you are young it can prevent you from getting a good job.” She hesitated, then blurted: “My pastor was killed two weeks ago.”

“Oh, no. What happened?” I asked. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and twisted a corner of the floral tablecloth. “It was an attempted robbery,” she said finally, avoiding eye contact. I stopped asking questions.

One experience was lighter, if no less sobering. I joined a busload of tourists on a day trip to the countryside. Our destination was a post-revolutionary Cuban community with an impressive array of social services, a well-equipped community centre and sparkling white-washed bungalows dotting the forested hillside. At the model home near the end of our tour, I hung back to thank the family who’d so kindly greeted us. “It must be difficult for you with all us tourists traipsing through your house every day,” I said in Spanish. The grandmother exchanged a furtive glance with her daughter and nodded. “How long have you lived here?” I asked. She answered vaguely, “A while.” When she learned I was born in Cuba, she invited me to join her and her daughter for coffee in a back room. “We don’t really live here,” her daughter offered as I sipped the sweet espresso. “It’s a great job, but our real house is five minutes away. We come here every day for the tourists. Anyway, we’re lucky to be able to live in this community. The government keeps it nice for the tourists. There’s a waiting list to get in.”

Halfway through my visit, I abandoned the idea of retrieving my grandmother’s possessions. Not only because it would be impossible to gain admittance to her former home, which sat squarely in the capital’s Embassy Row, but also because my romantic daydreams had been impaled by the real and present desperation of the Cuban people. I had not travelled to Cuba expecting to see the paradise of my parents’ memories, of course, but I had hoped that things would be better for the average Cuban. Life still seemed impossibly hard here.

As I sat at the gate in José Martí airport waiting for the charter plane that would carry me back to the United States, I couldn’t help wondering: How much has really changed in Cuba? The military and high-ranking government officials are Cuba’s new bourgeoisie, indifferent to the suffering of their fellow citizens. We tourists and researchers are kept in the dark, steered toward upscale resorts, hotels, restaurants and shops that few Cubans can enter, much less patronize. We visit Potemkin villages erected for our benefit, and our dollars line the pockets of the privileged.

On the last day of my visit, an American university professor and socialist sympathizer said, “Every year I visit Cuba hoping that things will be better. This is my sixth visit.” He and I discussed how U.S. policy helped cripple Cuba’s economy and isolate its citizens. In the previous week, I had asked several officials and as many ordinary Cubans some variation of the question, “What should I tell Americans about Cuba and the Cuban people?” Some responded that I should tell Americans about the Cuban people’s ingenuity, resiliency and national pride despite the country’s troubles; others spoke of the Cuban people’s keen sense of humour and achievements in the arts and sciences. But everyone, absolutely everyone, repeated one particular message: Tell the American people to lift the blockade, not just for economic reasons, but for the sake of intercambio — the human exchange that inevitably leads to mutual transformation.

By Alicia von Stamwitz 

Alicia von Stamwitz was born Alicia Ramirez de Arellano. She lives in St. Louis.

Source: UC Observer

Cuba Before Castro

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New golf courses in Cuba? Not yet

The only golf course in Havana.

Golf in Cuba has been talked about for many years but building golf courses in Cuba requires a delicate mix of Capitalism and Communism.

The Capitalists aren’t going to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in development and the Communists don’t want to give up government owned land and allow for “inequalities” in the Communist system. Currently there is a government owned golf course in Havana for foreigners and the Varadero Golf Club.

Until recently, foreign owned golf course development in Cuba was all talk and no action but that could be changing. Maybe…

The Cuban government has recently announced the easing real estate ownership laws for foreign investors by allowing 99 year leases of land, villas and other property. This allows buyers to get bank financing so now developers have the incentive to build the golf courses so they can sell the villas, condos, timeshares etc that will compliment them. However, the Cuban property laws have not yet been published so developers are preparing for golf course development but until the laws are published, no one knows the details of ownership. Also, no development group has received final approval from the Cuban government. ALL are in some phase of “negotiation”. So, is this time any different? Here is the summary golf course development projects currently “in development” in Cuba, from oldest to newest.

Leisure Canada

From Business Week company description: “Leisure Canada Inc. engages in the development of hotel and resort properties in Cuba. It also develops golf courses. The company was founded in 1986 and is based in Vancouver, Canada”.

From this 1999 Leisure Canada press release: “The Le Meridien Village Jibacoa will form the cornerstone of Leisure’s 5.5 sq. km property in Jibacoa, Cuba, with an anticipated start of construction in September 1999. To add to this, the Company plans additional 1600 vacation ownership golf villas and condominiums, strategically located around two golf courses and marinas.”

In the 25 year history of Leisure Canada, the company has NEVER broke ground on ANY project in Cuba and its entire business model is real estate and golf course development in Cuba. Now the company is trying to raise “working capital”. Note that their stock has been flat or down since the Cuban government started announcing favorable news to golf course developers. One would think that this publicly traded, Cuba focused development company’s stock would jump on such news but savvy investors with an eye towards Cuba know that what is said and what is done in Cuba are two VERY different things. However, one would expect this stock to pop when the Cuban government actually announces that a golf course development project has actually broken ground in Cuba.

Carbonera Club

From a June 2008 article: “A British company in which Sir Terence Conran is involved has set up a strategic partnership with the ministry to develop the first of several golf resorts on the Caribbean island. The Carbonera Country Club Resort, which is due to open in 2011, will be developed by Esencia Hotels & Resorts. Carbonera is one of five golf projects in Cuba given the go-ahead by the authorities, three of them by Spanish developers and one by a Canadian company.

The Carbonera Club press release from the same time “Construction of the Carbonera Golf & Country Club will commence in 2009.”

Nope. Never happened. So, are things different now with Standing Feather’s Loma Linda Golf Estates (see below) announcement? The Cuban government has made positive statements about golf course development and real estate for sale in Cuba but until the Cuban government itself makes an announcement that ANY golf course project has begun, don’t believe the hype.

La Altura

A British-Spanish group hired Foster + Partners to design a gigantic golf course community near Bahia Honda west of Havana featuring three golf courses and a 200-slip marina. Estimated cost to be $1 billion with plans to spread out over more than 1000 hectares featuring more than 2000 apartments and timeshare units.

According to CubaNews.com, the units will be in clusters of 964 units near the golf courses, 450 near the marina, another 308 adjacent to a lake and another 300 next to a planned golf academy. In addition, 293 single-family homes are planned on parcels of 1,500 to 2,000 square meters each.

Also planned are two five-star hotels—a 300-room oceanfront tower and a 120-room property near the golf courses. In addition, the resort will have its own airstrip, which currently measures 800 meters. That runway will be extended to between 1,800 and 2,000 meters, large enough to accommodate Boeing 737 or Airbus 320 jets capable of carrying 150-200 passengers each.

Bello Monte

The Bellomonte project on Guanabo beach, just east of Havana, calls for about 800 units ringing one golf course, plus a small marina.

Guanahacabibes

According to CubaStandard.com, La Playa Golf & Resorts S.L. is planning to build a resort centered around seven golf courses. This is proposed to be a giant 4,000-hectare project including apartments, villas, townhouses, three boutique hotels, a golf academy, marina, sport fishing club, and a horseback riding center.

Loma Linda Golf Estates

The most recent announcement by Standing Feather from Ontario Canada states that this company is ready to break ground after almost a decade of negotiations. The 99 year lease plan was important to Standing Feather since the company not only wants to build a golf course but wants to sell villas and and condos. All golf course developers will want to sell villas and condos, that’s where the money is… not from fees for rounds of golf.

While the New York Times reported that Standing Feather had received “preliminary approval” with the Cuban government, the Globe and Mail reports that the company is “hoping to finalize a deal this August to create a joint venture”.

The Times article goes on to say that the company “signed a memorandum of agreement with the Cuban government in late April and will be the first to break ground, in September”.

From the Standing Feather website, the company is in the “final stage of negotiation with our Cuban partners, and the imminent formation of the Cuba-Kanata Golf SA joint venture”.

Summary

Until the Cuban government itself makes an announcement that construction of ANY golf course has begun, we’ll all have to be patient because everything else is either posturing or simply hype. Why? Because first, this is Cuba we are talking about so nothing can be independently verified because there is no free press in Cuba and second, we have seen this type of announcement before… many times.

Rob Sequin 

Havana Journal

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Has Cuba Lost its Last Chance?

Raúl Castro’s consolidation of his position as successor to his brother Fidel confirms that his Cuba will give the military domestic hegemony, which makes any serious political or economic opening in the near future seemingly impossible. The Cuban Communist Party’s recent Sixth Congress reflected this, offering little new and rehashing a lot of the old.

Since ill health forced Fidel Castro to retire from Cuba’s leadership, Raúl has opened the doors to the military and pushed out even those civilians who had been his brother’s trusted associates. While Fidel wrote doctrinaire articles in the official press, the armed forces took over politics and production. Fidel’s appearance at the Party’s congress – an event full of political significance, because he has only rarely participated in public events since becoming sick in 2006 – seemed to confirm his support for this outcome.

We now know that the congress had been put off for 14 years, owing to deep divisions among Cuban leaders. The civilian group that was ousted wanted to adapt the “Chinese model” of gradual economic reforms initiated by the Party. Raúl and his military cronies, however, cornered Fidel and imposed their group’s criteria.

In Asian communism – as practiced in China and Vietnam, in particular – the Party leadership rotates periodically, and a civilian leadership controls the military. Systemic nepotism in the top political and military leadership exists only in North Korea.

By contrast, Cuba’s new Raúlist political structure takes its inspiration from the purest tradition of Latin American military caudillismo, using communist ideology pragmatically. The model is clearly revealed in the nature of Raúl’s proposed reforms. The economy’s most dynamic industries – namely, mining and tourism – are reserved for the military, which manages them in a business-like, profit-seeking way.

Only in these privileged sectors can some reforms be seen. The “new class” that populates them does not demonize foreign capital. Indeed, there are talks centered on debt, with some creditors interested in the mechanics of capitalization.

For the rest of the economy, the Party’s position recalls the famous line from Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo (The Leopard): something must change so that everything else can remain the same. The sale of buildings and vehicles will be legalized and self-employment authorized, mainly in the service sector. But, lacking capital and forced to pay taxes, what fate awaits industries driven by the state into the market?

Nearly 1.5 million Cubans will never have a stake in the industries controlled by the military bourgeoisie. Nor was the issue of land ownership resolved: only a few plots will be leased in some form.

As a result, Cuba will continue to import a lot of food, most of it at a price that the population cannot afford. Moreover, ordinary Cubans fear that their ration cards – their only means of getting food – will be canceled. Indeed, according to Raúl, the state-controlled food-rationing system is a “factor of immobility,” but no one knows what might replace it.

The Sixth Congress ignored questions of human rights. Neither freedom of the press nor access to information was on the agenda, and the opposition will continue to be ignored, its only options being conditional freedom or exile. Migration, an option financed by remittances from relatives in the United States, was not made any more flexible, either.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, many believed that the Cuban regime would take the road to reform, however grudgingly. But the democratic transitions in Eastern Europe made Fidel Castro wary, so the first opportunity for a similar transition in Cuba was lost. Now an opportunity to introduce young blood and new ideas has similarly been missed: although the Sixth Congress adopted a ten-year limit for holding office, the two people designated to succeed Raúl Castro are both octogenarians.

In the 1980’s, Deng Xiaoping warned that China would collapse if it didn’t change; Raúl has said the same thing. But Deng chose real reform and real change, appealing to overseas Chinese, whom the Party had demonized for many years, to bet on the country’s future and invest. The diaspora listened – the beginning and the secret of the reforms that put China on the path to its current economic success.

Cuba cannot remain isolated, dependent on Venezuelan petrodollars and penalized by America’s ill-conceived trade embargo. Any realistic agenda for change in Cuba inexorably requires opening up to the world, along with ensuring full freedom within the country. Unfortunately, the Sixth Congress demonstrated that the Cuban Communist Party remains in denial about the country’s prospects and options.

Carlos Perez Llana

Source: The Guatemala Times

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Communist jalopy creeps to capitalism

The "good" old times are over long time ago.

The communist utopia that Fidel Castro hoped to bring to Cuba with the revolution he led more than 50 years ago has, from all indications, collapsed into a stifling stasis for everyday Cubans.

Most live in the same abode from birth to death, and struggle to maintain either rickety cars imported from the Soviet Union more than two decades ago, or 1950s-era jalopies that, on these shores, would be wheeled out at classic car shows. Few new products or ideas enter Cuba, thanks in part to America's long-running economic embargo, and few Cubans ever see the world beyond their island thanks to Byzantine travel restrictions.

Anyone who is waiting on the edge of their seat for the regime to fall should probably lean back and get comfortable - a popular uprising like those that brought down totalitarian governments from East Germany to Egypt doesn't appear to be in the offing. But there are some indications that Cuba's rulers are opening the door, a tiny bit, to some economic reforms.

A Communist Party gathering in April approved new guidelines that would allow Cubans to buy and sell houses and cars on a limited basis, let private farmers use state land and, possibly, let cooperatives bypass the maze of state bureaucracy and send their products straight to consumers.

While it's barely American-style, go-go capitalism, it's at least a start. Like a stubborn music buff who refuses to part with his eight-track tapes, Cuba is one of the few remaining communist regimes in the world, and the day when it also crumbles seems an inevitability. One can't help believing that we could help hasten its demise by lifting the economic embargo that has been in effect since the Kennedy administration.

Exposure to other cultures and ways of life has proven to be the undoing of other iron-fisted regimes before, and that's why your garden-variety dictator is reluctant to see satellite dishes sprout up on the sides of those drab apartment buildings that seem to be the hallmark of totalitarian societies. As the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once pointed out, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

Source: Observer Reporter

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AP Report on Cuba's May Day Reads Mostly Like Castro Propaganda Piece

Where are the changes? Photo Courtesy of Gonzalo Obes.

The guess here is Associated Press writers Peter Orsi and Andrea Rodriguez believe their May Day dispatch from Cuba represents an example of objectivity and insightful analysis. Anyone with knowledge of how a country under the iron grip of a five-decade Communist dictatorship really operates would beg to differ.

The AP pair leaves readers with the impression that although Cubans are impatient to learn the details of the economic changes the government has passed but not revealed, they are generally supportive of whatever improvements might occur -- as if anyone in the island nation is really free to speak their mind.

Readers might be able to determine for themselves that a decidedly unfree situation exists, but Orsi and Rodriguez ignored a Radio Marti report (translated here by Google's translator, and probably more accurately here by Babalu Blog) that the government launched a wave of repression in advance of May Day to ensure that there would be no disruption of its planned events. The AP pair only needed to cite the report without endorsing it; that they wouldn't even do this betrays either ignorance or a willingness to let readers believe completely unsupported assertions about potential improvement in a country that is the third most economically repressive regime on earth according to the Heritage Foundation's 2011 Index of Economic Freedom. Of the countries evaluated, only Zimbabwe and North Korea were worse.

Here are selected paragraphs from Orsi's and Rodriguez's report (numbered tags are mine):

Cubans mark May Day, await details of change

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched through Havana and other cities on Sunday to mark May Day in a demonstration touted as a vast show of support for economic changes recently approved by the Communist Party - even though the people holding placards and shouting slogans haven't seen the details yet. [1]

Nearly two weeks after the party endorsed President Raul Castro's bet to fix the island's broken economy through limited free-market reforms, the government has not released specifics of the 311-point guidelines, or said when it will do so.

The parade, always a big event on the communist-run island, has nevertheless been touted by the official party newspaper, Granma, as "the best chance for Cuban workers to ratify ... their backing for the accords." [2]

... Still, many in Havana said they were impatient to see the actual details of the changes.

"I would like to know what the guidelines have that's new, because so far it seems to be a lot of noise and nothing concrete," said Manuel Pedrosi, 56, who was just a small boy when Fidel and Raul Castro's revolution succeeded in 1959. "But if we've waited 50 years, we can wait a little longer."

The economic measures approved unanimously and en bloc at a party summit April 19 include potential blockbusters that would open a door in the island's tightly controlled economic system, such as legalizing the buying and selling of private property and providing bank credit to finance small businesses. [3]

... While Cubans have generally welcomed the economic overhaul, some expressed impatience with the lack of clarity. Some say they are anxious to go into business for themselves or buy a home big enough to accommodate their family, but are waiting to see the ground rules.

Others are nervous about plans - shelved for the time being - to lay off hundreds of thousands of state workers, and to gradually phase out the ration book, which provides Cubans with a basic basket of food at greatly subsidized prices. [4]

"This can't wait. Everyone is going to benefit in one way or another because there will be a little more freedom to do as you like with what's yours," said Yordanka Rodriguez, a 45-year-old Havana resident. "We just have to see what the terms are like. Until that happens, it's hard to judge accurately." [5]

Notes:

• [1] -- Omitted, as reported by Radio Marti: The government planned to "transport thousands of Cubans to the "Plaza of the Revoution" to celebrate the International Day of Workers." It would appear that the people aren't sufficiently fired up about the situation to come out and "celebrate" without "encouragement."
• [2] -- So that's how it works. The government buses in "celebrants," and, voila (or, in Spanish, "como si por magia, or "as if by magic), their presence represents endorsement of laws they know nothing about.
• [3] -- Given that they haven't seen it, it's interesting that the AP reporters seem to be able to describe what's in it. If they can't, they should have written that "the economic measures ... potentially include blockbusters" instead of claiming that they "include potential blockbusters." As to private property, Orsi himself reported on April 27 that "(Raul Castro) drew a line in the Caribbean sand as to which reforms should remain, telling party luminaries that he had rejected dozens of suggested reforms that would have allowed the concentration of property in private hands." I would welcome an explanation from Mr. Orsi as to how one can "buy and sell" private property without "accumulating" it.
• [4] -- Context, guys. An item posted by Bush administration Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez notes that, "Today, the average Cuban lives on $20 a month and relies on government ration cards" (calling this "living" is a stretch).
• [5] -- This strained quote is the final paragraph of the report. Unless he is a party insider, Mr. Yordanko Rodriguez can't possibly know that "everyone is going to benefit" or "that there will be a little more freedom." But despite the lack of any evidence, less experienced readers will come away from the AP report believing that this is the case.

Interesting. That last point echoes the reporting about Obamacare just over a year ago.

By Tom Blumer

Source: NewsBusters

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In a nutshell / Cuba's revolution hasn't found its fountain of youth

CUBA'S Communist party held its convention this week. There were no surprises, but then there hardly ever are at Communist conventions unless the secret police show up.

This year, the big surprise involved former leader Fidel Castro, who ruled the Caribbean country with an iron fist -- Mr. Castro never bothered with niceties such as a velvet glove -- for 46 years until stepping down due to illness in 2006 and passing the crown on to his brother Raul.

Fidel had not been expected to make an appearance, but the 1,000 party faithful who showed up in Havana to nod their heads at all of Raul's proposals gave the old dictator a huge ovation anyway. And so they should have, since they all owe their sinecures to him. At the opening of the convention, Raul Castro had suggested that perhaps it was time for term limits in Cuba, that maybe his brother's 46 years in power was a little bit longer than is seemly in a government that claims to actually represent the people.

He suggested that maybe two five-year terms were as long as anybody really needed to be in power or as long as it was good for anybody to be in power. For a moment, he almost seemed as genuine a democrat as the Americans he regards with such loathing and who only allow their presidents to serve two four-year terms. (Canadian prime ministers, in contrast, can serve for as long as they can keep getting elected, which is perhaps one reason why our governments so often seem more sympathetic to their colleagues in Cuba than their fellow democrats in Washington.)

Even Raul's brother, Fidel, seemed to be in sync, suggesting that term limits were "a subject on which I have long meditated." Now that he is no longer in power -- for the first time since the revolution he no longer holds an office -- it appears that 46 years of meditation is time enough.

Unfortunately, when the leadership of the Communist party was announced at the close of the conference, nothing much had changed. A few younger people got promoted -- Communists in their 50s and 60s -- but when election fever had abated, President Raul Castro, who is 80 years old, was elected first secretary of the party and the No. 2 and 3 spots in the hierarchy went to men who are, respectively, 80 and relatively spring-like 78. Cuba, it seems, still needs another revolution.

by Tom Oleson

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

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CUBA: Preparing For Perestroika

El Capitolio, or National Capitol Building in Havana, Cuba.

Dividing Old Havana from Chinatown is Cuba’s Capitolio Nacional, a monumental edifice with a fateful past. El Capitolio was conceived during the Roaring ’20s, when the island led the world in sugar exports and the future seemed sky blue.

President Gerardo Machado dreamed of turning Cuba into the Switzerland of the Americas. He decided that his 4 million countrymen needed a domed capitol building even taller and more ornate than the one he toured in Washington. So Cuba’s Congress dutifully poured 3% of the country’s GDP into their new home. (This would be akin to the US Congress spending $420 billion for a new office today, but let’s not give them any ideas…)

It took 8,000 skilled Cuban laborers just three years to complete El Capitolio, which featured gilt ceilings, a giant diamond embedded into the pristine marble floor and the world’s third-largest indoor statue. However, the showy project couldn’t have been more poorly timed. Work completed in 1929, just as America’s stock market crashed and the Great Depression unfolded.

The Smoot-Hawley tariffs crushed Cuban sugar prices by 74%. When El Capitolio’s ribbon was cut in 1931, Cuba’s economy lay in tatters. Machado was forced out of office, and his dream building would perform congressional service for only 28 years before Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries swept into Havana and opted for more austere premises. I don’t need to recite the history from here, which you probably well know.

The winds of change are gathering in Cuba, though. Since Fidel Castro’s health nearly failed in 2006, power has passed to his younger brother, Raul Castro. Raul has quietly reshuffled more than 30 cabinet members to prepare his party and people for a sweeping economic policy overhaul – Perestroika al Cubano. Even the semi-retired Fidel seems to have glumly accepted that change is inevitable, candidly admitting to a visiting US journalist that “the Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”

The global economic crisis whacked Cuba hard. Venezuela cut back on its largesse as its own economy worsened. Tourism and remittances softened, while nickel export prices tanked. Furthermore, three severe hurricanes left a wake of destruction in 2008. Unable to service Cuba’s estimated $21 billion foreign debt, and running out of generous leftist patrons to hit up, Raul Castro has, apparently, decided he has little choice but to pry open Cuba’s economy.

Castro’s wild card is Cuba’s oil and gas reserves. The island currently produces 60,000 bbl a day. But its US-facing northern waters hold an estimated 5-20 billion barrels of oil and 20 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. (Note: This compares with 29 billion barrels of oil reserves in the entire US.) Accessing this undersea oil requires the sophisticated drilling technology the US excels in. But as long as sanctions remain in place, the US oil majors are excluded from that bonanza. Amidst the applause of oil industry lobbyists, the dance for reengagement has begun, with both partners taking some unprecedented steps.

Raul Castro has issued a far-reaching five-year road map for Cuba’s future economic reform. The proposed changes would put Cuba on a very similar path to that taken by China in the 1980s and Vietnam in the 1990s. Here are some of the ideas: permit real estate transactions amongst Cubans, merge the two-tier currency system, close down inefficient state enterprises, decentralize state ownership, facilitate private ownership of businesses, distribute idle land to farmers, open state-owned wholesale markets and further encourage foreign investment – particularly in tourism.

In recent months, some planned reforms have already been implemented in an effort to delay Cuba’s impending insolvency. Costly subsidies on sugar and personal care products are being scaled back. The government announced plans to shed 500,000 state workers (that’s 10% of the country’s government work force in a country where 85% of workers work for the state) and guide them somehow into the private sector.

Cubans are being encouraged to grow and sell their own fruits and vegetables. The government is inviting foreign investors to develop 10 golf course estates in Cuba, with a new law allowing 99-year land leases to foreign buyers of plots in such projects. In the old days of Fidel’s revolution, such policies were unthinkable.

So what is the potential for a liberalized Cuban economy?

Just look 90 miles across the straits to Florida. A million Cuban-Americans call Miami home. Cuba has 60% of Florida’s population and 80% of its landmass, but greater natural resources and a much longer coastline, so one might conclude that the two are of comparable overall potential.

Perhaps to underscore their similarities, remember the fact that England and Spain cleanly swapped the two in 1763. Today, Florida’s economy is 12 times larger than Cuba’s. One reason is that Florida gets 20 times as many tourists as Cuba, plus an inflow of affluent retirees.

When the US government stops restricting its citizens from traveling to Cuba, the island will become an instant tourist magnet. Offering short flights, sunny beaches, cool music, “old world” architecture and cheap surgery, Cuba should have no problem drawing several million American tourists a year, as further-away destinations like Costa Rica have done.

Should reforms become comprehensive enough, agriculture seems an obvious investment play: Half the land is arable, labor is cheap and rain is plentiful. Cuba’s once-vaunted sugar industry stands in disarray, with 80% of the old mills shut down. However, today’s high sugar prices provide ample incentive to revive the sector, along with other traditional crops such as cigar tobacco.

Despite its long coastline, fisheries and aquaculture remain largely overlooked. Cuba is a world-class producer of nickel, but other mineral deposits remain underexploited. And then there’s the oil. The entire power system needs to be updated, financial services developed, retailing expanded – the opportunities seem endless.

Beyond the subsidized basics, most consumer goods have to be imported, and imports draw heavy duties. Telecom services are costly due to government monopolization and inefficiency. The list goes on. In this environment, it is tough for most Cubans to get by unless they receive remittances, tourist gratuities or tea money.

All in all, we eagerly await the implementation of Cuba’s economic reforms. As this process unfolds, Cuba could transform into one of the world’s most attractive frontier investment destinations. America has a long track record of turning bitter rivals into productive partners (a recent example being Vietnam), and re-engagement with Cuba could be one of Obama’s most notable foreign policy legacies.

Some frontier investors are not waiting for that and are already investing in Cuba. While 100% foreign ownership is permitted, most investors enter joint ventures with Cuban state enterprises, which typically contribute land, labor and sometimes capital. Over 250 such joint ventures exist, mostly for specific sectors or projects. Investments are made in foreign currency, eliminating exchange rate issues, and there are no restrictions on capital repatriation. Corporate income tax is 30% for joint ventures and 35% for wholly owned foreign companies, but tax holidays of five-seven years are available.

A few Cuba-focused investment groups have been established that non-US investors can access. Canada-listed Sherritt Group is a major player in Cuban nickel mining and, formerly, telecoms. A private investment group backed by European investors, Coral Capital has restored Havana’s historic Saratoga Hotel, which was recently ranked by Conde Nast as the 16th best hotel in the world. Coral is now planning a number of golf courses, marina, housing and hotel projects, as is Leisure Canada, a Canada-listed investment vehicle.

Douglas Clayton

Source: Business Insider

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