Cuba's smoke-and-mirror reforms

The Castro regime's announcement that for the first time Cuban citizens will be able to buy and sell their own homes has spurred an outpouring of irrational exuberance that real change is finally coming to the island-prison of Dr. Castro. "To say that it's huge is an understatement," one interested observer told the New York Times. "This is the foundation, this is how you build capitalism, by allowing the free trade of property."

Another told Reuters, "The ability to sell houses means instant capital formation for Cuban families ... It is a big sign of the government letting go." Still another writes in the Christian Science Monitor that these are "incredibly meaningful changes."

Such optimism is ill-founded. In fact, it is indicative only of one of two things: either it betrays a brazen political objective (Time magazine: "Why the U.S. Should Drop the Embargo and Prop Up Cuban Homeowners") or it demonstrates just how low the bar of expectation has been placed for what the Cuban people need and deserve that we must celebrate mere crumbs tossed their way by the Castro dictatorship.

Indeed, sweep away the hype and all you see are daunting hurdles as to how this announcement will change in any way the regime's suffocating control of the Cuban population. The new order restricts people to "ownership" of one permanent residence and one vacation home (as if the average Cuban is in any position to own a second home); all transactions must be approved by the State; no explanation is given on how you grant titles to homes that either have been confiscated from their rightful owners, have been swapped multiple times in the underground economy, or which house multiple families because of the severe shortage of available housing; the construction industry remains state-controlled; and the regime itself admits this order reflects no backsliding on the preeminence of the State in controlling the country's economic and political systems.

Beyond these challenges, however, is the fundamental fact that you cannot conjure private property rights, let alone the free trade in property, out of thin air. Those rights exist only where they are rooted in a credible, impartial, and transparent legal superstructure that can protect one's property, settle disputes, and guarantee transactions against the predations of the State. Anything less is a rigged game where the State is the dealer.

This is how the State Department's annual Human Rights Report characterizes Cuba's judicial system: "While the constitution recognizes the independence of the judiciary, the judiciary is subordinate to the imperatives of the socialist state. The National Assembly appoints all judges and can remove them at any time. Through the National Assembly, the state exerted near-total influence over the courts and their rulings ... Civil courts, like all courts in the country, lack an independent or impartial judiciary as well as effective procedural guarantees."


Translation: Cubans' ability to "own" property, trade, or leverage their property to build capital will continue to exist at the sufferance of the State. And what the State giveth, the State can taketh away. The bottom line is that, ultimately, all Cubans will really own is a piece of paper that says they own something.

Rather than empowering individual Cubans, the regime's goal in allowing the open trade of houses is to hopefully siphon more Cuban American money into the island's perennially bankrupt economy. With average Cubans on the island too poor to buy or improve their dilapidated dwellings, their hope is relatives in Miami and elsewhere will remit even more cash to the island attempting to improve their relations' situation. Indeed, the cynicism of relying on Cuban exiles to support the Cuban economy has never bothered the Castro brothers in the slightest.

The Castro regime recognizes the increasing unrest among the repressed and impoverished Cuban people for fundamental change, but they are capable only of prescribing more painkillers rather than the radical surgery that is needed to restore the nation's health. Pretending to devolve more autonomy in individuals' lives is just one more cruelty inflicted on the Cuban people over five decades of dictatorship, a cruelty made worse by the cheerleading from abroad.

By José R. Cárdenas
Source: FP Blog

Go to Home Page

Cell phones and the cost of living in Cuba

Courtesy of Omar Santana.

When I first came to Cuba in 1995, cell phone service was so scarce that, after a meeting in which an official had flashed a cell phone from the podium, I turned to Abel Prieto, then the president of the writer’s union, and asked if he had one too.

“Oh, no,” he said, “I’m not high enough to be part of the celucracia.”

The cellucracy!

In later years, of course, Abel became the minister of culture and acquired a pocketful of cells, and I began to know people – rarely connected with government – who had one too. But the stories behind their cells were always complicated and strange.

The reason was that Cuba did not allow its citizens to legally own cell phones until 2008. That’s right, 2008 – 45 years after its invention, Cubans finally got a chance to own a cell.

Prior to that, to have a cell phone meant you were either very high in or very important to the government, or you had an European or Canadian connection – a foreigner willing to get a phone and cell service in her name and let you use it. It was an exclusive club, and pulling a cell out in public elicited envy, awe, and not a little bit of fear.

After 2008, though, cell phones have become ubiquitous. The lowliest delivery boy has one attached to his belt. That is not, of course, in and of itself surprising. Like in so much of the Third World, cell service in Cuba doesn’t require the wait for a land line, which can be months or even years. If you have the right kind of apparatus, you can sign up for service on the same day.

But what is curious is the chasm between the cost of cellular service and the official Cuban monthly salary.

You see, after you pay the $30 CUCs – Cuba’s convertible peso, which is at about 0.87 per U.S. dollar – to establish a cell line, you need to buy phone cards to charge the phones at approximately 45 centavos a minute, or about 50 US cents.

This means that cell phone usage in Cuba isn’t casual. It’s about location, or getting someone to drop a key from a higher floor to open a lobby door, or to ask someone to get to a landline for a real conversation. Cell phones, of course, also facilitate texts, which has been a boon for dissidents and their responders, both groups which have taken to Twitter like an addiction.

But how, you might ask, can a Cuban earning between $15 and $20 USD a month pay such a steeply priced cell service? The answer is that, at least officially, they can’t.

And this is where the Cuban government, regardless of its staunch public posture against corruption (especially under Raul Castro), colludes with and counts on the country’s rich black market. Because, really, otherwise how can a Cuban earning $15-$20 USD a month have cell service that ends up being twice that?

Cell service is one of the many things that, prior to Raul, had been illegal but not uncommon for Cubans. In fact, many of his so-called reforms have been merely bringing into legality what had become common illegal practice: among other things, access for Cuban citizens to hotels, access to car rentals, access to DVD rental of foreign films, access to markets for individual farmers and artisans, and the ability to run a legal business, especially in sales or personal services.

In the case of the cell service, the government assumes its citizens are getting their funds from abroad or through illegal means. As a friend of mine explained, it’s Cuba’s version of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: The government agrees not to question source of income so long as the citizen agrees to pay the exorbitant fee.

Added my friend: “It’s not exactly like we have a choice anyway.”

by Achy Obejas

 

Source: WBEZ

Go to Home Page

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

Go to Home Page

Using Che Guevara image riles some Cuban Americans

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Some Cuban Americans in south Florida are upset to see a picture of revolutionary Che Guevara promoting an irreverent car race.

The “24 Horas de Cuba del Norte” — or 24 Hours of Cuba of the North — is part of a national circuit of farcical auto races called 24 Hours of LeMons. Drivers spend less than $500 and race junk cars decorated like Halloween floats.

Other races in the circuit have names like “The Can’t Get Bayou” in New Orleans and “The Rod Blagojevich Never-Say-Die 500″ in Chicago.

But the use of Cuban revolutionary Guevara’s image in the Dec. 30-31 race’s logo crosses the line for some native Cubans. Critics say it’s like using Ku Klux Klan imagery to advertise in the South.

Race organizers say they don't plan to change the campaign.

From: Cheat Games

Video - The Victims of Che Guevara

Go to Home Page