In Cuba, capitalism thrives on Craigslist-like sites

Even as the Cuban president, Raúl Castro, fumes over stumbling blocks placed by his own party bureaucracy to economic reforms, the internet is beginning to remove them one by one.

Castro appears to be meeting resistance from communist diehards – or more likely old-fashioned stick-in-the-muds – to his proposals that would allow private ownership in homes and cars, for example on the Communist island.

That simply is not a problem for a handful of internet sites that are, in effect, putting the reforms into practice.
One site, www.sepermuta.com, has been operating for some years, apparently from a base in Miami, and seems to be tolerated by the Cuban government. The site is based on the “permuta”, or “swap”, system.

All housing in Cuba is state-owned but swaps are allowed, as long as no money is exchanged. It has been an open secret for years in Havana, however, that often large sums have changed hands under the permuta system.

By allowing home ownership, Castro’s reforms will in effect legalise the black market in housing. But sepermuta.com has been quoting prices for years.

When beyondbrics checked out sepermuta.com, several of its features were unavailable because of “database errors”, whatever they might be. But some users’ comments were interesting.

One woman wrote that it was a wonderful site and “something I never imagined that ever existed in Cuba”. Where might she have been all those years?

Another pointed to the reality of any internet project in Cuba: access to the population is very restricted. “It’s really difficult to find someone where I work who has internet access and lets people like me get into the site,” wrote one.

Yet another reflected the absence, through unfamiliarity, of market tools that are normal in other countries but not in Cuba. “In Cuba we don’t seems to understand that ads for apartments should specify their size in floor space,” one cybernaut wrote.

“There are ads with five-bedroom apartments that turn out to have only 100 square meters. These must be just cubby holes, not bedrooms,” he or she snorted. “And there are other apartments of 200 square meters with only two bedrooms. Now that is really spacious but you wouldn’t know the difference from the ads.”
However, sepermuta.com is tame by compared with www.revolico.com, the market leader in every sense of the word. In Cuban Spanish a “revolico” is a bit of a mess. The anonymous organisers of the website admit that it is a mess, “but an organized mess”.

Revolico, which is also based in Miami and has frequently been blocked in Cuba, offers a market in everything from homes, cars, casual sexual encounters, language classes … you name it.

Most of what is on offer is not legal – not yet anyway – though some is tolerated. A photo of a $30 a night apartment on offer to foreigners in central Havana gives a glimpse of a comfortable lifestyle not shared by the Cubans whose rather spartan homes that a beyondbrics correspondent visited on his last trip to the island.
Meanwhile, Raúl Castro appears to be exasperated at the internal opposition to his reforms. In a televised speech on Monday, after days of confabs with party and government leaders, he berated the “psychological barrier to change that is created by inertia”.

And he added: “Not for the first time, I’d say that our worst enemy isn’t imperialism, much less those who get paid within Cuba by the imperialists to do their work for them. The worst enemy is failing to correct our very own errors.”

Maybe Castro could click on a couple of links to see how it’s done. Or maybe he already has.

by Ron Buchanan

Source: beyondbrics

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Reform On The Range: Cubans Heed The Call To Farm

Now some Cubans can work for themselves, not only for Papa Castro

Cuba has miles and miles of fertile, lush countryside where nothing is growing or grazing. After five decades of state-controlled agriculture, the country struggles to feed itself, forcing the government to import some 70 percent of the island's food.

Cuban President Raul Castro wants to change that and is asking enterprising Cubans to go back to the land.

Aniley Pena was watching TV two years ago when she heard the offer. The government was giving out free 10-year leases on state-owned land to anyone willing to take a crack at farming.

Today, she has 12 acres on the outskirts of Bejucal, a small town 20 miles south of Havana.

Pena is 38, rugged enough to trudge around in rubber boots, but not too earthy to wear mascara in the fields. She shields herself from the withering sun with a parasol and a Nike cap, supervising a team of men as they mix organic fertilizer into beds of radishes, carrots, scallions and spinach.

Pena's tractor is a little red Ford from the Truman era she inherited from her late grandfather. She has called her farm "Las Estrellas" — The Stars. Stars are bright, and they bring clarity, she said, which is what this new vocation has given her.

"Being out here relaxes me," Pena says. "Plus I know I'm doing something good for society, and also for myself."

Independence, Sense Of Security

Pena is the new face of Cuban socialism, a private entrepreneur with a sense of social responsibility. She was trained as a veterinarian, but like many in Cuba who aren't inspired by $20-a-month government salaries, she dropped out of the workforce.

Now, she's working seven days a week and studying pest control methods at night. As part of her deal with the government, she will give one-third of her produce to the state and sell the rest for a profit.

"Having this land, you realize how productive it can be," Pena says. "When you're growing your own food, you have independence, and that gives you a sense of security."

The Castro government has approved more than 100,000 applications for state land, but so far that hasn't led to an increase in food production.

As usual, bureaucratic absurdities are to blame. Farmers can't buy tractors or trucks without government permission. Irrigation equipment and tools have to be assigned by the state.

Police checkpoints surround Havana to make sure no one is illegally sneaking produce into the city for sale on the black market.

The government's new solution is fruit and vegetable stands where farmers can sell directly to customers. They are popping up all over the island, as some Cubans are even getting back land that belonged to their families before it was nationalized in the early 1960s.

Oscar Espinosa Chepe is a dissident economist in Havana.

"The reforms are a step forward, but they're not going to fix the problem," he says. "Cuba needs more radical changes, but the government is too scared to give up control."

Feed Mother Cuba, Save Mother Earth

There's an old joke in Cuba that if education, health care and athletics are the Cuban revolution's greatest achievements, then its three biggest failings are breakfast, lunch and dinner. Government supermarkets — where many Cubans can't even afford to shop — stock imported mango juice from Mexico, chicken from Brazil and butter from Denmark. All could be easily produced locally.

Lorenzo Ramos is another farmer taking advantage of the government deal. On a recent day, he is making fertilizer from decomposing sugar cane stalks.

His five-acre plot was choked with garbage and thorny weeds when he got it a year ago. But with his machete and his rusting Soviet tractor, he and his wife have turned a wasteland into a tidy orchard of fruit tree saplings.

Some fruit varieties have grown so scarce in Cuba that Raul Castro complained about their disappearance in a speech last year.

Ramos has responded by planting rows of mangos, guavas, peaches, lemons and prized delicacies like the guanabana, or custard apple.

"Having a farm means coping with everything — ants, thunderstorms, scratches, hurricanes, waking up at dawn," Ramos says. "It's sacrifice and hard work, but somebody has to do it. We can't all be intellectuals, because then there'd be nothing to eat."

Ramos has put up a sign along the highway next to his farm, inspired by something Bolivian President Evo Morales said on TV. "Save Mother Earth," the sign reads, and Ramos is hoping to put his fruit stand right next to it.

by Nick Miroff
From: NPR

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