Cuba: A Pretend Paradise

Cuba has become Canada’s beloved vacation destination and unofficial 11th province.

Nobody travels more to Cuba than Canadians — about 600,000 of us head there every year. With affordable non-stop flights and unbeatable all-inclusive packages, even middle-class families can afford to play in paradise.

But beyond the shoreline, the oasis turns mirage.

As we casually sip our mojitos and work on our tans, dissident journalists are silenced and jailed every day for speaking out against Castro’s island “utopia.”

Popular Cuban author and blogger, Yoani Sanchez, is the most recent victim to endure Castro’s silent treatment.

Her crime? Publishing a tell-all book that dispels the fantasy of Cuba as a model for socialized government. Her shipment of books from the publisher were seized by the government and never made it into the country.

For her practice of free speech, she is also prohibited from leaving Cuba.

Through telephone interviews and her blog site, Generation Y, she manages to find ways to loosen the invisible chains of communism that bind her.

Others like Sanchez convicted of dissidence are sentenced anywhere from five to 25 years in prison — many of them locked up with violent criminals, subject to the worst possible treatment. All this is happening just miles from our sheltered sandy resorts.

For the adventurous traveler who dares to enter into the “real Havana,” the charming portrait belies the truth, as no local will ever speak of the reality of their circumstances.

Despite his failing health, Castro’s grip on public perception remains as powerful as ever.

Jimmy Escobar is an author, frequent visitor to Cuba since the ’90s, and a major supporter of the Cuban people.

“Loyalists to the government are planted within the tourism industry,” Escobar warned over the phone. “The regime would never allow any worker in contact with vacationing Canadians to speak ill of the government.”

If we were to sanction every destination that violates basic human rights, we’d be left with few options. However, how is Canada — a country that considers itself a human rights leader on the world stage — able to reconcile propping up a government through tourism, which jails its non-violent critics?

Sure we do a necessary dance with China, one of the greatest offenders of human rights, but the billions of dollars in trade is the easy justification.

But how necessary are Varadero vacations?

While thousands of Canadians save up their hard-earned paycheques to get into Cuba, thousands more Cubans risk their lives to flee on float vessels to freedom; many are turned away by U.S. officials in the Caribbean Sea, countless others drown.

The irony that our beloved vacation spot is a hell they’re trying to escape is one that cannot be ignored.

Previous talks of bringing Turks and Caicos into the Canadian fold as the 11th province sound inviting. But why not start a real revolution — and welcome in the warm island of Cuba?

That way we wouldn’t have to continue to duck under our beach umbrellas at abuses we would never tolerate here at home — all because of the lure of some cheap sunshine and a good cigar.

RIKKI RATLIFF

Source: Toronto Sun

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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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Appreciating Cuba's Clichés: Rampant Capitalism on Varadero's White Sand Beaches

With President Obama working to lessen Cuba Travel restrictions, the island risks getting caught up in a hurricane of clichés. Thinking travelers aren’t generally fooled by the shiny veneer of places plugged in a Lonely Planet, but don’t discard Cuba’s clichés. They’re what make this intriguing country so exotic, so vibrant and so darned colorful. A Jaunted special secret correspondent discovers the best of each, all this week. 

If you want to go to Cuba without going to Cuba, you have two choices: Guantánamo or Varadero. It's a toss-up for me; Guantánamo gets a bad press, it's true, but I suspect the north coast beach resort of Varadero only gets good write-ups because tourist dollars depend on it.

There's a rumor that Cubans are not allowed in Varadero, but that's not true. There are plenty of Cubans, serving the food and cleaning the bathrooms in the vast resort hotels plonked side by side along the skinny white sand peninsula that pokes out into the Atlantic like a knobbly twig. The issue is that ordinary Cubans can't afford to stay there.

I did what you're not supposed to do, and stayed in a casa particular (guest house). You're not supposed to do it because casas particulares in Varadero are strictly only for Cubans, which is why they are located in the shabbier end of town. But I didn't know this when I arrived late on a cronky bus one evening and found there was no room at the inn. This was January—high season—and the Canadians and Eastern Europeans were out in force. In Cuba, if you speak a little Spanish and have a few Convertibles (the stronger of the country's two currencies, equivalent to a US dollar), you can always find a way.

There's a $5 open-top tourist bus that trundles up and down the peninsula's only road, stopping at all the hotels because there's nothing else to see. You can't even see the ocean, because there are too many hotels in the way.

I confess I'm not one for beach holidays and have never done an all-inclusive vacation package, so I don't know if this is normal, but all the guests were wearing mint green or baby pink hospital bracelets. At first I suspected they were medical tourists, come for a boob job or a face lift (some of them really didn't look real). But then I understood. They'd jiggle the bracelets at the waiter and out would pop a 'free' plastic cup of watery Tango with a miniature cocktail umbrella bobbing listlessly at the top.

I, of course, didn't have a hospital bracelet, but I'd rather drink a gallon of sea water than that small cup of chemical cocktail.

Varadero is the exception that proves the rule in Cuba. The shops are a little better stocked and a lot more over-priced. If you pay the all-inclusive rate, you can eat beef, and other food that isn't rice, beans and pork. The buildings are new and shiny, ugly hotels, not beautiful and old, crumbling mansions.

And as for Cuban principles of equality, fraternity and socialism...nada. In Varadero it's rampant, sunburned and rather tipsy capitalism that reigns supreme.

by femmefatale 

From: Jaunted

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