21st Century Socialism and Mind-Set Change in Cuba

21st Century Socialism and Mind-Set Change in Cuba
July 2, 2012
Vicente Morin Aguado

HAVANA TIMES — On several occasions, Cuban President Raul Castro has
stressed the importance of changes in people's mentality, as an
objective of the Communist Party but considered one of the most
difficult to achieve.

Among the various statements by President Castro, who is also the first
secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, we can point to these words
expressed at the close of the Sixth Party Congress on April 19, 2011:

"In order to succeed, the first thing we need to change in the life of
the Party is its mentality, which as a psychological barrier will, in my
opinion, be more difficult to overcome for it is tied to many years of
repeated dogmas and obsolete criteria."

That party congress was devoted entirely to the economy in an effort
that has been called "updating Cuba's socialist model," which means
undertaking a reform process that gives more space to the market,
expands self-employment and other forms of ownership (including private
small, medium-scale and cooperative enterprises) – all without
dismantling the broad base of state ownership considered essential for
socialism.

If we mention the state as an economic category, the image that comes to
mind among most Cubans — especially those men and women now with gray
hair — is that of the classical form of socialism that emerged after
Lenin led the Bolshevik Revolution.

Therefore, as we delve into the dilemma of "obsolete dogmas and
criteria," we turn to Hugo Chavez, the self-declared disciple of Fidel
Castro and a close friend of revolutionary Cuba.

The Venezuelan president speaks constantly of "socialism of the 21st
century." He doesn't venture into the difficult paths of economic
theory, but instead concerns himself with achieving the greatest degree
of social justice for his people, together with the greatest amount of
solidarity in all spheres.

Socialism with "market mechanisms"

Clearly, the former socialist systems (referred to by many as "real
socialism") failed in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Some disappeared
earlier and others later, with the countries that survived that
extraordinary social experiment having had to implement reforms that
have marked them forever, even in Cuba now, by the introduction of
market mechanisms.

This gives the appearance of the return to the capitalist past, though
without losing the power of the workers, symbolized by the retention of
the single-party state and Marxist-Leninist ideology, each with the
particular imprint of the recognized founders in each nation.

In Venezuela, what we might tentatively call "emerging socialism" arose
in the new millennium as a part of a variation in reverse: a typically
Third World form of capitalism and political system, but with the help
of immense oil resources.

The task of Chavez has been to shore up his existing regime,
consolidating state ownership and control over the strategic oil
industry while at the same time creating new public enterprises and more
equalitarian ways of distributing the wealth in the hands of the state.

Where are we going? Where must we go? A certain logic points to a
confluence between the Venezuelan effort and the Cuban model. Without
losing what has been won, destiny seems to be privatization or
cooperativization — with endmost social and public controls, to the
degree possible — of most services and in certain areas of production.

Why do I say confluence? Because we want our Venezuelan friends to avoid
falling into the absolutism of the government taking over the operations
of barbershops, fruit vendors, the owners of small restaurants and many
other small and medium sized businesses, which became as poorly managed
and un-productive here in Cuba as in other parts of the collapsed
socialist system.

A state-centered mindset slowly opening to non-exploitative market elements

The popular feelings and views of Cubans point in the direction of the
acceptance of market mechanisms, as was corroborated by tens of
thousands of views expressed during the mass discussions prior to the
Sixth Party Congress.

These assessments enriched, changed and/or modified the so-called
"Guidelines," as regulations governing the changes in Cuba's economic
system.

Now we can perceive a willingness to see the fulfillment of what was
agreed upon based on a thorough knowledge and appreciation of our situation.

This is a great step forward but we are running up against the necessary
"change of mentality," seen in advance as the "grand obstacle" to the
long journey in front of us.

A review of the opinions expressed by Granma readers, published every
Friday, is tremendously illustrative of the difficult present debate
that is taking place in Cuban society.

In these pages, one woman complained about how, when her cell phone was
having problems with the keys, she went to a government repair center
that proved useless.

Someone in the street then recommended a self-employed worker, who wound
up fixing her phone in just seven minutes – and even included a warranty
on the work. The woman ended up wondering how the government has the
luxury of losing customers, its credibility and income.

What's interesting is that disgust and disappointment are highlighted by
Granma only to reinforce the preconception that the matter should have
been taken care of by the central government and not by the independent
worker.

Reviewing other points of view, another opinionated reader recalled how
decades ago neighborhood Committees for the Defense of the Revolution
(CDRs) would collect salvageable materials voluntarily, without the
incentive of money. This person then wondered if such activities are no
longer carried out by that grass roots Cuban organization, the only one
of its kind in the world.

But what has become equally popular is for individuals — mostly very
low-income people — to collect recyclable materials (glass bottles,
cardboard, paper, aluminum cans, nonferrous metals and others), which
they can sell to establishments set up by the government for that purpose.

Obviously, these newly demonstrated non-exploitative "market mechanisms"
(too often identified with capitalism) have proven themselves
successful. Therefore the decisions of the CDRs (to stop the volunteer
collections) were logical and they simply directed their efforts into
other activities or considered different objectives within the area of
recyclable materials.

New times require a change in mentality. They demand and necessitate the
change of "outdated dogmas and criteria."

Cooperatives as both de-centralized and market sensitive

Sometimes a reader will unintentionally respond to the concern of
another one, showing a real chance of breaking old patterns of thought
and action.

This was the case with a complaint concerning automobile repair shops.
It is very common for there to be no spare parts "on the shelves."
Nevertheless, mechanics supply them "under the table" and offer them at
different prices.

Similarly, if the client wants the work done quickly and efficiently,
they have to pay a "mandatory tip," something like a private rate for
the mechanic's labor.

However, this last case prompted reflection on the part of the reader,
who wrote: "This practice of our repair shops operating like private
businesses has gone on for years. They use the facilities, resources and
the state-owned equipment for their private interests, which makes me
wonder: Wouldn't it be better to convert these shops into cooperative
enterprises?

The solution isn't one of reiterating the "dogma" about the need to
increase efficiency (by goading or by magic?) in those same repair
shops, which for decades have been unable to meet people's expectations.

What is required, as the reader logically concluded, would be to "change
everything that needs to be changed" (to quote Fidel's notion of
revolution) in all establishments and marketplaces throughout country.

It's both shameful and alarming how an endless line of production and
service facilities, working with government resources and even with
their own employees investing their own money to maintain or expand the
supply of goods and services, end up splitting the profits and reporting
a only a portion of their earnings to the state enterprise under which
they operate.

In effect, and in front of the "blindfolded" eyes of those who should
prevent these actions, they have turned their establishments into the
forerunners of cooperatives, though somewhat distorted by circumstances.

Another frequently repeated practice is to produce more goods using
fewer materials, taking what is saved as their own. In one bakery, they
make three hundred loaves of bread with the ingredients for making two
hundred, consequently reducing the quality of the product. The hundred
"extra" loaves are transformed into extra income for those involved.

Currently we're seeing what is to be expected; the question that remains
to be answered is whether the expressed will that has been synthesized
into the "Guidelines" is going to be executed and completed by
additional steps that are necessary to move toward market sensitive
non-exploitive forms of production (independent cooperatives) and away
from an inefficient state dominated economy.

Still, a key question remains: Dare we cooperativize bakeries that today
are unable to give us even moderately good bread?

A new phase of the grand experiment

Granma (the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba) is now
publishing articles that call for a change in mindset, one of which was
by journalist Felix Lopez who wrote:

"With all its virtues and defects, the current environment is very
different from what it was two years ago – and for the better. The
statistics and popular opinion say that 66 percent of Cubans who now
operate self-employed business were previously unemployed. Family
incomes, in many cases, are beginning to advance favorably."

A good part of those who have negative opinions concerning the changes
towards reduced state domination seem to be forgetting our reality out
of their eagerness to live in the past. They are mentally entrenched,
perhaps because in most cases they lack the imagination, initiative or
resources to become a part of the new forms social-economic operation.

A new phase of this grand experiment has been set into motion, though
admittedly short on definitions and continually repeating the slogan
"Socialism of the 21st Century."

What is yet to be seen is whether the changes will lead to a level of
production that realizes what the early founders of the socialist ideal
had in mind, one repeated in the old Soviet primer The Fundamentals of
Political Economy, which proclaimed the essential objective as being
"the satisfaction of the ever growing needs of the population.
—–
Vicente Morin Aguado can be contacted at: morfamily@correodecuba.cu

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=73422

Gay Pride Day in Cuba

Gay Pride Day in Cuba
July 2, 2012
Daisy Valera

HAVANA TIMES — Havana didn't "enjoy" or "suffer" a conga line parade
which the flag of diversity could have waved side by side with that of
the July 26 Movement, the Young Communist League and even banners with
the faces of the Cuban Five.

There was no official Gay Pride Day march on June 28.

Yet the moment wasn't squandered due to government immobility.
Individuals and independent projects of the efflorescent Cuban civil
society generated their own activities, which extended from 5:00 in the
afternoon until around midnight.

The "Proyecto Arcoiris" (the "Rainbow Project," a member of the Critical
Observatory Network) held a "kiss-in" in front of the main Havana bus
terminal. For at least an hour, and with the participation of 20 or so
people, demonstrators engaged in timid kissing – though they promised to
be more "passionate" next year.

Thanks to efforts of that same organization, the documentary Cuerpos y
Fronteras: La ruta (Bodies and Borders: The Journey), by Ecuadorian
director Mary A. Vitteri, was shown and discussed at around 6:30 at the
"La Madriguera" (the main facility of the state-sponsored Asociacion
Hermanos Saiz youth culture organization).

Several people wore costumes as a means of delving into the idea of
other genders, as well as to measure the audience's reaction.

Elsewhere in the city, at the home of bloggers Reinaldo Escobar and
Yoani Sanchez, at 8 pm began the screening of a documentary about the
events of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York, where gays fought back
against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities.

This film is essential material for understanding the long road of
resistance and political activism for the recognition of the rights of
homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender people.

As part of the subsequent discussion, LGBT activists Ignacio Estrada and
Wendy Iriepa presented the "Citizen's Petition," which was presented to
the National Assembly of Popular Power that same morning. It seeks the
acceptance and observance of the Jakarta Agreements.

The petition calls for an investigation into all matters relating to the
"Military Units to Aid Production" (UMAP), which were labor camps set up
for a couple of years in the 1960s with aims that included "repairing"
the sexual orientation of gays) and the indictment of those responsible
for that program.

Another of the points about which the petition seeks clarification is
the "state of dangerousness" currently in force in the Cuban Penal Code.
In practice, this classification can make one's sexual orientation a
crime and has contributed to a climate in which there have been violent
deaths of several homosexuals recently.

Finally, the appeal calls for public debate around the forced exiling of
homosexual citizens in past decades.

In short, Gay Pride Day on this island was less than picturesque. The
phase that best fit it was "thought provoking."

Demands such as the legalization of gay marriage and the possibility of
child adoption by gay individuals or couples still loom as battles for
the future in a society still marked by a high degree of homophobia.

What the Cuban LGBT community faces firstly is the need to break with
the conduct of atomized behavior and any pessimism that is capable
weighing down common aims.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=73435

Why should anything about Cuba make sense?

Posted: Sun, Jul. 1, 2012, 3:01 AM

Karen Heller: 'Why should anything about Cuba make sense?'
Karen Heller, Inquirer Columnist
Email Karen Heller

HAVANA - Fidel lives, but Che is the brand, his face on billboards, tote
bags, T-shirts, a five-story steel structure. Virtually everywhere is
"his luminous gaze of a prophet," as Castro once noted, because nothing
sells the romance of revolution quite like a handsome asthmatic
Argentine executed before the age of 40.

Yet never once in a week's visit do we see any Cubans sporting Che wear.
He's a marketing opportunity even here, outside capitalist hipster
enclaves, to export even though we're prohibited from leaving with
Havana Club rum, Cohibas, or coffee.

Fidel is still here but, at almost 86, not quite here, last seen in
public in February, his country no longer ruled, as the Economist put
it, under the "unbridled exercise of his massive ego." What you learn
quickly in Cuba is that dictatorships without fear, without the marked
presence of a pervasive armed military and insidious secret police,
don't work. Neither do many of the people living under such a strange
regime.

In a country where professionals earn $25 a month, and the government
provides most needs, there's little incentive to work except in the
booming tourist trade. Artists, musicians, and restaurateurs operating
private paladares, where the best food can be found, can do well.
Doctors? Not so much. Our tour guide tells us about her doctor friend
who moonlights as a prostitute with foreigners. Better money.

Everywhere able-bodied Cubans sit in parks, idling along the Malecón at
any hour of the day, not laboring. This island nation is the very
opposite of booming. What's shocking about Cuba is how physically
proximate it is to the United States while being so distant in every
other way. You might as well be in Sudan.

There's no traffic, little construction except in the historic districts
(often financed by foreign investment), the once-gorgeous buildings
along the Atlantic continuing their half-century decay. I've never
visited a country where so much waterfront property is squandered and
historic preservation - except in tourist areas - mattered so little.

Traveling into the interior, the only creatures we see working the
verdant fields are four-legged. "We need more farmers," I hear more than
once. "We have too many people with college degrees, and too few to do
technical work."

There are "craft markets" all over Cuba, in Havana, Cienfuegos, the
stone streets of colonial Trinidad. They're all selling the same junk
imported from elsewhere. Merchants, dismal at commerce, aren't savvy
enough to move the "Made in Turkey" boxes away from their stalls or
consider the allure of indigenous products. The country remains a lousy
place to do business. One economic think tank ranks it 80th of 82
nations, ahead of only Angola and Iran.

Poverty here seems nowhere near as crushing as in, say, Brazil and
Mexico, where the divide between the Have Alls and Have Nothings shows
little sign of budging. Few Cubans seem to have much of anything. Still,
the country remains inviting, largely because there's such an abundance
of music and art, pleasure in everything unrelated to work, and Cubans
so welcoming of visitors.

If you live 15 miles outside Havana, you're out of luck commuting.
Public transportation is a joke, a horse-drawn cart more reliable than
the bus. We visit the headquarters of the national radio one day - well,
we try; no one seems interested in meeting us - and the offices of what
remains the island's most essential form of information resemble a 1950s
stage set.

Cuba made the mistake of becoming overly dependent on the Soviet Union,
then watched a third of its economy collapse overnight. Later, it
allowed the U.S. dollar to enter its commercial bloodstream. Now, it has
two currencies, one for Cubans, another for foreigners and the tourist
trade, which invites two distinct classes in a supposedly classless society.

A security guard speaks openly of the Castro regime. "The United States
is the best country in the world," he observes, adding, "There is one
reason that our countries do not have an open relationship, and he lives
here in Cuba. It's all Fidel's fault." Gone is the fear, the trademark
of any totalitarian regime. The guard says, "I live in a stinking
dictatorship." Except he doesn't say stinking.

Cubans keep leaving. The population keeps shrinking. I meet a nurse who
now makes her home in Tampa. Restrictions in travel have loosened, but
only so much. Due to her country's bizarre international relations, she
emigrated to Florida six years ago by way of Russia. "Why should
anything about Cuba make sense?"

On a trip home, she fell in love and married a man who is - I am not
making this up - a Cuban rock star and a law student. "He doesn't want
to leave," she tells me. "He wouldn't have the same standard of living."

So every other week, she moves between two homes separated by 300 miles
and several decades of progress and political freedom. "Listen, anyone
who tells you they know what's going to happen in Cuba doesn't know what
they're talking about," she says, which is what people have been saying
for half a century.

"Change will happen. But when and how is anyone's guess."

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/20120701_Karen_Heller___Why_should_anything_about_Cuba_make_sense__.html

Cuba's Schools Are Failing Its Children

Yoani Sanchez - Award-winning Cuban blogger

Cuba's Schools Are Failing Its Children
Posted: 06/30/2012 6:29 pm

To brag about the achievements of our children and to crow about the
good grades they got on a test are some of the pleasures that we can't
forgo when the opportunity presents itself. June comes and we bump into
a neighbor or a friend and the obligatory question is, "How is your
child doing studying for the final exams?" The heat takes a backseat,
and summer's apathy gains some mystery with the questions: Will they
pass or fail? Will they be promoted to the next grade, or not? Long
nights are spent solving math problems, the tutors can't keep up with so
many students, and outside the schools they post the listings with the
standings. The year-end vortex sucks us in... but this year there are
several new features.

After testing one educational method after another, now several batches
of students trained in these teaching "laboratories" have come to the
university. I am referring to those who, from the first day of junior
high school, faced those so-called "emerging teachers" at the
blackboard; the same teenagers who, for years, received 60 percent of
their classes through a television screen. My son is a good example of
this. He benefited from the abandonment of the "high schools in the
countryside" program -- excellent news -- but he suffered from the
restructuring of the school program, plagued with misfits, lost hours,
and the poor academic preparation of the educators. He has also been
affected by the high desertion rates among the ranks of teachers whose
salaries remain on the symbolic, if not the ridiculous, plane. Added to
this is the presence -- excessive and continuous -- of an ideology that
pervades even subjects and materials as far from the political spectrum
as possible.

These winds are now bringing real storms. The lack of educational
quality is bumping up against an increasing rigor in the final exams for
high school. The result: entire schools where they are barely able to
pass three or four students; complete groups who must cram and take the
test second time, and even a third; parents on the edge of nervous
collapse on learning that their "intelligent" child doesn't even know
the Pythagorean theorem. To the lack of control comes the firm hand; the
delirious educational system starts to see reason. But we're not talking
about numbers here; it concerns young people whose learning has been far
below what now appears on the test. People for whom volunteerism and
school experimentation have been shown to fail.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/cubas-schools-are-failing_b_1640256.html

Miami money-laundering case spotlights link between Medicare fraud and Cuba’s national bank

Posted on Saturday, 06.30.12

Medicare fraud

Miami money-laundering case spotlights link between Medicare fraud and
Cuba's national bank
By Jay Weaver, Mimi Whitefield and Jacqueline Charles
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com

Oscar L. Sánchez, a Cuban immigrant with little education, helped
revolutionize Miami's Medicare rackets through a storefront
check-cashing business that enabled various criminals to launder $63
million from the United States through a web of overseas accounts into
Cuba's national bank, authorities say.

Sánchez allegedly plotted with Medicare fraud offenders and other
criminals to divert the dirty money through more than a dozen shell
companies' bank accounts in Canada and Trinidad. The laundered money was
ultimately funneled in transfers of $100,000 or more from a Trinidad
bank's Havana branch into the Banco Nacional de Cuba, according to
federal authorities.

FBI agents and prosecutors are trying to figure out who received the
money in Cuba — Medicare fraud fugitives, other criminals, government
officials or all of the above? Or was the money moved offshore again to
other countries? As authorities try to trace the money, they're putting
the squeeze on Sánchez to flip on other possible co-conspirators who
collaborated with him in South Florida, Canada, Trinidad and Cuba.

Sánchez was charged last month with conspiring to launder millions of
Medicare funds for 70 South Florida healthcare companies in an
unprecedented indictment that shook Miami, Washington, D.C. and Havana.
Sánchez, 46, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lived with his wife in
Naples, pleaded not guilty and was ordered detained before trial.

Sánchez's defense attorney, Peter Raben, described his client as "a
simple, hard-working guy."

"The likelihood that he revolutionized anything is less than zero,"
Raben told The Miami Herald.

The Sánchez case has revealed deep flaws in the Medicare program and the
international banking system. The defendant is accused of conspiring
with a "syndicate of international money launderers" that used
fraudulent Medicare profits as collateral to pay South Florida
healthcare scammers cash and also move money into Cuba's banking system
to hide it.

What drove this underground banking syndicate? Since the mid-1990s,
waves of Cuban migrants have learned myriad ways to fleece the
taxpayer-funded healthcare program for the elderly and disabled.
Meanwhile, about 150 suspects have fled back to the communist island and
other parts of Latin America to evade prosecution, according to the FBI
and court records.

A former Miami federal prosecutor who helped lead the crackdown on
Medicare fraud in recent years said fugitives flee to Cuba because its
government never turns over criminals to U.S. authorities. And because
the fugitives can protect their Medicare millions.

"The money trail ends there," said Washington, D.C., attorney Ben Curtis.

Andy Gomez, a senior fellow at the University of Miami's Institute for
Cuba and Cuban-American Studies, echoed that view, saying that "once the
money gets to Cuba, it goes into a black hole."

Gomez, like many others, believes the Cuban government extorts the
criminals who go back and forth between South Florida and the island.
But he also now believes the Sánchez case shows that Cuba has been
"directly involved" in the money laundering of Medicare millions.

"Sánchez didn't have the sophistication and knowledge to run this
operation," said Gomez, who speculated that a Cuban intelligence handler
must have met with him and given him instructions. "He couldn't do this
on his own."

The U.S. attorney's office has said it has no evidence that the Cuban
government of Fidel and Raul Castro played a role in the alleged scheme
to launder fraudulent Medicare proceeds. Cuban officials bristled at the
allegation, denying any involvement.

But The Miami Herald has learned that the laundered millions were
automatically wired from the shell companies' dozen-plus accounts at
Trinidad's Republic Bank branch in Havana into Cuba's state-controlled
bank. Publicly, federal court documents have only said that "at least
two of those accounts had standing instructions to the bank to wire all
money immediately from the accounts to the Cuban banking system."

Cuba's national bank is broken down into several banks with different
specialties, offering commercial, consumer, trade, tourism, foreign
exchange and services.

Despite the variety of banks, "there really is just one owner, the
government of Cuba," said Fernando Capablanca, a former Miami banking
executive and now a banking consultant.

The Trinidad bank, which opened a Havana office in May 2002, has turned
over records of the various shell companies' transactions to the FBI,
but publicly the institution has only said that it had no relationship
with Sánchez, the defendant.

Trinidad and Tobago Attorney General Anand Ramlogan declined to comment
on the Sánchez case, saying he doesn't know all of the facts. However,
he said, the country has taken a number of steps to combat money laundering.

"We do have 'Know Your Customer' laws," Ramlogan told The Miami Herald
at his office in Port-of-Spain. "We do have source of funds
declarations. There are things in place."

Sánchez was able to stay under the radar because he went to great
lengths to disguise himself and the true source of the laundered funds
by never putting his name on any corporate or bank documents,
authorities say. He incorporated his Naples check-cashing company,
Estates Business Center, in his wife's name, Ilens R. Sánchez.

Oscar Sánchez, who came to the United States in the 1980 Mariel
boatlift, struggled as a new immigrant and developed a record as a petty
criminal in Florida. He finally prospered in the mid 2000s when he
allegedly joined the Medicare rackets as an unofficial banker and later
began investing in real estate in the Naples and Fort Myers area.

Despite attempts to cloak himself in secrecy, authorities say, Sánchez
made at least one fatal mistake that they consider a "smoking gun." In
February 2007, he transferred $38,357 from his personal Florida bank
account into the account of a Canadian company called Magnus Aviation
Logistics. The Montreal company was at the center of the alleged
cash-to-Cuba laundering network, according to at least one healthcare
fraud case related to the Sánchez indictment.

Sánchez was described by federal prosecutor Ron Davidson as a "financier
for fraudsters and a capitalist for Cuban banks," who had made 78
overseas trips during the past decade, according to a motion to detain
him before trial. Of those, 61 trips were made to Cancun, Mexico, a
jumping off point for Cuba. His fellow passenger on one Cancun flight:
the owner of several "fraudulent" Miami-Dade healthcare companies that
wired money to Cuba, through Canada and Trinidad, court records show.

Days after Sánchez's arrest in Naples last month, Magistrate Judge
Jonathan Goodman ordered his detention in Miami, saying the
prosecution's case was "very strong" and that he was a "flight risk" who
faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Both prosecutors and FBI agents started to zero in on Sánchez in recent
years after convicted Medicare fraud offenders began cutting plea deals
and pointing the finger at him as their money man. Also, authorities
began to notice millions of dollars being transferred from medical
equipment businesses and HIV-therapy clinics in Florida to shell
companies' accounts at the Royal Bank of Canada in Montreal.

According to court records, this is how Sánchez's alleged
money-laundering scheme worked between 2005 and 2009:

South Florida's healthcare scammers routinely put their
Medicare-licensed businesses in the names of "straw" owners — often
recently arrived Cuban migrants — to conceal from authorities their own
identities as the real owners of the accounts.

In the Sánchez case, prosecutors said 70 South Florida medical companies
billed Medicare for $374.4 million and were paid $70.7 million — money
that was directly deposited into their corporate bank accounts. But the
challenge for the "Medicare fraud masterminds" was withdrawing that
money from their accounts because they would have to reveal their
identities at the banks, according to court records.

So, many of them turned to Sánchez and his check-cashing business to
launder at least $31 million of those Medicare reimbursements, according
to court records.

Among those who used Sánchez's services: Michel De Jesus Huarte, who is
serving a 22-year prison sentence for running a $100 million HIV-clinic
scam in Miami-Dade and other parts of the southeastern United States.

At the same time, Sánchez came to know a "group of individuals" who
controlled shell companies with 15 bank accounts in Canada and Trinidad
that wanted to move millions of dollars derived from criminal activity
into Cuba's banking system. They had purchased more than 20 boxes of
money orders, moving money in amounts less than $10,000 at a time to
avoid having to declare the source of the funds under U.S. laws. They
used aliases, including the name "Bill Clinton," according to court records.

But the process was "costly and time consuming." Enter Sánchez, who
helped them transfer larger amounts of money to Cuba, totaling $63
million, prosecutors allege.

For a 10 percent fee, Sánchez matched up the two sides: One group of
criminals supplied millions in ready cash to the Medicare fraud
ringleaders. Those leaders, in turn, sent checks or wired money drawn
from their South Florida corporate bank accounts to the other criminals'
shell companies in Canada, records show.

The laundered money was deposited in accounts at the Royal Bank of
Canada in Montreal, with the proceeds later wired to numerous shell
companies in Trinidad — then deposited into unknown accounts in Cuba's
national bank.

In one example, "Sánchez benefitted both sides by wiring $468,985 from a
South Florida company engaging in fraud to a Canadian bank account,"
Davidson, the prosecutor, alleged in the motion to detain Sánchez before
trial.

According to court and public records, one of the alleged Canadian shell
companies that received the laundered checks was Magnus Aviation
Logistics. Corporate papers say Magnus was headed by Anthony Caristo and
dissolved last year.

Canadian records also show that Caristo was a director of two other
Montreal companies, Arxe Capital and Monetaria Card Solutions, which
were also dissolved. Monetaria became inactive just days after Sánchez's
arrest last month, records show. Neither Caristo nor his listed
businesses could be reached for comment.

Like the United States, Canada has a federal agency — Financial
Transactions Reports Analysis Centre (FINTRAC) — that collects
intelligence on suspected money laundering and terrorist financing
activities.

Under Canadian law, financial institutions that receive or send foreign
wire transfers of $10,000 or more are required to file a report with
FINTRAC. That means checks or wires sent to and from the Magnus account
should have generated reports.

The Canadian agency did not return calls from The Miami Herald.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/30/v-fullstory/2875863/case-highlights-money-laundering.html

Castro: ‘Let them eat trees’

Posted on Sunday, 07.01.12

Castro: 'Let them eat trees'
BY ANGEL CASTILLO JR.
acastillo@floridavoices.com

For those of us in Miami (and in Cuba) who have waited decades for
dictator emeritus Fidel Castro to disappear from our lives forever, a
most unlikely cause for optimism has been provided by Castro himself.

Castro, who hardly is seen in public these days, has revealed that he is
senile. Demented. Madder than King George III. And we know that those
whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.

He suddenly wants Cuba to be filled with two kinds of Asian trees. In
Castro's words, these two trees will become "inexhaustible sources of
beef, eggs, and milk." Additionally, he says one of the trees can yield
silk strands that can be woven into cloth and provide well-paid
employment "in the shade" for Cuban workers, "regardless of their age or
gender."

Although he had planned to rule Cuba for life, Castro reluctantly had to
yield power to his brother Raul, who is 81, in 2008 after a serious
illness that required major surgery six years ago.

Now the island's potato crop — managed solely by the government — is one
of the worst in many years. Potatoes are an essential staple in Cubans'
daily meals. Because of endemic shortages, a pound of potatoes currently
sells in the black market, when available, for $1 — in a country where
the average monthly wage is about $20.

The Cuban government also admits that national production of milk and
meat is down almost 12 percent, and the island is having to import 80
percent of its food, at a cost of $1.7 billion per year.

Faced with such dire circumstances, Castro, almost 86, made a surprise
announcement on Father's Day, in a 51-word column called "Reflections of
Comrade Fidel" mandatorily published in all official Cuban media. He
triumphantly disclosed that he has single-handedly discovered a miracle
cure for the food shortages and chronic underemployment of the last five
decades. His solution consists of planting two trees that apparently he
has just learned about, although they have been of use throughout the
world for centuries.

Castro wants massive plantings of "Moringa Oleifera," known in English
variously as moringa, the "horseradish tree" and the "drumstick tree."
It is a fast-growing tree native to the foothills of the Himalayas in
northern India that is popular in Africa, Asia, and Central and South
America. It yields various edible parts rich in protein, calcium,
potassium, magnesium, iron, and vitamins A and C that can be consumed by
people and animals.

Castro also wants the nationwide planting of mulberry, a tree native to
parts of tropical Asia whose leaves are the basic food of silkworms.
This tree also produces a fruit and leaves that can be eaten by people,
and its foliage can be used as feed for cattle, sheep and pigs.

Of course, nobody in Cuba would dare tell Castro, although he no longer
holds any public office, that his bizarre pronouncements will not be
published in the official press, meaning his delusional "Reflections"
are there for all to see.

Now, like the fictional "General of the Universe" in his Colombian
friend Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 1975 novel, The Autumn of the Patriarch,
Castro is in the final ramblings of his long and complicated life. He
has arrived "at the ignominious fiction of commanding without power, of
being exalted without glory and of being obeyed without authority."

Angel Castillo, Jr., a former reporter and editor for The New York Times
and The Miami Herald, practices employment law in Miami.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/01/2875051/castro-let-them-eat-trees.html

This Cuban’s Train Stories

This Cuban's Train Stories
June 30, 2012
Rosa Martinez

HAVANA TIMES — When I read the post by my fellow-writer Erasmo
Calzadilla, I broke out laughing. It wasn't that I was happy about what
he went through taking a trip by train here in Cuba; rather, it was
because something similar happened to me in the mid-nineties. So now,
like Erasmo, I want to share my own story with the friends of Havana Times.

Unlike Erasmo, I wasn't trying to go on a pleasure trip or anything. I
was forced to travel in that fashion due to health problems of one of my
aunts. She had suffered a heart attack and was reported in serious
condition at the provincial hospital in central Ciego de Avila.

The transportation crisis back then was worse than it is now.
Inter-provincial buses were scarce and I believe that the only flight
from my city of Guantanamo to Havana was canceled at the time. Therefore
I had no choice but to take the giant iron train to get to Ciego de Avila.

My aunt was in such poor condition that she could have died at any
moment. So though I felt overcome with sadness, fearing the worse, as
always I was optimistic about her recovery. Therefore I decided to use
the trip to not only help with her care but also to see that city, which
I had only known through what I had read and seen on TV.

As for my stay in Ciego, I don't have any complaints. I had no problems
with either the treatment given to my aunt at the provincial hospital or
the people who — though different from easterners — didn't cease to be
hospitable and attentive.

The ride on the train, however, was something utterly different. It
started out with a three-hour delay and our arrival was an additional
ten hours late. During the afternoon everything went fine, or at least
as normal, because nothing goes fine in a Cuban train. So things were
"normal" until we all began to smell a stench that only a bathroom on a
train and at a train station can produce.

But then the stink of the bathroom was intensified by another one that
was even more disgusting, though I couldn't tell where this new one was
coming from, I could only brace myself in case I passed out at any moment.

Fortunately, the attendant was well aware of the problem. She went over
to where the smell was issuing — a tall young guy — and said: "Listen,
put your shoes back on your feet, which you shouldn't have taken off in
the first place. Otherwise we're going to throw them and you out the
window – and believe me, I'm not playing." The guy smiled and gave us
some relief by putting his shoes back on.

Night came between eating, conversations, complaints, laughs and cries.
I imagine that almost all of the travelers were able to get some sleep,
everybody except the ones in my wagon. We were accompanied by this
Mexican drunk (which is to say a drunk who spent the whole night singing
mariachis) and a 7-month-old baby girl that wouldn't stop crying.

The strangest part is that if the little girl and the drunk had tried,
they wouldn't have been able to do it so perfectly. When the child
cried, the drunk was silent; and as soon as the singer started to sing,
the little girl would automatically shut up.

I prayed that the two would pool their musical repertoires and in this
way perhaps they would shut up at the same time – but no way! No God
heard my prayers, so we spent the entire night listening to that
unappreciated concert.

When the sunshine returned the next day, there was a great calm. I
couldn't believe it: I had fallen asleep, as had the little girl and the
mariachi singer. That's how it was for about an hour and a half, and we
were only about an hour or so from arriving – but then the rain that had
been threatening us all along the way began to fall.

"The rain will cool the air but leave strange smells after," I thought.
I began enjoying the scent of damp earth that I like so much, but then
drops started falling on me and on the person sitting in front of me.

I sat up quickly. "I'll have to make the rest of the trip on foot, damn
it. Just what I need," I said out loud.

But the people next to me came up with a solution; they found a piece of
cardboard that would serve as an umbrella in that Swiss-cheese piece of
a train.

We were sitting there for about 10 minutes when an unexpected motion by
the person next to me moved the cardboard, channeling all of the
accumulated water onto my head.

So, that was how my journey went: 10 hours later than what it should
have been, filled with odors (the least unpleasant of which was the
smell of the rails), and left drenched to cap it all off.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=73352