With ally Venezuela struggling, Raul Castro prepares Cuba for tough year
despite US opening
Michael Weissenstein, The Associated Press
The Canadian Press
December 30, 2015
Cuba's President Raul Castro applauds as he sits next to Vice President
Miguel Diaz Canel during the island's twice-annual legislative session
at the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2015. The
assembly will hear a detailed report on the progress of the gross
domestic product of the Caribbean nation, whose growth was estimated by
authorities at 4 percent. Plans for 2016 will also be announced. (Ismael
Francisco/Cubadebate via AP)
By Michael Weissenstein, The Associated Press
HAVANA - President Raul Castro warned Cubans on Tuesday to prepare for
tough economic conditions in 2016 despite warmer relations with the
United States. Castro said that while tourism is booming, low oil prices
have damaged the outlook of an economy that depends on billions of
dollars of subsidized oil and cash from Venezuela.
According to state-controlled media, Cuba's president told the National
Assembly to expect 2 per cent growth in gross domestic product next
year, half the rate his government reported in 2015. Foreign media are
barred from the twice-annual meetings of the National Assembly.
Despite the government's assertion that the GDP grew 4 per cent this
year, there is widespread dissatisfaction among Cubans over the widening
gap between low salaries and the high price of essential goods, most
particularly food.
Castro appeared to be preparing Cubans for harder times ahead, saying
that "we must cut any unnecessary spending and make use of the resources
that we have with more rationality and with the goal of developing the
country."
He dedicated a lengthy section of his speech to Venezuela, where the
opposition to Cuba-backed socialist President Nicolas Maduro recently
took control of parliament amid widespread shortages and spiraling violence.
Cheap oil "has affected our relationship of mutual aid with various
countries, particularly the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the target
of an economic war aimed at undermining popular support for its
revolution," Castro said.
He urged Cubans to avoid what he labeled "defeatism" in the face of a
drop in Venezuelan aid, saying "the history of our revolution is full of
glorious pages despite difficulties, risks and threats."
More than 3 million tourists visited in 2015, an increase of nearly 20
per cent in the wake of President Barack Obama's declaration of detente
with Cuba. The surge in visitors pumped cash into the state-controlled
tourist economy and the growing sector of private bed-and-breakfasts and
restaurants, but it also drove up household inflation. In the absence of
a wholesale market for private businesses in Cuba's state-controlled
economy, entrepreneurs have been forced to compete with cash-strapped
consumers, driving up prices by driving off with cartloads of basic
foodstuffs like eggs and flour.
Salaries for state employees, who make up most of Cuba's workforce,
remain stuck at around $25 a month, leaving hundreds of thousands of
Cubans struggling to feed their families.
Falling oil prices have lowered the cost of the imported goods that Cuba
depends on but have hurt the island's economic relationship with
Venezuela in 2015, Castro said. Cuba has sent thousands of doctors to
Venezuela in recent years in exchange for oil and cash payments at
highly beneficial rates.
Cuba does not regularly release reliable economic statistics that
conform to international standard but its top earners of hard currency
in recent years have been tourism, nickel mining and the export of
government-employed professionals like the doctors sent to Venezuela and
other allied countries. Castro said lower nickel prices also hurt the
country's 2016 outlook.
____
Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mweissenstein
Source: With ally Venezuela struggling, Raul Castro prepares Cuba for
tough year despite US opening -
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ally-venezuela-struggling-raul-castro-prepares-cuba-tough-031713685.html
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Cuba’s CDR Committees - Bringing Back the Dead
Cuba's CDR Committees: Bringing Back the Dead
December 29, 2015
Irina Echarry
HAVANA TIMES — There were no excuses: it wasn't raining, people had been
notified in advance, the meeting would be held before the sacred soap
opera came on and the "visitors" would arrive early. We had only to wait
until the clock showed 8 pm to start.
For two years now, none of the building's tenants have wanted to become
the chair of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). Put
that way, it would seem we are seeing a form of popular resistance, an
act of defiance against decadent organizations. Some might even think we
are approaching the date in which Cubans (or at least those living on my
block) decide to take the reins of their lives and send the
"revolutionary" abominations they suffer straight to hell.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, tis best not to allow ourselves to
be deceived.
The blessed "visitors" were from the district Party office, that is to
say, members of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) who are retired and
continue to offer services in their place of residence.
The PCC secretary made it clear at the very beginning that she wasn't
there of her own free will, that it was a duty she had to fulfil. "What
we do is offer guidance and supervise, but, owing to the problem that a
CDR without a head represents…"
Yes, I asked myself the same question: what is the Party doing trying to
"solve" a problem faced by "genuine civil society"?*
The official continued in a very calm tone of voice: "If we don't elect
someone today, I'll have the difficult task of reporting this, and it'll
be a shame, because, in the past, this building held very nice
activities, had a pretty garden and people had enthusiasm."
No one said a word.
Then, she pulled the oldest trick in the book, appealing to veteran CDR
members: "Will no one step forward? If you elect a young person, so much
the better, but it can also be an elderly person who knows the neighbors
well, who knows each of their personalities. Will no one speak? Am I to
believe no one has an opinion on this? The district coordinator, who
lives in a different building, by the way, can't continue chairing this
CDR, that's not her job. There are valuable people here, why won't
anyone say anything?"
It was true: there was deathly silence.
In view of this situation, other officials – only women spoke – took the
floor to remind us that CDRs are "our way of life." In an effort to
offer something more substantial, they turned to the constitution:
"Chapter 4 speaks of the importance and duties of the family." Then,
they invoked illustrious figures: "It's no accident Jose de la Luz y
Caballero said that one's education begins at home, and home is where
the family is, and families are part of the CDR, as are all neighbors."
But people remained silent.
So, looking desperate, they took out the magic wand. While children are
frightened straight with the "boogey man," one word serves to horrify
adults: "counterrevolutionary."
Yes, this late in the game, people still jump up when they feel they are
being accused of being counterrevolutionaries. I know it's hard to
believe, but it's the truth.
The uncomfortable murmuring immediately began to be heard. An elderly
woman from the old, CDR guard took the position. There was no vote. It
didn't matter whether people agreed with this or not, the meeting was
adjourned.
There was applause. The word "dignity" caused a certain degree of
euphoria among those present. "We don't want anyone to come tell us what
to do, we know how to do things well, and we'll do them together. No
one's a counterrevolutionary here."
I should clarify that the uproar wasn't caused by any concrete fear. It
wasn't the fear of incurring the disfavor of others or receiving a poor
assessment**, it was more along the lines of having one's "honor
besmirched."
I love seeing the people I care for together, getting along without any
conflicts, overcoming differences, sharing things, etc. However, it is
pathetic that our union should be imposed on us by appealing to
something as confusing and absurd as the CDR, a dying organization that
fights tooth and nail to remain alive. No one believes the media when
they tout the vitality of the organization and very few see any reason
for it to exist at all, but there it is, still holding on to dear life
in our neighborhoods.
Notes:
* During the Summit of the Americas, the Cuban government defended the
idea that the island's CDRs and other grassroot organizations are part
of a "genuine civil society." If that were so, it would have no need of
guidance or supervision from a Party.
** Some workplaces approach the CDR to confirm an applicant's
revolutionary credentials and social behavior. Many a time, getting the
job depends on this process.
Source: Cuba's CDR Committees: Bringing Back the Dead - Havana Times.org
- http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=115791
December 29, 2015
Irina Echarry
HAVANA TIMES — There were no excuses: it wasn't raining, people had been
notified in advance, the meeting would be held before the sacred soap
opera came on and the "visitors" would arrive early. We had only to wait
until the clock showed 8 pm to start.
For two years now, none of the building's tenants have wanted to become
the chair of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). Put
that way, it would seem we are seeing a form of popular resistance, an
act of defiance against decadent organizations. Some might even think we
are approaching the date in which Cubans (or at least those living on my
block) decide to take the reins of their lives and send the
"revolutionary" abominations they suffer straight to hell.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, tis best not to allow ourselves to
be deceived.
The blessed "visitors" were from the district Party office, that is to
say, members of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) who are retired and
continue to offer services in their place of residence.
The PCC secretary made it clear at the very beginning that she wasn't
there of her own free will, that it was a duty she had to fulfil. "What
we do is offer guidance and supervise, but, owing to the problem that a
CDR without a head represents…"
Yes, I asked myself the same question: what is the Party doing trying to
"solve" a problem faced by "genuine civil society"?*
The official continued in a very calm tone of voice: "If we don't elect
someone today, I'll have the difficult task of reporting this, and it'll
be a shame, because, in the past, this building held very nice
activities, had a pretty garden and people had enthusiasm."
No one said a word.
Then, she pulled the oldest trick in the book, appealing to veteran CDR
members: "Will no one step forward? If you elect a young person, so much
the better, but it can also be an elderly person who knows the neighbors
well, who knows each of their personalities. Will no one speak? Am I to
believe no one has an opinion on this? The district coordinator, who
lives in a different building, by the way, can't continue chairing this
CDR, that's not her job. There are valuable people here, why won't
anyone say anything?"
It was true: there was deathly silence.
In view of this situation, other officials – only women spoke – took the
floor to remind us that CDRs are "our way of life." In an effort to
offer something more substantial, they turned to the constitution:
"Chapter 4 speaks of the importance and duties of the family." Then,
they invoked illustrious figures: "It's no accident Jose de la Luz y
Caballero said that one's education begins at home, and home is where
the family is, and families are part of the CDR, as are all neighbors."
But people remained silent.
So, looking desperate, they took out the magic wand. While children are
frightened straight with the "boogey man," one word serves to horrify
adults: "counterrevolutionary."
Yes, this late in the game, people still jump up when they feel they are
being accused of being counterrevolutionaries. I know it's hard to
believe, but it's the truth.
The uncomfortable murmuring immediately began to be heard. An elderly
woman from the old, CDR guard took the position. There was no vote. It
didn't matter whether people agreed with this or not, the meeting was
adjourned.
There was applause. The word "dignity" caused a certain degree of
euphoria among those present. "We don't want anyone to come tell us what
to do, we know how to do things well, and we'll do them together. No
one's a counterrevolutionary here."
I should clarify that the uproar wasn't caused by any concrete fear. It
wasn't the fear of incurring the disfavor of others or receiving a poor
assessment**, it was more along the lines of having one's "honor
besmirched."
I love seeing the people I care for together, getting along without any
conflicts, overcoming differences, sharing things, etc. However, it is
pathetic that our union should be imposed on us by appealing to
something as confusing and absurd as the CDR, a dying organization that
fights tooth and nail to remain alive. No one believes the media when
they tout the vitality of the organization and very few see any reason
for it to exist at all, but there it is, still holding on to dear life
in our neighborhoods.
Notes:
* During the Summit of the Americas, the Cuban government defended the
idea that the island's CDRs and other grassroot organizations are part
of a "genuine civil society." If that were so, it would have no need of
guidance or supervision from a Party.
** Some workplaces approach the CDR to confirm an applicant's
revolutionary credentials and social behavior. Many a time, getting the
job depends on this process.
Source: Cuba's CDR Committees: Bringing Back the Dead - Havana Times.org
- http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=115791
Is Cuba the New El Dorado?
Is Cuba the New El Dorado?
News December 29, 2015
Exploring Cuba's economic opportunities
By Anne-Sophie Gidoin
Op-Ed Contributor
To catch 2 Billion USD in foreign investment per year, the Caribbean's
biggest island has equipped itself with an engaging legal framework.
The remedies available in case of disputes against local entities
reinforces the attractiveness of this 11 million individuals-market.
Cuba seeks foreign investment in the amount of $2 Billion USD per year
to increase its annual growth rate above 4%. Since November 2014, the
Cuban government has hence unveiled 326 strategic investment projects.
Despite extensive media coverage of the restoration of diplomatic
relations with the US during the summer of 2015, the island refuses to
depend again on a single market.
In addition to Venezuela, Cuba currently includes Spain, Brazil, Canada
and China as its preferred partners.
At first glance, resorting to internationalization to ensure growth and
development in a socialist economy might be surprising. Yet, the
leading measures undertaken by the Government confirm that the
"actualization of the Cuban economic model" is on.
The creation of ZED Mariel ("Zona Especial de Desarollo Mariel") in
September 2013 has been the first milestone towards the implementation
of an attractive framework for foreign investors. This 465 sq.m. area,
located 45 km away from Havana, is intended to become a maritime hub in
the region. But it is the entry into force of Law No. 118 – Cuba's
Foreign Investment Act – which seals the modernized legal framework.
The government targets specific sectors for investment such as
agriculture, renewable energy, the chemical and pharmaceutical
industries, infrastructure and tourism, as well as information and
communication technologies. In fact, strategic investment projects
cover a broad scope: health, education and the army being the only
fields reserved to domestic investors .
Foreigners investing in Cuba have two options. On the one hand, they
may create an international economic association with local investors.
This association either takes the form of a joint venture ("Empresa
mixta"), or of an international economic association agreement
("Contrato de asociacion economica internacional"). On the other hand,
an investor may register a totally foreign capital company (« Empresa de
capital totalmente extranjero »). In this case, the investor is able to
settle as a natural person, acting on his own behalf, or as a juridical
person setting up a subsidiary office or a branch of a foreign entity.
In practice, foreign investments shall be approved by the competent
administrative authority, depending on the form of investment. The
CEPEC ("Centro para la Promoción del Comercio Exterior y la Inversión
Extranjera") is the national agency supporting foreigners in their
strategic moves.
The tax regime applicable to joint ventures and international economic
association agreements is particularly attractive, the more so in ZED
Mariel. These companies are exempted from profit tax for 8-10 years.
They also benefit from exemptions related to social charges, territorial
contributions, customs and natural persons' income.
Last but not least, the State guarantees foreign investors free transfer
aboard, in freely convertible currency and freely of tax and fees, of
dividends and profits obtained as a result of the investment, as well as
amounts received in the aftermath of a dispute, liquidation or sale of
the company in which the investment was made. Foreign investors are
entitled to open bank accounts in the Cuban national banking system and,
upon the Central bank's approval, open and operate accounts in freely
convertible currencies in banks established abroad, and engage in
lending operations with foreign financial institutions.
Remedies available to foreign investors in case of a dispute with a
local entity complete the attractive regime set on the island.
Disputes between private parties may be decided by international
arbitration tribunals when contractually agreed. Decree Law No. 250 of
30 July 2007 updates the Cuban arbitration law. The Cuban court of
international commercial arbitration plays a key role in this
mechanism. Accordingly with the New York Convention on the recognition
and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, which entered into force on
30 March 1975 in Cuba, foreign arbitral awards shall be enforced in Cuba
and Cuban awards shall be enforced in the 155 States members of this
Convention.
Besides, foreign investors may directly assert their rights against the
Cuban State, pursuant to 40 Bilateral investment treaties between the
island and foreign countries. These treaties protect investors from
signatory States especially against expropriation, discriminatory
measures, breach of the fair and equitable treatment standard and other
breaches of international law.
Regardless of continuing uncertainties related to political tensions,
past failures and the State's grip on the economy, the island has
managed to set an engaging legal framework. Cuba is certainly a new
Eldorado, open to daring investors.
Anne-Sophie Gidoin is an Associate in Jones Day's Global Disputes Group,
LL.M.(MIDS, Geneva).
Note: the opinions expressed in Cuba Journal Op-Eds are those of the
author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Cuba Journal.
Source: Is Cuba the New El Dorado? | Cuba Journal -
http://cubajournal.co/is-cuba-the-new-el-dorado/
News December 29, 2015
Exploring Cuba's economic opportunities
By Anne-Sophie Gidoin
Op-Ed Contributor
To catch 2 Billion USD in foreign investment per year, the Caribbean's
biggest island has equipped itself with an engaging legal framework.
The remedies available in case of disputes against local entities
reinforces the attractiveness of this 11 million individuals-market.
Cuba seeks foreign investment in the amount of $2 Billion USD per year
to increase its annual growth rate above 4%. Since November 2014, the
Cuban government has hence unveiled 326 strategic investment projects.
Despite extensive media coverage of the restoration of diplomatic
relations with the US during the summer of 2015, the island refuses to
depend again on a single market.
In addition to Venezuela, Cuba currently includes Spain, Brazil, Canada
and China as its preferred partners.
At first glance, resorting to internationalization to ensure growth and
development in a socialist economy might be surprising. Yet, the
leading measures undertaken by the Government confirm that the
"actualization of the Cuban economic model" is on.
The creation of ZED Mariel ("Zona Especial de Desarollo Mariel") in
September 2013 has been the first milestone towards the implementation
of an attractive framework for foreign investors. This 465 sq.m. area,
located 45 km away from Havana, is intended to become a maritime hub in
the region. But it is the entry into force of Law No. 118 – Cuba's
Foreign Investment Act – which seals the modernized legal framework.
The government targets specific sectors for investment such as
agriculture, renewable energy, the chemical and pharmaceutical
industries, infrastructure and tourism, as well as information and
communication technologies. In fact, strategic investment projects
cover a broad scope: health, education and the army being the only
fields reserved to domestic investors .
Foreigners investing in Cuba have two options. On the one hand, they
may create an international economic association with local investors.
This association either takes the form of a joint venture ("Empresa
mixta"), or of an international economic association agreement
("Contrato de asociacion economica internacional"). On the other hand,
an investor may register a totally foreign capital company (« Empresa de
capital totalmente extranjero »). In this case, the investor is able to
settle as a natural person, acting on his own behalf, or as a juridical
person setting up a subsidiary office or a branch of a foreign entity.
In practice, foreign investments shall be approved by the competent
administrative authority, depending on the form of investment. The
CEPEC ("Centro para la Promoción del Comercio Exterior y la Inversión
Extranjera") is the national agency supporting foreigners in their
strategic moves.
The tax regime applicable to joint ventures and international economic
association agreements is particularly attractive, the more so in ZED
Mariel. These companies are exempted from profit tax for 8-10 years.
They also benefit from exemptions related to social charges, territorial
contributions, customs and natural persons' income.
Last but not least, the State guarantees foreign investors free transfer
aboard, in freely convertible currency and freely of tax and fees, of
dividends and profits obtained as a result of the investment, as well as
amounts received in the aftermath of a dispute, liquidation or sale of
the company in which the investment was made. Foreign investors are
entitled to open bank accounts in the Cuban national banking system and,
upon the Central bank's approval, open and operate accounts in freely
convertible currencies in banks established abroad, and engage in
lending operations with foreign financial institutions.
Remedies available to foreign investors in case of a dispute with a
local entity complete the attractive regime set on the island.
Disputes between private parties may be decided by international
arbitration tribunals when contractually agreed. Decree Law No. 250 of
30 July 2007 updates the Cuban arbitration law. The Cuban court of
international commercial arbitration plays a key role in this
mechanism. Accordingly with the New York Convention on the recognition
and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, which entered into force on
30 March 1975 in Cuba, foreign arbitral awards shall be enforced in Cuba
and Cuban awards shall be enforced in the 155 States members of this
Convention.
Besides, foreign investors may directly assert their rights against the
Cuban State, pursuant to 40 Bilateral investment treaties between the
island and foreign countries. These treaties protect investors from
signatory States especially against expropriation, discriminatory
measures, breach of the fair and equitable treatment standard and other
breaches of international law.
Regardless of continuing uncertainties related to political tensions,
past failures and the State's grip on the economy, the island has
managed to set an engaging legal framework. Cuba is certainly a new
Eldorado, open to daring investors.
Anne-Sophie Gidoin is an Associate in Jones Day's Global Disputes Group,
LL.M.(MIDS, Geneva).
Note: the opinions expressed in Cuba Journal Op-Eds are those of the
author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Cuba Journal.
Source: Is Cuba the New El Dorado? | Cuba Journal -
http://cubajournal.co/is-cuba-the-new-el-dorado/
Migrants, Crises and Transnationalism
Cuba: Migrants, Crises and Transnationalism
December 29, 2015
Haroldo Dilla Alfonso
HAVANA TIMES — As the days pass, the thousands of Cubans stranded in
Costa Rica as refugees and the hundreds who have gathered, destitute, in
small impoverished towns along Panama's pacific coast cease to make
headlines in Cuba.
The island's official press mentions the situation only in passing, as a
distant phenomenon, as, and I quote Cubadebate, "a complex migratory
situation that has arisen in that country [Costa Rica], brought about by
how alluring the riches of the north prove for the poor of the south and
by the specific provisions that benefit Cuban migrants in the United Sates."
In the meantime, the international press seems to have grown tired of
what was once the attractive media spectacle of Cubans being clubbed by
the Nicaraguan police. What we are seeing today is a closed playing
field, in which each of the countries involved has taken a stance that
neutralizes the potential decisions others could make and forces Costa
Rica to digest a situation which stands as the most disastrous migratory
crisis of its history.
The complexity of the issue, however, isn't to be found in its
humanitarian dimension. Ultimately, I am certain that Cubans will find a
way to reach the United States or settle somewhere in Central America
where they can start a new life. It's possible, and desirable, that they
will come to the end of the journey before the year ends. They are
certainly entitled to it.
[Editors's Note: we also suggest "Possible Solution to Allow the 8,000
Cubans in Costa Rica to Reach the USA", published after this article by
Haroldo Dilla]
The complexity of the situation stems from the fact the issue isn't
being debated and, consequently, that it is left in the hands of the
government, which interprets and describes the matter as a "complex
migratory situation," when, in fact, what we are dealing with is a
structural crisis facing Cuban society and with morbid situations that
waste away this society and make it unviable as a nation.
It's true that no objective balance of Cuba's migratory situation can
place this situation outside the context of US-Cuba bilateral conflicts,
or neglect the responsibility of the US government in this situation.
But to leave matters there not only involves a politically skewed
analysis but also a gesture of intellectual dishonesty.
The Cuban state has used its migrants as an instrument of political
blackmail – at times restricting migration, at times authorizing it and
at times instigating it through mass exodus like the ones witnessed in
1980 and 1994. For all such ends, it has never been hesitant to stage
farcical encounters, such as the nation's meetings with representatives
of the émigré community, to sink tow-boats full of helpless individuals
(including children) or to charge the steepest consular fees in the world.
What took place on the Costa Rica – Nicaragua border is another example
of how this government uses its migrants: the Cuban government has
instigated a migratory crisis, coordinated with an allied government
(Nicaragua) and has consented to having its citizens mistreated in
unjustified acts of violence. Then, it has turned its back on the
situation in all senses, bombastically proclaiming that it would be
willing to allow those migrants who have a legal migratory status and
wish to return to the island to come back to Cuba. That is to say, no one.
On the other hand, Cuban emigration cannot be explained solely on the
basis of legal provisions such as the Cuban Adjustment Act, as no
opportunity, no matter how attractive, explains the frankly suicidal
nature of the itineraries in question, where more than one migrant has
lost their life. It is also untrue that the only reason to emigrate is
of an economic nature – no migratory phenomenon operates that way – and,
in Cuba, the economy and politics merge into one another in an
excessively affectionate embrace.
People in Cuba emigrate because they have no prospects in a country with
a devastated economy, an authoritarian system of government and highly
limited options in terms of personal realization. Cubans not only live
poorly, they can't complain about it and are unable to picture a
brighter future. They are also terribly bored.
One of the most dangerous aspects of the current situation is the scant
attention devoted the matter by those who – as academics or political
activists – should have learned the significance of the increasingly
evident transnational nature of our society. Next to no one has said
anything on the matter.
A case in point is the tardy and inadequate analysis carried out by the
critical intellectuals who are part of the Cuba Posible ("Possible
Cuba," CP) project. In this connection, CP issued one of its familiar
dossiers (http://cubaposible.net/topicos-cubanos), with a suggestive
introduction which read as follows: "We must urgently find an answer to
the dramatic crisis these people and their relatives are facing. In
addition, Cuba and the United States must urgently implement
multifaceted (and short-term) measures and design a (long-term) strategy
to lay the foundations of a new situation that will make scenarios such
as this one impossible." The dossier sought the opinion of several
individuals. I will refer to those of three renowned intellectuals:
Lenier Gonzalez, Roberto Veiga and Pavel Vidal.
With the exception of Lenier Gonazalez, CP vice-chair, who described the
crisis as a structural problem (with questionable arguments, perhaps,
but also with a laudable multifaceted approach that did not neglect the
issue of democracy), the rest of the people approached offered a frankly
precarious and unilateral analysis.
Economist Pavel Vidal, for instance, attributed emigration to the
economic crisis and suggested the solution was to be found in the
broadening of the private sector in Cuba. This way, he neglected the
fact that the bourgeoning of Cuban emigration to its current,
unsustainable levels has been co-extensive with the expansion of the
private sector. This is so, quite simply, because the expansion of the
private sector does not take place as a liberalizing addition to the
nation's economy but as a restructuring process that leaves people out,
precisely the losers who economists, dazzled by the market, consider
morally acceptable collateral damage.
Lastly, this neglects the fact that Cubans were emigrating long before
the crisis existed and even at times of economic growth and rising
consumption, as the Mariel exodus illustrated. To place migration and
the economy in a strictly linear relationship is a regrettable
vulgarization of the situation.
The most curious line of argument, however was probably that followed by
CP chair Roberto Veiga, who feels the problem would go away with the
elimination of the blockade/embargo and the establishment of a "quick
lane" that would grant Cuba's Council of Ministers discretional powers,
to make decisions without the consent of "parliament."
Veiga writes as though Cuba was not already a country governed through
decrees and as though that form of authoritarianism wasn't one of the
reasons behind the domestic crisis which hurls Cubans across the planet,
as though it were perfectly reasonable that an institution that speaks
of building a better Cuba should suggest giving an authoritarian
government greater authority.
When I see such texts, I grow increasingly convinced of the acquiescence
of the island's intellectuals (no matter how talented) in the face of
issues which, like this one, force us to direct our criticisms inward.
And it is doubly regrettable, because this debate involves that other
part of Cuban society that does not reside on the island and which CP
does not call upon. Suffice it to recall the volume published by FIU
University three years ago.
The one positive aspect of this regrettable crisis is that it forces us
to regard Cuban society from a transnational perspective, that is to
say, as a society that transcends the island's boundaries and is
developing intense economic, cultural and political ties in different
corners of the planet. If we refuse to regard Cuba this way, we will
fail to understand what is taking place and what will take place in a
future replete with challenges. One of these challenges is how to take
full advantage of the transnational nature of a country that ought to
belong to everyone.
Source: Cuba: Migrants, Crises and Transnationalism - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=115775
December 29, 2015
Haroldo Dilla Alfonso
HAVANA TIMES — As the days pass, the thousands of Cubans stranded in
Costa Rica as refugees and the hundreds who have gathered, destitute, in
small impoverished towns along Panama's pacific coast cease to make
headlines in Cuba.
The island's official press mentions the situation only in passing, as a
distant phenomenon, as, and I quote Cubadebate, "a complex migratory
situation that has arisen in that country [Costa Rica], brought about by
how alluring the riches of the north prove for the poor of the south and
by the specific provisions that benefit Cuban migrants in the United Sates."
In the meantime, the international press seems to have grown tired of
what was once the attractive media spectacle of Cubans being clubbed by
the Nicaraguan police. What we are seeing today is a closed playing
field, in which each of the countries involved has taken a stance that
neutralizes the potential decisions others could make and forces Costa
Rica to digest a situation which stands as the most disastrous migratory
crisis of its history.
The complexity of the issue, however, isn't to be found in its
humanitarian dimension. Ultimately, I am certain that Cubans will find a
way to reach the United States or settle somewhere in Central America
where they can start a new life. It's possible, and desirable, that they
will come to the end of the journey before the year ends. They are
certainly entitled to it.
[Editors's Note: we also suggest "Possible Solution to Allow the 8,000
Cubans in Costa Rica to Reach the USA", published after this article by
Haroldo Dilla]
The complexity of the situation stems from the fact the issue isn't
being debated and, consequently, that it is left in the hands of the
government, which interprets and describes the matter as a "complex
migratory situation," when, in fact, what we are dealing with is a
structural crisis facing Cuban society and with morbid situations that
waste away this society and make it unviable as a nation.
It's true that no objective balance of Cuba's migratory situation can
place this situation outside the context of US-Cuba bilateral conflicts,
or neglect the responsibility of the US government in this situation.
But to leave matters there not only involves a politically skewed
analysis but also a gesture of intellectual dishonesty.
The Cuban state has used its migrants as an instrument of political
blackmail – at times restricting migration, at times authorizing it and
at times instigating it through mass exodus like the ones witnessed in
1980 and 1994. For all such ends, it has never been hesitant to stage
farcical encounters, such as the nation's meetings with representatives
of the émigré community, to sink tow-boats full of helpless individuals
(including children) or to charge the steepest consular fees in the world.
What took place on the Costa Rica – Nicaragua border is another example
of how this government uses its migrants: the Cuban government has
instigated a migratory crisis, coordinated with an allied government
(Nicaragua) and has consented to having its citizens mistreated in
unjustified acts of violence. Then, it has turned its back on the
situation in all senses, bombastically proclaiming that it would be
willing to allow those migrants who have a legal migratory status and
wish to return to the island to come back to Cuba. That is to say, no one.
On the other hand, Cuban emigration cannot be explained solely on the
basis of legal provisions such as the Cuban Adjustment Act, as no
opportunity, no matter how attractive, explains the frankly suicidal
nature of the itineraries in question, where more than one migrant has
lost their life. It is also untrue that the only reason to emigrate is
of an economic nature – no migratory phenomenon operates that way – and,
in Cuba, the economy and politics merge into one another in an
excessively affectionate embrace.
People in Cuba emigrate because they have no prospects in a country with
a devastated economy, an authoritarian system of government and highly
limited options in terms of personal realization. Cubans not only live
poorly, they can't complain about it and are unable to picture a
brighter future. They are also terribly bored.
One of the most dangerous aspects of the current situation is the scant
attention devoted the matter by those who – as academics or political
activists – should have learned the significance of the increasingly
evident transnational nature of our society. Next to no one has said
anything on the matter.
A case in point is the tardy and inadequate analysis carried out by the
critical intellectuals who are part of the Cuba Posible ("Possible
Cuba," CP) project. In this connection, CP issued one of its familiar
dossiers (http://cubaposible.net/topicos-cubanos), with a suggestive
introduction which read as follows: "We must urgently find an answer to
the dramatic crisis these people and their relatives are facing. In
addition, Cuba and the United States must urgently implement
multifaceted (and short-term) measures and design a (long-term) strategy
to lay the foundations of a new situation that will make scenarios such
as this one impossible." The dossier sought the opinion of several
individuals. I will refer to those of three renowned intellectuals:
Lenier Gonzalez, Roberto Veiga and Pavel Vidal.
With the exception of Lenier Gonazalez, CP vice-chair, who described the
crisis as a structural problem (with questionable arguments, perhaps,
but also with a laudable multifaceted approach that did not neglect the
issue of democracy), the rest of the people approached offered a frankly
precarious and unilateral analysis.
Economist Pavel Vidal, for instance, attributed emigration to the
economic crisis and suggested the solution was to be found in the
broadening of the private sector in Cuba. This way, he neglected the
fact that the bourgeoning of Cuban emigration to its current,
unsustainable levels has been co-extensive with the expansion of the
private sector. This is so, quite simply, because the expansion of the
private sector does not take place as a liberalizing addition to the
nation's economy but as a restructuring process that leaves people out,
precisely the losers who economists, dazzled by the market, consider
morally acceptable collateral damage.
Lastly, this neglects the fact that Cubans were emigrating long before
the crisis existed and even at times of economic growth and rising
consumption, as the Mariel exodus illustrated. To place migration and
the economy in a strictly linear relationship is a regrettable
vulgarization of the situation.
The most curious line of argument, however was probably that followed by
CP chair Roberto Veiga, who feels the problem would go away with the
elimination of the blockade/embargo and the establishment of a "quick
lane" that would grant Cuba's Council of Ministers discretional powers,
to make decisions without the consent of "parliament."
Veiga writes as though Cuba was not already a country governed through
decrees and as though that form of authoritarianism wasn't one of the
reasons behind the domestic crisis which hurls Cubans across the planet,
as though it were perfectly reasonable that an institution that speaks
of building a better Cuba should suggest giving an authoritarian
government greater authority.
When I see such texts, I grow increasingly convinced of the acquiescence
of the island's intellectuals (no matter how talented) in the face of
issues which, like this one, force us to direct our criticisms inward.
And it is doubly regrettable, because this debate involves that other
part of Cuban society that does not reside on the island and which CP
does not call upon. Suffice it to recall the volume published by FIU
University three years ago.
The one positive aspect of this regrettable crisis is that it forces us
to regard Cuban society from a transnational perspective, that is to
say, as a society that transcends the island's boundaries and is
developing intense economic, cultural and political ties in different
corners of the planet. If we refuse to regard Cuba this way, we will
fail to understand what is taking place and what will take place in a
future replete with challenges. One of these challenges is how to take
full advantage of the transnational nature of a country that ought to
belong to everyone.
Source: Cuba: Migrants, Crises and Transnationalism - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=115775
Raul Castro prepares Cuba for tough year despite US opening
Raul Castro prepares Cuba for tough year despite US opening
By Michael Weissenstein | AP December 29 at 8:11 PM
HAVANA — President Raul Castro warned Cubans on Tuesday to prepare for
tough economic conditions in 2016 despite warmer relations with the
United States. Castro said that while tourism is booming, low oil prices
have damaged the outlook of an economy that depends on billions of
dollars of subsidized oil and cash from Venezuela.
According to state-controlled media, Cuba's president told the National
Assembly to expect 2 percent growth in gross domestic product next year,
half the rate his government reported in 2015. Foreign media are barred
from the twice-annual meetings of the National Assembly.
Despite the government's assertion that the GDP grew 4 percent this
year, there is widespread dissatisfaction among Cubans over the widening
gap between low salaries and the high price of essential goods, most
particularly food.
Castro appeared to be preparing Cubans for harder times ahead, saying
that "we must cut any unnecessary spending and make use of the resources
that we have with more rationality and with the goal of developing the
country."
He dedicated a lengthy section of his speech to Venezuela, where the
opposition to Cuba-backed socialist President Nicolas Maduro recently
took control of parliament amid widespread shortages and spiraling violence.
Cheap oil "has affected our relationship of mutual aid with various
countries, particularly the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the target
of an economic war aimed at undermining popular support for its
revolution," Castro said.
He urged Cubans to avoid what he labeled "defeatism" in the face of a
drop in Venezuelan aid, saying "the history of our revolution is full of
glorious pages despite difficulties, risks and threats."
More than 3 million tourists visited in 2015, an increase of nearly 20
percent in the wake of President Barack Obama's declaration of detente
with Cuba. The surge in visitors pumped cash into the state-controlled
tourist economy and the growing sector of private bed-and-breakfasts and
restaurants, but it also drove up household inflation. In the absence of
a wholesale market for private businesses in Cuba's state-controlled
economy, entrepreneurs have been forced to compete with cash-strapped
consumers, driving up prices by driving off with cartloads of basic
foodstuffs like eggs and flour.
Salaries for state employees, who make up most of Cuba's workforce,
remain stuck at around $25 a month, leaving hundreds of thousands of
Cubans struggling to feed their families.
Falling oil prices have lowered the cost of the imported goods that Cuba
depends on but have hurt the island's economic relationship with
Venezuela in 2015, Castro said. Cuba has sent thousands of doctors to
Venezuela in recent years in exchange for oil and cash payments at
highly beneficial rates.
Cuba does not regularly release reliable economic statistics that
conform to international standard but its top earners of hard currency
in recent years have been tourism, nickel mining and the export of
government-employed professionals like the doctors sent to Venezuela and
other allied countries. Castro said lower nickel prices also hurt the
country's 2016 outlook.
____
Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mweissenstein
Source: Raul Castro prepares Cuba for tough year despite US opening -
The Washington Post -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/raul-castro-prepares-cuba-for-tough-year-despite-us-opening/2015/12/29/08a173c8-ae89-11e5-b281-43c0b56f61fa_story.html
By Michael Weissenstein | AP December 29 at 8:11 PM
HAVANA — President Raul Castro warned Cubans on Tuesday to prepare for
tough economic conditions in 2016 despite warmer relations with the
United States. Castro said that while tourism is booming, low oil prices
have damaged the outlook of an economy that depends on billions of
dollars of subsidized oil and cash from Venezuela.
According to state-controlled media, Cuba's president told the National
Assembly to expect 2 percent growth in gross domestic product next year,
half the rate his government reported in 2015. Foreign media are barred
from the twice-annual meetings of the National Assembly.
Despite the government's assertion that the GDP grew 4 percent this
year, there is widespread dissatisfaction among Cubans over the widening
gap between low salaries and the high price of essential goods, most
particularly food.
Castro appeared to be preparing Cubans for harder times ahead, saying
that "we must cut any unnecessary spending and make use of the resources
that we have with more rationality and with the goal of developing the
country."
He dedicated a lengthy section of his speech to Venezuela, where the
opposition to Cuba-backed socialist President Nicolas Maduro recently
took control of parliament amid widespread shortages and spiraling violence.
Cheap oil "has affected our relationship of mutual aid with various
countries, particularly the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the target
of an economic war aimed at undermining popular support for its
revolution," Castro said.
He urged Cubans to avoid what he labeled "defeatism" in the face of a
drop in Venezuelan aid, saying "the history of our revolution is full of
glorious pages despite difficulties, risks and threats."
More than 3 million tourists visited in 2015, an increase of nearly 20
percent in the wake of President Barack Obama's declaration of detente
with Cuba. The surge in visitors pumped cash into the state-controlled
tourist economy and the growing sector of private bed-and-breakfasts and
restaurants, but it also drove up household inflation. In the absence of
a wholesale market for private businesses in Cuba's state-controlled
economy, entrepreneurs have been forced to compete with cash-strapped
consumers, driving up prices by driving off with cartloads of basic
foodstuffs like eggs and flour.
Salaries for state employees, who make up most of Cuba's workforce,
remain stuck at around $25 a month, leaving hundreds of thousands of
Cubans struggling to feed their families.
Falling oil prices have lowered the cost of the imported goods that Cuba
depends on but have hurt the island's economic relationship with
Venezuela in 2015, Castro said. Cuba has sent thousands of doctors to
Venezuela in recent years in exchange for oil and cash payments at
highly beneficial rates.
Cuba does not regularly release reliable economic statistics that
conform to international standard but its top earners of hard currency
in recent years have been tourism, nickel mining and the export of
government-employed professionals like the doctors sent to Venezuela and
other allied countries. Castro said lower nickel prices also hurt the
country's 2016 outlook.
____
Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mweissenstein
Source: Raul Castro prepares Cuba for tough year despite US opening -
The Washington Post -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/raul-castro-prepares-cuba-for-tough-year-despite-us-opening/2015/12/29/08a173c8-ae89-11e5-b281-43c0b56f61fa_story.html
A socialist vision fades in Cuba’s biggest housing project
A socialist vision fades in Cuba's biggest housing project
Inequality is growing in Cuba, threatening the legacy of Castro's revolution
Story by Nick Miroff
Published on December 29, 2015
HAVANA — In the Alamar neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, the
streets don't have names. To find an address, you need to know the zone,
the block number and the apartment, because all the buildings look the
same. Long and rectangular, five stories tall, their facades have been
stripped by the ocean air and re-pigmented in curlicue patterns of mildew.
Alamar is the largest public housing project in Cuba, if not one of the
largest in the world, with 100,000 residents. In a country sworn to
socialist equality, it is arguably Cuba's most equal place, because
everyone pretty much has an identical apartment.
Above: Horses feed near the Alamar coastline; the city's signature
buildings can be seen in the distance. (Photo by Lisette Poole for The
Washington Post)
"It was a model city," said Román Pérez, 76, a retired bus driver who
lives in Zone 8, block D52, apartment 21. He helped build D52 and two
others with his own hands, as a member of a communist worker
"micro-brigade." This was Fidel Castro's idea.
"We had everything then," Pérez said. "Everyone looked after each other."
That was 40 years ago. Today, with U.S.-Cuban relations on the mend,
this island has come to the edge of a new post-Castro era. The country's
ideological foundations are cracking, and new uncertainties are coming —
perhaps none larger than whether the egalitarian values of Castro's
revolution will be swept away by rising inequalities and the breakdown
of Cuba's socialist welfare state.
Communist Party elders want to keep a lid on market forces, but with
every incremental opening, yawning income gaps emerge. The owner of a
small private restaurant can earn hundreds of dollars a day, or more, in
a country where three-quarters of the labor force works for the state
and the average government salary is $20 a month. Tour guides and hotel
chambermaids make more than scientists and doctors.
Younger Cubans do not seem too troubled. But these disparities,
authorities fear, bear the seeds of social tensions, resentments and crime.
"Men Die, But the Party Is Immortal," says a billboard in Alamar, trying
to reassure residents who may wonder what will happen after Fidel, 89,
and current President Raúl Castro, 84, are no longer around.
Cuba remains a society of unusual social and economic parity in Latin
America, a region beset by deep class divisions and the world's worst
homicide rates. A fraying system of cradle-to-grave benefits keeps
Cubans living in a kind of state-administered, socialized poverty,
earning high scores on U.N. human development surveys but little for
Cuban wallets.
On the surface, Alamar looks like the kind of peripheral urban slum that
a visitor would not dare enter in Sao Paulo or Bogota or Mexico City.
Yet it is a place with no gangs, and essentially no guns or drugs, where
neighbors know each other and parents send children out to play in the
cracked stairwells and weedy lots. Social and economic equality — and
political conformity — have been reinforced by the monotony of the
architecture.
Old-timers such as Román Pérez say they would not want to live
elsewhere. But most of the other members of Pérez's micro-brigade have
died or moved away. Their children are impatient to get out of Alamar,
to somewhere better.
They see Cuba's model city, and the country's revolution, as running on
fumes.
'City of the future'
Before it was a neighborhood, Alamar was an argument.
In capitalist countries, governments built housing projects that gave
shelter to the poor but failed to fix the root causes of poverty and
marginalization. Fidel Castro's proletarian city would be different. It
would endow residents with a sense of ownership and belonging by
enlisting them in the construction of their own homes.
The idea came at a low point for Castro. In 1970, he had mobilized the
entire island in a drive to achieve a sugar harvest of 10 million tons.
Students, factory workers and nearly all other able-bodied males were
sent out into the sweltering cane fields with machetes.
The whole thing was a disaster. The sugar harvest fell short, shredding
Castro's veneer of invincibility.
The Cuban leader pivoted to a new fixation: Havana's housing shortage,
the product of a 1960s baby boom and the mass migration of Cubans from
poor rural areas to the capital.
There were few undeveloped spaces big enough for his ambitions. But the
completion of a road tunnel under the Bay of Havana in 1958 had opened
up the city's eastern coastline to developers. Their blueprints had
contemplated an American-style suburb. The rebels' takeover a year later
iced those plans.
"We were living in a one-room apartment," said Luis Castillo, who had
migrated to Havana from Santiago in eastern Cuba. He came to Alamar in
1979 on the promise that his family would receive an apartment in
exchange for his labor as a mason.
"We slept out in the open, in the foundation of the building," said
Castillo, 88, who still lives in the apartment he helped build. "We even
worked on Sundays."
Castro visited Alamar often in those years, dropping by to inspect
progress and show off the project to visiting foreign dignitaries. State
television reports hailed the rise of Cuba's "city of the future."
In an era of right-wing military rule in Latin America, at least one
apartment in every building was reserved for foreign revolutionaries and
activists who might need a refuge.
Alamar today is becoming a different sort of refuge, a destination for
rural migrants from Cuba's interior who can't afford to live anywhere
else in Havana. Four years after Raúl Castro allowed Cubans to begin
buying and selling property, Alamar apartments list for $5,000 to
$10,000, a tenth of what they would be worth in parts of the city that
attract tourists.
[$75,000 will get you a lot of house in Havana — if you're Cuban]
Like the great sugar harvest, Alamar's grand ambitions fell short.
Building materials and budgets were diverted to meet construction quotas
for residential units, leaving little or nothing for parks, recreation
areas and stores, let alone upkeep of the buildings.
The neighborhood's 25 "zones" are laid out in no particular order, and
the apartment blocks too were positioned in haphazard fashion. Open
areas between buildings have since been filled in by weeds and debris.
The disarray is compounded by the lack of a downtown or central plaza.
One part of Alamar is so remote it's known as "Siberia."
"Alamar became the reference point for what happens when you remove the
concept of architecture from the construction process," said Miguel
Coyula, a Havana architect who is an authority on the city's history.
Such criticisms sting for Humberto Ramírez, who was assigned to Alamar
in 1972 as a young architect. He eventually became the project's top
technical engineer. Despite the inexpert labor force, he said, most of
the buildings remain solid. The Alamar buildings did fail as an example
of urban planning, Ramírez acknowledges.
"But they achieved their goal," he said. "They provided housing. And
they created a place of equality for the socialist society we were
building."
Hard times set in
When Olga Mederos moved to Alamar in 1986, there were strict rules. No
pets. No exterior alterations. No religious believers. She tried to put
some potted plants on her balcony and got a reprimand.
"Alamar wasn't so run-down then," said Mederos, 55, who lives in Zone 8,
D54, with her adult son. "People followed the rules. They took better
care of the common areas. On weekends, everyone would volunteer to pick
up trash and sweep the stairwells."
Alamar was then like a gated community, except that the homeowners
association was the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR),
the Communist Party watch group found in every neighborhood on the
island. It enforced the residential rules and the political ones, too.
It aimed to create a community of model workers, devoted revolutionaries
and altruistic neighbors.
It worked, in a sense, for a while.
Cuba was more prosperous then, floating on generous Soviet subsidies.
Bus service to the rest of Havana was plentiful. So were the food
rations at government bodegas.
When the Soviet Union folded, Cuba fell on hard times, but Alamar fell
harder. The power blackouts were constant. Gasoline shortages meant
six-hour lines at the bus stop. Mederos remembers taking her children to
the rocky shoreline to cool off and watching neighbors push off on
makeshift rafts bound for Florida.
The apartment blocks of Alamar still have CDR watch groups, but
neighbors rarely volunteer anymore to pick up trash or work on Sundays.
After 25 years of economic austerity, a collective exhaustion has set
in, the toll of steady emigration, corruption large and small, and the
knowledge, from the impossible-to-filter influences of globalization,
that Cubans live better in almost any other country than their own.
Mederos came from a family of committed revolutionaries and had moved
her parents into the building adjacent to hers. Her father, Aldo, 82,
was a photographer for the Communist Party newspaper, Granma, and what
was then the Ministry of Communications.
He was the first Cuban to print the grisly photos confirming the death
of revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia in 1967. "The
photos were still wet when they took them to Fidel," he said.
The egalitarian ideals of that era are lost today on Aldo's grandson,
Alejandro, 28. He has an American flag in his bedroom but little else.
Trained as a veterinary technician, he was laid off during Raúl Castro's
campaign to downsize the state bureaucracy. Sometimes he drives a taxi.
His mother says he is desperate to leave.
"He says to me, "I don't want to turn 50 in this country with no car and
no house of my own,' " Olga Mederos said.
Mederos's daughter, Wendy, 33, studied for a career as a social worker.
But she grew disillusioned a decade ago when Fidel Castro responded to
chronic pilfering at state gas stations by assigning young social
workers to operate them. She had not gone to university to pump diesel.
She works today in the sales department of the state telecommunications
company.
As elsewhere in Cuba, many of those who sacrificed the most for the
Castros' revolution are today struggling to survive. Mederos's
80-year-old mother, Olga Chang, earns $2 a day selling pastry and candy
in the street. Nearly half of her $15 monthly government pension goes
back to the state for her small-business license.
Olga Chang's husband, Aldo, keeps thick manila envelopes of old photos
that tell the story of a life in the service of Cuba's socialist dream.
There is one of him and Olga on a motorcycle in the early 1960s, when
his little photography studio also afforded them a Chevrolet coupe. Aldo
has photos of a youthful Fidel Castro speaking in Moscow, Hungary,
Brazil, back when Aldo traveled the world to document El Comandante's
sojourns.
A few black-and-white prints show Aldo with a machete in the cane
fields. He volunteered for 12 sugar harvests.
"When I show these to my grandson, he says, 'What good did it do? Look
at you now. You've got nothing,' " Aldo said.
He shuffled the image to the bottom of the pile, looking away. "Maybe
it's true," he said. "Maybe he's right."
Source: A socialist vision fades in Cuba's biggest housing project | The
Washington Post -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2015/12/29/a-socialist-vision-fades-in-cubas-biggest-housing-project/
Inequality is growing in Cuba, threatening the legacy of Castro's revolution
Story by Nick Miroff
Published on December 29, 2015
HAVANA — In the Alamar neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, the
streets don't have names. To find an address, you need to know the zone,
the block number and the apartment, because all the buildings look the
same. Long and rectangular, five stories tall, their facades have been
stripped by the ocean air and re-pigmented in curlicue patterns of mildew.
Alamar is the largest public housing project in Cuba, if not one of the
largest in the world, with 100,000 residents. In a country sworn to
socialist equality, it is arguably Cuba's most equal place, because
everyone pretty much has an identical apartment.
Above: Horses feed near the Alamar coastline; the city's signature
buildings can be seen in the distance. (Photo by Lisette Poole for The
Washington Post)
"It was a model city," said Román Pérez, 76, a retired bus driver who
lives in Zone 8, block D52, apartment 21. He helped build D52 and two
others with his own hands, as a member of a communist worker
"micro-brigade." This was Fidel Castro's idea.
"We had everything then," Pérez said. "Everyone looked after each other."
That was 40 years ago. Today, with U.S.-Cuban relations on the mend,
this island has come to the edge of a new post-Castro era. The country's
ideological foundations are cracking, and new uncertainties are coming —
perhaps none larger than whether the egalitarian values of Castro's
revolution will be swept away by rising inequalities and the breakdown
of Cuba's socialist welfare state.
Communist Party elders want to keep a lid on market forces, but with
every incremental opening, yawning income gaps emerge. The owner of a
small private restaurant can earn hundreds of dollars a day, or more, in
a country where three-quarters of the labor force works for the state
and the average government salary is $20 a month. Tour guides and hotel
chambermaids make more than scientists and doctors.
Younger Cubans do not seem too troubled. But these disparities,
authorities fear, bear the seeds of social tensions, resentments and crime.
"Men Die, But the Party Is Immortal," says a billboard in Alamar, trying
to reassure residents who may wonder what will happen after Fidel, 89,
and current President Raúl Castro, 84, are no longer around.
Cuba remains a society of unusual social and economic parity in Latin
America, a region beset by deep class divisions and the world's worst
homicide rates. A fraying system of cradle-to-grave benefits keeps
Cubans living in a kind of state-administered, socialized poverty,
earning high scores on U.N. human development surveys but little for
Cuban wallets.
On the surface, Alamar looks like the kind of peripheral urban slum that
a visitor would not dare enter in Sao Paulo or Bogota or Mexico City.
Yet it is a place with no gangs, and essentially no guns or drugs, where
neighbors know each other and parents send children out to play in the
cracked stairwells and weedy lots. Social and economic equality — and
political conformity — have been reinforced by the monotony of the
architecture.
Old-timers such as Román Pérez say they would not want to live
elsewhere. But most of the other members of Pérez's micro-brigade have
died or moved away. Their children are impatient to get out of Alamar,
to somewhere better.
They see Cuba's model city, and the country's revolution, as running on
fumes.
'City of the future'
Before it was a neighborhood, Alamar was an argument.
In capitalist countries, governments built housing projects that gave
shelter to the poor but failed to fix the root causes of poverty and
marginalization. Fidel Castro's proletarian city would be different. It
would endow residents with a sense of ownership and belonging by
enlisting them in the construction of their own homes.
The idea came at a low point for Castro. In 1970, he had mobilized the
entire island in a drive to achieve a sugar harvest of 10 million tons.
Students, factory workers and nearly all other able-bodied males were
sent out into the sweltering cane fields with machetes.
The whole thing was a disaster. The sugar harvest fell short, shredding
Castro's veneer of invincibility.
The Cuban leader pivoted to a new fixation: Havana's housing shortage,
the product of a 1960s baby boom and the mass migration of Cubans from
poor rural areas to the capital.
There were few undeveloped spaces big enough for his ambitions. But the
completion of a road tunnel under the Bay of Havana in 1958 had opened
up the city's eastern coastline to developers. Their blueprints had
contemplated an American-style suburb. The rebels' takeover a year later
iced those plans.
"We were living in a one-room apartment," said Luis Castillo, who had
migrated to Havana from Santiago in eastern Cuba. He came to Alamar in
1979 on the promise that his family would receive an apartment in
exchange for his labor as a mason.
"We slept out in the open, in the foundation of the building," said
Castillo, 88, who still lives in the apartment he helped build. "We even
worked on Sundays."
Castro visited Alamar often in those years, dropping by to inspect
progress and show off the project to visiting foreign dignitaries. State
television reports hailed the rise of Cuba's "city of the future."
In an era of right-wing military rule in Latin America, at least one
apartment in every building was reserved for foreign revolutionaries and
activists who might need a refuge.
Alamar today is becoming a different sort of refuge, a destination for
rural migrants from Cuba's interior who can't afford to live anywhere
else in Havana. Four years after Raúl Castro allowed Cubans to begin
buying and selling property, Alamar apartments list for $5,000 to
$10,000, a tenth of what they would be worth in parts of the city that
attract tourists.
[$75,000 will get you a lot of house in Havana — if you're Cuban]
Like the great sugar harvest, Alamar's grand ambitions fell short.
Building materials and budgets were diverted to meet construction quotas
for residential units, leaving little or nothing for parks, recreation
areas and stores, let alone upkeep of the buildings.
The neighborhood's 25 "zones" are laid out in no particular order, and
the apartment blocks too were positioned in haphazard fashion. Open
areas between buildings have since been filled in by weeds and debris.
The disarray is compounded by the lack of a downtown or central plaza.
One part of Alamar is so remote it's known as "Siberia."
"Alamar became the reference point for what happens when you remove the
concept of architecture from the construction process," said Miguel
Coyula, a Havana architect who is an authority on the city's history.
Such criticisms sting for Humberto Ramírez, who was assigned to Alamar
in 1972 as a young architect. He eventually became the project's top
technical engineer. Despite the inexpert labor force, he said, most of
the buildings remain solid. The Alamar buildings did fail as an example
of urban planning, Ramírez acknowledges.
"But they achieved their goal," he said. "They provided housing. And
they created a place of equality for the socialist society we were
building."
Hard times set in
When Olga Mederos moved to Alamar in 1986, there were strict rules. No
pets. No exterior alterations. No religious believers. She tried to put
some potted plants on her balcony and got a reprimand.
"Alamar wasn't so run-down then," said Mederos, 55, who lives in Zone 8,
D54, with her adult son. "People followed the rules. They took better
care of the common areas. On weekends, everyone would volunteer to pick
up trash and sweep the stairwells."
Alamar was then like a gated community, except that the homeowners
association was the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR),
the Communist Party watch group found in every neighborhood on the
island. It enforced the residential rules and the political ones, too.
It aimed to create a community of model workers, devoted revolutionaries
and altruistic neighbors.
It worked, in a sense, for a while.
Cuba was more prosperous then, floating on generous Soviet subsidies.
Bus service to the rest of Havana was plentiful. So were the food
rations at government bodegas.
When the Soviet Union folded, Cuba fell on hard times, but Alamar fell
harder. The power blackouts were constant. Gasoline shortages meant
six-hour lines at the bus stop. Mederos remembers taking her children to
the rocky shoreline to cool off and watching neighbors push off on
makeshift rafts bound for Florida.
The apartment blocks of Alamar still have CDR watch groups, but
neighbors rarely volunteer anymore to pick up trash or work on Sundays.
After 25 years of economic austerity, a collective exhaustion has set
in, the toll of steady emigration, corruption large and small, and the
knowledge, from the impossible-to-filter influences of globalization,
that Cubans live better in almost any other country than their own.
Mederos came from a family of committed revolutionaries and had moved
her parents into the building adjacent to hers. Her father, Aldo, 82,
was a photographer for the Communist Party newspaper, Granma, and what
was then the Ministry of Communications.
He was the first Cuban to print the grisly photos confirming the death
of revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia in 1967. "The
photos were still wet when they took them to Fidel," he said.
The egalitarian ideals of that era are lost today on Aldo's grandson,
Alejandro, 28. He has an American flag in his bedroom but little else.
Trained as a veterinary technician, he was laid off during Raúl Castro's
campaign to downsize the state bureaucracy. Sometimes he drives a taxi.
His mother says he is desperate to leave.
"He says to me, "I don't want to turn 50 in this country with no car and
no house of my own,' " Olga Mederos said.
Mederos's daughter, Wendy, 33, studied for a career as a social worker.
But she grew disillusioned a decade ago when Fidel Castro responded to
chronic pilfering at state gas stations by assigning young social
workers to operate them. She had not gone to university to pump diesel.
She works today in the sales department of the state telecommunications
company.
As elsewhere in Cuba, many of those who sacrificed the most for the
Castros' revolution are today struggling to survive. Mederos's
80-year-old mother, Olga Chang, earns $2 a day selling pastry and candy
in the street. Nearly half of her $15 monthly government pension goes
back to the state for her small-business license.
Olga Chang's husband, Aldo, keeps thick manila envelopes of old photos
that tell the story of a life in the service of Cuba's socialist dream.
There is one of him and Olga on a motorcycle in the early 1960s, when
his little photography studio also afforded them a Chevrolet coupe. Aldo
has photos of a youthful Fidel Castro speaking in Moscow, Hungary,
Brazil, back when Aldo traveled the world to document El Comandante's
sojourns.
A few black-and-white prints show Aldo with a machete in the cane
fields. He volunteered for 12 sugar harvests.
"When I show these to my grandson, he says, 'What good did it do? Look
at you now. You've got nothing,' " Aldo said.
He shuffled the image to the bottom of the pile, looking away. "Maybe
it's true," he said. "Maybe he's right."
Source: A socialist vision fades in Cuba's biggest housing project | The
Washington Post -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2015/12/29/a-socialist-vision-fades-in-cubas-biggest-housing-project/
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Obama administration demand release of Cuban prisoner
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Obama administration demand release of Cuban
prisoner
Vladimir Morera Bacallao hospitalized after 81-day hunger strike
State Department, GOP Miami lawmaker express concern over dissident
Dispute over political prisoner is hiccup in recent improved U.S.-Cuban ties
BY JAMES ROSEN
McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON
In a rare alliance of often-conflicting viewpoints on U.S.-Cuban
relations, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart joined the State Department on Tuesday
in calling for the immediate release of a Cuban political prisoner who
is in intensive care following an 81-day hunger strike.
Vladimir Morera Bacallao was one of 53 dissidents released from prison
in January under an accord the previous month between President Barack
Obama and Cuban leader Raúl Castro. But he was detained again in April
after displaying a sign suggesting that the national elections were a sham.
"The United States is deeply concerned about the deteriorating physical
condition of Vladimir Morera Bacallao, who has been on a hunger strike
since October to protest his imprisonment for peacefully expressing
political dissent," said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman.
Toner, noting that Morera Bacallao has been hospitalized, reportedly in
very serious condition, added: "The United States urgently calls on the
Cuban government to release" the dissident.
The dispute was the most recent episode in a historic shift in relations
between Havana and Washington over the last year.
In a deal brokered by Pope Francis, the United States and Cuba in July
opened embassies in the two longtime adversaries' capitals, three months
after Obama and Castro became the first U.S. and Cuban leaders to meet
in more than a half century.
As part of the movement toward normalized relations, the Obama
administration has lightened restrictions on U.S. citizens' travel to
Cuba, although they must do so under a license from the U.S. Treasury
Department.
THE UNITED STATES URGENTLY CALLS ON THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE MR.
MORERA BACALLAO.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner
Despite the administration's appeal for Morera Bacallao's release,
Diaz-Balart criticized both Obama and Castro for the dissident's
treatment by the Cuban government.
"Morera Bacallao has risked everything for the basic right to have a
voice in his government," the Miami Republican said. "His unjustifiable
imprisonment and mistreatment are further indictments of the brutal
malevolence of the Castro regime, and the utter failure of Obama's
appeasement of Cuba's dictators."
As part of a broader normalization of relations under a Dec. 17, 2014,
agreement, the Cuban government released the last of 53 political
prisoners last Jan. 11 from a list compiled by the United States.
"We know there are going to be human rights concerns we still have when
it comes to Cuba, but we are very pleased that they followed through on
this commitment," Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said in
January after all 53 had been freed.
During municipal elections in April, Morera Bacallao erected a sign that
read: "I vote for my freedom and not in an election where I cannot
choose my president."
Two opposition members, Hildebrando Chaviano and Yuniel Lopez, were the
first dissidents in decades to run in any election. Both lost their bids
for local government seats.
Despite the changes, the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba remains in
effect. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, saying the embargo costs the
American economy $1.2 billion a year, backs Obama's initiative to lift it.
All eight U.S.-Cuban members of Congress, among them four from Florida,
oppose normalized relations between the countries while Castro, the
brother of longtime leader Fidel Castro, remains in power.
Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, both seeking the
Republican presidential nomination, are among the most ardent opponents
of improved ties.
In addition to Rubio and Diaz-Balart, Republican Reps. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen of Miami and Carlos Curbelo of Kendall oppose normalized
relations.
A Miami Herald poll published a year ago showed a distinct split in
viewpoints between Cuban-Americans born in the United States and those
who emigrated from Cuba.
A total of 64 percent of those born in the United States supported
Obama's initiative to normalize relations, compared with just 38 percent
of those born in Cuba.
Source: Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Obama administration demand release of
Cuban prisoner | Miami Herald -
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article52148245.html
prisoner
Vladimir Morera Bacallao hospitalized after 81-day hunger strike
State Department, GOP Miami lawmaker express concern over dissident
Dispute over political prisoner is hiccup in recent improved U.S.-Cuban ties
BY JAMES ROSEN
McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON
In a rare alliance of often-conflicting viewpoints on U.S.-Cuban
relations, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart joined the State Department on Tuesday
in calling for the immediate release of a Cuban political prisoner who
is in intensive care following an 81-day hunger strike.
Vladimir Morera Bacallao was one of 53 dissidents released from prison
in January under an accord the previous month between President Barack
Obama and Cuban leader Raúl Castro. But he was detained again in April
after displaying a sign suggesting that the national elections were a sham.
"The United States is deeply concerned about the deteriorating physical
condition of Vladimir Morera Bacallao, who has been on a hunger strike
since October to protest his imprisonment for peacefully expressing
political dissent," said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman.
Toner, noting that Morera Bacallao has been hospitalized, reportedly in
very serious condition, added: "The United States urgently calls on the
Cuban government to release" the dissident.
The dispute was the most recent episode in a historic shift in relations
between Havana and Washington over the last year.
In a deal brokered by Pope Francis, the United States and Cuba in July
opened embassies in the two longtime adversaries' capitals, three months
after Obama and Castro became the first U.S. and Cuban leaders to meet
in more than a half century.
As part of the movement toward normalized relations, the Obama
administration has lightened restrictions on U.S. citizens' travel to
Cuba, although they must do so under a license from the U.S. Treasury
Department.
THE UNITED STATES URGENTLY CALLS ON THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE MR.
MORERA BACALLAO.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner
Despite the administration's appeal for Morera Bacallao's release,
Diaz-Balart criticized both Obama and Castro for the dissident's
treatment by the Cuban government.
"Morera Bacallao has risked everything for the basic right to have a
voice in his government," the Miami Republican said. "His unjustifiable
imprisonment and mistreatment are further indictments of the brutal
malevolence of the Castro regime, and the utter failure of Obama's
appeasement of Cuba's dictators."
As part of a broader normalization of relations under a Dec. 17, 2014,
agreement, the Cuban government released the last of 53 political
prisoners last Jan. 11 from a list compiled by the United States.
"We know there are going to be human rights concerns we still have when
it comes to Cuba, but we are very pleased that they followed through on
this commitment," Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said in
January after all 53 had been freed.
During municipal elections in April, Morera Bacallao erected a sign that
read: "I vote for my freedom and not in an election where I cannot
choose my president."
Two opposition members, Hildebrando Chaviano and Yuniel Lopez, were the
first dissidents in decades to run in any election. Both lost their bids
for local government seats.
Despite the changes, the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba remains in
effect. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, saying the embargo costs the
American economy $1.2 billion a year, backs Obama's initiative to lift it.
All eight U.S.-Cuban members of Congress, among them four from Florida,
oppose normalized relations between the countries while Castro, the
brother of longtime leader Fidel Castro, remains in power.
Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, both seeking the
Republican presidential nomination, are among the most ardent opponents
of improved ties.
In addition to Rubio and Diaz-Balart, Republican Reps. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen of Miami and Carlos Curbelo of Kendall oppose normalized
relations.
A Miami Herald poll published a year ago showed a distinct split in
viewpoints between Cuban-Americans born in the United States and those
who emigrated from Cuba.
A total of 64 percent of those born in the United States supported
Obama's initiative to normalize relations, compared with just 38 percent
of those born in Cuba.
Source: Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Obama administration demand release of
Cuban prisoner | Miami Herald -
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article52148245.html
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