Loans and taxes may prove daunting for Cuba economic reforms

Posted on Tuesday, 04.26.11
Cuba economy

Loans and taxes may prove daunting for Cuba economic reforms

The Cuban government's massive economic overhaul is hinged on taxes and
access to capital.
By Frances Robles
frobles@MiamiHerald.com

Ernesto is a 26-year-old mechanical engineer turned entrepreneur.

Laid off, he chose a new profession among the list of nearly 200 new
private businesses legalized by the Cuban government. He decided to
become a locksmith, because a relative recently brought the required
machine from Italy. But he still needed cash to buy blank keys.

"When you start a business, you need money," said Ernesto, who spoke by
phone from Havana and asked that his last name not be published. "Money
is something not too many people in Cuba have."

Ernesto borrowed $50 from two friends, tapping into an informal credit
economy that is surging as the backbone of massive new reforms the Cuban
government hopes will help it shed 1.8 million workers in the next three
years.

But experts say there's only so far fundamental changes to the Cuban
economy can go as long as small business owners have to rely on friends
and family to finance their endeavors. A lack of access to capital,
crushing taxes and improvisation from the government on a system it has
little experience testing are among the daunting list of challenges that
test Cuba's economic future.

"The Cuban government started off with a bomb by saying 'we have to lay
off 500,000 people,'" said economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a professor at
the University of Pittsburgh. "They should have begun by saying, 'we are
going to create 500,000 new private jobs,' then, once successful,
announce the layoffs. They put the solution before the problem."

The Cuban Communist Party met last week for the first time since 1997
and just the sixth time in its history. Nearly 1,000 delegates from
around the country met in Havana to tinker with a long list of so-called
"guidelines" aimed at fixing a troubled economy.

Back-to-back hurricanes, falling commodities prices and a bloated
workforce finally forced the Castro regime to tap into what it had long
avoided: a market economy. Castro approved some 178 new businesses, and
for the first time made it legal for Cubans to hire employees.

The party congress made changes, but the revisions have not yet been
published. Among the details experts are waiting for are updates to item
No. 51, which says the Cuban government will create a credit system for
new businesses, considered key to the program's success.

"I guess loans would be welcome here, but you would have to know if your
business is going to pay off," Ernesto said. "There are a lot of new
businesses and a lot of competition. Are we going to make enough to pay
the loans back — with interest?"

The informal loans he received were interest-free favors.

A lot is at stake. The Cuban government doled out huge swaths of
unproductive land to peasants in the past few years, but acknowledges
that much of that land is still idle. Farmers faced too many unexpected
obstacles, including being unable to purchase required supplies.

"This is a major issue," said Gary Maybarduk, a former U.S. diplomat in
Havana. "The tiny guy on the street maybe doesn't need a lot of capital,
and they say there's a lot of money under mattresses in Cuba. But if you
want to do anything significant — make something, hire five people — it
takes money."

Although the Cuban government's party guidelines said it would "provide
necessary banking services," it did not say how. The cash-strapped Cuban
government already has a heavy debt load.

"Where are they going to get the money for this?" Mesa Lago said. "They
did not say when they are going to do this, or how."

The European Union, Spain and Brazil have offered to finance
micro-lending projects, but the Cuban government hasn't said whether it
will accept the offers, Mesa-Lasgo said. The Cuba Study Group, a
U.S.-based organization that advocates better relations between the two
countries, recently announced a plan to raise $50 million for a
micro-loan fund — if the Cuban government ever allowed such a thing.

"It's not possible under Cuban law to distribute the money, so no sense
having it pile up in banks," said Carlos Saladrigas, who heads the Cuba
Study Group. "We believe it's more important than ever to assist the
Cuban entrepreneur. Given the lack of liquidity, the mortgages process
will likely be slow and fraught with problems."

A recent report commissioned by the group suggested web sites such as
www.kiva.org — where people donate or loan money to small business
owners around the world — could provide the solution. It also suggested
the Obama administration further increase the amount of money Americans
can send to people on the island, currently capped at $2,000 a year.

Americans send $1 billion a year to Cuba, and much more financing is
expected during the 380,000 visits that U.S. residents make there
annually. But that dependence on relatives abroad could pose problems
for the island's large Afro-Cuban population, which has far fewer family
members in the United States.

"Blacks have the most to lose as government subsidies dry up,"
Saladrigas said.

Cuban business owners also lack the training in accounting, financing
and marketing to make their ventures work, he said.

Mesa-Lago stressed that financing may not be the most serious of the new
business owner's problems. The proposed guidelines levied several
different taxes and fees on the self-employed at rates that increase as
the number of employees grows.

"That's killing the goose before it lays the golden egg," Mesa-Lago
said. "It's clear to me that taxes are very high, must be studied and
corrected."

Cuban economist Pavel Vidal Alejandro, a professor at the Center for the
Study of the Cuban Economy in Havana, said he and other colleagues had
recommended fewer taxes and a grace period to pay them.

Speaking at a recent conference in New York, Vidal noted that there
could be more minefields ahead. About two-thirds of the 171,000 new
business licenses granted so far this year went to people who were
already out of work, suggesting that the vast reforms may not be enough
of a safety net for the half-million people who are expected to soon be
out of a job.

"If those business licenses were intended for people who are now getting
laid off, and they are being occupied by people who did not have jobs,"
he said, "then you could have a gap there."

The Cuban government has said the changes may have to be delayed for up
to three years to work out the kinks.

"This started three months ago; all these things can't be answered yet,"
Cuban economist Omar Everleny Perez said at the City University of New
York Graduate Center conference. "But there's a decision to change the
country, and that's what's important."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/25/v-fullstory/2184921/loans-and-taxes-may-prove-daunting.html

Cuba's politburo threatened by senility

Posted on Tuesday, 04.26.11
CUBAN POLITBURO

Cuba's politburo threatened by senility
By PEDRO ROIG
proig@miami.edu

It is not difficult to understand that the discourse of the Cuban
revolution has been manipulating dreams for 50 years in a delirious
frenzy of unfulfilled promises.

Fidel Castro, the elderly Marxist dictator, appeared briefly at the
Sixth Congress of the Communist Party, looking very fragile, not
speaking, raising the arm of his brother Raúl, now confirmed as First
Party Secretary, and surrounded by the 15 members of the Politburo, half
of whom are generals between the ages of 72 and 83.

Fidel himself, 84, appeared weak and walked with difficulty, but it was
clear that, despite his precarious health, he is dying stunningly
slowly, which, some analysts say, hinders Raúl Castro's work.

Half a century into the failure of the revolution, the Sixth Congress
concluded with an incoherent report that contained contradictory signals
about five-year plans to establish bank credit, decentralize the state's
economy, set up commercial contracts to solve conflicts and give Cubans
the right to own their homes and buy and sell cars. But at the end, the
hard line of the decrepit Marxist socialist imposed itself.

Arteriosclerosis clung to power. The visceral intolerance of an
"irreversible" socialism, along with the crushing presence of the
military high command and the absence of a generational relay, formed
the framework of the Sixth Congress of the PCC that ended with the
delegates singing the Internationale, whose lyrics mention "the poor of
the world and the slaves without bread."

These concepts are applicable to socialist Cuba, which in the past 50
years has become one of the world's poorest nations, without civil
liberties. Perhaps this was the Congress' most lucid moment.

Pervaded by a high dose of senility, the Politburo admitted only three
new members and confirmed José Ramón Machado Ventura, 80, the hardest of
the dogmatic leaders, as Second Secretary, with the support of the
hardline generals, including Ramiro Valdés, another veteran of the
Sierra Maestra.

Machado Ventura refuses to abandon the Marxist-Leninist model and, like
Fidel Castro, only admits economic concessions of a superficial and
cosmetic nature.

There's no room for doubt. The Old Revolutionary Guard remained in
charge of the Cuban government — something like socialist control of
Jurassic Park.

In his report to the Sixth Congress, Raúl Castro referred to his
Marxist-Leninist commitment, describing the guidelines as the way "to
actualize the economic and social model for the purpose of guaranteeing
the irreversibility of socialism."

Reaffirming the dogma's hard line, Raúl Castro invoked the memory of
Lenin, saying: "There are some very well-defined concepts that, in
essence, are just as valid as when Lenin formulated them almost 100
years ago. These must be taken up again."

How can anyone generate prosperity and emerge from the misery in which
the Cuban nation is mired by insisting on the continuity and
irreversibility of socialism? That's simply impossible.

About the generational relay, Raúl Castro stated that the revolution
does not have "a reserve of trained substitutes." That pessimism reminds
us of the case of Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, which led to the process called
"the rectification of errors."

After the execution of Ochoa, Fidel Castro expressed his concern about
the evident failure of the schools that trained the new socialist
leaders. Everything is the same. Fifty years of revolution, and the
state still doesn't have "a reserve of trained substitutes."

Two years ago, Carlos Lage, Fernando Remírez de Estenoz and Felipe Pérez
Roque, three young promises of the revolution, were eliminated from the
line of succession by being removed from their positions.

However, Raúl Castro has found safety in his sons-in-law, Lázaro
Expósito Canto, party secretary in Santiago de Cuba, and Luis Alberto
Rodríguez López Calleja, head of the Armed Forces' business group.

That's how things are going in Cuba under "irreversible" socialism. The
good news out of the Sixth Congress is that they promised not to stay in
power one minute beyond 10 years.

Pedro Roig is senior adviser at the Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies of the University of Miami.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/26/2186673/cubas-politburo-threatened-by.html

Senior official at U.S. Embassy in Caracas to lead U.S. mission in Cuba

Posted on Tuesday, 04.26.11

Senior official at U.S. Embassy in Caracas to lead U.S. mission in Cuba
By JUAN O. TAMAYO
McClatchy Newspapers

MIAMI -- John Caulfield, the veteran diplomat running the U.S. Embassy
in Venezuela amid Washington's testy relations with President Hugo
Chavez, has been picked to head the American diplomatic mission in Cuba,
according to U.S. officials.

Caulfield will replace Jonathan Farrar, who has been named as ambassador
to Nicaragua after a three-year assignment in Havana marked by
complaints from some Cuban dissidents that he did not meet with them
often enough and criticized them too harshly.

The U.S. officials said his replacement of Farrar was a routine
reassignment for both diplomats. They requested anonymity because they
were not authorized to comment for this story.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has approved Caulfield's new
assignment but not yet made it official, the officials added. The
Senate, which must approve all ambassadors, is not required to endorse
his posting because the mission in Cuba is not a full-fledged embassy.

He will have the title of chief of mission of the U.S. Interests Section
in Havana, established by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 after decades
of no bilateral diplomatic relations. The State Department declined
comment, and Caulfield could not be reached.

Caulfield, who spent much of his diplomatic career of more than 30 years
in consular posts, is regarded in Washington and Venezuela as a
professional and quiet diplomat who did the best he could running the
embassy in Caracas in the absence of an ambassador.

He was appointed as deputy chief of mission in 2008 but has been charge
d'affaires, responsible for the day-to-day management of the embassy,
since Chavez expelled Ambassador Patrick Duddy in 2010 and then rejected
his nominated replacement, Larry Palmer.

"Notwithstanding his attributes as a senior diplomat, his job in Caracas
has been very difficult because of Chavez," said Pedro Burelli, an
anti-Chavez activist in Washington.

One U.S. official who knows his work called him a "good and competent
officer with solid political judgment." Another said his cool demeanor
and lack of ambassadorial rank undercut his ability to "change the
dynamics" of U.S.-Venezuela relations.

A 2009 dispatch by the embassy, signed by Caulfield and made public by
the WikiLeaks Web site, noted that although rumors that Chavez was
providing Iran with Venezuelan uranium "may help burnish the
(Venezuelan) government's revolutionary credentials, there seems to be
little basis in reality to the claims."

His State Department biography shows Caulfield served as Consul General
in the U.S. embassies in England and the Philippines and as consul in
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. He also served in Peru, Colombia, Portugal, and
Brazil. Originally from New Jersey, Caulfield earned a degree in
International Relations and Latin American Studies from St. Joseph's
University in Philadelphia.

Farrar, also a career diplomat, has a reputation for keeping a certain
distance from dissidents - a shift away from the more supportive role
played by his predecessors first noticed in the final years of the
George W. Bush administration and maintained by the Obama administration.

"He is the only one (U.S. Interests Section chief) who has not
communicated well with us," said Havana dissident Martha Beatriz Roque.
"I've only seen him two or three times in my life. It seems that it's
hard for him to communicate."

"My impression was always that he's a very professional diplomat, and
therefore very discrete," said Havana human rights activist Elizardo
Sanchez Santa Cruz. "But he was also personable, affable and kind. And
that's my opinion, in public and in private, even though I know his
opinion of us."

A cable sent by the U.S. mission in Havana on April 15, 2009 and signed
by Farrar said the dissidents deserved U.S. support as "the conscience
of Cuba" but described them as old, with little popular support and
penetrated by Cuban intelligence agents who fuel their already bitter
internal rivalries.

Their "very valid" focus on human rights, the dispatch added, does not
resonate with Cubans "who are more concerned about having greater
opportunities to travel freely and live comfortably."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/26/2186768/senior-official-at-us-embassy.html

Blogger Claudia Cadelo Speaks for Cuba's Younger Generation

Blogger Claudia Cadelo Speaks for Cuba's Younger Generation
April 26, 2011
by Erik Silk

Cuban blogger Claudia Cadelo will not tell you about her Web posting
habits, at least not via phone or email. And, even though she is someone
who writes and tweets regularly, the way she gets online is a closely
guarded secret.

That's because Cadelo–better known by the title of her blog, Octavo
Cerco–is one of the best-known members of the Cuban blogging community.

Made of up just a handful of writers–a tightly networked community of
Cuban "blogeras"–they walk the fine line of being public figures, while
also knowing that their every post is monitored by a watchful government.

Still, calling herself the "Queen of Incredulity," she writes with a
candor that no visitor to Cuba should expect to hear in any but the most
private places, airing grievances to her online audience with no hesitation.

"Having access to free information is a human right," Cadelo said in a
phone interview recently. "I, personally, want to be heard, and I want
the right to know what is going on outside of the borders of this island."

Of course, that's no easy thing in Cuba, one of the most closed
countries in the world, where typical Internet blogging free-for-alls
are not tolerated.

Which is why Cadelo writes that her country denies its citizens access
to mass media, while offering low Internet connectivity, with "arbitrary
laws against freedom of expression and with the impunity to defame,
distort, lie and lay waste on national television to those who think
differently."

And while President Raul Castro started allowing Cuban citizens to use
the Internet offered to guests in hotels in 2008, Cadelo was quick to
point out that the average cost of such services is $10.00 per hour.

That makes one hour of Web access cost between one and two weeks of work
under the average Cuban wage.

Cadelo, who was born in 1983, had a comfortable upbringing in Cuba, rife
with Communist indoctrination, until the collapse of the Soviet Union
when she was six years old, which resulted in a severe economic crisis
in Cuba and increased repression by the government.

"By 13, I already knew what I could and could not say," she said in an
essay detailing her background. "By 18, I was completely disillusioned
with the system and couldn't even really pretend to myself any more,
although I was careful not to externalize it."

It all started for her three years ago, when the lead singer of Cuban
punk rock band Porno para Ricardo, a group known for its
anti-establishment message, was arrested on the charge of "pre-criminal
dangerousness." That translates to the potential that one might commit a
crime.

Cadelo went into action, along with several friends, and began a
campaign to have the singer, Gorki Aguila, released.

"For a novice in the uses of freedom of expression it had everything:
Beatings, a police operation and arrests," she wrote of the experience.

Following Aguila's eventual release, Cadelo's disillusionment and
activism continued to grow, and her career as a blogger was nurtured by
another long-time Cuban voice of dissent, Yoani Sanchez. Cadelo began
writing that same year, and now has thousands of followers and readers.

Her involvement with Porno para Ricardo continues as well: she is
married to Ciro Díaz, the band's lead guitarist.

While Cadelo writes on contemporary events in Cuba, much of her musings
consist of her feelings on daily life in a country she hopes to someday
leave. Although she would not speak at length about her political
opinions and feelings on what was almost certainly a monitored phone
conversation, she has no qualms about broadcasting them to the world on
her blog.

"I get up in the morning and get my bath of unreality watching the
morning news on TV," she began a recent post. In fact, arguing with the
television was a method of the teenaged Cadelo's for venting her
dissatisfaction with the government, years before having access to an
online platform.

But vent she does.

"It's a fact: This island is governed by madmen," she wrote in reference
to the country's effective shutdown to commemorate the 50th anniversary
of the Bay of Pigs. "We Cubans say we are paranoid, and, honestly, if we
weren't we'd be really sick, because there is nothing more chilling than
to stand on the balcony and see a squad of soldiers screaming
obscenities and stomping the ground."

Feelings of frustration and hopelessness are central themes in her
writing. Even the title of her blog, translated to "Eighth Circle,"
refers to a poem by a Polish dissident who likens living in a satellite
country of Soviet Russia to being in one of the deepest parts of hell.

At times, Cadelo, who seems to be speaking for her generation, clearly
feels the same way about Cuba. Although her writing is often
informative, she frequently waxes poetic.

"Havana has been asleep since I was born. I like to stand at the end of
Calle 12 and look at the line the sea draws in the distance," Cadelo
wrote in March. "Almost all my friends live, or intend to live, on the
other side of that line. Where my eyes cannot go."

(While many blogeras do not know enough of English or any other foreign
language to write in them, there are resources to ensure that their work
is translated to reach a much wider audience. Hemos Oido, meaning "We
Have Heard," is an online initiative to translate Cuban blogs into
English, French, German, Danish and others, and is the means by which
Octavo Cerco reaches as many readers as it does. You can visit the
English version of Cadelo's blog here.)
http://octavocercoen.blogspot.com/

Tags: Blog, Internet

http://voices.allthingsd.com/20110426/blogger-claudia-cadelo-speaks-for-cubas-younger-generation/

Cuba adjusts plans amid price hikes, weather fears

Cuba adjusts plans amid price hikes, weather fears
Tue Apr 26, 2011 12:00pm EDT

* Government adjusting 2011 economic plans
* Imports to cost $800 million more than expected
* Business partners and residents fret

By Marc Frank

HAVANA, April 26 (Reuters) - Rising food and fuel prices and fears that
an active hurricane season looms have Cuba tightening its belt,
according to government leaders and local economists.

"Just a few months into 2011 and according to the most recent data,
imports this year will cost an additional $800 million for the same
amount of goods we planned to purchase, forcing us to adjust the plan
approved in December," President Raul Castro told a Communist Party
Congress last week.

The country imports between 60 percent and 70 percent of the food it
consumes and 50 percent of its fuel.

High fuel prices also increase prices of most other products the island
purchases abroad, and the cost of transporting them.

Rainfall has been less than 10 percent of the average over much of the
country this year, which could force more food imports.

Hurricanes on average hit the Caribbean island every other year, but the
last major storm was in 2008, so the country is fearing the worst this
season.

All this has creditors and foreign business partners raising their
eyebrows as they remember 2008, when high international food and fuel
prices, hurricanes and the international financial meltdown left debts
and dividends unpaid and their local bank accounts frozen.

The government was forced to slash imports 37 percent in 2009 and kept
them at a similar level last year, which eased the 2008 financial
crisis, but slowed growth to less than 2 percent.

Local economists said Castro had improved management of the
state-dominated economy and built up reserves since 2008, making the
prospects of a liquidity crisis less likely.

According to the Bank for International Settlements, Cuba had $5.3
billion in deposits at international banks at the close of 2010,
compared with $2.6 billion at the end of 2008.

Credit was tight, with outstanding bank loans to the country at $1.7
billion, down $200 million over the same period.

VENEZUELA LENDS A HAND

The economists said the amount socialist ally Venezuela pays for some
40,000 healthcare and other professionals working in the South American
country is pegged to oil prices, which helps offset rising prices.

Oil-rich Venezuela is Cuba's only petroleum supplier.

But there are no such deals for food.

Igor Montero, president of Alimport, the state-run food import monopoly,
told local media earlier in the month that imports of bulk foods such as
wheat, corn, soy, powdered milk and cooking oil would cost the country
25 percent more than planned this year, or $308 million.

"Our price for a pound of chicken has gone from $0.33 in February to
$0.51 for delivery in June, up 52 percent," said a U.S. businessman who
sells poultry to the country under an amendment to the trade embargo
that allows agricultural sales for cash. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

In the end, this means Cubans, who have already seen gas and food prices
go up this year, must brace for more.

"This will increase external financial tensions and it will be necessary
to apply new adjustments, which in the end, will impact negatively the
population," said a Cuban economist, asking that his name not be used.
(Editing by Jeff Franks and Jan Paschal)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/26/cuba-economy-idUSN2626225620110426

China to buy more sugar, but not from Cuba

China to buy more sugar, but not from Cuba

China will take advantage of easing sugar prices to buy up to 1.8
million tons of sugar over the next three or four months, Reuters
informed, citing an ANZ Bank report.

Although China is its largest sugar buyer, Cuba probably won't be able
to sell more than contracted amounts to China. While the Cuban sugar
industry's productivity is slowly rising, the total yield of the current
harvest will continue to hover around the record-low of 2 million tons
last year. Meanwhile, Brazil is expected to increase its sugar exports
this year.

Prices of domestically produced sugar in China have surged to record
levels of around 50 cents per pound in recent months, while imported
sugar from Brazil has slipped to near 25 cents. Due to the price
disparity, China imported a record 1.766 million tons last year, 62
percent of which came from Brazil, according to Reuters. With an
expected 15.5 million tons needed, China expects a deficit of around 2
million tons this year. If sugar prices drop to 20 cents, China would
not only cover its deficit but also replenish its sugar reserves, an
official told Reuters.

http://www.cubastandard.com/2011/04/26/china-to-buy-more-sugar-but-not-from-cuba/

Chronicle of a Kidnapping / Miguel Iturria Savón

Chronicle of a Kidnapping / Miguel Iturria Savón
Miguel Iturria Savón, Translator: Unstated

On Friday, April 22, at the corner of H and Calzada, in Vedado, Havana,
I was intercepted at 3:45 pm by a Lada car without police plates, out of
which came four security agents in plain clothes. Surprised, I tried to
ask for the warrant; meanwhile the driver commands, "Get in, Iturria
your time has come!" And one of the two gendarmes punches me and pushes
me in with the help of another.

In the vehicle they stripped me of my belongings (cell phone, camera,
book, papers and identity card). Already underway, they went down G
Street to 23rd and from there to 41st and 31st. At the Marianao Military
Hospital they turned to Siboney and got out at the San Augustine police
station in the municipality of La Lisa.

Part of the way they kept me with my arms behind me and my head down.
The driver responded to phone calls on his mobile with phrases like "I'm
bringing the charge, call later", or "get ten teams and wait in Section
30." At his side an officer in his fifties, tall, black, thick lips and
a face of disgust; the only one wearing military boots.

At the station they searched me thoroughly. I was in the lobby under the
supervision of the guy who punched me — a swarthy thirty-something with
a face full of hatred — and the young mulatto from the back seat, until
an officer took me to a shabby office, where one of the military who was
at my house on March 8, when I refused a summons to an interview with
the "official Octavio," came looking for two chairs; but Captain Tamayo
came and moved me to a room with air conditioning, beginning the
repetitive "verbal exchange" with Tamayo, escorted by subordinated who
were at the house, both brave little things, and silent.

Tamayo is white, of medium height and light eyes. He suffers from oral
incontinence and likes to dazzle with statistics showing State
Security's control of the peaceful opposition, exile organizations,
independent journalists and alternative bloggers, whom he incessantly
denigrates and minimizes, which contradicts the low importance he gives
them.

He mentioned with contempt Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz, President of the
Cuban Commission for Human Rights, Wilfredo Vallín Almeida, leader of
the Cuban Association of Jurists; communicators Juan González Febles,
director of Weekly Digital Spring, Julio Aleaga Pesant, Jose Alvarez and
others like me "who pass the limits of tolerance limit we have set" and
"dare to refuse the subpoenas of State Security, not knowing that we
don't need to comply with the articles of the Criminal Procedure Act, a
verbal summons is enough; figure it out so we don't have to detain you
in the street again."

In his monologue, Tamayo combines the information and statistics with
praise for the Commander-in-Chief, "the man of the century,",and General
Raul Castro, "modest and humane like the Commander." He ponders the
"historic generation that leads the revolution," the health system,
education, achievements in sports and the participation of the people in
elections and political events. To compensate, he unleashes his
grievances against the hardships of the past in Cuba (although he was
born in 1970), attacks the aggression of United States toward the island
(quoting the words of President Obama in Chile), global capitalism and
poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. As if that weren't enough, he
blames the economic embargo as the cause of our problems and thinks "if
the Yankees opened up tourism and allow us to drill for oil in the Gulf
of Mexico, we would save socialism and live better."

Speaks of his farming background and the poverty of his family, he was
born in a hamlet in the Sierra Maestra in the Contramaestre
municipality, Santiago de Cuba province. He reiterates that has 23 years
in the Ministry of Interior, where he barely earns enough to eat despite
having a house in Havana and being a communist. He regrets not being
able to have a bottle of rum every week and to bring boxes with gifts to
relatives in the mountains.

Instead of questioning me, Tamayo combines his speech about power with
threats against those who think differently. He warns that his
department has the record of each of the 109 independent journalists in
the country, "ready for submission to the prosecutor, as we did in
2003." He adds that "State Security determines who gets permission to
leave or who rots on the island."
Faced with a mentality so codified, I limit myself to asking some ironic
questions and clarifying certain views with conflicting data. I told him
that he serves a totalitarian tyranny, not a socialist revolution, that
what's left are the slogans, rituals and masks of the most frightened
who depend on the State, increasingly like a Arab sultanate; that the
economic embargo and the alleged external aggressions are not the causes
of the national disaster, rather it's the inefficiency, corruption and
lack of freedoms and opportunities to unleash the productive forces and
citizen initiatives.

At eight pm, the officer handed me my belongings as a "goodwill gesture"
in the hopes that I would not "make a circus out of what happened." I
assure him that I will continue to write without censorship, and will
denounce the abduction arranged by him.

Miguel Iturria
Havana

26 April 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=9186