press release

The South African government has wasted R600 million on sustaining the
failed Cuban state, including what government has called a "solidarity
grant". This follows a R1.4 billion Cuban bailout that President Zuma
authorised in December 2010.

When the Parliamentary session reconvenes, the Democratic Alliance (DA)
will request that the Minister of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies, appear
before Parliament to explain what economic objectives are achieved by
this decision.

We want to know how this cash injection for Cuba will help the millions
of South Africans who live below the breadline.

Cuba has a tiny economy and little to offer South Africa by way of
trade. Our trade with Cuba is unlikely to ever exceed R100 million per
year. And at the same time, we have our own massive domestic problems in
housing, energy, infrastructure, unemployment and a host of other areas.

It is difficult to justify giving the Cuban regime R2 billion in
handouts when our own people are suffering daily.

The R600 million Minister Davies handed out on Friday consisted of
credit write-offs, new credit lines and some cash payments. It also
includes a R100 million "solidarity grant", which will not need to be
paid back to South Africa.

The Cuban regime has a long track record of failing to pay back our
loans. In 2010, South Africa had to write off R1.1 billion in bad Cuban
debt, and on Friday we wrote off another R250 million in bad debt.

It is a tragic irony that a portion of the Cuban handout is earmarked to
promote food security in Cuba, when our own food security is under
threat here at home.

We have recently been forced to import maize at a very high price,
affecting millions of South Africans who rely on maize-based products as
staple food.

The time has come for South Africa to invest in strategic partnerships
that deliver prosperity for our people. Maintaining symbolic friendships
at enormous costs do not help the South African people.

Geordin Hill Lewis, Shadow Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry

http://allafrica.com/stories/201202070038.html

On the 50th anniversary of the University Reform enacted in January
1962, the newspaper Granma published on Monday, January 9, 2012, an
article entitled University and Society by Armando Hart Dávalos, in
which he proposes that "after the triumph of the Revolution university
reform was essential to realizing the final link between the university
and the people and the new national socio-economic reality … "

In the article he omits the most significant: the history that led to
the loss of University Autonomy as the nerve center of civil society.
This simplification of the antecedents allows Hart to confer a
definitive character on the reform of 1962, as if social processes have
a point of closure.

Jose Ortega y Gasset, in Mission of the University and other related
essays, declared: "Man inherently belongs to a generation and every
generation is not installed in any place, but with great precision on
the previous. This means that it is forced live up to the times and
especially to the height of the ideas of the time."

Between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Father José
Agustín Caballero, Tomás Romay Chacón, Félix Varela, José de la Luz y
Caballero, José Martí and Enrique José Varona, among many others, made
strenuous efforts to situate education at the height of its times. It
follows that education reform is an ongoing process that does not
support "definitive" and that from this continuity emerged University
Autonomy as unavoidable necessity of modernism.

In the Republic, Carlos de la Torre, in his inaugural speech as Rector
of the University of Havana in 1921, outlined a program to reform the
university and achieve University Autonomy, which for him was: "to
authorize the University to manage in all its affairs in full
independence, except as regards the management of its funds." The
following year the Rector of the University of Buenos Aires, Joseph
Maples, gave a lecture on "the evolution of Argentine universities," in
which he explained the process begun with the manifesto of Cordoba,
1918, which led to a university reform whose centerpiece was the
autonomy and the involvement of students in university government.

In this context a group of Cuban students published a manifesto in which
they called for the formation of student association, which was founded
in December 1922 under the name of Federation of University Students
(FEU). Subsequently, on January 10, 1923, the fledgling federation
issued the Document of the University Reform Program in Cuba, which
called for "The status of the university and its autonomy in economic
and educational matters." To remedy the situation, Enrique Jose Varona
proposed creating a commission composed of professors and students to
study the project, which upon acceptance led to the establishment of the
Joint Commission, composed of the Rector, teachers and members of the
FEU and recognized by Presidential Decree.

The project was analyzed by the Joint Commission, the Rector, the Board,
teachers and students who went to the Presidential Palace and submitted
to President Alfredo Zayas, the bases of the bill for University
Autonomy. Zayas, before the force of the reform movement, legally
recognized the FEU and authorized the creation of the University
Assembly, composed of professors, graduates and students. The advance
led reform in October 1923, at the First National Student Congress,
which demanded the repeal of the Platt Amendment and agreed to establish
the José Martí Popular University to open the doors of the higher
educational establishment to the workers.

During the government of Gerardo Machado the University Assembly was
dissolved and the FEU outlawed, but the struggle continued. Finally on
September 10, 1933, after the fall of Machado, the Government of the
Hundred Days, led by Ramon Grau San Martin issued Decree Law 2059 of
October 1933, which enacted University Autonomy. Subsequently, the
failure of the March 1935 strike, the University was taken over
militarily and the government revoked the autonomy.

In 1939, under President Federico Laredo Bru, University Autonomy was
restored and the Constituent Assembly was convened which adopted and
drafted the Constitution of 1940, which, in Article 53, upheld the
constitutionality of the Autonomous University as follows: "The
University of Havana is autonomous and shall be governed in accordance
with its Statutes and the Law by which they will be tempered." Thanks to
this they could form the forces that faced the military coup of 1952,
though Fulgencio Batista overthrew the dangerous University Autonomy
with the repeal of the Constitution of 1940.

In January 1959, rather than the promise of restoring the 1940
Constitution, as we read in History Will Absolve Me, it was reformed,
without consultation, to confer to the Prime Minister the powers of Head
of Government and to the Council of Ministers functions of Congress, an
amendment similar to what Batista had done with the statutes that
replaced the constitution after the 1952 coup. It then proceeded to
dismantle civil society and all its instruments, including the
University Autonomy.

To accomplish this, the Supreme Council of Universities was created,
made up of professors and students from three universities in the
country and government representatives. This Council developed the draft
University Reform presented on January 10, 1962. That same year, the
Cuban Communist leader, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, in an article published
in the press, stated that the new university would be governed jointly
by teachers and students, but said, "to the extent that the university
revolution is the work of a real revolution and that socialism presides
over the transformations, we can not think of teachers and students as
two opposing groups… A professor of revolutionary consciousness, guided
by Marxism-Leninism and a member of that ideology for years [he was
referring to Juan Marinello], will have no need of the watchful presence
of students with him in the governance of the University, because he
will have the maturity to approach problems of higher education with
certain criteria. "

Thus, University Autonomy, without having been lawfully repealed, in
fact ceased to exist. Since then the University, one of the most
important sources of social change in our history, was rendered
inoperable for that purpose. One of its worst consequences is that under
such control, the State raised the slogan of "The University is for the
revolutionaries," which resulted in the expulsion of hundreds of
students and teachers who did not share the ideology of the system.

The result could be no other. With the intention of giving finality to a
changing process, the University, with the loss of autonomy, ceased to
be nerve center of civil society. Therefore, the changes that are taking
place in the economy have to be complemented by changes in the rights
and freedoms, including University Autonomy, which is an inescapable
necessity to put the University in step with the times.

(Published in Diario de Cuba on Monday, January 16, 2012:
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/9112-reforma-universitaria-sin-autonomía)

January 20 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14651

COLLEGE STATION – Though tightly controlled, there are opportunities for
Texas agricultural producers and businesses to capitalize on potential
exports of food products to Cuba, according to a Texas AgriLife
Extension Service economist.

Dr. Parr Rosson, AgriLife Extension economist and director of the Center
for North American Studies at Texas A&M University in College Station,
said the Cuban economy has held its own amid world economic turbulence.

Dr. Parr Rosson, Texas AgriLife Extension Service economist.

Thanks to the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000,
U.S. businesses may export food, agricultural and forestry products and
medicines to Cuba.

Texas supplies Cuba with several export items, including chicken leg
quarters, corn and wheat. U.S. corn exports to Cuba saw more than a 200
percent increase in value in 2011 to $109 million during the
January-November period as Cuba uses more corn products for poultry
feeding operations and other uses.

"We've begun to see some higher quality beef cuts enter the Cuban market
as well," Rosson said. Pork, cotton and dairy products produced in Texas
are also exported there.

"Pears, apples, raisins and dry (pinto) beans were exported in 2011,
along with corn chips and potato chips," Rosson said. "These are
products that we are seeing more interest in due to the growing tourism
market in Cuba."

International visitors are increasing, Rosson said, with 2.7 million
traveling to the island in 2011, 7 percent above 2010 and a new record.
Revenue from tourism exceeded $2 billion, providing more money for
Cubans to use in purchasing imported foods. Canada is the top visitor,
Rosson said, with 900,000 going to Cuba in 2011.

"They are more likely to go during the winter months," he said. "They
can fly from Canada directly to the major beach resort of Varadero."

Those resorts serve many items, including chips, fresh fruit and table
cuts of beef and pork.

"The downside is that Cuba is attempting to implement several economic
reforms and design a new more market-oriented path for their economy,"
Rosson said. "It creates some instability and uncertainty."

Rosson said Cuba is "very proficient" in producing certain tropical
crops such as sugar, tobacco, citrus and vegetables grown in
greenhouses, but other crops such as rice, wheat and corn struggle due
to high humidity, insects, disease and the high cost of production.

"And, of course, hurricanes are a threat with each season," he said.

Cuba also lacks consistent agricultural credit, so some crop and
livestock production is constrained.

"They rely on joint ventures with Spain and China to finance many
agribusiness opportunities," he said.

Agricultural commodities, such as dry beans for example, are shipped out
of Corpus Christi. Corn and wheat grown in the Lone Star State ships out
of the port of Houston, Rosson said.

The Cuban government's buying agency, Empressa Cubana Importada de
Alimentos (Alimport), handles all U.S. exports to the island, Rosson said.

"Alimport is Cuba's exclusive agent for all purchases from the U.S. and
negotiates purchases, handles documents and arranges logistics and
transportation of goods," Rosson said.

Before a U.S. firm can take product samples or export its products to
Cuba, Rosson said each product must be reviewed and licensed by the
Office of Exporter Services, Bureau Industry and Security, U.S.
Department of Commerce.

"The license is free and is valid for one year," Rosson said. More
information on licensing requirements can be found at www.bis.doc.gov.

-30-

Contacts

Dr. Parr Rosson, 979-845-3070, prosson@tamu.edu

http://agrilife.org/today/2012/02/06/texas-agricultural-exports-to-cuba-continue-growth/

HAVANA (Reuters) – Spanish oil company Repsol YPF has begun drilling the
first well in Cuba's long-awaited exploration of offshore oilfields that
the communist country says hold both billions of barrels of oil and the
key to greater prosperity, industry sources told Reuters on Thursday.

The massive Scarabeo 9 drilling rig, which arrived in Cuban waters two
weeks ago, began drilling into the sea floor about 30 miles northwest of
Havana on Tuesday night, the sources said.

A Repsol spokesman said the company could not comment on "operational
details."

The newly built, high-tech rig is operating in 5,600 feet of water, or
what the oil industry calls "ultra-deep water," in the Straits of
Florida, which separate Cuba from its longtime ideological foe, the
United States.

Sources close to the project said such wells generally take about 60
days to complete.

Repsol, which is operating the rig in a consortium with Norway's Statoil
and ONGC Videsh, a unit of India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp, has said it
will take several months to determine the results of the exploration.

The well is the first of at least three that will be drilled in Cuban
waters with the Scarabeo 9, which was built in China and is owned by
Saipem, a unit of Italian oil company Eni.

Sources have said that Repsol will drill the first well and then the rig
will go to Malaysia's Petronas in partnership with Russia's Gazprom Neft
and then back to Repsol for the third well.

It is not clear what happens after that, although some sources have said
Repsol, which is leasing the Scarabeo 9 from Saipem at a rate said to be
more than $500,000 a day, will move the rig to Brazil for exploration there.

Cuba has said it may have 20 billion barrels of oil in its northern
waters, which are its part of the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. Geological
Survey has estimated it may have 5 billion barrels of oil, but its study
does not include the entire Cuban gulf zone.

EASE FINANCIAL WOES

Cuba, which is in the midst of reforming its Soviet-style economy, is
hoping oil will ease it chronic financial woes and bring energy
independence from its socialist ally Venezuela. It receives about
115,000 barrels daily from the oil-rich South American country.

But if oil is found, experts say it could take five years or so to begin
production because more drilling will be needed and production
infrastructure put in place.

Repsol drilled the only previous offshore well in Cuba in 2004 and said
it found oil but that it was not "commercial."

It has been difficult to find a rig for more drilling because of the
50-year-long U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which limits the amount of
U.S. technology that can be used.

The Scarabeo 9, which is of Norwegian design, has only one piece of
American equipment – the blowout preventer, a key part that failed in
the 2010 blowout of a BP well in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

The BP well, which was in more than 5,000 feet of water and spilled 5
million barrels of oil, stained hundreds of miles of U.S. coastline.

In Florida, 90 miles north of Cuba, the Cuba offshore project has raised
fears that a similar accident could damage the state's beaches and coral
reefs.

Drillers in Cuban waters could get within 45 miles of Florida, while in
the U.S. gulf no exploration is permitted within 125 miles of the state.

At Repsol's invitation, a team of U.S. experts inspected the rig in
December in Trinidad and Tobago and said it complied with all existing
engineering and safety standards.

But the United States, which has no official diplomatic relations with
Cuba, has only made safety preparations from afar and has not been
otherwise involved in the project.

Countries such as Norway and Brazil have helped lead an international
effort to get Cuba ready for oil exploration and the possibility of an
oil spill.

The project has gone forward despite opposition in the United States
from Cuban exile leaders, who have proposed legislation in the U.S.
Congress to try to stop Repsol.

They fear that oil will enrich and assure the survival of the Communist
government they have long opposed.

"We need to figure out what we can do to inflict maximum pain, maximum
punishment to bleed Repsol of whatever resources they have if there's a
potential for a spill that would affect the U.S. coast," U.S. Rep. David
Rivera from Florida told a congressional subcommittee in Miami on Monday.

(Additional reporting by Jane Sutton in Miami; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer
and Marguerita Choy)

http://news.yahoo.com/spains-repsol-begins-cuba-offshore-drilling-sources-184211604.html

Cuba, Where Sheep Are Trained To Venerate Wolves

With the death of Cuban dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza, Cuba has lost
one of its precious remaining brave souls. While a sputtering dissident
movement shows occasional signs of life, reminding us of the hell the
Cuban people endure, it casts a pale shadow compared to the fury of the
Arab Spring. How is it possible that the Castro brothers have been able
to run one of the world's most repressive and dysfunctional gulags for
so long without their meeting the fate of the Ceausescus by now?

Their technique of how to introduce communism on an island scale is
worth studying.

First, take a geographic area and build a firewall around it. Allow an
elite group of monomaniacal thugs to subject the people trapped inside
to five decades of brutal repression, privation, confiscation, and
humiliation, all bolstered by relentless propaganda designed to convince
victims and observers alike that this is necessary for the greater glory
of the revolution.

Second, enlist an army of global intellectuals to manufacture a
smokescreen of respectability for a governing philosophy that extols the
virtues of equality and sacrifice, despite the fact that it delivers the
equality of poverty and the sacrifice of self respect. Build a few
Potemkin village medical facilities to fool the gullible into believing
some noble purpose or higher achievement motivates the endeavor.

Third, make it is risky, but not impossible, for anyone who possesses
the ambition and courage to rebel to escape instead.

Finally, marinate for two generations as you chase off the best and the
brightest and observe what happens to the character of the people that
survive.

Welcome to Cuba, where the human spirit has been so thoroughly crushed
that a nation of sheep passively waits for their predatory wolves to die
of old age, safely in their beds, not a hand raised against them.

Given the Cuban people's apparent resignation to their own fate, is it
any surprise that the rest of us just shake our heads in wonder and go
about our business, our political leaders impotently decrying the
occasional human rights outrage that escapes the censors and makes it
into the news?

When the nightmare runs its course and the complete story is finally
told, there will be no redeeming chapters.

But what about the lower-than-average infant mortality and longer life
expectancy touted by the Castro regime's boosters, if such statistics
can be believed? Isn't living longer an end that justifies the means?
Think about what living longer implies if you're forced to live under
tyranny. America's founders—and indeed, the leaders of the Central and
South American independence movements—preferred death to that sort of
life, and said so with their words and deeds.

What about the famously low crime rate, where a midnight stroller is
safer in Havana than in Washington, DC? Yes, violent crime is a
government monopoly in a police state. Plus, in a country that has so
little, there is nothing much to steal. After all, how many iPhones can
get ripped off when nobody can afford one and posting the wrong thing on
Twitter can earn you a visit from state security?

It'll be interesting to see what happens to a demoralized people after
Castroism breathes its final breath. A new pack of wolves might try to
keep the workers' paradise going, but at this point even the most
devoted cadres may well be weary of the experiment. Look for them to
enrich themselves by "privatizing" the economy Russian oligarch-style,
as they carve up the island to remodel it into the Caribbean resort
destination it has every right to be—so long as the "right" people profit.

A brief vintage car export market will likely open up as the world's
largest living auto museum sells off its collection. Prostitution will
return, or more precisely come out of the shadows, perhaps along with
the revival of what once was a thriving pornography industry. It's hard
to imagine a manufacturing base springing up to take advantage of the
cheap labor as this needs to be coupled with a work ethic, something the
Castro regime has made every effort to destroy. Surely, some unique
comparative advantage will come to the fore. But having tolerated the
intolerable for so long, will the Cuban people know what to do with
their newfound freedom once liberated from their chains?

That is the experiment that awaits the return of capitalism.

One can imagine a scenario in which an influx of returning expats, rich
in both human and financial capital, blow past the locals as they
reintroduce the courage, entrepreneurship, and work ethic they took with
them when they escaped. A two-tier society could easily emerge, with
returnees and their children lording their success over the bewildered
and resentful locals. Petty theft likely will make a comeback, so expect
a vigorous market for alarm and security services.

Cubans who have managed to get an advanced education under Castro, like
the many doctors staffing its medical system, will probably do fine,
though many might move to the U.S. seeking better pay, filling our
looming doctor shortage. Cigar exports will spike, although once Cuban
cigars lose their naughty cachet they will have to compete with many
excellent products produced by Cuba's neighbors. And the music industry
will thrive once it is coupled with international distribution—some
talents just cannot be stamped out.

But what will happen to the rest of the populace? Many might go to work
as the cooks, dishwashers, waiters, and hotel maids that will surely be
in demand when Club Med comes to town. They'll be much better off than
they are now. But don't expect that to stop the mainstream media from
running nostalgic stories about the equality that should have, would
have, and could have been had Marxism only been implemented properly.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrezza/2012/01/31/cuba-where-sheep-are-trained-to-venerate-wolves/

HAVANA | Fri Feb 3, 2012 10:57am EST

Feb 3 (Reuters) – Cuba is opening the door to private management of some
state-run cafes and food service outlets in an apparent test of further
reforms aimed at keeping the island one of the world's last communist
countries.

The government said food prices rose nearly 20 percent in 2011 in a
warning sign that economic change will not be painless.

Spain's Repsol YPF brought the massive Scarabeo 9 drilling rig into
Cuban waters and began drilling what Cuba hopes will be the first of
many wells in its untapped offshore oilfields.

ECONOMIC REFORMS

In eastern Holguin province, officials said 211 state-owned cafeterias
would be leased to employeesin a semi-privatization similar to what has
been done nationally with barber shops and beauty salons the past year
and recently expanded to other service businesses such as watch repair
and carpentry shops.

The Holguin program has not been mentioned in national media, but is
likely a trial run before it becomes generalized, as was done with the
other services.

The government, which wants to slash a million jobs from its payroll and
encourage more private initiative, has said it will turn many small
businesses, nationalized since the 1960s, over to employee cooperatives.

It is encouraging self-employment, with more than 362,000 people now
working for themselves.

Economy Minister Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez told the National Assembly in
late December that 170,000 state jobs would be cut in 2012 and as many
as 240,000 new non-state jobs added.

The government's goal is to have up to 40 percent of the island
workforce of 5.2 million in non-state jobs by 2015.

President Raul Castro has made reform of Cuba's lagging agricultural
sector a top priority and the Cuban state, which owns 70 percent of the
country's land, has leased 3.5 million acres (1.4 million hectares) to
150,000 private farmers since he succeeded older brother Fidel Castro as
president in February 2008.

In some areas, the state has increased the land farmers can lease to 165
acres (67 hectares), extended their leases to 25 years, allowed them to
build homes on the land and will let them pass the leases on to family
members.

Yet food output was up just 2 percent in 2011 and still below 2005 levels.

That, reduced food imports by the cash-strapped government and reforms
allowing farmers to sell more of their production for market prices
combined to make food prices shoot up in 2011.

The National Statistics Office reported that meat prices rose 8.7
percent while produce prices increased 24.1 percent, for an average of
19.8 percent on the year..

At the same time, the average monthly salary inched up only a few
percentage points to the equivalent of $19 a month, the government said.
The statistics stated what Cubans already knew — their buying power has
shrunk under Castro's reforms.

President Castro told the National Assembly that Cuba still expected to
spend $1.7 billion on food imports in 2012.

He also emphasized at a Communist Party conference the importance of an
ongoing crackdown on corruption, which already has shuttered three
foreign firms and sent executives of some of Cuba's biggest state-run
firms to prison.

He said the party would implement term limits for the country's leaders,
but he gave no details.

What to watch:

- The pace of reforms and their consequences.

- The development of small businesses.

- Agricultural production and food prices.

FINANCIAL HEALTH

Castro said the economy grew 2.7 percent in 2011 and was expected to
rise 3.4 percent in 2012.

Cuba said it drew a record 2.7 million tourists in 2011, bringing in
revenues of about $2.3 billion.

Travel industry experts say tourism has boomed this winter as the Arab
Spring scared Europeans away from northern Africa, relaxed U.S.
regulations made it easier for Americans to visit the island and
Castro's reforms drew visitors curious to see the effects of changes.
They said Cuba needs more hotels to accommodate its growing tourism
industry, which is a top hard currency earner for the country.

Cuba is heavily indebted and still recovering from a liquidity crisis
that led to a default on payments and freezing of foreign business bank
accounts in 2009.

Castro told the National Assembly that accounts for foreign suppliers to
Cuba had been unfrozen and steps taken to prevent the problem from
happening again.

Hopes that reforms would bring more foreign investment have been slow to
materialize, but Brazilian company Odebrecht said it would sign a
contract to help Cuba improve its troubled sugar industry. One executive
said the deal would include ethanol production.

Long-awaited golf course developments, aimed at attracting wealthier
tourists, remain on hold.

What to watch:

- Resolution of outstanding short-term debt

- Signs of increased interest in foreign investment

- Growth of tourism and Cuba's ability to handle it

OIL PLANS

The Chinese-built Scarabeo 9 arrived in Cuban waters and at January's
end began drilling the first of three exploration wells in Cuba's part
of the Gulf of Mexico.

Spain's Repsol YPF and its partners plan to drill two of the wells and
Malaysia's Petronas and its partner, Russia's Gazprom Neft, will drill
the other, all this year and with the same rig.

The project has drawn opposition in the U.S. Congress, but, to allay
safety concerns, Repsol allowed U.S. experts to inspect the Scarabeo 9
in Trinidad and Tobago. They said it met all international engineering
and safety standards.U.S. companies are forbidden from operating in Cuba
by the U.S. trade embargo.

Cuba depends on imports from its oil-rich ally Venezuela, but says it
may have 20 billion barrels of oil offshore. The U.S. Geological Survey
has estimated 5 billion barrels.

What to watch:

- Results of Repsol's exploratory well.

- U.S. pressure to stop the drilling.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

A planned Papal visit in Marchimproved ties with Brazil, whose President
Dilma Rousseff paid an official visit in January,are bright spots even
as Cuba faces a more hostile Spanish government elected in November.

A major concern for Cuba is the health of Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez, a loyal ally whose government provides 114,000 barrels of oil a
day and investment to Cuba. He underwent chemotherapy in Cuba and has
declared himself cancer free, but experts say it is too soon to tell.

If he were unable to continue in office, it would be a big blow to Cuba.

U.S.-Cuba relations, which thawed briefly under President Barack Obama,
have been frozen by the imprisonment of U.S. aid contractor Alan
Gross.He is serving a 15-year sentence for providing Internet gear to
Cuban Jews under a U.S. program promoting Cuban political change.

A document reported to be the court's sentence said Gross knew the
political aims of his work and tried to hide it from Cuban authorities
despite his claims to the contrary.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/cuba-risks-idUSRISKCU20120203

HAVANA | Tue Jan 31, 2012 3:09pm EST

(Reuters) – Cubans paid almost 20 percent more for food in 2011 as
economic reforms, reduced imports and stagnating farm production touched
off price inflation at the country's many produce markets.

The National Statistics Office reported on its website (ONE.CU) that
meat prices rose 8.7 percent while produce prices were up 24.1 percent,
for an average of 19.8 percent.

The report was bad news for President Raul Castro, who has been
loosening the state's grip on farming and retail food services and sales
as it seeks to reform its Soviet-style economy by allowing more private
initiative and market forces to kick in.

The changes are part of more than 300 reforms adopted by the ruling
Communist Party last year to "update" the economy, which authorities
have warned will entail a difficult transition.

Similar reforms in other state-monopolized economies have proved
inflationary in the early stages, but the Cuban government hoped
increased output would mitigate price increases.

President Castro has made agricultural reform and increased food
production a top priority since taking over for ailing brother Fidel
Castro in 2008.

But agricultural output increased just 2 percent last year, after
falling 2.5 percent in 2010 and remains below 2005 levels.

At the same time, Castro has cut food imports to reduce spending by the
debt-ridden government. Because of low farm output, Cuba imports a
budget-busting 60 percent to 70 percent of the food it consumes.

Castro also has allowed farmers to sell a growing percentage of their
production for whatever price the market will bear.

Rising prices have provoked much grumbling from Cubans, whose buying
power has shrunk under Castro's changes.

"Everything is going up, except wages. What I bought yesterday for a
peso, today costs 1.10 pesos or 1.20 pesos, but I continue to earn the
same," said a Havana office worker who gave her name only as Angelina.

While all Cubans get a subsidized monthly food ration, it is not enough
to get by, so they must purchase additional food at the produce markets
or other places not included in the statistics office report.

The increased prices are sure to have a big impact on the estimated 40
percent of the population who rely on state wages or pensions and do not
have access to other sources of income, such as remittances from
relatives abroad.

The average wage increased only a few percentage points to the
equivalent of $19 per month in 2011, the government reported, while
pensions, which average just over the equivalent of $10 dollars per
month, remained the same.

"There is no doubt prices are rising, and from what I can see on the
news the problem is worldwide," Yoandry Leyva, who sells plumbing and
other supplies in eastern Santiago de Cuba, said in a telephone interview.

"But I live in Cuba and the problems are mine. Every day the prices go
up and I keep earning the same. I hope they settle down because every
day is more difficult," he said.

(Editing by Jeff Franks; Editing by Sandra Maler)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/31/us-cuba-inflation-idUSTRE80U1TS20120131

(Reuters) – Since the United States couldn't stop Repsol from drilling
for oil off Cuba's coast, it should make the Spanish oil giant pay
dearly for damages from any spill that threatens neighboring Florida, a
congressional Republican said on Monday.

"We need to figure out what we can do to inflict maximum pain, maximum
punishment, to bleed Repsol of whatever resources they may have if
there's a potential for a spill that would affect the U.S. coast,"
Representative David Rivera, a Florida Republican, told a congressional
subcommittee that oversees the U.S. Coast Guard.

The House of Representatives subcommittee met at a Florida hotel with a
panoramic view of the waves breaking over an Atlantic beach dotted with
sunbathers, to conduct a hearing on the potential impact on Florida's
800-mile (1,290-km) coastline from the first major oil exploration in
Cuban waters.

Repsol is working on the project in partnership with Norway's Statoil
and ONGC Videsh, a unit of India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp. The oil rig
leased for the project, the Scarabeo 9, arrived off Cuban waters earlier
this month and is expected to begin drilling any day now.

The rig is 60 miles from the Cuban coast and 80 miles from Florida, in a
spot where the Gulfstream and other powerful ocean currents could rush
any spilled oil to Florida beaches within five to 10 days.

"The significance of these strong currents is that they can move oil
very quickly, potentially up to 70 to 80 nautical miles in a 24-hour
period," said oceanographer Debbie Payton, who heads the emergency
response division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A spill would have catastrophic effects on Florida tourism, which
accounts for a third of the state's economy, and on its fisheries,
panelists said. Such an accident would devastate the state much as BP's
Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 devastated other
coastal areas.

Those powerful currents would make it harder to contain and burn or
scoop up any oil on the water's surface, but they would make oil
dispersants more effective by mixing them up with the water, panelists
said. Booms and the anchors needed to hold them in place would likely do
more harm to Florida's fragile coral reefs than the oil itself, they said.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with Cuba, which is
considers a state sponsor of terrorism, and no oversight over companies
that operate in its waters.

Repsol has said it will voluntarily adhere to U.S. safety and
environmental regulations and international industry standards. It
allowed U.S. authorities to inspect the rig off the coast of Trinidad
and Tobago last month, including an examination of its construction,
drilling equipment, blow-out preventer and other safety systems.

Based on the inspection and on information Repsol provided, the
inspectors concluded that "the well could be safely capped using
existing methods," said Lars Herbst, Gulf of Mexico regional director
for the Interior Department's Bureau of Safety Environmental
Enforcement, or BSEE.

BSEE has no authority to endorse or certify the rig but it "found the
vessel and the drilling safety equipment including the (blow-out
preventer) to be entirely consistent with existing international and
U.S. standards by which Repsol has pledged to abide," Herbst said.

UNSAFE WELDING

He said the inspectors found unsafe welding and incomplete wiring of
safety systems, which Repsol pledged to repair. Asked if the agency
could certify the rig had it been in U.S. waters, Herbst said it could
not without confirming those repairs had been made.

Rear Admiral William Baumgartner, commander of the Coast Guard district
that includes Florida, said there was a low probability of a spill, "but
if it does happen, especially a complete well blowout, there would be
high consequences."

"There are multiple safety provisions in any drilling operation. I'm not
promoting, you know, business in helping Cuba develop oil, but this is a
brand-new oil drilling rig, Norwegian designed, much of it is very much
state-of-the art as I understand, so it should be capable," he told
Reuters after the hearing.

The Norwegian-designed, Chinese-made rig is owned by an Italian company
and flagged in the Bahamas, Baumgartner said.

Repsol and its partners are subcontractors, Herbst said, and the United
States would have no way to hold them responsible for any oil spill
damage, Herbst said.

"The Cuban government must have the full responsibility for any oil
spill," Herbst said. "In this case it is Cuba that's doing the
contracting and we have no control over that."

Rivera, a Cuban American from Miami, has sponsored a bill that would
make foreign oil companies responsible for clean-up costs if a spill
from their operations reaches U.S. shores.

He urged the panel to look into whether a Repsol subsidiary that
operates off the U.S. continental shelf could be made to pay or stripped
of its license if there was a spill from the Cuban well. Herbst said
afterward that it could not.

The United States has maintained an economic embargo against Cuba for
five decades in order to put pressure on its communist government. But
the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments have already issued licenses
to U.S. companies that would work under Coast Guard direction to contain
and clean up any spill in Cuban waters, Baumgartner said.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican from
Florida, said the United States should impose sanctions against nations
that help Cuba develop its oilfields.

She and other Republicans on the panel suggested that by failing to halt
the project, the Obama administration was helping make oil tycoons of
Cuban President Raul Castro and his brother, former President Fidel Castro.

Subcommittee Chairman John Mica said he was "a little bit shocked" that
President Barack Obama had rejected the Keystone XL pipeline project
from Canada while "doing everything we can to help the Cuban regime and
we're going to get stuck with both the damage and also the clean-up cost."

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/31/us-usa-cuba-oil-idUSTRE80U01520120131

Cuban communists OK term limits for party and government officials

At the Cuban Communist Party's first national conference, term limits
are approved for government and party officials.
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuba's Communist Party Sunday cleared the way for a long-term renovation
of its Central Committee that might hint at the island's future leaders,
while Raúl Castro issued a strong call for openness within the party and
mass media — but only up to a point.

Closing a first-ever National Conference of the party, Castro as
expected also confirmed that party and government officials will be
limited to two five-year terms. He and brother Fidel have ruled Cuba
since 1959.

Conference delegates also unanimously approved replacing up to 20
percent of the 115 Central Committee members over the next five years, a
move that could shine a spotlight on younger leaders that will succeed
the 80-year-old Castro.

Overall, however, the two-day conference fulfilled Castro's caution
earlier this month that Cubans should not have too many "illusions"
about the two-day, closed-door gathering of more than 800 delegates.

Castro spoke several times about the need to support and carry out the
ambitious open-market reforms approved in April by a party congress —
its supreme form of gathering — to rescue the Soviet styled economy from
the doldrums.

The Central Committee will hold two plenum meetings per year to watch
over the reforms as well as the annual budgets and production goals and
keep them from "falling into a broken bag," he announced.

Castro also punched away at one of his complaints at virtually every one
of his public appearances — the corruption at virtually every level of
Cuban life that has been undermining his efforts at reforms.

"Corruption is "one of the principal enemies of the revolution, much
more prejudicial than the subversive and meddlesome programs of the U.S.
government," he declared, referring to Washington's pro-democracy
programs in Cuba.

"The party will definitively assume the conduct" of the fight against
corruption, he added, without giving details. Castro created the post of
comptroller general after he assumed power to crack down on the corruption.

He urged party members to become more "democratic" and openly debate
Cuba's myriad problems, adding that to abandon the island's one-party
system would be "to legalize the party or parties of the [U.S.] empire."

Cuba's mass media, all party or state controlled, need to report on the
debate "with responsibility and the most strict veracity," he added,
"not in the bourgeois style, full of sensationalism and lies, but with
proven objectivity and without useless secretiveness."

During the 40-minute address, Castro also ground away at party issues
like the need for hard work, ethics and discipline, and he told party
officials to not meddle in decisions that should be left up to the
government officials.

"The only thing that can defeat the revolution and socialism in Cuba
would be our incapacity to correct the errors committed in the last 50
years … and those that we could make in the future," Castro declared.

Marino Murillo, the island "reform tsar" in charge of guiding and
enforcing the economic changes, was quoted as acknowledging that more
changes are needed but adding "that there's a limit — the socialist
system is untouchable."

And delegate Yosvani Verdial was quoted as saying that while the party
wants young members, "we want youths who are committed, who are
patriots, who are unconditional" supporters of the communist system.

One intriguing report noted that Castro's daughter Mariela Castro, who
was not a delegate but was invited to address a Conference working
group, had proposed amending a document to use the word "dialogue," a
word much disliked by the government.

Mariela proposed "including the word in a direct way, where it had
appeared more implicitly," Arleen Rodriguez Derivet, a journalist who
runs the nightly public affairs TV show Mesa Redonda, wrote in the
government's CubaDebate Web page.

Rodriguez added that if she herself had been a delegate, she would have
approved the change, but gave no details on whether the change was
approved, or how the word would have affected the document.

Castro's daughter, who heads the Cuban National Center for Sex
Education, has at times said she favors more and faster changes in Cuba,
and at times fiercely defended the communist system and her father's rule.

In another odd line in her report, Rodriguez asked whether the work of
the Conference could be seen as "social engineering?" Soviet dictator
Joseph Stalin's goals for creating selfless communists were often
referred to as "social engineering."

José Ramón Machado Venture, No. 2 to Raúl Castro in both the government
and the party, noted that nearly 43 percent of the delegates were women
and 37.5 percent were black or "mestizo," percentages higher than in the
party's 800,000 members.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/29/2614707/cuban-communists-ok-term-limits.html

Dissident blogger says Cubans wanted more from Brazilian visit

The Brazilian leader had vowed to make human rights a cornerstone of her
foreign policy pointed to the U.S. detention camp for suspected
terrorists at Guantánamo Bay on the island's southeastern tip.
By Matthew Bristow
Bloomberg News

HAVANA — Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez said her compatriots had hoped for
more from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who avoided criticizing
the human rights situation on the communist island during a state visit
to Havana this week.

Sanchez said she had looked for at least a "small wink" from Rousseff,
who was imprisoned and tortured for fighting Brazil's dictatorship in
the 1960s, after a jailed dissident, Wilman Villar, died last month
following a hunger strike and President Raul Castro vowed to maintain
single-party rule.

"It was pure chance that she came at this time, but people had hoped for
more," Sanchez said in an interview last night in Havana. "I would've
hoped for a small wink, a phrase with a double meaning that we could
interpret, and that the government could interpret too."

Rousseff, who concludes a three-day visit to Havana today, said that it
was an internal matter for Cuba to decide whether to allow Sanchez to
leave the island after Brazil last week granted the 36-year-old blogger
an entry visa to attend next month a screening of a documentary she
appears in. Sanchez, a critic of the Castro government on the Generation
Y blog, has been denied permission to leave Cuba for four years.

"Brazil gave the visa to the blogger," Rousseff, 64, told reporters
yesterday in Havana before meeting with Castro and his brother Fidel.
"The rest is not a matter for the Brazilian government."

Rousseff, who has vowed to make human rights a cornerstone of her
foreign policy, failed to comment on the Cuban government's record,
pointing instead to the U.S. detention camp for suspected terrorists at
Guantánamo Bay on the island's southeastern tip.

"He who throws the first stone has a roof made of glass," said Rousseff,
whose Workers' Party has long supported Cuba. "We in Brazil have our
problems too."

While critical of the Brazilian president's stance, Sanchez said
Rousseff's silence is preferable to her predecessor and mentor Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva's siding with the Castro government after the death
of another jailed hunger striker in 2010, she added.

"I wake up every day and say to myself, today I am going to behave like
a free person," Sanchez said. "Dilma once said the same. She paid a high
personal and physical cost, but in the end life proved her right and
Brazil became a democracy."

Julia Sweig, an author of publications on Cuba and Brazil, said
criticism of the Castro government is more widespread today than it's
ever been since the 1959 revolution and taking many forms that escape
the attention of foreign governments and media. As Cuba's second-biggest
investor, helping Castro ease state control of the economy, Brazil is
well-positioned to discuss the island's rights record behind the scenes
in a productive manner, she added.

"Yoani's situation bears zero comparison to what Dilma went through,"
said Sweig, director of the Latin America program at the Council on
Foreign Relations in Washington. "Unlike Dilma, she hasn't been and
won't be jailed or tortured and I seriously doubt she's going to be
president of Cuba."

Cuba's government relies on beatings, short-term detentions, forced
exile and travel restrictions to repress virtually all forms of
political dissent, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report
this month. Cuba denies it's holding any political prisoners and
considers dissident activity to be counterrevolutionary supported by
anti-Castro "mercenaries" in the U.S.

While blocked from traveling abroad, Sanchez has emerged as a leader
among a group of young dissidents who describe the daily travails of
life in Cuba through difficult-to-access social media. Many of her
chronicles are published by newspapers throughout Latin America. She has
also written a book, "Havana Real: One Woman Fights to Tell the Truth
About Cuba Today."

Sanchez said the visibility she has gained through blogging gives her
some protection from the Cuban government.

"The day I stop blogging, they'll put me on trial," she said.

Rousseff, who travels to Haiti today, discussed the possibility of
hosting Raul Castro at a future date, according to a Brazilian official
with the president who isn't authorized to comment on the two leaders'
talks publicly.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/02/2620793/dissident-blogger-says-cubans.html#storylink=misearch

A recurring theme among the last days of 2011 and early 2012 by Cubans
and foreign individuals interested in the Cuban reality has been about
the outlook for the year just begun, given the chronic nature of the
national economic crisis, the ongoing measures (reforms) of the
General-President, with his Galapagos kind of pace, the announced
increase in the worldwide recession and the political events that will
have an important influence on the situation in the medium term, namely,
the presidential elections that will take place in the United States
and, fundamentally, those in Venezuela.

The warning signs that constitute the tip of an iceberg floating adrift
erratically became more pronounced in Cuba in 2011: the removal of some
subsidies, the end of the monthly lifetime allowance in hard currency
(50 CUC) to staff having completed health "missions" in other Third
World countries, the shut-down of several work centers and other silent
layoffs, the reduction in ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of
Our Americas) student programs, especially at the Latin American Medical
School, increases in food prices and other staples, worsening economic
living conditions in the poorest sectors of society (the majority), in
contrast against increases in the standard of living of a small sector
of the new middle class, among others. This, coupled with the general
apathy and the growing feeling of helplessness on the part of groups
that will not benefit from Raulista measures, is a picture that points
to the further deterioration of social situations and the potential
increases in crime, among other adverse factors.

One of the strongest contradictions is the slow pace of government
reforms, which, so far, has been unable to stop the deterioration of the
system, compared to the rapid social impoverishment that is directly
reflected in the disappointment, uncertainty, and lack of confidence in
the future, especially a future dependent on the power group that
controls both the macro economy and national politics. There don't seem
to be many flattering indicators, or reasons for hope. If the welfare of
Cuban families hinges on setting up a kiosk or an eatery, on remittances
received from relatives abroad –those who have that luxury- or on
expectations that hang on the generosity of the government, we might as
well start turning out the lights and closing the doors: that is not a
future.

On the other hand, none of the new economic "rights" has been matched by
social and political rights, as is logical under totalitarian regimes.
Cubans have been so thoroughly disenfranchised and have been subjected
to such "paternalistic" controls that even we in the opposition factions
and independent civil society have sometimes unconsciously wished that
freedom of expression, of association and of the press be "allowed", as
if they weren't natural rights inherent to the human condition. What can
we expect from others who have let discouragement win!

Nevertheless, 2011 was also witness to a surge in alternative and civic
groups and to obvious links between the two. A spontaneous process of
modest but visible growth has been taking place within the independent
civil society, which could be consolidating gradually. Undoubtedly,
though it is a small sector, corresponding to the conditions of the
dictatorship, this is the reflection of the will of Cubans with
emancipated mentalities, determined not to ask permission to be free,
convinced that it is vital to transform reality within ourselves. A few
years ago this was unthinkable. Similarly, along with the growth of
civic spaces, we can expect strong resistance from the authorities, and
an eventual increase in repression.

The fate of one and all in this 2012 will be marked, among other
situational factors, by the interests that have already been outlined
more clearly, which, in very general terms, are: the olive green elite
and all of its caste, by virtue of recycling itself in order to maintain
power; the great entrepreneurs, members of that same caste or associated
with it, for maintaining an economic monopoly and increasing their
private capitals; new small businessmen and owners, for increasing their
profits, making use of the meager reforms, and perhaps for fighting for
other reforms; the ever-unfortunates, for surviving another year of
shortages; we, the disobedient dreamers, for increasing activism in
order to promote awareness of democratic changes and for seeking new
ways to foster them.

Some readers may think I'm pessimistic, but that is not the case. My
greatest optimism consists precisely in viewing reality face-to-face and
continuing to wish for changes. Today, the despair of tens of thousands
of Cubans is one of the main allies of the regime. However, we must not
give up. We might find the opportunity and perform a miracle in the
midst of all this dark, murky and imprecise present. Nobody knows how
much time we have left, but it is not the time to throw in the towel.
Those of us who are alive and want to achieve will not allow fatigue and
defeat to win the game.

Translated by Norma Whiting

January 9 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=13947

HAVANA TIMES, Jan 12 — Referring to the expected changes in immigration
policy, a Cuban-American colleague wrote: "Not only is it absurd, but it
is totally irresponsible to think that Cuba must open the doors to its
borders wide open." (1).

Certainly no country opens "its borders wide open," but that's not
what's being discussed today in Cuba. Rather, the discussion is around
the right of citizens to enter and leave the island without undergoing
lengthy, complicated, unnecessary and expensive procedures.

My colleague reminds us that "there is a war against Cuba" and he
asserts that Washington maintains a high level of political hostility,
prosecutes international financial transactions with the island and
maintains the economic embargo.

But what I don't understand is how you defend the country by requiring
travelers to pay $150 USD for a letter of invitation to leave the
country, which also means finding a foreigner to "take responsibility"
for the Cuban abroad.

It's as if Cuban citizens were children or mentally disabled, unable to
fend for themselves. Also, since no one investigates the "inviter," this
poses the risk that the worst of criminals will end up as the
"guardians" of the most honest Cubans.

President Raul Castro said that in the area of migration reforms he
would move slowly and gradually, measuring the impact of each step. They
tell me that he was referring to its effects on national security as
well as on the "brain drain."

Therefore I think that the "Letter of Invitation" will disappear very
soon because it doesn't provide much control and nor does it prevent the
departure of professionals. Really, it only serves to generate dollars
out of the irritation of citizens.

Something similar will happen with the duration of time people will be
permitted to reside outside the country. It's hard to believe that
national security would be threatened if Cubans abroad spent more than
11 months away. This seems to be just another measure that to make money
off of discomfort.

One would have to calculate the balance between what is collected and
the political cost paid for it. I know people who started the
immigration process for economic reasons and eventually left the island
full of resentment against the government.

In the 1960s, the costs didn't vary because those who left the country
were economic and political enemies of the revolution. But now even the
government acknowledges that people are emigrating to improve their
standard of living.

Certainly the immigration issue can't be seen outside of the
confrontation with Washington. One needs only mention the operation that
took 14,000 children from Cuba without their parents in the 60's or the
fact that US visas are now offered to Cuban doctors.

They attack where it hurts. It's no coincidence that the White House
offers such opportunities to doctors and not to bricklayers. Physicians
who carry out service missions abroad are now the main source of income
for the Cuban economy.

During external conflicts all politicians argue that it's necessary to
restrict civil liberties. This is not a not a new argument and nor is it
one that's exclusively Cuban – as is well demonstrated through the US
Patriot Act signed into law in 2001.

But citizens should keep an eye out that the restrictions on civil
rights are only the essential ones, preventing politicians tempted to
take advantage of emergencies to resolve other problems of a domestic
nature.

In the case of Cuba, there are also some immigration regulations that
are not public, so Cubans never know whether the official who denied
them their exit permit was acting within the law or was going around
those laws currently in force.

My colleague's article ends by saying that "Cuba will open the door to
whoever it wants, whenever it wants and in the way it wants." This is
logical reasoning as long as when it refers to "Cuba" it means the Cuban
nation as a whole.

There is no doubt that a country has the right to legally regulate
migration according to its needs, but to speak of "Cuba" means that, in
addition to the government and the authorities, the majority of its
citizens support those measures.

I didn't do a formal survey, but none of the Cubans I know is in
agreement with the semi-secret immigration regulations, paying $400 USD
for the world's most convoluted paperwork or having to beg foreigners
for a "Letter of Invitation.
—–
(1)
http://www.kaosenlared.net/america-latina/item/3179-sobre-tibores-y-taburetes/3179-sobre-tibores-y-taburetes.html

An authorized translation by Havana Times (from the Spanish original)
published by BBC Mundo.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=59626

Communist country's embrace of free market not an unmitigated success

A year at the vanguard of Cuba's economic revival has not brought Julio
Cesar Hidalgo riches. The fledgling pizzeria owner has had his good
months, but the restaurant he opened with his girlfriend often runs at a
loss. At times, they can't afford to buy basic ingredients.

Yet the wide-faced 31-year-old says he is grateful to be in business at
all. A year ago, Hidalgo was concocting chalky pastries in a Spartan
state-run bakery where employees and managers competed to pilfer eggs,
flour and olive oil, the only way to make ends meet on salaries of just
US$15 ($19) a month. Today, he is his own boss, a taxpayer, employer and
entrepreneur.

"I think my expectations were met because in Cuba today I couldn't have
hoped for anything more," he said one recent December afternoon as his
girlfriend, Giselle de la Noval, served customers. "We survived."

Hidalgo's story is mirrored by many of the entrepreneurs the Associated
Press followed through 2011 in a year-long effort to document Communist
Cuba's awkward embrace of free-market reforms.

Their experiences, like the reforms themselves, cannot be described as
an unmitigated success. Of the dozen fledgling business owners,
including restaurateurs, a DVD salesman, two cafe owners, a seamstress,
a manicurist and a gymnasium operator, three have closed down or begun
working for someone else, and one has been harassed by her former state
employers. None could be considered successful by non-Cuban standards.

But despite their struggles, many tell of lives transformed, dreams
realised, attitudes changed, and doors opened that had been closed for
more than half a century.

For Hidalgo, personal hardships have added to the challenges of starting
a business on a Marxist island that has looked askance at
entrepreneurship since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution turned a one-time
capitalist playground into a Soviet satellite.

After suffering through a slow, hot, summer when nobody wanted a pizza,
Hidalgo had to close for two months to care for his grandmother, who has
Alzheimer's disease. Even while the business was shut, he and de la
Noval had to make tax and social security payments, wiping out the few
hundred dollars they had saved.

They reopened in late November with so little money they can't always
afford to serve their house special.

"We've had to start from scratch, but the only reason we didn't lose the
business altogether is because we were disciplined," said de la Noval,
23. "Before we did anything, we always put away the money we needed to
pay the state."

A year that President Raul Castro described as make or break for the
revolution has ended after a dramatic flurry of once-unthinkable reforms.

In October, the Government legalised a used car market, and a month
later extended it to real estate, sweeping away decades of prohibitions.
In late December, the state began extending bank credits to new business
owners and those hoping to repair their homes.

But one of the most powerful reforms was Castro's decision last year to
greatly expand the ranks of the self-employed, part of a somewhat
unsuccessful effort to trim bloated state payrolls.

Some 355,000 people have received licences to start their own
businesses. On nearly every street in Havana and in thousands of hamlets
and towns across Cuba, makeshift signs and bright parasols mark the
entrances of new businesses, and the long-lost cries of kerbside vendors
hawking everything from fruit and vegetables to mops and household
repair services fill the warm Caribbean air.

The Government has declined to release any statistics on tax revenue or
payroll savings from the reforms, except for an October report in the
Communist Party newspaper Granma that said tax revenue from new
businesses had tripled.

Cuban leaders last month lowered their forecast for economic growth for
2011 to just 2.7 per cent from the 3 per cent originally hoped for. By
contrast, China is forecast to grow by about 9 per cent in 2011, Vietnam
by between 6 and 6.5 per cent and Brazil by 3.8 per cent.

Because most entrepreneurs don't have the capital to start innovative
businesses, many have opened cafeterias, nail parlours, small roadside
kiosks and the like.

Maria Regla Saldivar is a black belt in taekwondo who got a licence to
give private lessons to neighbourhood kids in a scruffy park across the
street from her job.

She began the year with dreams of persuading the Government to let her
turn an abandoned dry-cleaning warehouse into a private recreation centre.

But the Government refused to grant her a lease. Then her bosses at
Cuba's National Sports Institute docked her pay because they said her
outside work was affecting her performance. She quit. Finally, her
former boss prohibited her from using the park for martial arts lessons,
which are technically prohibited. The Government considers it
potentially deadly training, even though most of Saldivar's students are
not even teenagers yet. "It's called envy," Saldivar said of her boss.

She insists she is not teaching taekwondo, slyly calling the discipline
"Quimbumbia" a word of her own invention. She has moved classes for her
14 students into the tiny covered patio in the back of the apartment she
shares with her teenage daughter.

But Saldivar says she has no regrets. She says making business decisions
for herself has increased her self-esteem, and she is thrilled that
she's managed to put away US$80, about four months salary at an average
state job. "You may laugh, but for me it's a lot of money," she said,
running her coarse fingers over the stripes on a pair of sky-blue track
suit bottoms she bought. "I've wanted these for so long and now I have
them. I look like a proper trainer now, not someone out picking mangoes
from a tree."

Rafael Romeu, the head of the Washington, DC-based Association for the
Study of the Cuban Economy, said Castro had "changed the conversation"
since taking over from his ailing brother in 2006, pushing the
leadership to get the island's economic house in order rather than
blaming external factors such as the 49-year US travel and trade embargo.

But so far, the changes don't go far enough to revive Cuba's moribund
economy.

"These are positive steps but when you say them out loud, just think
about it. … You are allowed to have a cellphone, you are allowed to
buy a home, you are allowed to buy a car or have a microenterprise. This
is not the fall of the Berlin Wall. These are not major changes," he
said. "Cuba has tremendous difficulties. This is a marathon, and they
are taking baby steps."

Romeu, who has worked around the world studying emerging economies, said
that Cuba was moving much more deliberately than the Chinese did when
they began opening their economy in the late 1970s, or the Vietnamese a
decade later.

Cuba's predicament is somewhat different, as well. Both China and
Vietnam were deeply agrarian economies whose challenge was lifting tens
of millions out of crushing poverty, Romeu said. Cuba is a more urban
country with an ageing population whose citizens have got used to
benefits including health care and education, but who have grown
accustomed to a system that doesn't make them work for such middle-class
perks.

"In Cuba, the challenge is sustaining the middle class, not creating
one," Romeu said.

Still, some reforms seem to be moving along more quickly than many
analysts had hoped.

Business is booming at a street corner long known as the centre of
Havana's informal real estate market. Only now, the handwritten listings
on trees openly advertise legal home sales, instead of disguising them
as property "swaps".

Mendez Rodriguez, an unofficial real estate broker, said the buying and
selling was aboveboard, controlled by a relatively untangled bureaucracy.

"Everything is by the law now," said Rodriguez, even if his profession
is not officially licensed. He and other so-called facilitators work for
"gifts" left to the discretion of their clients, he said.

Rumours that real estate brokers would be the latest addition to the
list of 181 licensed entrepreneurial activities have not come to pass,
but there's still hope the profession will be added in 2012. Rodriguez
said the opening seems to have led to a steep increase in prices, with a
home worth US$20,000 a couple of months ago going for 50 per cent more
today.

Javier Acosta has sunk more than US$30,000 he saved as a waiter into his
own upscale establishment, and says business is far from booming.

"There are days when nobody comes, or when I have just one or two
tables, and then there are days when the place is filled."

He said his costs run to about US$1000 a month, and when business is
slow he struggles to break even.

Yet the reforms, he says, have changed the face of Cuba, and cynical
countrymen who doubt the opening will be lasting must wake up to a new
reality.

Despite his struggles, Acosta says he would take the risk again if given
the chance.

- AP

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10777860&ref=rss

(Reuters) – Guaimaro, just one of many small poor and dusty towns along
Cuba's sparsely travelled central highway, is best known as the spot
where the island's first constitution was signed during the independence
war with Spain.

These days the talk of the town is about a different sort of
independence in state-dominated Cuba – the privately owned Magno
restaurant, the most luxurious place in Gua imaro. Its owner Tomas
Mayedo Fernandez is a local boy who once did jail time for involuntary
manslaughter but now, in just over a year as an entrepreneur, is a big
success.

The eatery is one of more than 1,000 home-based restaurants, or
paladares, that have opened on the Communist-run island since
restrictions on small private businesses were loosened in late 2010, as
part of a broader reform of the Soviet-style economy undertaken by
President Raul Castro.

A meal at the Magno will cost you the equivalent of a few dollars for a
beer and sandwich to $10 or more for steak and lobster, in a land where
the average wage is less than $20 per month.

There are just two other private eateries and a few shabby looking
state-run restaurants in Guaimaro, located 400 miles (650 km) east of
Havana. But they cater more to the local population rather than
passersby and do not boast air-conditioning, lobster, shrimp, beef,
whiskey and aged rum.

"I didn't know anything about running a restaurant, but I liked the idea
of going into business and so when the law changed I began, little by
little," said Mayedo, a strapping young man and son of a cattle rancher
in his mid-30s .

Mayedo lived in the second story of the once-crumbling, century-old
building. He sold clothing from his living room to make ends meet and
looked down on the ruins of the empty store front and big back yard the
neighbours had turned into a garbage dump.

SEEING THE POTENTIAL

The place nevertheless had potential because it fronted the central
highway, giving it access to a larger customer base than just the small
town, he decided.

"We were already working to clean the place up before the law changed,"
Mayedo said recently, taking time off from his chats with arriving
suppliers and his pacing back and forth with mobile phone in hand.

He began with a small cafeteria, but then on December 10, 2010, he
opened the restaurant beside it . His plans did not stop there.

"We also have a jewellery repair shop and in two or three years I want
to build a place in the back to rent out rooms," he said.

Like the rest of Cuba, many of Guaimaro's residents have family living
abroad, especially in Florida, and as luck would have it, U.S. President
Barack Obama lifted restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting their
homeland just a few months before the Magno opened for business.

Over the recent holidays the town – where legs, bicycles and horse-drawn
buggies are the main form of transportation – was dotted with rental
cars, many of them driven by visiting Cuban Americans who wanted to
treat their relatives and friends to a nice meal while out on the town.

There was only one place to go – the Magno, which has become a sort of
destination restaurant that is well known in the area .

"December was by far the best month we have had," Mayedo said.

His wife Yaima Lopez helps run the Magno, while his aunt, a retired
state economist, takes care of the books. Two cousins, with some cash
earned working in Angola, where thousands of Cubans work as doctors,
construction workers and teachers, lent him the seed money.

"I'm paying them back little by little, but they don't pressure me," he
said.

The hardest times were when Mayedo waited for his clientele to build up
and worried he might go bankrupt.

"Like all businesses the first year or two are the most difficult. And
this is the countryside, not the capital where there is more demand.
Here we depend on the people who pass by on the highway," he said.

THE TAX MAN COMETH

As his business has grown, Mayedo has added eight full-time employees to
help operate it.

The biggest challenge has been training a workforce that is disciplined
and pays attention to details, he said.

Mayedo said he has had no serious problems with the government, is
grateful for the reforms underway and believes they are here to stay.

"I thank them for giving us the opportunity to demonstrate to ourselves
that we are capable of doing this well," he said.

"No state can subsidize an entire population, it is impossible.
Furthermore, we provide jobs, pay taxes and help the economy in a big way."

Mayedo doubted he would become a millionaire any time soon because,
despite the reforms, there are still limits.

"The system is designed to allow us to keep living, not become rich. But
yes, my life will keep improving," he said.

In a land where everyone worked for the state and there was no income
tax until recently, one is now being levied on hundreds of thousands of
small businesses and farms that have appeared due to Raul Castro's reforms.

Mayedo said his aunt was preparing his first income tax return even as
he spoke.

Now that was something to worry about at a sliding scale of up to 50
percent of earnings, Mayedo admitted, but better to pay 50 percent of
earnings than no tax on no earnings at all, he said with a shrug.

(Editing by Jeff Franks and Philip Barbara)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/11/uk-cuba-entrepreneur-idUSLNE80A00Y20120111

HAVANA TIMES, Jan 10 — Recently I read one of Yoani Sanchez's incisive
articles stating that Cubans have had their capacity for rebellion
rooted out.

Her statement alluded to the inability of Cuban society to produce a
socio-political rebellious response similar to the ones that occurred at
different times with the Czechs, the East Germans and the Russians
themselves. Certainly, this question is nestled in the minds of many
people who are interested in the issue of Cuba – and I'm no exception.

For fifty years, Cubans — as members of a very liberal Western society,
and as a people who waged enough wars and revolts to fill several
history books — have stoically endured an authoritarian political
regime, a true dictatorship over their basic needs (here I recall Agnes
Heller), which in the past twenty years has been an economy
characterized by chronic shortages.

This makes me wonder about what's the exact meaning of this surgical
removal of our rebelliousness of which Yoani speaks.

As we are in the New Year, when we're always allowed a few extra
frivolities, I would like to share some speculation about that subject.

Above all, I don't think they extirpated the capacity for rebelliousness
of post-revolutionary Cuban society but instead, they created a model
devoid of it.

In other words, the society we know today is the result of a fatal
siphoning off that (in the beginning) not only kicked the bourgeois
class out of the country, but also a very considerable part of the
middle class. In this same way, it destroyed not only the political
right wing but also the center and a significant portion of the left.

What remained was an amorphous and disorganized mass of the population
subjected to the aesthetically pleasing but confusing concept of "the
people." Moreover, they were led by a very radical left with no more of
a commitment to democracy than to the virtues of their own power and to
the applause of those entangled in the even more confusing
"worker-peasant alliance."

In such an asymmetric condition, the "dictators of the proletariat"
enjoyed a unique position to engage in social engineering that
substantially altered the social composition of Cuba. Moreover, they did
their best (Sam Farber brilliantly demonstrates this in his latest book)
to omit the nurseries of nonconformity.

The popular masses benefited from the many social programs. In fact,
they experienced a powerful surge in social mobility (I don't think that
mobility was as intense in any other period in the history of Cuba),
which undoubtedly helped to create areas of consensus.

However, sociologically this would have worked to produce a higher grade
of social subjects and an increase in their capacity for rebelliousness;
this means the capacity that Yoani mentioned should have grown.

But this didn't happen, since at the same time the Cuban economy began
to be heavily subsidized — with this continuing for nearly two decades —
based on its political relationship with Moscow. This allowed Cuban
authorities to govern with considerable autonomy with respect to society
and to the disastrous economy that they themselves had generated.

Ultimately, the material reproduction of society and the authoritarian
political system didn't depend on internal variables but on political
relations with the Soviet Union.

In addition, in their relationship with society they were in an
excellent position to produce a credible ideology that pointed to an
unstoppable march hand in hand with the "laws of history" and their
"indestructible friendship" with the Soviets.

This ideology, as Alejandro Armengol has rightly noted, was not
super-structural, but structural, as they still would like it to remain
– and effectively it is for the hard-core supporters, certainly the
minority, but enough to demonstrate government control of the streets,
while the vast majority of people remain waiting in a perennial state of
wait and see.

The collapse of the Soviet bloc was a hard economic blow, but it could
be assimilated by a rigid system of political and police control. Cuban
authorities, masters in the art of saying the same thing and the
opposite without blushing, blamed the CIA for the whole mess and shifted
all of their sermonizing onto a nationalist tack.

Again they got the best of their antagonists: Cuban-American politicians
and the Republican right.

They produced the best case of social mobility that they could come up
with: a new migratory stampede that within a few days put several tens
of thousands of young Cubans on American soil and forced the US to
renegotiate a more favorable immigration accord.

When the economy began to recover and new subsidies started coming [from
Venezuela] in the name of Simon Bolivar, the population had already
stopped growing and had even begun a dangerous decline, which
constitutes the most disturbing sign of the contemporary Cuban situation.

In other words, when the rebellious capacity was growing and had better
prospects for functioning, the government clamped down on it with such
power that people decided to protest with oars. In fact, they only
protested in the streets — for a few hours — when they lost hope in
being able to paddle away.

If there's something that needs to be recognized about Cuba's leaders,
particularly Fidel Castro, it's their unparalleled talent to retain
power, whether by adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing.

They have been the receivers of a macabre combination of Stalinism along
with tyrannical and Mafioso-like "caudilloism" – all seasoned with the
Jesuit charm that the commander learned in his Belen boarding school.
With this they have offset their remarkable economic disabilities,
seduced Tyrians and Trojans, and survived allies and enemies alike.

My doubt or question is whether we are at the inevitable end of the
incantation or if the Cuban elite has the new resources to accommodate
themselves. On the one hand, the state-society relationship has lost its
protective function and is vanishing in the aisles of the marketplace,
social inequality and the impoverishment of a very high percentage of
the population.

In addition, society is generationally different from that which
frantically applauded the entrance of the barbudos (the bearded guys)
into Havana and cheered Cuban-Soviet friendship, whose basis took the
form of three meals a day.

While it's true that the regime has a strong ability to control
repression, and the arrival of the Scarabeo 9 oil rig can lead to a new
era of relative prosperity, I don't think this will be sufficient to
reproduce the pattern of fissure-proof subordination that was clamped
down so tightly on the capacity for rebellion.

This is especially so since in any circumstance the only way that the
economy can function under the new conditions — including with
accumulation for the benefit of the emerging the middle class — is to
defragment markets and close the most exclusive legal and political gaps.

While none of this automatically produces democracy, it does create a
more open setting, especially in a liberal Western society like Cuba.

In any case, everything I've said is obviously a hypothetical position,
useful only for discussion.

Especially for those of us who from very different political positions
and desiring a change without violent disruptions, are convinced that
changes organized from above without pressure from below and dependent
solely on the will of the elite can only lead to "updated"
authoritarianism and the recycling of political and cultural mediocrity.

This is what the so-called orderly transition involves, lots of order
but little transition.

The capacity for rebellion is essential.

—

(*) A Havana Times translation (from the Spanish original) published by
Cubaencuentro.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=59514

This article was written by Luis Felipe Rojas for 'Diario de Cuba'. It
has been re-posted on this blog:

In regards to the year which has just begun, it is evident that the
directions of the Cuban government are like forked transit lines. With
more desires to give orders to its members than to implement any sort of
political economy, on January 28th they will hold the First National
Conference of the Communist Party (PCC).

Towards the end of March the General-President will receive the Vatican
authorities, rosary and timbrel at hand. And during the middle of the
year he will once again be in the limelight, with our without the
fulfillment of promises. Cuba will once again see how dreams and
demands dissipate.

On a tour which was expected to come sooner or later, the Castro
leadership has gone up against itself. Against the inflated staffs,
administrative corruption, and economic inefficiency. The three whips
of Cuban society have been exposed in numerous public meetings: the
communist congress and the ordinary session of the National Assembly.

We would have to see if the Cuban technocrats are willing to change
their mentality and cast away their furies against the same projects as
always. While the historic direction holds tight to the old art of
snapping orders and marching, thousands of Cubans try to improve their
lives selling what they themselves cultivate, carrying out service jobs
or applying their talents to new technologies.

However, enthusiasms aside, the penalization of difference still weighs
heavy over the heads of the majority of Cubans, as well as the rake
against free association and the establishment of unions, and laws like
Social Dangerousness which seem to belong in the Middle Ages.

Without being able to defend their most basic rights, the Cuban
citizenry, since the beginning of the millennium, has been trapped in
the delicacies of capitalism and civilization which has been placed
before them. They produce foreign currency, which they cannot freely
enjoy. They substitute imports with medical services which they can
rarely enjoy and, on top of that, they carry the weight of errors
committed by the senile leadership.

The more moderate forces among the rulers (which are not always visible)
opt for a change of tactics and for a reasonable strategy which would
favor the betterment of the citizen. A consensus of the majority of
workers has demonstrated the weariness produced by slogans and
inefficiency of promises.

The criticisms of Raul Castro and the dissidents of the government are
going to crash against the accommodated tendency of the bureaucrats.
Attempting to impregnate from stamps of eternal solidarity with Cubans,
the maximum leadership deprives them of health services which are
obliged to serve their third-world contemporaries.

At this point, many are asking themselves about the relationship between
the statistic offered by Cuba of 4.9 children who have died per each
thousand born alive, and the fact of not publishing the statistics of
the budget cuts in the public health sector. Will this statistic be
upheld despite the cuts? As for the popular sophism of 'tossing the
house out through the window', there is also the fact that there are
many necessities, due to a weakened system of primary attention.

Upon being asked if he was a militant (of the Communist Party, of
course), a well known professor for the University of Oriente responded,
"No, I am the culprit". The joke has transcended university property
and illustrates the disillusion of that 'minority' (in the words of
Rafael Rojas) which, in regards to political strength, has transmuted to
another social ill.

Translated by Raul G.

9 January 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=13886

President Mariano Rajoy, I turn to you on the day my daughter celebrates
her birthday. Just thinking of the Cuban young people, I decided to
write you these humble and sincere words without standing on ceremony
other than to offer you well-deserved congratulations, and to cry for
the young of my country whose only horizon is the Straits of Florida
which cause so many deaths. But not before giving you a small account of
the last two governments of my country and the impact they have had on us.

Since the absence in power of Spain's People's Party, three elections
back, the freedom of Cubans has been banished. We quickly received a
half-communist minister representing the PSOE (Socialist Workers Party),
who came to negotiate with the Castro brothers. Since then, the silence
and Spanish president Zapatero's complicity threw its dark mantle over
the Cuban archipelago. The days when the freedom of the people was more
important to Spain than relations with a tyrant, were long gone.

That complicity with which the Cultural Attache welcomed those of us
with the intention to participate in some literary contest in Spain, and
the envelopes full of stories and hopes, ended. From that time on we no
longer received the latest published books from the Iberian peninsula,
nor the journal Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana which had provided us
with the latest cultural events in the world and, especially, in the
culture of our diaspora forbidden on Cuban soil.

The literary, essay and photography contest thought up by the Spanish
embassy, which was juried and where I was told there was no pressure
because they would award the prize to some irreverent text despite the
political system that scorns us and exists in this country, only got as
far as a call for entries. The official policy of support for
marginalized artists vanished. We also lost the profound and hard work
of the Hispanic-American Center because the dictatorship closed it, not
wanting there to be a space for the cultural freedom it supported.

Then, the meeting with the ungainly ambassador of whom I only remember
his name "Lazarus," and who joked about a Bible passage, "Lazarus, arise
and walk," because the Lazarus sent to us only came to lie down at the
feet of the dictator. And the following meeting for Columbus Day, which
we had celebrated in the ambassador's residence for many years, and
Lazarus just read our group what his work plan was going to be, which
was "nothing," making him the second Government of the Island. Since
then we haven't gone back despite continuing to receive an invitation.

Months later the Ambassadors of the European Union wanted a
meeting-dialogue with Cuban writers in the residence of the Ambassador
of Austria, which chaired the EU at the time. Attending were Leonardo
Padura, Amado del Pino, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, Reinaldo Montero and me.
Each gave his vision of the social reality.

Some Ambassadors wondered about the relationship between Venezuela and
Cuba, and thought that perhaps, as expressed by the Spanish Ambassador,
that starting with a substantion improvement in the economy, there would
arise an improvement in individual freedoms. He was hoping for better
times for Cuba, the raising of the national economy and social freedoms.

When I intervened I said that with reference to the possibility of
"economic improvement", I found myself pessimistic, given that the years
of dictatorship had demonstrated gross mismanagement of the assets of
the People, and that in the unlikely event that Venezuela became what
the Union Soviet and the rest of the socialist camp had been for Cuba,
it would be disastrous for individual liberties, as rather than being
strengthened, repression would also increase.

That the Ruler (at the time it was Fidel Castro, now it is his brother,
but it has always been the same last name), had ceded his harsh
dictatorship from the Special Period, when he lost credibility and
followers, but there was a return to economic consolidation, which I
doubted we could say for certain that it would sharpen the repression,
censorship and imprisonment of opponents of the government.

After the meeting ended, while having refreshments, I was approached by
Ambassador Lazaro, who told me light-heartedly, "Don't be so
pessimistic." I gave him a look as impotence threatened to overcome me.
"Sir," I said, "how is it possible that you dare to ask for optimism
from one of the members of the third generation that this process has
consumed without any benefit. Fidel Castro is a human crushing machine."

The ambassador wanted to escape but I stopped him: "Never," I
pronounced, "have I seen the Cuban State prosper, not in economic
matters nor in individual liberties, and unfortunately we two are going
to be alive to see it."

The Ambassador raised his arms and walked away. We never met again. I
did not accept his invitations. Wherever he finds himself today, he
should remember the words that without being an expert in political and
social matters, were offered to him, a career diplomat, most
disadvantaged by our forecasts, with his failure as Ambassador and his
role in a boring and submissive political party, so much so, that his
own workers in the Spanish embassy in Havana let us know that they had a
room full of the journal Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana, which they
couldn't distribute because the government had forbidden it in secret
negotiations.

In those two governments of Zapatero, we have suffered the shamelessness
of both presidencies (Zapatero-Fidel and Raul Castro) and their minions.
Supposed achievements in the matter of the prisoners of conscience have
only served them to be accomplices in helping to take the lid off the
pot and relieve the pressure and thus avoid a social explosion on the
island, to procure some respite for a process that is asphyxiating at
times, an that resorts to strategies intended to improve its
international image, award accomplices, and ultimately ultimately extend
a system which the population does not believe in, such as releasing the
prisoners of conscience to Spain which agreed to receive them as
political refugees, but which disengaged from them after their arrival
and haphazardly left them in the hands of God. The Master of Ceremonies
of this sizable circus was Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos.

In the end they demonstrated that releasing the prisoners was not done
for humanitarian but for political reasons.I also pray for them and I
urge you to provide them the place they deserve after suffering
persecution, torture and imprisonment, it would be very kind of you to
stop this escalation of agony, and end something that started ill. Ii is
in your hands to do it.

Of course, we know that while the Popular Party has won, it doesn't mean
it will resolve the immense problems that have shaken Spain, much less
solve the dilemma of the Cubans. What we are sure of is that at least
you, President Mariano Rajoy, have extended a hand in solidarity and
know how to take the measure of a dictatorship that is dying, but that
even in its death throes, keeps kicking and is willing to take the lives
of those who confront it.

Recently Cubans have lost a friend, intellectual and former Czech
President Vaclav Havel, but God has provided us with you. Having called
the Czech writer to His side, he is right to leave this task in your hands.

With humility we simply ask you, President Rajoy, for an ambassador who
respects us and offers a place to the thoughtful opposition, dedicated
and determined to achieve the freedoms inherent in being human.

Welcome!

Sincerely,

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Translator's note: Slight changes have been made in this letter for
English-speaking readers who may not know what positions those named
hold or held in Spain and Cuba — they have been added.

December 26 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=13885

(Reuters) – Hundreds of handwritten signs stuck on doorways and in
windows announce "se vende" or "for sale" in provincial cities and towns
across Cuba as the island's nascent housing market begins to bloom.

Buyers walk the streets looking at homes the whereabouts of which were
passed along by word of mouth as sellers outside of Havana have limited
access to the Internet or other means to advertise their sales.

There are hovels and there are splendid little places tucked between
crumbling buildings. There are two-story homes in need of repair and a
few in immaculate condition. Some places go for the equivalent of a few
thousand dollars, others for much more.

Buying and selling homes was banned for decades in Cuba. The best one
could do was trade dwellings in what Cubans call a "permuta" and expand
or decrease the size of where you lived by a single room.

That all changed when the ban was lifted in November, along with much of
the previous paperwork and bureaucratic tangles, though Cubans can still
own just one home and vacation place and non-resident foreigners are
excluded from the market.

The measure appears to be the most popular yet as President Raul Castro,
who replaced his ailing brother Fidel in 2008, works to reform the
Soviet-style economy and gradually lifts some of the more onerous
restrictions on people's daily lives.

Trading one's home was a nightmarish process that could take months and
even years under the old system, and often required bribes and
under-the-table payments.

The new system requires a simple notary and payment through the bank and
appears to be working relatively well according to more than a dozen
people selling their homes from one end of the island to the other.

"The new law is really good because there are people who get divorced,
or who have money but no place to live, or live in a big place and want
a smaller one, or have big families in a little place and want something
larger and now with this law they can meet their needs much more
easily," Tania Vigaroa, in the process of selling her home in eastern
Holguin, said.

Most of the sellers say they would like to move to a smaller home and
that permutas plus payments are now to difficult to find because people
prefer to buy or sell.

In neighboring Santiago de Cuba the other day a haggard looking
receptionist at the San Pedro notary office, where the waiting room was
full, said the three notaries working there had no time to talk.

"This place has been overflowing since they changed the law, every day
is the same," said receptionist Milaidy, who asked that her last name
not be used, adding there were three other offices in the city.

Most sellers have become used to strangers on the prowl for a home. They
are a hospitable lot, welcoming the passerby to come in for a look.

"I'm asking $55,000. The house has three rooms, two bathrooms, a big
back yard, kitchen, dining room and living room and this is right near
the center of town," said Jose Ramirez in the city of Ciego de Avila, in
central Cuba.

"A number of people have come by so we will see. It's a respectable sum,
but my daughter was recently divorced and lives across town and I want
to be near her for support. There is a house over there that costs
exactly the same amount," he said.

Some 60 miles to the east, in the city of Camaguey, bicycle-taxi driver
Roberto Sosa says "no problem," when asked to peddle the Cuban version
of a rickshaw around town for a look at what's on the market.

OVERSEAS INTEREST

An hour and five homes later one place catches the eye on Virgin Street.
The neighborhood needs a plaster and paint job and the road needs
paving, but the half-block-long, five bedroom single story house,
freshly painted and with new tile floors, is splendid.

"We want $35,000 and have a possible buyer, but she is checking with her
family in Miami," said the owner's son, who gave his name only as Santiago.

Bicitaxi peddler Sosa wasn't surprised.

"Most of the houses sold are (being bought) with the help of family
abroad, if not it wouldn't be possible because their value is going up a
lot now," he said, pointing out most local residents make only the
equivalent of $20 or $30 per month.

Emilio Morales in Miami wasn't surprised either.

"A number of law firms, mainly here in the United States and Spain, have
already called asking about the law for clients who want to know how
they can buy property in Cuba," the former marketing strategist for
CIMEX, one of the largest state-run trading and retail corporations on
the island, said in a telephone interview.

Morales, now CEO of The Havana Consulting Group, a startup company
specializing in potential Cuban markets, including residential real
estate, said there was plenty of interest.

"Here in Miami there are a lot of people interested in buying property
in Cuba for diverse reasons, some to start restaurants, cafeterias or
other businesses and others to have a place to retire and live out their
old age," he said.

(Editing by Jeff Franks and Cynthia Osterman)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/09/us-cuba-house-idUSTRE8081ZS20120109

Ahmadinejad's Latin America "tour of tyrants"
By Andres Oppenheimer
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad will be visiting Latin America this
week for the fifth time since 2007 — as often as U.S. presidents over
the same period, and visiting more countries than them. He must have
powerful reasons to spend so much time in the region.

Ahmadinejad's five-day trip to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador —
which U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee chairwoman Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, has labeled a "tour of tyrants" — comes at a time
of growing international tensions over Iran's failure to comply with
United Nations nuclear non-proliferation agreements.

The United States and the 27-country European Community have announced
new economic sanctions on Iran, including a possible European oil
embargo, following a November United Nations report that Iran is likely
to be developing a nuclear bomb. Iran is threatening to close the Strait
of Hormuz, where 35 percent of the world's oil goes through, if U.S. and
European sanctions limit its oil exports.

There are two major theories within the U.S. diplomatic community on
Ahmadinejad's trip:

U.S. foreign policy hard-liners, including most Republican presidential
candidates, say Iran's growing presence in Latin America is a
demonstration of power by a terrorist regime.

"The Iranians have a vision of themselves of being a global power, and
they feel that they have the momentum," says Roger Noriega, a Republican
foreign policy hawk who headed the U.S. State Department's Latin
American affairs office during the George W. Bush presidency.

"They feel that they blocked the U.S. presence in Iraq, they are angling
to undermine the U.S. agreement with Afghanistan, and they want to
challenge us in our neighborhood," he adds.

According to Noriega, Iran is getting help from Venezuela, and perhaps
from Ecuador, to mine uranium for its nuclear program. In addition, Iran
is building a network of local operatives in Latin America to strike
back at U.S. and Israeli targets in the region should there be a
military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities, Noriega says.

The United States says Iran is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism,
providing weapons to several terrorist groups and actively promoting
suicide bombings in the Middle East. Argentina has also accused Iran of
carrying out bloody bombings against the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish
community center in 1992 and 1994.

U.S. foreign policy moderates, on the other hand, side with the State
Department's view that Ahmadinejad's visit to Latin America may be a
sign of weakness.

The Iranian leader is increasingly isolated at home and abroad, and is
desperately seeking to project an image of strength by showing his
countrymen that he is being welcomed abroad, U.S. moderates say.

At home, Ahmadinejad has lost the support of the nation's fundamentalist
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and at the same time faces a
growing challenge from reformist leaders such as presidential hopeful
Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Iran's economy is deteriorating badly, and new international sanctions
could make things worse. Rising food prices could drive up public
discontent, which has already risen significantly since the regime's
brutal repression of protests over Ahmadinejad's dubious 2009 electoral
victory.

Meantime, Syria's regime — Iran's closest Middle Eastern ally — is
increasingly threatened by an internal revolt.

Asked about Ahmadinejad's trip, a well-placed State Department official
told me that it's a frantic effort to break his growing domestic and
international isolation. As for allegations that Iran is getting nuclear
cooperation from Venezuela, and may be creating local terrorist networks
in the region, the official said that "Iran's threat to the U.S.
national security interests in Latin America is latent, rather than active."

My opinion: I tend to side with the moderates, in that Iran's fascist
ruler is trying to show his people at home that he is not a world
pariah, and that he is still received as a world figure abroad.

Still, the Latin American presidents who are welcoming him are not only
embracing a tyranny —which according to Amnesty International severely
restricts fundamental freedoms and executed up to 552 people last year,
more than any other country except China — but may also be setting up
violent support groups in Latin America to use as an insurance policy
against an attack against its nuclear facilities.

By welcoming Ahmadinejad, they are importing a foreign conflict, and
that can only bring bad things to the region. The 1990's bombings in
Argentina speak for themselves.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/07/2577341/ahmadinejads-latin-america-tour.html#storylink=misearch

Autocrats are clones of the same litter. They're not separated by
ideologies, what joins them is an unhealthy ambition for power. Each and
every one of modern dictators consider themselves enlightened. Types
essential on the national map. Founding Fathers. Irreplaceable. They
could not be more narcissistic. Egos more than enough. The nation is
their private estate.

They arise in periods of bad governance, economic crises, wars of
decolonization and political instability. They usually have a foolproof
formula under their arm to catapult the country forward. When in the
embryonic state they are very popular. Humans need icons. Heroes.
Heavy-handed leaders.

Then the despots come through the back door. In this 21st century, with
Internet, social networking and digitization, and there are few left.
You can count them on your fingers. In Equatorial Guinea, an
unpresentable man named Teodoro Obiang has all the makings of a dictator.

The monarchies of the Middle East and Morocco are another variation of
dictatorships. Natural dynasties. By blood, the throne belongs to a
family. And there is nothing, or little, you can do about it. Already in
the 18th century in Europe there were monarchies, but after the French
Revolution republican forms arose and the kings and princes were mere
decorative objects. Dedicated to works of charity or creating
foundations. Certainly one of them, the son of King Juan Carlos, Iñaki
Urdangarin, is embroiled in a corruption scandal.

There are people who consider themselves superior intellectually to lead
the destiny of a nation. It may be a gene to be discovered.

The guy with ways of a dictator knows the league. He does not like to be
out of power. Neither stands. They make up laws, such as Hugo Chavez and
Daniel Ortega, for indefinite re-election. The reckless one of Barina
went to the executive for votes. Those same votes would put him back in
the house.

Fidel Castro and Kim Il Sung took over the throne by bullets. Castro
overthrew the illegal and tyrannical government of Fulgencio Batista.
Sung was boosted by Moscow. Military preparations in the USSR. A golden
age for Stalin after World War II where the map began to change colors
and the Red Army imposed Marxist socialism by force of their T-34 tanks.

It has always intrigued me whether these two Third World autocrats had
among their purposes to remain in power. Perhaps they move, for a time,
fair ideals to build a decent way of life for its citizens. But betting
on the wrong horse.

The communism of Marx has been inefficient everywhere in the world where
it has been established. Never mind that the country has wealth or not.
Within a few years, the economy and the nation go adrift. It is, no
doubt, an unnatural system. That goes against the human soul. A slapstick.

An autocrat never acknowledges he's wrong. Right there is where their
pathological cases are slated to be part of medical studies. Castro, for
example, is never wrong. Others are wrong.

Kim Il Sung was the only God allowed in North Korea. He turned the
nation into a cult. His ego was so overwhelmed that he invented a new
philosophy, Juche.

Yes, because some dictators want to go down in history as thinkers and
righteous men. Gaddafi, the jackal of Tripoli, between cocaine and
sexual abuse of the young, gave birth to a pamphlet called The Green Book.

Fidel Castro wasn't given to outline a new social philosophy. But he
dipped his oar into all fields. He is the most knowledgeable about
cattle, sugarcane, bananas, dams, cyclones … And baseball: the
preparation of the Cuban team to play against the Baltimore Orioles in
1999 was designed by the commander. He was master of everything and the
student of nothing.

Kim Il Sung idiot of the unhappy Koreans with a cult of personality more
potent than a narcotic. Statues everywhere and him dressed in grey with
the stamp of a leader on the lapel. After these autocrats a change
doesn't necessarily come.

In North Korea Kim Jong Il, the son of Sung. Another madman. North
Korean media said, in two years he wrote 6 operas and read 180,000
books. He used to play 11 holes of golf on one drive. His writings were
released daily by the state radio. It is said that such was his passion
for film, he kept 20,000 films under lock and key, and later, maybe in
his cups, he ordered the kidnap of a couple of directors of South Korea
to make a personal film.

He liked to eat lobster with silver chopsticks while his people starved
and fell like flies on the streets of Pyongyang. A rotten collection.

He ordered the kidnapping of Japanese citizens. Downed planes in flight.
And to prove he was a tough guy when he came to the throne in 1993 he
ordered a terrorist act in Rangoon that cost the lives of 17 South Koreans.

Not content with his mischief, he produced half a dozen nuclear bombs.
He made North Korea a rogue state. After his death on December 17, he'd
hand-picked its favorite son Kim Jong Un to continue the communist
dynasty. The child knows little: 28 years, fat, and fan of the NBA.

The parallels between Castro and Kim are remarkable at the time of
passing power to his family. In Cuba, now, General Raul Castro (another
hobby of autocrats is to get many stars on the epaulet), rides to the
rescue and attempts to repair the damage to the economy.

But Castro II, 80, is as old as his brother, 85. On the island, the
average age of life for men is 76 years. Both are past it. The question
is whether in these parts after the two die, their offspring and
hand-picked relatives will touch the presidential chair.

We must wait. Meanwhile, Cuba was among the few countries that declared
three days of national mourning for the death "of Comrade Kim Jong Il."
Autocrats are part of a club. They play in another league.

Video: 1986. Fidel Castro visits the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea. At the foot of the stairs of the plane he is received by Kim Il
Sung, Kim Jong Il's father and the grandfather of Kim Jong Un.

January 5 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=13743

Reformas de Raúl, VI Congreso del PCC y resultados (II-Final)

Análisis de las reformas económicas que lleva a cabo el gobierno cubano,
realizado por Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Catedrático Distinguido Emérito de
Economía de la Universidad de Pittsburgh. Segunda parte y final

Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Pittsburgh | 05/01/2012

Política social

El aumento de ingresos a la seguridad social podría significar una
fuente adicional de fondos si realmente se expandiese notablemente la
afiliación de cuentapropistas. Pero hay que tener en cuenta el impacto
negativo en el ingreso por la caída en el empleo y de las cotizaciones
en el sector estatal, donde solo un cuarto de los empleados cotiza y es
difícil extender la contribución por los bajos salarios (Mesa-Lago,
2010b). Para elevar el valor real de los salarios habría que generar
primero un aumento considerable en la producción y la productividad, lo
cual requiere reformas más profundas que las hasta ahora implementadas o
aprobadas en el Congreso.

Respecto al gasto social, el economista cubano Pavel Vidal (2011)
recomienda que la asistencia social se incremente de manera rápida, sin
demoras, pues de lo contrario "habría un costo social muy grande". De
ese modo, los grupos vulnerables deben ser identificados y deben crearse
nuevos mecanismos, así como formar el personal para ello. Un acuerdo del
Congreso prescribió que la asistencia social la recibieran "las personas
que realmente la necesitan", lo cual si se hace con la focalización
adecuada excluiría a beneficiarios que no están en situación de pobreza
y así se ahorrarían recursos. Por otra parte, se dispuso "eliminar
prestaciones que pueden ser asumidas (…) por los familiares de las
personas beneficiadas", pero la factibilidad de esta acción es dudosa en
vista de las necesidades generalizadas de la población.

Por último, el Congreso no sentó las reglas básicas para la compraventa
de viviendas ni eliminó la permuta, aunque estipuló que se
flexibilizaría (véase más adelante el análisis de la ley promulgada
sobre esto). Además, durante la presentación ante la Asamblea Nacional
de los resultados económicos del año 2010 y el plan de la economía para
2011, el ministro de Economía, Marino Murillo (2010), anunció la
abolición del precio subsidiado a materiales de construcción vendidos a
la población para la construcción de sus viviendas, debido a la venta
ilegal de dichos materiales con enorme ganancia para quienes especulan
con ellos (hay que recordar que el precio subsidiado de un bloque es el
10 % del precio oficial). Esta medida es fiscalmente correcta, pero
perjudicará al sector más pobre y de bajos ingresos, ya que no tendrá
acceso a dichos materiales a un precio diez veces mayor.

Resultados de las reformas y ajustes aplicados

Aunque el modelo económico aún no ha sido "actualizado", tanto la
experiencia histórica como las limitaciones antes analizadas generan
dudas sobre su éxito. En la presentación del informe central al VI
Congreso, Raúl Castro (2011) anunció que el proceso tomaría un
quinquenio y de paso amonestó: "lo que aprobemos en este Congreso no
puede sufrir la misma suerte que los acuerdos de los congresos
anteriores, casi todos olvidados sin haberse cumplido". Por su parte,
Pavel Vidal (2011) ha expresado: "No veo un cambio estructural
importante en (…) la planificación [hay] que otorgar mayor espacio al
mercado (…) regulándolo con instrumentos indirectos de penalización y
estímulos, no [actualizar] un sistema centralizado que ha demostrado una
y mil veces ser ineficiente en Cuba y fuera de Cuba". El modelo de
socialismo de mercado chino o vietnamita, que otorga un papel mayor al
mercado y al sector privado, ha dado excelentes resultados por decenios.
Si se hubiese seguido este modelo, adaptado a las necesidades cubanas,
hubiese habido mayor probabilidad de éxito.

Respecto al usufructo, a mediados del año 2010, el ministro de Economía,
Marino Murillo, expresó su preocupación por la falta de resultados
productivos. Por su parte, Pedro Olivera, director general del Centro
Nacional de Control de la Tierra del Ministerio de Agricultura, alegó
que la evaluación del impacto en la producción tomaría dos años. Pero la
producción agrícola disminuyó el 3 % en el año 2010, con resultados
negativos en la mayoría de los productos. El impacto más grave se
produjo en la producción del tabaco en rama, el arroz, los frijoles y la
mayoría de las frutas, con caídas entre

el 19 % y el 27 %. Después encontramos los cítricos y las hortalizas,
con descensos entre el 16 % y el 17 %, y luego los huevos y los
tubérculos, que disminuyeron entre 0 % y 3 %. Tan solo aumentaron un 2 %
las cabezas de ganado, y entre el 5 % y el 6 % la producción de leche y
la cosecha del maíz.

Las cifras preliminares del primer trimestre del año 2011 muestran una
reducción en la superficie cultivada del sector privado (con poquísimas
excepciones), aunque se aprecia un aumento en la producción de la
mayoría de los cultivos respecto al deprimido año 2010 (ONE, 2011a,
2011b, 2011c)[5]. Por el contrario, estadísticas también preliminares
del período enero-septiembre de 2011, comparadas con el mismo período en
2010, indican que la superficie cultivada total y del Estado se
contrajo, pero la privada se había expandido, especialmente en cítricos
(un 94 %), aves, ganado porcino y alubias (entre un 42 % y un 49 %). La
producción agropecuaria creció un 7,2 %, aunque con diferencias
notables: los mayores aumentos se registraron en el arroz (un 64 %) y
las alubias (un 62 %), mientras que las peores caídas fueron para los
cítricos (un 29 %) y las patatas (un 14 %). La desagregación de la
producción por sector demuestra que el sector estatal tuvo un mal
resultado y lo opuesto ocurrió en el sector privado. Por ejemplo, las
cabezas de ganado disminuyeron el 8 % en el estatal, y crecieron el 92 %
en el privado; mientras que las proporciones respectivas en otros
productos fueron las siguientes: cítricos, caída del 20 % y aumento del
94 %; tubérculos, caída del 14 % y aumento del 18 %; plátano, caída del
29 % y aumento del 10 %; hortalizas, caída del 19 % y aumento del 7 %; y
alubias, aumentos del 6 % y del 43 %, respectivamente (ONE, 2011d).

Estas cifras preliminares adolecen de contradicciones, pues aunque se
contrajo la superficie sembrada no dejó de aumentar la producción, lo
cual sólo podría explicarse por una mayor eficiencia y por el uso de
fertilizantes, herbicidas, etc. Además, ONE define al sector privado
como de campesinos no organizados en cooperativas que cultivan tierras
no estatales, por lo que parece excluir a los usufructuarios, aunque
estos tampoco se identifican con los sectores estatal y cooperativo. Hay
que esperar a las estadísticas completas del año 2011 y a la
desagregación de la superficie y producción usufructuarias, pero las
cifras disponibles indican que después de la caída en 2010 de la
producción agrícola, esta aumentó en 2011 en el sector privado y
disminuyó o se estancó en el sector estatal. Aun con este adelanto, la
producción agrícola en 2011 estaba muy por debajo de la existente en el
año 2005, y peor aún respecto al año 1989, antes de la crisis.

En las reformas agrarias de China y Vietnam, el Estado también retuvo la
propiedad de la tierra pero, a diferencia de Cuba, dichos países
otorgaron contratos de duración indefinida, y dieron libertad a los
agricultores para plantar lo que deseasen, vender los productos a
quienes quisiesen y fijar su precio de acuerdo con la oferta y la
demanda. Bajo estas políticas, se consiguió un enorme y rápido
incremento de la producción agrícola, se alcanzó la autosuficiencia
alimentaria y se generaron excedentes que luego fueron exportados. A
modo de ejemplo, Vietnam es hoy el primer exportador arrocero del mundo,
y vende a Cuba la mayor parte del arroz que se consume en la Isla.

En cuanto al trabajo por cuenta propia, los resultados no han sido muy
halagüeños. A fines del año 2010 se contabilizaban 147.400 personas
registradas, solo 3.600 más que en 2009, aunque el programa había
comenzado a implementarse a principios de octubre de 2010 (ONE, 2011c).
En el discurso de clausura en la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, el
18 de diciembre de 2010, Raúl Castro (2010) apremió al Partido y al
Gobierno para que facilitaran el avance del cuentapropismo, llamó a "no
generar estigmas ni prejuicios contra ellos, ni mucho menos
demonizarlos" y pidió "modificar la apreciación negativa existente".
Pero a pesar de estos augurios favorables, el 28 de febrero de 2011 se
anunció que no se cumpliría la meta de la primera etapa, y tampoco se
fijó un plazo para alcanzarla, salvo vagas referencias al plan
quinquenal 2011-2014. A fines de octubre de 2011, el Gobierno reveló que
solo se había despedido al 10 % del millón de trabajadores que debía ser
sacado del sector estatal en diciembre de ese año. También informó que
se habían creado 190.600 trabajos por cuenta propia adicionales, es
decir, un 76 % de la meta de los 250.000 previstos, además de que dos
tercios de las actividades registradas como nuevas se estaban realizando
anteriormente de forma ilegal (Arreola, 2011a y b).

Entre el 1 de octubre de 2010, cuando se empezó a aplicar el programa, y
el 30 de abril de 2011, justo después del VI Congreso, se habían
concedido 221.839 licencias, de las que habría que descontar 27.000
devoluciones por parte de personas que no pudieron llevar a cabo su
desempeño. Pero el 68 % de los nuevos trabajadores que accedieron a
licencias por cuenta propia no tenía relación laboral previa con el
Estado, lo que significa que ya eran antiguos desempleados que hacía
tiempo que se habían desvinculado de las actividades controladas por el
mismo. Además, el 16 % de las nuevas licencias fueron otorgadas a
jubilados o trabajadores estatales, con lo cual el resultado final
indicó que solo 35.494 personas, alrededor de otro 16 %, eran en
realidad desempleados recientes tras el proceso de despidos masivos.
Entre las razones para justificar la lentitud en los despidos y la
creación de empleos privados se mencionaron la resistencia de los
administradores estatales, la exigencia de documentos y trámites no
legales a los cuentapropistas, así como la dilación excesiva para
conceder licencias sanitarias (Granma [28.02.2011, 17.05.2011 y
21.05.2011] y Juventud Rebelde [19.03.2011]).

Tras un análisis de la evolución del proceso de despidos y del trabajo
por cuenta propia, el Consejo de Ministros aprobó en mayo de 2011 varios
ajustes: 1) congeló todas las plazas estatales y extendió el cronograma
de despidos sin fijar fecha; 2) permitió la contratación de trabajadores
no familiares en las 178 ocupaciones aprobadas, y aumentó de 20 a 50 el
número de sillas autorizadas en restaurantes privados (paladares), a la
vez que facilitó que restaurantes estatales con baja actividad fueran
arrendados a cuentapropistas; 3) suspendió el impuesto de utilización de
la fuerza laboral en 2011 a los que contraten hasta 5 empleados, y
también redujo cuotas mensuales o impuestos a varias actividades; 4)
eliminó la obligatoriedad de afiliarse y cotizar a la seguridad social a
mujeres de 60 o más años y a hombres de 65 o más; 5) asignó 14 millones
de euros para asegurar la venta de mercancías a los cuentapropistas,
pero dejó para el futuro la creación del mercado mayorista; 6) autorizó
la actividad de agente de seguros; y 7) concedió a las embarazadas
despedidas que no encontraran empleo la licencia de maternidad que antes
perdían (Granma [17.05.2011 y 27.05.2011]). En septiembre de 2011 el
Gobierno redujo las tasas de tributos mensuales a las personas que
ofrecen hospedajes a cubanos y extranjeros, así como prometió que se
extendería a otras ocupaciones el experimento de arriendo a trabajadores
de peluquerías, barberías y salones de belleza. A comienzos de noviembre
de 2011 el Consejo de Ministros anunció que habría nuevas cuotas de
pagos de impuestos, sin mayor aclaración[6].

En el caso de la educación superior, se observa que la cantidad de
alumnos matriculados en medicina, que aumentó un 61 % entre 2005 y 2010,
había disminuido el 21 % en el curso 2010-2011. Esto significa un
obstáculo para que se haga efectivo el acuerdo del Congreso para que la
graduación de especialistas médicos cubra las necesidades del país y las
que se generen por los compromisos internacionales. Por otra parte, el
gasto en educación se redujo porque el número de universidades
municipales había decrecido un 96 % entre 2009 y 2011, mientras que
todas las escuelas de trabajadores sociales habían sido cerradas (ONE,
2011c).

Respecto al sistema de pensiones, la reforma del año 2008 se suponía que
pospondría de 2015 a 2020 el momento en que habría más retirados que
trabajadores entrantes en la fuerza laboral (Peláez, 2011). No obstante,
dicha reforma no ha reducido de manera significativa el severo déficit
del sistema, ya que para equilibrarlo en el año 2010 habría que haber
subido hasta el 21 % la cotización actual del 12 % sobre el salario
(pagada por las empresas), y en los años sucesivos ese porcentaje
debería ir en aumento. Por otra parte, en abril de 2011 se habían
registrado 198.511 personas en el régimen especial de la seguridad
social, incluyendo a cuentapropistas que ejercían antes de iniciarse el
proceso de extensión del trabajo privado (Granma [30.04.2011]). En
cuanto a los gastos en asistencia social, si se hace una comparación con
las cifras de los años 2006 a 2008, en 2010 estos gastos se redujeron un
39 %, el número de beneficiarios un 61 %, los adultos mayores con
asistencia un 51 % y los beneficiarios de asistencia a domicilio un 67 %
(ONE, 2011c). Estos severos recortes, unidos a la eliminación gradual de
gratuidades y del racionamiento, más el acuerdo citado que restringe la
ayuda a ciertos beneficiarios, perjudica a grupos vulnerables e implica
una erosión en la red de protección social que es esencial en la reforma.

Referente a la vivienda, la construcción total de residencias cayó un 6%
en el año 2010, mientras que la edificación de viviendas privadas se
desplomó un 19% en el mismo año; la eliminación de subsidios a los
materiales de construcción pudo ser la causa que provocó esa disminución
mayor (ONE, 2011c). En este sentido, el grupo de población de bajos
in­gresos no puede comprar los materiales a precios diez ve­ces
superiores, por lo que se debería estudiar la posibilidad de ofrecer
vivienda subsidiada para los grupos vulnerables. Una medida de gran
envergadura fue la promulgación de la esperada ley de vivienda que entró
en vigor el 10 de noviembre de 2011. La misma autoriza la compraventa de
viviendas por parte de ciudadanos y extranjeros residentes permanentes
en la Isla y permite a los compradores y vendedores fijar libremente el
precio y mudarse cuando lo deseen. Además, autoriza las ventas y
permutas de viviendas de cubanos que emigran definitivamente sin estar
sometidas a la aprobación estatal. Se permite la donación de vivienda y
la transferencia gratuita a los herederos familiares. La permuta
subsiste, pero ahora es legal el pago de una compensación que antes se
hacía de forma ilegal. Esta ley puede generar el capital que tanto
necesita el sector privado para lanzar y expandir sus pequeños negocios,
así como impulsar la reparación de las deterioradas viviendas
existentes. También resuelve la situación de parejas divorciadas que son
copropietarias de una vivienda al permitir su venta de mutuo acuerdo.
Por otra parte, también contiene restricciones: la propiedad se limita a
una residencia permanente y otra de veraneo o descanso (a fin de evitar
la concentración de la propiedad); el financiamiento debe hacerse a
través del Banco Central de Cuba, que obliga a pagar una licencia aún no
determinada; se carga un impuesto del 6 % del valor de la compraventa (4
% en caso de permuta), y se establecen penas severas, incluso prisión,
para aquellos que mienten sobre el valor real de sus viviendas (Ley
general de la vivienda, 2011). Se especula que la autorización para
tener una segunda casa de veraneo podría abrir un agujero legal para que
cubanos emigrados compren viviendas a través de sus parientes en Cuba.
Un potencial efecto indeseado de la ley puede ser el aumento de las
desigualdades respecto a la vivienda entre la población, pues los que
tengan más dinero comprarán casas en las mejores áreas y los que
carezcan de recursos estarán condenados a permanecer en "solares" (una
casa dividida entre muchos propietarios de pequeños habitáculos) de los
peores barrios. Además, el propietario de una vivienda arrendada puede
venderla y el arrendatario quedarse en la calle (Cave, 2011).

Otra disposición importante que entró en vigor en octubre de 2011 es la
autorización de la compraventa de automóviles, de manera libre y en
pesos nacionales, entre ciudadanos cubanos que viven en la Isla y
extranjeros residentes permanentes; se incluyen los viejos coches
estadounidenses anteriores a 1959 y los fabricados en la URSS, otorgados
por razones de trabajo antes de 1990. Por su parte, el comprador puede
tener más de un coche, y los artistas, deportistas, intelectuales y/o
otros profesionales que hayan rendido servicios en el extranjero también
pueden adquirir autos modernos comprados con autorización. Los cubanos y
extranjeros residentes pueden comprar, cada cinco años, un auto nuevo
con pesos convertibles o divisas a través de agencias comerciales o
importarlos; los residentes extranjeros temporales pueden tener hasta
dos coches durante su estadía (Regulaciones para la transmisión de
vehículos de motor, 2011).

Las restricciones legales se aplican especialmente a la compra de coches
modernos, con trabas burocráticas e inclusiones y exclusiones
arbitrarias. Dicha compra debe tramitarse ante el gobierno regional, que
a su vez hace una petición al Ministro de Transporte, y el permiso puede
tardar hasta cuatro meses. El comprador debe demostrar que sus ingresos
han sido obtenidos en servicios prestados al Estado. Asimismo, se les
permite la compra de autos a intelectuales o artistas que reciban
premios internacionales o derechos de autor a través de entidades
oficiales, así como a trabajadores de la pesca, el tabaco, la marina
mercante, las aerolíneas y la base naval de Guantánamo; pero se excluye
a los receptores de remesas del exterior y a los microempresarios cuando
esas son sus fuentes únicas de ingreso, además de a los profesionales de
la salud que prestan servicios en Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua y
Ecuador. La compraventa de autos puede ser gravada con tres impuestos:
transporte, ingresos personales y transmisión de bienes y herencia. A
los cubanos que emigran de forma definitiva, el Estado les confisca su
auto, el cual transmite en propiedad a las personas que tienen derecho,
aunque les pueden negar este derecho por razones de utilidad pública o
interés social, de ahí que sea más restrictiva que en el caso de la
vivienda (Regulaciones para la transmisión de vehículos de motor, 2011).
El Estado cobra 21.000 euros por un Hyundai Accent nuevo, pero el mismo
auto usado se vende por 22.000 euros, y el simple permiso de compra de
un coche se revende por 7.500 euros, por lo que la ley no podrá impedir
la especulación (Burnett, 2011).

¿Consenso o disenso en la dirigencia sobre las reformas?

Hasta el momento, las dos reformas estructurales principales que se
pusieron en marcha no han logrado un éxito claro. En la reforma de la
agricultura, a pesar de la cesión de tierras en usufructo, la producción
agrícola cayó en 2010 y, aunque aumentó en 2011 en el sector privado, se
desconoce si fue por los campesinos no afiliados a cooperativas o por
los usufructuarios. En la reforma laboral se incumplió la meta de
despidos, y la creación de empleos privados fue insuficiente, en gran
medida debido a las trabas y los desincentivos impuestos. En cuanto a la
"actualización" del modelo económi­co, con persistente predominio de la
planificación centralizada y de la empresa estatal, 52 años de intentos
fallidos para mejorar auguran un nuevo fracaso. La combinación de los
despidos, la eliminación de gratuidades y el racionamiento, más los
recortes sociales —incluyendo la esencial asistencia social— pueden
provocar una situación peligrosa. Por último, la autorización de la
compraventa de viviendas y automóviles son medidas muy positivas, aunque
también repletas de restricciones que son demasiado recientes para
evaluar sus efectos.

El interrogante crucial es saber el motivo por el que no fueron
corregidas las fallas de las reformas durante los meses de debates
previos a la celebración del VI Congreso, en los que participaron nueve
millones de cubanos, o por parte de los 1.000 delegados que asistieron a
dicho congreso. Tampoco se propusieron posibles soluciones en las
reuniones de la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, o en el Comité
Central del PCC y su Buró Político. Después del VI Congreso, y en vista
de los pobres resultados de las reformas, el Consejo de Ministros hizo
ajustes, especialmente en el trabajo por cuenta propia y la compraventa
de viviendas y coches, pero aún persisten problemas fundamentales. La
Conferencia Nacional del PCC, anunciada para la segunda mitad del año
2011, y pospuesta para enero del 2012, parece estar encaminada a
determinar el papel del Partido y sus relaciones con el Gobierno
(Castro, 2010), aunque quizás amplíe y profundice las reformas
estructurales.

La eficacia de las reformas y de los acuerdos del VI Congreso está
obstruida por objetivos contradictorios. Por un lado, se pretende
aumentar la producción para reducir las importaciones y expandir las
exportaciones, así como eliminar el empleo estatal excedente, y se
reconoce el papel creciente del mercado y el sector privado. Pero, por
el otro, se pone énfasis en el plan central, el control, la empresa
estatal y los fuertes impuestos al sector privado que obstaculizan su
desarrollo. A pesar de las reiteradas aseveraciones de Raúl Castro sobre
la unidad en la dirigencia, los elementos analizados en este artículo
indican que existe un disenso en la cúpula del poder, así como en los
niveles intermedios. Mientras unos apoyan las reformas como única vía
para mejorar el desempeño económico y social, para así salvar la
revolución, otros se resisten a ellas por temor a desatar fuerzas que se
escapen del control del régimen o porque la competencia privada amenace
sus posiciones y privilegios. El resultado es un compromiso ineficaz e
insostenible.

Con el diseño actual, las reformas podrían alcanzar mejoras modestas,
pero mientras no se resuelva el disenso en la dirigencia para expandir y
profundizar estas reformas, no se conseguirá resolver los problemas
económicos y sociales fundamentales de Cuba. Dos alternativas se
perfilan en el futuro: a) una lucha en la dirigencia para impulsar las
reformas o b) la continuación del statu quo con el riesgo de provocar
una mayor erosión económica y social de imprevisibles consecuencias.
Desde aquí abrigo la esperanza en que la historia tome el primer
derrotero y triunfen los reformadores.

[5] La producción industrial cayó el 2 % en 2010 (6% en electricidad,
11% en textiles y 33 % en zapatos; se estancó en puros y cemento); la
producción de petróleo creció el 10 %, pero la de gas cayó el 7 % y
también la de níquel (ONE, 2011c).
[6] Noticias de la televisión cubana (02.11.2011).

Referencias bibliográficas
ARREOLA, Gerardo. "Cuba eliminó sólo 10% del millón de empleos que
planea desaparecer". La Jornada (28.10. 2011a).
"Cuba fortalecerá más el trabajo privado". Reuters (02.11. 2011b).
BURNETT, Victoria. "Rusty road to riches in Cuba". International
Herald Tribune (7.11.2011).
CASTRO, Raúl. "Discurso en la clausura de la Asamblea Nacional del
Poder Popular". Granma (18 diciembre 2010).
"Informe central al VI Congreso del PCC". La Habana, 16 abril de 2011.
CAVE, Damien. "Cuba to allow buying and selling of property, with few
restrictions". The New York Times (04.11.2011).
ESPINA, Mayra; Rodríguez, José Luis; Triana, Juan y Her­nández,
Rafael. "El Período Especial veinte años después". Temas, n.º 65 (2011),
p. 59-75.
ESPINOSA Chepe, Oscar. Cambios en Cuba: pocos, limitados y tardíos. La
Habana, 2011 (en línea):
http://reconciliacioncu­bana.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/cambios-en-cuba.pdf
FRANK, Marc. "Cuba to grant much larger plots to farmers". Reuters
(19.10.2011).
Información sobre el resultado del debate de los lineamientos de la
política económica y social del partido y la revolución. La Habana, VI
Congreso del PCC, 1 mayo de 2011.
Ley general de la vivienda. Decreto-Ley n.º 288 de 28 de octubre 2011
y otras disposiciones legales. Gaceta Oficial, La Habana, 2 noviembre
2011, p. 359-373.
LUGO, Orlando. Entrevista en Juventud Rebelde (14 mayo2011). La Habana.
MESA-LAGO, Carmelo. "Estructura demográfica y envejecimiento
poblacional: implicaciones sociales y económicas para el sistema de
seguridad social en Cuba". Espacio Laical, vol. 6, n.º 3 (2010a), p. 87-92.
"El desempleo en Cuba: de oculto a visible". Espacio Laical, vol. 6,
n.º 4 (2010b), p. 59-66.
"Cincuenta años de servicios sociales en Cuba". Temas, n.º 64 (2010c),
p. 45-56.
"Cuba: ¿Qué cambia tras el VI Congreso del Partido Comunista?" Nueva
Sociedad, n.º 234 (2011), p. 4-18.
MESA-LAGO, C. y VIDAL, Pavel. "The impact of the global crisis in
Cuba's economy and social welfare". Journal of Latin American Studies,
vol. 42, n.º 4 (2010), p. 689-717.
MURILLO, Marino. "Resultados económicos del año 2010 y el plan de la
economía para 2011". Granma (18 diciembre 2010).
NOVA, Armando. "El papel estratégico de la agricultura: problemas y
medidas". Temas (9 de abril 2010).
ONE-Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas. Anuario Estadístico de Cuba
2009. La Habana, 2010a.
Sector agropecuario. Indicadores seleccionados. La Habana, 2011a.
Panorama económico y social Cuba 2010. La Habana, 2011b.
Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2010. La Habana, 2011c.
Sector agropecuario. Indicadores seleccionados . La Habana, 2011d.
PEDRAZA, Lina. "Intervención acerca de las propuestas para el
perfeccionamiento y actualización del sistema tributario". Granma (16
diciembre 2010).
PELÁEZ, Orfilio. "Raising retirement age is not incompatible with
downsizing staff". Granma International (5 mayo 2011).
PÉREZ Villanueva, Omar E. "Notas recientes sobre la economía de Cuba".
Espacio Laical, vol. 6, n.º 3 (2010), p. 75-81.
Proyecto de lineamientos de la política económica y social, VI
Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba. La Habana, 9 noviembre 2010.
Regulaciones para la transmisión de la propiedad de vehículos de
motor. Decreto n.º 929 de 27 de septiembre y otras disposiciones
legales. Gaceta Oficial (27 se septiembre 2011), p. 331-344.
RITTER, Archibald. "Microenterprise tax reform, 2010". The Cuban
Economy (10 de enero de 2011) (en línea):
http://thecubaneconomy.com/articles/2011/01/micro-enterprise-tax-reform-2010-the-right-direction-but-still-onerous-and-stultifying/
VIDAL, Pavel. "Desarticular el monopolio de la centralización
estatal". Entrevista de Lenier González, Espacio Laical, vol. 7, n.º 26
(2011), p. 46-52.
VIDAL, P. y PÉREZ Villanueva, Omar E. "Se extiende el cuentrapropismo
en Cuba". Espacio Laical, vol. 6, nº. 3 (2010), p. 53-58.

http://www.cubaencuentro.com/cuba/articulos/reformas-de-raul-vi-congreso-del-pcc-y-resultados-ii-final-272542

HAVANA Jan 4 (Reuters) – Cuba has opened more of its retail services to
the private sector and liberalized land lease terms so farmers can rent
more state land and keep it in the family as reforms aimed at fortifying
the socialist system for the future continue.

The Caribbean island's self-employed sector has continued to grow and
Cuba's long-delayed hope of exploring for oil offshore is close to
becoming a reality as a Chinese-built drilling rig is expected to reach
Cuban waters this month.

If oil is found, it will take at least three to five years to produce,
but eventually should reduce or eliminate reliance on oil imports from
Venezuela, whose President Hugo Chavez, the island's top ally and
economic partner, had surgery for cancer last year.

ECONOMIC REFORM

The government said it would allow Cubans to operate various service
businesses such as appliance and watch repair, locksmith and carpentry
shops, just as it has done the past year with 1,500 state barbershops
and beauty salons. [ID:nN1E7BPOOL]

They will pay a monthly fee for the government-owned space, buy
supplies, pay taxes and charge what the market will bear in another step
away from the doctrinaire communism imposed after the 1959 revolution.

Government officials said there are now more than 357,000 people working
in the self-employed sector, the growth of which is being encouraged
because the cash-strapped government wants to slash a million jobs from
its payrolls and encourage more private initiative. It has temporarily
lowered taxes and begun providing credits to the new entrepreneurs.

No figures have been released but government insiders said in October
that just under 150,000 people had lost their jobs as the government
pushes toward its goal of having up to 40 percent of the island
workforce of 5.2 million in non-state jobs by 2015.

Economy Minister Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez told the National Assembly in
late December that 170,000 state jobs would be cut in 2012 and as many
as 240,000 new non-state jobs added.

The Cuban state owns 70 percent of the land on the island and, according
to figures given at the National Assembly, has leased almost 3.5 million
acres (1.4 million hectares) to 150,000 private farmers since 2008 with
the goal of increasing agricultural production so it can reduce
budget-draining food imports. About 70 percent of the leased land was
said to be under cultivation.

Food output was up in 2011, but still below 2005 levels, so starting
this month, in response to farmer suggestions, the amount of land they
can rent has been quintupled to 165 acres (67 hectares) and leases
extended from 10 years up to 25.

The leases can be renewed and passed on to family members and farmers
can build homes on the land. [ID:nN1E7BH02Q]

President Raul Castro told the National Assembly that Cuba still
expected to spend $1.7 billion on food imports in 2012.

He also emphasized the importance of an ongoing crackdown on corruption,
which already has shuttered three foreign firms and brought the arrest
of top executives at Tecnotex, a company run by the Cuban military.

Cubans had hoped Castro would announce reforms making it easier for them
to travel abroad, but he said only that changes would be made gradually.

The Cuban Communist Party and the government passed a series of reform
plans this year that would move all business administration out of the
ministries and grant newly formed holding companies more authority to
make day-to-day decisions and control a percentage of their profits.

Cubans are now allowed, for the first time in decades, to buy and sell
homes and used cars. As of the end of November, 6,009 cars had changed
hands and 301 homes had been sold, officials said.

What to watch:

- The pace of reforms and their consequences.

- The development of small businesses.

- The shedding of business management by the ministries.

FINANCIAL HEALTH

Castro said the economy grew 2.7 percent in 2011 and was expected to
reach 3.4 percent in 2012.

Cuba said it would end 2011 with a record 2.7 million tourists for the
year and a 9 percent increase in tourism revenues over the $2.1 billion
in 2010. Tourism is a top hard currency earner for the island.

Reserves at the Bank for International Settlements stood at $5.649
billion in June, double what they were three years ago.

Cuba is heavily indebted and still recovering from a liquidity crisis
that led to a default on payments and freezing of foreign business bank
accounts in 2009. [ID:nN24211495]

Castro told the National Assembly that accounts for foreign suppliers to
Cuba had been unfrozen and steps taken to prevent the problem from
happening again.

Hopes that reforms would bring more foreign investment have yet to
materialize with no significant new ventures this year.

Long-awaited golf course developments, aimed at attracting wealthier
tourists, remain on hold. [ID:nN04118234]

What to watch:

- Resolution of outstanding short-term debt

- Signs of increased interest in foreign investment.

OIL PLANS

A Chinese-built drilling rig, the Scarabeo 9, was in Trinidad and Tobago
in early January and expected to reach Cuba later in the month. It will
be used in the first major exploration of Cuba's part of the Gulf of
Mexico. [ID:nN1E77P03U] Spain's Repsol YPF and its partners will get the
rig first, followed by Malaysia's Petronas and its partner, Russia's
Gazprom Neft.

The project has drawn opposition in the U.S. Congress [ID:nS1E78R1P9],
but, to allay safety concerns, Repsol will let the United States inspect
the rig. [ID:nN1E79H1XN] [ID:nN1E7BJ077] U.S. companies are forbidden
from operating in Cuba by the U.S. trade embargo.

Cuba depends on imports from its oil-rich ally Venezuela, but says it
may have 20 billion barrels of oil offshore. The U.S. Geological Survey
has estimated 5 billion barrels.

What to watch:

- U.S. inspection of drilling rig.

- Results of Repsol's exploratory well.

- U.S. pressure to stop the drilling.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

A planned Papal visit in March [ID:nL6E7NC3I6] and improved ties with
Brazil are bright spots even as it faces a more hostile Spanish
government elected in November.

A major concern for Cuba is the health of Chavez, whose government
provides 114,000 barrels of oil a day and investment to Cuba. He
underwent chemotherapy in Cuba and has declared himself cancer free
[ID:nN1E79J13X], but experts say it is too soon to tell. If he were
unable to continue in office, it would be a big blow to Cuba.

U.S.-Cuba relations, which thawed briefly under President Barack Obama,
have been frozen by the imprisonment of U.S. aid contractor Alan Gross.
[ID:nN1E7AT2CK] He is serving a 15-year sentence for providing Internet
gear to Cuban groups under a U.S. program promoting Cuban political change.

Cuba is angry that five Cuban agents have been jailed in the United
States since 1998, and has given no indications that Gross will be
released early. [ID:nN1E7BR0BZ] (Additional reporting by Marc Frank;
Editing by Kieran Murray)

http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN1E7BR07020120104?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

Raul Castro's absurd hope: a socio-capitalistic system
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
elblogdemontaner.com

Another Jan. 1 passed. What's happening in Cuba 53 years after the
communist dictatorship was imposed? Some important things. Fidel, now
85, distanced from power by his age and his chronic ailments, no longer
commands. He has some moments of lucidity amid a spreading fog of
senility like the one that affects his two older siblings, Angelita (89)
and Ramón (87), still alive but demented.

While not dozing, Fidel entertains himself watching international
television and reading reports delivered to him by his aides. They treat
him reverently, as if he maintained some sort of real authority. It's
pure illusion. Every once in a while, some traveler spurred by some kind
of anthropological curiosity interrupts his lethargy, and the Maximum
Leader, with slurred speech and in a very low voice, which increases the
torture, inflicts upon him some badly put-together tales about the
Sierra Maestra or explains to him how the solution for hunger can be
found in the plantations of moringa, an abundant comestible plant he has
just discovered.

In melancholy tones, the Comandante warns that his brother Raúl is
disassembling his entire "revolutionary oeuvre," but sighs that he can
do nothing to stop it, although sometimes he phones some of his old
buddies to complain. They hate to listen to him. The ears of State
Security are very sensitive and any complicity, even though passive,
could be costly. They answer him with vague and evasive phrases that
won't compromise them. That's called "talking to the microphones." It is
the misery of the games of power.

Meanwhile, Raúl Castro continues the slow demolition of the disaster his
brother bequeathed to him. The opinion, summarized by a close aide on
condition of anonymity, is implacable: "Fidel engaged in politicking and
forgot how to govern." He goes on: Fidel "surrounded himself with
corrupt and incompetent acolytes who praised him constantly but mocked
him in private." The sentence that ends the man's diagnosis is very
harsh: "The country's biggest problem is not the American embargo but
the heritage of Fidelismo. Raúl should stand a few people before the
firing squad."

I don't know if history will absolve Fidel as he predicted 60 years ago,
but the Raulistas already have condemned him.

Raúl is not going to execute anyone. He was a bloodthirsty young man
but, at 80, old age and the influence of his daughter Mariela have led
him to moderation. To murder one's opponents is not well regarded these
days. Raúl has three objectives. First, to stay in power, along with his
military cronies. Second, to alleviate the amazing unproductivity of the
system. Third, to organize the transfer of authority so his own death
won't interrupt the dynasty's control.

The first and third objectives hinge on the second. Marx, who was wrong
about almost everything, was partly right when he said that the
relations of production generated the perceptions and therefore the
behaviors. Nobody in Cuba doubts that the country is a woeful disaster
from which millions of people want to flee. A few defenders of
collectivism remain. Raúl wants to tear the system apart but gradually,
in a controlled demolition.

That simply doesn't work, and they're finding it out. To create and lead
a free economic system is a contradiction. A successful market economy
is the product of a spontaneous order, not of the planning by a few
stale-minded bureaucrats. That is why the indices of farm production
continue to fall; that is why the micro-entrepreneurs who are authorized
to exist ("the self-employed ones," as they're called) discover how
difficult it is to move in a hostile economic environment, forever
dependent upon a clumsy government that is the sole provider of supplies
and credit.

On the other hand, the demand for civil liberties is growing. Cubans,
including those who support the dictatorship, want to be able to travel
freely. Almost everyone hoped that the hated "white card," or exit
permit, would be eliminated. Cubans living abroad thought that the need
for a visa to reenter their homeland would also be eliminated. But Raúl
refused. He's afraid.

He knows that communist regimes "collapse due to the stampede of fleeing
citizens," as journalist Juan Manuel Cao has phrased it. Raúl's absurd
and unreal hope is that a substantial improvement of living conditions
will lead Cubans to reconcile with the government and the hybrid
socio-capitalistic system led by a single party and ruled by an iron hand.

That will never happen. By now, he should know that.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/03/2571975/raul-castros-absurd-hope-a-socio.html#storylink=misearch

HAVANA – Where some might see a rotten window frame pocked by termites,
Julio Cesar Hidalgo envisions a polished takeout counter, the rich smell
of garlic and oregano wafting out onto a warm Havana street.

In his mind's eye, the coarsely-laid concrete covering the surfaces of
his shabby living room is already a gleaming white countertop laid with
sandwiches, pastries, and balls of yeasty dough; a gas oven in the
corner bakes mouthwatering pizza.

Franklin Reyes / AP, file

Julio Cesar Hidalgo takes a break after preparing pizza at his newly
opened Baldoquin's Cafeteria, run out of his home, in Havana, Cuba.
After Cuban authorities announced last September that they were opening
the island's closed Marxist economy to a limited amount of private
enterprise, Hidalgo was one of the first to line up for a new business
license.

Ever since, the 31-year-old baker has been transforming the front of his
narrow apartment in a run-down section of Old Havana into a standup
pizza joint and cafe. In a land of modest dreams, Hidalgo says his is
simple: to be the master of his own labor.

"It's not going to make me rich," he laughs, adding that he may make
only a little more than he does now in a $12-a-month job at a state-run
bakery. "But I'll be working in my own home and I'll be my own boss."

Hidalgo and tens of thousands like him are chasing their entrepreneurial
ambitions in Cuba's year of economic change, hopeful that a sweeping
fiscal overhaul announced last year by President Raul Castro is for
real. The Cuban leader said the country would lay off half a million
state workers by March 31, while granting licenses for a broad, if
slightly random, array of businesses.

The new entrepreneurs face towering challenges in getting their
enterprises off the ground, including high taxes, a lack of raw
materials, an uncertain customer base, labyrinthine bureaucratic rules
and limited access to startup capital. Yet, their success or failure
will go a long way in determining the future of Cuba's revolution.

The Cuban state now employs 84 percent of the island's workers and
controls 90 percent of the economy in one of the world's last bastions
of Soviet-style communism. If the free-market experiment works, the
cash-strapped government could shed millions of dollars from its payroll
while boosting much-needed tax revenues and creating a new business and
consumer class. It could also legalize part of a booming black market
that provides everything from sausages to satellite television.

If the experiment fails, however, this already disillusioned and
dysfunctional country will have turned hundreds of thousands of people
out of their government jobs and into an uncertain future. All of this
in the same year that Raul Castro turns 80, and his older brother Fidel
is widely expected to step down from his final official post as head of
the Communist Party.

Through January 7, more than 75,000 people had received new licenses,
joining about 143,000 private sector workers left over from the island's
last dabble with capitalism. Government economists say they hope a
quarter of a million new entrepreneurs will eventually sign up.

Almost all the new businesses are small, operating out of homes or on
street corners. But the stakes for Cuba couldn't be higher, with the
economy weighed down by crippling disorganization, a broken
infrastructure, endemic corruption and an enormous labor force that has
become accustomed to getting paid very little — and doing very little in
return.

Among the thousands who have taken the leap into private enterprise are
Maria Regla Saldivar, a 52-year-old black belt in Taekwondo who plans to
open a gymnasium in the ruins of a destroyed laundromat, and Javier
Acosta, who has started an upscale restaurant catering to tourists.
There is Danilo Perez, a 21-year-old accountant who has gotten a license
to buy and sell bootleg DVDs in Havana's hardscrabble El Cerro
neighborhood, and Anisia Cardenas, a seamstress with a license to make
clothes.

Many others are giving manicures, painting homes, fixing cars and
driving taxis — services on the list of 178 officially sanctioned
private activities. Some of the other opportunities are more obscure,
such as fresh fruit peeling. And some are so specific they refer to just
two people, like No. 159, which makes it legal to be part of the Amor
Dance Duo.

Even the Cuban government — in an internal document to party leaders
obtained by The Associated Press — warned that many of the businesses
will fail within a year. And many Cubans say privately that they will
wait and see if ventures such as Hidalgo's prosper before jumping into
the fray themselves.

But for now, optimism and excitement reign among the new entrepreneurs.

"We are going to be a success. I am sure of it," says Gisselle de la
Noval, 20, Hidalgo's bright-faced girlfriend, who will work the till at
the pizzeria and share in its profits. "This (economic) opening was
marvelous … I think those who know how to take advantage of it will
have a bright future."

Judy Gross, whose husband Alan has been in a jail in Cuba for two years,
talks about his conviction and the struggle to bring him home.

Dismal economy
Cuba's push to open its economy to private enterprise does not indicate
an ideological change of heart among its Communist leaders. It is based
on necessity.

The economy has been slammed by the global economic downturn, a drop in
nickel prices and the fallout from three devastating hurricanes that hit
in quick succession in 2008. Revenues from tobacco, rum and sugar have
fallen, as have remittances from Cubans living overseas.

Prevented from borrowing from international monetary institutions by the
48-year U.S. trade embargo, Cuba was forced to reduce food and other
imports from its main trading partners by 37 percent.

The economy grew by just 1.4 percent and 2.1 percent respectively in
2009 and 2010, a terrible performance for a small, developing country —
and figures many economists dismiss as fantasy anyway, since Cuba counts
state spending on social programs when calculating economic growth.

Even state-run newspapers have been filled with stories of extraordinary
inefficiency, with dozens of "watchmen" paid by the state to guard
fallow fields, or 30 emergency workers at a hospital standing idle
because all have been assigned to a single ambulance.

"My fear is that the Cuban state is completely broke," says Uva de
Aragon, a Cuba expert at Florida International University, who is
closely watching the free enterprise experiment. "I don't want to think
about what will happen, even in the medium-term, if it doesn't work."

Shortages are everywhere: in the sparse shelves at state-run
supermarkets; along the unlit city streets and empty, rutted highways;
in the antiquated factories on the outskirts of cities and in the
tractorless farms dotting the countryside, many still relying on oxen to
till the earth. The country of 11.2 million people has the lowest
Internet penetration in the Western Hemisphere.

The state pays workers salaries of about $20 a month in return for free
health care and education, and nearly free transportation, utilities and
housing. At least a portion of every citizen's food needs are sold to
them through ration books at heavily subsidized prices.

Getting by on those salaries is such a struggle that stealing from
state-owned companies is endemic, a major perk of having a job, and a
frightening loss for those about to be laid off. The thievery is also a
huge cost to the government, one of the reasons the country finds itself
in such dire economic straits.

Since taking over from his ailing brother Fidel in 2006, — first
temporarily, then permanently — Raul Castro has been whittling away at
the subsidies.

In recent months he's cut free workplace lunches, removed potatoes,
peas, cigarettes, soap, detergent and toothpaste from the ration book,
and suggested the whole system must eventually be scrapped.

Just how bad things had gotten became apparent in September, with a
red-letter headline in the Communist Party newspaper Granma that the
state would lay off a tenth of the island's work force, while opening up
the private sector. Days later, authorities published the list of 178
activities in which new licenses would be issued.
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The list steers clear of activities that could present a threat to the
state's monopoly on most economic activity. There are no licenses for
independent lawyers, bankers or engineers, nor for Cubans to work
privately in strategic sectors such as mining or hotel management.

Still, there is no overestimating the scope of the change.

For the first time since the 1960s, Cubans will be able to hire
employees. They may rent out their homes and cars more freely, and hope
to one day get business loans from state banks. Raul Castro has even
called a rare Communist Party Congress, scheduled for April 16-19, in
which the reforms will be enshrined as the country's only way forward.

The new entrepreneurs
Hidalgo is a round-faced man with a permanently amused look in his eyes.
Unlike most Cubans, he has been down the free enterprise road before —
with disastrous results.

Cuba last opened up to some private enterprise following the collapse of
its Soviet benefactor in the 1990s, which ushered in an era of extreme
hardship known as the "Special Period."

In 1997, a 17-year-old Hidalgo and an older cousin opened a pizza joint
in the same dingy apartment, only to find it was impossible to buy the
cheese, flour and tomato paste they needed in state-owned shops.

They turned to the black market, and ran into trouble.

"The inspectors would show up … sometimes once a week, sometimes twice
a week," Hidalgo says. "They demanded receipts, and when I couldn't
provide them they confiscated everything. They forced us to close."

In those days, Fidel Castro decribed the reforms as a necessary evil and
quickly scaled them back once the crisis had ebbed. From a high of
209,000 license holders for private enterprise in 1996, Cuba's tiny
entrepreneurial class had dropped by a third by 2010.

Raul Castro has vowed it will be different this time around, telling
Parliament in December that "the life of the revolution is in the
balance." The government has pledged an initial investment of $130
million to purchase the raw materials new businesses will need, and
Hidalgo pointed to a stack of unopened boxes of white tile he purchased
for $8 a box in a state-owned shop.

Still, the path to self-employment promises to be tough.

Hidalgo has already invested $700 in the pizzeria, largely with a gift
from a cousin in Atlanta.

Given the price of ingredients, Hidalgo thinks he'll have to charge
upward of 20 pesos ($1) for a personal-size pizza with olives and
oregano — a small fortune for anybody living strictly on a Cuban
government wage. And he's already got competition: Two neighbors on his
rundown street have licenses to open cafes.

The government has made it easier for Cubans to rent space to each
other, but there is no retail property available for private citizens,
and few would have rent money even if there was. Most people either must
carve out part of their home, or come up with creative ideas to get
around the real estate shortage.

Saldivar, the martial arts black belt, beamed with excitement as she
walked through the skeleton of a building that was once an industrial
laundry in Havana's Nuevo Vedado neighborhood. She is petitioning the
government to turn over title to the property so she can transform it
into a gymnasium, and meanwhile, is using a small park nearby to hold
fitness classes.

The building has no roof or walls, and the oil-stained concrete floor is
littered with truck-sized pieces of rusted machinery, but Saldivar is
not deterred.

"I'll fix it up," she insists. Her bigger worry is that authorities have
not included martial arts in the list of acceptable activities. Saldivar
says she will either have to limit her classes to aerobics, or
"inventar," a Cuban specialty that roughly translates as "to improvise."

"I don't plan to give Taekwondo classes," she deadpans. "I'm teaching
the kids 'Quimbumbia'," Saldivar's word for a discipline remarkably
similar to Taekwondo.

Making life-long dreams come true?
Another challenge facing the private sector is taxes, which can be as
high as 50 percent, not including social security. Many prospective
entrepreneurs say the taxes will make it difficult for new businesses to
break even, and could also scare many people already making a living on
the black market from becoming legit.

One woman, who has legally rented out rooms in Havana's trendy Vedado
neighborhood since 1994 and describes herself as a strong supporter of
the revolution, complained the new system significantly increases her
taxes: She will pay double the current $108 per room, per month.

"I'm thinking of turning in my license," she says, asking that her name
not be used for fear of attracting the attention of authorities. "What
will be left for us after we pay the government?"
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The burden will not be as high for some, however. For cafes, gymnasiums
and many other activities, business owners will pay a fixed monthly fee
of somewhere between 100 and 350 pesos ($5-$17), plus social security
and payroll taxes.

At the end of the year, most will be asked to declare their income under
oath and pay a percentage of the profits. But in a nearly all-cash
economy, few are expected to give an honest account.

Phil Peters, a specialist on the Cuban economy who is vice president of
the Arlington, Virginia-based Lexington Institute, says the government
must walk a thin line between zealously policing the private sector for
tax dodgers and black marketeers, and sucking the life out of the
economic opening before it gets off the ground.

He says the government must make good on its pledge to create a system
of wholesalers, and find a way to extend microcredits to small
businesses. Eventually, employee-owned "cooperatives" could take over
inefficient state enterprises.

"If the government is serious about laying off half a million
unproductive workers, then it has a very strong interest in making the
entrepreneurial sector work," Peters says.

Already, there are signs that the other major prong of the reform effort
— the layoffs — are going more slowly than anticipated. Four months
after the cuts were announced, it is unclear how many people have
actually lost their jobs.

Midlevel managers told AP that workers' commissions set up to decide who
is expendable have been slow to hand over names. Cubans familiar with
deliberations in several ministries and state-owned companies say
leaders — including some Cabinet members — have been reluctant to shed
thousands of their employees.

"It is a difficult and dangerous process, particularly if it is not
handled well, or if there is favoritism or corruption," a worker on one
of the commissions told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear
of losing her job.

Perhaps the strongest warning that the reforms do not go far enough has
come from two prominent economists at the state-run Center for Cuban
Economic Studies.

In a rare opinion piece published in a small Catholic magazine, Pavel
Vidal Alejandro and Omar Everleny Perez warned that there are not enough
approved free-market activities to absorb half a million laid-off state
workers, and not enough white-collar jobs for an educated population.

They said it was hard to imagine that illiquid state banks could make
good on the government's pledge to extend microcredits, and urged the
state to reach out to foreign investors.

On a small scale, such investment is already happening. Several
entrepreneurs said they had received seed money from relatives overseas,
most of them in the United States. A recent decision by the Obama
Administration that allows any American to send up to $2,000 a year to
Cuba could make such loans easier.

Even if these new businesses get off the ground, it remains to be seen
whether they will have enough customers, with so many newly unemployed.
But entrepreneurs such as Hidalgo are riding a wave of hope.

Hidalgo waits as a van pulls up carrying a gas oven, a loan from his
girlfriend's mother. He says he expects to be open for business by the
end of February, and plans to call the pizzeria "Baldoquin," after his
grandfather. After more than a decade fantasizing about his own
business, Hidalgo says he can hardly contain himself.

"Just imagine it!" he gushes, thinking of that first pizza out of the
oven. "It will be the realization of a dream I have held onto forever."

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/03/9911431-bright-future-ahead-cubas-economic-changes-create-new-entrepreneurs

HAVANA TIMES, Jan 3 — No one should be mistaken. When something is
affirmed by the second-rate intellectuals of the Cuban government,
particularly those who don't enjoy the protection of Writers and Artists
Association (UNEAC) and the minister of Culture, it's because they've
heard it in some authorized setting.

Likewise, if they make these affirmations during tours of US
universities — where they give their showers of liberalism for export —
it's definitely because someone told them what they would be allowed to say.

That's why when I contrast the hemorrhaging of statements in support of
immigration reform by artists, academics and former functionaries with
what was just affirmed by Raul Castro at the last session of the
National Assembly of People's Power (parliament), I have no choice but
to think that Raul's updating actually has many limits. Among them may
be this issue of immigration.

It always seemed to me to be a display of stupidity to think — as some
of the academic spokespeople have suggested during their overseas tours
— that the general/president would leave us breathless with his
humanistic radicalism concerning this issue.

Nothing on the table

But I always believed — and on this I showed my own share of cretinism —
that he could have put something on the table. That's because the Cuban
immigration scenario is so motley, oppressive, repressive and miserable
that there's plenty of room for moving around without touching the
sensitive keys.

For example, he could have announced a reduction in fees, the extension
of time for permitted stays on trips abroad, and the elimination of some
medieval documents like the letter of invitation.

This, along with the release of 3,000 prisoners (a welcomed measure),
could have permitted the reunification of many families that remain
separated by provisions of Cuba's immigration authorities.

But instead of any change, no matter how small, what Raul Castro gave us
was the same tired verbiage justifying fifty years of internal
repression due to the dispute with the United States.

On the one hand, he explained that nothing can be changed right now,
because any movement threatens the "fate of the revolution and the
nation." Always taking into account "the exceptional circumstances in
which Cuba lives under a siege that involves subversive political
interference by the United States government, always on the lookout for
any opportunity to achieve its known aims."

Secondly, he reiterated his commitment to resolve this problem, though
without defining the problem or saying how or when he would resolve it,
let alone explaining how we can believe him when for five decades he has
been one of the creators of Cuban immigration policy, a mechanism of
unhappiness and oppression.

No easy way out

I reiterate that this issue will be particularly difficult to solve for
Cuba's leaders. Moreover, the disparity between spokespeople themselves,
crying out for changes that never come, could indicate internal
contradictions within the elite.

One part of them understand what must be "updated" as producing enough
change to make better economic use of migration, which in the narrow
vision of reformist technocrats means remittances, tourists and
prospective investors).

Another part of them still cling to the old notions of making money off
emigrants, which produces significant revenues for an economy in
permanent crisis. This outlook sees there being only two types of
emigrants: either objectionable counter-revolutionaries or good patriots
who dance salsa, admire the flag and occasionally demand freedom for the
five heroes.

But beyond economics, the way in which the Cuban government has handled
the issue of immigration makes it a key part of its strategy of social
and political domination.

For millions of islanders, travelling is an essential action –
economically and spiritually. It is a means of earning the money to cope
with the hardships of the island, visiting with families and friends,
and finally breathing less asphyxiating air. It's like this both for
workers and intellectuals.

If Cubans, regardless of their present social status, could travel
without asking permission, be free to decide the dates of their coming
and going, and travel without having to pay for expensive consular
services the Cuban government currently demands, this would be taking an
important step in dismantling the authoritarian political system.

This is one step that probably few in the Palace of the Revolution (the
executive government offices) would be willing to take.

Signing their death warrant

But if at the same time they lifted all of the provisions that prevent
emigrants from enjoying their legitimate rights as Cuban citizens
(without this there is no immigration normalization), particularly the
right to return, then this exclusionary and discriminatory political
system would be signing its own death warrant.

Surely this is not going to be done by the mercantilist technocrats or
by the ideologically rigid bureaucrats.

The issue is very clear: Cuban immigration policy is a huge mechanism
for expropriating the rights of Cubans. It is an instrument of
repression, social coercion and fiscal abuses, which is true both for
Cubans on the island and those who have emigrated.

The condition of kidnapped citizenship that is suffered by migrants is
the perfect counterpart to the incomplete citizenship affecting the
inhabitants of the island. It couldn't be otherwise, simply because one
and another condition are the results of a government that places itself
over its citizens to manage their civil and political rights, which it
confiscates, delegates and revokes according to the circumstances.

If Raul Castro is indeed seeking to normalize relations between the
island community and those who emigrated, he must publicly state the
dimensions and scope that he envisages.

He needs to set a timetable of gradual actions to be taken within a
period not exceeding three years (before he leaves office) that will
absolutely and unequivocally lead to the right of Cubans to freely leave
and enter the country.

He must authorize opportunities for autonomous discussions and
consultations among and between the insular and émigré communities. Of
course I'm not talking about the so-called "Emigracion con la Nacion"
(Emigrants with the Nation) conferences, those insipid meetings between
pro-government emigrant minorities and immigration officials of that
same government. In other words, those meetings that represent neither
the nation nor its emigrants.

There will be no solution to this issue if Cuba's authorities maintain
their exclusionary policies, their Manichean perspective and their
hypocritical ideological squeamishness, hiding their mean spiritedness
behind threadbare clothing of what remains of the country for us.

All this is taking place under an abhorrent political system, an economy
in ruins, a population that's not growing and in a situation where many
people are leaving, never to return.

—-

(*) A Havana Times translation of the Spanish original posted by
Cubaencuentro.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=58928

Cuba Santeria priests reject doomsday prediction
The Associated Press

HAVANA — A body of top Afro-Cuban priests is predicting a year of
change and upheaval in 2012, but the group says fears the world will end
are wrong.

In their annual New Year's forecast, the priests warned the world could
see more earthquakes and increased global warming, and they cautioned
that people should also be vigilant against matrimonial discord.

That may not be a very cheery message, but it's a lot better than the
fire-and-brimstone prophecies that that some have attributed to the
Maya, whose calendar cycle ends on Dec. 21, 2012. The priests say they
see a spiritual end to old things, but not a physical end to the planet.

Believers around the world have furthered the theory, which stems from a
stone tablet discovered in the 1960s at the archaeological site of
Tortuguero in the Gulf of Mexico state of Tabasco that describes the
return of a Mayan god on that date, similar to the story of Judgment Day.

But Cuba's priests say that "what needs to die is not the world itself,
but rather the ways in which the world has lived until now:
confrontations, wars, misery and discrimination," said Lazaro Cuesta,
one of the island's leading Santeria priests, or babalawo. "For us, an
old world must end so that a new world is born …. It is not a physical
end."

Santeria, which mixes Catholicism with the traditional African Yoruba
faith, is followed by many people in Cuba, where about a third of the
11.2 million population is of African descent.

The Afro-Cuban priests have a mixed track record themselves, despite
keeping their predictions rather vague.

In January 2010, they forecast struggles for power, treachery and coups
d'etat, and said the world would see the death of an inordinate number
of political leaders. That would have been a better description of 2011,
which saw the upheavals brought on by the Arab Spring, as well as the
death of North Korean leader Kim Jung-Il.

The babalawo priests predicted more coups and wars in last year's
message, in addition to growing economic openness on the island. That
latter prophecy was a relatively easy call as President Raul Castro had
already announced plans for a major shakeup of Cuba's command economy.

This year, the priests also warned of the loss of many people to the
infirmities of old age, always a delicate message on an island run by an
80-year-old president and several octogenarian aides.

But the priests often make the same prediction, and they said their
message this year was not aimed at Cuba's leaders or former President
Fidel Castro, who at 85 is fully retired.

The priests also declined to weigh in on major events for 2012, like the
Mar. 26-28 visit of Pope Benedict XVI or elections in the United States.

—

Associated Press writer Andrea Rodriguez contributed to this report.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/02/2570420/cuba-santeria-priests-reject-doomsday.html#storylink=misearch

Cuba's Year of Change

Cuba stacks up the building blocks of a new economy

The pace of economic reforms has picked up as Cuba seeks to move more
people off government payrolls in an effort to boost its economy.
By MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@MiamiHerald.com

It has been nearly four years since Cuban leader Rául Castro announced
plans for a series of reforms to raise Cubans' living standards and tie
personal gain to individual work and initiative. Change came at a
glacial rate for the first few years.

But in the months since the Communist Party of Cuba held its Congress in
April, the pace of economic reforms designed to wean workers from their
dependence on state employment and create their own jobs has quickened.

Castro has said he wants to furlough more than 1 million superfluous
state workers, although that is proving more difficult than anticipated.
Still, the economic reforms and new decree laws kept coming in 2011.

In December, Cuban authorities announced the government would rent out
state-owned workshops where jewelers, carpenters, locksmiths and other
budding entrepreneurs could set up shop, and 500 bank branches across
the Communist island began processing business loans for cuentapropistas
— the term for self-employed workers, and those who want to build or
repair their homes.

While Cuba has fallen far short of its original goal of removing 500,000
excess workers from state payrolls by last year and despite miscues
along the road to reform, the changes are starting to reach critical mass.

More than 357,000 Cubans have applied for licenses to start businesses,
and the signs of change are everywhere: mom-and-pop pizzerias, stands
near the University of Havana selling pork sandwiches,
bed-and-breakfasts appear on Internet booking sites, former state-run
beauty shops now operated by erstwhile employees, garage shops offering
clothes and housewares, and new business placards touting services from
shoe repair to home repairs to homes for sale.

"It does start to give meaning to government claims that they want the
private sector to grow,'' said Phil Peters, a vice president at the
Lexington Institute who has followed the reforms. "They have broken down
barriers''

. But the question remains: Are enough building blocks in place so a
mom-and-pop operation can be transformed into a successful small business?

One of the more significant reforms is Cubans' new ability to buy and
sell homes, rather than to swap dwellings of supposedly equal value. Not
only does the move cut down on under-the-table dealings but it could
allow Cubans to free up significant capital, and unleash a wave of home
building, renovation and other entrepreneurial activity.

But analysts say Cuba must still deal with severe shortages of building
materials as well as address financing and mortgages before the reform
can really bear fruit.

"The economy is still capital-starved,'' said Ted Piccone, a senior
fellow at Brookings Institution.

This year, the government removed a number of other obstacles to doing
business as well as steps to encourage the development of small
businesses and increase food production. Among the measures:

• Soon government offices in need of repairs, transportation, cleaning
and other services will be able to contract with small businesses
instead of relying on government work brigades that often experienced
long delays in getting tasks done.

• In addition to applying for loans, small businesses and small farmers
can now open commercial accounts — a necessary step in doing business
with the government.

• The price on bulk items such as cooking oil and mayonnaise as well as
tools, roof tiles and some other construction items has been lowered to
support newly independent workers who don't have a wholesale market for
purchases.

• Farmers can sell directly to state-run hotels and other tourist
facilities. They also will soon be able to lease up to 67 hectares
(around 166 acres) of land for 25 years and build homes on the leased
property, according to a recent Reuters report.

• The government opened up more of the retail services sector Sunday ,
allowing appliance repair, carpentry shops and locksmiths, for example,
to lease their shops. In another change, small private businesses can
also hire their own workers.

• Cubans and foreign residents can now buy, sell and donate their used
cars. During the first two months of the reform, which went into effect
in early October, 4,304 cars changed hands and 14,630 registrations for
car transfers were issued, according to Granma, the official newspaper
of the community party.

Unlike the flirtation with free enterprise of the 1990s that came in the
wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union — then Cuba's main benefactor,
most analysts say the current changes are here to stay. After the
economy improved, Havana rolled back a number of free-market reforms it
instituted in the 1990s.

"It doesn't feel tentative this time,'' said Peters. "In the 1990s, they
undertook a limited number of measures and were half holding their noses
as they were announced. Now that's not the case.''

With the economy limping along in recent years — the government pegged
2011 growth at 2.7 percent, this time there doesn't really seem to be
much of an alternative.

The government hopes to save money not only by having fewer workers on
state payrolls but also by collecting taxes from the newly self-employed
and on transactions such as the sale of a car, which carries a 4 percent
levy.

An indication of the commitment to the changes is a section called Sin
Pausa (Without Pause), on the website of Trabajadores, the newspaper of
the government-controlled national trade union. It's a collection of
articles on the changes and what the new decree laws mean with
information on everything from how to get titles for properties before
selling them to information on government plans to deal with the
shortage of construction materials.

During a meeting of the National Assembly, Cuba's parliament, in August,
Castro expressed impatience at the pace of reform, saying: "Don't forget
that the first decade of the 21st century has passed and it's time.''

But there are still issues on the table — and Cuba must try to make
changes against the backdrop of a creaky, inefficient bureaucracy and
too many citizens who have learned to survive by stealing from the
state. Castro alluded to these problems during his speech to the
National Assembly, saying the biggest obstacle "is the psychological
barrier formed by inertia, inflexibility, pretense or double standard,
indifference and insensibility.''

Another matter that hasn't been addressed is whether to allow
professionals to be self-employed. If, for example, a Cuban who is
building or repairing a home wanted to hire an architect or engineer to
draw up plans, would such professionals be allowed to work on their own?

And Havana must find the proper balance between a desire to increase
revenue through taxation and not taxing so much that it squelches
fledgling private businesses, said Peters.

While most analysts agree that economic reforms are too far along to be
reversed, the rebuilding of the Cuban economy is definitely a work in
progress.

"It does seem like the jury is still out on which of the changes will
really take hold. I would characterize the process as slow, gradual and
wait-and see,'' said Piccone. "It's very much an experiment as it goes
along.''

And as envisioned by Cuba's aging leadership, the free-market changes
aren't designed to do away with Cuban communism but rather to ensure its
survival after current leaders are gone.

It's also a learning process for the new cuentapropistas who must deal
with taxation, where to get their raw materials, competition and
businesses that sometimes operate at a loss. "I think we'll see a
substantial portion that will fail but for natural reasons, such as
oversupply of certain types of home-based businesses,'' said Peters.

But one thing the reforms are doing is shifting people's attitudes about
their role in the economy. Their new ability to buy and sell homes and
cars also is increasing their mobility to move across the country.
Exiles' monetary contributions to businesses being started by friends
and relatives are giving them a stake in Cuba's future economy, too.

At this point, where it will all lead and what political implications
there might be remain unclear. But Peters said, "There is no doubt these
changes are creating more independence for Cubans.''

This is the second of two parts. The first — how Cuba loosened the
handcuffs on commerce while remaining authoritarian as ever politically
— appeared in Sunday's Herald and can be seen at MiamiHerald.com/ cuba.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/01/v-fullstory/2570030/cuba-stacks-up-the-building-blocks.html

Repression still the rule, but Cuba sees year of change

Now you can get a loan, buy a house and — maybe soon — travel abroad
more easily. But the Castro government has no desire to ease its
authoritarian ways.
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Joe Garcia, a former executive director of the Cuban American National
Foundation, likes to joke about the chat he might have today with the
late Jorge Mas Canosa, founder of the powerfully anti-Castro exile lobby.

Garcia says he would tell Mas Canosa that Cuba's rulers have abandoned
their dream of an egalitarian utopia, and that even Fidel Castro had
confessed that his model of sub-tropical communism "does not work."

He would add that Raúl Castro is now allowing Cubans to start more small
businesses, recognizing their right to sell homes and vehicles and even
embracing foreign investments in those icons of capitalism — golf resorts.

"Jorge would immediately say, 'It's over. We won!'" said the smiling
Garcia, a South Florida Democrat who keeps tabs on developments in Cuba
and has made two unsuccessful bids for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Castro critics would disagree strongly and portray the changes as
nothing more than lipstick on the rotting corpse of a Soviet-styled
economy. Raúl Castro himself timidly calls the changes not "reforms" but
"updates" and has vowed to keep central planning as the backbone of the
island's economy and prevent any accumulation of private wealth.

Yet the changes clearly reflect an ambitious effort to address the
structural flaws of Cuba's communist system, abandon its culture of
paternalism and attack its parasitic bureaucracy — without risking the
government's power to repress dissent.

In a nutshell, Castro's goal is to slash a bloated state sector that
controls an estimated 80 percent of the economy, and to allow more space
for small-scale enterprises that can produce more efficiently, pay taxes
to the government and often can count on financial support from
relatives or friends abroad.

It's not been easy. Pushback from entrenched ideologues and bureaucrats
appears to have undercut some of the changes, and cuts in the ration
cards that provide basic food items at highly subsidized prices have
pummeled Cuba's neediest.

A Catholic church in Havana reported a hefty increase in the number of
people at its free lunches in recent months. And the government
reportedly stopped disability and other aid payments to about 3,000
people in the city of Santa Clara this year.

But many reforms are under way, and the pace of change increased after a
congress of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba in April gave a broad
endorsement to Castro's 300-plus proposals for change.

SLOWLY UNDOING NATIONALIZATION

Perhaps the most important reform for the average Cuban was the decision
in 2010 to permit an expansion of private economic activity in a country
that nationalized every single business in 1968, down to push carts that
sold hamburgers.

Today, 357,000 people have licenses for "self-employment" — in tightly
controlled categories such as party clowns and street vendors of music
CDs — and most have incomes well above the official average salary of
$20 a month.

For the first time this year, private entrepreneurs were allowed to hire
employees — previously "the exploitation of man by man" — rent some
state-owned storefronts and even list their services in the island's
phone book, which once rejected them as too "consumerist."

Many state-owned businesses, such as locksmiths, carpentry shops and
repair centers for electrical appliances such as rice cookers, will be
turned into private businesses, according to an official announcement a
month ago.

The government also postponed some taxes and fees and reduced others
when it became clear they would drown the new businesses, and promised
bank loans to the enterprises and to hire some of them to work in areas
like construction.

But the initial rush to obtain self-employment licenses appeared to be
slowing down, and official figures indicate that nearly 20 percent of
those who recently received licenses in Havana surrendered them later,
apparently because they could not make a profit.

Cubans complain that the permitted activities are too limited, that
there are no legal wholesalers for the raw materials they require —
lumber for carpenters, for instance, — and that some taxes and fees
remain unfair. Those who rent rooms to tourists pay the same fees
regardless of their occupancy.

0BTAINING LOANS TO FIX UP A HOME

Changes in the government's banking monopoly, which has never offered
credit cards, never mind a toaster, also mean that Cubans can now obtain
loans to build or renovate homes and pay for materials as well as labor.

Private farmers can open previously unavailable bank accounts to handle
their money, and loans can rise above the old limits — and go even
higher if the borrower has a co-signer or collateral.

Some of the new entrepreneurs are eager to apply for those loans but
less eager to put their money in government banks, amid fears that the
government could seize their accounts in case of a financial crisis.

PUTTING FALLOW LAND TO BETTER USE

Castro also stepped up his attack on Cuba's second most vexing problem:
the myriad failures in agriculture that forced the island to import $1.5
billion in food last year — estimated at 60 to 80 percent of its total
consumption.

As of November, 3.4 million acres of fallow state lands had been leased
to 170,000 private farmers. Farmers also were permitted to sell directly
to consumers and tourist centers, which pay better prices and therefore
help to increase production.

Another change coming soon will increase the limits on the leases from
33 to 165 acres and from 10 to 25 years, and will allow relatives and in
some cases laborers to inherit the leases, according to news media reports.

The upcoming change also for the first time would allow the farmers to
build homes on the leased land, and promises the government will
reimburse the farmers for any improvements should they lose their
leases, added the reports.

Yet nearly two million acres still remain fallow and farmers must do
most of their business through Acopio, the notoriously inefficient state
agency in charge of buying their products and getting them to market —
but which regularly allows them to rot on the way to market and fails to
pay the producers.

Communist Party officials in some provinces are alleged to be grabbing
the best leased acres for themselves and getting all the supplies they
need, like seeds and fertilizers, while other farmers get only part of
their needs.

HOMES FOR SALE — AND ALSO CARS

Also generating a buzz has been Castro's easing of the restrictions on
the sale of homes and vehicles — at times hailed as an unprecedented
recognition of private property rights, at times dismissed as merely
legalizing what had been going on illegally for years.

The permission to buy and sell homes immediately turned the properties
into potential cash and erased the unwieldy requirements for the
previously allowed permutas — swaps of homes of roughly equal size or value.

More than 4,000 "for sale" signs had gone up as of late December and the
government lifted most restrictions on the sale of construction
materials to private buyers, cut prices and made a deal with Brazil's
version of Home Depot to import supplies.

The government reported last week that since the change went into effect
it had registered 360 homes sales and nearly 1,600 "donations" — most
likely efforts to legalize previous sales that did not fulfill all
government requirements.

Cuba faces a critical housing shortage, officially put at 600,000 units
in a country of 11.2 million people. Many properties have been
subdivided many times over the decades to accommodate more families,
making for a messy trail of ownership rights.

The government also announced that it registered 3,310 sales of vehicles
and 994 "donations" in just the first month of the new regulations
allowing the sale of all used cars and trucks.

Previously, only pre-1959 vehicles could be bought and sold without
restrictions. Today, all used vehicles can be sold. But new vehicles are
sold only to Cubans who are approved by the government and earned their
money working for the benefit of the country — like doctors who work in
Venezuela.

THE SAME INEFFICIENT CENTRAL PLANNING

Less clear is the impact of Castro's campaign to reduce the direct
controls that the government exercises over the economy, and to give the
managers of state-run enterprises more autonomy to run their business
more efficiently.

The Ministry of Sugar, for example, which ran Cuba's once-premier
industry as it plunged into disaster over the past decade — the 2006
harvest was the worst since 1905 — was turned into a state enterprise.
So was the island's postal service.

But the new "enterprises" apparently will still depend on the same
central government planning system that proved inefficient in the past —
in the case of the sugar harvest, failing to ensure the timely delivery
of supplies like fuel and spare parts.

Government officials have raised the possibility of allowing foreign
investments in the sugar sector, and already have approved foreign
financing for half-a-dozen golf resorts to be built on state lands
leased out for 99 years.

NEXT UP? MAYBE UNFETTERED TRAVEL

Castro also has said that he's working on the one reform unquestionably
and most urgently desired by Cubans — the right to travel abroad without
an exit permit that is expensive and must be approved by State Security
agents.

Most Cubans also want to ease the restrictions on the return of
relatives and friends living abroad, and an abolition of the "definitive
exit" category, which punishes those who leave the island to settle
permanently in another country.

Castro told Cuban lawmakers on Dec. 23 that he understood the calls for
reforms of the migration policy, but said that changes will have to come
slowly because of the continued hostility of the U.S. government. Any
Cuban who sets foot on U.S. territory is allowed to remain and receives
U.S. residency.

CLOSING CLINICS, CUTTING SPENDING

Raúl Castro's reforms have come at a price.

As he slashed government subsidies, he had to cut spending on some of
the sectors the revolution still holds out as its iconic "victories" —
health, education and welfare — greatly damaged since the end of the
Soviet Union's massive subsidies in 1991.

Several neighborhood clinics are being closed in favor of more regional
facilities, universities are cutting enrollment in some study areas and
a dozen or so food items once sold through the ration cards are now
available only at much higher prices.

What's more, some of the reforms announced by Castro, now in his sixth
year in power after succeeding ailing brother Fidel, were postponed or
dropped amid reports of stiff opposition from within the ruling hierarchy.

A plan to lay off 500,000 state employees — a whopping 10 percent of the
public payroll — between October of 2010 and April 1 of 2011 was
postponed without a new deadline. And a scheme to tie wages to a
worker's individual productivity, announced with much fanfare in 2008,
has not been mentioned for nearly two years.

Meanwhile, the basic outline of Cuba's political system has not changed:
one-party rule, tight controls on of the mass media and varying levels
of repression for those who actively oppose the government.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS STILL HARD TO SAY

To Castro's critics, all the changes amount to worthless cosmetic
surgery, a confession of failure in 53 years of what the Castros call
"building socialism." After all, they say, private enterprise existed
and houses could be bought and sold under the Batista dictatorship,
before the Castros' 1959 revolution.

To supporters, they are part of a slow but sure-footed campaign to
eliminate a number of senseless economic constraints, move toward a more
productive brand of socialism and keep the Cuban Communist Party in power.

The only certainties are that Cuba is in the midst of complex changes —
which may or may not lead to a more productive brand of socialism — and
that the Castro government has no intention of easing its authoritarian
and coercive political system.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/21/v-fullstory/2568650/repression-still-the-rule-but.html

To Dr. Adelaida Fernández de Juan.

Esteemed colleague:

I recently read your article, "Medicine defended, which circulated on
the web this past August. Before I read it I saw your name at the
bottom, and as this is a sign of responsibility and courage — as those
who dare not to hide in anonymity may be arrested — for me, in advance,
I felt your sincerity and valor, and so I feel a reverence, far beyond
what I can share. Like you, I am a doctor, graduated in 1994, and I find
in your writing references to the abuse and misunderstandings, so I
would like draw your attention to some details.

During the time I practiced medicine I was a witness to various
situations in which a health worker mistreated, consciously or
unconsciously, some patient or family member. This is undeniable. But as
undeniable as this, is the fact that for each of these cases of
mistreatment I can recall a dozen cases (without exaggerating), on the
contrary, only in these, different from the others, were rarely reported.

When a patient feels mistreated, frequently they immediately complain to
the different levels of the Health System, the Government and the Party,
but this almost never happens when the mistreatment — much more
frequently than people think — happens in reverse. Sometimes the patient
isn't even aware of his attitude, as the grievance is assumed from the
professionalism of the mistreated, in this case us.

However, there is a point where I disagree with you or with whomever
suggests it. When you refer to the topic, "…the extremely low and
disproportionate salaries, the undervaluing of the vocation, the truly
abusive treatment of which we are victims and other grave matters…";
then giving the sense that, "…there are possibilities of lessening these
evils."

This takes me to past times, when our sector was on the list of the
so-called "budgeted," that is those depending completely on State
financing. This was the excuse to explain why professional salaries in
the health sector were so low and could not in any way be raised. But
time passed, then came the era of medical missions abroad and now we
live in a very different reality.

Today Cuba maintains collaborative medical missions in over 70
countries, which have been reported in recent years to bring up a sum of
between five billion and eight billion dollars annually. A rapid
calculation converts 8 billion dollars — in the Cuban peso in which we
receive our wages — into 180 billion pesos annually.

With this alone we are the most productive economic sector of this
country. But to these millions in income (which greatly exceeds even
Tourism, which generates some two billion) we have to add that
contributed by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, the
third highest exports after nickel and petrochemicals. It's clear: our
section has become the engine of the Cuban economy, so there is no
compelling reason that we should be paid this miserable salary,
equivalent to less than 30 dollars for an entire month's work.

If I go on about the numbers, it's only because they are very eloquent.
You know, as I do, that the added human sensibility that makes our work
priceless, despite our great scarcities that perhaps those who judge
with surprising lightness us don't know, don't fully understand the
seriousness of the matter.

You, like me, have been on medical duty where there is a lack of vital
medications, reagents, X-ray film and essential disposable materials;
where we don't even have running water, where we can't even wash
ourselves on a 24-hour shift, without even being able to wash our hands;
resting in such tough conditions that people wouldn't even believe it if
they saw it; eating poorly — for example broth and mashed potatoes, or
corn flour and boiled potatoes for every meal — knowing beforehand that
this shift did not bring us a penny to feed our children and knowing, as
well, what is even more painful, that other State sectors like ours,
which don't generate anywhere near the income we do, are much better paid.

For decades we have been a very poorly served sector. In my case, I
remember that since 1994 I worked for seven years with only the two
doctor's coats I was given as a recent graduate, and this compares with
other sectors that have received uniforms and shoes every year — some
even every six months — as well as extra monthly pay in convertible
pesos, personal hygiene products and food. I couldn't explain this if it
weren't accepted, with pain I say it, hard evidence: those responsible
for dealing with this sector don't concern themselves with the
well-being of our workers, nor with our families, everything is a matter
of sheer laziness, a proverbial irresponsibility, or both.

You quote another journalist, Fernando Ravsberg, as part of what is
already becoming a crusade, also on the attack — according to what I
infer from what you wrote, because I haven't had access to that article
— extending the shadow of bribery on the just and the unjust. I read it
and remember, however, such elevated examples of moving dedication:
professionals who are second to none in knowledge, and also in ethical
principles, people of integrity, who carry their wisdom with a shining
humility, living in the midst of shortages and that it shames me even to
remember, and who even so, prefer to die rather than stoop so low.

I know there are the unscrupulous among us, I know its face, its name,
its last name, they are not abstract examples but reality. But for my
pride and yours, Doctor, and perhaps to the surprise of Mr. Ravsberg,
they will never be the rule, they are a painful exception. That I know
and I would hold both my hands to the fire for that, my disinterested
and honest people. Who search the trees for firewood, who look above us
and find enough reed to cut it; but when there is not enough courage, it
is more comfortable and certain to take from us, those below.

For saying words very similar to yours, Doctor, I was stigmatized, and
some idiot even accused me publicly of being "money-grubbing," when I am
among those convinced that capitalism is very far from offering a
solution to the problems of the world, but to belabor this point would
take us far off topic.

I think it is stupid to run after the superfluous, following a consumer
culture that compels me to buy a cellphone every month or a new car
every year. But as absurd as this is, after working 26 years, to be
without a penny three days after being paid; that the workers of our
sector eat lunch at noon without knowing if they will eat dinner that
night; that our "salaries" honorably earned don't even allow us to feed
our families for more than a week a month; that a specialist with 20
years experience has only one pair of broken shoes; that the most that
we can aspire as physicians is to a battered bicycle.

Before such a picture, even Kafka would pale, would certainly suffer a
massive heart attack with all the complications described by cardiology.
I don't ask for irrational opulence, but nor do I deserve the miserable
existence they seem to want to condemn me to.

Excuse my manners, allow me to present myself: I am Jeovany Jimenez
Vega, I live in Artemisa and I have been a specialist in Internal
Medicine since 1999. Five years ago I was disqualified to practice
Medicine anywhere in the national territory indefinitely, since October
2006, for having channeled to then Minister Dr. José R. Balaguer Cabrera
the opinions of 2300 professionals in Public Health about that
disrespectful "salary increase" in our sector in mid-2005.

At the time of my punishment I was a Party member – since 1995 – and was
studying the final year of specialization in Internal Medicine; I was
expelled from the party immediately and suspended from my Residence, and
several months later was disqualified, along with a colleague and friend
who accompanied me on that initiative.

The details of they flat out lied to try to legitimize our punishment
can be found in the first post of my blog "Citizen Zero"
(http://citizenzerocuba.wordpress.com), open since last December to
denounce this injustice and fight to regain the exercise of the
profession that was taken from me.

Doctor: Despite everything, I have no doubt, we can count on the respect
and caring of the majority of our patients and this is a great
encouragement to continue. Along with this, I am comforted that there
are professionals like yourself, who are not resigned to look on with
indolence and shame, but who break their silence and share the truth. We
consecrate our lives to the medical profession, as we must, but this
should never be understood as renouncing the right to proudly defend our
rights.

We live proud of our sublime profession, far beyond that "…contempt for
the vocation, the abusive treatment…" to which we are subjected by those
whose job it is to ensure our well-being as workers.

We will never forget that our oath imposes on us the duty to comfort man
in his sickness and at his death, and to always comfort him in his pain,
even if in his delirium he comes to bite the hand that cures him. In
this endeavor, Doctor, we hold our heads high and our hearts open, and
nothing else matters. Be assured, better times will come.

September 12 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=13000

Cuba's Communist Party is expected to consider a strategic overhaul at
its first National Conference in 50 years next month, including a
radical presidential proposal to impose term limits on top leaders.

President Raul Castro has said the gathering, set for January 28, will
tackle big social issues like discrimination and official corruption,
and will look at how to handle Cubans' access to the internet and social
media.

It will also take on a proposal by Castro, 80, to impose a 10-year term
limit on government officials, including the president and party leaders.

Such changes would amount to a mini-revolution in the country where his
brother – the revolutionary icon Fidel Castro – ruled for almost five
decades before handing over power to Raul in 2006.

'In January, the party's National Conference is to be held, so there is
no time to rest,' the president told the National Assembly on Friday.

He was more direct on August 1, saying: 'If we do not change our
mentality, we are not going to be able to ride out the changes that are
necessary to guarantee' the current system remains in place.

As defence chief, Raul Castro turned Cuba's armed forces into major
players in the country's tourism sector.

Few expected he would open Cuba up politically, but many thought he
would champion economic reforms.

He has implemented some reforms, such as allowing Cubans to have mobile
phones and stay in hotels once reserved for foreign tourists.

He has also pared state payrolls while encouraging more Cuban workers to
be self-employed.

But some analysts argue the president has dragged his feet on other
reforms, even as Cuba's economy has sputtered.

Others believe that his range of motion may be limited by the
still-influential Fidel.

The Americas' only one-party Communist regime has been on the ropes
economically and politically since the end of the Cold War.

The country of 11.2 million has been in economic crisis mode for more
than 20 years.

With the loss of vital Eastern Bloc partners in the early 1990s, Cuba's
economy largely collapsed, sending thousands of Cubans fleeing on
fragile rafts across the Florida Straits to the United States.

The two countries still do not have full diplomatic ties.

Havana later found a new ally in Hugo Chavez, the leader of oil-rich
Venezuela.

Over the past decade Venezuelan aid has allowed Cuba's leaders to
indefinitely postpone the kind of market reforms undertaken by formerly
communist countries elsewhere in the world.

January's high-stakes party conference could well be the last one for
the Castro brothers, given their age – both are in their 80s – and
Cuba's dire economic straits.

Most Cubans make the equivalent of about 20 dollars a month.

As long ago as December 2010, Raul Castro warned the National Assembly:
'Either we put this right, or it is time to stop getting close to the
edge… We are sinking, and we will sink… the efforts of whole
generations.'

http://bigpondnews.com/articles/World/2011/12/29/Cuba_to_consider_term_limits_701783.html

HAVANA TIMES, Dec 29 — Upon hearing the news of the pardon of 2,900
prisoners, a friend who's a "revolutionary" warned me that "the streets
are going to turn bad"; while a dissident complained to me that "the
Cuban government's decision was too limited." The controversy sparked my
interest, so I went looking for some of those who were released.

I talked with three of them for a good while. Though those conversations
didn't get me any statistical parameters, it was enough to make me
realize that not necessarily all of those men and women would return to
the streets to repeat the crimes committed in the past.

This also made me wonder about how fair it is to keep a man locked up
for 36 years — married and trained in prison as a level "A" technician
in electricity for machine assemblies — for a crime he committed when he
was a 17-year-old adolescent.

It's certain that some of those pardoned will fail to re-integrate
themselves into society and will return to crime, but that cannot serve
as an argument to deny all the others a second chance.

Prisons shouldn't be used as punishment, but as places of confinement
for those who are unable to live in society without harming the rest of
us. But under this criterion, there's no justification for keeping them
behind bars when they're not dangerous.

It's very healthy that each year the authorities will be obligated to
review the cases of people placed in their custody to serve a sentence;
men and women should never be denied the right to rehabilitation.

The 2,900 released at Christmas time adds to the 200 political prisoners
released since Raul Castro assumed the presidency, and to those figures
should be added the commutations of the death sentences of dozens of
other convicts.

We can hope that this is a first step towards the elimination of capital
punishment, because it's a penalty where there is no turning back, even
if justice is mistaken. It's also a cruel punishment that denies human
beings the opportunity to correct themselves.

I know that my opinion is not shared by many Cubans. In street
interviews on the topic, most people with whom I spoke were in favor of
maintaining the death penalty for serious crimes.

In any case, deputies in parliament raised the need to revise the Cuban
penal code, and I imagine this will be one of the items on its agenda.
However it's certainly not the only one, because the challenges facing
Cuban society today are enormous.

Despite Raul Castro's insistence on the need to prosecute cattle
thieves, the sentence for that crime shouldn't be greater than that
applied to those who caused the deaths of dozens of mentally ill
patients from hunger and cold.

If, as the president said in parliament, the main enemy of the nation is
white-collar corruption, it seems logical that the government would arm
itself with a strategy and a legal structure that allows it to fight
harder and more efficiently.

How much has the country lost through the embezzlement and theft in the
areas of civil aviation, nickel, cigars, telephone services, food
imports, biotechnology, transportation and spare parts, sugar and even
within some companies run by the military?

The truth is that any of those convicted leaders or officials did much
more damage to the national economy in one year than could have been
done in the whole life of some Cuban cattle rustler killing cows.

If the government fails to eliminate the milking of the nation's
industries, it will mean little if ordinary Cubans increase productivity
on their jobs, use less electricity or stop receiving subsidies. The
sacrifices of the people will end up in private bank accounts abroad.

In parliament, the president blasted them as "corrupt bureaucrats." He
accused them of holding positions "to accumulate wealth, counting on the
eventual defeat of the revolution" and he warned that "we will be
relentless" in the fight against that "parasitic plague."

In the same address he announced that there are documentaries and filmed
interviews of "white-collar criminals." Nonetheless, these can only be
viewed by deputies and other leaders, denying that opportunity from most
citizens.

Can people be asked to understand the gravity of what is happening when
most of the information is hidden from them? Is it correct to maintain
secrecy around an issue that affects the entire nation? And will the
national media again bury its head and pretend nothing is happening?

From what has been leaked, few of these cases have anything to do with
national security. The silence only serves to keep people passive in the
grandstands circulating rumors – some true, and others preposterous.

The lack of transparency in fighting corruption seems to prove the
correctness of Cuban writer Lisandro Otero when he concluded that under
capitalism, citizens don't know what will happen, while under socialism
they never find out what has happened.
—
An authorized translation by Havana Times (from the Spanish original)
published by BBC Mundo.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=58621

The last thing able to survive from our Cuban heritage is housing, owing
to the totalitarian will of Fidel Castro, who dictated for more than 50
years that everything was his property and only he would decide what was
whose and when it stopped being so. Fortunately or unfortunately, the
family home was the only thing that couldn't be sacrificed to survive
the debacle that has lasted over 50 years. Soon that ban on the sale of
real estate will be a memory.

In the 1980s, the Cuban people were robbed of jewelry inherited from
their ancestors; the elderly, to satisfy their children and
grandchildren and alleviate their extreme poverty, handed over their
goods in exchange for a few "chavitos" [Cuban convertible pesos], which
had value only in hard-currency stores, where the prices of the items
were laughable. And everything worked like a robbery because there were
no other stores where they could get these products, which were nothing
special, other than the opportunity to acquire them.

Having dollars in those days could send you to prison for many years.
People were confronted with the perfected gears of a governmental
blackmail, which left some in bad shape, those who refused to sacrifice
the memory of their ancestors for their family. In the end, the old
women who gave up their engagement rings, relics that they exhibited on
their hands as a window into profound feelings, did it with a mixture of
pain and satisfaction, to please their families. They were left with the
perception that they were duped like the Indians at the arrival of the
Spanish, when they traded gold nuggets for stained glass.

The State also bought their porcelain vases, silver and gold, paintings
that their ancestors hung on the walls to admire, design furniture,
wealth that went into the coffers of politicians or their families and
that now rest in safe deposit boxes in foreign banks. If I may say, it
reminds me of the Jewish Holocaust, where they even removed gold teeth
by force.

Our people are like the sugar cane: squeezed.

Cuban society has been sacked spiritually and materially, like the cane,
which is repeatedly passed through the mill, where it loses consistency,
becoming bagasse and powder. What's painful is that everything happens
in total silence, under the auspices and complicity of Cuban officials
and intellectuals, who don't comment because of the fear that always
accompanies them in their artistic souls. They remained silent before
the grand theft that exchanged jewelry for bread. For once they didn't
fulfill the role, so vaunted, that makes intellectuals the voice of
society, its defender, its living memory. Instead, they preferred to
turn their backs on the people, and history will recognize this in its
righteous assessment.

But circumstances have changed so much for the ruling elite, that it has
no choice but to revise its extreme methods and wave the flag, always
for the sake of its benefit, ignoring the repeated and lengthy speeches
that claimed that "private property will never return to Cuba." Have you
ever wondered how much pain it must cause Fidel Castro to see how the
whole house of cards he forced us to visualize is crumbling? He wanted
us to believe it as if it were true and palpable. What must be happening
and what plans do they have for beginning to return some small freedoms
that they took away before and that makes them feel they are losing
their valued power? Surely it's the same feeling of helplessness the
masters felt when they were forced to free their slaves. For let's not
deceive ourselves, no measure of this Government will ever improve
things for the people, not even to restore the freedoms and rights that
correspond to being human.

The right to be born….in the wrong place?

Now the government has approved the sale of houses, something that had
already been announced. But it's also been more than a year, as "by
chance" they began in Cuba, after 50 years of stagnation, to update the
property registrations. Everything has been done with the utmost
urgency. It has been a so-called mandate for the state enterprises, with
the inescapable management of citizens for any procedure involving their
homes. In each municipality offices were opened to enter into the books
the names of the current owners, with extreme urgency and pressure. They
know that time is running out. The locals have handed over premises for
these offices, given training courses, printed flyers that have been
corrected, and delivered computers, files and office supplies. Visits by
the Provincial Director of Justice and political officials are constant.
They also are pressured with other requests. They have to answer for how
much the total climbs when they get an entry on the books. The first
person who began this task, as part of his duties as Prime Minister
(Mayor of Havana), Juan Contino Aslan (may his small power rest in
peace), was dismissed and now is on the "pajama plan," (like his
predecessors and political mentors, who allotted houses to their
mistresses).

The Government of Cuba never makes a move that will not bring it
compensation. But in this case, all the trappings lead us to the true
intent, which is to take back the properties belonging to the old
owners, who have left the country or died in Cuba.

The goal is to erase the past. When the State gets in its possession all
the old properties, it will make them disappear and, with the
registration, only the updated properties will remain. No property owner
whose property was "nationalized" beginning in 1959, nor their heirs,
will be able to reclaim something that doesn't exist and that they can't
prove officially.

Perhaps some have conveyed their properties from exile, but they were
the minority. And you might think it's a commendable gesture of the
Castros to assure Cubans that they will not be thrown into the street
when the inevitable political change appears, but that would be naive.
The real reason is that the power elite is trying to hide the family
estates that were seized or inventoried after the departure of their
original owners. Inside the great mountain of paper that contains the
entries, the personal properties will be lost. By the way, this will
reassure the generals and acolytes that they will not lose the
confiscated property given to them when they came to power.

The country is bleeding

The Cubans, in this carnival of small, unknown freedoms, in their
desperation to change their reality, in the desire to fulfill some
dreams, especially that of emigrating, now can sell their homes. Those
who wish to stay on the island immediately think about how that money
will solve all their pressing needs: eating, dressing and sleeping
without the torture of not knowing what you will eat the next day. The
government is already warning that it is "not responsible for the bad
decisions of owners who spend the money and end up in homes in poor
condition that may fall down, or for those who are wandering around
without a roof over their heads."

Once again, we wonder what function this supposed revolution had, which
presumably was made to guarantee people a secure life with equal rights.
What do we gain from suffering a dictatorship for more than 50 years, if
at the end we find ourselves selling the only things we posses, the only
things we could keep? And what's worse, it's a "socialist" state that
has nothing to do with its people, who were its only standard and
justification in this long march of agony.

The Comandante's bag

As a child, we thought the "coconut" would come for us, for our body; it
would come to take us away for not eating all our sweet potatoes, or for
not going to bed on time. After growing up we knew that the man with the
bag, the bogeyman, had passed through our lives, and he took in his
bundle more than wealth and family belongings. He took the lives and
dreams of my grandparents, parents, siblings, friends, those relatives
who still grasp me with their nails and their teeth so they won't be
snatched, and already he controls my children and now, if we permit him,
our grandchildren.

The Cuban State, for more than half a century, has held up the monster
of "capitalism," which it constantly criticized, to children who were
frightened that the "coconut" would come, and by studying so thoroughly
the original, it now has become the reflection and has converted itself
into the image of "the bogeyman who is coming to take us away," in order
to frighten us with capitalism as communist propaganda.

We Cubans have been scammed. The socialist State is slowly giving way to
ideas with which they can perpetuate the dictatorship, a frank
regression to capitalism. With the difference that now it will be more
vulnerable, because there is no knowledge of either family or social
infrastructure, which is necessary to meet and sustain a dignified life.

The big difference is in who wins at the considerable sacrifice of
millions of Cubans in this more than half a century. The Castro family
lives in luxurious mansions They own several cars and yachts. They
travel constantly and have prosperous businesses, fortunes and
properties in other countries. They definitely enjoy an income that
allows them to live like millionaires.

The beginning of the 21st century has begun to be their end. They sense
that they are running out of time. The only thing I don't know is how
and what they will develop for the family to maintain its status and
wealth, and to ensure, of course, that it will not be returned later to
the Cuban people.

While they prolong the strategies for usurious benefits for the Castro
family, the Cuban peoples' dreams of freedom and a prosperous economy
are put off and continue being deferred.

Ángel Santiesteban Prats

Translated by Regina Anavy

November 16 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=13398

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba will open up more of the country's retail
services to the private sector next year, allowing Cubans to operate
various services such as appliance and watch repair, and locksmith and
carpentry shops, official media reported on Monday.

The measures are the latest by President Raul Castro in his attempt to
reinvigorate Cuba's struggling Soviet-style economy by reducing the role
of the state and encouraging more private initiative.

A resolution published in the official gazette on Monday said the new
reforms would take effect on January 1.

Earlier this year, the Cuban government turned over some 1,500 state
barbershops and beauty parlors to employees.

Former state employees now pay a monthly fee for the shop, purchase
supplies, pay taxes and charge what the market will bear.

Shortly after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, all businesses in Cuba
were taken over by the state. But since the former leader handed power
to his brother in 2008, the policy has been openly criticized as a mistake.

Ordinary Cubans have long complained about dismal state services,
including small retail services, which they say have deteriorated
because of a theft of resources and a shortage of sufficient supplies
from the government.

Cuba has been moving over the last year to liberalize regulations over
private economic activity. Since then, tens of thousands of Cubans have
taken out licenses "to work for themselves," a euphemism used by the
government to describe operating mom-and-pop businesses.

Cuba plans to have 35 percent to 40 percent of the labor force working
in the "non-state" sector by 2016, compared with 15 percent at the close
of 2010.

Raul Castro, faced with stagnating production and mounting foreign debt,
has made clear the economy must be overhauled if the socialist system he
and his ailing brother Fidel installed is to survive.

Moving most retail services to the "non-state" sector is one of more
than 300 reforms approved by the ruling Communist Party earlier this
year to "update" the economy.

The measures aim to introduce market forces in the agriculture and
retail services sectors, cut subsidies and lift restrictions on
individual activity that once prohibited the sale and purchase of homes
and cars.

On Monday, the Communist Party daily Granma said the moving of thousands
of state retail services to a leasing arrangement would be done
gradually throughout 2012.

Economy Minister Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez told a year-end session of the
National Assembly last week the number of state jobs would be reduced by
170,000 next year, with 240,000 new jobs likely to be added to the
"non-state" sector.

Thousands of state taxi drivers are expected to move to leasing
arrangements next year. Some state food services are also expected to be
allowed to form cooperatives.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Eric Beech)

http://news.yahoo.com/cuba-makes-more-reforms-retail-sector-174407946.html;_ylt=ApjY9B0o9UVc6xdWzIS.0Zz9SpZ4

A Cuban selling meat on a street stall gives the thumbs -up Many
restaurants and food stalls are already privately operated

Cuba says it is expanding free-market reforms, opening more of the
retail services sector to private business.

From 1 January workers including carpenters, locksmiths, photographers
and repairmen will be allowed to become self-employed.

They will be able to set their own prices, while paying taxes and
leasing their premises from the state.

The measures are the latest reforms aimed at reviving Cuba's socialist
economy by boosting private enterprise.

President Raul Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, has
said the changes represent an effort to update rather than abandon the
socialist model.

His government plans to have up to 40% of the the workforce employed by
the non-state sector by 2016, compared with just 10% at the end of 2010.
Dramatic change

Restrictions on private business have been relaxed, large numbers of
state workers have been laid off, and tens of thousands of Cubans have
applied for licenses to work for themselves.

For the first time in decades people are allowed to buy and sell homes
and cars and take out private business loans from banks.

Earlier this year state barbers shops and beauty salons were handed over
to their employees, who now work for themselves while paying rent, tax
and social security to the state.

That initiative is now being extended to a wide range of small retail
services, including shoe, watch and electronic repairs, the official
Communist Party newspaper Granma said.

The change will be rolled out gradually over the course of the year,
starting in six provinces including the capital, Havana.

President Castro's programme of reform represents a dramatic change in
Cuba, which for nearly half a century was been run as a command economy,
with almost all activity controlled by the state.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16336137

Cuban authorities will rent workshop equipment and facilities so that
private workers can use their skills for their own benefit.
By Isaac Risco
Deutsche Presse-Agentur

HAVANA — Cuban authorities will rent out state-owned workshops to the
country's growing private sector, the Cuban Communist Party daily Granma
reported Monday.

Carpenters, photographers, jewelers and locksmiths are among those who
will be able to rent public facilities.

The move is among other measures that the communist government has put
in place in recent months to improve the island's stalling economy.

The authorities will rent workshop equipment and facilities so that
workers can use their skills for their own benefit, as they did earlier
in sectors like hairdressing. Workers will be allowed to set their own
opening hours and prices, Granma said.

At first, beginning Sunday, the shops will be available in six of Cuba's
15 provinces, including Havana. The plan is to extend the program to the
rest of the country.

Critics of recent changes have demanded that more qualified
professionals also be allowed to work privately. Cuba has, for example,
many well-trained doctors who are paid wages well below those available
in the private sector.

Last week, President Raul Castro signaled his willingness to relax
Cuba's strict travel restrictions for its citizens, though no date was
set. Banks started lending money to farmers and others in the country's
private sector.

There has been an easing of limits on state-owned firms, allowing them
more flexibility to subcontract private-sector firms for their services.
Such operations were previously only allowed for very small amounts of
money.

New rules set by the Cuban Central Bank and the Finance Ministry allow
banks to grant personal loans to stimulate private consumption.

Other changes introduced over the past wo years include allowing people
to buy and sell their cars and homes for the first time in more than 50
years. Cubans have been allowed to stay in the island's luxury hotels,
previously only for foreigners, and to own computers and mobile phones.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017100628_cuba27.html

Asclepius is the ancient Greek god of Healing and Medicine

The Cuban Revolution has always raised great passions. Millions within
and outside the island are split between those who applaud and offering
moving excuses, or those who clench their fists and launch incendiary
accusations. But without a doubt, among the picturesque barbarities that
flourish under the tropical sky there is one that is particularly
atrocious: the condition of semi-slavery affecting public health
professionals. To shed some light on the matter, I suggest you follow me
through this attempt at a chronicle.

Imagine for a moment you decided to study medicine in Havana and
graduated in 1994, during the worst economic crisis in our history. Some
of your friends from high school, who take life a little more lightly,
decided to raise and sell pigs, open their own businesses, or start
working in tourism. Once you graduate, after six years of personal
sacrifice, you naturally aspire to live honestly on your salary, but it
starts at 231 Cuban pesos a month, that is you receive less than two
dollars for a whole month's work for almost two years.

From time to time you run into a friend from high school, who has
bought an elegant car, as compared to your raggedy bicycle. But you want
to get ahead so you devote four more years of your youth to study. After
a total of ten years study (combining medical school and your
specialty), you end up as a specialist in internal medicine, with which,
given that specialty, your salary will be around 531 Cuban pesos a
month, Meaning you will work a full month for a salary equivalent to $21
U.S. Meanwhile, a barman at a hotel earns $200 U.S., on one shift! The
customs official at the airport earns $500 U.S. extorting the tourists,
and this is 25 times the monthly salary of a doctor, again, on one shift!

This abysmal difference in living standards is the root of our dramas.
Painfully, in Cuba, the well-being of your family doesn't depend on your
dedication to work or on your desire to excel, nor on the respect shown
your profession, which also illustrates the chaos that has ruled our
lives for the last 20 years. It is in this jungle where our doctors
"fight," not living in the encouraging world of International Cubavision
TV, where the Revolution continues strong and victorious, with GDP
growing 10% a decade, while the little guy suffers an economy in ruins,
a complete divorce from reality, as if we are talking about two
different countries.

Faced with such a hostile reality, our doctors have to invent miracles
in their free time to feed their families, badly; make "magic" in the
black market, work as a photographer, clown, carpenter, shoemaker or
cosmonaut, always illegal, because up to a few months ago the Ministry
of Labor prohibited, by Resolution, access to self-employment.

Suppose that you, a specialist in internal medicine, decide to go for a
second specialty. After another four years of great sacrifice you
graduate, for example, as a surgeon and now your monthly salary is
augmented with 50 Cuban pesos (just over $2.00 U.S.), which is enough to
buy four bars of soap. Thus, while a surgeon's monthly salary is 623
Cuban pesos ($27.00 U.S.), a guard in the Specialized Protection
Services, after a one month course, earns about 1,500 Cuban pesos
monthly in cash, plus extra food and toiletries, while a cop on the beat
receives up to 1,600 Cuban pesos, plus other benefits. For some obscure
reason our government believes that doctors don't merit such deference.

After getting over your shock, you say, "But come on man! If a salary
isn't even enough to buy toilet paper, become a barman, a customs
inspector, even the security guard at the hospital will make out
better!" I would respond: My friend, the leaders of my country literally
turned the sacred practice of medicine into the famous tunic of Nessus —
the poisoned shirt that killed Heracles; our doctors cannot work outside
the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) because a Labor Ministry
resolution categorically forbids it. No entity outside MINSAP is
permitted to offer a doctor work. Can you comprehend it? But you
meditate on this and your face lights up: "Emigrate! To some country
that needs doctors, at least temporarily, while things improve."

Then I ask you to make yourself comfortable and listen carefully to the
good part, because here it comes…

Everything you're read up to this point will seem like a game of little
girls playing in the convent garden, compared to how you will live if
you decide to travel outside Cuba as a doctor and Cuban citizen. In July
1999 the Minister of Public Health issued Resolution 54, still in force,
whose details I don't know and nor do our workers, as they are hidden
from us with the zeal of a State Secret. This Resolution of Ignominy, as
we call it, is the most humiliating insult inflicted upon those who
embrace the medical profession in Cuba since the coming of Columbus. It
states that if you want to permanently leave the country, or even do so
temporarily, you must ask the Minister of Public Health for "liberation"
from the sector.

That is, if the happy idea occurs to you to visit your family or friends
abroad during your vacation, you must wait an obligatory five years of
your life at a minimum (!!), during which you will be held against your
will by the Ministry of Public Health, with no options. It doesn't
matter if you just graduated or if you've been working for 30 years,
both have to wait five years! I know, personally, cases held for 7 years
before their "liberation." Even retired doctors and dentists are held
for three years before being allowed to travel; even a nurse faces this
aberration!

Let's clarify that from the moment that you begin the paperwork to
travel, you will automatically be placed on a list of the "unreliable,"
and will be relieved of all your administrative posts and teaching
positions, if you have any, and you will be transferred from your job to
one further away and that is a demotion. As the years pass marriages
break up, children are traumatized, parents die without seeing their
children again.

I can't adequately describe the human suffering that is caused by the
monster to those who see their rights undermined, but none of this
concerns the Union or Parliament: they can always blame the Cuban
Adjustment Act for your death if instead of resigning yourself you
improvise a raft and end up devoured by the sharks. As you can see,
under such circumstances to speak of semi-slavery is much more than a
euphemism.

*Footnote: As of two decades ago, two currencies circulate in Cuba: the
Cuban peso (CUP), also called "national money" — in which workers
receive their wages — and the convertible peso (CUC), also called
"convertible currency" — which is used in the chain of hard-currency
stores that accept only this money.

EXCHANGE RATES:

1994: 1 CUC = 1 USD = 140 CUP

Since the late 1990s to 2001: 1 CUC = 1 USD = 21 CUP

September 2001 to today: 1 CUC = 25 CUP

(To be continued …)

August 17 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=13008

HAVANA TIMES, Dec 23 — One of the commissions of Cuba's National
Assembly of Popular Power (parliament) was dissatisfied yesterday with
the low efficiency and poor quality of public works as well as the
failure to integrate that industry with the manufacturing of needed
equipment.

According to reports in the Granma newspaper today, the legislators were
presented with the proposed municipalization of the production of
building materials, which was previously approved by the leadership of
the National Assembly.

The article also referred to the lack of drugs in pharmacies throughout
the country, verified by the commission overseeing that area of the
economy.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=58180

A year at the vanguard of Cuba's economic revival has not brought Julio
Cesar Hidalgo riches. The fledgling pizzeria owner has had his good
months, but the restaurant he opened with his girlfriend often runs at a
loss. At times, they can't afford to buy basic ingredients.

Yet the wide-faced 31-year-old says he is grateful to be in business at
all. A year ago, Hidalgo was concocting chalky pastries in a Spartan
state-run bakery where employees and managers competed to pilfer eggs,
flour and olive oil, the only way to make ends meet on salaries of just
$15 a month. Today, he is his own boss, a taxpayer, employer and
entrepreneur.

"I think my expectations were met because in Cuba today I couldn't have
hoped for anything more," he said one recent December afternoon as his
girlfriend, Giselle de la Noval, served customers. "We survived."

Hidalgo's story is mirrored by many of the entrepreneurs The Associated
Press has followed since January in a yearlong effort to document
Communist Cuba's awkward embrace of free-market reforms.

Their experiences — like the reforms themselves — cannot be described as
an unmitigated success. Of the dozen fledgling business owners,
including restaurateurs, a DVD salesman, two cafe owners, a seamstress,
a manicurist and a gymnasium operator, three have closed down or begun
working for someone else, and one has been harassed by her former state
employers. None could be considered successful by non-Cuban standards.

But despite their struggles, many tell of lives transformed, dreams
realized, attitudes changed, and doors opened that had been closed for
more than half a century.

For Hidalgo, personal hardships have added to the challenges of starting
a business on a Marxist island that has looked askance at
entrepreneurship since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution turned a one-time
capitalist playground into a Soviet satellite.

After suffering through a slow, hot, summer when nobody wanted a pizza,
Hidalgo had to close for two months to care for his grandmother, who has
Alzheimer's disease. Even while the business was shuttered, he and de la
Noval had to make tax and social security payments, wiping out the few
hundred dollars they had saved.

They reopened in late November with so little money they can't always
afford to serve their house special.

"We've had to start from scratch, but the only reason we didn't lose the
business altogether is because we were disciplined," said de la Noval,
23. "Before we did anything, we always put away the money we needed to
pay the state."

A year that President Raul Castro described as make or break for the
revolution is ending after a dramatic flurry of once-unthinkable reforms
that are transforming economic and social life.

In October, the government legalized a used car market, and a month
later extended it to real estate, sweeping away decades of prohibitions.
On Tuesday, the state began extending bank credits to new business
owners and those hoping to repair their homes.

But one of the most powerful reforms was Castro's decision last year to
greatly expand the ranks of the self-employed, part of a somewhat
unsuccessful effort to trim bloated state payrolls.

Some 355,000 people have received licenses to start their own
businesses, and the results can be seen and heard everywhere. On nearly
every street in Havana and in thousands of hamlets and towns across
Cuba, makeshift signs and bright parasols mark the entrances of new
businesses, and the long-lost cries of curbside vendors hawking
everything from fruit and vegetables to mops and household repair
services fill the warm Caribbean air.

"The reforms have advanced, perhaps not quickly enough considering the
problems that have accumulated, but they have advanced, one after
another, and there is no sign that they will stop or be rolled back,"
said Omar Everleny Perez, the head of Havana University's Center for
Cuban Economic Studies.

The government has declined to release any statistics on tax revenue or
payroll savings from the reforms, except for an October report in the
Communist Party newspaper Granma that said tax revenue from new
businesses had tripled.

Cuban leaders this month lowered their forecast for economic growth for
2011 to just 2.7 percent — from the 3 percent originally hoped for — an
extremely poor showing for a developing country. By contrast, China is
forecast to grow by about 9 percent in 2011, Vietnam by between 6 and
6.5 percent and Brazil by 3.8 percent.

Private business owners have complained about the high taxes they must
pay, the lack of raw materials and the fact they are suddenly surrounded
by competitors. Because most entrepreneurs don't have the capital to
start innovative businesses, many have opened cafeterias, nail parlors,
small roadside kiosks and the like.

Anisia Cardenas, a seamstress, is among more than 100,000 Cubans who
have held private business licenses since the 1990s, the island's last
experiment with the free market. In the latest reform, she decided to
expand, paying $2 a day to rent the front porch space of a neighbor's
house to set up her sewing machine.

But business was slow — and competition from new license holders fierce.
Within a few months she had to retreat to her tiny apartment. By the
summer, she began to wonder if she might have to close down, unable to
meet the $19 monthly tax payments. By December, she had gone to work as
an employee for another seamstress.

"Things are hard," said Cardenas, who is trying to save money for her
daughter's 15th birthday party in January. "Everything is very expensive."

Others complain of rules that are often illogical, and state employers
who still view entrepreneurship with suspicion.

Maria Regla Saldivar is a black belt in taekwondo who got a license to
give private lessons to neighborhood kids in a scruffy park across the
street from her job. She began the year with dreams of persuading the
government to let her turn an abandoned dry-cleaning warehouse into a
private recreation center.

But the government refused to grant her a lease. Then her bosses at
Cuba's National Sports Institute docked her pay because they said her
outside work was affecting her performance. She quit. Finally, her
former boss prohibited her from using the park for martial arts lessons,
which are technically prohibited. The government considers it
potentially deadly training, even though most of Saldivar's students are
not even teenagers yet.

"It's called envy," Saldivar said of her boss.

She insists she is not teaching taekwondo, slyly calling the discipline
"Quimbumbia" — a word of her own invention. She has moved classes for
her 14 students into the tiny covered patio in the back of the apartment
she shares with her teenage daughter.

But Saldivar says she has no regrets about how the year has unfolded.
She says making business decisions for herself has increased her
self-esteem, and she is thrilled that she's managed to put away 2,000
pesos ($80), about four months salary at an average state job.

"You may laugh, but for me it's a lot of money," she said, running her
coarse fingers over the stripes on a pair of sky-blue track suit bottoms
she bought. "I've wanted these for so long and now I have them. I look
like a proper trainer now, not someone out picking mangoes from a tree."

Rafael Romeu, the head of the Washington, D.C.-based Association for the
Study of the Cuban Economy, said Castro has "changed the conversation"
since taking over from his ailing brother in 2006, pushing the
leadership to get the island's economic house in order rather than
blaming external factors such as the 49-year U.S. travel and trade embargo.

But so far, the changes don't go far enough to revive Cuba's moribund
economy.

"These are positive steps but when you say them out loud, just think
about it. … You are allowed to have a cellphone, you are allowed to
buy a home, you are allowed to buy a car or have a microenterprise. This
is not the fall of the Berlin Wall. These are not major changes," he
said. "Cuba has tremendous difficulties. This is a marathon, and they
are taking baby steps."

Romeu, who has worked around the world studying emerging economies, said
that Cuba is moving much more deliberately than the Chinese did when
they began opening their economy in the late 1970s, or the Vietnamese a
decade later.

Cuba's predicament is somewhat different, as well. Both China and
Vietnam were deeply agrarian economies whose challenge was lifting tens
of millions out of crushing poverty, Romeu said. Cuba is a more urban
country with an aging population whose citizens have gotten used to
benefits including health care and education, but who have grown
accustomed to a system that doesn't make them work for such middle-class
perks.

"In Cuba, the challenge is sustaining the middle class, not creating
one," Romeu said.

Still, some reforms seem to be moving along more quickly than many
analysts had hoped.

Business is booming at a street corner long known as the center of
Havana's informal real estate market. Only now, the handwritten listings
on trees openly advertise legal home sales, instead of disguising them
as property "swaps."

Mendez Rodriguez, an unofficial real estate broker, said the buying and
selling is aboveboard, controlled by a relatively untangled bureaucracy.

"Everything is by the law now," said Rodriguez, even if his profession
is not officially licensed. He and other so-called facilitators work for
"gifts" left to the discretion of their clients, he said.

Rumors that real estate brokers would be the latest addition to the list
of 181 licensed entrepreneurial activities have not come to pass, but
there's still hope the profession will be added in 2012. Rodriguez said
the opening seems to have led to a steep increase in prices, with a home
worth $20,000 a couple of months ago going for 50 percent more today.

That's the kind of price jump many of the new struggling business owners
say they could use.

Javier Acosta has sunk more than $30,000 he saved as a waiter into his
own upscale establishment, and says business is far from booming.

"This has been a hard year, a year of sacrifice," he said. "There are
days when nobody comes, or when I have just one or two tables, and then
there are days when the place is filled."

He said his costs run to about $1,000 a month, and when business is slow
he struggles to break even.

Yet the reforms, he says, have changed the face of Cuba, and cynical
countrymen who doubt the opening will be lasting must wake up to a new
reality.

"After 50 years where everything was prohibited it takes time to change
people's minds and make them understand that this time is different," he
said, sitting in his empty second-floor restaurant one recent afternoon.
"If you don't work, you don't eat."

Despite his struggles, Acosta says he would take the risk again if given
the chance, a sentiment shared by Hidalgo and de la Noval. They had
hoped to close on New Year's Eve, which Cubans of means celebrate with a
traditional feast of pork leg, yucca, black beans and sweets.

Hidalgo said the family simply doesn't have enough saved to take the
night off after its year of trials and tribulations. Instead, he's
planning to keep the pizzeria open late and celebrate on the job with
his girlfriend and his aunt at his side.

"We're thinking of making a small meal for the three of us," he said.
"If we can afford a leg of pork it'll be to sell, not to eat ourselves."

___

Associated Press writers Peter Orsi, Andrea Rodriguez and Anne-Marie
Garcia contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/cuba-wraps-dramatic-economic-change-150750760.html;_ylt=A0wNcnL6ePZOMSEB1Qb9SpZ4

Castro to free more prisoners, but not Alan Gross

Raul Castro said 2,900 prisoners would be 'pardoned,' but they do not
include the U.S. contractor Alan Gross.
By Juan Carlos Chavez and Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuban ruler Raúl Castro announced a pardon for about 2,900 prisoners on
Friday, but he sharply disappointed many Cubans who had hoped for
another Christmas gift — the freedom to travel abroad.

Castro said the "humanitarian" pardon would include 86 foreigners from
25 nations. But a senior Cuban government official later said they did
not include Alan Gross, a U.S. government subcontractor jailed in Havana.

Gross has served two years of a 15-year sentence on a charge of
endangering the island's national security by delivering sophisticated
telecommunications equipment to Cuban Jews so they could access the
Internet more easily.

A Havana blogger who almost always reflects the government line,
Yohandry Fontana, tweeted that Castro's comments to the Cuban
legislature were a "message" to the U.S. government.

Cuban officials have said Gross would be freed earlier only if
Washington frees several Cuban spies arrested in Miami in 1996. Four are
serving long sentences in U.S. prisons, and one completed his jail term
this year but remains in the United States on parole.

The Obama administration has made it clear that until the 62-year-old
Potomac, Md., man is freed, there can be no improvements in key
U.S.-Cuba issues. Messages sent by El Nuevo Herald to Gross' family
representatives late Friday were not immediately answered.

In what was to be the most eagerly-awaited part of his speech Friday,
Castro did not fulfill predictions by foreign news agencies that he
would announce the easing of travel restrictions during a one-day
session of the rubberstamp National Assembly of People's Power.

Cuba requires its citizens to obtain expensive exit permits that are
usually difficult to obtain before they can travel abroad; and the
government seizes the properties of those who move to other countries
and makes it difficult for Cubans living abroad to visit the island.

Castro, who first acknowledged the need to reform migratory policy in
August, told lawmakers that many Cubans want changes to travel policy
and that his government remains committed to "slowly" introducing
required changes.

But he announced no changes at all, saying that the issue was "complex"
and that Cuba faces "exceptional circumstances" like "the siege created
by the subversive and meddlesome policies of the U.S. government." Any
Cuban who sets foot on U.S. territory is allowed to remain and receives
residency.

Cubans agree that hundreds of thousands of them, if not millions, want
to have the freedom to travel abroad — some to leave permanently, some
just to work abroad for a time and put away some savings, and some just
to visit relatives or tourist sites.

Havana blogger Yoani Sánchez, who has been denied several "exit permits"
to pick up some of the many foreign prizes she has won, had tweeted that
her bags were packed in case Castro announced a reform of the migration
policy.

"If a migration reform is announced. I am heading to the airport … Will
they let me out? We have to test the limits," she wrote. Sanchez added
that she would return to Cuba "because for me life is not anywhere but
in a different Cuba."

In other comments to lawmakers, Castro said corruption was the biggest
threat to Cuba's communist system, but he gave no details on the
half-dozen corruption scandals reported this year by foreign press.

Castro also said the Cuban economy is improving because of the reforms
that he has enacted, that his government is paying off foreign debts and
that the island will welcome Pope Benedict XVI's visit.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/23/2560001/castro-to-free-more-prisoners.html

Cuba says travel restrictions to remain in place
By PAUL HAVEN
Associated Press

HAVANA — President Raul Castro on Friday put on ice highly-anticipated
plans to ease travel restrictions on Cubans, telling lawmakers the
nation would not be pressured into moving too fast and citing continued
aggression from the United States as the reason for his cautious approach.

Cuba has been awash in speculation the much-hated regulations, which
prevent most Cubans from leaving the island, might be lifted during
Friday's session of the National Assembly. But Castro said the time
still wasn't right, despite a year of free-market reforms that has seen
the Communist government legalize a real estate market and greatly
increase private business ownership.

"Some have been pressuring us to take the step … as if we were talking
about something insignificant, and not the destiny of the revolution,"
Castro said, adding that those calling for an end to the travel
restrictions "are forgetting the exceptional circumstances under which
Cuba lives, encircled by the hostile policy … of the U.S. government."

Castro criticized U.S. President Barack Obama, saying he was the 11th
American president since the 1959 revolution led by his brother Fidel,
and appeared "not to understand" the sacrifices Cuba had made in its
struggle for independence and sovereignty, including the Bay of Pigs
invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as Washington's 49-year
trade and travel embargo.

"Sometimes, he (Obama) gives the impression he has not even been
informed of this reality," Castro said, repeating his willingness to
normalize relations with the U.S. under the right conditions.

Castro also announced an amnesty for 2,900 prisoners ahead of next
year's visit by Pope Benedict XVI, but a senior official told the
Associated Press that jailed American subcontractor Alan Gross would not
be among those freed.

The Cuban president told legislators he still hoped to enact the travel
reforms, but did not say when. If hopes were high among islanders that
Friday would be the big day, Castro had only himself to blame.

At parliament's last session, in August, he announced that the
government was committed to ease the travel restrictions. He said the
measures were originally adopted because many who left in the years
after the revolution were a threat to the nascent government, including
people backed by the United States who sought its overthrow.

Castro said in August that most of those who leave now do so for
economic reasons and are not enemies. He said removing travel
restrictions would help "increase the nation's ties to the community of
emigrants, whose makeup has changed radically since the early decades of
the revolution."

Cubans had been clamoring for the elimination of the "tarjeta blanca,"
or exit visa, which the government requires of all seeking to travel
abroad, even for vacation. Many people are denied, particularly doctors,
scientists and military officials whose departure would be considered a
threat to the state.

"The need for permission to leave should never have been invented in the
first place," Victor Salgado, a 73-year-old retiree, told the Associated
Press ahead of Castro's speech. "They should have eliminated this long
ago. Why should I have to ask permission if I want to leave my country?"

Another Havana resident, Yamila Baez, said she was hoping the
restrictions would be scrapped as soon as possible.

"It isn't normal that one has to ask the government for its okay," she
said. "If you have the money to buy a ticket you should be able to go."

Castro's speech was the highlight of an otherwise humdrum parliament
session in which legislators approved a budget for 2012 and heard from
senior officials on the state of the economy.

Economy Minister Adel Yzquierdo told lawmakers the government expected
economic growth to come in at 3.4 percent in 2012, a bit better than the
2.7 percent expected to be registered this year. Finance Minister Lina
Pedraza added that the government expects both revenue and costs to rise
in 2012, with the government running a deficit of about 3.8 percent.

Cuban officials also used the session to criticize Washington for its
trade and travel embargo, and to call on the U.S. to release four Cuban
agents still imprisoned there. A fifth left jail earlier this year, but
has been blocked from returning to Cuba until he completes parole.

Cuba is ending the first year of a drive by Castro to reform its
state-dominated economy. The government has allowed citizens to get
business licenses for nearly 200 approved jobs, and 355,000 have taken
them up on the offer. The state has also legalized a real estate market
for the first time in nearly half a century, begun extending bank
credits to entrepreneurs and those wishing to fix up their homes, and
removed restrictions on the sale of used cars.

A parallel effort to trim half a million workers from state payrolls
largely foundered.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/23/2559981/cuba-pours-cold-water-on-eased.html#storylink=misearch

Cuban-Americans stream to the island for holidays
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
AP Hispanic Affairs Writer

MIAMI — Deborah Labrada was giddy as she stood in line at Miami-Dade
International Airport, waiting to fly to the town of Guantanamo, Cuba.

It is the place she visits roughly once a year to see her grandfather,
aunts and uncles and cousins. She still considers it a second home, even
though she has lived nearly all her 17 years in South Florida.

"The first thing I'm going to do when I get there is cry, and then give
everyone hugs," she said Monday, as she leaned against her cart of bags
secured in the festive, neon green airport plastic wrap. The duffel bags
- cheaper to ship through than heavier, traditional luggage – bulged
with food, over the counter medicine, toys and other necessities hard to
obtain in Cuba's struggling economy.

Labrada was among thousands of Cuban-Americans flying to the island this
week to celebrate the new year. These types of annual pilgrimages would
have been sharply curtailed if two South Florida, GOP Cuban-American
congressmen had succeeded in returning to the Bush-era limit of once
every three years. The measure backed by U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart
and David Rivera was tucked into the congressional spending bill, but
Republican leaders jettisoned it last week as part of a last minute
compromise.

Labrada said Monday she didn't appreciate the effort to restore the old
restriction.

"I think it was very disappointing, because the least we can do is help
our own families," she said. "We should go and take advantage of the
opportunity to bring them things and help any way we can."

President Barack Obama allowed unlimited family visits by
Cuban-Americans shortly after taking office and removed the $1,200
annual cap on remittances. Exact numbers are difficult to come by, but
the Cuban government said earlier this year it expected about 500,000
U.S. visitors annually, the vast majority of them Cuban-Americans. Cuban
officials did not immediately respond to requests for corresponding
statistics from past years, but they have previously said there were
nearly 300,000 visits from Cubans living outside the island in 2009. It
was not immediately clear whether that included repeat travelers.

Many Cuban-Americans, like Labrada have already been traveling to Cuba
for years. They just had to go through special church trips or through a
third country to get around the three year ban.

Of nearly a dozen families interviewed at the Miami Airport, all but two
said they'd last visited the island in the last year or two.

"I don't think it should be any different for us than it is for anyone
else going to visit family in any other country," Labrada said.

Except it is different.

Most Cubans who come to the U.S. are able to immigrate here as a result
of U.S. policy that views them as victims of political oppression. And
as Diaz-Balart is quick to note, not everyone can travel. While average
Cubans may be able to visit family off the island, their visa requests
can easily be denied. The Cuban government has refused to allow blogger
and internationally renowned activist Yoani Sanchez to travel to the
U.S. and Europe to accept human rights awards.

But Professor Andy Gomez of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuba
and Cuban-American Studies says the flood of travelers isn't likely to
stop any time soon, and he says trying to stem the flow makes no sense.

"I was at the Miami airport last week, and there were flights on the
hour," he said. "Stopping it? Impossible. It is the people-to-people
contact we want and need, and it is already happening."

Most of the flights to Cuba still originate from South Florida, with
nearly 300,000 people departing to the island just from Miami
International Airport in 2010. Numbers for 2011 were not yet available.
But they also now leave from places such as Tampa, Fla.; Oakland,
Calif.; Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta and Puerto Rico.

Flights to Cuba from the Tampa International Airport began in early
September after a 50-year hiatus, and local officials are banking on it
as a new source of revenue. Airport officials said about 45,000
passengers will travel the route in 2012.

Manny Martinez, a 21-year-old Tampa resident, was standing at the back
of the long line four hours before Tuesday's flight. He said he's
spending two weeks on the island and staying with family. Like Labrada,
he said Cuba still feels like home, even though he's lived in the U.S.
for 11 years.

When asked to name the first thing he would do once he arrived, he laughed.

"Party," he said. "Just go out with my old friends and have fun."

Not everyone goes just to see family.

Gomez said his maintenance man just returned from a trip to Cuba to
visit his dentist because he has no health care insurance in the U.S.
and can't afford the visit here. Meanwhile, media reports are on the
rise in South Florida about Cuban-Americans involved in Medicare fraud
fleeing to the island.

Back at the Miami airport, Isabel Baez, 39, teared up as she talked
about visiting her family in Santiago de Cuba. Yet, she said she knows
of people who also go as "mules," taking much needed provisions for
others on the island who are not relatives, sometimes even for resale.

"But most of those people still go to see their family," she said. "They
bring the packages as a way to get a free ticket."

Associated Press writer Tamara Lush contributed to this report from
Tampa, Fla.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/23/v-fullstory/2558933/cuban-americans-stream-to-the.html

HAVANA TIMES, Dec 21 — Any moderately intelligent people would soon
figure out they were being duped, especially if the device was so
obvious to the point of underestimating the reasoning ability of those
being "fooled."

The astute tricks being played by the country's authorities are obvious.
They are absolutely stop gap and respond to today's Cuba, where
expressions of discontent, dissatisfaction and disapproval of the
political system are increasing.

In the first place, all of these maneuvers, resolutions, bills or
whatever they're being called are late. They should have been issued
years ago, though it would have been better if what is being rescinded
had never been issued at all.

Logic dictates that all those prohibitions were unreasonable and harmful
to the people and even worse for the nation.

It smells a little strange that after so many taboos, we are now
reaching these new levels of openness, and so suddenly, one after
another (of course one cannot refuse to believe "in change, human
improvement and the utility of virtue," as Marti once said). But in the
case of these regimes, one needs to be suspicious.

The lack of credibility that plagues their actions, the unpopularity of
their plans and the level of demystification of their heroes have caused
them to gradually condition society by giving Cuba a number of
palliatives to mitigate the unbearable pain of its citizens, deprived of
political, legal, civic rights.

But those palliatives are only that, painkillers for a condition that
continues to exist. The torment will not cease without total removal.

I've thought a bit about this and it turns out:

- The Cuba of UMAP (labor camps for anti-establishment individuals in
the 1960s), of the ideological "parameters" and witch hunts of the
1970s, is now immersed in a campaign against homophobia (pleasing a
social sector that can be quite defiant in extreme situations, and
giving the country a new international image). However, it is being
argued that Cuban society is not prepared for the legalization of
relations between homosexuals, and marches and ceremonies of groups will
be convened only if supervised and permitted by CENESEX and Mariela
Castro, the institution and the individual who initiated this crusade.

- The Cuba where Cubans were denied access to hotels and tourist
facilities designed for hard currency generation has today opened its
doors to everyone (pleasing many people who have pockets deep enough for
vacations and stays in these resorts. The tourists don't ask many
questions; the Cuban presence makes for a better picture of the island
and its people; and hustlers have an easier time, becoming less hostile
in their aggressive in their interactions with foreigners.

By the way, currency in the hands of nationals is collected and
registered in offices and files of such resorts, giving more control
with the first and last names of people and their income levels.

- The Cuba that once crucified the words "business" and "private
property," now allows self-employment and small independent enterprises
(pleasing a group avid for private enterprise, the government collects
taxes at sky-high rates, saves on the payment of wages, doesn't have to
secure some jobs and the domestic economy is made to seem to be reviving).

Yet most everyone knows it's really not like this, but nonetheless
resigns themselves to it. By virtue of not having been allowed anything,
they now feel like getting whatever they can, and with many people
scurrying around — daily — they will be too busy to dwell on certain
analyses or engage in any activity that endangers their little business.

-The Cuba where personal property seemed more like the property of the
state, is now allowing the sale and transfer of properties such as homes
and cars (the government is agreeing to permit owners to sell what
belongs to them in the name of facilitating and enhancing the economic
and social development of people. However, this is being done for no
other reason than to benefit itself, charging a percentage on both sides
of the transactions).

By the way, it should be pointed out that these same transactions that
were carried out but illegally in the past will not be viewed as legal
now, thus causing the beginning of new illegalities. But what will be
exposed in the process will be many of these tricks that were carried
out by the public through their lawyers and the staffs of Housing
Department offices in acquiring and selling their homes and cars.

-The Cuba where freedom of expression was a utopia after 1959, is now
advocating the "derecho a la palabra" (the right to speak), criticism by
citizens (thus allowing an irrevocable human right). Departments in the
provincial headquarters of the Communist Party are now empowered to
register people's concerns and complaints.

Nevertheless, they will not accept proposals for change or questioning
under this "permission." What is demanded in universities is more
combativeness against any expression of dissent and increasingly more
political discussions at the different educational levels, trying to
manipulate the next generation, using history and creating an awareness
of the advantages of socialism as a fair and preferable system, and the
only one possible in Cuba.

-The Cuba of the absolutely official and centralized press, today is
ironically making mention of a free unbiased press (without changing
anything here, it's pure rhetoric) every day waging fiercer wars against
independent and alternative journalism, calling it cyber-dissidence, and
every day blocking more sites so people are denied use of them, not to
mention all the efforts made to postpone and delay access to the
Internet by Cubans.

That's why to me (and for many others) any of the new measures being put
in place meet no other goal than to try to divert attention from the
real problem: the need for an immediate change of policies and the
authorities in place in Cuba.

Their palliatives, in concrete terms, are doing nothing but strangling
the real possibilities for growth, prosperity and individual freedoms.
Since this heartfelt desire is so exploited, and was abandoned so many
years ago, I (and many others) have to wonder: Who are they kidding?

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=58033

Ralph ReilandMillions of economic transactions take place every hour in
the United States, too many for any central committee in Washington to
handle or even Understand, even if they all graduated with honors from
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

For the most part, the economic transactions happen instantaneously,
automatically sending market signals that organize production according
to size and color, spontaneously determining losses, profits, wages and
prices.

And so, if we want organic pomegranate granola with cherries, it'll be
there, right on time for breakfast every day on the capitalist shelves.
It's the same with red Corvettes or caramel ice cream with cinnamon bun
dough and a streusel swirl.

It takes a little longer to get it right once the central controllers
take charge of deciding things.

Starting on October 1, 2011, some 52 years after Fidel Castro shot his
way to power in Cuba, it finally became legal for some poor guy in Cuba
to sell the 1965 Russian-made Moskvich piece of junk he's had sitting up
on blocks in his front yard for the better part of half a century.

Previously on this island of alleged power to the people, Cubans were
permitted only to sell their own automobiles if they were manufactured
before the 1959 revolution.

By some strange twist of collectivist logic, re-selling any car that was
produced in the post-revolution period was viewed as an act of
capitalist sabotage, a crass act of individualism and greed.

As a result, it paid to keep a legally-transferable '57 Chevy on the
road, even if it was held together with coat hangers and duct tape.
That's why the streets of Havana look like those shopping center parking
lots in the U.S. on Sunday afternoons in the summer when the vintage car
guys get together in their shined up '59 Impalas and '56 T-Birds to sit
on lawn chairs, drink beer and listen to Chubby Checker.

But now things will be different in Cuba, more like a free market,
according to President Raul Castro's speech to the National Assembly in
December 2010, pushing his effort to cut bloated government payrolls and
encourage private sector initiatives in Cuba's failed economy. "The
state has no business getting involved in a matter between two
individuals," he proclaimed, sounding more like Ron Paul than brother Fidel.

The new decree from the Cuban government allows someone to sell his own
car from all years of production, even post-revolution models, and also
permits, with a progressive tax penalty, the ownership of more than one
car per person.

The Cuban government, additionally, wants 8 percent of the price of each
car sold, with buyers and sellers each to pay a 4 percent tax. Try to
cheat on that and you've got to worry about some neighbor on the
Committee for the Defense of the Revolution getting a few extra pesos in
his government paycheck for squealing.

New cars can be only sold in state-owned monopolistic dealerships. The
state-established price on a new Hyundai runs around $30,000, not
counting the bribes that may be required to get the right color and a
half-speedy delivery.

The average income in Cuba is $20 a month, so a $30,000 Hyundai is equal
to the total income for 125 years of the typical Cuban worker. If the
worker could manage to save 10% of his pay every month, he'll have the
$30,000 in 1,250 years.

Under the new rules, any buyers of a new car will be required to prove
they made the money for the purchase in a government-approved occupation.

That might not be so easy. Under various government dictates, for
instance, hundreds of occupations were disapproved for Cuban women,
including the jobs of grave digger, house painter (unless the house was
extra short) and deep sea diver.

It was legal under the government rules to open a restaurant, but
anything bigger than 12 chairs for customers was prohibited, no matter
how much the neighborhood liked the food.

Employees in a restaurant were also illegal — too hierarchical for the
collectivist mindset — so someone seeking to be a restaurateur had to be
like one of those multi-armed Hindu deities, able to simultaneously seat
customers, clean tables, cook the food, serve drinks, pay the bills,
play the bongos, and wash the dishes.

Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics and the B.
Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise at Robert Morris University
in Pittsburgh.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/opinion/ralph-reiland/10255-economic-libertad-cubas-baby-steps-toward-liberty

An old joke I heard for the first time more than 20 years ago in Havana
says that the three biggest achievements of the Cuban revolution are
health, education and low infant-mortality rates, and that its three
biggest failures are breakfast, lunch and dinner.

A new study by the Brookings Institution think tank shows that, two
decades later, things remain just as bad, if not worse.

Consider some of the findings of the study, titled "Reaching out: Cuba's
new economy and the international response." It was written by Richard
E. Feinberg, a former Clinton administration Latin American adviser who
supports growing international development cooperation with Cuba and who
traveled to Cuba earlier this year and interviewed Cuban officials,
academics and average citizens.

• Despite big increases in tourism, some investments in mining and
massive subsidies from Venezuela, "the Cuban economy remains in the
doldrums." The main constraint slowing the Cuban economy is not U.S.
trade sanctions, but Cuba's own outdated economic model, inherited from
the Soviet Union, of central planning, it says.

• Cuba's average income is one of the lowest in Latin America: 448 pesos
a month, or $20 at the official exchange rate. University graduates are
in a frantic search for jobs, such as hotel doormen or waiters, that
offer access to foreign currency, or they want to emigrate, it says.

• Measured in per-capita income on a purchasing power parity basis,
Cuba's per capita income is $6,000 a year. By comparison, it is $8,000
in the Dominican Republic, $11,000 in Brazil, and $14,000 in Mexico,
Chile and Uruguay, according to United Nations figures.

• Industrial production stands at only 43 percent of its 1989 levels and
employs only 10 percent of today's workforce. Exports of goods are a
paltry $3 billion to $4 billion a year, only slightly more than
Venezuela's annual oil-for-doctors subsidies to the island.

• Cuba's external debt is "alarming." According to Cuba's Central Bank,
the island owes $8.9 billion to foreign creditors, plus another $7.6
billion in "frozen debts" that have not been restructured in more than
two decades.

• Cuba has developed service industries — such as tourism, which has
grown to 2.5 million visitors a year — and exports doctors to Venezuela
through government-run oil-for-doctors swaps. The services sector now
accounts for 81 percent of the island's economy but is not enough to get
the economy on its feet, the study says.

• Despite Cuban President Raul Castro's recently announced pro-market
economic reforms — including allowing certain forms of home ownership —
implementation of these reforms is slow and erratic amid fierce quarrels
between hard-liners and reformers within the regime, it says.

Feinberg's study proposes supporting economic reforms in Cuba through a
growing involvement of international financial institutions, such as the
International Monetary Fund, and by lifting U.S. barriers to these
institutions' technical assistance to Cuba.

Interestingly, Cuban officials expressed some interest to engage with
the IMF and the World Bank, especially since these institutions have
conceded that "there is no single model of development," and have gained
experience from their recent advisory roles in Vietnam and Nicaragua, it
says.

"When asked by the author for the Cuban position regarding IMF
membership, a senior official of the Cuban ministry of foreign affairs
responded: 'Cuba has no principled position against relations with the
IMF or the World Bank,'" the study says. It was the first time Cuba has
made such a statement, it says.

My opinion: If Gen. Castro's military dictatorship wants IMF help, after
decades of lashing out against that Washington-based institution — it
shouldn't be denied technical assistance. It would help build bridges
with reformers within the regime, and would amount to a dramatic example
of how Cuba's octogenarian rulers have failed on all fronts.

Those who claim that the Castro brothers are still popular, and that
Cuba has a model education system, should be asked: If Cuba's leaders
are so popular, why don't they dare hold free elections? And if Cuba's
education system is so good, why doesn't Cuba participate in the
world-wide PISA tests of 15-year-old students? The answer is simple:
Cuba's entire propaganda campaign, unchallenged on the island because of
rigid state censorship, would not hold up to the most basic independent
scrutiny.

The old joke I heard in Havana doesn't work anymore. Today, Cuba has the
worst of both worlds: It doesn't have great social services, or
breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami
Herald. His email address is aoppenheimer@miamiherald.com.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/dec/20/imf-aid-would-highlight-failures-cuba/

Cuban entrepreneurs reshaping island's stagnant revolution
sonia verma
HAVANA— From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011 8:42PM EDT
Last updated Sunday, Dec. 18, 2011 11:45PM EST

Barbershops, beauty salons, restaurants and car washes have sprung up
across Cuba in the year since the Communist Party allowed citizens to
open small, private businesses in an effort to save the country from ruin.

The government says more than 157,000 people have qualified for business
permits and are currently self-employed. This new generation of Cuban
entrepreneurs is quietly reshaping the island's stagnant revolution in a
way that was inconceivable when Fidel Castro was in control. The
economic changes brought about by his brother Raul, however, are proving
slow to take hold.

Cubans wait to order their meals at Tio Tito in Havana, Cuba Sept. 27,
2011. Taking its colour scheme from American fast food giant McDonald's
the small restaurant is one of many that have opened up since recent
economic reforms in Cuba have allowed for some private enterprise to exist.
Photos

Many are being implemented by young Cubans with virtually no memory of
life before communism. Some new entrepreneurs are struggling to
understand how to pay small-business taxes or navigate the country's
labyrinthine bureaucracy. With virtually no access to bank loans or
credit, most are relying on family living abroad to float their new
ventures.

Still, Cuba is buzzing with new energy as people attempt, for the first
time in their lives, to make money outside of the underground economy.
Business owners are experimenting with novel concepts, such as
advertising and open competition. It's unclear, however, how far the
Cuban authorities will allow the reforms to go – whether small business
owners will be permitted to accumulate vast amounts of wealth, for
example, or build empires.

At the moment, however, these new entrepreneurs seem content enough to
turn a profit they can officially pocket.

IVAN GARCIA PENA

His idea for a restaurant might ring a bell: a fast-food joint with a
red and yellow colour scheme where, for a couple of bucks, clients get a
meal deal.

Mr. Pena, 39, spent a decade of his life as a poorly paid information
officer in Cuba's tourism department before he decided to open Tio
Tito's in January. He siphoned his savings, hawked his personal gym
equipment and sold his mobile phone to finance the construction of a
modest grill in his front yard, borrowing refrigerators and Tupperware
from friends.

"Some of my friends thought I was crazy. Others encouraged me," recalled
Mr. Pena, his voice partially drowned out by the song Stand By Me
blasting from a super woofer on a shelf, next to the mustard.

With no restaurant experience to speak of, he relied on what he gleaned
as a customer from previous trips abroad, to Spain, Chile and Portugal.
An American friend offered to design and build a website, which is
hosted in Miami. He hired six employees, including his brother, Tito,
who works as head chef, paying them the equivalent of $25 a month, plus
a commission.

His inspired colour scheme? "If it works for McDonald's it can work for
me," he reasoned.

The family has yet to recover their initial investment of $3,000.
Business is brisk, however, and Mr. Pena is hopeful that soon he will
turn a profit.

"I want Tio Tito franchises all over Havana," he said.

He prefers the life of an entrepreneur to his previous existence as a
bureaucrat.

"You're obtaining profit from your own work. If you work more you will
earn more. The disadvantage is that this is much more work than being an
information officer."

LAZARO RAFAEL

He's led a double life since officially entering Cuba's work force:
During the day, he worked construction for a government ministry; by
night he worked as an underground mechanic, fixing cars for friends and
relatives at an unofficial workshop.

Between his two gigs, he earned about $15 a month.

His fortunes, however, changed in December when he quit his day job and
applied for a business licence to open his own garage. Since officially
opening shop, his income has tripled.

"I still have the same clients, but now I can do the work in the open,"
Mr. Rafael, 31, said standing in the shade outside his seaside apartment
in Havana's quiet Miramar neighbourhood.

His wife, Rachel, is an economist in the provincial Communist Party
office. Under Cuba's new economic plan, her job could be in jeopardy as
the country seeks to drastically trim its public service by half a
million workers over five years.

With his own thriving business for them to fall back on, Mr. Rafael
isn't particularly worried. His biggest problem at the moment is finding
a garage to rent – or even buy – when Cuba changes the law to allow
people to purchase private property in the coming months.

For now he works on the street, which is strewn with cables and car parts.

Today, he is trying to coax an aging Peugeot to start. Five more cars
await service with troubles ranging from a trunk failing to open to a
broken headlight.

A team of government inspectors has paid a visit to demand proof he has
paid his last instalment of taxes.

Mr. Rafael produced a bank receipt showing he paid the $40, but the
inspectors said the government has not received it, and ordered him to
pay it again.

"The system is not yet perfect," he says, "but at least we are moving in
the right direction."

JANETTE ALVAREZ

When she worked as a cook in a state-run cafeteria, her kitchen was
fully stocked when she arrived at work each morning. Now, as her own
boss, she scrambles to find basic supplies in the shops.

"This is very hard," the mother of two teenagers said, standing behind
the counter of La Jugada Perfecta, her baseball-themed restaurant
dedicated to the Industriales, Cuba's wildly popular baseball team that
was founded 50 years ago in the wake of the revolution. The restaurant
name translates as A Perfect Play.

"We are not used to this and we have to go out and find everything we
need. It's not like working for the state," she added.

Sometimes she comes up short. Unable to source proper kitchen
appliances, she appealed to relatives in Miami who sent a brand-name
blender and two bright orange coolers from Home Depot.

Ms. Alvarez's husband, an accountant, helped set up the books, but the
restaurant is women-owned and women-run.

Most days, clients line up all the way to the sidewalk to order an Extra
Base (hamburger with fries) or a Strike (bacon burger). The prices are
roughly twice that of a state-run cafeteria.

"I don't mind paying for quality," said a 26-year-old economist named
Alfredo Garcia, sipping on a strawberry milkshake.

Ms. Alvarez used to earn the equivalent of $80 dollars a month. Now she
pays $16 tax every month, as well as about $4 in social security for
each of her two employees, both cousins.

She is ploughing all her profits back into the restaurant, and hopes to
one day pay back the relatives in Miami who floated her.

"Up to this point I believe we made the right choice," Ms. Alvarez said.

"This is a new thing for us, but as time goes by I hope we are going to
be well," she said.

WALKIS HERNANDEZ LEGRA

She's a life-long bureaucrat who currently presides as director of the
office for work and social services in Havana's Plaza Revolucion.

She harbours no ambition to start her own business, but anyone in the
neighbourhood who does must first receive the blessing of her staff,
which issues all permits for the district.

Since the new law came into effect, about 40 people file through this
crumbling building each day, searching for door No. 6, where a handful
of state workers surrounded by broken filing cabinets sort through
applications. The process takes about eight minutes.

Applicants submit their identity cards with two pictures and a written
application. Five days later, they come back to pick up their permits.
The process has been simplified from a few months ago, when applications
had to be reviewed by the neighbourhood Committee to Protect The
Revolution before permits could be issued.

On this day, Nara Creas, a 63-year-old who constructs costumes and
pinatas for children's birthday parties, has come to renew her license.
Nelson Cruz, a 26-year-old taxi driver, is also applying for a permit,
to turn his illegal taxi business into something official.

"Our department rarely takes five days to complete the application
process. We can do it in one or two days," Ms. Legra said with pride.
Her office has processed roughly 6,000 applications since last October,
when the decree came into effect.

Permit in hand, entrepreneurs then proceed to the local tax office for
an assessment of how much they will pay per month.

After that, they can officially open for business.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/in-cuba-its-viva-la-evolucion/article2199403/singlepage/#articlecontent

National Bank of Canada has operated an office in Cuba for 16 years,
making it a rarity of sorts among Canadian banks, but it may soon have
some company.

At least two other Canadian banks are said to be looking at setting up
shop in Cuba, according to a report in the London-based Financial Times
on Sunday night.

Amid economic reforms on the island, Bank of Nova Scotia has reportedly
applied to Cuban authorities to set up a representative office in the
capital. Royal Bank is also considering opening an office in Havana, the
report said.

Scotiabank, which has extensive operations across South America and the
Caribbean, and RBC, Canada's largest bank, both had branches in the
country before the 1959 Cuban Revolution ushered in Communism, and a
subsequent U.S. embargo, which slowed foreign investment.

However, economic reforms in Cuba, stemming from the handover of power
from long-time president Fidel Castro to his brother, Raúl Castro, are
changing the country as the government looks for ways to boost Cuba's
economy.

If RBC and Scotia return to Cuba, they would join Montreal-based
National, Canada's sixth-largest bank, on the island. National opened a
representative office in Havana in 1995. The small operation is not a
bank branch though, and mostly handles trade finance.

Banco Central de Cuba, the country's central bank, lists National as
having a relationship with the country that dates back more than 28
years, including financing export development, securities and insurance
businesses there.

The Cuba Trade and Economic Council lists more than 80 companies in
Canada with business ties to Cuba, including Bell Canada, Bombardier,
and dozens of oil and gas companies.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/scotiabank-rbc-eye-cuba-operations/article2275793/

Two of Canada's big banks are considering returning to Cuba after an
absence of more than half a century in the wake of reforms that portend
new opportunities for private enterprise and foreign investors.

Bank of Nova Scotia has applied to the Cuban authorities to set up a
representative office in Havana while Royal Bank of Canada is examining
its options.

Scotiabank said that the new office would allow it "to reacquaint
ourselves with the Cuban market, which will provide a strategic window
into the market place and enable us to acquire in-depth local knowledge
and build relationships".

Jim Westlake, head of RBC's international operations, said: "We're in
the very early stages of looking at it."

Mr Westlake met the Cuban ambassador to Canada this month with a view,
he said, of "trying to gauge how they are feeling about business
generally coming to Cuba".

But in planning a return to the island, he added, RBC was concerned
about not running foul of US sanctions.

Both RBC and Scotiabank operated in Cuba before the 1959 revolution and
still maintain an extensive presence across other parts of the Caribbean.

Mr Westlake said that one or two RBC employees return from holidays in
Cuba each year with pictures of the bank's former head office, its name
still carved in the stone façade.

Scotiabank said that the new representative office would not conduct any
local transactions or direct banking services.

"The office will continue and, to the extent possible, will expand
Scotiabank's trade finance business with Cuba," the bank said.

According to the Cuban central bank's website, nine foreign banks
currently have offices in the country. They include Société Générale,
BNP Paribas, Spain's Caja Madrid and Quebec-based National Bank of Canada.

National, the smallest of Canada's big six banks by assets, said its two
employees in Havana are mostly involved in trade finance for food items.
It declined to elaborate "for competitive reasons".

President Raúl Castro has opened the way for individuals to buy and sell
their homes for the first time since the revolution in the latest
market-oriented reforms aimed at reviving Cuba's moribund economy.

Other initiatives have included cutting subsidies, slashing state
payrolls and liberalising small businesses.

Numerous Canadian companies have invested in Cuba, mainly in the tourism
sector.

Toronto-based Sherritt International is the largest independent energy
producer and operates a nickel and cobalt mine on the island. Air Canada
has daily flights between Toronto and Havana.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6e518d3c-2933-11e1-80a2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1gzwNrFsR

Cuban Television puts forth, in its horrible primetime schedule, another
program of manipulated news coming from Telesur, with a Venezuelan
ideologue-manipulator-agent-"journalist," Walter Martinez, who has
forgotten ethics and the first rule for a reporter: to report news
without adding his personal opinion, which in all cases is linked to an
ideology that he represents and that pays him, and therefore has a
particular interest (like a pirate without a hook he appears every night
on Cuban screens sniffing the rear ends of Chávez and Castro).

I would have to ask how much is the monetary gain in this matter, and
the advertising benefit received by the president of his country, to
lend his face and impudence to defend a socialism that, be it either
from the 20th or the 21st century, is the same scam. Like a virus, it
ruins the economy of our nations, and if Venezuelans want to be sure, go
for a ride around the island, but not by those hospital-hotels that make
it easier for their treatments, which I have nothing against, let alone
healing a human being from any country, but the mass-media function for
which they later are used. Let them go out on the streets, visit homes,
hospitals almost in ruins, without doctors, medicine or surgical tools, etc.

To make matters worse for the Cuban people, in trying to educate us
across generations like automatons, remember that there are dozens of
programs that daily accommodate the official news chosen for political
censorship, with the exact narration for all media information, and
which are repeated as a torture for the rest of our existence. With two
hours a day, deploying the best technology and the highest production
costs, the inadvertent Roundtable show, which goes about building a
militarized anti-logic, attacking everything that smacks of capitalism,
its star attraction being the United States, then the right-wing
presidents. Before it was Aznar, now Sarkozy and Berlusconi, among so
many, while defending the Latin American Presidents who have allied
themselves with Chávez.

To this we must add the three newscasts, the kings of media
disinformation, who also go about justifying the international disasters
of their ideological peers. The ineptitude and excesses of the abysmal
administration of the Castro brothers of the weak national economy for
half a century. The constant radio news. The famous Radio Reloj, which
from minute to minute puts out the most incredible and unjustifiably
manipulated news. The written press: read six pages of one and you've
read all the rest. The daily Rebel Youth, which is no more than the
journal of the oldies in rebellion who are in power. The publication of
Workers, which is nothing other than the voice of betrayal of the Cuban
working class in the service of the tyrannical masters.

Throw in the printed organ of the Communist Party of Cuba (the only
party), the mother of all news, which picks and chooses what the people
of Cuba should know. The magazine Bohemia, that not in the worst moments
of past dictatorships was submissive or official. The provincial papers
governed and monitored by the regional Communist parties. The digital
news bulletins, also like parrots, copying what is accepted at the
request of political superiors.

It's as if they put speakers in our ears and shouted at us again and
again what we should think, memorize and perform, and, as an exercise in
boredom, start counting from 1 to 53, the years of dictatorship, to
corroborate the emptiness that lights up that space. And last but not
least, this Mr. Official Walter Martínez appears, and with each image,
chosen also for its censorship, he gives us pre-processed news,
underestimating the intelligence of viewers, and all this does is
guarantee that we have the worst news program, not even the "Democratic"
Republic of North Korea has a worst one.

There is a reporter who is not silent for a minute, with a know-it-all
air of God Almighty, who will hang posters, use nicknames, with the
constant irony of always rowing toward the benefit of Chavez' and
Castro's shore. In the past he would come to Cuba to record an interview
with Fidel Castro, which was nothing more than an ode to the old
Comandante, a chorus of criticism of his political enemies, a suck-up to
the great leader. The only thing this man has achieved, is that in Cuba
we have silent movies again. The viewers, with the volume at the
minimum, guarantee the elimination of the interruption of his submissive
voice so they can enjoy the images that the Cuban government censors of
the national news. What he doesn't know, or perhaps does and doesn't
mind, is that his program is also reviewed and edited before being
aired, so that after censorship, there is another more refined Cuba
where he at times appears to be too much of a "journalist "and becomes a
spokesperson at the service of the enemy. Not even he, an official voice
for both countries, has emerged unscathed from the arrogant and
extremist ideology of Fidel.

And as usual, the mouthpiece Walter Martinez, when he comes to the end
of his journalistic farce, says "You may turn off the camera, Mr.
Director," and he removes himself. The camera, before going dark, takes
in his image, and with the gallantry of the frustrated official he
wished he had been, he walks down the aisle to get closer to the screen
as a symbol of the nightmare and the danger it represents, and then with
greater impudence and cynicism makes a military salute to the camera
that reaffirms what we already know, which is that he is at the service
of the military in Venezuela and Cuba.

One day, I'm sure very soon, Mr. Walter, you will lose the benefits with
which you have been bought and hopefully won't find yourself on the
roster that hands out paychecks for spies.

Translated by Regina Anavy

November 23 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=12996

HAVANA — Along Havana's northern coastline, storms that roll down from
the north send waves crashing against the concrete seawall, drenching
vintage cars and kids playing games of chicken with the salty spray.

Fisherman toss their lines into the warm waters, shirtless men play
dominoes on card tables, and throngs of young people gather on weekend
nights to laugh, flirt and sip cheap rum.

This is the achingly beautiful and most instantly recognizable part of
Havana's cityscape: the Malecon seafront boulevard, with its curlicue
lampposts and pastel buildings rising into an azure sky.

Just about anywhere else in the world, it would be a playground for the
wealthy, diners in four-star restaurants and tourists willing to spend
hundreds of dollars a night for a million-dollar view.

But along the Malecon, many buildings are dank, labyrinthine tenements
bursting beyond capacity, plagued by mold and reeking of backed-up sewer
drains. Paint peels away from plaster, and the saline air rusts iron
bars to dust. Some buildings have collapsed entirely, their propped-up
facades testimony to a more dignified architectural era.

Now, for the first time since the 1959 revolution, a new law that
permits the sale of real estate has transformed these buildings into
extremely valuable properties. Another new law that allows more people
to go into business for themselves has entrepreneurs setting up shop and
talking up the future. And a multimillion-dollar revitalization project
is marching down the street improving lighting, sidewalks and drainage.

The year has seen some remarkable first steps toward a new Cuban
economic model, including the sacrificing of a number of Marxism's
sacred cows. The state is still firmly in control of all key sectors,
from energy and manufacturing to health care and education, but
increasingly people are allowed to engage in a small measure of private
enterprise. Officials say the changes are irreversible, and this is the
last chance to save the economy.

Yet Cubans will tell you that change comes slowly on the island. Strict
controls on foreign investment and property ownership mean there's
precious little money to bankroll a capitalist revival. Even some
Malecon denizens who embrace the reforms see a long haul ahead.

"It's not that I see the future as black, more like I'm seeing a little
spark from someone 3 kilometers away who lit a match," said Jose Luis
Leal Ordonez, the proprietor of a modest snack shop."But it's a match,
not a lantern."

Leal's block, the first one along the promenade, has offered a front row
seat to five decades of Cuba under Fidel Castro. The residents of
Malecon 1 to 33 have watched the powerful forces of revolution play out
beneath their balconies, and today they're bracing for yet another act
as Castro's younger brother Raul turns a half-century of Communist dogma
on its ear.

___

Given that Cuba's national identity has been inextricably bound up with
its powerful neighbor 150 kilometers (90 miles) to the north, it is
perhaps fitting that the Malecon is the legacy of a "Yanqui."

The year was 1900 and the country was under U.S. control following the
Spanish-American War. Governor General Leonard Wood, who commanded the
Rough Riders during the war with friend Teddy Roosevelt as his No. 2,
launched a pub