The Government Guidelines for the Economy and the new Cuban Economic and Social Structure / Estado de Sats / State of Sats
http://translatingcuba.com/?p=18483
The Government Guidelines for the Economy and the new Cuban Economic and Social Structure / Estado de Sats / State of Sats Estado de Sats / State of Sats, Translator: Unstated By Antonio Rodiles
The government document regarding guidelines for economic and social policy seeks to outline a new design for Cuban society. This new design envisions an economy essentially separated into three distinct sectors:
1) Large Enterprises: This segment contemplates those sectors with the highest profitability. Here we find tourism, the new Economic Zones (for example, the Port of Mariel), telecommunications, transport, nickel production, and chain stores. These include State Enterprises and Joint Ventures.
1a) State Enterprises: It is important to note that within the large state enterprises we find the Armed Forces (FAR) and the Ministry of the Interior (MININT). Both institutions currently control many of the most profitable business in Cuba. In recent years, unlike in many countries, these institutions have behaved as corporations.
1b) Joint Ventures with Foreign Capital: Cuban capital is excluded from this sector. One of the countries showing increased interest in investing in Cuba for long-term profitability is Brazil. It's clear that Brazil is betting on a future change in relations between Cuba and the United States, and is looking to position itself for that moment, hence the great interest it is showing in the Mariel Zone project.
2) Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs, or, in Spanish known by the acronym PYMEs)
2a) Cooperatives (regional collectives). Sectors of light industry, services, food production. Cuba manages this sector through usufruct – a leasing arrangement – in which the State maintains ownership of the enterprises, while allowing a certain independence to those who hold them in usufruct. So far it is not clear under what tax structure they will operate.
2b) Local Governments. These enterprises are tied to local governments and have greater autonomy. Their existence depends on their profitability.
3) Micro-enterprises (referred to in Cuba as timbiriches). Small manufacturing, small restaurants, rental homes and offices. Tax rates for these businesses are extremely high, there are limitations on contracting for labor, as well as other restrictions that will not allow the natural growth of the sector.
The State will retain control over professional services, which includes sending professionals to other nations. These professionals will continue to receive only a tiny part of the salary paid to the Cuban Government for their services.
There are two key points mentioned in the Government Guidelines document:
1. The economic policy of the new stage corresponds to the principle that only socialism is capable of overcoming the difficulties and preserving the conquests of the Revolution, and that in the updating of the economic model planning will be supreme, not the market. [1] (The document does not reference what exactly is understood by socialism under the new economic-social design.)
2. The concentration of ownership will not be permitted. [1]
This is another area that raises many questions. Is it referring only to the micro-enterprise sector? Or does it also refer to State monopolies or enterprise groups?
One very striking aspect of the document is the lack of any reference to the mechanisms of transparency in this new economic structure. There is not a single sentence that explains to us how a Cuban citizen can verify government spending, the amounts of national and foreign investment, or the financial statements of companies and ministries, including the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior.
This roadmap seeks, undoubtedly, to approach in the medium and long term the "market socialism" model in place in China and Vietnam, but with marked limitations. The key differences are directed at private enterprise and national and foreign investment. In the case of China, the investment from Chinese in the diaspora was crucial, while in our country the very mention of this factor is taboo. The proposed model is visibly marked by the fear of losing control of the change process, as well as a strong ideological counterweight, which continues to hold back the transformations needed in the country.
In recent times, within the island, certain trends that promote "renewed socialism" have gathered strength. Some of these take as a social paradigm a system structured around Sector 2, above — small and medium sized enterprises. A product of the failure of socialism in Eastern Europe and of the profound crisis facing Cuba, the promoters of this approach advocate less centralization and a flatter power structure. They do not, however, renounce the collectivist vision as the essential framework of Cuban society, that is, they will look for collectivization on a micro-scale. This thinking continues to demonstrate a rejection of the growth of private enterprise and capital for Cubans, as well as the full development of individual freedoms. It is very important to mention that these new visions do not point to Communism as "the end of history," or at least do not make reference to it.
I would like to mention a figure who appeared in the Economist Magazine, relating to the performance of private enterprises in China. At a conference in November of 2010, Zheng Yumin, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Administrative Bureau for Industry and Commerce, said there were 43 million companies in China, of which 93% are privately owned, employing 92% of the total workforce.[2] These statistics show the need to allow small, medium, and also large private enterprises to play their rightful roles in the economy of any nation.
A design like that proposed in the Cuban Government's Guidelines, is clearly biased against the growth and development of the nation, in social, economic and political aspects, because it establishes strong constraints on individual initiative, a basic element of any contemporary society. While it may be a step forward in pursuit of decentralization and the possibility of new forms of ownership, it is important that the changes undertaken reflect a depth consistent with a long-term vision, and do not end up serving as a straitjacket on society.
In the 21st century it is essential to analyze the development of nations as a process that refers not only to the economic sector, but that also encompasses various social and political aspects from a more holistic vision. Societies structured as multi-level systems in each one of their building blocks, or basic elements, should have the ability to establish a spontaneous order. This spontaneous association guarantees that properties such as "emergence" — also referred to as "self-organization," a central tenet of Marxism — can function; that is, the system generates new forms that are not obtained as a sum of its constituent parts.
In 1999, James D. Wolfensohn presented a new comprehensive framework for analyzing development in terms of three factors[3]:
1) Development of Social Institutions (system of government, judicial system, financial institutions and social programs).
2) Human Conditions: education and health.
3) Physical Infrastructure: water, energy, transportation and environmental protection.
In the same vein, a recent article by Francis Fukuyama and Brian Levy[4] seeks to establish the essential elements, the building blocks, which make up a development strategy, assessing this as the multilevel system it is. The elements they establish are:
1) Economic growth.
2) Development of civil society.
3) The Constitution of the State.
4) Democratic political institutions, including both the rule of law and a democratic electoral system.
Let us analyze in more detail four elements that undoubtedly create the necessary basis for a nation to demonstrate a strong social dynamic:
1) Social development implies economic growth, since the latter provides the possibility of better living conditions, both individually and as a nation. Economic growth also provides the potential, for both individuals and the State, to have at their disposal the resources to develop their projects. In the specific case of the State, we are talking particularly of those projects that, in turn, allow for long-term growth: technology and infrastructure, among others. Economic growth, without a doubt, goes hand in hand with the exercise of economic freedom, which is a necessary if not sufficient condition, for the establishment of a prosperous society.
2) Civil society is the engine that generates not only new social structures, but also promotes the renewal of state institutions, managing them so that they can adjust to meet growing social demands. The feedback between civil society and the State must be a factor that works in favor of the development of nations. A vigorous civil society only occurs when individuals have the ability to interact within a framework of full respect for individual rights, governed by a rule of law. Every State should guarantee the exercise of economic and political freedoms, and should never function as a straitjacket on society. Contemporary civil society should be seen as a framework of networks with the highest connectivity, formed from the individual as an entity, to more complex social structures, and framed not only in a national context, but a transnational one as well.
3) An effective state must have as its principal objective the establishment of law and order through a state of law. This will ensure the appropriate framework to support social dynamics, in which there is majority rule with full respect for the minority. Only then is it possible that individuals can enjoy the benefits of belonging to a nation. The constitution of the State is, in itself, a multi-dimensional process[4], beginning with the ability to concentrate the coercive power of a territory, and passing through the administrative ability to offer efficient services, as well as to control corruption. The control of law and order on the part of the State is a necessary condition for a country to function as an entity. At present the vision of the Nation State has begun to fade with the appearance of supranational unions. It is very important to note that, from this perspective, an effective State is not a large State and is the counterpart of the totalitarian State.
4) The establishment of democratic political institutions plays an essential role in any strategy for development. The creation of the mechanisms of transparency, the establishment of laws that prevent unfair competition and monopolies, are undoubtedly basic elements to create a dynamic society. Any system that is based on the establishment of monopolies – be they state or private groups, protected or not by government institutions – will condemn the country to failure over the long term. Our economy is a clear example of how a State monopoly ends up smothering individual initiative and achieves high levels of inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Other cases, such as Mexico, demonstrate the results of an economy based on a combination of State monopoly associated with interest groups. This unholy alliance ends up creating, in that Aztec county, what was once called "a perfect dictatorship." The institutions are completely at the service of specific groups and the country is very far from functioning as a state of laws. The rule of law remains weak, responding to the interests of the groups in power. We need to understand the growth in organized crime — drug cartels — as a direct result of the lack of democratic credibility.
To begin the process of transformation in our country, we must first consider all the elements that will play a part. Taking into account the previous analysis, it is clear that a development strategy implies the most comprehensive changes at the deepest levels. All transformations need to be designed to promote more effective mechanisms that stimulate the social dynamic, looking for direct support in our own experience and in that of other nations.
There are three points that can form a base for these transformations. This base guarantees a process of development over the medium and long term that would allow us to avoid unnecessary and painful situations. These three elements are:
1) Establish a legal framework that sets out clearly and transparently, the rights regarding private property as well as the ability of citizens, either individually or in association with others, to make use of their possessions for private, commercial and social ends. The establishment of private enterprise across a wide range of economic sectors is essential.
2) Undertake a modernization of the State, which has as its principal objective the creation of decentralized and democratic structures. Consider within this process, among other things, tax reform and the corresponding mechanisms of accountability and transparency, seeking the best balance between the performance of the market and the social responsibilities assumed by the State.
3) Introduce into our country the process of modernization and globalization that holds sway in the contemporary world. An introduction that leads to the free flow of information, freedom of movement for people as well as openness to investments, particularly to encourage Cubans residing both within and outside the island to be participants in the process of renewal.
In conclusion I would like to make one final comment. Starting from the vision that society can be represented as the union of a framework of networks, occupied at different levels, and responding to different structures and dynamics, it is then possible to understand why a pre-established roadmap, as a proposal for the future, is quite inadequate.
The contemporary world shows us that societies can no longer be seen only as national realities, but that we must understand them as transnational entities, which adds still more complexity to these systems. The creation of new levels in this structure will depend on the capacity for self-generation starting from a spontaneous order and its interaction with the environment. The result of this dynamic is not predicable, so to plan its emergence and subsequent evolution is, at the very least, Utopian. Our aspiration must be to establish strategies that facilitate and stimulate this spontaneous order as a generating element and driving force of society, and to ensure the existence of an open society. It is on this point where I differ completely from planned and collectivist models, because these undoubtedly end up smothering the self-generation capacity of these systems.
References: 1) Government of Cuba: Lineamientos de la política económica y social. (Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy) 2) The Economist Magazine: Bamboo Capitalism. Mar 10th 2011. 3) Bar-Yam, Yaneer. Making Things Work. Knowledge Press. 4) Fukuyama, F. Levy, B. "Development Strategies"
27 March 2011
A Ground Level Look at Cuba’s Farm Policy
A Ground Level Look at Cuba's Farm Policy May 18, 2012 Fernando Ravsberg
HAVANA TIMES – This week marks the anniversary of the signing into law of Cuba's Agrarian Reform, which transformed the life of tens of thousands of peasant families who were subject to the cruelest forms of misery, as a 1957 survey of the Catholic University Group documented.
The farm workers were able to stop their constant traveling in search of work in the harvests, and they settled down on farms of their own, from which no one could ever again evict them. Their children had access to school and they themselves were taught how to read and write.
Nevertheless, the revolutionary government soon came to believe that agricultural collectivization was more in line with their ideology than individual plots. They pressured the farmers to annex their land onto the state farms or to the cooperatives, also controlled by the State.
The Soviet-style "koholz" was imposed on Cuba despite the poor results that they had exhibited in the European socialist countries. Mr. Ramón Labaut, my wife's communist grandfather, gave up his lands with pleasure, but his son-in-law Narváez Arias decided to continue in the old style.
A few years ago we went up into the mountains and visited the farms; that of the grandfather has been swallowed by vines. That of the Arias family, in contrast, produces so much coffee that they have built a nice house in town and he lives there in retirement while his children continue working the land.
Alejandro Robaina, the tobacco grower, was another of the rebellious farmers: he roundly refused to give up the lands that his father and his grandfather had planted. Decades later, Fidel Castro himself approached him to inquire how he had managed to achieve such yield and quality.
Mr. Robaina was a plain-spoken man, and responded by saying that if Cuba wanted to develop a good tobacco crop, the only way was to give the lands back to the farmers. And life has proven him right.
Most of the Cuban soil is very compact, so tractors are needed to turn it. Photo: Raquel Pérez
In the eighties, Fidel Castro counseled the French Communist Party leader George Marchais: "Don't even think about socialized agriculture. Leave the small producers alone, don't touch them. If you do, say goodbye to your good wine, your good cheese and your excellent foie gras." (1)
Nevertheless, for two more decades the Cuban leaders insisted uselessly on looking for new forms of collectivization that could surpass the productivity of the small farmer. It wasn't until 2008 that it was decided to put the land into the hands of the "guajiros" and others who, although not farmers or peasants, were willing to dedicate themselves to this way of life.
The bureaucracy set to work immediately: they prohibited them from constructing houses on the farm; they prohibited them from importing machinery; they attached exorbitant prices to the few tools that were available for sale; and they obligated them to distribute their products only through "Acopio", the State network famous for its inefficiency.
Despite all the obstacles, the guajiros used machetes to clear the marabou brush weeds, raised production, and left the country wondering what they would in fact be capable of doing if only they were given freedom to decide, if they were sold agricultural inputs, and were allowed to buy trucks for distributing their products.
I met a retired functionary from the Ministry of Foreign Trade who had received a parcel of land on the outskirts of Havana and now raises pigs with tremendous success; he grows the food for his animals and cooks with biogas that comes from their waste matter.
Agriculture is tough work, but in Cuba it has a certain attraction. Small farmers not only have access to education and health benefits, but they have also become one of the more prosperous sectors of the population, a rarity in Latin America.
The life of the Cuban peasant changed radically when land was distributed to them in 1959. Photo: Raquel Pérez
At any rate, the lack of water and the erosion of the soil makes it difficult to imagine that local agriculture could ever supply all of the country's necessities. Even in 1959, with half of the current population, Cuba imported a large volume of food.
I asked a farmer one day if it were true that Cuban land will produce anything you plant on it. He smiled astutely and said: "Yes, if you're referring to tropical products, and if you enrich it with fertilizers, and you fumigate with pesticides and if you apply herbicides and you install irrigation systems."
Only with great difficulty could Cuba become the garden that the popular imagination dreams of, but neither does it have to continue being a land plagued with weeds with a productive yield much less than that of a half-century ago.
The land distribution has begun to bear its first fruits, but in order to advance more in this they will need to eliminate the foolish restrictions imposed by an inefficient agricultural bureaucracy which would be better off shrinking into non-existence, together with the agricultural model that engendered it.
If 53 years ago the Cuban peasant raised high the slogan of "Land for those who work it!", today they should understand that this in itself is not enough: they also need resources, and above all the power of decision and participation in the design of agrarian policies.
(1) From the book, "A hundred hours with Fidel," by the author Ignacio Ramonet.
In Cuba Paying a Few More Cents for Lunch… Hurts
Yoani Sanchez – Award-winning Cuban blogger
In Cuba Paying a Few More Cents for Lunch… Hurts Posted: 05/17/2012 8:43 am
The market is almost empty. It's still very early and someone is writing the new prices for a pound of pork on a blackboard. It seems a simple gesture, that of the hand that has changed only one digit in the price of the ribs, the legs, or the processed fat. But in reality, what is expressed on that slate — with its numbers traced in chalk — is a real market cataclysm. The internal Cuban economy suffers from a weakness such that the slightest price increase for a pound of steak or butter is enough to disrupt our fragile commercial framework. A few centavos added to the price of a food sends the thermometer of daily anxiety upward, raises the barometer of concern.
Indeed, a certain state of alarm is running through the country lately. Pork is scarce because of the dearth of feed; its import has declined and local production barely gets off the ground. The self-employment sector suffers from a scarcity of the product which forms the basis for the so-called "little boxes," which almost always include rice, some kind of starch, and a little meat. This lunch "in hand" is the mainstay of many Cubans who work far from home, and also constitutes the basic unit for the private businesses selling ready-made meals. When the price of this lunchbox rises it pulls everything with it. The shoe salesman adds a bit to his merchandise to recoup his loss on the midday snack; the shopkeeper who paid more for her sandals tries to make up the difference from unsuspecting customers who don't count their change; and the retired housewife writes to her son in Frankfurt or Miami asking for a bump in her remittance, because life is very expensive. And this whole sequence of problems and angst begins in a pigsty, the place where feed and care should be converted into pounds of meat, but are not.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/cuba-food-shortages_b_1523101.html
Breaking the Silence on Racism in Cuba
Breaking the Silence on Racism in Cuba Ivet González interviews documentary-maker GLORIA ROLANDO
HAVANA, May 17, 2012 (IPS) – Gloria Rolando has been revealing hidden chapters of Cuban history since the 2010 premiere of the first part of her documentary series "1912: Breaking the Silence," about the virtually unknown story about the only legal political party to promote racial equality in this country.
The documentary-maker defends the legacy of the Independent Party of Colour (Partido Independiente de Color), which was active from 1908 to 1912, and is a recurring focus of debates among activists for non-discrimination in Cuba.
The second part of the series, produced independently, is being shown in community and institutional locales, and will hit Havana movie theatres this month.
A century after the slaughter of the main leaders of the Independent Party of Colour, and as the International Decade for People of African Descent gets underway, Rolando, who also heads the autonomous video-makers' group Imágenes del Caribe (Images of the Caribbean), talked with IPS about the need for teaching another side of history, and the importance of the family in achieving racial equality.
The Independent Party of Colour
Led by two veterans of the third war for independence, Evaristo Estenoz and Pedro Ivonet, the Independent Party of Colour was created to fight against racism in the nascent Republic.
On May 20, 1912, the party's top leaders organised an armed protest against a decree that prohibited the party from running candidates in the elections. The protest ended in the massacre of more than 3,000 black and mixed-race people and the imprisonment of survivors by the authorities. Q: What has been the main contribution of "1912: Breaking the Silence" (1912: Voces para un silencio)?
A: This series is aimed at all Cubans, because it addresses a complex chapter of our history, involving both blacks and whites. The film helps us to understand a troubled period, which is studied in school in a very schematic way.
When the ambassadors in Cuba from member countries of the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) saw the film, they were fascinated. They had come here without knowing about this fundamental chapter of Cuban history, which is also part of the development of the Caribbean.
That was a time of generalised repression. A person was treated with prejudice simply for being black or mixed-race. For that reason, the events of 1912 were silenced: people knew that they could face problems for telling the truth. That is how the version that endured until now was a distorted one, and many historians do not talk about the events as they actually happened.
Q: What has been the impact on the Cuban public?
A: The first reaction is lack of knowledge: that has been the hook for getting people to continue to watch the film. When the first part premiered, people became hooked. I was able to identify that effect in places where it was shown, such as Havana's main movie theatres.
Generally speaking, nobody knows about the history of the Independent Party of Colour, or about the massacre of many of its members. I am basing my work on that. We (the production crew) want people to learn about the facts and then evaluate that part of national history and its consequences for the present.
Q: At what point in the public debate over non-discrimination in Cuba did your series come out?
A: These questions are the focus of a lot of movement these days: there are different types of publications and there is a visible debate. Hopefully the polemic will expand beyond academic circles. At least, that's been the case in the capital, which is the environment I know best.
The issue became a boomerang in the 1990s, but now we are beginning to address it in a theoretical and scientific way, so that people can understand that it is not an emotional issue.
It is essential for all of this information to be made available in the public education system. My goal is not just to make the documentary and show it, but also for the recovery of the memory of the Independent Party of Col
Part Two of "1912"
The first part of "1912: Breaking the Silence" was broadcast on "Mesa Redonda" (Cuba's nightly political talk show), and was shown in the country's main movie theatres in 2010.
The second part has been shown in places such as Havana's Casa de las Américas cultural centre and La Ceiba community centre. Rolando is now working on the third part of the project. lour to be incorporated in teaching.
My greatest hope, once the third part is done and the project can be presented as a whole, is for it to be shown on the programme "Pasaje a lo desconocido" (Journey into the Unknown, a Cuban television programme that airs on Sundays and features documentaries), which has a large audience.
That way, it will no longer be an issue that is unknown to the Cuban population and that stirs up controversy. I also hope for it to be seen in community spaces, and it is being passed around informally so that people will use it, learn and tell others.
Q: Do the conditions exist in Cuban society today for recognising that racism persists here? And if so, why?
A: Cuban society is many-sided and very complex. Life in Havana is totally different than life in Holguín (700 km east of the capital), for example. In some of the provinces where we worked to make the series, people commented to us that they didn't have those problems.
In fact, Cuba is different in the central and eastern regions. There is the Haitian presence that came with a huge wave of immigration in the early 20th century. In Guantánamo, where a large part of the population is black, it might be that they don't feel the need for this debate as intensely as in the capital or in the western part of the island in general.
However, racial discrimination is also related to economic status, housing, the neighbourhood, food and structures for organising activities that certain population groups experience.
To try to eliminate it requires very complex actions. It's not enough to have free education and health services for all. Services for families and a return to family values play a fundamental role.
Q: What proposals have you identified for contributing to greater racial equality in Cuba?
A: There needs to be a television programme devoted to the Cuban family. The diversity of families needs to be shown — the ones that live in Baracoa (in eastern Cuba) or in Miramar (a residential neighbourhood in Havana) – to see how different people live their lives.
It could invite, for example, a sociologist who has researched the Havana neighbourhood of Pogolotti, or historians and other specialists who address the real problems faced by Cubans.
It could focus on a plan of action to ensure that many black girls and boys reach university. The doors are open to them, but few of them make it there. To make that possible, housing conditions and family history are two of the decisive factors.
The Double Nine / Rebeca Monzo
The Double Nine / Rebeca Monzo Rebeca Monzo, Translator: Unstated
On my planet dominoes have been and continue to be the most popular table game.
Game played with twenty-eight rectangular tiles, generally white on the face and dark on the reverse, with each divided into two squares, each one of which is marked with from one to six dots, or with none at all.
Thus says the Volume I of the Encyclopedia Espasa-Calpe, sa. Madrid 1035 (third edition).
But we Latinos, we like to do more complicated things, we add to make it fifty-five tiles in total, and there reigns the dreaded, unwanted, hated and sometimes loved double nine.
I remember papa Manolo, Cubanized-Asturian, passionate lover of this game, who for many years proudly wore a belt with a wide buckle of silver and enamel that said champion. In the first years after 1959 he sold it, who knows for what paltry sum of money, to put food on our table, back in the seventies when we could barely manage one meal a day. All this led me to think that our country, by the work and grace of a personal utopia, was becoming a metaphor for this game:
Double Standard: To express in public the exact opposite of what you really think, and say, behind closed doors.
Double Currency: One, with which they pay our meager salaries and retirements, which has barely any value, and another which, even though it's only good inside the country, at least can be used to acquire most of the basic necessities, and that must be gotten and spent at your own risk.
Double Health: One very precarious and lacking in resources, which is offered to the people. Another more specialized, with a wide range of medicines and better facilities for the leaders and foreigners.
Double Education: One very deficient, with schools in a terrible state and most improvised teachers. And the other with very good conditions and qualified teachers for the diplomatic corps and a very few privileged Cubans.
Double Market: One, with little variety in products and prices extraordinarily inflated (more than 250% of costs), and the other in the so-called Cuban Convertible Pesos.
And another only for diplomats and senior leaders, with more varied products and better prices.
Double Migratory Law: One, draconian and violating human rights, which is applied to the population in general, and another, more expedited and economical, that favors only the leaders and high officials.
Double Supply: Almost nothing for the people's markets, and another with home deliveries in record time, for the ruling elite and selected officials.
Double Justice: The surprisingly cruel, pompous and media focused applied to citizens who violate the law, and another quiet, almost secret and less aggressive, applied to officials who have committed crimes against the economy.
Double Information: One, transmitted to the population through all the official media, and another of antennas and Internet, fiercely persecuted, which only a few privileged have access to.
As you see, there are various doubles. Now we just have to focus on the table, calculate how many tiles are still to come, and above all, try to guess who is crouched over the double nine, because in any moment he can play it and that's the game!
As I told you, this may be the most uncomfortable and surprising tile, of this other twisted entertainment.
May 15 2012
Pig in a “Box” / Yoani Sánchez
Pig in a "Box" / Yoani Sánchez Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez
tablilla_preciosThe market is almost empty. It's still very early and someone is writing the new prices for a pound of pork on a blackboard. It seems a simple gesture, that of the hand that has changed only one digit in the price of the ribs, the legs, or the processed fat. But in reality, what is expressed on that slate — with its numbers traced in chalk — is a real market cataclysm. The internal Cuban economy suffers from a weakness such that the slightest price increase for a pound of steak or butter is enough to disrupt our fragile commercial framework. A few centavos added to the price of a food sends the thermometer of daily anxiety upward, raises the barometer of concern.
Indeed, a certain state of alarm is running through the country lately. Pork is scarce because of the dearth of feed; its import has declined and local production barely gets off the ground. The self-employment sector suffers from a scarcity of the product which forms the basis for the so-called "little boxes," which almost always include rice, some kind of starch, and a little meat. This lunch "in hand" is the mainstay of many Cubans who work far from home, and also constitutes the basic unit for the private businesses selling ready-made meals. When the price of this lunchbox rises it pulls everything with it. The shoe salesman adds a bit to his merchandise to recoup his loss on the midday snack; the shopkeeper who paid more for her sandals tries to make up the difference from unsuspecting customers who don't count their change; and the retired housewife writes to her son in Frankfurt or Miami asking for a bump in her remittance, because life is very expensive. And this whole sequence of problems and angst begins in a pigsty, the place where feed and care should be converted into pounds of meat, but are not.
16 May 2012
Universities and foreign companies in Cuba are shrinking
Posted on Wednesday, 05.16.12
Universities and foreign companies in Cuba are shrinking
Cuban leader Raúl Castro's push to carry out needed economic reforms has led to reduced enrollment at universities and departure of some foreign companies. By Juan O. Tamayo jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuban universities have slashed enrollment by nearly 26 percent, apparently because of deep cuts in government spending, while several foreign investors are leaving the island, according to official and news media reports.
The two reports reflected the downsides of Cuban ruler Raúl Castro's effort to fix the island's doddering economy by cutting state spending on education, health and food rations, and his campaign to carry out tight reviews of foreign investments amid a slew of corruption scandals.
Cuba's National Statistical Office (ONE), reported this week that overall enrollment in universities — all state-controlled — dropped from 473,309 in the 2010-2011 school year to 351,116 in the 2011-2012 period. That's a drop of 122,193 students, or 25.8 percent.
The largest group of students, 118,914, was enrolled in medical sciences, reflecting the government's high interest in educating doctors, dentists and nurses — Cubans to staff the domestic health system or work abroad, and foreigners on scholarships to study there.
The biggest drop in enrollment was in social sciences, though it remained the second largest group with 77,200, according to the ONE report.
Cuba's Ministry of Higher Education sets admission quotas depending on the skills needed, but government officials have complained recently that universities are turning out too few scientists who can help modernize the economy and open new areas of production lines.
"Like other developing states, Cuba is trying now to push away from ideologically useful education — the social sciences and humanities — to job and wealth producing fields," said Larry Cata-Backer, a Professor of International Affairs at Pennsylvania State University who has studied the Cuban education system.
Cuba's communist government has long boasted of its achievements in health and education — the record of 711,000 university students in 2008-2009 was a stunning figure in a country of 11.2 million — although both areas have suffered significantly since the Soviet Union halted its massive subsidies in the early 1990s.
The Health Ministry announced in January that it had cut its 2011 budget by 7.7 percent, and officials at the Higher Education ministry have noted that each university graduate costs the state 25,000 to 40,000 pesos — roughly $890 to $1,450.
Castro has trimmed the food ration card and other government subsidies, allowed more private micro-businesses like barbershops and announced plans to slash 500,000 workers from state payrolls in hopes of "updating" Cuba's Soviet-styled economy.
His reform package, approved by a full congress of the ruling Communist Party last spring, also called for a more positive attitude toward foreign investments — only grudgingly accepted by older brother Fidel Castro before he passed power to Raúl in 2006. Cuban generally insists on owning at least 51 percent of any joint venture.
The so-called "guidelines" noted that the government was negotiating with foreign investors for several projects, including at least four multi-million dollar golf and condo resorts, some with access to beaches or docks for recreational boats.
Cuba's desperate need for foreign investments has been especially clear since cancer struck Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whose oil-rich government provides Cuba with subsidies estimated at anywhere from $4 billion to $6 billion a year.
Yet Castro's plans to attract more foreign investments are off to a slow start because his government has focused more on inspecting and regulating than in stimulating the investments, according to an exclusive Reuters news agency report Wednesday.
The Reuters report cited Cuban and foreign business sources as saying that the island now has about 240 joint ventures and projects between the government and foreign investors, a drop from the 258 reported in 2009 and the 700 estimated a decade ago.
In fact, more joint ventures have closed than opened in Cuba since the "guidelines" were approved last spring, the dispatch by the Reuters bureau in Havana added.
Among those reported to have left are the London-based consumer product giant Unilever PLC and Grupo BM, a Panama registered company controlled by Israeli investors that operates citrus groves and juice plants in Cuba.
Foreign investors in Cuba have been increasingly uncomfortable since early 2009, when the global financial crisis sparked a shortage of hard currency on the island and led Castro to freeze the bank accounts of joint ventures operating there. Castro has been slowly paying out the money, estimated at more than $800 million, since then.
The 2011 "guidelines," while making positive comments about foreign investors, also noted the need to establish "rigorous" regulations on the joint ventures, apparently because of the mounting corruption scandals involving foreign companies in Cuba.
In April, government investigators reportedly arrested British architect Stephen Purvis, who had been spearheading an ambitious project by Coral Capital Group Ltd., to build a 1,200-home golf resort just east of Havana.
Amado Fakhre, Coral Capital's managing partner and also a British citizen, already had been arrested in October. The firm, registered in the British Virgin Islands, was founded in 1999 to invest in Cuba projects.
Also caught in corruption probes have been top officers of the Tokmakjian Group and Tri-Star Caribbean, two Canadian trading companies that have sold foreign items, especially heavy constructions and transportation vehicles, to government ministries.
Other scandals have hit Cuba's aviation, telecommunications, nickel, juice, cigar and other industries and led to the arrests or dismissals of scores of government officials – including Julio Cesar Díaz Garrandés, boyfriend of Castro's youngest daughter.
Most of the top Cuban government officials who handle deals with foreign companies, often worth several millions of dollars, earn much less than $50 a month and can be tempted to pocket bribes in exchange for throwing business to the foreign companies.
A dispatch from the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana to Washington in 2006, made public by WikiLeaks last year, noted that corruption in Cuba was so widespread that the island has become "a nation on the take."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/16/v-fullstory/2802903/universities-and-foreign-companies.html
And the Police Arrived, Yes Sir / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
And the Police Arrived, Yes Sir / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Translator: Unstated
While I'm a Cuban author, sometimes I would love to be the political police.
Only they have all the information, omniscience obtained by legal means, or through crime under contract. Only they have absolute operability, all-powerful regardless of the mediocre bureaucracy and the little national swamp of ministerial resolutions. Only they have the diegetic sense in the midst of the chaos of has-beens crowing for or against the Revolution. Only they have, in consequence, imaginative impunity when the time comes to sweeten or destroy the fate of the Other (in fiction, these motivated lies are a source of verisimilitude).
As a Cuban author, what more could one ask for, with a literary tradition of a thousand and one mechanical unreadable realisms?
I would have loved, for example, to cite the painter Luis Trapaga for deceptions on Friday May 11th, cooking or coercing him with questions at the police station at Zapata and C (me out of uniform, an informal dialog between citizens), and then obliterate his work and his home with a future threat (a real official time machine): "If you show these pictures on your walls, the Ministry of Culture — and so says an agent outside the institution — will take drastic measures against you."
I confess that with Guillermo Portieles and Nestor Arenas, his co-exhibitor colleagues of the space Open Studio The Circle (in the home of Trápaga: 10 # 316 (upper) between 13 and 15, Vedado), both fellow residents of the USA, the forecast for these experts was much bolder, with a gun: "Never again set foot on the land that bore thee, to collaborate economically with a counterrevolutionary leader…"
To the critics of Cuban art who, from an insolent intellectualism, privately make fun of the cops brought from the interior (hence the name of the ministry of the mysteries: Interior), I remind them that it would not be surprising that most the works of the Eleventh Biennial of Art in Havana have been negotiated in advance between the creator and security agent in charge of them (who treats them like a child or a patient or both). Without ruling out the possibility that the most controversial pieces are, in fact, conceived by the political police themselves (the Bruguera operation in the Kcho case could easily converge on the table of the same cultural commissar).
How not to envy the high degree of freedom, regardless of all ideology, religion and morality? Today, there is no more Open Studio in Cuba than that of the offices of Villa Marista, factual Alpha of the Cuban nation, Bible of actions, Genesic navel of the short circuits about what is or is not Real.
Dealing with rebellious artists who in the end always throw a fit about what appears in the catalog (and sell, of course, the law of laws of the Truth). Appeasing self-managing anarchic-unionists who worship a bust of Havana during two stanzas of the badly memorized Internationale (perhaps the Indignationale). Barring women dressed in white so they cannot prop up the skies of Cuba with their flowery swords. Savoring the rhetoric of repression with none less than the purple-robed Cardinal of the perennial smile. Denigrating the dead who stopped eating to escape the ubiquitous cruelty of the prison cells. Tapping the phones of foreign investors and of the entire Council of Ministers. Operating the internet with a private cable of optical fidelity. Annexing yourself to Venezuela like another special municipality while buying food on the sly in the USA (where Guillermo Portieles and Néstor Arenas are deported, while sequestering the canned body of Alan Gross).
What spectator of the country could resist such a package of spectacular paradoxes? Please, let's not be hypocrites or excessively modest. The only excited official in the midst of the professional apathy of this Island bears the boastful initials of State Security.
Anyone now passing by the little Art Deco apartment at 10 # 316 (upper) between 13 and 15, Vedado, will not find the remnants of the group exhibition: the only things hanging are the old canvases of Luis Trápaga, abandoned to his fate of autistic artist by Portieles and Arenas,who, instead of burning their ships (or their canvases as a performance in the Plaza of the Revolution), preferred an untimely withdrawal that, just the same, can no longer save their passports from ostracism. Instead of going to authorized galleries and reclaiming their works (still frozen at airport customs), better they might take advantage of these days to go, saying goodbye to Cuba, until the end of the Ministry of the Interior: that is, until the State eternity, because our first anti-democratic capitalists can't allow themselves the luxury of giving up this organizing organ.
As long as there is this marvelous narrative technique called the Permission to Enter and Leave (the pinnacle of governance over the characters of our national novel), we Cubans will be puppets without credibility: art and love and friendship and family and work and creed and all the rest will be no more than a stupid et cetera. That is why, in these kinds of sub-socialist Cuban-style TV series, State Security's is the only one that can count on an audience for a great many more seasons to come. And isn't that precisely any author's dream of a best-seller?
From Penultimos Dias.
15 May 2012
Obligatory Walk / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Obligatory Walk / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: mlk
Rafa and I go out many times in order to shop for provisions, which in Cuba must be daily. It is not that we like to walk, it is that because of the instability of the scarce supplies in the state stores; the offers grow scarce, and there is little variety. So although the foods we eat generally are average and nationally produced, we must "stomp them" as if we were epicures of the palate and pay exorbitant prices for them.
Many of us in Cuba have listened to sales clerks from some state shops say that "in a few days" products will arrive and assure that they are "expecting the boat;" and we shrug our shoulders because we don't know if it's a joke or irony concerning the boat that each day tires our patience more.
Anyway, although my husband and I are transparent and publicly say what we think and write it, too, we acquired years ago the habit of going out to walk — basically at night — in order to "dispatch" some matters concerning our way of thinking and activities. Because it is good to walk but not to facilitate the "omnipresent ones" who harass and listen to us in their job of conveniently transferring our talks to their respective headquarters. May they sweat their salaries and "stomp" the information like Rafa and I with the food. I think.
Translated by mlk
May 14 2012
Letters from the San José Prison, Part 4 / Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada
Letters from the San José Prison, Part 4 / Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada Translator: M. Ouellette, Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada
Mayabeque, Cuba — My name is Yulemi Herreras López. I am 26 years old. I have been sentenced to 14 years without freedom. I lost my career. They sentenced me without anyone accusing me; the police accuse me and I acquired HIV/AIDS through unstable sexual relations.
As a nursing student, I can say that medical attention here is the worst. A week ago, I had a high fever and I was taken to the infirmary and the only thing there was for me was Cogri. My fever only decreased thanks to one of my companions who gave me a pill that his mother gives him from the outside.
The physical and verbal abuse, the poor food: this is what is most seen here, and we cannot place ourselves at their level because they mistreat us physically; they put us in the punishment cell.
If they gave me the opportunity, I would ask for improvements from the Cuban authorities. If they are going to keep us here, why is it like a concentration camp? If only it would improve. We want the medical attention to improve, the preparation of the food to improve, everything that can improve to improve.
Most of those found here are young and here as in our country our errors are chains that we drag. We do not have freedom of speech: if a jail and prison inspector comes in, we cannot say anything because apart from the fact that they have us coerced, it does not resolve anything.
This was the best prison that rose to the national level, but is is like a fruit: pretty on the outside, but rotten on the inside. The inspections take place: everything on the outside is very good, but the problems are really on the inside, and they are not resolved.
When someone comes, they prepare the outside and when a prisoner expresses some problem, he is branded crazy.
They are practically killing us; they are killing us psychologically.
I have been imprisoned for four years and I have seen no positive results for us here in the AIDS Jail of San José de las Lajas. If there is some preventative work with those sick with HIV/AIDS, we do not know, and if there is, they do not work with us.
I would like to send a message to the Cuban youth, so they do not arrive here. The mistreatment is chilling and they should protect themselves 100% because as the saying goes, AIDS has no face.
Translated by: M. Ouellette
January 23 2012
‘Project Paladar’: New York Chefs Team Up with Cuban Culinary Entrepreneurs
'Project Paladar': New York Chefs Team Up with Cuban Culinary Entrepreneurs Published May 14, 2012 Fox News Latino
For those who love and appreciate good food, Old Havana is the place to be these days.
Foreign art lovers are breaking bread with Cuban waiters, drivers and parking lot attendants this week in a unique experience that forces diners and chefs alike to overcome barriers of culture, language and five-plus decades of animosity between Washington and Havana.
Ten prominent New York City chefs are teaming up this week with 10 culinary entrepreneurs from Havana's budding private restaurant scene, cooking up savory and sweet multi-course meals from an improvised kitchen built in a shipping container. The diners are mostly foreigners in town for a major art exhibition and Cubans who are being invited to participate in the free meals by the visiting chefs who meet them during the course of their stay.
Blending contemporary American, Italian, Japanese, even Burmese cuisines with Caribbean Creole classics, it's a rare culinary treat in a country where many state-run and independent restaurants serve up dull, unimaginative fare. It's also a performance art spectacle that's about bridging the gap between estranged neighbors and socioeconomic classes.
"The easiest and most interesting way into understanding another culture is food," said Sara Jenkins, the project's chef director and proprietor of East Village eateries Porchetta and Porsena. "And the easiest, most uncomplicated way to make friends is to break bread at the same table."
"Project Paladar," named after Cuba's popular independent restaurants, is part of Havana's 11th Biennial, an irreverent bash attracting 180 artists from 43 countries as well as thousands of art aficionados and collectors. The dining project is being funded by the donations of American individuals.
For 10 days the chefs will take turns pairing off and serving up gourmet meals in the back patio of a cultural center in colonial Old Havana. Guests are greeted with a mojito and escorted to a table for 12 in homage to the maximum number of seats that the government allowed paladars to have when they first opened in the 1990s.
With two tables of 12 seats, the organizers plan to feed up to five groups, or as many as 60 people, every evening.
At the project's Friday night launch, an aproned Jenkins sweated over a pan of Burmese coconut-milk curry sauce, preparing it to poach filets of freshly caught red snapper. Accompanying the main dish were tuna tartar and a green mango salad that one could order takeout in New York but particularly tickled the palates of Cuban food professionals.
Conversation at the tables was lively as diners introduced themselves, hesitantly tried out second languages and turned to bilingual guests to translate reactions to each course: "Is this basil?" ''No, it's mint!"
"I think this is an experience that has never been done in the Biennial, a very interesting sociocultural project," said Kenia Echenique, a 25-year-old lawyer and actress who fanned her mouth after consuming the curry but said she enjoyed the flavor before the heat kicked in. "I think this can enrich our culture, our paladars, and contribute to exchange between our nations."
"In the kitchen everything's simple. A sauce is a sauce," said Hector Higuera Martinez, Jenkins' cooking partner and the man behind the stylish Le Chansonnier in Havana's Vedado neighborhood. "These things we have in common, independent of the language barrier. It has been spontaneous."
"Project Paladar" is the brainchild of Craig Shillitto, a New York architect, artist and restaurant designer who was fascinated to read about the explosion of private restaurants in Cuba after President Raul Castro revived a 1990s policy allowing them to exist, then lifted many restrictions that kept them from flourishing.
Many paladars are still little better than Cuba's dreary state restaurants and must contend with the daily struggle to find ingredients on an island long accustomed to scarcity. Some are languishing as they struggle to tap the limited number of visiting tourists and other foreigners, and the small number of Cubans with enough disposable income to patronize private restaurants.
But an increasing number of paladar owners are forming a maturing restaurant scene with creative, experimental chefs who are out to change Cuba's reputation for culinary blandness.
"It's hard to educate people …. because rice, beans, roast pork are really linked to our history," Higuera said. "Many (chefs) stick with what's easy to find. But I think there are many people who want to try different things."
Part of the inspiration behind "Project Paladar" was to support Cuba's budding foodie culture.
"The idea that people still cared about food and cuisine and still tried hard despite having no market for it was fascinating," Shillitto said.
Jenkins brought down her own cooking knives, as well as ingredients that would seem exotic not just in Cuba but in many American kitchens: kaffir lime leaf, Szechuan peppercorns, a quarter-wheel of Grana Padano cheese (it's like Parmesan, only made in a different part of Italy).
Anita Lo, executive chef and owner of Annisa, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the West Village, stuffed her suitcase with white soy and yuzu juice for her cooking partner, one of the few Cuban chefs making sushi.
"For someone to push ahead and still try to do something that's almost impossible on this island …" Lo marveled, her voice trailing off. "Fish is hard to come by. Japanese ingredients are very hard to come by."
For all their sophistication, the New Yorkers, including several of whom have written books and appeared on cooking shows such as Iron Chef America, are also learning from the Cubans.
How to make do with what's available, for one thing. The Americans also had high praise for urban gardening in Havana, a local agroponic farm they visited where crops are grown without soil and a leafy, nutrient-rich green known as "maringa." Jenkins described it as "slightly citrusy with a weird spice … and an undercurrent of bitterness."
"Whether we'll ever see it again," she said, "to taste something new and like it and think it's interesting and how can you use it … it's fascinating."
Organizers said they hope the project may create opportunities for future culinary exchanges, perhaps a chef-in-residence program. More such exchanges have occurred since President Barack Obama loosened rules on so-called people-to-people travel to the island by Americans.
Curator Elizabeth Grady said "Project Paladar" is in a long tradition of food-related art projects and tries to invert the elitist dynamic of art festivals by inviting dishwashers and taxi drivers to sup alongside the well-heeled art enthusiasts who typically patronize events like the biennial. It also gets people from two feuding nations talking to each other, even if haltingly or through translators.
"The main point is to use food as a vehicle to create genuine dialogue," she said.
Call it kitchen diplomacy.
Based on reporting by the Associated Press.
The Loss of Self Esteem / Rebeca Monzo
The Loss of Self Esteem / Rebeca Monzo Rebeca Monzo, Translator: mlk
Some days ago I read in the international press a story entitled Serving, not servile, by the journalist from Juventude Rebelde (Rebel Youth), Jose Alejandro Rodriguez, where he laments the tendency of Cubans to appear servile to foreigners. In one of his paragraphs he said and I quote:
"Neither can it be forgotten, in order not to repeat it, that certain public institutions have well matched this neo-servile tendency when in a political double standard they demand certain attributes and guidelines of a Cuban in order to access not a few sites, in contrast with the permissive submission with which they treats the foreigner."
"If the Cuban were to travel more he would be able to see more and value more, by contrast, the good things of his country," he continues in another paragraph.
If there is a guilty party in all this deformation of the Cuban, it is due principally to the government which, during the last half century, has treated its own people like third class citizens. At first they enclosed us on this little island, without permitting us to have contact with the outside: that lasted several decades.
The only valid references were the Cuban dailies and some Soviet magazines. We who worked were prohibited from writing to our family or friends in capitalist countries, above all in Europe, on pain of losing our jobs. Remember that the State was the only employer. Likewise, particular trips were prohibited or extremely restricted.
All this served to intensify the material misery and therefore morale. A feeling of distress began to grow because of not possessing the most urgent articles, which was transformed little by little into envy towards those who had access to them. The few trips to the outside were for the party militants or the youth with the most proven loyalty to the regime. Here it began to get worse and to develop the double standard.
One had to pretend and pretend well in order to be deserving of the trust and, therefore, of the little trip that would permit us to breathe a little and to be able to bring shoes and clothes to our relatives, and in a plastic bag the little food that the airplane let us ingest, so that the child at home or the old one could enjoy it. Economizing to the max on food, although that would involve hunger, in order to return to the fatherland with a little money, plus the little soaps gathered in the hotels.
With the economic crisis at the beginning of the 1980's and the lack of tourism, flights from the Comunidad — Cubans abroad — were authorized. Those countrymen of ours who were denounced in meetings when they expressed the desire to leave, these same ones who were insulted and told never come back, now as if by magic would be converted from "worms" (the epithet that had been screamed at them), to butterflies and would come to save the country's weak economy and to fill a little the empty bellies of the relatives and even some of the neighbors of those who had been insulted.
I have here other manifestations of the double standard: lying to keep a job,lying to earn a little trip,lying to be able to enjoy a reunion with family and friends and lying to try to contain proportionate happiness, at least publicly.
Now, many years have passed, the Special Period that started at the beginning of the 1990's does not seem to have ended. Because of that, as soon as tourism began to increase, the siege of the visitors increased at the same time. The bid to see who is the most favored has made many men, women and even children seem like street clowns, trying to win over the foreigner, which is likewise a cunning way of begging.
One must not blame only the suffering people; one must consider the circumstances that have surrounded all this moral deterioration. When a society loses its civility, loses the family and all its values, anything can be expected from it.
Cuban pride is very battered. That national feeling that we used to have, that made us walk with our heads held high and treat others correctly, without difference, including the tourists, without having to lower our s ingratiate ourselves, we have been losing it almost without noticing.
The daily urgencies and the lack of good education, have made us underrate ourselves. I remember when I was a girl, for us a tourist was more ordinary. The only thing that sometimes made us turn our faces towards them was the bright attire that they wore.
As far as the flower vendors of Old Havana, I believe that the costume is excessive or unnecessary. It seems when one walks through the restored streets in that part of the city that one is moving on a movie set. This is too much for me, just like the flattery and mollycoddling that they dispense to the tourists provided that they buy the merchandise that they offer. It would seem that in the whole colonial zone, they were the estates of the big movie companies.
Translated by mlk
May 12 2012
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