Cuba faces aging problem
Cuba faces aging problemUpdated: 2012-03-31 10:46(Xinhua)
HAVANA – With more than 18 percent of Cubans now over 60 years old and a shrinking number of those under 14 years old, the island nation faces an aging problem, an official said Friday.
In just over a decade, the average age in Cuba will rise from 38 to 44, while 26 percent of the population will be around 60 years old and there will be a marked increase in age range over 80, Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, director of Center for Population and Development of NSB told delegates at an international meeting.
With a declining birth rate, "we will never reach the population of 12 million on the island," Fraga told the participants at the 8th National Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics, including Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Margaret Chan as well as representatives from ten countries.
Cuban experts say that housing problems, low wages and lack of baby products are among the major factors discouraging Cubans to have more children. Increasing social independence has also enabled Cuban women to have more power to decide on their pregnancy.
The NSB reported that the island's population stood at 11,241,161 at the end of 2010, 1,467 less compared to the number in 2009.
Cuba is already one of the most rapidly aging countries in Latin America along with Uruguay and Argentina, and is expected to lead that list in the near future.
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2012-03/31/content_14959665.htm
Two Are an Army / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Two Are an Army / Rosa María Rodríguez TorradoRosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: Unstated
They arrived early to "visit me" as a couple — as they generally do, whenever they are ordered to harass an opponent — young people of both sexes who identify themselves as agents from the Ministry of the Interior. The pretext was a survey conducted for the National Housing Directorate, and they wanted to know my opinions about the purchase and sale of houses and used cars.
The first inconsistency that jumped out at me was that they came to me directly, they knew my name and surnames and they didn't have the forms usual in such cases. However, they said, politely, that my participation was voluntary, but my husband had already invited them in — also politely — and they sat on my living room sofa quite disposed to chat. So despite such a phony pretense, I answered their questions honestly to see what the real motive was of their visit.
I answered questions and thought about the subliminal message I wanted to send to the gendarmes of the political police. But for someone who started in the human rights movement in Guanabo, in 1988, and has long since learned to interpret some behavioral codes of the officers of the Cuban State Security, why not speak out?
I thought — when it was my turn to listen — about the first part of the film The Godfather and the fish received by the 'family' of Vito Corleone wrapped in the bulletproof vest of his hitman Luca Brasi, to communicate that he had been murdered and lay at the bottom of the bay.
I concluded that they had been sent so I would not forget that "they" are there, paying attention to how much say and do — as exercising my freedom and rights is important to me — and they wanted to try, once again, to coerce me. They then raised the question that I found then — and still do — to be the key to that visit. Who is the owner of this home? I said it was me and they insisted, "And the title of the property is in your name?"
Summoning my husband in 1996 or 1997, the police threatened to take the apartment he had acquired with his father in 1959 and they stripped him of it in 2000; since then I have taken steps; the documentation that names me as the owner is not going to appear in any of the offices where one duly registers deeds.
We Cubans who live in this dictatorship and exercise freedom of conscience, are accustomed to the visible (and invisible) presence of the cops, who as devils of the guard, sent "to guard us and keep us" when they like; they attack us with diatribes and without right of reply, covertly harass us or not, sniff in our private lives and enter it without permission and with impunity. And not just threats, but when it's convenient, they carry them out.
Days later, friends in the area alerted me to the operation that was surrounding my house, which lasted seventy-two hours. It seems that the personnel graduated from the academies of the Ministry of the Interior must be hardened in the exercise against the peaceful dissident through maneuvers that these days, in practice, are more costly than effective.
Anyway, although they threatened me they did not intimidate me. They only reaffirmed the precedent of using its enormous power, among others, to join the gang against those who disagree with their policies and express it freely and publicly, although his ideas are driven by a commitment to the homeland.
It doesn't matter how many agents repress us; they are members of the military that responds only to the interests of one party and have the strength and ammunition to try to quell — in vain — the libertarian aspirations of this peaceful and defenseless woman, who like others, only grasps the "weapon" of her words.
March 20 2012
Small business takes root in the new Cuba
Small business takes root in the new CubaBy Katie Derosa, Times Colonist March 18, 2012 8:29 AM
In central Havana, not far from Revolutionary Square, a teal mural sports the words "Defend Socialism" in white capital letters. Just steps from the square, a sign says "53 years since our victory," referring to the communist revolution.
Despite the trappings, there are subtle fissures in the social fabric that Fidel Castro fought so hard to keep seamless during his reign. His younger brother, President Raul Castro, is making major concessions, allowing more Cubans to open up small businesses and make a living outside a meagre state-issued paycheque. They are concessions experts say are needed for the country to survive.
Before the economic reforms in late 2010, only 140,000 people in Cuba's workforce of four million- less than three per cent – were self-employed.
Approximately 350,000 Cubans have now been granted smallbusiness licences and that number is likely to grow.
Some ferry tourists across the cobblestone streets of Havana on three-wheeled bikes. Others have set up stands selling books, handmade jewelry, wooden trinkets and artwork, most of which immortalizes celebrated revolutionary figure Che Guevara.
Ernesto Estrada, 33, takes a taxi 20 kilometres every day from his home in Matanzas City to Varadero, the tourism heart of this tiny island, to work at his uncle's stand in a popular market. It costs him $2, but he quickly notes that's the fare for him, not tourists – most taxi drivers will charge $10 for tourists heading a few kilometres.
Estrada is encouraged by the new self-employment policy touted by Raul Castro.
"The government start to open the life for Cuban people," he said, pausing from his work to talk to me during a trip to the country in late February. "It's better for us," he added. "The pay [in Cuba] is very bad."
If his uncle sells $100 worth of portable wooden chess sets, carved wooden turtles or maps of Cuba painted on pieces of leather, Estrada will make $10 that day. That's not bad, considering most Cubans make $20 a month.
Estrada is trying to save money to open a stand of his own.
When the self-employment policy was announced in September 2010, Raul Castro promised to eliminate up to one million publicsector jobs by 2015, laying off 500,000 people by March 2011.
Archibald Ritter, an economist at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University who specializes in the Cuban economy, said the roll-out of the plan was a disaster. Layoffs had to be drastically scaled back, because the government had yet to liberalize the private sector or lift the debilitating restrictions on small business.
While some of the limitations on small businesses have been lifted, Ritter said they don't go far enough.
Up until November 2010, a private restaurant could only have 12 chairs. Now, restaurants can have 50 chairs.
Small businesses can employ a maximum of five people – an improvement from banning employees altogether.
The government still prohibits professional activities from being sold in a small-business enterprise. Businesses like accounting services, engineering consultancies and private law offices, which fill phone books in North America, are not allowed in Cuba.
The government is allowing many state-run businesses to shift to private enterprises selling the exact same service.
Ritter said this will make the economy more efficient, eliminating the complex and bureaucratic hierarchy that regulates state-run services.
"You have to have a big bureaucracy to organize everything. If they're just operated by little family firms, then each one is independent – they rise or fall depending on the demand they produce. So it's a direct relationship between the entrepreneur and the customer."
Francisco Yoslay, a charming, fashionably dressed 30-year-old, paced outside a cigar shop popular with tourists, briskly asking if they wanted fine Cuban cigars.
"Cohibas, I have Cohibas, very good price," he said with a smile.
Yoslay insists he gets them from family members who work in the state-run factory. Without having to pay the store commission, he can sell them at a better rate.
I asked if he considers himself a businessman and he replied: "Always."
"It's better than working for the government," he said, before leading me down a secluded alleyway to show off his wares.
Most people will tell you cigars not sold from behind a store counter are black market, but Yoslay's pitch was convincing. He rolled the thick Cohiba in his palms to show that the tobacco wouldn't fall out. He let customers smell the pungent aroma and showed off the engraved, cedar wood Cohiba box. One Canadian tourist took him up on the offer and bought 10 for 60 convertible pesos ($60).
Some of the government's draconian restrictions have led Cubans to cheat the system by stealing or selling services under the table.
Ritter said during a trip to Cuba last year, he was walking by a state-run cigar factory when he struck up a conversation with a night watchman.
The security guard asked Ritter if he wanted some cigars and led him to a cache of stolen cigars that he was selling out of the security booth.
- – -
Most Cubans live on a monthly income of $20 US, even though their country has a large professional workforce. The government provides people with housing, food rations, education and medical care.
As much as the ideology of socialism demands that there be no class divisions among the people, two distinct classes have emerged. There are those who work in the tourism business and those who don't.
More than two million tourists a year visit the Caribbean nation, providing the country with one of its main sources of revenue.
Waiters, bartenders, taxi drivers, tour guides and housekeepers are in the enviable position of making tips in Cuban convertible pesos, which are worth 25 times more than the Cuban peso.
Ismary Castillo, a waitress at a resort buffet in Varadero, is an engineer by profession. She took the job waiting tables to support her extended family. In addition to tips, tourists also shower her with a host of North American consumer goods – things like shampoo, makeup and brand-name clothes. Most of the coveted items go to her 17-year-old daughter, who is studying to get into a university architecture program.
Castillo said her daughter, Isis, sometimes gets frustrated studying and working so hard for what will be little pay in the future.
"My daughter, she say, 'Mom, why I study here? There is nothing.' I say, 'It's your future. If you do go to another country, you have to be a professional.' She says, 'But you're an engineer and you're waitressing.' But I'm always an engineer. I have that."
Hamet Manson Guerra, 42year-old, is a taxi driver, barman and mechanic. He has two sons, ages 15 and seven, whom he's encouraging to learn English fluently in the hopes that when they are older, they'll be able to leave the country for opportunities abroad.
Cubans are not allowed to leave the country unless they marry a non-Cuban, are artists or intellectuals or are sponsored by someone outside the country. Those who leave rarely come back for fear of reprisals.
"The people want to see a difference, they want to feel more freedom, you know what I mean?" said Guerra, wearing a crisp white shirt and perspiring in the hot Havana sun while taking a break from his taxi service. "The people can buy house, can sell it, can buy car, can buy the engines."
Guerra said the move to allow more small businesses is evident on the bustling streets of Havana.
"You can see – everybody have a small cafeteria, people open some restaurants, they drive the three-wheeled taxis," he said.
Santiago Pons said he makes good money running a taxi service in Varadero.
"It's a good business now – it's good money, driving taxi," he said from behind the wheel of a shiny white 1955 Cadillac Eldorado with a red interior and a loud engine.
"This is the only one in Cuba," he said with pride.
Pons also makes money repairing cars, a steady business given that most Cuban cars are decades old, thanks to the ban on foreign imports. "You [meet] many people, it's a nice job," he said.
Ritter doesn't see Cuba's economic reforms as a major shift in ideology so much as a necessary move to keep the economy afloat.
"It means that the regime is trying to save itself," he said. "The Castro brothers have been the dominating force for more than half a century. They want to get the economy working well, but with themselves in power."
http://www.timescolonist.com/travel/Small+business+takes+root+Cuba/6320913/story.html
Cuban arrivals exceed budget
Cuban arrivals exceed budgetBy: Brent Fuller | brent@cfp.ky16 March, 2012
The Cayman Islands will end up spending close to $250,000 on services for 'refugees' in the current government budget; mostly to support and house Cuban boat migrants who end up landing illegally on the territory's shores.
The government initially budgeted about $28,000 for those services.
Since the end of 2008, Cayman has not seen many migrants floating in its waters on makeshift craft looking to get from here to Central America and eventually up through Mexico into the United States.
However, last year, as the Cuban economy took a downturn, immigration officials warned of an influx in Cuban migrants heading our way. By the end of November 2011, there were 36 Cuban migrants being housed in temporary trailers at the Immigration Detention Centre in George Town.
The trailers – which were the same ones used as temporary housing in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 – are empty again as the two groups of migrants who came over in October and November from Cayman Brac have been sent home.
The problem of budgeting for Cuban refugees has plagued the Cayman Islands government before. In previous years, government has seen budget estimates of $60,000 for refugee care balloon to $600,000 because large numbers of migrants inadvertently arrived in the Cayman Islands.
In addition, government officials have said additional costs may have to be incurred in dealing with Cuban migrant housing.
One of the matters being considered in the upcoming review of the local prison system is whether to move the women's prison from the Fairbanks location to an area at the men's lock up at Northward.
The proposal would free up space at Fairbanks for the Immigration Detention Centre, which has been shuttered because it is unsafe. The idea is to move the Cuban migrants detained in the Cayman Islands to the former women's prison, once it is cleared out.
Portfolio of Internal and External Affairs Chief Officer Eric Bush said it was largely a matter of funding as to when that move might happen.
"It certainly couldn't happen this budget year," he said.
http://www.compasscayman.com/caycompass/2012/03/16/Cuban-arrivals-exceed-budget/
The Machinery of Information / Eliécer Avila
The Machinery of Information / Eliécer Avila Eliécer Ávila, Translator: Unstated
“We will defend the truth with our morals and our principals”
No one denies that the great information media, especially those with a global reach, often reflect the influences of the economic-political circles of power that lead, plan and cause the principal international events. But it is also true that no one can control all global information. And citizens who, today, are the race of the internet, and media of all types, can count on infinite range of contrasts, positions, points of view and opinions that offer a marvelously rich view of events.
We Cubans who live under a government with a closed ideology that controls all internal media (press, radio, television), lose the chance to see the whole spectrum of current ideas and we can’t enjoy a sense of being citizens of the world. Here, information is something else: it is illegal, dishonorable, useless and trivial for the common man; it is dangerous, subversion and harmful to the health of minds.
On this particular subject a panel of young people discussed our points of view in one of the incomparable Estado de Sats encounters. But not even years of analysis could reflect all the complexities of this theme in Cuba. Here they juggle information and news. And an entire industry has developed involving all the institutions, organizations and individuals who can issue any type of content aimed at the people.
Nothing emerges from a microphone, or shows up on a screen or on printed paper that has not been analyzed and approved by real experts in doctrine, who are very clear on (because it has been made known to them from above) what the objectives to be pursued are, which are the states of opinion that are needed with respect to determined topics, and even what is the mood they have to provoke in the population in days around some date or in special contexts of the politics of the country.
This is the method by which the whole machine operates. And every journalist, commentator, broadcaster, and even the supposed interviewees who appear on the media have been meticulously chosen among those who are able — with a very specific opinion — to demonstrate their “general” approval or condemnation according to which is appropriate in each case.
So, for example, if they are going to “review” any action taken by the State, they already know that all those interviewed will speak wonders about it, for the rule is always to not be too obvious, so within the interviews there will always be someone who will level some mild criticism on the quality or availability of things, and say, “Well, I must say that we are not satisfied with what we’ve accomplished, because we know there are still shortcomings, but we think that we can continue to work in the future to get the results we’re hoping for and that the top leadership of the country is calling on us to achieve.”
This methodology, however, is not reserved for the internal environment. It’s best when it people from outside offer their views on Cuban subjects. People who regularly issue such opinions are principally conditioned by the influence and impact of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in the context of its time and the measures taken here; in this way Cuba is completely devoted to maintaining the external image that it holds in the eyes of many romantic leftists.
Normally, those who speak to the Cuban press must meet the profile of people who are clearly leftists, at times leaders of socialist or communist parties who have twenty members in their own countries, and at the most some deputy in the congress. Cuban TC will show them speaking all over the country, praising to the skies what Cuba has done. And they sell us on these people as “eminent personalities,” who couldn’t be wrong when they offer an opinion on a subject.
None of these people who idolize the Cuban government could live a single month with the work and the ration book that we have. None of them would get into one of our “transports.” None could live a single day in a palm leaf “house” with a dirt floor and a hole in the ground out in the open for their “needs” like many Cubans whom I know in the countryside where I was born, as well as others I’ve seen on the outskirts and even in the center of any city.
None of these sympathizers would eat the strange pasta and the bad smelling stuff called “hash,” after standing in a brutal line to purchase it in a shop. None of them would resign themselves to never being able to travel because even if we saved for a hundred years our Cuban salaries couldn’t buy an airline ticket much less all the things just to live, mainly food. None could lead a life completely lacking in the internet and all technologies and access to things that for them are normal.
Most of those who praise the Cuban system refer, tediously and repetitively, to the issues of health and education and, despite the mountain of problems both present in Cuba, it is true that access to those services is better than in many countries in the world. But what these eternal sycophants don’t realize that we spend about one percent of our lives in the classroom or the hospital, and the other ninety-nine plus percent of the time we are lacking absolutely everything a person needs to live: food, clothes, shoes, housing, home appliances, transportation, infrastructure, opportunities, information, freedom.
The world today in the Cuban media
The media in Cuba reflect events in a totally different way than they are reflected worldwide, and hide information that is vital to understanding these events. During the conflict in Libya, our media showed Gaddafi as a legitimate and good leader totally supported by his people, while all those opposed to him were “mercenaries, traitors and insurgents.” We never had access to the information that anyone in the world could access about the rule of law in Libya, not about what Gaddafi and his family had one with the country’s wealth, nor about their exotic lifestyles (he was the Lady Gaga of heads of state). Nor did we know anything about the plans of the insurgents.
Later events increasingly refuted the claims of our media: the people wanted nothing to do with Gaddafi and the brave young rebels were not wrong. Today Cuba maintains total silence about the state of Libya and only mentions it to speak of the method the United States used to overthrow a government “established by the people.”
On the other hand, support for the rebels is presented as interference in internal affairs. Then we have to remember that Cuba meddles in the internal affairs of a few countries, doing exactly the same things: training guerillas, financing and arming secret armies, and sending troops and weapons.
Now, the same thing is happening in the Cuban media with Syria and the issue of nuclear arms in Iran. And I’m not saying that what the West or the United States government is saying should be repeated without question, nor do I believe that there is an absolute right to take part in any sense in these conflicts, because in these cases there are usually reasons and points of view in all directions. But Cuba is determined to hide the information, the debates, the arguments of all those they consider enemies, and only announce constantly the positions of the “friendly” government in question, and what any citizen who supports the government (which there will always be, everywhere, of course) has to say, but this is not the full reality and our people need to have the greatest quantity and variety of information to understand what is really happening.
Faced with the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly on Syria, the Cuban media talk of an international conspiracy against the government of that country, and show the Russian, Chinese and Venezuelan views with respect to it, as if these three countries were the only ones who spoke and argued their position. But why not also show the speeches of the countries that voted for the resolution, which were most of them?
This framework of disinformation or of “highly selective information,” which is the same thing, provides an opportunity for some “enlightened ones” to undertake futuristic analyses that is nothing more than a combination of information available online for anyone in the better part of the world, and their “brilliant conclusions” that any Cuban child who had the access and information privileges of these specialists could get.
Cuban leaders speculate with the information they access the same way they speculate with almost everything that they prohibit to the people. They avoid at all costs allowing Cubans to have access to information because they want people to focus on work “each one to his task,” while they take charge of informing us. And for that they spend millions on mechanisms, systems, people and equipment for the control of ideas and minds.
This responds to a harsh reality which urgently needs to be realized: those who live in the thick of power will not let go until the people take it from them, and before the leave for good, they will finish off a few, or all if necessary.
This article appeared in Diario de Cuba.
10 March 2012
Who Are the Real Anti-Cubans? / Estado de Sats, Antonio G. Rodiles
Who Are the Real Anti-Cubans? / Estado de Sats, Antonio G. RodilesEstado de Sats / State of Sats, Translator: Unstated
Once again, State Security uses the old tactic of trying to discredit, given its inability to come to a public debate of arguments and ideas. A debate that would have a long-awaited end, because absolutely nobody can hide the ruin they have brought to the Cuban nation. They razed it and follow by trying to sweep it up. On this occasion the attacks have been directed at the Estado de Sats project and directly at my person.
I feel the need to contextualize this reply because otherwise we would lose the true perspective of what is happening. It is no coincidence that this barrage of distortions and speculations comes from Cuba Debate, the page of Fidel Castro and his employees.
To begin, let me clarify that with regards to my family history (I'm not talking about Division General Samuel Rodiles Planas, I am speaking exclusively of Manuel. G. Rodilas Planas, my father), I have a direct version of our recent history somewhat different from the official one. This is why I can understand perfectly the root of this despicable tactic of personally attacking the dissenter, from which flow the use of lies, manipulation, contempt for the other, as indispensable and essential tools.
The root has a name, Fidel Castro and company.
There are several questions I want to share publicly, and believe me, there are still more. I ask myself:
Who really has defrauded the Cuban people?
Who has despised our rights?
Who are the real traitors?
It's time to review a little history and to ask Fidel Castro and company directly, although they refuse to answer us, as they always have.
Who deceived that group of pilots and offended ad nauseam a person of the quality of Félix Pena, forcing him to commit suicide?
Who crushed the independence of the judiciary a few days after January of 1959?
Who lied again and again, in the face of a whole people, saying he was not a Communist and that the Revolution was as green as the palm trees?
Who sentenced Huber Matos to 20 years in prison on charges of slandering the Revolution for saying it would impose communism?
Who manipulated the Cuban people saying, "Elections? What for?" in order to remain in power?
Who is responsible for the execution of scores of Cubans?
Who deceived the people into believing that Fidel Castro participated in the combat on April 19 at the Bay of Pigs, where he was not really present?
Who left the extraordinary young man Pedro Luis Boitel to die on a hunger strike?
Who has subjected thousands of prisoners, political and common, to inhuman conditions and degrading treatment?
Who stripped the fruits of their labor from thousands of Cuban families promising them a prosperity that has never arrived?
Who, to satisfy delusions of grandeur, sent thousands of young Cubans to die in Africa?
Who authorized and encouraged the outrage toward thousands of Cubans wishing to leave the country, stoning their houses and provoking violence and now takes advantage of the remittances sent by their families to support a delusional and inefficient system?
Who has forced a whole people to live in conditions of hardship for so many years?
Who are the principals responsible for the destruction of the entire industry, infrastructure, agriculture, and housing of a nation? Who governs the country based on decisions and whims that show only a great ignorance and arrogance?
Who authorized the sinking of the 13 de Marzo tugboat that killed about forty people, mostly children and women? I still remember the cynicism of Fidel Castro in front of the television cameras, saying it had been an accident.
Who ordered the midair pulverizing of two unarmed civilian planes and unscrupulously ended the lives of four people?
Who is ultimately responsible for the execution, before a firing squad and after a summary trial, of three youths in 2003?
Who ordered the brutal punishment of 75 political dissidents, for the mere fact of being free men?
Who ordered the violent humiliation of a group of defenseless women demanding the release of their husbands and of all Cubans?
Who is responsible for the death of the young man Orlando Zapata Tamayo who asked only that he not be subjected to more beatings?
Who ordered the death of Wilman Villar Mendoza? Who ordered him to be taken to the hospital only when there was no longer any chance of saving him?
Who used violence, terror and death as a form of punishment? A practice that began from the time of the Sierra Maestra and which has always been the face paint in a theater of legality.
How many deaths are on your shoulders, how many?
Who is responsible for the stampede of Cubans seeking to leave behind at all costs a situation that overwhelms them? Who is responsible for the dead in the Straits of Florida? Who is responsible for so many separated families?
Those responsible are themselves the real traitors, are the true anti-Cubans, they are those who panic when there is talk of a Cuba where everyone has a voice. All their arguments are hollow words trying to deflect the finger pointing to the accused, to the principals responsible for our national tragedy.
As for us, we have little left to lose, they have managed, over 53 long years, to ruin our nation, they have managed to impose misery. At least show some embarrassment at the end.
Because however much they hold on they are out of time, Cubans are tired of their excesses. The future, where there will be no room for hatred and slovenliness, is knocking on our doors.
8 March 2011
"Occupy" in Havana / Laritza Diversent
"Occupy" in Havana / Laritza DiversentLaritza Diversent, Translator: Regina Anavy
On the periphery of Havana, in the Alamar district,cases of illegal squatters inunoccupied buildingsare proliferating. The Government and the Municipal Housing Division (DMV), the entities in charge of solving the problem, are simply targets for the numerous complaints and pleas of the population.
"You're not on the list of priority cases, there are people worse off, and they haven't committed an offense like you," said Rita, president of the Alamar Government, to Iris, on Thursday Feb. 9, in an interview, togetherwith the DMV Legal Subdirector.
Iris Ruiz, the wife of the OMNI-ZONAFRANCA coordinator, and her 6 small children, occupied the apartment 4 months ago, Number 1 of the Building E-83, Zone 9 Alamar, where they currently live without water or electricity. Her family was declared an illegal occupant by Resolution 1608/2011, which establishes that "in 2004 the house was confiscated, after the definitive exit of the owner, who went to the U.S."
"It's uncertain that the house was confiscated," said Iris. "The Director of the DMV told me that the apartment is not included in the housing stock. After 2004, two people lived there. One of them is still on the records of Betty, the president of the CDR, even though they abandoned the country more than 5 years ago."
"They left this apartment ruined, while other people needed it," Iris added. Neighbors say a DMV inspector visited the site several times with apparent illegal buyers for the property.
"Rosaura, a neighbor of this building, has a son who had a heart operation, and she lives together with 10 people; Estela, a neighbor at Building E-79, has a paraplegic daughter and needs to live on the ground floor. These are two of the parties who tried to get the unoccupied apartment. The Government's response was negative, because "the apartment is already taken."
Who gets priority? Iris wonders.
According to the President of the Government of Alamar, at the municipal level no institution has the power to assign housing. Since 2006, this functionhas been the responsibility of the Provincial Government. "Only from me can you get an apartment, since our mission is to combat illegal behavior," Rita warned Iris, after showing her the extensive list of squatters, waiting for eviction by the authorities.
Yaneisy, known as "the Twin,"already has lived through the experience of an eviction. She's had a social-work case-file in the Alamar DMV for 16 years. Some time ago, she illegally occupied an apartment. "Theyevicted me with my 2 young children and put all my belongings on the street. They told me I should go back to my place of origin: a 2-room apartment, where 12 people were living together," she said.
The housing shortage is a sad reality that increasingly affects a larger number of Cubans. Those scattered around by the usual shortage can't afford to pay monthly rent for housing, let alone buy a house, whose prices don't invite optimism.
Translated by Regina Anavy
March 6 2012
How to rebuild Cuba’s decaying infrastructure after 50 years of neglect
Posted on Saturday, 03.03.12
How to rebuild Cuba's decaying infrastructure after 50 years of neglectBY ANDY GOMEZ AND HELENA SOLO-GABRIELEagomez@miami.edu
When Pope Benedict arrives in Cuba later this month he will not only find a country in need of spiritual healing but one also in need of physical repair.
As Nicolas Quintana, the late renown architect and former Florida International University professor, once noted: "Cuba and its capital, La Habana, are an architectural urban crown jewel where time has stood still for 50 years. It is this architecture, the symbol of Cuba's infrastructure, that has illustrated the creativity, and artistic talents of its people."
However, during these 50 years, the exquisite architecture of the country has been allowed to deteriorate — deteriorate to the point where safety is an issue. In the last several weeks, a number of buildings in Cuba have come tumbling down, some in the middle of the night while people slept inside. This is a clear sign of the desperate need for housing repairs.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union when money stopped flowing in, the infrastructure of Cuba is in shambles. The shortage of housing in Havana has created slums all over the city. The housing stock has not kept up with the population, resulting in over-population. Although deterioration is widespread in Havana, it is even worse in the countryside (outside of tourist areas) where there are little to no investments in new housing.
It is not just the buildings that need repair. The water supply system loses about half of its drinking water because of leaks. The lack of adequate sewage collection causes the contamination of waterways, which in some cases drain in the direction of drinking water supplies. The entire energy infrastructure, from refineries to power-generating plants to electrical grids to local wiring, is in an advanced state of decay. Ground transport is characterized by deteriorating roadways. These are just a few of the needs for updating the infrastructure of a country that has not been adequately maintained for the last 50 years.
Rebuilding Cuba's infrastructure will take money and people.
Considerable investments are needed in the housing market, including the significant repair or new construction of over 400,000 new homes within the capital and 1.6 million new dwelling units for the entire country. Major investments are needed to repair and upgrade the deteriorating water distribution and wastewater collection networks. The existing power system would benefit from investments to increase generating capacity. In all, Cuba's infrastructure needs many tens of billions of dollars — money impossible to raise given the current political and economic climate within the country.
With respect to people, there is a huge human resource among which the restoration of Cuba's infrastructure can draw. Within the very talented groups of professionals are those with an incredible passion towards Cuba. This passion is seen among people both within the island and outside. As Father Jose Luis Menendez of Corpus Christi Parish in Miami states, "Cuba lives on two shores, each shore representing a lung with a pulmonary artery and pulmonary vein that connects it to one heart, a heart that yearns for a vibrant, and free Cuba. It is by having this heart beat as one that Cuba will be able to return back to life."
This can be accomplished by having professionals from both sides of the Florida Straits come together to develop and implement a plan to rebuild Cuba, a plan that will upgrade its sanitation, transportation, and electrical infrastructure while at the same time providing sufficient and safe housing. Our hope is to transform the deterioration into a plan for restoration and rebuilding, that takes advantage of the creativity, ingenuity, and passion of its people.
The implementation of such a plan will require large financial investments as well as a commitment by the people in and out of Cuba to work together. In reality, such a commitment will likely require a deterioration of the political and economic policies currently in place by Raúl Castro. Only when these governmental and political obstacles crumble will Cuba be able to mend its broken "heart" and return back to a prosperous country capable of meeting the basic needs of its people.
Andy S. Gomez is a professor and senior fellow at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, and Helena Solo-Gabriele is associate dean for research at the UM College of Engineering.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/03/2672189/how-to-rebuild-cubas-decaying.html
Cuban leader calls for ban lifting on housing construction
Cuban leader calls for ban lifting on housing constructionLast Updated(Beijing Time):2012-03-02 16:44
Cuban leader Raul Castro has called on his cabinet to lift the existing ban on housing construction and "focus more on important issues" so as to speed up the expansion of the housing sector.
The official daily Granma on Thursday quoted the Cuban leader as saying "As we repeatedly have stated, the solution is not to prohibit building, but to indicate where and how" .
Raul Castro made the remarks last Friday at a meeting of the Council of Ministers. The meeting was aimed at addressing the housing shortage in the country.
According to official statistics, at least 600,000 housing units are needed in an urgent manner in Cuba while thousands of buildings and houses are in urgent need for repair work.
The Institute of Physical Planning and the authorities should focus on addressing the problems, Raul Castro said.
"The housing need can not be ground for illegalities, and when these occur, the Attorney General's Office and the Ministry of Interior have the authority to deal with them and the offenders without offering space for impunity," said Castro.
He also encouraged the Institute of Physical Planning and the National Housing Institute (INV) to improve their work "to ensure an adequate response to the transformations in housing and urban development currently undertaken on the island".
As part of his ambitious reform agenda, the Cuban leader authorized in November the private sale and purchase of houses among Cubans, liberated the sale of construction materials and ordered the national bank system to grant credits for housing construction and subsidies to families who live in "vulnerable conditions".
http://en.ce.cn/World/Americas/201203/02/t20120302_23124690.shtml
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