Tag Archives: Emigration

PARADOXICAL CUBA: THREE SCENARIOS

Geopolitical Intelligence Services AG, Politics.

February 3, 2022

Anthony Maingot

Original Article


The Cuban regime struggles to reconcile its ideological commitment with a populace that has few ties to the revolution. The likely consequence is enduring state repression.

In a nutshell

  • Cubans are increasingly removed from the revolution
  • Reforms are unlikely to come from anywhere but the military
  • Increasing state repression is most likely

For over six decades Cubans have lived under two ideological stipulations: that they owe the revolution and its leaders total, undivided loyalty; and that they accept socialism, not capitalism, as the reigning economic system, now and forever. But today’s regime struggles to uphold these mandates. Though governed by a Leninist elite, only 15 percent of Cubans experienced the enthusiasm of the Revolution’s early days, times that are now a distant memory.

The erosion in the revolutionary spirit is evident in the estimated million and a half Cubans who have self-exiled, and the continued search for visas to the United States or Spain. Most fundamentally, it is clear in the repeated explosions of public protests, such as the “Maleconazo” protest of 1994, the November 2020 “sit down” of artists before the Ministry of Culture, and the recent, massive “Patria y Vida” demonstrations in several major cities. A social mobilization program for November 15 of this year was quashed by the repressive actions of military, police, and armed members of the Communist Party.


August 5, 1994 protests in Havana: the “Maleconazo “

And still further evidence of this erosion is found in the posture of the majority of intellectuals who reject Marxist economic organization and opt for opening the society to private enterprise and international trade.

Influential Cubans in the diaspora have been quick to identify the growing agitation for reform as an inevitable social movement. Arguably, among the earliest observers of this shift toward demands for greater freedom of economic activities is the dean of exiled economists, Carmelo Mesa-Lago, who sees the reform process as “unstoppable” and predicts that if the leadership tried to reverse it, “people will simply ignore them … [and] the possibility of revolt will increase.”  In a similar tone, veteran researcher William LeoGrande predicts that “how Cuba’s institutions adapt to this new reality will be the principal determinant shaping the future of Cuban politics.”

How, then, to unravel in an intelligible way the probable future of this paradoxical socialist system? Three scenarios are suggested, each with the degree of probable occurrence indicated.

Resistance to reform

The most likely scenario is enduring and increasing state repression, as opportunistic economic reforms move along at a snail’s pace.

At no time will these reforms be allowed to threaten the existing political establishment. It took 10 years to implement the timid legalization of private occupations (cuentapropismo) of February 2021; and, even then, the most profitable occupations, such as doctors, lawyers and engineers were excluded.

The ability of the dictatorship to overcome challenges to the system has been amply demonstrated.

Despite this hesitancy, some experts maintain that there are at least five factors that make it impossible to retain repressive policies: the domestic economic crisis; the absence of any significant guarantees by a foreign geopolitical ally such as the Soviet Union or Venezuela; the loss of the monopoly over social media; what Fidel and Raul Castro repeatedly identified as the sclerotic self-preservation of the bureaucratic class; and, contextualizing all the above, the pressures exerted by two generations exhausted from decades of food shortages and a lack of liberties.

And yet, all of that said, the ability of the dictatorship to overcome innumerable challenges to the system has not only been amply demonstrated, but stiffens the spine of these heavily invested in its survival. Of course, it also motivates those determined to reform the system.

Playas del Este, Preparing to Emigrate, 1994
Did they make it?

Diaspora investment

An outcome with a low probability over the short-to-medium term hinges on whether the U.S. Congress modifies or abolishes the Helms-Burton Act, which governs American relations with Cuba, and the Cuban government changing its prohibition of investments from the Cuban diaspora. Should these events take place (regardless of which comes first), there exists in the Cuban community abroad a real nostalgia for their erstwhile country and arguably more capital – through remittances and direct foreign investments – than could be available from U.S. foreign aid or international lending agencies.

Potential changes in the sugar sector are one prominent, potential outcome. The traditional Cuban saying, “sin azucar no hay pais” – without sugar, there is no country – describes one of the great ironies of the nation divided between island and diaspora.

The case of the Fanjul family is illustrative. With their sugar holdings expropriated by the Revolution, the Fanjuls invested what they managed to get out of Cuba in Florida sugar. By 2019, the Fanjul Corporation was worth $8 billion and produced 7 million tons of cane – six times what Cuba as a whole produced that year. The senior Fanjul, Alfonso (“Alfy”), traveled to Cuba in 2012 and 2013 and, “with tears in his eyes,” visited his family’s colonial-era home.  He told the Washington Post that “under special circumstances” he would be willing to invest in Cuba: namely, Cuba would have to roll back many of its baked-in, anti-free trade and private property laws and take a more positive attitude toward the Cuban American community. Partly because of the opposition of powerful Cuban American politicians, chances of either happening in the near or medium term at the moment seem very slim.

Military-led reform

A scenario with very long odds but one that is not to be ignored would see the rise of a modernizing Cuban military.

The Cuban government is certainly conscious of the possibility. Most telling is their reaction to the recent seminar held at the University of St. Louis campus in Madrid where the role of the Cuban military was discussed. In a presentation to the conference, former Spanish President Felipe Gonzalez described the role of the Spanish armed forces in making possible the transition to democracy. Other cases discussed were those of Peru, Venezuela, and Turkey. Among the Cubans present were Yunior Garcia Aguilera, the main leader of the Archipelago Movement, and veteran oppositionist Manuel Cuesta Morua.

The former was later forcefully confined to his house before going into exile; the latter incarcerated. Meanwhile, in a subsequent Cuban television program, a “secret agent” called Leonardo revealed that he had been present at the conference, which he described as “a training seminar on how to subvert the Cuban military.”

Some 25 percent of the Central Committee of the CCP’s Political Bureau belong to the military. They are managing an estimated 75 percent of the economy. The military, with its 35,000 members – and not the 800,000 members of the Communist Party – is now the leadership institution in Cuba. (Bloomberg published a revealing report on General Luis Alberto Rodríguez, chairman of the largest business empire in Cuba, a conglomerate that comprises at least 57 companies owned by the military.)

Who is going to manage affairs if the command structures of the state are dismantled?

As is the case in all modernizing militaries, they manage their holdings under a rigid set of financial benchmarks – a decidedly capitalist administrative mode.  This veritable military-economic oligarchy fits a category, the “modernizing oligarchy,” that is well known in the sociology of development as defined by Edward Shils: political systems controlled by bureaucratic and/or military officer cliques, in which democratic constitutions have been suspended and where the modernizing impulse takes the form of concern for efficiency and rationality. 

“Modernizing oligarchies,” says Mr. Shils, “are usually strongly motivated toward economic development.”  Samuel Huntington also notes that multiparty systems which promote freedom and social mobility lose the concentration of power necessary for undertaking reforms. “Since the prerequisite of reform is the consolidation of power, first attention is given to the creation of an efficient, loyal, rationalized, and centralized army: military power must be unified,” he writes.

Although a long shot, it cannot be disregarded that it might be the military that will set the developmental priorities and enforce them in the initial stages of the reforms most of Cuba seem to yearn for.

Scenarios

The task facing any prospective reformers is an enormous one, since all economic sectors were placed under state control in 1976. In addition, key preconditions for a modern capitalist economy – such as a proper legal system or tax code, and capital markets – do not exist. The punitive U.S. embargo does more than just cut them off from international lending agencies; it is one of the most all-around onerous embargoes ever imposed by the American government.

Given all this, who is going to manage affairs if the command structures of the state are dismantled? In particular, who is going to limit the grabbing of major parts of the privatized structures by criminal gangs – as occurred when the Soviet system was dismantled? Scholars such as the Canadian military historian Hal Klepak and the exiled Cuban sociologist Haroldo Dilla argue that only the military can pull this off.  Interestingly, Messrs. Klepak’s and Dilla’s conclusions mirror those of two RAND scholars, who decades ago made a recommendation that flew in the face of the “gambler’s fallacy” that has governed Washington’s approach since the beginning of this conflict.

Policymakers, they argued, should be prepared to shift policy tracks or possibly recombine different elements from two or more options. One of the options recommended was to explore “informational exchanges and confidence-building measures” between the American and Cuban armed forces. Their reasoning is based on sound sociology: “Of all the state institutions, the military and security organs remain most critical to the present and future survival of the regime.” And, one might counterintuitively add, the only ones capable of reforming it.

The third scenario might indeed be a long shot, but the military is the only institution that, if the situation arises, has a chance to pull off reform of that calcified regime

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

EL EURO SUPERA LA BARRERA DE LOS 100 PESOS CUBANOS EN EL MERCADO NEGRO

La desesperación por migrar de la Isla aumenta la disposición de los cubanos a pagar más por las divisas

Natalia López Moya, La Habana

14 y medio,  Enero 20, 2022

Articulo Original: Emigración el Euro y el Peso

Una avalancha de cubanos desesperados recorre las redes, en busca de divisas. La elevada demanda contrasta con una escasa oferta, lo que ha hecho que se disparen los precios tanto del dólar, que llega a alcanzar los 95 pesos, como del euro, que por primera vez en su historia se canjea a más de 100.

“Pago los euros a 101 CUP si son más de 2.000”, decía un anuncio este mismo jueves en uno de los grupos de clasificados cubanos.

La furia migratoria y el desespero por escapar de la Isla aumentan la disposición de los cubanos a pagar más por estas monedas extranjeras. Desde que el pasado 22 de noviembre, Nicaragua anunció el libre visado para los cubanos, miles se volcaron a la compra de divisas para pagar los altos precios de los pasajes a Managua, desde donde continuar camino hacia Estados Unidos.

Las tasas de cambio informales suben a diario, y de nada sirve, por ahora, aguardar un cambio en la tendencia. “Ayer estaba a 76 pesos el dólar, pero yo quiero esperar a que baje porque quiero comprar 10.000”, comentaba Aimara hace apenas dos semanas. “Lo vendí todo para poder irme vía Nicaragua, y tengo que sacar el mayor provecho a mi dinero, aunque si sigue subiendo tendré que comprarlos a como esté”, contó a 14ymedio. Los acabó comprando por 80, finalmente, hace unos días.

“Lo vendí todo para poder irme vía Nicaragua, y tengo que sacar el mayor provecho a mi dinero, aunque si sigue subiendo tendré que comprarlos a como esté”

Estos canjes, que se realizan al margen de la legalidad, conllevan, además, un riesgo, debido a la circulación de billetes falsos y las estafas. “Si voy a cambiar dinero siempre voy acompañado y con un marcador de billetes falsos”, cuenta a 14ymedio Raidel, un residente de Centro Habana que se dedica a este negocio hace ya unos meses. “Siempre intento que sea en mi casa, o que por lo menos no sea en barrios marginales, porque el riesgo de que te den una paliza para quitarte el dinero siempre está presente”, explica.

La reacción en cadena provocada por el alza en el precio del dólar ha elevado el valor del euro, y, por ende, también el del dinero virtual en las tarjetas en moneda libremente convertible (MLC). Esto también provoca una mayor inflación de los precios de algunos productos y servicios que se comercializan en el devaluado peso.

La MLC, moneda digital que inventó el Gobierno para vender en las tiendas en dólares alimentos y electrodomésticos, se compra a través de transferencias electrónicas utilizando aplicaciones como Transfermóvil o EnZona. En este caso, la compraventa se puede realizar de manera presencial o a distancia, si existe un elevado nivel de confianza entre las dos partes.

Se espera que los precios de las divisas sigan aumentando. Los pocos vendedores que aparecen en redes sociales y aplicaciones de mensajería, principalmente en grupos de compraventa de Facebook y Telegram, a modo de especulación, fuerzan la venta de los billetes pidiendo ser atendidos en el correo privado, y una vez allí los venden al mejor postor, como si se tratara de una subasta. “Los vendo al que mejor me los pague, no tengo apuro”, es una de las respuestas empleadas por estos comerciantes.

Los billetes de alta denominación y en muy buen estado son los más demandados porque suscitan más confianza y abultan menos para el traslado. No obstante, los compradores se enfrentan a las restricciones de entrada de efectivo que imponen muchos países, en los que el máximo permitido no debe superar los 10.000 dólares sin declarar. Algunos viajeros provenientes de la Isla han tenido problemas con sumas mayores a su entrada a Panamá, México y otros países de la zona.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

CUBAN BASEBALL PLAYERS DEFECT DURING TOURNAMENT IN MEXICO

BBC, October 4, 2021

Original Article: Cuban baseball players defect

At least nine young Cuban baseball players have defected during a tournament in Mexico, officials say, in the largest defection of Cuban athletes in years.

Cuban officials called the players’ actions during the World Cup for athletes under the age of 23 “vile abandonments”, state media report.

The rest of the team, which originally had 24 players, will return on Monday.

Cuban athletes have a long history of defecting while competing abroad.

Baseball players often leave to sign up with Major League Baseball (MLB) clubs in the US, as strained relations between the US and Cuba prevent them from taking part in a regular hiring process.

The statement by Cuba’s National Sports Institute, published on the official JIT website and quoted by the Associated Press news agency, did not name the players who had stayed in Mexico.

But baseball journalist Francys Romero said a total of 12 players had defected.

A deal that allowed some Cuban players to sign with MLB clubs was cancelled by President Donald Trump in 2018, in an attempt to pressure the island’s Communist government to implement political changes. The agreement meant athletes no longer had to abscond and leave Cuba illegally.

Defections of high-profile sportsmen and women from Cuba is nothing new – but is always an indication of the extent of the problems at home. And if this latest round of pitchers, batters and catchers to flee their hotel in Mexico is anything to go by, economic conditions on the island are especially acute at present.

The mass defection is of particular frustration and embarrassment to the Cuban authorities not only for the number of players to defect at once, but also their ages. In their early 20s, they represented the future of Cuban baseball, charged with returning Cuba to the top after the island failed to qualify for the Olympics in Tokyo 2020 for the first time in its history.

Unsurprisingly, the government responded by attacked the players for being “weak” in morals and ethics. However, its main criticism was for the US for maintaining the decades-long economic embargo while offering such lucrative contracts that the cream of Cuban baseball can hardly refuse. Cuba also accuses the MLB of engaging in practices tantamount to human-smuggling in order to bring the players to the US.

The truth is, however, as long as those multi-million dollar contracts and endorsements are available just 90 miles (145km) away from Cuba, defection will remain a sorely tempting option for any aspiring baseball star on the increasingly impoverished island.

The most recent high-profile player to defect was 22-year-old César Prieto, one of the country’s top baseball stars, who abandoned the team earlier this year while in Florida for an Olympics qualifying event.

Ballet dancers and footballers are also among athletes who have fled during major competitions.

Cuba is in the midst of an economic crisis, with food and medicine shortages, and has been hit hard by US sanctions and Covid-19. In July, thousands of people joined the biggest anti-government protests in the island for decades.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

CHANGES IN CUBAN SOCIETY SINCE THE NINETIES

Wilson Center Reports on the Americas No. 15: Changes in Cuban Society since the Nineties

By  Joseph Tulchin, Lilian Bobea, Elizabeth Bryan and 2 more

Complete Report: Changes in Cuban Society since the Nineties

This book aims to provide academics, policymakers, NGOs and the media in Cuba, Latin America and North America, with a better understanding of the changes in Cuban civil society since the collapse of the Soviet Union and their implications in the areas of research, academic and literary production, and public policy. It presents and assesses critically the changes that have taken place in Cuban society, economy, politics, and culture as Cuba emerges from the crisis of the 1990s.  This volume also aspires to contribute in a meaningful way to the political debate in the United States and to the dialogue between the United States and Cuba.  It brings together contrasting perspectives marked by occasionally opposing views from both within and outside the island.  It is the result of a seminar held in the Dominican Republic in December 2003 under the auspices of the Latin American Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Facultad Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, with the generous contribution of The Ford Foundation.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CUBA’S ECONOMIC WOES MAY FUEL AMERICA’S NEXT MIGRANT CRISIS

April 16, 2021

Author: William M. LeoGrande, Professor of Government, American University School of Public Affairs and senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy group.

Original Article: Cuba’s Economic Woes May Fuel America’s Next Migrant Crisis

Not all of the migrants hoping to claim asylum in the United States are fleeing Central America’s violence-torn “Northern Triangle” of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, contrary to popular perception.

Of the 71,021 asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico for their applications to be processed in the U.S. as of late February, 16% were Cuban, according to federal immigration data.

That makes Cubans the third-largest group of migrants, just ahead of Salvadorans, and after Guatemalans and Hondurans.

Why Cubans flee

The Cubans at America’s doorstep are mostly economic refugees. But since Cubans no longer have preferential status over other immigrants – as they did until former President Barack Obama stopped automatically admitting Cubans who made it to the U.S. – claiming asylum is now virtually their only hope of winning entry. G

Cubans who can afford it fly to South America or hire smugglers to take them to Mexico in “fast boats” before trekking north to the U.S. border. Those who can’t afford to pay smugglers try to cross the Florida Straits on rafts or small boats called “balsas” – a dangerous 90-mile ocean passage.

So far this year, the U.S. Coast Guard has picked up 180 Cuban “balseros” at sea trying to reach the U.S. The number is modest – but it’s already more than three times the Coast Guard rescues of Cubans made last year. Cubans intercepted at sea are returned to Cuba under the terms of a 1995 migration agreement.

The current uptick recalls the gradual increase in rafters rescued at sea in the spring of 1994, numbers that rose exponentially that summer, culminating in the “balsero” migration crisis.

Triggered by the collapse of the Soviet Union – communist Cuba’s main international partner at the time – the 1994 exodus saw 35,000 Cubans arrive in the U.S. in two months.

It was the United States’ third Cuban migration crisis. In 1965, some 5,000 Cubans embarked from the port of Camarioca in small boats, landing in south Florida. In 1980, the Mariel boat crisis brought 125,000 Cuban migrants to the U.S. in the so-called “freedom flotilla.”

These migration waves came when the Cuban economy was in crisis and standards of living were falling. All three occurred when Cubans had few avenues for legal migration. With legal routes foreclosed, pressure to leave built over time as the economy deteriorated, finally exploding in a mass exodus of desperate people.

After studying U.S.-Cuban relations for four decades, I believe the conditions that led to these migration crises are building once again.

Economy in free fall

Hit by the dual shocks of renewed U.S. economic sanctions during the Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cuban economy shrank 11% in 2020.

Former President Donald Trump cut off two major sources of Cuba’s foreign exchange revenue: people-to-people educational travel from the U.S., worth roughly US$500 million annually, according to my analysis of data from the Cuban National Office of Statistics, and $3.5 billion annually in cash remittances.

The pandemic hammered Cuba’s tourist industry, which suffered a 75% decline – a loss of roughly $2.5 billion.

These external shocks hit an economy already weakened by the decline in cheap oil from crisis-stricken Venezuela due to falling production there, forcing Cuba to spend more of its scarce foreign exchange currency on fuel. Since Cuba imports most of its food, the island nation has experienced a food crisis.

The result is the worst economic downturn since the 1990s.

Pent-up Cuban demand to emigrate

The 1994 Cuban migration crisis ended when former President Bill Clinton signed an accord with Cuba providing for safe and legal migration. The U.S. committed to providing at least 20,000 immigrant visas to Cubans annually to avoid future crises by creating a release valve.

President Trump replaced President Obama’s policy of normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations with one of “maximum pressure” aimed at collapsing the Cuban regime.

He downsized the U.S. embassy in Havana in 2017, allegedly in response to injuries to U.S. personnel serving there. And he suspended the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program, which provided upwards of 20,000 immigrant visas annually to Cubans with close relatives in the U.S.

These measures drastically reduced the number of immigrant visas given, closing the safety valve Clinton negotiated in 1994. In 2020, just over 3,000 Cubans immigrants were admitted to the U.S.

Today, some 100,000 Cubans who have applied for the reunification program are still waiting in limbo for the program to resume.

A policy problem

The migration crisis brewing in Cuba has been largely overlooked while the Biden administration focuses on managing the rush of Central American asylum-seekers and caring for unaccompanied minors at the U.S.-Mexico border.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki recently said that Cuba policy is currently under review, but that it’s “not a top priority.”

U.S. officials could head off the migration crisis brewing in Cuba by making the changes to U.S.-Cuba relations Biden promised during his 2020 presidential campaign.

Restaffing the U.S. embassy in Havana would make it possible to resume compliance with Clinton’s 1994 migration agreement to grant at least 20,000 immigrant visas annually. That would give Cubans a safe and legal way to come to the U.S. and discourage them from risking their lives on the open seas or with human traffickers.

Lifting Trump’s economic sanctions would curtail the need to emigrate by reducing Cuba’s economic hardship, in part by enabling Cuban Americans to send money directly to their families there.

And reversing Trump’s restrictions on travel to the island would help revitalize the private Cuban restaurants and bed and breakfasts that rely on U.S. visitors.

All these measures would put money directly into the hands of the Cuban people, giving them hope for a better future in Cuba.

Balseros arranging Departure, Playas e Este, 1994
Playas del Este, 1994. Did this one make it?
Launching the balsa (rAFT)
Posted in Blog | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Nuevo Libro: 90 MILLAS. RELACIONES ECONÓMICAS CUBA-ESTADOS UNIDOS, 1898-2020

Editores: Azcona Pastor, José Manuel, y Santamaría García, Antonio.

Ficha técnica

Nº de páginas:                       471

Editorial:                               S.L. – DYKINSON

ISBN:                                     9788413772882

Año de edición:                     2021

Plaza de edición:                   ESPAÑA

Fecha de lanzamiento:         05/03/2021

COMPRAR LIBRO: 90 MILLAS

RESUMEN DEL LIBRO

Las relaciones entre Cuba y Estados Unidos han estado determinadas por el embargo a la isla que el gobierno de Washington estableció tras el triunfo de la revolución en 1959. Esa política no ha cambiado, aunque ha sufrido endurecimientos y también flexibilizaciones. Al llegar Barack Obama a la Casa Blanca inició una fase de normalización, coincidiendo con el avance de las reformas aperturistas en la Gran Antilla, iniciadas en la década de 1990, pero hasta hace poco discontinuas. Sin embargo, para ello empleó los recursos de relajación de las medidas que ofrecen las propias leyes del embargo. Es decir, sin modificarlo, lo que ha permitido a su sucesor, Donald Trump, restablecerlas en su versión más dura. Este libro estudia el problema de los vínculos entre los dos países desde comienzos del siglo XX desde la perspectiva de lo económico, que fue razón esencial de los mismos, y muestra cómo la falta de un sentido de estado y de conformidad con la influencia tuvo en la constitución de otro –Estados Unidos ocupó Cuba entre 1898 y 1902, tras su guerra de independencia– implicó dejarlas al juego de intereses particulares que rige el funcionamiento del sistema político norteamericano y que tal defecto los ha dotado de un asimetría que ha prevalecido a los cambios de coyuntura y circunstancias desde entonces, al triunfo de la revolución, al fin de la Guerra Fría.

INDICE GENERAL

Capítulo I. 90 millas. Relaciones económicas Cuba-Estados Unidos en perspectiva histórica. Antonio Santamaría García; José Manuel Azcona Pastor

Capítulo II. Avance y retroceso de los capitales norteamericanos en la industria cubana del azúcar, 1890-1959. Alejandro García Álvarez

Capítulo III. Proteccionismo y restricción de la oferta: los orígenes de los controles de producción de azúcar en Cuba y la relación comercial con Estados Unidos, 1921-193. Alan D. Dye

Capítulo IV. Ajustes al modelo de dominación: la política de Estados Unidos hacia Cuba tras la revolución de 1933. Oscar Zanetti Lecuona

Capítulo V. “Cuba sería un cementerio de deudores”. El problema de la moratoria en la década de 1930. Julio César Guanche

Capítulo VI. El nacionalismo moderado cubano, 1920-1960. Políticas económicas y relaciones con Estados Unidos. Jorge I. Domínguez

Capítulo VII. Relaciones comerciales azucareras Cuba-Estados Unidos, 1902-1960. Jorge Pérez-López

Capítulo VIII. Las relaciones Cuba-Estados Unidos desde la revolución hasta el periodo especial.Victor Bulmer-Thomas

Capítulo IX. Failed on all counts. El embargo de Estados Unidos a Cuba. Andrew Zimbalist

Capítulo X. La ventana de oportunidad que se abrió y se cerró: historia de la normalización de relaciones Estados Unidos-Cuba. Carmelo Mesa-Lago

Capítulo XI. El bloqueo económico en el contexto de las agresiones de Estados Unidos contra Cuba. Historia no contada y evolución reciente.José Luis Rodríguez

Capítulo XIII. Cuba-Estados Unidos: la gestión de las empresas cubanas. Ileana Díaz Fernández

Capítulo XIV. Viajes, remesas y trabajo por cuenta propia. Relaciones económicas entre los cubanos emigrados y su país de origen.Jorge Duany

Capítulo XV. El papel de los visitantes de Estados Unidos en la economía cubana. Historia y realidad. Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva; José Luis Perelló Cabrera

COMPRAR LIBRO: 90 MILLAS

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

THE 2020 FIU CUBA POLL: BEHIND THE PARTISAN NOISE, A MAJORITY OF CUBAN-AMERICANS SUPPORT ENGAGEMENT POLICY.

Read the full 2020 FIU CUBA POLL report here.

The results of the 2020 FIU Cuba Poll suggest the link between political party and Cuba policy preferences among Cuban-Americans is not as clearly defined as it used to be. Put another way, although a majority of Cuban-Americans respond postively to Trump’s anti-socialist rhetoric, most still support engagement policies that help the Cuban people.

To illustrate, when asked to rate Trump’s performance in a host of national issues ranging from his handling of immigration and healthcare to Covid-19 response, responses split along partisan lines, with roughly two-thirds consistently in favor of the Republican president. This was also true when respondents were asked to rate Trump’s handling of “Cuba policy” (66% in favor). But when respondents were asked about support for individual components of Cuba policy without mentioning Trump, political parties or “the embargo,” the partisan lines disappeared and previous trend lines in favor of engagement resurfaced, with U.S.-born Cuban-Americans and recent arrivals leading the way:

  • 56% support diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
  • 57% support the temporary suspension of trade sanctions on Cuba during Covid-19.
  • 69% support the food sales to Cuba by U.S. companies.
  • 71% support the sale of medicine to Cuba by U.S. companies.
  • 58% oppose the suspension of visas services at the U.S. Embassy in Havana.
  • 58% support the resumption of the Cuban Family Reunification Program (suspended in 2019).

Support for unrestricted travel to Cuba—for Americans and Cuban-Americans alike—did drop below 50% for the first time since the Bush-era, with cruise ship being the least popular (40%). Yet, 62% favor allowing U.S. commercial airlines to re-establish routes throughout the island, not just to Havana. This suggests that while a majority of Cuban-Americans may now favor some restrictions on U.S.-Cuba travel, they remain lenient on what those may be.
Notably, on questions that define U.S.-Cuba policy in terms of “carrots” and “sticks”, strong majorities supported a combined approach: 68% favor policies “designed to put maximum pressure on the Cuban government” while 66% support policies directed at “improving the economic well-being of the Cuban people.” In other words, the Obama-era view that “U.S. policy should be tough on the government but soft on the people” continues to hold firm. So has the shrinking salience of U.S.-Cuba policy among key election-year issues for Cuban-American voters, ranking below the economy, healthcare, race, immigration and even China policy across party affiliation.
Perhaps the most significant number in the poll is the percentage of newer émigrés who identify as Republican: a whopping 76% of those who migrated to the United States between 2010 and 2015. Paradoxically, these are also the Cubans-Americans who most frequently travel to Cuba, maintain relations on the island and favor most of the same engagement policies that their Republican representatives so ardently strive to dismantle. This contradiction is shaped by too many factors to explore here. The appeal of Trump’s strongman/ business mogul persona and anti-socialist bombast is certainly one of them. Yet it is also true that these migrants harbor deep antipathies toward a Cuban government that did precious little to seize the opportunity for reform presented by President Obama’s diplomatic opening. Their party affiliation likely represents a rebuke of the system they left behind more than a defined ideological orientation. Nonetheless, this should serve as a wakeup call for Cuban officials. Those who arrived between 2010 to 2015 aren’t batistianos. They are a direct product of the Revolution. By continuing to resist meaningful reforms, the Cuban government runs the risk of forging a new generation of aggrieved exiles supportive of U.S. presidents who take a hardline approach against Cuba.

Finally, there are important lessons here for whoever wins the White House come November. Should it be Joe Biden, reversing Trump’s most hurtful measures toward Cuba in his first 100 days will be popular among Cuban-Americans. These include the re-establishment of island-wide commercial and charter travel, lifting remittance limits, re-opening consular services and fully staffing the U.S. Embassy in Havana. For Trump, the FIU poll suggests that Cuba sanctions have a political ceiling, which his policies reached long ago. In a second term, Trump could ease harmful restrictions on travel, remittances, and some trade in pursuit of a “better deal” without losing support.

“The poll estimates about 52.6% of Cuban Americans in Florida are registered Republicans compared to 25.8% who are registered Democrats and 21.5% who are registered independent.” (NBC Miami, October 2, 2020)

Read the full 2020 FIU CUBA POLL report here.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

FORO CUBANO: INDICADORES

COMPLETE DOCUMENT: Foro Cubano – Indicadores

Coordinador:  Pavel Vidal Alejandro

 

Foro Cubano – Indicadores

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CUBA WANTS MORE BABIES, SO IT’S GIVING PARENTAL LEAVE TO GRANDPARENTS, TOO

By Nick Miroff February 10, Washington Post
Original Article: Grandparents and Fertility Rates!

MEXICO CITY — Cuba is giving parental leave to the grandparents of newborns, the country’s latest attempt to reverse its sagging birthrate and defuse a demographic time bomb.

The island already has one of the most generous parental leave policies in the Americas, allowing mothers and fathers to take more than a year off from work at partial pay. The new decree extends those benefits to maternal and paternal grandparents.

But so far, such attempts haven’t brought any sort of Cuban baby boom.  The island of 11 million has one of the lowest fertility rates in the Western Hemisphere, with 1.7 births per woman. There are several factors that explain this figure, but they mostly come down to a combination of effective socialist medical care and a dysfunctional state-run economy.

Cuba’s health-care system makes contraceptives widely available, and abortions are available on demand. At the same time, Cuban women are a growing portion of the country’s professional workforce, and many choose to delay motherhood until their late 30s, often because they don’t have the financial means to care for children.

It’s hardly the only demographic problem Cuba faces: Some  60,000 to 80,000 Cubans emigrate each year, many of them young people looking for better opportunities in the United States, Europe and Latin America.

The Cubans who stay behind are going gray. Nearly one-fifth of the island’s population is 60 or older, and they depend on a shrinking pool of Cuban workers to keep the state-run economy afloat. Cuba’s life expectancy is 78, on par with the United States, so there’s a larger and larger pool of dependents.

According to the Communist Party newspaper Granma, the decision to extend parental leave to grandparents was necessary “to deal with the high degree of aging among the population, and to encourage fertility in the short term.”  “The challenge of raising the birthrate in Cuba is a challenge that cannot be put off,” Granma said.

The decrees also reduce day-care costs for Cuban parents with multiple children, and provide tax breaks for women who work in the country’s small but growing private sector.

Offering partial salary to Cuban parents on leave is not the kind of burden for the government — which employs about 70 percent of the workforce — that it would be in more prosperous nations.

The average official state salary hovers around $20 a month. Paying parents and grandparents a fraction of that to care for children is costly in a country where economic growth is stagnant, but nothing like the expenditure it would be elsewhere.

The United Kingdom has adopted a leave policy for grandparents who still work, and while a similar law has been proposed in Argentina, Cuba appears to be the first Latin American country to offer the benefits to grandparents.

 

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

DEBATING U.S.-CUBAN RELATIONS: HOW SHOULD WE NOW PLAY BALL? 2nd Edition

Edited by Jorge I. DomínguezRafael M. HernándezLorena G. Barberia

© 2017 – Routledge

To Order: Routledge

ABOUT THE BOOK

The boundary between Cuba and the United States has become more and more porous, as have those with Latin America and the Caribbean. Never in the past half-century has Cuba’s leadership or its social and political fabric been so exposed to the influence of the outside world. In this book, an all-star cast of experts critically address the recent past and present in U.S.-Cuban relations in their full complexity and subtlety to develop a perspective on the evolution of the conflict and an inventory of forms of cooperation. This much needed approach provides a way to answer the questions “what has been . . .?” and “what is . . .?” while also thinking seriously about “what if . . .?”

To illustrate the most significant areas of U.S.-Cuban relations in the contemporary era, this newly updated edition of Debating U.S.-Cuban Relations adds six more themes to the study of this complex relation: political, security, economic, and cultural/academic issues; the triangular relations of the United States, Cuba, and Europe; and the politics of Cuban migration/emigration. Each topic is represented by perspectives from both Cuban and non-Cuban scholars, leading to a resource rich in insight and a model of transnational dialogue.

The future course of U.S.-Cuban relations will likely be more complex than in the past, not only because of the matrix of factors involved but also because of the number of actors. Such a multiplicity of domestic, regional, and global factors is unique; it includes the rise to power of new administrations in both countries since 2008. Raúl Castro became president of Cuba in February 2008 and Barack Obama was inaugurated president of the United States in January 2009. And it will feature the inauguration of a new president of the United States in January 2017 and a new president of Cuba, likely in February 2018.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Introduction: A Baseball Game. Jorge I. Domínguez and Rafael M. Hernández

Chapter 2: Intimate Enemies: Paradoxes in the Conflict between the United States and

Cuba. Rafael M. Hernández

Chapter 3: Reshaping the Relations between the United States and Cuba. Jorge I. Domínguez

Chapter 4: Cuba’s National Security vis-à-vis the United States: Conflict or Cooperation? Carlos Alzugaray Treto

Chapter 5: Cuban-United States Cooperation in the Defence and Security Fields: Where Are We? Where Might We Be Able to Go? Hal Klepak

Chapter 6: Terrorism and the Anti-Hijacking Accord in Cuba’s Relations with the United States. Peter Kornbluh

Chapter 7: The European Union and U.S.-Cuban Relations. Eduardo Perera Gómez

Chapter 8: European Union Policy in the Cuba-U.S.-Spain Triangle. Susanne Gratius

Chapter 9: U.S.-Cuba Relations: The Potential Economic Implications of Normalization. Archibald R. M. Ritter

Chapter 10: United States-Cuba Economic Relations: The Pending Normalization. Jorge Mario Sánchez Egozcue

Chapter 11: Cuba, Its Immigration and U.S.-Cuba Relations. Lorena G. Barberia

Chapter 12: U.S.-Cuba: Emigration and Bilateral Relations. Antonio Aja Díaz

Chapter 13: The Subject(s) of Academic and Cultural Exchange: Paradigms, Powers, and Possibilities. Sheryl Lutjens

Chapter 14: Academic Diplomacy: Cultural Exchange between Cuba and the United States. Milagros Martínez Reinosa

 

Posted in Blog, Featured | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment