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CUBA’S CHALLENGE: WHAT DID THE CUBAN REVOLUTION ACCOMPLISH AND WHERE CAN IT GO FROM HERE?

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Arch Ritter

BY SAMUEL FARBER, June 10, 2015

Original Essay from “JACOBIN” Here: Cuba’s Challenge

Samuel Farber was born and raised in Cuba. He is the author of Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment.

When in the 1950s, along with many of my high school classmates, I became involved in the struggle against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, one of our teachers remarked that we had no real reason to criticize the state of our country because so many other nations in the region — such as Bolivia and Haiti — were much worse off than us.

His description of Cuba’s comparative position was accurate, but incomplete. On the eve of the 1959 Revolution, Cuba had the fourth highest per capita income in Latin America, after Venezuela, Uruguay, and Argentina.

And although average per capita income is an insufficient, and sometimes misleading, indicator of general economic development, other indicators support his picture of the pre-revolutionary Cuban economy: in 1953, Cuba also ranked fourth in Latin America according to an average of twelve indexes covering such items as percentage of labor force employed in mining, manufacturing, and construction, percentage of literate persons, per capita electric power, newsprint, and caloric food consumption.

Yet, at that time the country’s economy was also suffering from stagnation and the pernicious effects of sugar monoculture, including substantial unemployment (partly caused by the short sugar cane season of three or four months). Most importantly, the national indexes of living standards hid dramatic differences between the urban (57 percent of the population in 1953) and rural areas (43 percent), especially between Havana (21 percent of Cuba’s total population) and the rest of the country. The Cuban countryside was plagued by malnutrition, widespread poverty, poor health, and lack of education.

For my teacher, it seems, the fact that other people were worse off made him more accepting of his own life circumstances. But he was the exception. To the extent that Cubans compared themselves with the people of other countries, they preferred to look up to the much higher standard of living of the United States rather than console themselves by looking down at the greater misery of their Latin American brethren.

As a 1956 report of the United States Bureau of Foreign Commerce put it: “the worker in Cuba . . . has wider horizons than most Latin American workers and expects more out of life in material amenities than many European workers . . . His goal is to reach a standard of living comparable with that of the American worker.”

This underlines the fundamental mistake of assuming instead of ascertaining that comparisons of economic performance have any meaning to the people who live in those economies. Taken to an extreme, this mistake leads to an “objectivist” analysis that stands outside history as it is actually lived by its actors and is likely, as in the case of my high school teacher, to result in a conservative commitment to the existing social order, as opposed to a questioning of, or opposition to, the existing social order and its ruling group.

For those who are affected by it, economic development has a meaning that goes beyond economic data and requires an understanding of popular aspirations and expectations, which are based in part on the existing material reality and in part on past history.

In terms of its material reality, the Cuba of the fifties was on the one hand characterized by uneven modernity, fairly advanced means of communication and transportation — especially the high circulation, by Latin American standards, of newspapers and magazines — and the rapid development of television and radio. On the other hand, there were abysmal living conditions in the Cuban countryside.

As far as its history, the Cuba of the 1950s was still living the effects of the frustrated revolution of 1933, a nationalist revolution against dictatorship with an important anti-imperialist component and the participation of an incipient labor movement, then under Communist leadership.

Although this revolution had achieved some significant reforms equivalent in the Cuban context to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, it failed to achieve major structural changes in Cuban society, such as real national political and economic independence from US imperialism (beyond the abolition of the Platt Amendment in 1934) or any meaningful agrarian reform and diversification away from the one-crop sugar economy with all it implied in terms of economic instability, large-scale unemployment, and poverty.

These were the economic issues brandished by the Cuban opposition at that time to struggle for more or less radical reforms to the existing order, instead of pondering and celebrating Cuba’s comparative high rank among Latin American economies. Thus Eduardo Chibás, the leader of the reform Ortodoxo Party, of which Fidel Castro was a secondary leader, proposed in 1948 a series of modest reforms to improve the life of the Cuban rural population.

Five years later, after Batista’s coup against the constitutional government, Castro — in his “History Will Absolve Me” speech at his trial for his failed attack against one of Batista’s military installations — proposed a more radical series of measures, including giving property titles to peasants holding up to 165 acres of land, with compensation granted to landlords on the basis of the average income they would have received over a ten-year period. He also added new elements to his reform agenda, such as his radical plan for the employees of all large industrial, mercantile, or mining concerns, including sugar mills, to receive 30 percent of profits.

Fidel and Rebels, 1956

After 1959

Immediately after the victory of January 1, 1959, in response to many Cubans’ pent-up expectations, Castro’s revolutionary government engaged in a vigorous policy of redistribution. There was an urban reform law to substantially reduce rents, a left-Keynesian policy of public works to combat unemployment, and a radical, albeit not a collectivist, agrarian reform law proclaimed in May 1959.

Then, in late 1960, in part in response to the hostility of US imperialism and in part based on the political inclinations of the revolutionary leaders, the large majority of both urban and rural property was nationalized by the Cuban state.

In April 1961, Castro declared Cuba to be “socialist,” and it became, in structural and institutional terms, a replica of the model in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Although Cuba’s one-party state placed more emphasis on popular participation than its equivalents in the Eastern Bloc, its political control was before long just as absolute.

Like the supporters of the Cuban status quo before the revolution, the supporters of today’s Cuban system assert that it is economically superior to other countries, particularly in Latin America. In terms of GDP — which, as previously mentioned, is not by itself a reliable indicator of economic well-being, although the Cuban government relies on it in a modified form — Cuba has fared poorly in comparison with its neighbors.

Whereas in 1950 Cuba ranked tenth in per capita GDP among the forty-seven countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, almost sixty years later, in 2006, it ranked near the bottom of the list, only ahead of Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Bolivia, El Salvador, and Paraguay. GDP has increased little since then with a 2 percent average rate of growth in the last five years.

The government’s supporters point to Cuba’s achievements in education and health (in particular, its low infant mortality) as conclusive evidence for its more progressive economic policies. And indeed Cuba has performed very well in the Human Development Index (HDI), which combines income, health, and education statistics.

But while this index does a good job of measuring critical aspects of well-being in the less developed capitalist countries, it does not adequately capture the shape of state-socialist economies such as Cuba. It does not quantify the hardships that people suffer in countries where the economic problems of underdevelopment intersect with those particular to Soviet-style societies.

Take income, for example. Unlike capitalist societies, in Cuba, access to many luxury or high-cost goods is often obtained by the ruling groups through extra-economic, in kind, political means, rather than through the expenditure of monetary income. Although this situation has become more complicated since Raúl Castro took office in 2006 and expanded private economic activity to cover approximately 25 percent of the labor force, obtaining high-end goods still depends to an important degree on political access.

One example is traveling abroad. For the majority of Cubans who don’t have sufficiently wealthy relatives overseas, it is political access to state-sponsored travel — for example, officially sanctioned attendance to political, economic, cultural, or academic conferences — rather than private income that remains the principal way to venture outside the island.

A similar situation exists in terms of Internet access. In Cuba — a country with one of the lowest levels of web availability in Latin America and the Caribbean — many people can connect to the Internet only at their workplace or school, but only for strictly work-related purposes. Otherwise, they run the serious risk of being reprimanded or even losing their ability to go online.

Privately, they can get on the Internet by paying rates unaffordable to average Cubans, and only at tourist hotels or at the centers sponsored by the state telephone monopoly. However, free access to the Internet is the norm for those who are well-situated in terms of political power or have connections to those who do.

Besides the issue of monetary income, the HDI ignores other factors that make living conditions in Cuba difficult. These include the irregular supply and quality of food, housing, toiletries, and birth control devices for women and men. The same applies to the poor state of roads, inter-urban bus and railway transport (premium transportation services exist but are costly and therefore out of the reach of most Cubans), and the delivery of basic necessities such as water, electricity, and garbage collection.

The HDI does not quantify the hardships of daily life associated with these inadequacies either — for example, the amount of time people have to spend going from place to place and standing in line to obtain a wide variety of goods. Economic indexes can also be deceptive insofar as they don’t take into account the maintenance and upkeep of systems that deliver key services.

Take water, for example. Viewed in one way, Cuba ranks well in that regard, with 95 percent of its population officially having access to drinking water. But serious water shortages are a normal condition of life in Cuba. This is partially due to seasonal droughts in certain regions, particularly in the eastern half of the island. But the most important cause of that shortage is the deteriorated infrastructure — broken pipes and numerous leaks — going back to well before the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

For these reasons, more than half of the water pumped by the country’s aqueducts is lost, especially in the Havana metropolitan area. This is much of the daily material reality Cubans face, and it shapes their aspirations and expectations.

Strong Thumbs, No Fingers

The Cuban government and its supporters claim that most of these economic problems are the result of the criminal economic blockade of the island imposed, for more than fifty years, by the United States and which remains mostly in force despite the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

There is no doubt that the embargo has been damaging, particularly in the early years of the revolution, as Cuba was forced to reorient most of its economic activity towards the Eastern Bloc. Repealing the 1996 Helms-Burton Act and ending the blockade would be a very welcome development for both principled and practical reasons. Such a move would also considerably increase economic activity in Cuba, most likely in the fields of tourism and, possibly, biotechnology and the production and export of certain types of agricultural commodities such as citrus.

However, the US blockade did not prevent Cuba from trading with industrialized capitalist countries in Asia and Europe, and particularly with Canada and Spain. The principal obstacle to Cuba’s economic relations with those non-US industrial capitalist countries was Cuba’s own lack of goods to sell and thus its lack of hard currency with which to pay for imports, whether capital or consumer goods. Nevertheless, Cuba received more than $6 billion in credits and loans from many of the industrialized capitalist countries until Cuba suspended the service of these debts several years before the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

More important than the damage caused by the US economic blockade is Cuba’s inadequate capital, as well as other problems typical of economically less developed countries — the export of commodities such as nickel and sugar amid unstable world prices — which in turn interact with the myriad economic shortcomings and contradictions of Soviet-style economies, including the failures of agriculture and the scarcity and poor quality of consumer goods.

In truth, Cuba’s achievements and failures resemble those of the Soviet Union, China, and Vietnam before these countries took the capitalist road, suggesting that systemic similarities are more significant than national idiosyncrasies and variations on the general Soviet model.

Fidel and Leonid

Cuba shares with the USSR what the political scientist Charles E. Lindblom called “strong thumbs, no fingers.” Having “strong thumbs” allows the government to mobilize large numbers of people to carry out homogeneous, routinized, and repetitive tasks that require little if any variation, initiative, or improvisation to adapt to specific conditions and unexpected circumstances at the local level — precisely the tasks that require subtle fingers rather than undiscriminating thumbs.

This explains how a Soviet-style government can organize a massive vaccination campaign, while at the same time its bureaucratic, centralized administration and lack of “nimble fingers” prevent it from acquiring the necessary precision for timely coordination of complicated production and distribution in all economic sectors — especially agriculture, among the least homogeneous and predictable areas of the economy.

Cuba’s deficiencies, particularly in the production of consumer goods, also stem to a large extent from its principal leaders’ ideological inclinations. While these leaders have clearly favored the production and delivery of certain collective goods like education and health care, they have tended to be indifferent if not hostile to goods normally consumed by individuals or families.

This is rooted in a deeply ascetic strain of some leftist traditions. The most prominent and consistently austere among the revolutionary leaders was Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who as minister of industry in the early days of the revolution shaped many aspects of the Cuban economy.

When serious shortages of consumer goods began to occur in Cuba in the early 1960s, Guevara spoke critically of the comforts that Cubans had surrounded themselves with in the cities, comforts which he attributed to the way of life to which imperialism had accustomed people, and not to a standard of living resulting from the relative economic development of the country and especially to the working class and popular struggles in the pre-revolutionary era.

Guevara argued that countries such as Cuba should invest completely in production for economic development, and that because Cuba was at war, the revolutionary government had to ensure peoples’ access to food, but that soap and similar goods were non-essential. It is clear however, that his hostility to consumer goods was by no means specific to a war economy.

As he put it in his private reflections shortly after he left the Cuban government in the mid-1960s, “in Cuba, a television set that does not work is a big problem but not in Vietnam where there is no television and they are building socialism.” He added that “the development of consciousness allows for the substitution of the secondary comforts which at a given moment had transformed themselves into part of the individual’s life, with the overall education of society allowing for the return to an earlier era that did not have this need.”

Later, after the failure of the grandiose plans for economic growth that Guevara and other revolutionary leaders articulated, these ascetic politics came to be shared by the entire Cuban government leadership. They were soon consecrated in the Cuban revolutionary ideology as hostility to the “consumer society” of the economically developed world, a view that was never part of the ideology of the pre-revolutionary Cuban left, Communist or otherwise.

It was therefore entirely fitting that during the Cuban economic cycles associated with the spirit and politics of Guevara, the emphasis was always on capital accumulation instead of increased consumption. This was the case, for example, with the Guevarist-type economic period of 1966–1970 (shortly after he left the Cuban government).

As the prominent Cuban economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago points out, at this time the national plan called for a sharp increase in national savings that was to be generated by a cut in consumption through the expansion of rationing, the export of products previously assigned for internal consumption, and the reduction of imports considered unnecessary.

Material incentives sharply decreased, and the population was exhorted to work harder, save more, and accept deprivation with revolutionary spirit. Accordingly, the share of state investment going to the sphere of production increased from 78.7% to 85.8% between 1965 and 1970. This was indeed a Cuban high point of what the Hungarian theorists Ferenc Fehér, Agnes Heller, and György Márkus have called the “dictatorship over needs.”

The Special Period

Until the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the Cuban government was able to deliver for the majority of its people an austere standard of living that, on the whole, guaranteed a minimum of economic security and the satisfaction of basic needs, in spite of serious deficiencies in areas such as housing and consumer goods.

Notwithstanding the serious problems and contradictions of a Soviet-style economy, this was made possible by the USSR’s massive economic subsidies, which helped the Cuban government finance a generous welfare state with an extensive education, health services, and social security system. These massive subsidies were the result of Cuba joining the Soviet state as its junior partner in an international alliance that did confront strategic obstacles in Latin America (because the USSR was reluctant to challenge the US in its own sphere of influence), but that ended up being much more viable and successful in Africa despite some tactical differences.

Although overall literacy was at 76.4% before the revolution, it was much lower in the countryside; the government has succeeded in almost entirely wiping out illiteracy. It has also expanded secondary and higher education, promoting a substantial degree of social mobility facilitated by the massive emigration from the island of its upper class and large segments of its middle classes.

The dramatic enlargement of the military also allowed for the rise into officialdom of many Cubans of humble origin. Black Cubans in particular benefited, with the elimination of the informal but substantial racial segregation that had existed in pre-revolutionary Cuba, especially in the area of employment.

Racism was by no means eliminated. The Cuban government, implicitly identifying racism only with its segregationist form, soon declared the problem solved, with policies of “affirmative action” not even considered, in a context where blacks were not allowed to organize independently to defend their interests.

In general, however, Cuba became a more egalitarian society, attaining in the mid-1980s a Gini coefficient of 0.24 (although this measure also suffers from the political access problems discussed above). It was this, along with the growth of a nationalist and anti-imperialist consciousness that ensured a large base of popular support for the government. At the same time, however, critical voices even inside the Castro administration were systematically suppressed, and political dissidents (as well as petty offenders — Cuba has one of the highest imprisonment rates for common crimes) were jailed in large numbers.

The collapse of the Soviet bloc provoked a massive economic crisis, reflected in the quick and sharp 35 percent GDP drop. Cubans went very hungry in the first half of the nineties, the worst years of the crisis, leading to serious nutritional deficiencies that provoked an outbreak of optical neuropathy in 1991 that affected more than fifty thousand people until it was partially controlled in 1993.

Services such as public transportation went into a tailspin, from which they have only partially recuperated. Inequality has grown significantly, particularly between those with and without access to the hard currency provided by remittances from abroad. Real wages in the public sector, which still accounts for at least 75 percent of the labor force, dropped precipitously, and as late as 2013 they had only reached 27 percent of 1989 levels.

The “Special Period” also had a noticeable impact on the health care system, reducing the gains achieved in the previous thirty years. There are shortages of medical supplies and of family doctors and specialists, who are often working abroad as a part of international programs.

Patients have to even bring their own bedding to the hospitals, and “gratuities” to medical personnel have become increasingly common. Teachers have fled the education field in search of higher wages in other sectors such as tourism; at one point the government even tried to replace those educators with television sets and quickly trained high school graduates, with predictably negative results.

The system of social security, which made great advances in the 1960s with universal coverage and the unification of the previously existing patchwork of pension and retirement plans, went into a sharp crisis as the peso-denominated pensions fell to a fraction of their previous purchasing power.

Most importantly, during the quarter century that has elapsed since the fall of the USSR, the support of the regime has fallen quite substantially, particularly among young people. This does not mean that they have begun to openly oppose the government. They are far more likely to look for individual ways to resolve these problems. They would rather leave the island than politically confront a government that despite having released most political prisoners and allowed for a significant degree of social liberalization (for example, in terms of religion and emigration) still maintains a one-party state and an apparatus of repression. (Although it typically employs close monitoring, harassment, and frequent short-term arrests of dissidents instead of the long prison terms that were the norm under Fidel Castro’s rule.)

The Critique from the Left

Supporters of the government, especially abroad, continue to defend the system as if nothing happened during the last twenty-five years, and keep pointing to poor countries such as Haiti — which were worse off than Cuba before the 1959 Revolution — as evidence of how better off Cuba is. But for the most part, the Cuban people are not comparing their standard of living to those of other less developed countries.

Older Cubans are much more likely to compare their current hardships with the greater security and predictability they experienced before the Special Period, and remember nostalgically the early 1980s when the opening of the farmers’ markets, after the mass exodus from the Port of Mariel in spring 1980, allowed Cubans to reach perhaps their highest living standards since the 1960s.

For many Cubans, and particularly for the disenchanted young who are keenly aware of contemporary cultural trends in fashion, music, and dance, the existence of a large Cuban-American community in South Florida has also become a major standard of comparison.

And the nascent critical left in Cuba — like the oppositionists of the 1940s and 1950s — does not celebrate, in the manner of the official Communist party press and foreign supporters, Cuba’s good performance in the HDI. Instead, it is trying to organize under extremely difficult conditions, on behalf of the political liberties necessary to defend the standard of living of the Cuban people and open up the possibility for a popular and democratically self-managed economy and polity.

Samuel Farber

Posted in Blog | Tagged Cuba-Soviet Relations, Economic History, Fidel Castro, General Economic Performance, History, President Raul Castro, Special Period, US-Cuba Relations | Leave a comment

ANALYSIS: CUBA POLL — HANDLE WITH CARE

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Arch Ritter

Original Here: Kunzman on Cuba Poll

By Marcel Kunzmann

from Cuba Feute via The Cuba Standard

The vast majority of Cubans welcome the current rapprochement with the United States and are optimistic about their future, according to a recent survey conducted in March on the island. On behalf of The Washington Post, Miami-based public opinion research firm Bendixen & Amandi International surveyed 1,200 Cubans on a wide variety of topics.

The survey produced a unique mosaic of opinions from the country. However, the results have to be looked at carefully.

Cuba – a difficult place for public opinion researchers

Opinion surveys are nothing new to most Cubans. The government has been using the methods of empirical social research for decades, to gather the mood of the population and identify specific problems to adapt their policies. For public researchers from other countries, however, Cuba is a tough environment. Government institutions are extremely suspicious of foreigners walking from door to door with questionnaires. In the case of Bendixen & Amandi, this made the hidden recruitment of Cuban interviewers obligatory.

“About three or four days into it, we got word that three of our interviewers had been detained,” said Fernand Amandi, who headed the Cuba poll. Still, the team managed to finish all interviews as scheduled between March 17-27. Although other public opinion institutes conduct Cuba polls on a more or less regularly base, the recent Bendixen poll stands out in the context of the diplomatic thaw between Cuba and the United States, and shines with its broad extent of aspects. Cuba pollsters from the exterior rarely manage to conduct 1,000 Interviews with such a wide variety of topics, so it is not surprising that international media gave broad coverage to the poll.

A closer look at the results is definitely useful.

Prevailing optimism and the desire for prosperity

First of all, it is striking that most Cubans draw a bright picture of their future. Seventy-two percent of respondents considered themselves optimistic about their own and their family’s future. Fifty-five percent assume that their wishes will become reality within the next five years. Asked about what they desire, 64% said they want to travel to another country, while 37% want to open their own business, followed closely by 34% who want to buy a car — multiple responses were possible here.

On the question, “In your opinion, what do the people of Cuba need the most at this time?”, 24% demand an open political system, while exactly as many want an improved quality of life. Far ahead in first place was, however, an improved economy, which 48% said Cubans need most. Only 19% claimed to be satisfied with their current economic system, which underlines the predominant perception of economic struggles.

The political system of Cuba — a bit of context

At least 39% of Cubans stated to be satisfied with their political system, while 34% said they weren’t satisfied at all with politics in their country. For 49% of those, the reason was a lack of freedom, while in second place 26% named the lack of economic development. Nineteen percent, however, stated the abstract slogan “We need change” as reason for their political discontent.

In a wider Latin American context, the political system of Cuba doesn’t perform as badly as these numbers suggest on first sight. According to recent Gallup polls, only 34% of Latin Americans trust their respective parliaments. In Peru, only 25% of the interviewees said they trust their government, while only 28% of Peruvians are satisfied with the state of democracy in their country. To give some other examples: In Colombia, 39% are satisfied with their democracy, in Argentina and Brazil 49%, and in Ecuador 56%.

Cubans rated their social system above-average, although the approval turned out slightly worse than in previous polls. Today, 68% of Cubans are satisfied with their healthcare system. This coincides with a 2007 Gallup poll, where 75% of Cubans said they trust their healthcare system — in contrast to 57% in the rest of Latin America. With 72% satisfaction, the Cuban education system was rated slightly better than healthcare. In 2007, Cuba already performed well with a 78% satisfaction in contrast to a 59% Latin American average. At that time, only a meager half of Latin Americans stated that education is accessible for all in their country, while 98% of Cubans affirmed this for their island.

Russia still more popular than the United States

Asked about their stance towards other countries, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela were rated highly positive; more than 90% of respondents considered these countries a “friend of Cuba”. The United States ended up with 53%, far behind Russia (71%), although still ahead of North Korea (43%).

An overwhelming majority of Cubans (97%) share the opinion that diplomatic normalization with the United States is good for their country. Sixty-four percent expect economic changes, while 37% are expecting changes in the political sphere. Although 52% of respondents would like a multi-party system for Cuba, only 19% expect that this will be realized.

Not surprisingly, 96% of Cubans oppose the U.S. embargo against the island, but 83% would appreciate Raúl Castro visiting the United States. Their views of the United States also emphasize the economic priorities of many Cubans: Asked what they expect from the Cuba-U.S. thaw, 43% would like to have U.S. supermarkets, which places consumption on the first place in their wish list, followed closely by apartment buildings (41%), pharmacies (40%) and cars (35%). Meanwhile, most Cubans seem not to fear the side effects of a tourist boom, with 96% claiming that tourism would benefit their country.

Cubans favor Raúl Castro over his brother Fidel

Asked about the popularity of personalities, Pope Francis and Barack Obama seem to be the most popular international leaders in Cuba. Eighty percent of respondents had a positive opinion of them. Naturally, this wasn’t the case when it comes to their own head of government: Only 47% of Cubans have a positive opinion about Raúl Castro, giving him the same approval rating that Obama currently holds among Americans. However, Raúl is slightly more popular than his brother Fidel, who received a 44% approval rating. In a Latin American perspective, Raúl Castro actually enjoys the same approval rating as Rafael Correa in Ecuador (45.5%), but is far more popular than his close Venezuelan ally Nicolás Maduro who currently has to deal with a lowly 25%. Maduro is faring much better among Cubans, enjoying a solid 62% approval.

It’s also interesting to put a closer look at the demographic composition of these results. While in the group of 18-49 year olds 75% view their future optimistic, only 68% of those 50 years and older share this attitude. Even more striking is the obvious racial gap. Seventy-seven percent of the self-described white population are optimistic of their future, in contrast to only 57% of Afro Cubans. Nevertheless, support for the political and economic system of the island is above average within the black population.

Approval of the single-party system in Cuba is highly age dependent: While 59% of 18-49 year olds wish to have a choice of parties, only 37% of those 50 and older, and 27% of Cubans older than 65 do so. On the other hand, only 27% of 18-34 year olds hold a positive attitude towards the ruling Communist Party, while 44% of the 50-64 year olds do.

The same is true for the popularity of Raúl Castro, although the age gap is much smaller here. Only 43% of the 18-34 year olds have a positive opinion of their president, while Castro is enjoying the support of the majority (55%) of Cubans older than 65 years. The situation is similar for Fidel Castro, who enjoys the highest backing in the group of 50-64 year olds (51%), while only 40% of white Cubans but 51% of Afro Cubans have a positive opinion about their ex-president.

Also, there is a noticeable regional spread: While Raúl Castro enjoys his highest approval (57%) in central Cuban provinces, Fidel Castro is quite more popular in western Cuba and Havana, where 58% do have a positive opinion of the historic leader of the Revolution. Obviously, their origin doesn’t play a role, since both Castros were raised in eastern Cuba, where their popularity is lowest.

How representative is the composition of the poll?

Speaking about demographics, some methodical weaknesses of the poll are obvious. Asked by Cuba heute, the Washington Post stated that “researchers did compare the demographic makeup of respondents to the overall population on sex, region and race, and found they were very close to government estimates”, but “the sample was somewhat younger than the overall population.” Although one can approve this statement when looking at the final results, there is some evidence for a lack of representation when it comes to the social composition of the group of respondents.

It stands out that 57% of respondents claimed to have access to their own landline phone in their home. Official figures show that there are only 29 phone lines per 100 inhabitants (including cell phones) in Cuba. After speaking with the pollsters of Bendixen & Amadi, the Washington Post found a plausible explanation for this phenomenon, telling Cuba heute that the interviewers themselves already noticed this bias: “Like you, they were surprised by the result on phone usage, and sought an explanation from their field team in Cuba. They reported that many respondents did not comprehend this question as it was intended, and seemed to interpret having access to a phone at home as having access to a phone in their community (i.e. in a neighbor’s home). Some interviewers observed homes having no visible telephone but nonetheless reporting that they did.”

It gets more complicated when you take a look at the employment of the respondents. The pollsters of B&A surveyed as many state as private-sector employees in Cuba; every third person was apparently working for the private sector, according to the results. This definitely is not a representative composition in a country where only 22% of all employees (including farmworkers) work in the private sector. This sums up to only 12% of the adult Cuban population, the target group of the survey. This possibly points to an urban bias within the set of respondents, where an obviously disproportional number of private-sector employees was included. Other polls, like the annual Cuba Survey of the International Republican Institute (IRI), did a much better job when it comes to the selection of a representative group of participants. The Washington Post has yet to answer a question about that subject.

Opinion polls in Cuba always have to overcome many obstacles. On the one hand, the country lacks the appropriate infrastructure to conduct modern randomized telephone surveys. On the other hand, the old-style survey process itself seems to be even more difficult in Cuba than in other places. Especially with controversial political topics (e.g. the question of the one-party system), more than 20% of respondents declined to make a statement. In addition to that, it is perfectly conceivable that many supporters of the Revolution do not participate at all in foreign surveys, as a matter of principle. Even for major polling institutes seem to fail in the selection of a representative group of participants. Last but not least, some questions suffer from a huge range of different interpretations, as the example of the telephone landlines shows.

Despite their methodical weaknesses, the Bendixen & Amandi survey gives us a first insight into the thinking of some Cubans. Despite the usual margin of error of 5% and a not fully representative audience, one can at least on the clearly unequivocal questions draw some conclusions about the attitude of the overall population. Even so, this survey represents a snapshot. Especially on controversial issues a high grade of uncertainty remains, which is why the results should always be treated with caution.

Cuba heute is a German-language blog about political and economic trends in Cuba with emphasis on the ongoing reform process. The author is studying politics and history at the University of Jena (Germany) and plans to spend a semester in Havana this winter

Posted in Blog | Tagged Fidel Castro, Politics, Poll, President Raul Castro, US-Cuba Normalization | Leave a comment

LIKELY CASTRO SUCCESSOR KEEPS A LOW PROFILE

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Arch Ritter

Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2015

Original here: Miguel Diaz-Canel

Raul Castro and Miguel Diaz-Canel

The man expected to run Cuba after Raul Castro steps down is nearly 30 years the president’s junior and is regularly on Facebook in this Internet-starved country. He is considered personable, with a certain charm, but has been careful to keep a low political profile.

Miguel Diaz-Canel’s appointment as first vice president is the most concrete signal that a generational change of leadership may hover on the horizon in Cuba, matching a demographic shift that makes the island’s population one of the youngest in the hemisphere.

Castro, 83, plucked Diaz-Canel from relative obscurity and appointed him to his new position in 2013 as he announced that he planned to leave office in 2018. That set Diaz-Canel up as heir apparent, especially after other possible candidates were unceremoniously dumped when they were secretly recorded talking about their ambitions.

That is still a no-no, and Diaz-Canel has taken pains not to steal the limelight from Castro or the president’s 88-year-old brother, Fidel, the legendary revolutionary commander and former president who has not been seen in public in months amid rumors of failing health. A new set of photographs of Fidel Castro popped up this week in official media.

The circumstances mean Diaz-Canel has yet to make much of a mark. On an island where around 80% of the population has never known a president who wasn’t named Castro, many Cubans are struggling to figure out who he is.

Asked who he thought would be the next president of Cuba, Jose Hernandez, 83, a retired farm worker in the Cuban city of Mariel, said: “It will be Raul.” Diaz-Canel, Hernandez said, “is a good negotiator who will help our community. But Raul is the president. There is nothing but Castro in our heads.”

Cuba’s younger generation is more receptive to new leadership, but many agree that whoever comes next has a herculean task to court the powerful military, restructure the economy and guide the normalization process with the United States that was announced in December.

“We’ve lived many years with a dynasty,” said Katrina Morejon, a health worker in her 20s from Havana. “People are tired of what’s happening.”

Key leaders of the army, of which Raul Castro is still the supreme commander, control several segments of the economy and will have to be carefully cultivated if Diaz-Canel is to work well with them. Diaz-Canel was born more than a year after the Cuban Revolution led by the Castro brothers ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Raul Castro is expected in the final years of his government to continue with slow but important reforms in the economy, allowing a measure of free enterprise and lifting some restrictions on trade and travel. Whether it is enough as relations with the United States change will be the big test.

The goals stated by Cuba and the U.S. after decades of animosity include elevating diplomatic representations in both countries to full embassies rather than the limited “interests sections.” Handling the new relationship will put pressure on whoever is president of Cuba. Castro has made it clear that better diplomatic ties with Washington should not change Cuba’s domestic, political or economic system, nor its intolerance of dissent.

At 54, Diaz-Canel, a trained engineer with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, is the freshest face in the highest echelons of Cuban power. He recognizes the importance of Cuba joining the Internet age, somewhat against the official grain, people who know him say. A 1982 graduate of the Marta Abreu University of Las Villas with an electrical engineering degree, Diaz-Canel essentially paid his dues, putting hard, careful work ahead of the overt ambition that has felled many an up-and-comer on the Cuban political landscape.

His work on behalf of the state has included teaching at the university level, running local governments, serving as a minister of education and holding regional Communist Party leadership posts. He was assigned management of what Cuban officials consider major areas of accomplishment by the revolution: education, sports and biotechnology. He also did an all-important stint in Nicaragua, representing the Communist Party before like-minded Sandinista leaders.

Much of his personal life has been kept private. He is thought to be married with children. Tall, with strong features, he is well-liked by Cubans in the provinces, many of whom see him as down-to-earth and accessible. His Facebook page has photographs of Diaz-Canel with workers, Raul Castro and others during visits to factories in Villa Clara and elsewhere. He is usually shown in a white guayabera, or a sports jacket and open-collar shirt. Someone has posted items calling him MDC, and at one point nominating him to run the country, saying, “MDC rocks!”

“He is well-liked, young, well-educated, and he’s gone through all the different hoops,” said Rafael Betancourt, a professor at the University of Havana. That he is admired in the often snippy world of university circles, Betancourt said, “is very significant” and shows he has talent for handling people.

It appears the Cuban leadership is gradually, gingerly trying to elevate his profile. He has been sent abroad representing Castro, especially to friendly nations like Venezuela and Laos.

It’s always a delicate balancing act, however. In a speech in Mexico in December, he managed to mention both Castros in the first three paragraphs of his comments, then quote Raul twice more.

Communist-controlled press on the island has started to run fairly regular articles about Diaz-Canel’s activities: his trip to Santiago de Cuba, his visit with workers in Santa Clara.

But there are no big billboards promoting Diaz-Canel; most such public advertising is still limited to a Castro or, especially, the five Cuban intelligence agents who were recently released from jail in the U.S., two because they finished their sentences and three as part of the deal to jump-start detente with the U.S. They are regarded as heroes in Cuba; the posters are out-of-date, still demanding freedom for the men. Diaz-Canel is nowhere to be seen.

“He is too much in the shadows of Raul,” said Arturo Lopez Levy, a former Cuban intelligence agent who knew Diaz-Canel in their hometown of Santa Clara and who now teaches in New York. “A good signal to send to the world now that things are changing would be to give him a more prominent role.”

If he were the son of a corporate boss brought into the firm, Diaz-Canel would fit the bill, having been assigned to Communist Party leadership posts in important provinces like Holguin and Villa Clara. There, people who know him say he cultivated good relationships with local military officials, some of whom have recently been promoted to key leadership posts.

His real distinction, people say, has been in social media and computer technology, an area where Cuba lags notoriously behind the rest of the world. Few Cubans have open access to the Internet, but Diaz-Canel knows its importance to any future growth in business, trade, tourism and education, analysts say.

“The development of information technology is essential to the search for new solutions to development problems” in Latin America, Diaz-Canel said in the Mexico speech. “But the digital gap is also a reality among our countries, and between our countries and other countries, which we must overcome if we want to eliminate social and economic inequalities.” Later, however, when he listed Cuba’s successes, he did not return to the theme of information technology.

“He understands that to prevent a brain drain, you have to give [Cubans] an opportunity to participate massively in the expansion of the Internet,” said an American analyst of Cuban affairs who did not want to be quoted speaking about Diaz-Canel. Whether such an expansion project is yet allowed remains unclear.

Diaz-Canel is also often praised as a hands-on problem solver, someone who could get things done at the grass-roots level and understands the politics of persuasion. He once defended a gay theater group against local officials who wanted to shut it down, earning respect among some of Cuba’s most marginalized citizens.

Diaz-Canel’s gradual ascension comes with a little-noticed, still-slight change in the Cuban political hierarchy.

Rafael Hernandez, a political commentator and editor of Temas magazine in Cuba, said conventional wisdom often holds that “the Cuban leadership is the same, you have Fidel and then Raul, and it’s more or less the same thing.” But, he says, closer examination shows a changing leadership that includes more women and Afro-Cubans, long excluded, than ever before.

That may bode well for Diaz-Canel’s future leadership, but many Cuba-watchers agree that it will ultimately be the military that calls the shots. “The military may not be a threat, but it will always be there,” Lopez Levy said. Diaz-Canel “has an arduous road to walk.”

Miguel Diaz-Canel

Posted in Blog | Tagged Miguel Diaz-Canel, Politics, President Raul Castro | Leave a comment

PERSPECTIVE: OVERCOMING CUBA’S INTERNAL EMBARGO

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Arch Ritter

Published in Current History, February 2015, here: INTERNAL EMBARGO

See original essay here: Overcoming Cuba’s Internal Embargo

By Ted A. Henken and Archibald R.M. Ritter

In scores of interviews conducted over the past 15 years with Cuban entrepreneurs for our new book, “Entrepreneurial Cuba,” Arch Ritter and I often heard the following two very pregnant Cuban sayings:

“El ojo del amo engorda el caballo” (The eye of the owner fattens the horse) and “El que tenga tienda que la atienda, o si no que la venda” (Whoever has a store should tend to it, and if not then sell it”).

The first adage indicates that the quality of a good or service improves when the person performing it enjoys autonomy and has a financial stake in the outcome. The second saying suggests that if the Cuban government is unable to “tend its own stores,” then it should let others take them over.

In essence, this popular wisdom demands that the state turn over to the private sector the economic activities it cannot operate effectively itself—many of which are already widely practiced in Cuba’s ubiquitous underground economy.

In other words, the U.S. embargo – recently dealt a near fatal blow by the joint decision by Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro to reestablish diplomatic relations after almost 54 years – is hardly the principal “blockade” standing in the way of Cuba’s economic revitalization. Though the American “bloqueo” has long been the target of withering and well-deserved international condemnation, on the island Cubans themselves are much more likely to criticize what they bitterly refer to as the “auto-bloqueo” (internal embargo) imposed by the Cuban government itself on the entrepreneurial ingenuity, access to uncensored information and open communications, as well as basic civil and political rights of the Cuban people.

President Barack Obama has opened a door to potential U.S. investment in (and import/export to and from) Cuba’s entrepreneurial and telecom sectors. But is Raúl Castro willing to allow U.S. companies to operate on the island? More important still, is his government ready to open up to the Cuban people by beginning to relinquish its tight control over private enterprise and the Internet?

While we believe that it is both good and necessary for the United States to open up to Cuba and vice versa (to paraphrase the late Pope John Paul II), our book argues that little economic progress or political freedom will be enjoyed by Cubans themselves until the Cuban government opens up to its own people, ceases to demand their acquiescence as subjects, and begins to respect them as citizens, consumers, and entrepreneurs with defensible and inalienable economic and political rights of their own.

In fact, two weeks following the historic mid-December Obama-Castro announcement, the Cuban government received its first public test of whether its internal embargo would now be relaxed in light of the sea-change in U.S. policy. On December 30, the internationally renown Cuban artist Tania Bruguera organized a public act of performance art in Havana’s iconic Revolutionary Plaza. Dubbed “#YoTambienExijo,” Bruguera invited Cuban citizens to “share their own demands” on the government and visions for the island’s future for one minute each at an open-mic set up in the Plaza. Predictably, the government responded by arresting and detaining scores of artists, activists, and independent journalists, which amounted to an even more public “performance” of its own typically repressive tactics, as news of the event echoed in the international media on the final day of the year.

Thus, while we can celebrate the fact that the U.S. and Cuban governments have finally agreed to begin respectful, diplomatic engagement, the Cuban government’s failure to respectfully engage with the diverse and often dissenting voices of its own citizens makes us wonder with Bruguera whether “it’s the Cuban people who will benefit from this new historic moment,” as she put it in her previously circulated open letter to Raúl Castro.

Between 1996 and 2006, President Fidel Castro pursued an economic policy retrenchment that gradually phased out the pro-market reforms of the early 1990s, indicating that he was more aware of the political risks that popular entrepreneurship would pose to his centralized political control than of the economic benefits it could provide. Therefore, he was unwilling to transfer more than a token portion of the state “store” to private entrepreneurs.

His brother, Raúl Castro, whose presidency began in 2006, has significantly eased this resistance. While the underlying goal of economic reform is still to “preserve and perfect socialism,” he has started to deliberatively shrink the state “store” and transfer the production of many goods and services to the more than half-a-million new small enterprises, including both private and cooperative ventures.

However, much more remains to be done in reforming policies toward microenterprise so that it can contribute fully to productive employment, innovation, and economic growth. For example, 70 percent of the newly self-employed were previously unemployed, meaning that they likely converted previously existing underground enterprises into legal ones, doing little to absorb the 1.8 million workers slated for state-sector layoffs. Moreover, only 7 percent of self-employed are university graduates, and most of them work in “low tech” activities because almost all professional self-employment is prohibited. This acts a “blockade” on the effective use of Cuba’s well-educated labor force, obstructing innovation and productivity.

A further goal of the tentative reforms to date has been to facilitate the emergence of cooperative and small enterprise sectors so that they can generate sustained improvements in material standards of living. This can only be achieved with additional reforms that effectively “end the embargo” against Cuban entrepreneurs.

Among the necessary changes would be:

1. Opening the professions to private enterprise,

2. Implementing affordable wholesale markets,

3. Providing access to foreign exchange and imports (a fiercely guarded state monopoly),

4. Establishing effective credit facilities,

5. Permitting the establishment of retailing enterprises, and

6. Relaxing the tax burden on small enterprise, which now discriminates against domestic enterprise in favor of foreign investors.

Progress in all these areas would be greatly facilitated by access to U.S. investors and markets (both as a source of desperately needed wholesale inputs and as a place to sell their products), something now possible following the implementation of Obama’s historic policy changes during the coming year.

However, it remains to be seen whether Raúl has the political will to intensify the internal reform process. The outright prohibition of activities the government prefers to keep under state monopoly allows it to exercise control over Cuban citizens and impose an apparent order over society. However, this comes at the cost of pushing all targeted economic activity (along with potential tax revenue) back into the black market – where much of it lurked prior to 2010.

On the other hand, the inclusion and regulation of the many private activities dreamed up and market-tested by Cuba’s always inventive entrepreneurial sector would create more jobs, a higher quality and variety of goods and services at lower prices, while also increasing tax revenue. However, these benefits come at the political cost of allowing greater citizen autonomy, wealth and property in private hands, and open competition against state monopolies.

The viability of Cuba’s reforms also depends on the recently announced changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba and on Cuba’s changing policy toward its émigrés, who already play a major role in the Cuban economy as suppliers of start-up capital via the billions of dollars they provide annually in remittances. Such investment could be expanded if the Cuban government were to deepen its recent migration reforms by granting greater economic rights to its extensive émigré community.

Obama’s relaxation of U.S. policy will inevitably shift the political calculus that underlies economic reform on the island. As external obstacles to Cuba’s economic revitalization are removed, the onus will fall with increased pressure on the Cuban government to broaden and deepen its initial reforms, since it alone will be to blame for poor performance.

For example, organizations like Catholic Church-affiliated CubaEmprende have already begun to offer entrepreneurship workshops to small business owners with the financial backing of Cuban-Americans. Now that they needn’t worry about the threat of U.S. sanctions, will this and other similar projects be provided the legal and institutional space to flourish by the Cuban government?

Despite a continued state monopoly on the mass media and one of the Western Hemisphere’s lowest Internet penetration rates, in recent years Cuba has seen a number of significant developments in information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities, access to uncensored news, and the availability of new dissemination channels for digital data.

These developments include:

1. The spread of the worldwide blogging and citizen journalism phenomena to Cuba;

2. The connection of a fiber-optic Internet cable to the island from Venezuela in 2013, followed by the opening of 118 Internet cafés in June 2013 and access to e-mail via cell phone for the first time in 2014;

3. The appearance of a small number of independent, island-based news outlets – including the news and opinion websites Havana Times, On Cuba, and 14ymedio (launched by pioneering blogger Yoani Sánchez in May 2014);

4. The creation of a number of unauthorized “mesh” networks that use private Wi-Fi networks to communicate and share information, and

5. The emergence of an underground digital data distribution system known as “el paquete” (the packet).

Each of these developments could be accelerated by the new U.S. policy that allows American telecom providers to do business in Cuba, but only if the Cuban government is willing to allow diversification and freer competition in its centralized, monopolistic ICT system.

For example, the so-called “packet” phenomenon currently acts as an alternate, off-line Internet on the island making huge amounts of electronic data (CDs, DVDs, video games, books, “apps,” computer programs, news, and so forth) readily available for purchase in Cuba’s digital “black market.” While much data continues to circulate via thumb-drives, there is also a market for entire external hard drives of data bought and sold not in megabytes or gigabytes, but in terabytes – and all outside the rigid control of the state media production and distribution system – amounting to an indirect but very serious and effective challenge to the so-called “política cultural de la Revolución.”

This digital black market arises from the fact that many products—especially the latest electronic gadgets—are either priced far out of reach for most Cubans in “las tiendas estatales,” not sold at all, or even banned outright. More recently, the small but rapidly growing number of Cubans who have joined the smart phone revolution (often purchasing their Androids or iPhones via the blocked site Revolico.com, a Cuban version of Craig’s List) have benefitted from the proliferation of “apps” especially configured for Cuba’s peculiar off-line environment.

Undoubtedly, such a peculiar digital media environment will be fundamentally transformed if American data, service, and hardware providers were given access to the Cuban market. At the very least, prices are bound to fall, speed increase, and access expand, with the quality and quantity of digital ICT equipment improving.

A key recent development was the June 2014 trip of top Google executives to the island, including company co-founder Eric Schmidt, with the purpose of “promoting a free and open Internet.” To that end, they met both with leading cyber-activist Yoani Sánchez and government officials, while also interacting with students at Cuba’s University of Computer Science. Upon returning to the U.S., Schmidt declared that Cuba was trapped in the Internet of the 1990s and heavily censored, with American-engineered hardware and software losing out to Chinese ICT infrastructure.

He also reasoned that the U.S. embargo “makes absolutely no sense” if Washington’s aim is to open the island up to the freer flow of information. “If you wish the country to modernize,” Schmidt argued, “the best way to do this is to empower the citizens with smart phones and encourage freedom of expression and put information tools into the hands of Cubans directly.”

The greatly expanded telecom opportunities for U.S. companies and the decision to review the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, both included in December’s announcement to normalize relations, indicate that the Obama administration was convinced by Schmidt’s logic.

The slow pace and (so far) only marginally successful results of Cuba’s economic reforms to date has put the Cuban government under rising internal pressure to expand Internet services and from abroad to meet the needs of the new foreign investors it hopes to attract. This eventuality – now with the help of U.S. investment and technology – could positively impact the population’s access to the web.

At the same time, the government is clearly looking to the Chinese example as it contemplates ramping up its own Internet capabilities, hoping to remake the web in its authoritarian image and forestall any of its democratizing impacts.

Still, in the months following the Google visit, the company announced that it was unblocking island access to its free cloud-based Chrome search engine as well as popular applications such as Google Play and Google Analytics – a decision that could not have been made without tacit approval from the Obama administration. Events in 2015 will reveal how much further the Cuban government is willing to allow Google and other Internet and telecom companies to go.

While these digital developments are significant, it remains difficult to determine to what extent they will affect ordinary Cubans, given that the government itself estimates the Internet access rate at an extremely low 26 percent. Even this figure conflates access to the Internet with the island’s limited internal “intranet,” and counts sporadic access to e-mail in the same category as full access to the World Wide Web.

Moreover, while 118 new cyber-cafes opened across the island in June 2013, the service is a state monopoly available only to those able to pay in hard currency. Full access for one hour costs the equivalent of the average weekly salary. Thus, expanded access to ICT in Cuba takes place in a context of a connectivity that can be described as slow, expensive, and censored, with certain sites – such as 14ymedio – blocked outright.

Devices such as computers, tablets, and smartphones are scarce and costly; the purchase and importation of key equipment such as routers and other Wi-Fi technology are highly controlled. Indeed, it is still not legally possible for the vast majority of Cuban citizens to obtain a household Internet connection, and there is virtually no legal access on the island to wireless networks and fully functional mobile technology or smart phones with data plans, outside of international hotels and certain government institutions, and select educational facilities.

The government has recognized these limitations and made commitments to remedy them, but there is no clear timeline or way to hold the government or its telecom monopoly Etecsa accountable to citizens, consumers, or Cuba’s emerging class of private entrepreneurs.

Cuban citizens of all stripes are working to overcome the substantial obstacles to entrepreneurship and free expression. This effort, however, takes place in an asphyxiating climate of political polarization, where Cubans have been doubly blockaded by the U.S. embargo on one side and by the ongoing internal embargo on the other.

This is why the recent growth of domestic entrepreneurship and innovative engagement by Internet companies like Google is so significant. This new approach seeks to engage and empower the Cuban people directly while accepting some collateral benefit for the Cuban government, instead of aiming to undermine the government with a ham-handed embargo while accepting the collateral damage that such a policy inevitably has on the people.

Now that this approach has been reinforced by the Obama administration’s momentous decision to diplomatically engage Cuba as a way to further empower the Cuban people (making their lives, in the words of the president, a bit more fácil), the ball is clearly in Castro’s court.

Will he transform his initial economic reforms and marginal expansion of the Internet into change Cubans can believe (and even invest) in?

Posted in Blog, Featured | Tagged Economic Reforms, Freedom of Expression, Internet, President Raul Castro, Self-Employment, Small Enterprise, US-Cuba Normalization | 1 Comment

THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA: AT LAST, A THAW! HISTORIC STEPS TOWARDS ENDING AN ANACHRONISTIC EMBARGO

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Arch Ritter

The Economist, Dec 17th 2014

Original article here: AT LAST, A THAW

IT HAS long been one of the great anomalies of American foreign policy. The United States normalised relations with Communist China and even with Vietnam, with which it fought a bitter war costing more than 50,000 American lives. But ties with Cuba, which long ago ceased to pose any threat to America, remained frozen in the Cold War. Maintaining the economic embargo against the communist island first imposed in 1961 was about revanchism and Congressional politics, not foreign policy.

On December 17th Barack Obama announced sweeping changes which go a long way to bring policy towards Cuba into the 21st century. The two countries will start immediate talks on restoring diplomatic relations and re-opening embassies. The president will use his executive authority to loosen the ban on travel to the island; raise the limit on remittances to ordinary Cubans and their small businesses from $500 per quarter to $2,000; and allow exports of building materials, farm equipment and telecommunications gear. Americans will be able to use their credit and debit cards on the island. The administration is also preparing to remove Cuba from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.

These announcements followed 18 months of secret talks in Canada between American officials and the government of Raúl Castro, who replaced his elder brother Fidel as Cuba’s president in 2008. The talks were encouraged by Pope Francis. They culminated with a 45-minute phone call between Mr Obama and Mr Castro on December 16th.

The biggest stumbling block to any change in the embargo was the incarceration of Alan Gross, a worker for the United States Agency for International development, who was jailed in 2009 for handing out satellite-communications gear on the island. Mr Gross, who is in very poor health, was freed on December 17th (he is pictured below with his wife, Judy, after his release). Freed too, and sent to the United States, was a Cuban whom Mr Obama said was “one of our most important intelligence agents”, as well as 53 Cuban political prisoners from a list provided by the United States. In return, the United States has released three Cuban spies serving long sentences after being arrested in 2001 for snooping on exiles and American military bases in Florida.

In seeking to normalise diplomatic relations, the administration recognised what has long been clear to the outside world: the embargo has manifestly failed to topple the Castros. Under Raúl Castro change has slowly started to come to Cuba from within. Private farmers, small businesses and co-operatives now make up around a fifth of the island’s labour force.

The United States’ Cuba policy also put it at odds with the whole of Latin America, which now favours normal ties. Mr Obama said he would attend the Summit of the Americas in Panama in April, to which Mr Castro has also been invited. He said he would continue to press for human rights and democracy in Cuba.

As for Mr Castro, it is not hard to see why he is interested in closer ties with the United States. For the past dozen years, Cuba’s moribund economy has been propped up by subsidies from Venezuela, mainly in the form of cheap oil. The fall in the oil price has pushed Venezuela’s economy into a deep recession. The approval rating of its president, Nicolás Maduro, has plunged to 25%, casting uncertainty over the durability of Venezuelan aid. Mr Castro said the agreement to restore diplomatic relations “doesn’t mean that the main thing [ie, the embargo] has been resolved”.

Only the United States Congress can repeal the embargo. What Mr Obama has done is remove some of its teeth. The president can count on public opinion in this issue, which in recent years has swung against the embargo. In an apparent attempt to mollify the pro-embargo camp, the administration recently dropped its previous opposition to a bill, approved earlier this month, imposing targeted sanctions against Venezuelan officials involved in repressing opposition demonstrations earlier this year. But none of this will assuage the president’s conservative critics in Congress. Mr Gross considered himself a “hostage” rather than a prisoner, and Mr Obama’s opponents pounced on the swap as endangering American lives, as well as coddling a dictator.

Just how far détente between the United States and Cuba will go is not yet clear. “I don’t expect a transformation of Cuban society overnight,” said Mr Obama. But he is surely right in saying that after half a century of failure in trying to isolate Cuba, it is worth trying to promote change there through engagement.

Posted in Blog | Tagged President Raul Castro, US-Cuba Normalization, US-Cuba Relations | Leave a comment

WHITE HOUSE PRESS REPORT ON THE SPECIFIC MEASURES TAKEN BY PRESIDENT OBAMA ON NORMALIZATION WITH CUBA

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Arch Ritter

Original here: SPECIFIC MEASURES; http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/17/fact-sheet-charting-new-course-cuba; 17 December 2014

Obama on the Phone with Raul Castro, December 17, 2014

Key Components of the Updated Policy Approach:

Since taking office in 2009, President Obama has taken steps aimed at supporting the ability of the Cuban people to gain greater control over their own lives and determine their country’s future. Today, the President announced additional measures to end our outdated approach, and to promote more effectively change in Cuba that is consistent with U.S. support for the Cuban people and in line with U.S. national security interests. Major elements of the President’s new approach include:

Establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba-

The President has instructed the Secretary of State to immediately initiate discussions with Cuba on the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, which were severed in January 1961.
In the coming months, we will re-establish an embassy in Havana and carry out high-level exchanges and visits between our two governments as part of the normalization process. As an initial step, the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs will lead the U.S. Delegation to the next round of U.S.-Cuba Migration Talks in January 2015, in Havana.
U.S. engagement will be critical when appropriate and will include continued strong support for improved human rights conditions and democratic reforms in Cuba and other measures aimed at fostering improved conditions for the Cuban people.
The United States will work with Cuba on matters of mutual concern and that advance U.S. national interests, such as migration, counternarcotics, environmental protection, and trafficking in persons, among other issues.

Adjusting regulations to more effectively empower the Cuban people-

The changes announced today will soon be implemented via amendments to regulations of the Departments of the Treasury and Commerce. Our new policy changes will further enhance our goal of empowering the Cuban population.
Our travel and remittance policies are helping Cubans by providing alternative sources of information and opportunities for self-employment and private property ownership, and by strengthening independent civil society.
These measures will further increase people-to-people contact; further support civil society in Cuba; and further enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people. Persons must comply with all provisions of the revised regulations; violations of the terms and conditions are enforceable under U.S. law.

Facilitating an expansion of travel under general licenses for the 12 existing categories of travel to Cuba authorized by law-

General licenses will be made available for all authorized travelers in the following existing categories: (1) family visits; (2) official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations; (3) journalistic activity; (4) professional research and professional meetings; (5) educational activities; (6) religious activities; (7) public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibitions; (8) support for the Cuban people; (9) humanitarian projects; (10) activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes; (11) exportation, importation, or transmission of information or information materials; and (12) certain export transactions that may be considered for authorization under existing regulations and guidelines.
Travelers in the 12 categories of travel to Cuba authorized by law will be able to make arrangements through any service provider that complies with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regulations governing travel services to Cuba, and general licenses will authorize provision of such services.
The policy changes make it easier for Americans to provide business training for private Cuban businesses and small farmers and provide other support for the growth of Cuba’s nascent private sector. Additional options for promoting the growth of entrepreneurship and the private sector in Cuba will be explored.

Facilitating remittances to Cuba by U.S. persons-

Remittance levels will be raised from $500 to $2,000 per quarter for general donative remittances to Cuban nationals (except to certain officials of the government or the Communist party); and donative remittances for humanitarian projects, support for the Cuban people, and support for the development of private businesses in Cuba will no longer require a specific license.
Remittance forwarders will no longer require a specific license.

Authorizing expanded commercial sales/exports from the United States of certain goods and services-

The expansion will seek to empower the nascent Cuban private sector. Items that will be authorized for export include certain building materials for private residential construction, goods for use by private sector Cuban entrepreneurs, and agricultural equipment for small farmers. This change will make it easier for Cuban citizens to have access to certain lower-priced goods to improve their living standards and gain greater economic independence from the state.

Authorizing American citizens to import additional goods from Cuba-

Licensed U.S. travelers to Cuba will be authorized to import $400 worth of goods from Cuba, of which no more than $100 can consist of tobacco products and alcohol combined.

Facilitating authorized transactions between the United States and Cuba-

U.S. institutions will be permitted to open correspondent accounts at Cuban financial institutions to facilitate the processing of authorized transactions.
The regulatory definition of the statutory term “cash in advance” will be revised to specify that it means “cash before transfer of title”; this will provide more efficient financing of authorized trade with Cuba.
U.S. credit and debit cards will be permitted for use by travelers to Cuba.
These measures will improve the speed, efficiency, and oversight of authorized payments between the United States and Cuba.

Initiating new efforts to increase Cubans’ access to communications and their ability to communicate freely-

Cuba has an internet penetration of about five percent—one of the lowest rates in the world. The cost of telecommunications in Cuba is exorbitantly high, while the services offered are extremely limited.
The commercial export of certain items that will contribute to the ability of the Cuban people to communicate with people in the United States and the rest of the world will be authorized. This will include the commercial sale of certain consumer communications devices, related software, applications, hardware, and services, and items for the establishment and update of communications-related systems.
Telecommunications providers will be allowed to establish the necessary mechanisms, including infrastructure, in Cuba to provide commercial telecommunications and internet services, which will improve telecommunications between the United States and Cuba.

Updating the application of Cuba sanctions in third countries-

U.S.-owned or -controlled entities in third countries will be generally licensed to provide services to, and engage in financial transactions with, Cuban individuals in third countries. In addition, general licenses will unblock the accounts at U.S. banks of Cuban nationals who have relocated outside of Cuba; permit U.S. persons to participate in third-country professional meetings and conferences related to Cuba; and, allow foreign vessels to enter the United States after engaging in certain humanitarian trade with Cuba, among other measures.

Pursuing discussions with the Cuban and Mexican governments to discuss our unresolved maritime boundary in the Gulf of Mexico-

Previous agreements between the United States and Cuba delimit the maritime space between the two countries within 200 nautical miles from shore. The United States, Cuba, and Mexico have extended continental shelf in an area within the Gulf of Mexico where the three countries have not yet delimited any boundaries.
The United States is prepared to invite the governments of Cuba and Mexico to discuss shared maritime boundaries in the Gulf of Mexico.

Initiating a review of Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism-

The President has instructed the Secretary of State to immediately launch such a review, and provide a report to the President within six months regarding Cuba’s support for international terrorism. Cuba was placed on the list in 1982.

Addressing Cuba’s participation in the 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama-

President Obama will participate in the Summit of the Americas in Panama. Human rights and democracy will be key Summit themes. Cuban civil society must be allowed to participate along with civil society from other countries participating in the Summit, consistent with the region’s commitments under the Inter-American Democratic Charter. The United States welcomes a constructive dialogue among Summit governments on the Summit’s principles.

Unwavering Commitment to Democracy, Human Rights, and Civil Society

A critical focus of our increased engagement will include continued strong support by the United States for improved human rights conditions and democratic reforms in Cuba. The promotion of democracy supports universal human rights by empowering civil society and a person’s right to speak freely, peacefully assemble, and associate, and by supporting the ability of people to freely determine their future. Our efforts are aimed at promoting the independence of the Cuban people so they do not need to rely on the Cuban state.

The U.S. Congress funds democracy programming in Cuba to provide humanitarian assistance, promote human rights and fundamental freedoms, and support the free flow of information in places where it is restricted and censored. The Administration will continue to implement U.S. programs aimed at promoting positive change in Cuba, and we will encourage reforms in our high level engagement with Cuban officials.

The United States encourages all nations and organizations engaged in diplomatic dialogue with the Cuban government to take every opportunity both publicly and privately to support increased respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in Cuba.

Ultimately, it will be the Cuban people who drive economic and political reforms. That is why President Obama took steps to increase the flow of resources and information to ordinary Cuban citizens in 2009, 2011, and today. The Cuban people deserve the support of the United States and of an entire region that has committed to promote and defend democracy through the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

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TEXTO COMPLETO DEL DISCURSO DE RAÚL CASTRO SOBRE EL ACERCAMIENTO CON ESTADOS UNIDOS: Alocución del Presidente cubano: Los Cinco ya están en Cuba, 17 diciembre 2014

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Arch Ritter

Granma, 18 diciembre de 2014

Compatriotas:

Desde mi elección como Presidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros, he reiterado en múltiples ocasiones, nuestra disposición a sostener con el gobierno de los Estados Unidos un diálogo respetuoso, basado en la igualdad soberana, para tratar los más diversos temas de forma recíproca, sin menoscabo a la independencia nacional y la autodeterminación de nuestro pueblo.

Esta es una posición que fue expresada al Gobierno de Estados Unidos, de forma pública y privada, por el compañero Fidel en diferentes momentos de nuestra larga lucha, con el planteamiento de discutir y resolver las diferencias mediante negociaciones, sin renunciar a uno solo de nuestros principios.

El heroico pueblo cubano ha demostrado, frente a grandes peligros, agresiones, adversidades y sacrificios, que es y será fiel a nuestros ideales de independencia y justicia social. Estrechamente unidos en estos 56 años de Revolución, hemos guardado profunda lealtad a los que cayeron defendiendo esos principios desde el inicio de nuestras guerras de independencia en 1868.

Ahora, llevamos adelante, pese a las dificultades, la actualización de nuestro modelo económico para construir un socialismo próspero e sostenible.

Resultado de un diálogo al más alto nivel, que incluyó una conversación telefónica que sostuve ayer con el Presidente Barack Obama, se ha podido avanzar en la solución de algunos temas de interés para ambas naciones.

Como prometió Fidel, en junio del 2001, cuando dijo: ¡Volverán!, arribaron hoy a nuestra Patria, Gerardo, Ramón y Antonio.

La enorme alegría de sus familiares y de todo nuestro pueblo, que se movilizó infatigablemente con ese objetivo, se extiende entre los cientos de comités y grupos de solidaridad; los gobiernos, parlamentos, organizaciones, instituciones y personalidades que durante estos 16 años reclamaron e hicieron denodados esfuerzos por su liberación. A todos ellos expresamos la más profunda gratitud y compromiso.

Esta decisión del Presidente Obama, merece el respeto y reconocimiento de nuestro pueblo.

Quiero agradecer y reconocer el apoyo del Vaticano, y especialmente, del Papa Francisco, al mejoramiento de las relaciones entre Cuba y Estados Unidos. Igualmente, al Gobierno de Canadá por las facilidades creadas para la realización del diálogo de alto nivel entre los dos países.

A su vez, decidimos excarcelar y enviar a Estados Unidos a un espía de origen cubano que estuvo al servicio de esa nación.

Por otra parte, basados en razones humanitarias, hoy también fue devuelto a su país el ciudadano norteamericano Alan Gross.

De manera unilateral, como es nuestra práctica y en estricto apego a nuestro ordenamiento legal, han recibido beneficios penales los reclusos correspondientes, incluida la excarcelación de personas sobre las que el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos había mostrado interés.

Igualmente, hemos acordado el restablecimiento de las relaciones diplomáticas.

Esto no quiere decir que lo principal se haya resuelto. El bloqueo económico, comercial y financiero que provoca enormes daños humanos y económicos a nuestro país debe cesar.

Aunque las medidas del bloqueo han sido convertidas en Ley, el Presidente de los Estados Unidos puede modificar su aplicación en uso de sus facultades ejecutivas.

Proponemos al Gobierno de los Estados Unidos adoptar medidas mutuas para mejorar el clima bilateral y avanzar hacia la normalización de los vínculos entre nuestros países, basados en los principios del Derecho Internacional y la Carta de las Naciones Unidas.

Cuba reitera su disposición a sostener cooperación en los organismos multilaterales, como la Organización de Naciones Unidas.

Al reconocer que tenemos profundas diferencias, fundamentalmente en materia de soberanía nacional, democracia, derechos humanos y política exterior, reafirmo nuestra voluntad de dialogar sobre todos esos temas.

Exhorto al Gobierno de los Estados Unidos a remover los obstáculos que impiden o restringen los vínculos entre nuestros pueblos, las familias y los ciudadanos de ambos países, en particular los relativos a los viajes, el correo postal directo y las telecomunicaciones.

Los progresos alcanzados en los intercambios sostenidos demuestran que es posible encontrar solución a muchos problemas. Como hemos repetido, debemos aprender el arte de convivir, de forma civilizada, con nuestras diferencias.

Sobre estos importantes temas volveremos a hablar más adelante.

Muchas gracias.

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Review Essay, REVOLUTION IN THE REVOLUTION: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CUBAN ECONOMY

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Arch Ritter

Latin American Research Review, Volume 49, Number 3 (2014)

By Arch Ritter

Original article here: https://lasa.international.pitt.edu/LARR/prot/fulltext/vol49no3/49-3_246-255_Ritter.pdf

Cuban Economists on the Cuban Economy. Edited by Al Campbell. Gainesville, FL: The University Press of Florida, 2013. Pp. xvii + 337. $79.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780813044235.

Cuban Economic and Social Development: Policy Reforms and Challenges in the 21^st Century. Edited by Jorge I. Domínguez, Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, Mayra Espina Prieto and Lorena Barberia. David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, USA, 2012. Pp. iii + 333. $24.99 paper. ISBN: 9780674062434.

Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment. By Samuel Farber. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2011. Pp.ix + 369. $24.00 paper. ISBN: 9781608461394.

Cuban Revelations: behind the Scenes in Havana, By Marc Frank, University Press of Florida, 2013. Pp. iii + 327. $29.95 cloth. ISBN: 9789813944651

Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms. By Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Pérez-López. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2013. Pp.xv + 295. $65.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781588269043.

¿Quo vadis, Cuba? La incierta senda de las reformas . Edited by Pavel Vidal and José Antonio Alonso. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011. Pp. xvii + 453. $48.00 paper. ISBN: 9780268029830.

When President Fidel Castro experienced a medical emergency on July 31, 2006, First Vice-President Raúl Castro assumed the role of Acting President, and was then declared President in February 2008 by the National Assembly. Hopes for change were high relative to the almost half century of Fidel’s presidency because Raúl was considered to be more pragmatic than Fidel. During the first years of Raúl “acting” and then full Presidency, policy changes were modest, uncertain and hesitant. However, after deliberation and some modest policy experimentation, the pace of reform accelerated in 2010.

In his first major speech in July of 2007, Raúl acknowledged the difficulties that the economy faced and the dimension of the reform effort that would be needed to overcome its problems. “To have more, we have to begin by producing more, with a sense of rationality and efficiency, so that we may reduce imports, especially of food products –that may be grown here– whose domestic production is still a long way away from meeting the needs of the population.”[1] This contrasted with the complacency of the last years of the Fidel era. Raúl emphasized the necessity of improving agriculture as well as industry and mentioned the possibility of increasing direct foreign investment. He discussed “social indiscipline” and the expansion of the underground economy. He assured citizens that the government was studying these issues and would soon introduce appropriate policies. In subsequent speeches – shorter and less frequent than those of his elder brother – Raúl demonstrated increased pragmatism and decreased ideological rigidity. He also has shown an awareness of the need to break with some traditional Cuban economic institutions and policies. Such change was ultimately necessary in his view for political reasons, to ensure the long-term viability of Cuba as an independent nation he stated:

We are facing unpleasant realities, but we do not close our eyes to them. We are convinced that we need to break away from dogmas and assume firmly and confidently the ongoing upgrading of our economic model in order to set the foundations of the irreversibility of Cuban socialism and its development, which we know is the guarantee of our national sovereignty and independence.[2]

He did not view such changes as adoption of any sort of “capitalism,” but instead considered it an “up-dating” or “modernization” (actualización) of Cuban socialism. However, Raúl’s concept of socialism reflected a change from the Fidelista view: it no longer implied an aspiration to equal outcomes.

Socialism means social justice and equality, but equality of rights and opportunities, not salaries. Equality does not mean egalitarianism. This is, in the end, another form of exploitation, that of the exploitation of the responsible worker by the one who is not, or even worse, by the slothful.[3]

Raúl also emphasized that policy changes were to be introduced with deliberativeness and caution. This was certainly the approach prior to mid-2010.

The major reforms of 2010 began with the proposal to downsize employment in the state sector by 500,000 presumably redundant state employees by the end of March 2011 and 1.5 million by the end of 2012 with the hope that they would somehow be absorbed productively by an invigorated small enterprise sector. Then came the publication of the ambitious and comprehensive “Draft Guide for Economic and Social Reform” published in November 2010. The Guide was discussed broadly throughout Cuba, revised, and then approved at the Sixth Congress of Cuba’s Communist Party in April 2011. Since then, there has been a steady series of economic reforms introduced that are transforming the economy increasingly into a “mixed” economy with significant state, private, cooperative and joint venture sectors (the latter with foreign and state enterprises) together with a greater reliance on the market mechanism for the social control of economic activity.

Is this a “Revolution in the Revolution”, to hijack Regis Debray’s catchy book title?[4] The answer is “probably yes”. Raúl’s reforms amount to a repudiation of almost a half century of the institutions and policies mainly borrowed from and/or inspired by the countries of the Soviet Bloc. The reforms also constitute a rejection of the impetuous and capricious policy experimentation of Fidel. Indeed, by 2014 Raúl already had been successful in forging his own legacy and emerging from the shadow of his elder brother.

Eight years after the accession of Raúl, it is time for an analysis and evaluation of his revised approach to economic management. Not surprisingly, a large number of books dedicated to this task have been published recently. The volumes reviewed here all focus directly on, or include lengthy analyses of the Raúlista reforms.[5]

The authors come from a variety of analytical traditions and disciplines. They include Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Pérez-López as well as the Spanish authors of the Vidal-Alonso volume whose approach is by and large mainstream economics, the more radical economist Al Campbell and also political scientists Samuel Farber and Jorge Domínguez. Included are analysts from the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy (CEEC) and other institutes of the University of Havana (in the Vidal-Alonso and the Domínguez et. al. volumes) many of whom have been moderate reformists since the early 1990s. About half of the analysts in Al Campbell’s volume have been working in the National Institute for Economic Studies (INIE), the main governmental economic think-tank, with the remainder from other branches of the government or its institutes. It is tempting to label these authors the “old guard” but some such as Miguel Figueras and José Luis Rodríguez can be said to have been moderate reformists as well, and all profess to be supporters of Raúl’s reforms.

These volumes all make important contributions to the analysis and understanding of Cuba’s overall economic situation. However, economic policies in a range of vital issue areas remain to be analyzed in greater depth as part of the process of the actualización of the Cuban economy.

One hopes that the next round of major publications on the Cuban economy will investigate some of these specific policy areas more profoundly than was possible in any of the general volumes reviewed here. Of particular relevance would be analyses of the policies toward agriculture, industry, energy, infrastructure, the service sector, small enterprise and the private sector, cooperatives, state enterprise, foreign investment and joint ventures, exchange rate and monetary issues, trade policy, policy towards foreign investment, social policies, health and education, labor issues, pensions demographic issues, cultural areas, etc. The work ahead is daunting.

What remains to be seen is how far economic reforms can proceed without any actualización of Cuba’s political system.

CONTINUE READING: Revolution in the Revolution, LARR, Ritter, October 2014

NOTES

[1] Cuban Communist Party, “Speech by the First Vice-President of the Councils of State and Ministers, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, at the main celebration of the 54^th Anniversary of the attack on Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Garrisons, at the Major General Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz Revolution Square in the city of Camagüey. July 26^th, 2007, ‘Year 49 of the Revolution.,’” Diario Granma, July 27, 2007.

[2] Yohandry Fontana, “Key Address by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the State Council and the Council of Ministers and Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee,” Yohandryweb’s Noticias, April 4, 2009, http://yohandryweb.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/300/.

[3] President Raúl Castro, Speech at the Close of the Seventh Legislature of the national Assembly, 11 July 2008, http://www.ratb.org.uk/raul-castro/149-full-text-of-a-speech- president-raul-castro-at- the-first-ordinary-period-of-sessions-of-the-seventh-legislature-of-the-national-assembly. Accessed March 5, 2014

[4] Régis Debray, Revolution In The Revolution? Armed Struggle and Political Struggle In Latin America (New York: Penguin Books Ltd),1968.

[5] Other books focusing on this theme include: Muricio A. Font and Carlos Riobo (Editors). Handbook of Contemporary Cuba: Economy, Politics, Civil Society and Globalization, Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers, 2013; Claes Brundenius and Ricardo Torres Perez (Editors). No More free Lunch: Reflections on the Cuban Economic Reform process and Challenges for Transformation, Switzerland: Springer, 2013; and Alberto Gabriele (Editor). The Economy of Cuba after the VI Party Congress, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2012.

Posted in Blog | Tagged Book Review, Economic Reforms, General Economic Analyses, President Raul Castro | Leave a comment

ENTREPRENEURIAL CUBA: THE CHANGING POLICY LANDSCAPE

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Arch Ritter

ENTREPRENEURIAL CUBA: THE CHANGING POLICY LANDSCAPE

Archibald R.M. Ritter and Ted A. Henken

2014/373 pages
ISBN: 978-1-62637-163-7 hc $79.95 $35

A FirstForumPress Book

Special limited-time offer!Mention e-blast when ordering

CLICK HERE TO READ THE INTRODUCTION: “Cuba’s Chabging Policy Landscape”

“A provocative, compelling, and essential read. The ethnographic work alone is worth the price of admission.” —John W. Cotman, Howard University

“A multifaceted analysis of Cuban economic activity…. Ritter and Henken paint a lively picture of daily life in entrepreneurial Cuba.” —Julia Sweig, Council on Foreign Relations

SUMMARY

During the presidency of Raúl Castro, Cuba has dramatically reformed its policies toward small private enterprises. Archibald Ritter and Ted Henken consider why—and to what effect.

After reviewing the evolution of policy since 1959, the authors contrast the approaches of Fidel and Raúl Castro and explore in depth the responses of Cuban entrepreneurs to the new environment. Their work, rich in ethnographic research and extensive interviews, provides a revealing analysis of Cuba’s fledgling private sector.

THE AUTHORS

Archibald R.M. Ritter is distinguished research professor of economics and international affairs at Carleton University.

Ted A. Henken is associate professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Baruch College, CUNY.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cuba’s Changing Policy Landscape.
The Small-Enterprise Sector.
Revolutionary Trajectories and Strategic Shifts, 1959–1990.
The “Special Period,” 1990–2006.
Policy Reform Under Raúl Castro, 2006–2014.
The Movement Toward Non-Agricultural Cooperatives.
The Underground Economy.
The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Paladar, 1993–2013.
The Future of Small Enterprise in Cuba.
Appendix 1: Timeline of Small Enterprise Under the Revolution.
Appendix 2: 201 Legalized Self-Employment Occupations.

Lynne Rienner Publisher’s page on Entrepreneurial Cuba: https://www.rienner.com/title/Entrepreneurial_Cuba_The_Changing_Policy_Landscape

For order and general inquiries, please contact: questions@rienner.com

Posted in Blog, News on the Cuban Economy | Tagged Cooperatives, Cuenta-Propistas, Economic Illegalities, Economic Institutions, Economic Reforms, Fidel Castro, President Raul Castro, Self-Employment, Small Enterprise, Special Period, Underground Economy | Leave a comment

RAÚL CASTRO Y LA CORRUPCIÓN

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Arch Ritter

Carlos Alberto Montaner | Miami | 7 Oct 2014

Original: http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba

¿Cree Raúl Castro que puede haber un Estado medularmente corrupto con funcionarios honrados que cometen delitos pero no lucran con ello?

Esto es, en síntesis, lo que se ha publicado: Cy Tokmakjian un empresario canadiense de 74 años, presumiblemente de origen armenio, llevaba dos décadas haciendo negocios en Cuba, pero fue condenado a 15 años de cárcel por (supuestamente) sobornar a funcionarios cubanos.

En la redada —de acuerdo con Reuters— fueron apresadas, además, 16 personas. Otros dos canadienses, cinco empleados cubanos y 9 funcionarios del Gobierno. En el grupo hay un viceministro del Azúcar, Nelson Labrada, con el que se ensañaron, seguramente como una advertencia general. Lo condenaron a 20 años.

De acuerdo con el informe a que tuvieron acceso los periodistas, a Labrada le regalaron un televisor de pantalla plana, le pagaron unas vacaciones en Canadá y lo llevaron a un casino en Toronto donde jugó y ganó 2.500 dólares. En Cuba, ya le habían obsequiado una piscina plástica y una parrilla. En el lenguaje coloquial cubano era un “pacotillero”. Si existió corrupción fue de poca monta.

Escarmiento contra la corrupción

En todo caso, Raúl Castro cree en el escarmiento como forma de mantener la autoridad. Utiliza a Labrada para mandar un mensaje. Él y su hijo Alejandro Castro Espín están decididos a terminar con los delitos contra la economía nacional mediante una dosis de terror en el campo administrativo. Son dos versiones tropicales de Maximiliano de Robespierre, pero muy distorsionadas y llenas de contradicciones.

Para ellos ese comportamiento —la corrupción— pertenece a la permisiva era de Fidel. (Fidel se parece más a Georges Danton, de quien se dice que pagó por un cargo en el Consejo del rey Luis XVI, aunque luego pidiera su cabeza.) Los raulistas lo afirman desdeñosamente a media lengua: “Eso ocurría antes”. “Antes” es la palabra clave. “Antes” quiere decir cuando Fidel gobernaba.

El Comandante era más político, más manengue, regalaba vistosos relojes Rolex a sus subordinados, o les daba autos Alfa Romeo, o se hacía de la vista gorda cuando Ramiro Valdés se asignaba una casa con piscina y gimnasio en Santa Fe, o cuando el general Guillermo García Frías utilizaba dos yates suntuosos para sus francachelas.

Si Fidel, gran malversador de los recursos públicos, disfrutaba de 50 residencias suntuosas, coto privado de caza, y yates de lujo para pescar, si la Isla era suya del hocico al rabo, podía entender que la manera de mantener viva la lealtad de sus subordinados era alternando la intimidación con recompensas materiales. Él sabía que el discursito revolucionario del “hombre nuevo” que predicaba el Che Guevara era una tontería.

Esta diferencia entre las posiciones de Fidel y Raúl con relación a la corrupción comenzó desde los primeros días del triunfo de la revolución. En sus memorias inéditas, Benjamín de Yurre, recientemente fallecido, secretario personal de Manuel Urrutia, el primer presidente de Cuba tras la huida de Batista (enero a julio de 1959), cuenta que estaba de visita en el despacho de Camilo Cienfuegos, situado en una suite del hotel Riviera, cuando Raúl entró como una tromba, rodeado por sus guardaespaldas, e increpó al popular comandante echándole en cara sus borracheras y orgías con el dinero de la revolución. Camilo le respondió airadamente y trató de sacar su pistola cuando el capitán Olo Pantoja se interpuso y los guardaespaldas de Raúl y de Camilo los separaron. De Yurre se evadió discretamente de aquella peligrosa trifulca.

A Fidel, en cambio, le traía sin cuidado el comportamiento de Camilo. Para Fidel la corrupción era un arma de gobierno y se extendía al campo internacional. Usaba el dinero del país para “hacer revolución”. ¿Qué era eso? Con frecuencia, era expandir su influencia con los recursos de los cubanos. Era darles cientos de miles de dólares a las guerrillas, a los terroristas, o a los candidatos amigos durante los periodos electorales, a sabiendas de que una parte importante de esa plata se quedaba en el camino. Era invitar a 50 diputados mexicanos para que disfrutaran de Tropicana. Era convocar a cientos de personas, con todos los gastos pagados, para alinearlos tras alguna consigna política, o, simplemente, para que lo aplaudieran.

A Fidel le encanta que lo aplaudan. Tiene y alimenta con ese ruido su ego descomunal. Raúl, en cambio, posee conciencia de sus muchas limitaciones y es menos vanidoso. Entre sus defectos, no es de los menores su tosco desconocimiento de la naturaleza humana, lo que le llevó en los años 60 a proponer y llevar a cabo el cruel apresamiento de miles de jóvenes acusados de homosexualismo y “otras conductas antisociales”, formas de corrupción burguesa que él iba a corregir con durísimos trabajos agrícolas en los campos de concentración de la UMAP.

En definitiva, Fidel incurría en el terreno político, y para sus fines políticos, en las mismas prácticas delictivas por las que ahora Raúl acusa a Cy Tokmakjian en el campo empresarial. Sus intereses serían diferentes, pero sus métodos y su burla de las leyes son similares. ¿De dónde salía el dinero para “hacer revolución”?¿De qué presupuesto? ¿Quién lo fiscalizaba? Por la centésima parte de esa retorcida conducta las cárceles de medio planeta están llenas de funcionarios venales que incumplen las leyes.

La corrupción de Raúl

¿Y Raúl? ¿Advierte Raúl que cuando les alquila miles de profesionales de la salud a otros países y les confisca el 90% del salario está incurriendo en una falta tipificada en los acuerdos de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo de donde pueden deducirse consecuencias penales?

Pedirle 55 millones a la familia o a la empresa de Cy Tokmakjian a cambio de su libertad, ¿no es un clarísimo delito de extorsión típico de las mafias?

Quedarse con una parte sustancial de la plata que les produjo a los montoneros argentinos el secuestro de los acaudalados hermanos Born —60 millones de dólares—, ¿no es complicidad con un gravísimo delito?

Amenazar con la cárcel a los empresarios a los que el Gobierno cubano les debe dinero —como sucede con algunos exportadores panameños de Colón— si no les condonan las deudas a la Isla, ¿no es un comportamiento gangsteril?

No es verdad que Cuba le debe 500 millones de dólares a los exportadores panameños de la ciudad de Colón. Son casi 5.000 millones, y algunas deudas se arrastran desde hace más de 30 años, como me contó, indignado, uno de esos comerciantes atrapado entre la deuda, el miedo y la amenazada familia que ya formó en Cuba.

El mecanismo es diabólico: la manera de hacer negocios en Cuba es mediante la trampa y el amiguismo, dos conductas delictivas. Donde las reglas son deliberadamente opacas, en donde los tribunales son un brazo de la policía política, y en donde no funcionan el mercado y la competencia, sino el favoritismo, ¿qué otra forma hay de desarrollar actividades comerciales de una cierta envergadura?

No obstante, esos comportamientos corruptos son bienvenidos… pero solo mientra al Gobierno le conviene. Cuando llega la hora de ajustar cuentas comienza el calvario de los empresarios, a quienes someten a toda clase de chantajes y extorsiones. A fin de cuentas, Fidel y Raúl —en eso coinciden— sienten el mayor de los desprecios por los hombres de empresa que persiguen fines egoístas. Ellos, supuestamente, son revolucionarios puros a los que no les queda otro remedio que admitir a una gentuza deleznable para salvar la revolución

La corrupción cubano-venezolana….

Read More: Raúl Castro y la Corrupción

Posted in Blog | Tagged Corruption, Fidel Castro, Illegalities, International Relations, President Raul Castro | Leave a comment

Tag Archives: President Raul Castro

CUBA’S CHALLENGE: WHAT DID THE CUBAN REVOLUTION ACCOMPLISH AND WHERE CAN IT GO FROM HERE?

ANALYSIS: CUBA POLL — HANDLE WITH CARE

LIKELY CASTRO SUCCESSOR KEEPS A LOW PROFILE

PERSPECTIVE: OVERCOMING CUBA’S INTERNAL EMBARGO

THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA: AT LAST, A THAW! HISTORIC STEPS TOWARDS ENDING AN ANACHRONISTIC EMBARGO

WHITE HOUSE PRESS REPORT ON THE SPECIFIC MEASURES TAKEN BY PRESIDENT OBAMA ON NORMALIZATION WITH CUBA

TEXTO COMPLETO DEL DISCURSO DE RAÚL CASTRO SOBRE EL ACERCAMIENTO CON ESTADOS UNIDOS: Alocución del Presidente cubano: Los Cinco ya están en Cuba, 17 diciembre 2014

Review Essay, REVOLUTION IN THE REVOLUTION: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CUBAN ECONOMY

ENTREPRENEURIAL CUBA: THE CHANGING POLICY LANDSCAPE

ENTREPRENEURIAL CUBA: THE CHANGING POLICY LANDSCAPE

Archibald R.M. Ritter and Ted A. Henken

CLICK HERE TO READ THE INTRODUCTION: “Cuba’s Chabging Policy Landscape”

RAÚL CASTRO Y LA CORRUPCIÓN

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Tag Archives: President Raul Castro

ENTREPRENEURIAL CUBA: THE CHANGING POLICY LANDSCAPE

Archibald R.M. Ritter and Ted A. Henken

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Websites and Blogs on Cuba

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