• The objective of this Blog is to facilitate access to research resources and analyses from all relevant and useful sources, mainly on the economy of Cuba. It includes analyses and observations of the author, Arch Ritter, as well as hyper-links, abstracts, summaries, and commentaries relating to other research works from academic, governmental, media, non-governmental organizations and international institutions.
    Commentary, critique and discussion on any of the postings is most welcome.
    This Blog on The Cuban Economy is dedicated to Cuba's Generation "A". Although inspired by Yoani Sánchez' original blog "Generation Y" this is not dedicated to those with names starting with the letter "A". Instead, it draws from Douglas Coupland's novel Generation A which begins with a quotation from Kurt Vonnegut at a University Commencement:
    "... I hereby declare you Generation A, as much as the beginning of a series of astounding triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago."

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

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Arch Ritter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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HOW DOES CUBA MANAGE TO ACHIEVE FIRST-WORLD HEALTH STATISTICS?

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Arch Ritter

The island’s medical system is envied throughout the region and is a major foreign revenue earner

ÁLVARO FUENTE; EL PAÍS, Havana 10 FEB 2017

Original Article: Cuba’s Medical System

Cuba’s healthcare system is a source of pride for its communist government. The country has well-trained, capable doctors, the sector has become an important export earner and gives Cuba valuable soft power – yet the real picture is less rosy. A lot of health infrastructure is deteriorating and there is a de facto two-tier system that favors those with money.

Cuba’s child mortality rate is on par with some of the world’s richest countries. With six deaths for every 1,000 births, according to World Bank data from 2015, Cuba is level with New Zealand. In 2015, the global average was 42.5 deaths for every 1,000 births. Despite more than half a century of a US economic embargo, Cuba’s average life expectancy matches that in the US: 79.1 years, just a few months shorter than Americans who, on average, live to 79.3 years, according to 2015 data from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Much of Cuba’s success in these areas is due to its primary healthcare system, which is one of the most proactive in the world. Cuba’s population of 11.27 million has 452 out-patient clinics and the government gives priority to disease prevention, universal coverage and access to treatment.

Cuba has also produced innovations in medical research. In 1985 the country pioneered the first and only vaccine against meningitis B. The country’s scientists developed new treatments for hepatitis B, diabetic foot, vitiligo and psoriasis. They also developed a lung cancer vaccine that is currently being tested in the United States. Cuba was also the first country on earth to eliminate the transmission of HIV and syphilis from mother to child, a feat recognized by the WHO in 2015.

In 2015, Cuba spent 10.57% of its GDP on health, slightly higher than the global average. According to the World Bank in 2014, the European average spending GDP spending was 10%, compared to 17.1% in the United States.

TWO-TIER SYSTEM

A lesser-known characteristic of Cuba’s healthcare system is the existence of special clinics, reserved for tourists, politicians and VIPs. The state reserves the best hospitals and doctors for the national elite and foreigners, while ordinary Cubans sometimes must turn to the black market or ask expatriate friends or family to send medicine.

“Cuba’s health service is divided in two: one for Cubans and the other for foreigners, who receive better quality care, while the national population has to be satisfied with dilapidated facilities and a lack of medicines and specialists, who are sent abroad to make money for Cuba,” says Dr. Julio César Alfonzo, a Cuban exile in Miami and director of the NGO Solidaridad Sin Fronteras.

In 2015, Cuba spent 10.57% of its GDP on health, slightly higher than the global average

In 1959, the country had only 6,000 doctors, half of whom emigrated after the Cuban revolution. By 2014, Cuba had 67.2 doctors for every 10,000 inhabitants, with only Qatar and Monaco ahead of it.

However, despite these impressive statistics, the quality of primary healthcare, which has been fundamental to Cuba’s success, has been declining in recent years. Between 2009 and 2014 there was a 62% fall in the number of family doctors, from 34,261 to 12,842, according to Cuba’s National Statistics Office (ONEI).

AN ARMY OF WHITE COATS

In the words of Fidel Castro, Cuba’s “army of white coats” was formed in 1960, when a medical brigade was sent to Chile after an earthquake left thousands dead. Since then, Cuba has sent more than 300,000 healthcare workers to 158 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, according to Cuba’s state news agency. Today, around 50,000 Cuban medical workers are present in 67 countries.

“Cuban doctors are rooted in solidarity and in the Hippocratic Oath. Our job would be unthinkable without foreign missions,” says Salvador Silva, a doctor specializing in infectious diseases who has worked in Haiti and Liberia.   “Yes, our salary is low and maybe that pushes us to go abroad, but it also makes us proud when we see our work recognized throughout the world, on top of just helping in our own country,” he adds.

Doctors are arguably Cuba’s most profitable resource and the country’s medical missions have proved to be a lucrative diplomatic tool. The healthcare industry is also one of the country’s main sources of income. In 2014, Cuban authorities estimated overseas healthcare services would bring in $8.2 billion, putting it ahead of tourism.

Cuba has a different deal with each country it works with. For example, in exchange for sending 3,500 health care workers to work in and provide training in Venezuela, a close Cuban ally, Venezuela sends oil.

With such a high demand for personnel, some suspect that the Cuban government has been reducing educational requirements to hasten students’ entry into the work force.  “They are giving doctors licenses in record time to meet the need to export them, and this has been detrimental to the quality of training and medicine, which used to be the best. This has been happening since they started the program in Venezuela, between 2003 and 2004,” says Dr Alfonzo.

Doctors are also eager to be sent abroad, not only to help the less fortunate, but also for money. Salaries are higher – depending on the location, with doctors abroad reportedly making up to $1,000 per month (minus taxes), whereas those in Cuba make around $50. On the island, it isn’t rare to find taxi drivers, shopkeepers or construction workers with medical degrees.

Juan drives a 1950s Chevrolet he bought with his brother and he uses it as a taxi from 6pm to midnight. He’s also a doctor in the clinic Hermanos Ameijeiras. “The wage is a pittance. We find ourselves obligated to make a living doing other things. I have coworkers who sell prescriptions to pharmacies, who work in unlicensed clinics or help their families in shops. It’s frustrating,” he says. “It’s like they’re pushing us to enlist in international missions, the business of Cuba.”

The country’s medical missions abroad have been an important escape route for Cubans looking to defect. Before migratory reforms were passed in January 2013 allowing Cubans with passports and visas to travel abroad, the preferred way to abandon Cuba was via Venezuela. In 2013 and 2014, more than 3,000 doctors deserted the island to go to the United States through a special visa program called Cuban Medical Professional Parole, a program started by George W. Bush to help healthcare workers who had escaped while working abroad.

Lucia Newman, a former CNN correspondent in Habana, said Cuban doctors complain that travel restrictions prevent them from attending conferences or keeping abreast of the latest medical advances. The US trade embargo on Cuba includes some textbooks, but the major problem is that Cuban doctors cannot buy medical equipment from the United States or from any US subsidiaries.

For Odalys, a young patient waiting at the Hospital Salvador Allende, “the situation is becoming unsustainable in this country and it’s not because of a lack of specialists, it’s because we have to bring everything ourselves. I just bought a light bulb for the hospital room. I’ve called home so that they can bring me bedding, towels and even toilet paper. There aren’t even stretchers, I saw a family carrying their sick son into a room. Free and universal health care, yes, but it’s a bit of a mess and very informal,” she says.

English version: Alyssa McMurtry.

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

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Arch Ritter

Edited by Jorge I. Domínguez, Rafael M. Hernández, Lorena G. Barberia

© 2017 – Routledge

To Order: Routledge

ABOUT THE BOOK

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

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

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

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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

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

Cuba. Rafael M. Hernández

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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CHARCOAL — FIRST LEGAL CARGO FROM CUBA IN MORE THAN 50 YEARS — ARRIVES AT PORT EVERGLADES

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Arch Ritter

Original Article:  http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article128433209.html#storylink=cpy

BY MIMI WHITEFIELD

The first Cuban exports since the embargo went into effect over a half century ago arrived at Port Everglades Tuesday as port officials prepared to receive a business delegation from Cuba later in the week.

The delegation also plans to visit the Port of Palm Beach, which is located in Riviera Beach, and Port Tampa Bay durina a swing through the United States that has already included a stop at the Port of Houston. Also on the itinerary are visits to the Port of New Orleans and the Port of Virginia in Norfolk and meetings with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C., members of Congress and the American Association of Port Authorities, which is holding a conference in Tampa.

Two containers of artisanal charcoal made from Cuban Marabú, an invasive woody species from Africa that is considered a nuisance on the island, arrived at the Fort Lauderdale port aboard a Crowley Maritime ship called the K-Storm. The charcoal exports, which are produced by private worker-owned cooperatives, are legal under a rule change by the former Obama administration that allows the importation of some products produced by independent Cuban entrepreneurs.

In Cuba, Marabú has taken over wide swaths of idle agricultural land and strangled other plants. But it makes a hardwood charcoal that is winning acceptance as a fuel for pizza and bread ovens in Europe and the Middle East. It will be sold under the Fogo Charcoal brand by various U.S. retailers.

The charcoal deal was put together by Coabana Trading, a subsidiary of Reneo Consulting, a firm chaired by Scott Gilbert, the Washington D.C. lawyer who represented Alan Gross, the USAID subcontractor who was jailed by the Cuban government for five years.

“This is truly a momentous occasion,” Gilbert said when the deal for 40 tons of charcoal was announced earlier this month. “Now U.S. consumers will be able to purchase this product, as have Europeans and others for many years. More importantly, this marks the beginning of a new era of trade between the United States and Cuba.”

The agreement was struck with CubaExport, a Cuban government entity that develops trade opportunities, but Scott said that the Marabú plant is cut and the charcoal produced by private Cuban cooperatives.

The embargo still remains in effect, but executive orders issued by Obama over the past two years eased some Cuba-related travel and trade restrictions.

Although the transaction was negotiated under the Obama opening, the historic Cuban exports are arriving during the Trump administration. Trump has said he might roll back some of Obama’s executive orders on Cuba unless Cuba offers a better deal to the United States and Secretary of State-nominee Rex Tillerson has said that all Obama’s executive orders on Cuba will be reviewed.

Whether Cuban charcoal becomes a staple of U.S. trade with the island remains to be seen.

“It’s experimental, but the importer hopes to have regular shipments,” said Jay Brickman, vice president of government services and Cuba service at Crowley. Brickman called the shipment “the first truly commercial shipment from a Cuban cooperative to a private U.S. business since the U.S.-Cuba trade embargo was imposed more than 50 years ago.”

The shipping line makes thrice-monthly trips from Port Everglades to Cuba’s container port in Mariel and also calls in Honduras and Guatemala before returning to the Fort Lauderdale port. Crowley mostly carries frozen chicken parts and foodstuffs to Cuba but it also handles small amounts of other legal exports to the island and was involved in shipping some of the equipment that the Rolling Stones used in their historic concert in Cuba in March 2016.

Crowley has been calling on Cuba for the past 15 years. “We average about 40 to 45 loads of cargo [for Cuba] per voyage,” said Brickman.

Another port user, Pearl Seas Cruises’ Pearl Mist, is currently on its maiden voyage to Cuba from Port Everglades.

On Thursday, a Cuban delegation will be at Port Everglades to sign a memorandum of understanding between the port and the National Port Administration of Cuba that could pave the way for joint marketing studies, joint training and other cooperation, said Jim Pyburn, the port’s director of business development.

“We would like to see U.S. exports to Cuba increase; imports are good, too,” said Pyburn.

He hopes for a future when large U.S. grocery chains and shopping clubs ship food to Cuba from the port. “Cubans are in dire need of paint and basic building materials and we’d like that to be part of the [export] mix, too,” he said.

At Port Everglades, the seven-member Cuban delegation will begin its day with a meeting with Port Director Steven Cernak, tour the port and then lunch with executives from Crowley and the cruise lines. In the afternoon, the delegation will present a “Doing Business with Cuba” seminar for about 150 invited businesses executives. It will include presentations on inland and sea transportation in Cuba, the Mariel Container Terminal and the Mariel Special Economic Development Zone, which is prospecting for foreign investment projects leading to sustainable economic development.

The Cuban delegation includes Ana Teresa Igarza, general director of the Mariel zone; José Leonardo Sosa Barrios, deputy director of the Mariel Container Terminal; Eradis González de la Peña, president of Almacenes Universales; René Rolando Fernández, director of inland waterway and sea transport for the Ministry of Transportation; Tania Vazquez, an official with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment; Joel Lago from the Cuban Embassy in Washington’s economic and trade office and Ernesto Viñas, an adviser to the deputy minister of transportation.

Pyburn said Port Everglades had been working on an MOU with Cuba since early 2016 but originally it was only going to cover Mariel, which is about 28 miles west of Havana. Now, with the involvement of the National Port Administration, it will cover all Cuban ports.

He said the MOU was completed for signing in May. But there was little action until Brickman visited Washington in December. During the trip, Brickman said he received a call from the Cuban Embassy “saying the Cubans would really like to sign a memorandum of understanding with Port Everglades.” He helped facilitate the visit and the signing.

The Port of Palm Beach also is expected to sign a MOU with the Cuban port administration on Friday.

Unloading Charcoal at Port Everglades, Florida

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UNITED NATIONS ECLAC: PRELIMINARY OVERVIEW OF THE ECONOMIES OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN, 2016: CUBA

Posted on January 24, 2017 by Arch Ritter

Document is available here: UN ECLAC 2016, CUBA http://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/40826/70/1601259BP_Cuba_en.pdf

ECLAC estimates GDP growth of 0.4% for Cuba in 2016. This was a particularly difficult year for the country’s economy, in an international context where economic expansion was still slow and foreign trade continued to weaken as a driver of growth. A fiscal deficit of 6% is projected (compared with 5.8% in 2015). The current account is expected to yield a surplus again in 2016, but a smaller one of about US$ 1.9 billion. Although economic conditions have caused prices for some agricultural products to rise, price levels generally have remained fairly stable and inflation in 2016 is expected to be similar to the previous year’s (2.8%). The total number of employed remained unchanged, with a tendency for employment to fall in the State sector and increase in the non-State sector. The unemployment rate is projected to be 2.4%.

Disponible en español
Disponível em português

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IN CUBA, THE POST-FIDEL ERA BEGAN TEN YEARS AGO

Posted on January 24, 2017 by Arch Ritter

January 23, 2017 2.49 am EST

Ramón I. Centeno, Postdoctoral fellow, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

Original Article: Post-Fidel Era

Ever since Fidel Castro died in November 2016, foreign observers – journalists, political tourists, and the like – have flocked to the streets of Havana. Let’s go and see communist Cuba before it is too late! they reason.

What this reaction misses is that Cuba has already changed: the post-Fidel era is a decade old.

My new research, published in Mexican Law Review, shows major shifts in the governing style and ideology of the country. The charismatic leadership that epitomised Fidel’s time in power is gone, replaced by a collective arrangement. And Cuba’s centrally planned economy has integrated market socialist features.

These changes will likely be accelerated by Barack Obama’s recent repeal of the US policy that gave Cuban migrants favoured immigration status – both by eliminating an escape route for dissatisfied citizens and by reducing potential future remittances.

The end of charismatic leadership

When Fidel fell gravely ill in July 2006, he provisionally delegated his dual posts – president of the Council of State and first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba – to his younger brother Raúl, long-time head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and second secretary of the Communist Party. As Fidel’s health further deteriorated, the National Assembly made Raúl president in February 2008.

This move kept succession within the family, but Raúl has rejected any Kim dynasty-style future for the country. If ten years ago Cuba looked more like North Korea than China, today the opposite is true.

Leadership and ideology in surviving communist systems in 2016. Created by author.

Breaking with Fidel’s decades-old practice, Raúl recommended to the delegates of the sixth Party Congress in April 2011 that they limit public officials to a maximum of two five-year terms; this soon became the official Party line.

In the short term, term limits meant that Raúl Castro’s presidency would end in February 2018, which he has confirmed. In the long term, that raised questions on the post-Castro era. To be sure, in 2013 Miguel Díaz-Canel, a Communist Party insider, was promoted to first vice president of the Council of State – the first time ever that a revolutionary veteran did not hold that position. Technically, according to the Cuban constitution, if the president dies, the first vice-president takes over.

The seventh Party Congress, held in April 2016, nonetheless appointed Raúl Castro to be first secretary. While this does keep a revolutionary veteran in control of a key post after 2018, for the first time the head of the Cuba’s Communist Party will not be the same person as Cuba’s president.

The rise of market socialism

Market socialism can be defined as “an attempt to reconcile the advantages of the market as a system of exchange with social ownership of the means of production.”

As if following this definition from the Oxford Dictionary of Social Sciences, the sixth Party Congress approved that from now on “planning will take the market into account, influencing upon it and considering its characteristics.”

This is a clumsy engagement with the market, treating it as an alien from outer space. And it epitomises the current ideological hardships of the Cuban regime.  Still, Raúl Castro has overseen the largest expansion of non-state socioeconomic activity in socialist Cuba’s 50-year history.

Cuba’s National Office of Statistics reports that in 2015 71% of Cuban workers were state employees, down from 80% in 2007, and the number of (mostly urban) self-employed workers has grown from 141,600 in 2008 to half a million in 2015. In a country with a total workforce of five million, this is not a trivial change.

From 2008 to 2014, more than 1.58 million hectares of idle land has been transferred into private hands. That’s nearly a quarter of Cuba’s 6.2 million hectares of agricultural land, roughly on par with state-owned land (30%).

In sum, the market is no longer the enemy, it’s a junior partner in Cuban central planning. The last Party Congress, Cuba’s seventh, approved the continuity of controlled liberalisation efforts by turning market socialism into Communist Party doctrine, stating that “the State recognises and integrates the market into the functioning of the system of planned direction of the economy.”

The new Cuban polity

The rise of market-socialist ideology emerged, to a substantial extent, from the decline of charismatic authority.

Cuba’s next generation of leaders –- expected to take over in 2018 -– will not enjoy the same unquestionable legitimacy as its founding fathers, much less that of Fidel Castro. So the inevitable passing of the revolutionaries still in power today, most of whom are in their 80s, makes the already difficult process of revamping the regime even tougher.

Raúl Castro’s challenge over the past decade has thus been not only to make his presidency stand on solid ground, but also to make sure that such a ground endures after he leaves. The question of economic performance was clearly central to that task. Raúl saw market socialism as a way to strengthen Cuba’s economy without abandoning its Castro-era ideals. The revolutionary veterans’ interest in seeing the system they built survive is unsurprising, and it explains their rejection of any capitalist encroachments. But it remains to be seen how long – and if – this ideological limit will survive them.

Let’s return to the earlier chart presenting a comparison of surviving Communist countries at present. It shows Cuba today, after ten years of Raúl, located somewhere in between North Korea (where an orthodox Soviet-style economy is still firmly entrenched) and countries such as China and Vietnam that have seen capitalism restored, and somewhat closer to the latter.

But the difference between “medium” market acceptance and “high” market acceptance is a substantial one. The latter presupposes a comeback of the bourgeoisie – the social class of owners of the means of production, expropriated by Castro’s revolution – and thus far this key ideological limit remains strong in Cuba.

Since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, many have assumed that the fall of communist Cuba is a matter of when not if. Only by abandoning the focus on “the fall” and understanding how communist rule has survived in Cuba we can grasp that Cuba has already changed mightily.

Welcome to the second decade of the post-Fidel era.

Some Cuenta-propistas, January 2015, Photos by Arch Ritter

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CAN DONALD TRUMP AND RAÚL CASTRO MAKE A GOOD DEAL

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Arch Ritter

By JORGE I. DOMÍNGUEZ, New York Times JAN., 10, 2017

Original Article: Trump-Castro Deal?

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Cuba operates as if it had two parties, President Raúl Castro joked in his main report to the Seventh Congress of the Cuban Communist Party last April: “Fidel leads one and I, the other.”

This was more than just a joke: Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro’s brother and the former president, had criticized President Obama’s visit to Havana a month earlier in official publications. It was the first public split between the brothers on an issue of such importance. President Obama’s Cuba policy change, announced in December 2014, drove a wedge through the Cuban leadership, making manifest the differences between government hard-liners and soft-liners. For the balance of 2016, the hard-liners dominated official communications, republishing tales of American perfidy over the previous two centuries. During the same period, however, Raúl Castro’s senior team negotiated and signed many practical agreements to alter American-Cuban relations.

Fidel Castro is now dead; the ossified government he nurtured is vanishing as well. Since taking power in 2008, Raúl Castro has made many domestic and foreign policy changes that happen to be in line with key foreign policy priorities of the American president-elect, Donald J. Trump, and at the same time open up Cuba’s economy, and society. A deal-making Trump presidency will find a deal-honoring Raúl Castro presidency. The agreements that the Trump administration will inherit, reached under Mr. Trump’s three predecessors, serve both the interests of the United States and Cuba as well as the presumed Trump presidential agenda. Reversing or scaling back such agreements, as Mr. Trump has threatened to do, will make it more difficult for him to fulfill that agenda.

Last year, more than half a million visitors from the United States had set foot in Cuba and American commercial airlines now fly regularly between the United States and Cuban cities. Earlier in the Obama presidency, the United States government liberalized rules on sending money transfers to Cuba, and much of it informally financed the re-emergence of a Cuban private business sector. The number of small- business licenses now exceeds a half-million in a country of 11.2 million people. Money transfers from the United States fund a Cuban civil society independent of the state for the first time in a half-century.

Recent agreements between the two countries make it easier for them to cooperate on hurricane tracking and biodiversity protection, share information on pollution and undertake joint maritime geological exploration. Other agreements protect migratory birds and fish. Cuba and the United States now also work together on cancer research, in which Cuban scientists have registered significant advances, and on the prevention and cure of infectious diseases, including combating the Zika epidemic, in which Cuba is a worldwide example of effectiveness.

Cuba and the United States have long cooperated on security matters, coordinating on security around the United States Navy base at Guantánamo Bay. Since the mid-1990s, the two countries have worked together to prevent undocumented migration. Cuba patrols its ports to prevent anyone from stealing boats and rafts; at its airports, it checks for valid visas among those about to board. United States Coast Guard cutters intercept undocumented migrants in the Straits of Florida and return them to Cuba.

The two countries have informally combined efforts on drug traffic interdiction since the 1990s, and this was formalized last July; Cuba provides an effective barrier against drug traffic into the United States.

And Cuba long ago adopted the Trump-preferred migration policy: seek to stop the departure and accept the return of undocumented migrants.

Suppose you are the United States president-elect. What is not to like?

Still, while economic agreements emphasize the two countries’ equality, some of the deals couldn’t be more lopsided. Only American airlines fly between the two countries; Cubana de Aviación does not. And since late 2002, Cuba has purchased about $5.3 billion worth of United States agricultural products, paying cash, while exporting almost no goods to the United States.

What’s wrong with agreements already in place that benefit both countries? The United States wants to warn Florida and the Carolinas about hurricane trajectories, its fowl and fish to winter in Cuba’s Caribbean waters and come back, and to benefit from Cuba’s scientific expertise. Cuba and the United States are interested in exploring for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and have agreed to track seismic threats beneath the gulf’s waters to prevent oil spills.

On delicate issues, President George W. Bush and Fidel Castro, and later President Obama and Raúl Castro, developed ways of agreeing substantively while publicly denying any negotiation had taken place. That diplomatic ruse worked. In 2002, the Cubans induced the Bush administration to begin exporting American agricultural products; each side made it known that these were unilateral, independent and sovereign decisions. In December 2012, the United States and Cuba did not trade spies; rather, each made unilateral, independent and sovereign decisions to release some of the other’s prisoners.

Slowly, United States-Cuba relations got better. That serves Cubans who may travel more easily, receive friends, rent space through Airbnb, and get working capital through money transfers to establish private businesses and fund an independent civil society. That serves Americans who benefit from freer travel and cooperation on issues such as migration, crime and drug trafficking. What next? Rely on unilateral, independent and sovereign Cuban decisions to foster change.

Here’s how Raúl Castro’s joke ended at the April party congress: “Fidel will certainly say, ‘I want to lead the Communist Party,’ and I will say, ‘O.K., I’ll lead the other one, the name does not matter.’ ” If you are a Cuban hard-liner, that joke is terrifying. President Raúl Castro is prepared to open the gateway to something different, less dogmatic, whose name neither he nor we know. But we know what it is not. It is not called “Communist.”

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 2017 REPORT on CUBA

Posted on January 13, 2017 by Arch Ritter

Original Article: Human Rights Watch 2017 on Cuba:

Summary:

The Cuban government continues to repress dissent and punish public criticism. It now relies less than in past years on long-term prison sentences to punish its critics, but short-term arbitrary arrests of human rights defenders, independent journalists, and others have increased dramatically in recent years. Other repressive tactics employed by the government include beatings, public shaming, and termination of employment.

On November 25, Fidel Castro, who ruled Cuba from 1959 until handing off the presidency to his brother, Raúl, in 2006, died in Havana.

In March, US President Barack Obama visited Cuba, where he met with President Raúl Castro, as well as with representatives of Cuban civil society. President Obama gave a nationally televised address and held a joint press conference with President Castro in which he urged the Cuban government to lift restrictions on political freedoms and reiterated his call for the US Congress to end the economic embargo of the island.

Arbitrary Detention and Short-Term Imprisonment

The government continues to rely on arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate critics, independent activists, political opponents, and others. The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an independent human rights group that lacks official authorization and is therefore considered illegal by the government, received more than 7,900 reports of arbitrary detentions from January through August 2016. This represents the highest monthly average of detentions in the past six years.

Security officers rarely present arrest orders to justify the detention of critics. In some cases, detainees are released after receiving official warnings, which prosecutors can use in subsequent criminal trials to show a pattern of “delinquent” behavior.

Detention is often used preemptively to prevent people from participating in peaceful marches or meetings to discuss politics. Detainees are often beaten, threatened, and held incommunicado for hours or days. The Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco)—a group founded by the wives, mothers, and daughters of political prisoners also, like the Cuban Commission on Human Rights, lacks official authorization and is therefore considered illegal by the government. Its members are routinely harassed, roughed up, and detained by either police or state security agents before or after they attend Sunday mass.

Prior to President Obama’s visit in March, police arrested more than 300 dissidents as part of a crackdown on opposition leaders.

Freedom of Expression

The government controls virtually all media outlets in Cuba and restricts access to outside information.  A small number of journalists and bloggers who are independent of government media manage to write articles for websites or blogs, or publish tweets. However, the government routinely blocks access within Cuba to these websites. Moreover, only a fraction of Cubans can read independent websites and blogs because of the high cost of, and limited access to, the internet. Independent journalists who publish information considered critical of the government are subject to smear campaigns and arbitrary arrests, as are artists and academics who demand greater freedoms.

Lazaro Yuri Valle Roca, a blogger and videographer who often covers the Sunday demonstrations of the Ladies in White, was jailed for five days after trying to cover a protest on March 20, the day of President Obama’s arrival in Cuba. Police officers apprehended Valle Roca, beat him, and took him to a nearby police station, according to Aliuska Gómez García, a member of the Ladies in White who witnessed the beating and arrest and spoke afterwards to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Valle Roca was later accused of attacking an official. While he did not face charges on this occasion, officers warned him that he might if arrested in the future.

In May, police detained journalist Daniel Domínguez López in his office at the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Speech and Press (ICLEP) after he wrote an article about a deprivation-of-property case involving a member of the National Revolutionary Police Force. Police ultimately took him to a “criminal instruction unit,” where he said that they threatened to imprison or kill him and his family. Officers reportedly warned him against further distribution of his bulletin and told him that they were determined to destroy ICLEP.

Police in October detained Maykel González Vivero, a reporter of the news site Diario de Cuba, while he was reporting on the damage caused by Hurricane Matthew. Three days later, police arrested Elaine Díaz, director of the independent news site Periodismo del Barrio and four of her colleagues when they traveled to Baracoa, eastern Cuba, to report on the storm’s effects. She and her team were released a few hours later, as was González, but authorities reportedly confiscated their laptop computers, cameras, and other equipment.

The government harasses artists as well. Police detained Danilo Maldonado, a graffiti artist known as “El Sexto,” during a march led by the Ladies in White movement shortly before President Obama’s visit in March 2016, but released him the following day. The day after Fidel Castro’s death in November, police arrested Maldonado again after he posted an online video mocking Castro’s death and spray painting “se fue” (he’s gone) on a wall in downtown Havana. Police held him incommunicado for 72 hours, inflicting a beating that triggered an asthma attack. After his mother brought an inhaler, his detention continued. He was still detained at time of writing in early December. Two years earlier, Maldonado had been charged with “contempt for authority” for attempting to stage a satirical performance with two pigs daubed with “Raul” and “Fidel.” He served 10 months in prison.

Political Prisoners

Despite the release of the 53 political prisoners in conjunction with the agreement to normalize relations with the US, dozens more remain in Cuban prisons, according to local human rights groups. The government denies access to its prisons by independent human rights groups, which believe that additional political prisoners, whose cases they cannot document, remain locked up.

Cubans who criticize the government continue to face the threat of criminal prosecution. They do not benefit from due process guarantees, such as the right to fair and public hearings by a competent and impartial tribunal. In practice, courts are subordinated to the executive and legislative branches, denying meaningful judicial independence.

Travel Restrictions

Reforms to travel regulations that went into effect in January 2013 eliminated the need for an exit visa to leave the island. Exit visas had previously been used to deny the right to travel to people critical of the government—and to their families. Since then, many people who had previously been denied permission to travel have been able to do so, including human rights defenders and independent bloggers.

Nonetheless, the reforms gave the government broad discretionary powers to restrict the right to travel on the grounds of “defense and national security” or “other reasons of public interest.” Such measures have allowed authorities to deny exit to people who express dissent.

The government restricts the movement of citizens within Cuba through a 1997 law known as Decree 217, which is designed to limit migration to Havana. The decree has been used to harass dissidents and prevent those from elsewhere in Cuba from traveling to Havana to attend meetings.

Prison Conditions

Prisons are overcrowded. Prisoners are forced to work 12-hour days and punished if they do not meet production quotas, according to former political prisoners. Inmates have no effective complaint mechanism to seek redress for abuses. Those who criticize the government or engage in hunger strikes and other forms of protest are often subjected to extended solitary confinement, beatings, restrictions on family visits, and denied medical care.

While the government allowed select members of the foreign press to conduct controlled visits to a handful of prisons in April 2013, it continues to deny international human rights groups and independent Cuban organizations access to its prisons.

Labor Rights

Despite updating its Labor Code in 2014, Cuba continues to violate conventions of the International Labour Organization that it has ratified, specifically regarding freedom of association, collective bargaining, protection of wages, and prohibitions on forced labor. While the formation of independent unions is technically allowed by law, in practice Cuba only permits one confederation of state-controlled unions, the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba.

Human Rights Defenders

The Cuban government still refuses to recognize human rights monitoring as a legitimate activity and denies legal status to local human rights groups. Government authorities harass, assault, and imprison human rights defenders who attempt to document abuses.

In September, police raided Cubalex, a six-year-old organization that investigates human rights violations and provides free legal services to free-expression activists, migrants, and human-rights defenders. Officers confiscated files, strip-searched four men and a woman, and arrested two attorneys, one of whom was still in detention at time of writing.

Key International Actors

In December 2014, President Obama announced that the United States would ease decades-old restrictions on travel and commerce, and normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba. In return, the Cuban government released 53 political prisoners and committed to allowing visits by international human rights monitors. The two governments restored diplomatic relations in July 2015, but at time of writing, no international human rights monitors had visited Cuba.

In January 2015, President Obama called on the US Congress to lift the economic embargo on the island that had been imposed more than four decades earlier. In October 2016, he used executive orders to end a few trade restrictions, including the longstanding $100 import limit on two of Cuba’s signature products: cigars and rum.

In September 2016, the European Union approved an agreement with Cuba that would strengthen economic and political ties and bring an end to the EU’s 1996 “Common Position on Cuba,” which conditions full European Union economic cooperation with Cuba on the country’s transition to a pluralist democracy and respect for human rights. In October, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution—for the 25th consecutive year—calling on the US to end the embargo. Only the US and Israel did not vote in favor, but for the first time, they abstained instead of voting against.

As a member of the UN Human Rights Council from 2006 to 2012 and from 2014 to the present, Cuba has regularly voted to prevent scrutiny of serious human rights abuses around the world—opposing resolutions spotlighting abuses in North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Ukraine. However, Cuba supported a resolution adopted by the council in June 2016, establishing the post of an independent expert to combat violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In October, Cuba was re-elected to the Human Rights Council for the 2017-2019 term.

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EL LEGADO DE FIDEL: BALANCE ECONÓMICO SOCIAL EN 2016

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Arch Ritter

A fin de enmendar el legado de Fidel, a Raúl le queda poco más de un año para acelerar y profundizar sus reformas estructurales.

Fidel Surveying Havana from the Cabana Fortress

Por Carmelo Mesa Lago, Nueva Sociedad, Enero 2017

Original Article: El legado de Fidel: balance económico social en 2016

Con motivo del deceso de Fidel Castro, los medios de comunicación mundiales han ensalzado su legado de soberanía política interna y su rol internacionalista, así como las notables mejoras en la educación y la salud, aunque el juicio es usualmente adverso en cuanto a la economía. En una previa publicación hice un balance económico social de medio siglo de Fidel en el poder (1959-2008) usando 87 indicadores que demostraban que el desempeño económico fue generalmente negativo y el social mezclado alcanzando una cima en 1989 y un deterioro después.1 Aquí se evalúa la situación entre 1989 y 2016, poniendo énfasis en la última década. También se evalúa si las reformas estructurales de Raúl en el último decenio han logrado dar un impulso a la economía y al bienestar social en la Isla

Entre 1960 y 1990 Cuba recibió US$65.000 millones de la URSS, dos tercios de los cuales no era reembolsable; esta ayuda fue superior a la recibida por toda América Latina durante la Alianza para el Progreso. Tras la desaparición del socialismo soviético (el «Período Especial») ocurrió un marcado declive en todos los indicadores económicos y sociales, seguido de cierta recuperación especialmente a comienzos del siglo XXI por la substancial ayuda económica de Venezuela, la cual equivalió al 21% del PIB de Cuba en 20102.He sugerido que a fin de mejorar el pobrísimo desempeño económico es primordial avanzar en las reformas estructurales de Raúl, mientras que los benéficos pero costosos servicios sociales deben hacerse sostenibles financieramente a largo plazo.

En múltiples publicaciones he analizado las reformas estructurales implementadas por Raúl entre 2007/08 y 2016, concluyendo que son las más importantes bajo la revolución, intentan resolver los problemas heredados de Fidel y están bien encaminadas, pero son excesivamente lentas, enfrentan severas trabas, altos impuestos y desincentivos, por cuyas razones no han logrado hasta ahora un impacto palpable en la economía y en los servicios sociales; de hecho ha ocurrido un retroceso en algunas reformas3. La grave crisis económica en la República Bolivariana ha contribuido a esos problemas.

La tasa de crecimiento económico cubana que fue de 12% en 2006, en buena medida por el apoyo económico venezolano, ha exhibido desde entonces una tendencia declinante: 4,4% en 2015 y -0,9% en 2016,4 un quinto de la meta inicial fijada a fines de 2015. La formación bruta de capital promedió 13% anual en 2008-2015, la mitad del requerido 25% para un crecimiento económico sostenido. El índice de producción industrial en 2015 estaba 38% por debajo de 1989; la caída fue más acentuada en fertilizantes (95%), azúcar (80%), cemento (60%), acero (29%) y textiles (25%); por lo contrario, la producción de petróleo, gas natural, electricidad y níquel era superior (pero la última 26% menor que en 2008). Similar declive se observa en la agricultura: cítricos (88%), pesca (70%), leche de vaca (56%), tabaco en rama (42%), arroz (22%), cabezas de ganado (18%) y huevos (13%); sólo eran mayores las hortalizas y los tubérculos. Las estadísticas del sector externo en 2015, comparadas con las 2014, indican una agudización de la crisis: las exportaciones de mercancías cayeron 31%, las exportaciones de servicios profesionales (primer ingreso en divisas de Cuba y vendidos mayormente a Venezuela) mermaron 18%, y el excedente entre el saldo positivo de servicios menos el saldo negativo de mercancías menguó 47%5. Si esto ocurrió cuando la economía creció 4,4%, el deterioro debe haber sido mayor en 2016 con la contracción. Cuba atraviesa la peor crisis desde los años 90.

Las reformas estructurales han tenido efectos adversos en los indicadores sociales. Entre 2008 y 2015, con el fin de recortar el insostenible costo social, la asignación a servicios sociales (educación, salud, pensiones, vivienda, asistencia social) decreció de 55% a 47% del presupuesto y de 37% al 28% del PIB. El salario medio estatal ajustado a la inflación en 2008 era 25% del nivel de 1989 y, aunque aumentó a 38% en 2015, el poder adquisitivo era 62% inferior a 19896. La pensión media en 2008-2015 era la mitad que en 1989. Todos los hospitales rurales y postas urbanas y rurales se cerraron en 2011; entre 2008-2015, el número de hospitales decreció 30%, el personal de salud total menguó 22%, los médicos de familia que proveen la atención primaria se redujeron en 65%, por otra parte el número de médicos creció en 15% (aunque parte está en el extranjero), la mortalidad infantil continuó bajando de 4,7 a 4,3 por mil nacidos vivos, y la tasa de mortalidad materna mermó de 46,5 a 41,6 por 100.000 nacimientos (pero aún mayor que 29,2 en 1989). La matrícula universitaria decreció de 743.979 a 165.926 (78%) entre los cursos 2007/08 y 2015/16. La construcción de viviendas declinó de 44.775 a 23.003 entre 2008 y 2015 y por 1.000 habitantes cayó de 4,0 a 2,0. La asignación a la asistencia social disminuyó de 2,1% del presupuesto a 0,4% y como porcentaje de la población de 5,2% a 1,6%7. La tasa de desempleo declarado que llegó a un mínimo de 1,6% en 2008, creció a 3,5% en 2012 por causa del programa de despedido de 1,8 millones de empleados estatales innecesarios, pero sólo medio millón fue despedido y la tasa disminuyó a 2,4% en 20158. Cuba nunca ha publicado estadísticas sobre distribución del ingreso, pero otros indicadores sugieren que se colocaba a la cabeza de la región en igualdad; las reformas han cambiado diametralmente la situación, debido a un grupo no estatal con altos ingresos y la caída en el salario estata9.

Un importante avance ha sido la condonación o reducción de la mayor parte de la deuda externa por los acreedores; Cuba comenzó a pagar la deuda restante en octubre de 2016 y se ignora si podrá continuar haciéndolo. El aspecto más brillante es el turismo. La normalización de relaciones con los EEUU y las órdenes ejecutivas de Obama, virtualmente han abierto la puerta a los visitantes norteamericanos que saltaron de 95.254 en 2004 a 161.233 en 2015 y a cerca de 200.000 en 2016; además todos los otros principales emisores han crecido, por lo cual el total de visitantes subió 17% en 2015 y alcanzó 4 millones en 2016; así mismo, los ingresos brutos por turismo crecieron 11% en 2015 y se proyecta que alcanzarán los US$4.000 millones en 2016.

En el balance, los factores adversos sobrepasan con creces a los favorables y 2017 será muy tenso. A fin de enmendar el legado de Fidel, a Raúl le queda poco más de un año para acelerar y profundizar sus reformas estructurales. Si Trump revierte las medidas de Obama y no avanzan las reformas, la crisis se agravará en Cuba.

The Cross-harbour Ferry from the Steps of the Russian Orthodox Church

  1. C. Mesa-Lago: Cuba en la era de Raúl Castro: Reformas económico-sociales y sus efectos, Colibrí, Madrid, 2012.
  2. C. Mesa-Lago: «Institutional Changes in Cuba’s Economic and Social Reforms» en R. Feinberg y T. Piccone (comps.): Cuba Economic Change in Comparative Perspective, Brookings Institution / Universidad de La Habana, Washington, DC, 2014, pp. 49-69; «El lento avance de la reforma” en Política ExteriorNº 171, 5-6/2016, pp. 94-104; y con R.Veiga, L. González, S. Vera y A. Pérez-Liñán: Voces de cambio en el sector estatal cubano, Iberoamericana, Madrid, 2016.
  3. Raúl Castro Ruz, Discurso en la clausura de la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, Granma, 28 diciembre 2016, p.3.
  4. Cálculos del autor basados en Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas e Información (ONEI): Anuario estadístico de Cuba 2015, La Habana, 2016; datod de 1989, del Comité Estatal de Estadística: Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 1989, La Habana, 1991.
  5. La CEPAL, Balance preliminar de las economías de América Latina y el Caribe 2016, Santiago de Chile, diciembre 2016, cuadro 4.4, estima un crecimiento de 43% en el salario medio real, el mayor en la región, pero con base en el año 2010 cuando estaba 27% por debajo del nivel de 1989
  6. Cálculos del autor basados en ONEI: Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2008, La Habana, 2009, y cit.
  7. Basado en C. Mesa-Lago: «El desempleo en Cuba: de oculto a visible” en Espacio LaicalNº 4, 2010, pp. 59-66, y ONEI: Anuario 2015, cit.

8. C. Mesa Lago: «La desigualdad del ingreso y la experiencia de América Latina” en Temas Nº 84, 10-12/2015, pp. 35-43

A Few of Cuba’s Amazingly Talented Musicians

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CUBAN AMERICAN LOST HIS BUSINESS BID AFTER OBTAINING PERMANENT RESIDENCE IN CUBA

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Arch Ritter

Saul Berenthal

BY NORA GÁMEZ TORRES, Miami Herald, 9 January 2012

Original Article: CUBAN AMERICAN LOST HIS BUSINESS BID

Saul Berenthal was to become the first Cuban American investor on the island with a plan to assemble tractors to help small farmers. But his full embrace of his Cuban roots backfired.

The tale of Cleber LLC, a U.S. company that wants to assemble farm tractors in the Mariel Special Development Zone near Havana, is one example of the questions the island’s government will have to face if it wants to attract investments from the Cuban diaspora.

President Barack Obama described the proposal in March by Cleber, owned by Cuban American businessman Saul Berenthal and his partner, Horace Clemmons, as the first business with 100 percent U.S. capital authorized to invest in Cuba in more than half a century.

The goal was to assemble — and in the future produce from the ground up — a line of tractors for small-scale farmers under the Oggun brand, using Cuban labor for the benefit of the Cuban people, Berenthal told the Granma newspaper, official voice of the Cuban Communist Party, in April.

The paper published a report on Berenthal and Clemmons, and praised their idea of using the Open Source Manufacturing Model, which allows easier sourcing of materials. The Juventud Rebelde newspaper earlier published a report on the U.S. investors all but predicting the Cuban government would approve their project.

But Berenthal was told during the Havana International Fair, a business exhibition held Oct. 31-Nov. 4, that the proposal had been rejected.  Berenthal told el Nuevo Herald that the project “was not canceled. More than anything else, it was not authorized.”

The real reason for the rejection was that Berenthal, a 73-year-old retired software engineer who was born in Cuba and lived in the United States since 1960, had obtained permanent residence in Cuba, according to a knowledgeable source who asked for anonymity to speak about the issue.

“Saul got enthusiastic,” the source told el Nuevo Herald.

Berenthal’s “repatriation” put the Cuban government in a difficult position: accept the project, even though it would break its own ban on large investments by Cubans who live on the island, or reject it using an indirect argument. Officials chose the second option.

Berenthal said the government told him the proposal did not meet the Mariel requirements on technology and worker safety.

Berenthal said his repatriation had nothing to do with the government’s decision “because they were aware from the beginning” of his efforts to become a permanent residence. He added that the rejection of the Mariel project “does not mean we will not continue with the project. They suggested we contact the Agriculture Ministry.”  Berenthal’s legal residence on the island — which gave him the right to buy property and obtain free medical care, among other perks — put him at odds with laws that forbid Cubans who live on the island from establishing medium or large-scale companies.

The Justice Ministry’s web pages notes that the Cuban government does not recognize dual citizenship and follows the principle of “effective nationality.” That means a person with dual citizenship, such as Cuban Americans, can exercise only one when they are on the island.  “That does not mean a Cuban citizen cannot have another citizenship, but the valid one here is ours,” the ministry notes.

Although the Cuban constitution does not recognize the right of citizens living abroad to return and reunite with their families, they can be allowed to re-establish permanent residence and recover the benefits the government cancels for those it considers to have emigrated. Cubans with U.S. citizenship who return and re-establish permanent residence are therefore considered to be Cuban citizens only, subject to Cuban laws and regulations.

The Cuban ambassador in Washington, José Ramón Cabañas, told an interviewer in October that more than 13,000 Cubans living in the United States had been approved for repatriation in the previous two years. More applications were being processed, he added.

The impact on the U.S. status of Cubans who repatriate “is zero,” said immigration lawyer Wilfredo Allen. “The problem is that Cuba controls you.”

That control means, as in Berenthal’s case, that those 13,000 Cuban Americans who returned cannot invest their money in Cuban companies — even though the country’s Foreign Investment Law leaves open the possibility that Cubans with other nationalities may invest in areas such as tourism or energy.

Private sector workers in Cuba, known as cuentapropistas (self-employed), are licensed only to work for themselves and cannot legally establish companies to expand their work beyond a small scale. Larger enterprises are allowed only for the government and foreigners.

According to a report on the foreign investment law produced by the National Organization of Cuban Law Firms, “Cuban citizens residing in the country cannot participate as partners in a joint venture.” The report added: “This law is designed to favor ‘foreign investors’ or Cubans living outside the country.”

Cuban American economist Carmelo Mesa Lago said those restrictions are counterproductive, especially at a time when the island’s economy is shrinking.

Cuba’s Economy Minister Ricardo Cabrisas has said that only 6.5 percent of investments planned for 2017 are tied to foreign capital. The Cuban government estimates that it needs $2.5 billion in annual investments for economic growth.

“It is totally crazy. The level (of foreign investments) they are receiving is absolutely minimal,” Mesa Lago told el Nuevo Herald. “The government needs investments in all sectors. They have set priorities and have more interest in big investments than in medium investments, and that is totally absurd.

“They need all kinds of investments,” he added. “Cubans who have the capacity to invest, based on their profits … that should be allowed.”

 

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