Retail Sector Reform

11:32 26Dec2011 RTRS-Cuba makes more reforms to retail sector



* Thousands of service outlets to be leased to workers

* In 2012, Cubans will be able to operate repair shops

* Reforms part of Cuban plans to "update" economy



By Marc Frank

HAVANA, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Cuba will open up more of the country's retail services to the private sector next year, allowing Cubans to operate various services such as appliance and watch repair, and locksmith and carpentry shops, official media reported on Monday.

The measures are the latest by President Raul Castro in his attempt to reinvigorate Cuba's struggling Soviet-style economy by reducing the role of the state and encouraging more private initiative.

A resolution published in the official gazette on Monday said the new reforms would take effect on Jan. 1.

Earlier this year, the Cuban government turned over some 1,500 state barbershops and beauty parlors to employees.

Former state employees now pay a monthly fee for the shop, purchase supplies, pay taxes and charge what the market will bear.

Shortly after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, all businesses in Cuba were taken over by the state. But since the former leader handed power to his brother in 2008, the policy has been openly criticized as a mistake.

Ordinary Cubans have long complained about dismal state services, including small retail services, which they say have deteriorated because of a theft of resources and a shortage of sufficient supplies from the government.

Cuba has been moving over the last year to liberalize regulations over private economic activity. Since then, tens of thousands of Cubans have taken out licenses "to work for themselves," a euphemism used by the government to describe operating mom-and-pop businesses.

Cuba plans to have 35 percent to 40 percent of the labor force working in the "non-state" sector by 2016, compared with 15 percent at the close of 2010.

Raul Castro, faced with stagnating production and mounting foreign debt, has made clear the economy must be overhauled if the socialist system he and his ailing brother Fidel installed is to survive.

Moving most retail services to the "non-state" sector is one of more than 300 reforms approved by the ruling Communist Party earlier this year to "update" the economy.

The measures aim to introduce market forces in the agriculture and retail services sectors, cut subsidies and lift restrictions on individual activity that once prohibited the sale and purchase of homes and cars.

On Monday, the Communist Party daily Granma said the moving of thousands of state retail services to a leasing arrangement would be done gradually throughout 2012.

Economy Minister Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez told a year-end session of the National Assembly last week the number of state jobs would be reduced by 170,000 next year, with 240,000 new jobs likely to be added to the "non-state" sector.

Thousands of state taxi drivers are expected to move to leasing arrangements next year. Some state food services are also expected to be allowed to form cooperatives.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Eric Beech)

Bishops see democratic evolution in Cuba

Emilio Aranguren y Juan de Dios Hernández, que se mencionan como posibles sucesores del cardenal Ortega, elogiaron en Uruguay los 'cambios' de Raúl Castro.

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El obispo de Holguín, Emilio Aranguren, afirmó en Montevideo que percibe determinados cambios y situaciones en el Gobierno de Raúl Castro, que tiende a una progresiva evolución hacia un Estado más democrático, informó el diario uruguayo La República.

"El país va dando pasos que no son exactamente iguales a los de antes. Esto es un indicador de que es posible que lleguemos hasta una democracia con nuestras características, con un modo de gobernar...", señaló Aranguren al término de la 33ª Asamblea Ordinaria del Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano (Celam), donde se renovaron las autoridades del organismo.

A la reunión también asistió Juan de Dios Hernández, obispo auxiliar de La Habana, delegado de la Iglesia cubana ante el Celam.

Aranguren y Hernández se mencionan como posibles sucesores del cardenal Jaime Ortega al frente del Arzobispado de La Habana. Ortega debe renunciar en octubre por límite de edad, aunque se desconoce si el Papa le mantendrá más tiempo en el cargo.

Según el diario uruguayo, Hernández habló con periodistas sobre la celebración del VI Congreso del Partido Comunista.

"Hay un sólo Partido y permanece un solo Partido. Cuando se habla de que en esta democracia tiene que haber diferentes partidos. Entonces, ¿cómo se va caminando hacia allá? Hace cinco años no se escuchaba mucho a quienes opinaban de manera diferente, y hoy se escucha, y se tiene en cuenta, en lo que opina una persona o algún grupo de personas", dijo el obispo auxiliar de La Habana.

'Cambios lentos'

Según los prelados, en la Isla "se vienen implementando cambios, lentos, pero cambios al fin".

Aranguren aclaró que la relación de la Iglesia con el gobierno de los hermanos Castro no comenzó hace un año, sino que en los últimos tiempos se ha dado de diferente manera.

"Esto fue caminando y fueron diferentes encuentros paulatinos. Fue caminando la situación de los presos, siempre con algunos puntos a superar, y a la misma vez se fueron conversando otros temas desde la visión de la Iglesia a través de la doctrina social, y de nuestra permanencia en Cuba en los últimos 500 años", afirmó el obispo de Holguín.

El religioso sostuvo que todavía quedan algunos presos, los que están sujetos al tratamiento del Estado y de la propia Iglesia.

Los dos obispos explicaron que la participación de la Iglesia en el intercambio con el Estado "es algo novedoso, en cuanto a que no se realizó antes de una manera, sobre todo con las máximas autoridades".

Hernández aclaró que la Iglesia viene desarrollando la función de "siempre tirar puentes, procurando para que la diversidad llegue también a los niveles de base. Esto es fruto de la postura que ha tomado la Iglesia en los últimos 50 años".

Uno de los obispos, que no fue identificado por La República, dijo que la población tomó el relevo de Fidel Castro "como algo normal, sin ningún tipo de estridencias", pues "no extraña esa manera de entregar el poder a su hermano Raúl, amén de que está avalado por el Parlamento".

También catalogaron de "inmoral y éticamente inaceptable" el embargo económico de Estados Unidos y señalaron que durante años la Iglesia hizo sentir su voz ante las autoridades norteamericanas para que levantaran la medida, pero sin una respuesta afirmativa del otro lado.

En la Asamblea Ordinaria del Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano (Celam) participaron 5 cardenales y 50 obispos de todo el continente.

'Cuando la fe es cultura no se puede aniquilar tan fácilmente'

En una entrevista con el diaro local El País, Juan de Dios Hernández señaló que "el sistema marxista cubano trató de buscar un modelo estalinista que está muy lejos de nuestra cultura, evidentemente".

"Durante décadas ese modelo se impuso a la población y con ello el ateísmo teórico y práctico. Ahí se observa que cuando la fe es cultura no se puede aniquilar tan fácilmente. Al darse una coyuntura favorable todo eso emerge, como está sucediendo en este momento", apuntó el obispo auxilar de La Habana.

Dijo que cada vez la Iglesia tiene "más libertad" en su acción pastoral.

"Ciertamente no es la que quisiéramos, aspiramos a más, ellos lo saben. Pero apostamos por la gradualidad, pienso que en el futuro habrá más posibilidades de que la Iglesia pueda estar en espacios", añadió.

Reiteró lo dicho por el cardenal Ortega en ocasiones anteriores: "La Iglesia no es un partido político, es una servidora del pueblo", y dijo que "ellos (los gobernantes) han captado la importancia del valor espiritual que la Iglesia puede dar en la población"

Hernández negó que actualmente la feligresía sea reprimida por su condición católica. "No, hubo momentos difíciles que en este momento no se producen. No hay represión por la fe. Ellos y el pueblo van dando posibilidades que, según como se expresen las cosas, se van a realizar".

A la pregunta de si los cubanos de a pie están pidiendo más espacios de libertad, contestó que "la gente lo va diciendo de una manera u otra. El mismo presidente ha pedido que la gente se exprese y que lo hará, a veces coincidiendo y otras disintiendo".


http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/4873-obispos-creen-que-la-isla-evoluciona-hacia-un-estado-mas-democratico

Tom Miller Describes Mixed Picture of Reform

As Fidel Fades From the Scene

By Tom Miller
Washington Post
Sunday, February 17, 2008; B02



HAVANA

We were sitting on a wrought-iron bench downtown, Manolo and I, chatting about the December weather, nodding to pedestrians strolling by. I was in Cuba to do some research on José Martí, the national hero who had laid the foundation for the island's war of independence against Spain more than a century ago.

Our conversation was politely interrupted by an officer from the Specialized Police, a force assigned to heavily tourist areas. He asked for identification, not uncommon when a light-skinned foreigner is chatting with a dark-skinned Cuban, then walked away after writing down our data. He returned a couple of minutes later. "Follow me," he said, motioning us to his squad car.

This, I thought, was a miserable way to begin my trip -- but an excellent way to take Cuba's temperature. Ever since Fidel Castro took seriously ill more than 18 months ago and named his younger brother Raúl, then head of the armed forces, temporary president, the word "transition" has been on everyone's lips. They know where their country has been, but no one is sure where it's headed.

The policeman turned us over to a higher-ranking officer who asked whether I had any papers with me besides a few loose sheets stuffed into a small notebook. I had none. Suddenly, several officers put Manolo up against the car, patted him down, handcuffed him and stuffed him in the back seat. I wasn't frisked or cuffed, but officers maneuvered me in on the other side, and off we drove to the police station.

It was a "Dragnet"-era cop shop, with a high desk and officers milling about. I was bumped higher and higher in officialdom, each time asked whether I had any other papers with me. Finally I was ushered into a room where a uniformed immigration officer from the Interior Ministry looked up from his computer screen. He was husky, almost chubby, and his conversation was friendly, or at least not hostile. He, too, asked about papers. "Why is everyone asking about papers?" I asked. He replied with a shrug.

Then a heavy-set plainclothesman from State Security came in. His hair resembled a small dark yarmulke, slightly askew. He thrust a piece of paper in my face. "Have you ever seen this?" he asked sternly. It was the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. "I've heard of it," -- I chose my words carefully -- "but this is the first time I've actually seen a copy."

"Are you sure?" He paused. "We are not opposed to this document, I want you to understand." I thought of the "Seinfeld" line, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"Someone fitting your description has been handing these out," my interrogator said, and repeated his Seinfeldian disclaimer.

"Well, it wasn't me," I said. Fifteen minutes later, I was released. I never learned what happened to Manolo.

My two hours in Cuban custody seemed to fit a new pattern. The human rights activist Elizondo Sánchez thinks that under Raúl Castro, there are fewer arrests and jailings and more brief detentions. "Our day-to-day observation leads us to think that the style of political repression has changed," Sánchez told the foreign media last month.

Raúl Castro, who turns 77 in June, has surprised a lot of people. I'd last been in Cuba a year earlier, and I'd seen a dismal population going about the daily business of getting provisions for the following day. That's still what most people do, but this time there was more money in circulation, more low-end street commerce, somewhat less sense of perpetual anguish.

Cubans spoke, if not well, then at least respectfully, of their acting president. In the privacy of his living room, a writer commented on the younger Castro's lifelong military career. "He knows how to delegate," he said. "Things are running more smoothly." Another acquaintance, a retired bureaucrat, speaking openly in a restaurant, said she thought that Raúl was more understanding of everyday hardships: "He lives in a real neighborhood and understands the street."

Fidel fatigue underlies some of this new attitude. A change -- any change -- is welcome, as long as circumstances get no worse. My informal survey took me to La Víbora, a once-tidy Havana neighborhood that rarely sees a foreigner. A longtime acquaintance there had been a well-regarded scientist some time ago, but the contradictions between words and actions had compelled her to leave government work and find solace in the Catholic Church, through which she makes humanitarian visits to prisons. She described a devastating rainfall that had pounded the eastern end of the island weeks earlier. People had lost their homes, buildings collapsed, roads were destroyed, railroad lines uprooted.

"If Fidel had been in charge, he'd have started a speech that would still be going, and he'd blame the imperialists for the storm," she said. "Raúl devoted three sentences to it in a speech and blamed climate change. He told us that the ruin came to $499 million, and he ordered repair crews to work on the damage."

She also credits the new provisional president with a measure of expanded inmate rehabilitation programs. "I tell you," she said, "I've known two leaders in my life, Fidel and Raúl. I'm not a fan of Raúl's, but I believe what I see."

I got another indication of Havana's mood when I joined a dozen artists, filmmakers and writers around a table of good cheer at a private residence, pouring glass after glass of Havana Club rum. One fellow laughed about the time years ago when culture authorities had tried to discourage him from painting a certain way because it was considered counterrevolutionary. Everyone lifted their copitas at the distant memory, and someone else talked about the difficulty the late gay poet Virgilio Piñera had experienced getting published. The table nodded, and someone piped up, "Clothes. Remember we were told we couldn't wear narrow straight pants?" "Yes, and we couldn't wear our hair in Afros! They said it was ideologically diverting." More laughter. I started to hum Dean Martin's "Memories Are Made of This."

"I used to listen to the Beatles on a cassette player in the bushes down by the Almendares," one fellow said. On and on these intellectuals one-upped each other, chortling at memories of authoritarian rule under Fidel. They spoke of the era of cultural autocracy in the past tense, as if it had happened under a previous regime. I asked whether they could have had this conversation 20 years ago. "Are you kidding?" a woman replied. "It would have been suspect just to have a dozen people meeting like this." The liberating air of Fidel's absence gave them enough freedom to indulge in repression nostalgia.

The music of the moment is reggaeton. Under Fidel it was salsa. Reggaeton -- a blend of reggae, Latin beats and hip-hop -- fills theaters with madly cheering fans. At Havana's Teatro América, I saw thousands of Cubans applauding wildly, singing along with the two-man Gente de Zona, whose songs they knew from radio play. The young performers, whose suspenders and gold chains drooped at their sides, poured beer on their bare chests to reflect the spotlight better. Raúl and Fidel were far away.

Out in the provinces, though, life goes on much as it did in the past, regardless of which Castro heads the government. In Camaguey, long supportive of Fidel, the streets are filled with as many bicycles as cars. The bread man pulls his cart through residential neighborhoods, selling loaves of soft white bread with a crumbly crust for five pesos (about a quarter), while another street merchant buys empty rum bottles for a peso to sell at a modest profit at a recycling center. A local businessman named Luis, watching the passing scene with me, reflected on the hardships that, despite Raúl, remain glaringly apparent.

"What we need," he finally said, "is a Cuban Gorbachev."

Few of his compatriots would put it that way, but it was a note of budding hope for his country's future.

tmiller08@q.com

Tom Miller, the author of "Trading With the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro's Cuba," has been visiting Cuba regularly since 1987.

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My comment to WashingtonPost.com

This article is a realistic portrayal of what is underway in Cuba.

However, it would be a mistake to interpret it as a sign of impending collapse, justifying maintenance of the travel and trade embargo.

Rather it should be seen as a reason for the US to take a different stance toward Raul Castro to encourage tendencies toward reform.

Miller's detention may well have to do with an initiative on the part of western human rights activists to pass out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That has been a tactic in other countries.

In and of itself, such an action should certainly not attract any police attention or sanction.

However, when the neighborhood hegemon which has tried to control your country for over a century is publicly committed to regime change, is squeezing every last third country possibility out of an embargo, and calls for instability and military disloyalty, such acts of human rights education are not viewed as disinterested idealism.

For more information on the debate over reform in Cuba, go to http://internalreform.blogspot.com/

Rafael Hernandez: It is imperative that we make changes"

'It is imperative that we make changes'

An interview with Cuban politologist and editor Rafael Hernández

Progresso Weekly
http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=253&Itemid=1

By Manuel Alberto Ramy
maprogre@gmail.com

The following is a condensed version of a long and revealing interview broadcast by Radio Progreso Alternativa on Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007.

"Cuba today is experiencing an intellectual movement never before seen," affirms Cuban politologist Rafael Hernández, who for years has promoted a culture of debate in our country.


That statement explains the existence of the quarterly magazine Temas, edited by Hernández, which -- in 52 issues -- has touched on practically every problem that affects intellectuals worldwide, particularly the most pressing problems of today's Cuban reality.


To Hernández, "the magazine is in some way the mirror of that intellectual movement, of that output of ideas, of that diversity of Cuba's contemporary thinking that looks not only inwardly but also outwardly, at the rest of the world."

In a small office on the fifth floor of the ICAIC building [Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry], Hernández sits in his trench of ideas. This thinker of average height, a forehead so ample that it has displaced his hair, of fragile appearance and solid thinking, chats not only with words but also with his eyes, which often appear tired of traveling to the future with a round-trip ticket.

To him, Temas "is a sort of stethoscope, the device doctors use to hear the heartbeats of contemporary society, primarily Cuban but also the state of thinking in Latin America."

This monitoring of Cuban hearbeats began in 1995 under the sponsorship of Culture Minister Abel Prieto, who asked Hernández to edit the magazine "so it could become a space for debate, from the perspective of a critical reflection of Cuba's and the world's contemporary problems. That was a necessity at the time, and still is."


The date is significant, because it places the promotion of the debate of ideas 12 years earlier than its beginning in Cuban society. In addition, Hernández says, the publication of the magazine for the purpose of debating -- and "debate is discrepancy" -- reprises a rich process of criticism and introspection that were interrupted by extraneous events that affected Cuba.


The politologist takes out his return ticket because "to understand the present, you have to look backward." He tells me that between 1986 and 1990 "a very important process of public discussion took place, which in my judgment is the most profound and democratic critical debate ever staged in Cuba, and it culminated with the call to the Fourth [Cuban Communist] Party Congress."


The debate "developed a docket of problems, of basic things that had to do with the mismanagement of the Cuban socialist model, not only in connection with economic aspects but also political, social, cultural, etc. At that point, an expectation for change was created; the temperature of public opinion, of the critical social consciousness about those problems, was already high.


"At that exact moment, the crisis of the Special Period unraveled and amid that crisis it was clearly impossible to go ahead with the agenda of the so-called 'rectification' and to implement policies that provided answers to the problems."


As I listen, I recall that Hernández is not the first of the personalities that I have interviewed who refer to that period (1986-1990) of strong critical debate, which I immediately associate with the early alert sounded by Fidel Castro about the likely collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in general.


Another detail that many of the analysts and Cubanologists who write in the foreign press should be aware of is that the current debate in Cuba is focused on the need to perfect the "Cuban socialist model," not on the option between the socialist system and some other system.


"The system's principles must be defended, but the model itself must be transformed" so it may be buttressed, Hernández affirms. "I have heard -- and I don't know if the figure has been used officially -- that more than 2 million proposals have been received and recorded.


"No doubt, some of the proposals are not viable, but I am sure that all the proposals involve every important problem in Cuban society, all the problems that affect the operation of the Cuban socialist model. And I think that that's what the discussions have been all about."


The fluidity of the dialogue returned us to the present, so the question was inevitable: The open debates in the workplaces, nuclei of the Comunist Party and the barrios throughout Cuba -- are they a simple exercise by the people on the psychiatrist's couch, a simple catharsis?


"That cannot happen," he replies, emphatically. "We are in a crucial moment in the history of our country. Into this moment have come together an immense capacity of intellectual creation and an immense social energy. We have a truly educated population, people who think with their own heads. As a result, after all these years, we have at our disposal a public opinion, a citizenry with a capacity for consistent critical analysis, consistent and committed.


"The fact that the leadership of the Revolution summons us to a discussion of the nation's problems and asks us to express ourselves openly is a measure of the willingness for change that exists in the country. I don't think that the leadership of the Revolution can call to a discussion of a number of problems and then do nothing."


Before I can formulate my next question, Hernández answers it. "It's not a question of whether we should make changes or not. The fact is that it is imperative that we make changes. Politics is not the art of exercising human will; politics is the art of what's possible and meeting the needs that reality imposes upon us. Cuban society today demands changes and it is a fundamental element of socialism in Cuba that consensus should be articulated around the response to those changes."

Applying to the problems a traditional Cuban song, I tell him that the accumulated difficulties "are so many that they trip each other up" and that, in my opinion, they could exceed the responses.


Hernández's reply: "We have a number of material problems; we have a number of problems related to the scarcity of resources, but other problems don't have anything to do with that. They have to do with mentalities, with ways of thinking and conceiving socialism, with ways of thinking and conceiving participation.


"Without the effective participation of the citizenry in the control of politics and the decision-making process, we cannot solve any important problem, whether it's the production of milk, local transportation, energy supplies, the savings of resources or the construction of homes.


"All that involves the participation of citizens in the making of decisions involving priorities and in their control of politics. No bureaucratic administrative mechanism can control politics or prevent corruption like the people can."


Hernández tells me that, in its 52 issues, Temas has broached issues such as transitions, the role of the market in socialism, national consensus, socialist property, and the citizens' effective participation, among other topics.


In round tables and articles, the magazine has published the opinions of economists, sociologists, anthropologists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and designers, as well as the discussions and criticism made daily by the ordinary Cuban. Not just print them, but also present them in forum-debates, which any citizen can attend and join. These discussions are even advertised on television, Hernández says.


Has the magazine received phone calls or reprimands for the articles it publishes? I ask. Has anyone tried to censor it?


"Everything that is displayed in the intellectual terrain with ideas, with critical points of view, has to overcome obstacles," he answers. "That's natural, that's normal. If someone doesn't want to fall ill with lead poisoning or silicosis, one should not work in a mine. If one doesn't want problems with the spine, one should not work at a computer.


"Professions, jobs have their own occupational diseases. Our job has them, too; it runs into mentalities that at some point resist the airing of certain things."


I try to interrupt him, but he continues: "In Cuba in the past 15 years, the battle has been waged in an adequate, negotiated manner, through dialogue. The dialogue between the institutions that make decisions and the institutions in the world of culture, the world of thinking, is increasingly fluid. And 'fluid' doesn't mean there is no disagreement.


"The resistance to new ideas, criticism and changes is something that I find in my neighborhood. I don't have to go to any government office to meet with resistance. In our civic culture, there are elements that resist change and refuse to accept specific criticism or reject the convenience of discussing specific problems in public.


"It's not a mentality that's exclusively installed in the head of some bureaucrats but in the heads of many citizens I know who are reluctant to discussion. They don't really believe that a debate can unfold and go to the core of an issue and contend that we are often not ready for debate.


"When we talk about debate or criticism, we often talk about censorship, restrictions, control, but we never talk about our own lack of a 'debate culture.' We must foster a culture of debate from the start, because our society doesn't have it.


"We often call a debate 'good' when the participants say the same as we think. That's not debate; debate is discrepancy. And it is very important that in a debate we express divergent positions in a spirit of dialogue, of mutual respect. And I think that politics is going through that stage right now."


To this Cuban politologist who has given courses in several U.S. and European universities as an invited professor, participation and criticism are essential to build the model of Cuban socialism.

"All the discussion about Raúl's speech on July 26 is a discussion that calls to discrepancy. And that is something that, to me, is essential for the vitality of a political culture. In our case, socialist cultural politics cannot be healthy if it is not developed from the debate and criticism of an immense majority of citizens.


"Public opinion in Cuba is represented by the immense majority of citizens, not by a group that controls a specific number of communications media. And that's essential to make changes and to express, to permit the media (including magazines like Temas) to confront and deal with the problems facing the ordinary citizen."


Hernández final words seem to coincide with the idea held by many
Cuban intellectual and politicians about the future of Cuba.


"All the formulas destined to promote, emphasize and deepen the social contents of socialism are formulas directed at the core of the central problems of Cuba's development. The Revolution must go forward and leave more and more room for the new generations.


"Those new generations are demanding capability, power, a degree of decision over their own ideas, their own problems and criteria about the meaning of a socialist society. And I think that the socialism of the future is the socialism of the young."


Manuel Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly.