Cuba's Potential Role

Outside the Box

April 4, 2012, 12:01 a.m. EDT

Cuba could be key to Caribbean basin

Commentary: Island is a sterling example of managing scarcity

By Patrick Burnson

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — With the Panama Canal expansion on schedule for completion in 2014, supply chain specialists are anticipating a logistical hub to surface in the Caribbean Basin.

For those investors and traders eyeing opportunities in Cuba, the timing couldn’t be better. As noted in the Wall Street Journal recently, money managers are “optimistic” when it comes to finally eliminating this nation’s 50-year-old trade embargo. And initial barriers to entry should not include logistics, say industry experts.

Frank Barnako

Cuban street

Furthermore, Cuba may not need outside expertise to cope with immediate supply chain problems. According to some leading scholars and practitioners, Cuba is a sterling example of how to manage “scarcity.” They note that operating under resource scarcity already exists there, with businesses facing daily lack of food, medicine, electricity, and raw materials. View MarketWatch slide show, “The revealing faces of today’s Cuba.”

Despite this, the resourcefulness of Cuba’s people has triumphed to some extent. Reverse logistics experts observe that Cuba has created supply chains that re-use and recycle almost everything, despite the lack of government-mandated recycling programs. Indeed, such adaptation may augur the type of closed loop supply chains needed by other emerging nations in the future.

The long-term challenges around opening trade with Cuba would revolve around the issues of customs and export compliance, in particular the infrastructure to support the safe and fully documented movement of those goods.

Frank Barnako

TRAVEL TO CUBA
Getting there:
It is relatively easy to go to Cuba, since the U.S. government recently eased restrictions. U.S. citizens need to sign up with a tour company authorized by the Department of the Treasury. Charter flights serve Havana from Miami and other airports will soon be available.

U.S. citizens can go to Cuba alone. They must first go to a foreign city that has service to Havana. Toronto and Mexico City work well. Upon return, travelers may face questions about their trip.

With a drive to increase levels of electronic clearance and export documentation, the lack of investment in computerized systems — and the integration of those systems into the U.S. import/export world — would represent a complication, albeit a surmountable one, say compliance experts.

This could be ameliorated, however, by leveraging systems already in place through Cuba’s trade with the EU and Latin America, since our trade embargo with Cuba is increasingly unique.

To the extent that it has the hard currency to support trade at all, Cuba gets most of its imports from the EU and its neighbors to the south. But this can change in a hurry. Automotive parts, technology and manufacturing materials, as well as luxury items particular to the U.S. market are likely to be in high demand.

That said, it is likely that over the long term, U.S.-based producers would seek to build their own infrastructure within Cuba’s boundaries in order to better embed their business into the U.S. market.

According to the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, Cuba already performs in the median range. Cuba’s economy is mostly state-controlled, meaning most of the means of production are owned and run by the government.

The London-based Economist Intelligence, meanwhile, ranks the Cuban business environment as one of the world’s worst. In recent years, it was placed as number 80 of 82 nations surveyed, with only Iran and Angola rated lower. However, some forms of foreign investments and private enterprise are allowed. The main sectors of the Cuban economy are industrial production and sugar cultivation. In recent years, tourism, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry are also gaining importance.

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Finally, U.S. investors might wish to look to another hemispheric partner as a model for doing business with this tiny island nation: Canada. Our northern neighbors figured out Cuba’s supply chain long ago.

Canada’s investment, trade and cultural links with Cuba are substantial. In fact, Canada is the second-largest foreign investor in Cuba (after Venezuela) and the third-ranking country in terms of joint ventures. Canada is also Cuba’s fourth-largest merchandise trade partner, behind Venezuela, China, and Spain.

Analysts in Toronto report that a discernible pattern in Canada-Cuba commercial relations to date is that trade has tended to follow investment. In other words, a significant share of Canadian exports to Cuba targets sectors with notable Canadian investments. This is typically the result of an existing synergy between traders and investors that provides clear advantages in the home country and makes commercial sense, not necessarily because of a particular preference for Canadian suppliers.

“Have a Havana?” The supply chain seems ready to oblige. But while rum supplies are likely to meet U.S. demand, tobacco growers and cigar manufacturers are likely to be overwhelmed with orders. As a consequence, industry experts are forecasting a surge in that other great Cuban export: counterfeit Figurados.

Patrick Burnson is executive editor of Supply Chain Management Review and Logistics Management . 

http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=AA21931A-79DE-11E1-8E2F-002128049AD6

Repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act

CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT

Time to revisit the Cuban Adjustment Act 

BY LISANDRO PEREZ

LOPEREZ@JJAY.CUNY.EDU

Congress passed the Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act in 1966 as a pragmatic solution to a very real problem. As its name makes clear, the CRAA was intended to “adjust” the status of nearly 300,000 Cubans already in the United States who had been admitted with a temporary “refugee” visa.

That visa did not put them on a path to citizenship, and so the act was passed to take them out of that limbo by granting them permanent residency. Neither the granting of the original refugee visa nor the awarding of permanent immigrant status under the CRAA required establishing a need for political asylum on the part of the applicant. Those measures were applied in a blanket fashion to any Cuban entering or already residing in the U.S.

In fact, one could argue that the CRAA is the antithesis of an asylum-granting process. The only Cubans who need to make a case for asylum, on an individual basis, are those not covered under CRAA, that is, those who are outside the United States., such as those intercepted at sea by the Coast Guard (“wet-foots”) or those applying for asylum at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. But if you’re here, you’re in, thanks to CRAA, with no need to establish asylum credentials.

One of the tenets of exile lore is that the recent arrivals from the island came for less loftier reasons than the grandparents and parents of his generation half a century ago. That was mentioned in a recent Other Views piece by Joe Cardona. The former came for political reasons, “uprooted” by the Revolution, whereas the latter are somewhat akin to mercenaries, migrating for “economic” reasons.

That might be true, but that is an empirical question, subject to being verified by research, assuming one can neatly disentangle and dichotomize the complex reasons why anyone migrates. What is true, however — and my point here — is that those who arrived from Cuba just yesterday will have their status normalized through the same process by which the grandparents and parents of Cardona’s generation normalized their status, without establishing the need for asylum. As far as the CRAA is concerned, one group is as “political” (or not) as the other.

A current proposal by Rep. David Rivera to tinker with the CRAA so as to coerce those who have recently arrived from Cuba into behaving like political refugees by threatening to revoke their residency in the United States should they return to the island to visit their families. Presumably, political refugees, fleeing persecution, cannot return to their country of origin.

But since these “refugees” were never required to declare themselves to be in need of asylum to stay in the United States and since they are obviously willing and able to return to Cuba, this move by Rivera has an entirely fictional basis. But the consequence of his efforts will be real: Put a chill on family travel to Cuba as part of the war he has long waged against the reunification of the Cuban family.

If Rivera believes that migrants from Cuba are no longer conforming to what is expected of political refugees, then he should have the political fortitude to advocate for the elimination of the special migratory status of Cubans, that is, repeal the CRAA instead of tinkering with it. Not that Cuban immigrants have always conformed to the behavior Rivera expects of political refugees.

Conveniently overlooked is any mention of the more than 125,000 U.S. Cubans who returned to Cuba to visit at the very first opportunity for them to do so, in 1979, even before the Mariel boatlift, at a time when most of those returning must have been the grandparents and parents of Cardona’s generation. The ones who, we are told, were the true political refugees.

Lisandro Pérez, formerly the director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University, is now professor and chair of the Department of Latin American and Latina/o Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/26/2715539/time-to-revisit-the-cuban-adjustment.html#storylink=cpy

Ramy on the Pope and Marxism in Cuba

An opinion about a Papal statement

Monday, 26 March 2012 09:37 Manuel Alberto Ramy

By Manuel Alberto Ramy

Marxism, which is nothing more than an instrument of analysis for society, was condemned by the Catholic Church more than a century ago. Leon XIII's papal encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) can even be assumed to be a response – the first one from a Pope – to that nascent ideology. The ideological differences between Catholic doctrine and Marxism, as a theory, go a long way back.

The novelty, pointed out to me by several readers and friends who have asked for my opinion, lies in a recent statement by His Holiness Benedict XVI with relation to his trip to Cuba. Traveling in the papal plane was the excellent journalist and Vatican specialist Paloma Gómez Borrero, who, with a direct question that was answered by His Holiness, unleashed some headlines that were a bit forced.

At one point in his reply (the exchange appears in Progreso Semanal), His Holiness says, “Today it is evident that Marxist ideology, as it was conceived, no longer responds to reality. In this fashion, it can no longer respond to the construction of a new society.”

In addition to having been the guardian of the faith during John Paul II's papacy, Benedict XVI is an intellectual, theologian and philosopher who has published about 20 books. He knows about thought, from his ideology, and also knows how to use the precise words to express himself.

The concept “no longer responds to reality,” he says –leaving open the question that, at some point, it might have responded to it – and continues by saying that “in this fashion” it's not valid for “the construction of a new society.” “This fashion,” I think, refers to the practice of applied Marxism, which to a great degree imploded in the former socialist republics, those in the so-called real socialism.

If I am right, we are not looking at a forced reiteration of positions in the field of ideas but to a statement about the experiences we've all lived.

It happens that His Holiness comes to Cuba when our country is going through a crucial moment in its history called an Actualization, which, in addition to reforming the socioeconomic system that has existed for half a century, is trying to erase old schemes of the Marxist praxis, copied from the USSR.

The Pope who visits us now is not the same Pope who visited us 14 years ago. But he also does not arrive to the same Cuba, which is something he knows. He will arrive into a society and country that are living through a process that leads to social and economic changes.

“In this process, which requires patience but also decisiveness, we wish to help in a spirit of dialogue, to avoid traumas and to help achieve a fraternal and just society with – for all the people, and we want to collaborate in this sense.”

“This visit has inaugurated a road of collaboration and constructive dialogue, a road that is long and demands patience but goes forward,” the Pope answered the journalist.

These words mean not only a disposition toward our government but also support for the bet on that option that the Cuban Catholic hierarchy has placed. Because of that decision, the Cuban hierarchy has been suffering attacks and pressures from powerful external forces, mainly from the administration in Washington.

That administration does not agree with Cuba's aspiration to make reforms that will lead to a new model of internal coexistence capable of excluding U.S. domination, or a model where the adoration of money does not prevail, something that the Pope mentioned in another context and upon which I wish he had been more forceful. (Marxism was a response to the then-emerging capitalism, which has since become globalized.)

Putting Washington aside, I opine that one of the possible objectives of the recent events in several churches – aside from the clear objective of pushing Church-state relations into a crisis – could be to alter the consensus that exists within the national hierarchy and turn it into confrontation.

“It is obvious that the Church is always on the side of freedom: freedom of conscience, freedom of religion. In this sense [INAUDIBLE] also contribute the simple faithful in this road forward,” the Pope said.

With all due respect, I cannot overlook and must lament the fact that His Holiness called "simple faithful" those who form the Church, which is nothing more than the communion of the faithful, the millions of people worldwide who share and practice the faith and preachings of the Son of God, the putative son of carpenter Joseph and Mary the virgin. Without the simple faithful, there would be no Church, only an institutional skeleton.

Progreso Semanal/ Weekly authorizes the total or partial reproduction of the articles written by our journalists, so long as the source and author are identified.

Carlos Saladrigas Speaks in Havana

Anti Castro activist condemns the blockade and urges support for the budding private sector

Sunday, 01 April 2012 07:40 Gerardo Arreola/la Jornada

Carlos Saladrigas appeals for an end to confrontation

By Gerardo Arreola

From La Jornada

Cuban American businessman Carlos Saladrigas, who over a decade ago was a prominent anti Castro hardliner in Miami, spoke today in public for the first time in Havana, under the auspices of the Catholic Church – Saladrigas rejected the U.S. blockade against the island and asked émigrés to eradicate the “confrontation model” and support, with resources, the budding private sector promoted by President Raúl Castro’s reform.

“A large part of that diaspora that we call exile has reached the conclusion that it is neither ethical nor sustainable to maintain policies or positions of isolation, alienation and economic sanctions that hurt our people, and even less when you do it through the intervention of a foreign country,” he said. “It is neither acceptable nor licit to harm the Cuban people in order to achieve a change of government”.

Saladrigas, 63, gave a lecture at the Félix Varela Cultural Center invited by Espacio Laical, a magazine of the Havana Archbishopric. The room was packed with some 100 people as diverse as the Vicar of the Catholic Church and essayist Carlos Manuel de Céspedes; academics Carlos Alzugaray and Esteban Morales; Pedro Campos and Félix Sautié, editors of the Socialismo Democrático y Participativo newsletter; members of the Communist Party and political opponents Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Miriam Leiva and Reinaldo Escobar.

"Cuba’s problems are many, but they are our problems, and we have to solve them among ourselves,” Saladrigas said.

“We are running out of time. Let us tear down the walls we have built and construct the necessary bridges, and let us face the task of building a new Cuba, a free, sovereign, inclusive, prosperous, diverse, wealthy, fair, equitable Cuba, one that is generous to the weaker sectors of our society.”

His emphasis on the solution among Cubans was equaled by his skepticism of Washington changing its policy toward the island in the near future. He even predicted that “it is very probable and possible that in the coming years we will see that Cuba is changing at a faster pace than the United States can react to.”

He also remarked that “nothing can have more impact” on U.S. policy than “Cuba’s aperture.”

A member of a family linked to the Fulgencio Batista regime deposed by the revolution in 1959, Saladrigas began the new relation with his home country almost a year ago when Palabra Nueva, another publication of the Archbishopric of Havana, interviewed him. At the time he launched the idea that emigrant investments should flow to the island, like China did in its time, and his words unleashed a controversy in Progreso Weekly, a U.S.-based digital magazine focused on Cuban affairs.

His conference in Havana is another step forward in his insertion in the Cuban debate.

He further elaborated on the need for change, both for the U.S. administration and the Cuban government, and also among émigrés and their local politicians.

A Personal and Political Dialog with the Church

My first Mass

Wednesday, 04 April 2012 07:33 Jesús Arboleya Cervera

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By Jesús Arboleya Cervera

HAVANA - Although I was baptized Jesús (for reasons that I was never curious enough to find out), my personal contacts with the Catholic Church have been scant.

My father was a mason-turned-agnostic and my mother did not practice any religion. My grandmothers worshiped the saints at home and although an aunt became a famous Santera, the syncretic rituals were not a common practice in the family.

I always studied in public schools, did not take first communion, was not married by the Church, did not baptize my daughters, and the closest I was to a confession was during self-criticism sessions within the Communist Party.

Obviously, I'm not a typical Cuban, generally close to religion, but my history demonstrates the disparate and sometimes conflicting influences in our ideological formation. However, this distance did not generate disinterest in Catholicism, or rejection towards people who practice this religion.

In fact, Catholicism is part of my own culture, I absorbed it in my neighborhood, in the study of my country's history, my tastes and traditions and, above all, in my social relationships.

To a degree, I am also a Catholic, although I do not believe in God and reject the institutional patterns that acknowledge the supposed infallibility of the Pope and promote ideas that I consider archaic, even potentially harmful to human welfare.

I find it paradoxical that a religion that had its origin in the struggle of the poor and proclaims itself as such – I'd like to think that that's why my parents named me Jesús – revels in luxury and ostentation to express itself and has a history of partnership with the exploiters.

If the Virgin of Charity had worn the cloak of gold and precious stones in which she's clothed today, she would have sunk hopelessly into the sea and never would have become the patroness of Cuba.

That cultural community was what impressed me the most when I attended my first Mass on March 28 at Revolution Square in Havana. I met people of all colors for whom the Virgin is Ochún, couples who displayed more love for each other than for “the Holy Father” and old communist friends who questioned the meaning of their presence in that act.

I also met a trio of devout practitioners who complained about the ignorance of the rest of the crowd during the liturgy, as well as young Catholics who obviously enjoyed proclaiming their belief in a climate of acceptance and respect. I recognized in the crowd some notorious “dissidents” and former leaders of the nation that no longer are on the public stage.

The truth is that I could not identify the pilgrims from Miami, maybe because they looked like everybody else or because, following the norms of Vatican protocol, they were placed in an area to which I had no access.

I do not think that the Pope's homily generated much passion among those present. Perhaps it was too doctrinaire in an environment that did not contribute to the meditation requested, but I guess that that was its job and those were its goals.

However, the Pope’s call to the rescue of human values ​​as a standard for social behavior is undoubtedly of vital importance and constitutes, by its very nature, a criticism of the current world order. Also in Cuba it is necessary to reinforce these ethical values ​​and helping to highlight them is one of the Catholic Church’s main contributions to the nation right now.

I cannot deny that my education and intellectual interests lead me to prioritize the understanding of the political role of the Catholic Church at various times in history, particularly in Cuban history. To deny this role is to ignore the history of mankind and ignore an essential ingredient of the formation of the Cuban nation and the country's political struggles.

Although earlier in Cuba, and currently in many places, the Catholic Church has promoted political parties and organizations, which implies a commitment to certain programs and specific alignments, this is not the case in Cuba today.

Which does not imply that the Church does not have its own political interests and attempts to influence the direction of government structures and the rest of society in that regard, with the addition that the Catholic Church worldwide is a state and behaves as one.

The challenge for the Cuban state and the Catholic Church itself is to reconcile these interests in an inclusive national project, where they are not the only actors.

Nowhere has the Catholic Church, as an institution and as a state, proclaimed to be an ally of socialism, and in Cuba it certainly isn’t. In fact, for many years, it declared itself the state’s enemy and was an active participant in a fierce battle, whose aftermath remains alive on both sides. The most that can be said is that good relations and a constructive dialogue now exist between the parties.

This is no minor achievement. So much so, that probably only in Cuba there is a formal dialogue between Marxists and Christians. However, we continue talking about two divergent positions, from both the doctrinal point of view, and their political views. The change in mindset does not lie in ignoring this reality but in assuming it and finding points of reconciliation in a context where the differences are given.

I think that, rather than a limitation, this divergence conveys the importance of dialogue between the State and the Catholic Church in Cuba. Only Miami schizophrenics can say that the Church is an accomplice of the Cuban government. The legitimacy of this dialogue lies precisely in the fact that they are opponents duly accredited as such.

If the Cuban government can dialogue with the Catholic Church and find ways to coexist, it can do the same with anyone who does not undermine the basic principles of national sovereignty. This is something that was stressed by both President Raúl Castro and the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Msgr. Dionisio Garcia.

This concurrence is capital, because it reflects both the essence of the Cuban Revolution and the transformations that have taken place in the composition of the Catholic Church in this country. I think that, for the first time since the 18th Century, when it ceased to be a Spanish-rooted institution, the Catholic Church in Cuba can be justly considered Cuban.
Cuban are most of its authorities and priests and therefore Cuban are their minds, their culture and national aspirations, which facilitates understanding, regardless of differences.

Such a dialogue could be very broad, because it will be developed not only between the parties but also inside themselves and the rest of society, including the émigrés, opening spaces for participation in which all Cubans would be included, thus channeling a national consultation process that will be essential for the future of the nation. From this equation would be excluded only those who are not patriots, easily identifiable by their intentions, practices and subordination.

For these reasons I attended my first Mass on March 28. Some may say that that doesn’t count because I was not summoned by my faith in God, or that it was not a traditional Mass, but perhaps that was the reason for its appeal. Also I did not start badly; the Pope officiated, and I watched the service in the company of my people, who have the right to believe or disbelieve in whatever deities they please, yet they’d rather do it together.

http://progreso-weekly.com/2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3179:my-first-mass&catid=36:in-cuba&Itemid=54

Young Cuba’s Communist Bloggers who Debate & Toast with Anti-Castro Exiles

March 12, 2012 

Por June Fernandez*

 

HAVANA TIMES, March 2 – “The most dangerous ideas” are those that aren’t expressed, hence the importance of creating forums for discussion where everyone can express their opinion. We should not sugarcoat the reality of Cuba nor settle for demonizing the rest of the world. ”

So writes Osmany Sanchez, one of the three people behind the La Joven Cuba(Young Cuba) blog which they define as a forum for young university teachers to express their opinion on the reality of Cuba. They invite their readers to engage in “frank debate and a respectful polemic” in “a platform that facilitates the convergence of views (often opposing) in a language tolerant of other opinions.”

Advocating plurality does not mean they are impartial. During the interview they appealed several times for plurality, but they also tend to talk in terms of “us” and “others”, “those on our side” and “those on the other side.”

They are firmly committed to what they call “the Cuban political project” or what “the other side” would call the Castro regime. There is an abundance of Cuban blogs these days on the internet, and in terms of the many ideological classifications into which they can be put, the Young Cuba blog is considered an independent – pro-government blog.

In any case, LJC stands out from other blogs defending the Cuban political system, not only because it fosters debate between people of other political persuasions, but because they also devote space in their postings to criticizing mistakes and appealing for reforms.

We agreed to meet in the Parque de La Libertad in Matanzas.  Given the serious, vehement tone of blog, I imagined them as young people with an axe to grind, up tight, pamphleteers. They too had their prejudices, imagining I would be older and ugly which is what they said as soon as they saw me, laughing of course. They projected an affable, fresh and even playful attitude.

“The blog grew out of our dissatisfaction with not being able to express our opinion on the Internet,” says Roberto Peralo. “They either censored our comments or we weren’t given the means to reply to an article.”

The discomfort was provoked by these two tendencies in the press: “Dissidents speculate a lot about Cuba in a hypercritical way and our side there were articles that we didn’t agree with either, considering they painted a rosy picture or were lacking in subtlety,” he says. Robert points out that the origin of his blog was people “outside the party apparatus,” ordinary people who experience “the everyday reality, the needs and sacrifices of the Cuban people” and that they write about what inspires them with no particular agenda.

The formula has worked. On average they get between 1,500 and 3,000 hits a day, and more than 5,000 comments a month (hardly any of their posts get less than 100 comments). And all this with a very precarious internet connection at the university..

The entire campus shares a 256kb connection, they say, “We go early to the university, before eight  in the morning, to load the page. We can’t comment [for a lack of time]; it’s a pain. But we enjoy it too, “says Osmany.

They religiously post an entry a day. When they started they were writing 15-page posts, but they slowly learned as they went along as well as listening to the advice of their readers. “There are many things we can’t do because we have to pay, like having our own domain. Many people have offered to pay, but we don’t accept it because it would impose conditions. Not accepting funding from either of the two sides, gives us independence,” stresses Harold Cardenas.

“When looking for information on the Internet you find the two extremes: opponent blogs that have no time for the views of the revolutionaries, and revolutionary blogs that have no time for comment from the opposition. From the beginning we said this is for everyone, that you need to compare opinions, “says Harold. Which is why they only delete the offensive comments.

At first they suffered the inevitable distrust when talking about Cuba: “They said we were from State security, that we were in a locked room with the conditions all set up,  but as they got to know us better and we uploaded photos and videos, they saw we were just like them, “says Osmany.

Even friendships started from that. The following week they were going to meet “a detractor” who usually comments on the blog”. “We are opposite sides of issues on the blog but in real life we can sit, talk, have a beer … We have no problem with the discrepancy, only with those who respond to the interests of the people that fund them,” he adds.

Then they told me they went with the reader and his wife to watch a baseball game. Matanzas played against Industriales (Havana). “In an effort to bring the two shores closer [Cuba and Florida] and to prove dialogue is possible, we spent the night joking and talking about the most diverse political and social issues in the country,” they say in their blog. Matanzas won.

NO NEED FOR CONSENSUS

In La Joven Cuba, both its chief promoters and the sporadic commentators write what they want, without reaching prior consensus. “Our positions are not homogeneous, we have differing views on various issues.

For example? I ask.

“Acts of repudiation” he replies automatically. Osmany interrupts: “We agree on the principles but not on how to say things and how to approach them. At first we got annoyed, but then we’d say, “Oh, I hadn’t seen it that way.” And that enriches us. ”

But Harold returns to raise a controversial issue: “For two days I’ve had an idea in my head that I have not discussed with them, about the right of an opponent of the government to have political representation. I concluded that they are entitled to be represented politically, even by a party.

But if they do something improper, they have mechanisms that ultimately constitute an abuse against us. The day that we are no longer conditioned by external pressures, there will have to be guarantees that these rights are respected. Like freedom to travel: we have framed that in a context of things to be postponed till later. But not indefinitely either. ”

 

Harold is the most critical during the interview of the Cuban system. He has recently started publishing posts about the so-called five greys, in which he looks at the abuses committed by the Cuban government in the past (the repression of homosexuality, censorship of pop and rock …) with the desire to make a contribution so they don’t occur again in the present.

However, he keeps insisting there is a real threat of aggression by the United States and this explains the immobility to a degree. “We also want to achieve reconciliation ” he adds. “There are many Cubans who have emigrated for economic reasons but are at odds with the government and the Cuban political project.”

June Fernandez: Would you say that Cuba respects freedom of expression?

Roberto Peralo: They have tried to exaggerate the lack of freedom of expression. Working with a foreign power to destabilize a government is sanctioned in the United States, France, Italy, and Spain.

Osmany Sanchez: The first is to define what is freedom of expression and how it is manipulated. Those against the system have got the Prisa group behind them to reproduce everything they say without taking account of different realities.

Harold Cardenas: We have had no interference, and that reassures us that there is freedom of expression. I have written several articles saying that I am not in favor of acts of repudiation of any kind.

(I’m glad the debate turns again to acts of repudiation. This time, Robert has to be away, and Osmany and Harold get into discussion and I sit between them like a spectator in a tennis match.

OS: I do not agree with the term “acts of repudiation.” I think the following: the Ladies in White are funded by the Department of State [U.S.], by Santiago Alvarez, a terrorist who set off bombs in Cuba (and it’s not just me saying that, the order was signed over here). They get briefed, are given orders to provoke us. If those who live here, organized or unorganized, go out and demonstrate against them, hell, why is it an act of repudiation if they’re expressing their position?

An act of repudiation is what was done in the eighties, at the time of Mariel, when they threw eggs at them … We are against that, but the term is being extrapolated to other things. In Honduras anyone who speaks out against the government is massacred and nobody says this is an act of repudiation. Why can’t we defend our own streets? I’m not saying they should be beaten (which they aren’t) but I’ll defend my own street.

THE ARGUMENTS OF THE OPPOSITION

JF: It seems that everyone who speaks against the government is in the pay of the United States. Does everyone get corrupted or is there is a certain degree of paranoia?

OS: It is not paranoia. They are the ones who want to sell the idea that we think that everyone who is against the Revolution is in the pay of the United States.

JF: Name me a visible face of the opposition you don’t think has been bought by the United States.

OS: That’s the problem. When they discussed the guidelines across the country during the Party Congress, millions of people participated. People protested against the restrictions when they want to travel. I’ll throw the question back: there is no visible face, because if someone is legitimate and does not respond to these interests, they do not get publicity, what they say is not repeated on Radio Martí or in El País.

JF: But I’m not talking about appearing in El País but in a blog like yours but more critical of the government.

OS: I do not know if there is one; if  there is, we’ll  respect it.

HC: It is just common sense that Cuban society has people who are not paid and are genuinely against the Cuban political project. Every country has sectors that are not in agreement with the Government or even with the opinion of the majority. The right for such people to exist of such people is undeniable. But these people often enter into the way of thinking that says if you’re against the government, you can earn a few dollars along the way. And when they accept money, they lose their dignity.

JF: What do you mean when you refer to accepting money?

OS: The U.S. government publicly acknowledges it spends millions to overthrow the Cuban government. Besides, there are so-called Miami NGOs who are also providing funding for the same purposes, and that are known to be supported by USAID. So it is difficult to differentiate. A Paya [Oswaldo], the Ladies in White, Vladimir Roca, Yoani [Sanchez] … they’re behind them.

HC: That will change. They’re to going to fabricate more attractive leaders than them. They’re going to focus on young protesters, with piercings with modern hair styles …Here you’ll see the deficiency of the Cuban government, which isn’t up to creating an attractive image.

JF: How is it I can speak well of the Havana Times – a medium manifestly impartial and pluralistic-minded – when people close to the Government say they are wary, that it is directed by an American …

OS: You can’t evaluate the situation of Cuba on the basis of the European experience, because Cuba is atypical. They said: we’re going to liberalize 178 occupations so people can become self-employed.  The next day the State Department came out and said it was going to allocate $6 million to fund microcredits. You say “the discrepancy does exist.” Yes, in the case of young people, the neighbor. But when there are other interests behind that …

JF: If you get entrenched in a dogmatic position you are alienating people who were not aligned initially with the official dissent.

OS: Yes, yes, dogmatism has to be rooted out.

HC: Dogmatism is sometimes unconscious. A person can be considered free-thinking and act dogmatically. We have a long tradition of dogmatism, of Soviet influence, Spanish … [He looks at me mischievously and laughs]. We continue to reproduce schematic models, we think our discourse is innovative but it only goes on being more of the same old thing.

OS: But in recent years we have been solving problems. Like [Cubans] entering hotels, having a computer, cell phones, buying houses and cars, private initiative… They have been retaking the space their opponents had captured.

So now they only have two arguments: travel and the dual currency system. They advocate a single currency and say, “We have tremendous support from the people.”

Of course, any person you ask, even within the party, will tell you they prefer to have a single currency.

What is slowing down the reform of immigration policy is the threat.

If somebody steals a million pesos and goes to the United States and says he is being persecuted, they are not going to send him back. People have committed murder, gone on a boat and nothing happened to them. With regard to civil rights and a multiparty system, any person who has his health and education guaranteed, is not preoccupied with such things.

Freedom House (which is not suspected of defending the revolution) lists priorities in its surveys of citizens and show that they have nothing to do with what outsiders say: people talk about a multiparty system, but what the majority want is to improve their economic conditions.

JF: That argument sounds like Spaniards claiming they lived well under Franco because they did not go hungry. Although people prioritize their material needs, there are other things that are important, like being able to create graffiti against Fidel.

OS: But that’s nonsense! Well, it’s a right, I respect the right, but when you try to defend that right above others … There are other third world countries that nobody criticizes for human rights violations. And there are others where you can protest against the president but in the background are children on the street who have no school to go to and are into prostitution.

HC: I agree with the defense of those rights, but I don’t see it as a priority because of the aggressive context of undeclared war in which we have been living so long.  One accepts certain limitations as a citizen, for the greater good, which is the Cuban political project, including for example keeping our streets safe. But ultimately the goal is to make progress on these human rights too.

CIVIL SOCIETY

JF: Obstacles are being put up to prevent the LGBT from organizing but a collective is emerging, LGBT Rights Watch, which is clearly an opponent. Given that dissidents are always going to organize, would it not be better just to permit autonomous movements?

HC: Yes, that’s absurd.

OS: In what sense?

JF: Well, with a group of lesbians meeting for whatever: having a place to meet, debating, organizing special days, holding demonstrations …

HC: That’s not a political decision, it’s a social phenomenon. If society agrees, I think it has to happen. What is absurd is letting your opponents do it and your people don’t do it, because then you create the impression that the entire LGBT movement is against you.

OS: They say they spent [from the U.S.] about $350,000 for a gay parade on Prado Ave. But it’s like you say why not just accept a thing once something else happens.

HC: For me it’s quite clear.

JF: Do you agree that it is healthy to have a strong civil society which can organize in its own way. Currently associations are required to be supervised by institutions.

OS: True, but there have been examples of associations that are funded also by international groups. Sometimes it’s a problem of self-censorship and self-limitation.

HC: Yes there are legal limitations. This concept of “civil society” was frowned upon for years because it was linked with dissent. Dissidents in turn hijacked that term, and the State was unable to formulate its own. There were too many reservations. In the minds of many officials, the notion of a civil society existing outside the state apparatus was a subversive idea.

Now, I don’t know whether it is government policy or the decision of certain leaders. I think we have to reclaim the term. Whatever way you look at it, La Joven Cuba is civil society. By responding to the dissent, the government shows a desire for control which is detrimental to people in the street. But I’m breathing winds of change. Because the Cuban political system has to change or perish. And the change experienced in the last four or five years has been dramatic, greater than in the previous twenty years. I am very optimistic, but I also know that we can repeat past mistakes.

INTERNET AND JOURNALISM

JF: The truth is that due to limited access to the internet here, you get read mainly abroad.

HC: It’s good we’re getting so many people from the U.S. There are many Cubans who have emigrated and want  to feel a bond. LJC has become a link.

JF: What about the famous fiber optic cable?

HC: I do not know, the people in Havana will know better. We do not like to be guided by what is said on the street, but obviously this is a case of large-scale corruption. We feel very upset and disappointed with the whole issue.

OS: What is unforgivable is that they don’t explain what happened. Social use of the internet is prioritized in Cuba. We imagine our university is, but we know nothing.

HC: When we learned of the corruption, I told my classmates, “Hey, I’m outraged, I think I’ll get a group of outraged people together outside the Ministry of Communications”. But then you don’t do it because you know the dissidents will make use of that.

JF: Fine, but why would you want to stop protesting just because they take you for a dissident?

HC: Yes, that conditions me because I know what will happen. But whenever I have the opportunity to complain, I do: in my neighborhood, in college, in my CDR …

JF: What do you think of this policy of prioritizing access by certain groups? Eventually it works out that anyone who happens to have the money will find a way to connect.

OS: Before, the argument was that they could not spread so many kilobytes among the population when they could’nt even reach the university.  It is so easy to understand that anyone campaigning on this issue is doing so because there is some hidden interest.  It’s an example of how things get manipulated.

JF: You’ll agree that the Cuban media are lamentable.

OS: They need to be improved. There’s a lot to be done. And there is progress.

HC: Everyone knows the political will to change all that is lacking here.

OS: It’s not always political will.

HC: The decisions of the Cuban information system are not made by the Cuban press, a political body takes them. How much mobility does a body like that have to respond fast to news?

OS: But there are easier ways. There’s a radio program here in which they invited an expert on communal land and opened the phone to people to ask all sorts of questions. That is a good example. Why not extend it?

HC: But look: at the time of the Mazorra [psychiatric hospital] deaths, I didn’t see the Minister of Health facing the press.

OS: But that’s not what it’s about. Who is stopping anyone doing investigative journalism? It’s not a question of political will but of personal initiative.

JF: And then who gets what?

OS: The television. We need to be critical.

HC: I think that journalists are critical. It’s a two sided thing.  On the one hand you have self-censorship : they don’t do critical reports because they think they’re not going to be able to publish them.  And then there’s the real censorship: lots of officials who don’t in fact allow it [to be published].

OS: We need a press that’s truly critical. Let them spell out the names of the corrupt. But when they come and say to me that there are things wrong with my press, based on patterns of other countries … No, not that.

HC: They believe that by maintaining an archaic scheme of how the press of the Revolution should be, they are saving the revolution. But if they insist on not changing, on not adapting with the times, they’ll be destroying it.

OS: But the press has improved lately.

JF: Well, thank goodness!

OS: Juventud Rebelde daily has a section where people mention things that have happened to them, hard stuff, with names, naming institutions. But more is needed.

JF: What other areas of the Cuban blogosphere do you recomend?

HC: I’m not satisfied, because there are many blogs with extreme positions. That is improving, but I can’t find what I’m looking for. I visited Negra Cubana the blog of Paquito’s, the one of Elaine, the one of Henry Urbieta, of Letters from Cuba, of Fernando Ratsverg Yohandry … And the one by Yohandry which is officialist but has lots of information.

O.C.: There is a misconception. You cannot write a blog just to dispel the negative comments about Cuba. It’s about people who enter learning about reality, other visions of Cuba. On the other hand, these bloggers are getting worn out and empowering the other person, because most people are supportive with the person who is under attack.

NEW REFORMS, OLD INEQUALITIES

JF: Some people have made the criticism that Raul Castro’s reforms will strengthen the division between social classes because they favor those who start from a privileged position.

OS: The same ones who are saying that what is needed is capitalism, now criticize the Revolution because the measures will create social strata.

HC: Up to yesterday having money in Cuba was frowned upon, was taboo. Now suddenly it’s a panacea. We must be careful.

OS: But if you earn it by working?

HC: It is a good thing that work is rewarded.

JF: But historical inequalities are reproduced.

OS: What would be unforgivable is that the son of one of the self-employed gets a different school from my daughter. And the best teachers should be for everyone and the doctors we educate should be for those who have and those who don’t.

J.F. Aren’t you tempted to set up a cafeteria given its more profitable to kneed dough than it is to be a university professor?

HC: It is more profitable.

OS: Yes it’s true. But the big challenge is for all these reforms to give such a boost to the economy it allows our salaries to be in correct proportion again.

HC: In Cuba there are no class differences, but social differences, which is a different thing. My son and the son of a self-employed person with greater purchasing power will go to the same school and to the same hospital, but he’ll have enough to give a gift to the teacher or the doctor and be treated differently from me.

OS: I don’t give gifts. I feel like it would be offending the professional, and anyway there will always be someone able to give a better present.

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*Published originally in Spanish by June Fernandez on her blog Mari Kazetari.  

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=64111

This fascinating interview underlines the counterproductive role of the US travel and trade embargo and funding for democracy programs.  

The impulse to assist microfinance is not inherently bad, as long as the channel of funding respects national sovereignty and institutions.  Unfortunately anything initiated in the context of fifty years of economic warfare and an official objective of system change is inherently suspect.  

As hard as it is culturally and psychologically, the US needs to step back and let Cuba be Cuba.

John McAuliff

Fund for Reconciliation and Development