CUBA-ECONOMY: Crime on the Increase in Cuba

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Mar 27 1997 (IPS) - Visitors to Cuba have discovered that the black market – that curse of the developing world – is alive and flourishing in communist Cuba.

Virtually anything can be obtained at a price, car-parts, medicines, syringes, stethoscopes, liquor – even bags of candy packaged for export – goods lifted from State enterprises.

Imitations of other articles produced by the government – such as top quality rum and cigars – often produced by newly-legalised small business concerns can also be had on the black market. Vendors sell at higher prices than ever, and buyers do not ask questions.

Earlier this month, police raided on an open-air market in a downtown park where disabled Cubans were licensed to sell homemade products and confiscated some 120,000 articles of hardware, perfume and garments plus nearly 400 kinds of medicine and medical instruments. All the goods were stolen from the warehouses of State companies, police said.

The increase in robberies and other crimes crime came to a head last year when the government launched a campaign to crack down on corruption and prostitution. The misappropriation of public resources is not a new phenomenon and the economic crisis gripping the island since 1990 has fuelled thefts of material and equipment in high demand among the population.

“The current economic difficulties, and scarcity of materials, and material difficulties does not justify robbery and corruption,” said Esteban Lazo, a top Communist Party official, who spoke at a meeting where the rise in crime was described as “an attack on the essence of the socialist system.”

But government officials admit that, according to latest studies, Cuban production levels have gone down to the extent that the 1989 level will not be reached for at least another five years.

Although the economic slump began to turn around in 1994, growth began from an extremely low level and, as yet, have had no effect on the living standards of most of the island’s 11 million inhabitants, officials conceded.

Lazo attacked those Cubans who declared “we have to fend for ourselves” in justifying robbery, the misappropriation of public funds and direct or indirect participation in illegal business done with merchandise taken from State agencies and offices.

This month, police discovered 46 clandestine warehouses and seven factories producing shampoo, toothpaste, perfume, cigarrettes, plastic articles and metal products. The raw materials were taken from public plants and on March 7 the economic division of the Havana police department reported a case in which leather, soles and other materials used in making footwear were stolen with the complicity of the administrator of a state enterprise.

The National Information Agency also reported that police had closed a clandestine chicken farm operating in the city of Matanzas, 100 kms east of Havana. Police confiscated laying chickens, industrial feed, nutrients and medicine – allegedly stolen by Francisco Leon Ortega – the administrator of the provincial chicken farm.

This week ‘Granma’, the official Communist newspaper declared that the party was discussing how best to fight the rising crime and corruption.

The party must not lose sight of “the political-ideological connotations” of such illegal behaviour, and “should call to account those responsible, in order to put an end to the irregularities,” the newspaper said.

The Communist Party, which has grassroots cells in all work and study centres in Cuba, points to a lack of control as one of the main causes of robbery in State enterprises.

“Inefficiency of internal economic controls, inadequate book- keeping, delays and a lack of oversight in collection and payment operations continue to fuel a large part of the robberies and other misdeeds,” according to ‘Granma’.