Cubans wait in line outside the Colombian embassy in Havana, to obtain a visa for Colombia in order to apply for a U.S. visa at the U.S. embassy in Bogotá, due to the reductions in staff in the U.S. embassy in the Cuban capital. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Apr 2 2018 (IPS)

Cuba’s tense relations with the United States under the administration of Donald Trump reflect a scenario of conflict that is not alien to the generation that will take over the country on Apr. 19, when President Raúl Castro is set to step down.

Since the 1960s, Cuba’s nationalist stance has drawn on the animosity with the U.S., and the likely successors of the country’s current leaders, most of whom were born around the time of the 1959 revolution or afterwards, were educated in a culture of “anti-imperialist resistance”.

According to the official figures on the outcome of the Mar. 11 general elections, the average age of the new members of parliament fell to 49 years, compared to 57 years for the outgoing lawmakers.

The single-chamber National Assembly of People’s Power elects from among its members the 31 members of the Council of State, which according to the constitution is the highest representative of the Cuban state, whose president is the head of state and government."Reconciliation and rapprochement occur on a human level. States can facilitate it, but they can neither impose it nor stop it…Even during the most tense moments of relations between Cuba and the United States, we Cubans have remained in touch with our families, friends and collaborators." -- Lillian Manzor

The most likely candidate to succeed Castro is the current first vice president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, 57, although there is no official confirmation.

The return to the tension that existed before the détente agreed by Raúl Castro, 86, and Barack Obama (2009-2017) on Dec. 17, 2014, which led to the restoration of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana, brings additional difficulties to the weakened Cuban economy and puts a brake on the changes required by its socialist model of development.

“Unfortunately, reform in Cuba becomes more difficult when the United States is more aggressive and negative,” said John McAuliff, executive director of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation that supports efforts for reconciliation with Cuba.

In his opinion, a new generation of leaders “opens a door, but it does not guarantee” how quickly change will come. “If the new leaders expand opportunities for the self-employed and small businesses, especially in tourism and other professional sectors, the economy will improve,” he told IPS from the U.S. by e-mail.

In the same vein, he said that “if the public dialogue incorporates all the sectors that are not explicitly counterrevolutionary inside and outside the country, politics will expand, evolve and be strengthened along with Cuba’s history and culture.”

Trump’s adverse policy towards Cuba since his arrival at the White House in January 2017 has kept bilateral ties at their lowest level, with a skeleton staff at the two embassies, which are unable to carry out their consular and business duties, while it has restricted travel by U.S. citizens to the Caribbean island nation, among other limitations.

Senator Patrick Leahy (centre), and four other U.S. Democrat lawmakers give a press conference in Havana on Feb. 21, at the end of their visit to Cuba, in violation of the U.S. travel advisory against Cuba issued by Republican President Donald Trump. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Washington justifies the reduction of personnel and the recommendation to U.S. citizens to refrain from traveling to Cuba by citing mysterious attacks – apparently linked to high-pitched sounds – that affected the health of U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Cuba between November 2016 and August 2017.

Havana has denied any involvement in the incidents.

In a Dec. 22 speech in the Cuban parliament, Castro accused the United States of fabricating “pretexts” to justify the return to “failed and universally rejected policies.”

U.S. lawmakers who visited Cuba between Feb. 19-21, led by the Democratic Senator for the state of Vermont, Patrick Leahy, said the measures ordered by Trump were a serious mistake, harmful to the governments and people of both nations.

In defiance of the travel advisory against Cuba, the legislators flew here with their wives, and in the case of Leahy, with his 13-year-old granddaughter. The group met with Castro and other local authorities.

“Cuba is changing. Soon you will elect a new president and likely experience a generation shift in leadership, and regrettably at this historic moment in Cuban history, the U.S. engagement is limited,” Jim Mcgovern, a Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Massachusetts, lamented in a press conference.

In turn, Senator Ron Wyden, of Oregon, reported that there is a legislative proposal against the embargo brought forward by him and other senators, which has strong bipartisan support. “After the November elections, we will have more support to end the embargo,” he said.

Meanwhile, migrants are among the biggest losers in the embassy conflict, although the Cuban embassy in Washington, with 17 fewer staff members, says it has maintained its usual services, including consular services for Cubans and Americans.

A classic 1957 convertible Chevrolet Bel-Air, used by private drivers for sightseeing tours, drives through the historic centre of Old Havana in search of customers, now that the boom of visits by U.S. citizens has ceased. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

But the reduction of personnel in the U.S. embassy in Havana forces Cuban immigrants to travel to Colombia to process their visas, which will prevent Washington in 2018 from meeting its commitment to issue 20,000 visas a year, as established in the migration agreements of 1994 and 1995.

The main recipient of Cuban emigration is the United States, where over two million people of Cuban origin reside, of whom almost 1.2 million were born in Cuba, according to official data from the U.S. A good part of that population has not cut its umbilical cord with Cuba.

Lillian Manzor, interim chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Miami, told IPS by e-mail that currently, most Cubans in the U.S. support rapprochement between the two countries, while U.S. foreign policy is going in the opposite direction.

“Reconciliation and rapprochement occur on a human level. States can facilitate it, but they can neither impose it nor stop it,” she said, recalling that “even during the most tense moments of relations between Cuba and the United States, we Cubans have remained in touch with our families, friends and collaborators.”

In that sense, Manzor, a Cuban resident in the United States, does not underestimate the strength that this majority sector of Cuban migrants can represent in order to stop the setback imposed by the Trump administration on the normalisation of bilateral ties between Washington and Havana, restored in July 2015.

“That’s the big challenge. How can this need to stay connected with our family and friends be turned into an electoral force. In the meantime, we must continue with what we have always done: cope with adverse policies and fight for our rights as American citizens,” she said.

The academic also said that among immigrants favourable to “closer political and human relations” there are many who hope that “the new president of Cuba will continue with the necessary migratory changes to facilitate travel for Cubans residing abroad.”

Whoever it will be, Castro’s successor has the stage set to move in that direction. On Jan. 1, four Cuban government measures came into force, aimed at relaxing the country’s migration policy and improving its relation with the Cuban exile community. The provisions followed the new Migration Law in force since 2013.

“The Cuban passport is still one of the most expensive in the world especially considering the payment that must be made every two years to maintain the validity of the passport,” said Manzor. The document, valid for six years, costs 400 dollars plus 200 dollars for the biannual extension.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx (left) and his Cuban counterpart Adel Izquierdo signed an agreement Feb. 16 in Havana to restore commercial flights between the two countries. In the last year, four U.S. cabinet secretaries have visited Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Feb 23 2016 (IPS)

U.S. President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raúl Castro will go down in history as two statesmen who managed to overcome more than half a century of hostility to bring back together two neighbouring countries with too many shared interests to remain at loggerheads.

When Obama visits Havana on Mar. 21-22, it will be the fourth time he sees Castro in person. But it will be the first time a U.S. president is a guest of the Cuban government since 1928.

In December 2013, they shook hands for the first time in South Africa during the funeral of former president Nelson Mandela. At the time, few imagined that there would be further, less incidental, meetings – let alone that diplomatic ties would be restored and Obama would make an official visit to Cuba.

But diplomats from the two countries had been working behind the scenes since June 2013, with Canada and Pope Francis brokering the efforts, before the two governments surprised the world on Dec. 17, 2014 with the announcement of the decision to reestablish the ties broken off on Jan. 3, 1961.

In 2015 they met on Apr. 11 in Panama, during the Summit of the Americas, and later on Sep. 29 in New York, at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. The latter was the first time the presidents of the two countries met in the United States since the 1959 revolution in Cuba.

In this Caribbean island nation, just 90 miles off the coast of the state of Florida, Obama will find people who admire him – and people who don’t.

Several generations of Cubans have grown up with the anti-imperialist rhetoric according to which the United States is the source of all evil. And although it has been toned down in the last few years, there is still a great deal of scepticism regarding Washington’s “good intentions” with respect to the thaw, or incomprehension as to why the former “enemy” is now a friend.

Independent journalist Miriam Leiva, of the internal opposition, said Obama’s visit is very important. “The Cuban people will receive his message directly. Besides, he’s coming with results; his measures have brought benefits such as an increase in remittances, which improve the lives of many people, not just of those who receive them directly,” she told IPS.

The United States is the main destination of Cuban immigrants, and as a result it is the biggest source of money sent back home to families in Cuba. According to official U.S. figures, nearly two million people of Cuban origin live in that country. Of that total, 1.1 million were born in Cuba and 851,000 were born in the U.S.

This explains why migration was the only issue that brought the two countries to the negotiating table – although not without tension – regularly for years. In these talks, Cuba complained that the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which grants Cuban immigrants U.S. residency one year and a day after reaching the country, encouraged illegal immigration to the U.S.

The image of U.S. President Barack Obama on a TV screen in Havana, announcing the restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba, on Dec. 17, 2014. Now Obama can be seen in person by the people of Havana, when he visits the country Mar. 21-22. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Issues of mutual interest and possible cooperation were discussed in the first contact made to outline the roadmap for the thaw – led by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson, and Josefina Vidal, director general of the Cuban foreign ministry’s U.S. Division.

The agenda for the normalisation of bilateral ties includes human rights, telecommunications, the fight against drug trafficking, environmental protection, prevention of natural disasters, and combating epidemics, among other areas of mutual interest and possible bilateral cooperation.

A year after the announcement of the restoration of ties, with the two countries’ respective embassies installed in the same buildings they were in before relations were broken off, President Castro publicly summed up what has been done so far and the issues that, in his view, must still be addressed for the complete normalisation of relations.

Among the results, he mentioned the expansion of the already existing cooperation in air security and aviation, and in efforts against drug and people trafficking and immigration fraud, as well as possibilities of cooperation in areas including environmental protection, maritime-port security and health.

Delegations from the two countries are currently working on more complex issues such as mutual compensation, people trafficking and human rights.

With respect to human rights, “we have profound differences and we are holding discussions on the basis of respect and reciprocity,” Castro said.

In a Feb. 20 reference to his upcoming trip to Cuba, Obama said that with Castro “I’ll speak candidly about our serious differences with the Cuban government, including on democracy and human rights.”

Josefina Vidal, director general of the Cuban foreign ministry’s U.S. Division, after reading out an official communiqué Feb. 18 on the historic Mar. 21-22 visit to the country by U.S. President Barack Obama. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Cuban authorities have habitually flatly rejected accusations about human rights.

However, on Feb. 18 Vidal said the Cuban government is open to dialogue with the Obama administration on any issue, including human rights, on the basis “of respect, equality, reciprocity and non-intervention in internal affairs.”

In a statement, the White House said that besides holding a bilateral meeting with Castro, Obama would “engage with members of civil society, entrepreneurs and Cubans from different walks of life.”

These are expected to include representatives of dissident movements and the emerging private sector.

In the last 12 months, the governors of several U.S. states have visited Cuba, along with dozens of members of Congress and of the business community.

Government officials who have visited include the secretaries of State John Kerry; of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack; of Commerce, Penny Pritzker; and of Transportation, Anthony Foxx.

And from Feb. 15 to 18, Pritzker hosted Cuba’s minister of foreign trade and investment, Rodrigo Malmierca. During the visit, the two officials stressed their interest in moving forward in the area of bilateral trade, although they recognised that changes are needed in order for this to prosper.

Pritzker said U.S. companies continue to face difficulties in Cuba, such as the requirement that foreign businesses hire Cubans through state organisations, or problems reaching people in the government to discuss business opportunities.

Malmierca, meanwhile, reiterated that the measures taken by Obama to make the embargo more flexible fall short, and said the president has the power to push harder to dismantle the sanctions in place against Cuba since 1960.

And he said the ban on the use of the dollar in financial transactions affects operations with companies from the United States and from elsewhere.

Businessman Gerard Dion, a former U.S. Marine and the author of “Cuba Unchained”, a political thriller that delves into the history of the relations between the U.S. and Cuba, is convinced that Obama knows what political, economic and legal changes must take place to convince Congress that it is time to lift the embargo.

“I’m sure he’ll discuss these things with Raúl Castro and will work hard to reach a mutually beneficial arrangement,” he told IPS by email.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

A group of women wait their turn to buy rationed food that is sold at subsidised prices, at a government shop in Havana, Cuba on Nov. 21, 2015. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Dec 16 2015 (IPS)

While the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba is moving ahead, and the U.S. and Cuban flags have been proudly waving in Havana and Washington, respectively, since last July, the year gone by since the thaw has left many unanswered questions.

“You shouldn’t ask me, because in my view, nothing has changed,” one slightly angry middle-aged man told IPS while waiting his turn in a barbershop. In a nearby farmers’ market, a woman asked, loudly so that everyone could hear, why a pound of tomatoes cost 25 pesos (nearly a dollar).

Many Cubans feel that they don’t have much to celebrate this Dec. 17, the first anniversary of the day Presidents Raúl Castro of Cuba and Barack Obama of the United States took the world by surprise with their decision to reestablish diplomatic relations, severed in January 1961.

People who got excited about the idea that their daily lives would begin to improve after more than half a century of hostile relations are ending the year with public sector salaries that do not even cover their basic food needs.

The Cuban press reported that Marino Murillo, minister of economy and planning and vice president of the Council of Ministers, admitted at a recent session of the provincial legislature of Havana that the overall economic indicators in the capital had improved, but that this has not yet been reflected in the day-to-day lives of local residents.

The thaw has, however, had a positive impact on tourism, by giving a boost to emerging private enterprises like room rentals and small restaurants, options chosen by many visitors interested in getting to know Cuban society up close.

According to official statistics, in the first half of 2015 this country of 11.2 million people was visited by 1,923,326 people, compared to 1,660,110 in the first half of 2014. Visitors from other parts of Latin America can be frequently heard saying that they wanted to come to Cuba before the “invasion” of tourists from the U.S.

People from the United States can only travel to Cuba with special permits, for religious, cultural, journalistic or educational purposes, or for “people-to-people” contacts. Experts project that 145,000 people from the U.S. will have visited the country this year – 50,000 more than in 2014.

Two primary school students walk by a group of foreign tourists in a plaza in Old Havana. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

The ban on travel to Cuba for the purpose of tourism and the embargo that Washington has had in place against this socialist country since 1962 are among the pending issues to resolve in the process of normalisation of ties promoted over the last year by official visitors to Cuba who have included Secretary of State John Kerry, two other members of Obama’s cabinet, and three state governors.

“Beyond a number of grandiloquent headlines, everything remains to be done,” Cuban journalist and academic Salvador Salazar, who is earning a PhD in Mexico, told IPS. In his view, only the first few steps have been taken towards “what should be a civilised relationship marked by talking instead of shouting, and debating instead of attacking.”

Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas, concurred that after 55 years of hostile and dangerous relations, the governments of the two countries are learning how to respect each other.

“…[I]f 2015 was about both governments learning to treat each other with dignity and respect, 2016 has to be about building on that progress and using diplomacy to create lasting benefits for both countries in order to make the changes we are seeing irreversible and the further changes we want inevitable,” she told IPS by email.

In September, a binational commission created after the official restoration of diplomatic relations and the reopening of embassies defined the issues for starting talks aimed at clearing the path towards normalisation, including communications, drug trafficking, health, civil aviation and maritime security.

Human rights, human trafficking and demands for compensation by both sides were other questions on the agendas outlined by the delegations from the two countries. The list also includes immigration, an issue that has been discussed for years in periodic talks held to review progress on agreements signed in 1994 and 1995.

The talks about the agreements aimed at ensuring “safe, legal and orderly” immigration are not free of tension, given the Cuban government’s frustrated demand for the repeal of the U.S. Cuban Adjustment Act’s “wet foot, dry foot” policy and other regulations that according to authorities here encourage illegal migration.

Washington has reiterated that it will not modify its immigration policy towards Cuba. The anniversary of the start of the thaw finds some 5,000 Cuban immigrants stranded at border crossings in Costa Rica without any apparent solution, in their quest to reach the United States by means of a route that takes them through Central America and Mexico.

John Gronbeck-Tedesco, assistant professor of American Studies at Ramapo College in New Jersey, believes the Obama administration is doing its part to clear the way towards reconciliation, and says the talks held so far have calmed the “anti-normalisation rhetoric.”

But the academic says he does not yet see a climate favourable to the lifting of the embargo, which can only be done by the U.S. Congress, “especially” given the fact that 2016 is an election year.

According to the Cuban government, the embargo has hindered this country’s development and has caused 121.192 billion dollars in damages over the past five decades.

“I think that before Congress takes up the matter, however, the significant issue of debts still owed will need to be settled more clearly,” added the analyst, referring to the question of compensation that the two countries began to discuss in a Dec. 8 “informational” session in Havana.

“The U.S. has a price for Cuban American property and investments lost (nationalised) due to the revolution, and Cuba has a number in mind regarding the economic harm caused by the embargo. These debts are as politically symbolic as they are materially real for both interested parties,” added Gronbeck-Tedesco, without mentioning specific figures.

In an interview with the press published Monday Dec. 14, Obama reiterated his interest in visiting Cuba, although only if “I get to talk to everybody”.

He said that in his conversations with Castro he has made it clear that “we would continue to reach out to those who want to broaden the scope for, you know, free expression inside of Cuba.”

The two leaders have spoken by phone at least twice and met in person for the first time on Apr. 11, at the seventh Summit of the Americas in Panama. And on Sep. 29 in New York they held the first official meeting between the presidents of the two countries since the 1959 Cuban revolution.

*With reporting by Ivet González in Havana.

Edited by Verónica Firme/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

By Joaquín Roy
MIAMI, Apr 14 2015 (IPS)

U.S. President Barack Obama has earned a place in history for taking the first steps towards rectifying a policy that has lasted over half a century without ever achieving its primary goal of ending the Castro regime in Cuba.

At the Seventh Summit of the Americas, held in Panama City Apr. 10-11, Obama set aside the tortuous negotiations with his Cuban counterpart Raúl Castro and the impossible pursuit of consensus with his domestic opponents. Going out on a limb, he made an unconditional offer. He knew, or he sensed, that Castro would have no option but to accept.

Joaquín Roy

The Cuban economy is on the verge of collapse and the regime is receiving subtle pressure from a population that has already endured all manner of trials.

Signs of weakening in Venezuela, its protector, with which it exchanged social favours (in the fields of health and education) for subsidised oil, are gathering like hurricane storm clouds over the Raúl Castro regime

Instead of shaking the tree to knock the ripe fruit to the ground, Obama chose to do the unexpected: to prop it up and instead encourage its survival.

Obama is committing to stability in Cuba as the lesser evil, compared with sparking an internal explosion, with conflict between irreconcilable sectors and the imposition of a military solution more rigid than the current level of control. Washington knows that only the Cuban armed forces can guarantee order. The last thing the Pentagon aspires to is to take on that unenviable role.

Thus, between underpinning the Raúl Castro government and the doubtful prospect of attempting instantaneous transformation, the pragmatic option was to renew full diplomatic relations and, in the near future, lift the embargo.

Raúl Castro, for his part, yielded ground on the oft-repeated demand for an end to the embargo as a prior condition for any negotiations, and has responded wisely to the challenge. He contented himself with the consolation prize of reviewing the history (incidentally, an appalling one) of U.S. policy towards Cuba, in his nearly one-hour speech at the Summit.

“Obama is committing to stability in Cuba as the lesser evil, compared with sparking an internal explosion, with conflict between irreconcilable sectors and the imposition of a military solution more rigid than the current level of control”
To sugar the pill, however, he generously recognised that Obama, who was not even born at the time of the Cuban Revolution, shares no blame for the blockade. In this way, Castro contributed decisively to Obama’s triumph at the summit.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has emerged from this inter-American gathering as the clear loser. The key to his failure was not having calculated his limitations and having undervalued the resources of his fellow presidents. Initially, Maduro logically exploited Obama’s mistake in decreeing that Venezuela is a “threat” and imposing sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials.

A large number of governments and analysts criticised the language used in the U.S. decree. In the run-up to the summit, Obama publicly recanted and admitted that Venezuela is no such threat to his country.

Maduro’s weak showing at the Summit was due to a combination of his own personality, the reactions of important external actors (significantly distant from the United States), the weak support of many of his traditional allies or sympathisers in Latin America, and the absence of unconditional support from Cuba.

It should be noted that the United States barely made its presence felt over this issue, although U.S. State Department counsellor Thomas Shannon made an effort to smooth over Maduro’s excesses and visited the Venezuelan president in Caracas ahead of the summit.

Maduro’s actions were already burdened by the imprisonment of a number of his opponents on questionable charges. As a result, protests spread worldwide, especially in Latin America, but also in Europe.

A score of former Latin American presidents signed a protest document which was presented at the summit.

Although these former presidents might be regarded as conservative and liberal, they were joined by former Spanish president José María Aznar (a notorious target of attacks by the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and, afterwards, Maduro himself) and former Spanish socialist president Felipe González, who offered to act as defence lawyer for Antonio Ledezma, the mayor of Caracas, who is one of those imprisoned by the Venezuelan regime.

Maduro’s attempt to have a condemnation of the U.S. decree included in the summit’s final communiqué ended in another defeat. Although efforts were made to eliminate direct mention of the United States, the outcome was that the summit issued no final declaration because of lack of consensus.

In spite of the loquacity of its partners and protégés in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), Venezuela’s Latin American supporters showed caution and avoided direct confrontation with Washington.

The same was evidently true of the Caribbean countries; fearful of losing supplies of subsidised Venezuelan oil, they made their request to Obama for preferential treatment by the United States at the meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Jamaica earlier in the month.

But Maduro’s main failure was not realising that Raúl Castro would have to choose between fear of diminished supplies of cheap Venezuelan crude and rapprochement with Washington. It remains unknown how Cuba will be able to continue supplying Cuban teachers and healthcare personnel to Venezuela, until now the jewel in the crown of the alliance between Havana and Caracas in the context of ALBA.

Translated by Valerie Dee/Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Joaquín Roy can be contacted at jroy@Miami.edu

Excerpt:

Group photo at the Seventh Summit of the Americas, taken Apr. 11 in Panama City, the second day of the two-day gathering, which for the first time brought together all 35 countries in the hemisphere. Credit: Seventh Summit of the Americas

By Ivet González
PANAMA CITY, Apr 13 2015 (IPS)

Latin America presented its own recipes for development in the new era of relations with the United States in the Seventh Summit of the Americas, where Cuba took part for the first time and the U.S. said it would close the chapter of “medd[ling] with impunity” in its neighbours to the south.

“We must understand that the Americas to the north and to the south of the Rio Grande are different. And we must converse as blocs,” Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said Saturday Apr. 11 on the closing day of the summit, where the leaders of all 35 countries of the Western Hemisphere met for the first time.

With references to history, anti-imperialistic declarations, proposals for solutions and suggested development goals, the leaders who gathered in Panama City expressed a diversity of political positions and priorities, under the summit’s slogan: “Prosperity with Equity: The Challenge of Cooperation in the Americas”.

The two-day meeting was historic due to the presence of Cuba, suspended from the Organisation of American States (OAS) between 1962 and 2009. “It was time for me to speak here in the name of Cuba,” said President Raúl Castro in his speech during the summit’s plenary session.

Cuba’s participation was preceded by another historic development: the restoration of diplomatic ties announced Dec. 17 by Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama.

Without exception, the heads of state and government who addressed the plenary in the Atlapa Convention Centre celebrated the socialist island nation’s participation in the Americas-wide meeting, which many of them saw as representing the end of the Cold War and burying a period of ideological clashes between the left and right.

At the summit, Obama and Castro put 56 years of bitter conflict further behind them with a handshake and small talk during the opening ceremonies, points in common in their speeches, exchanges of praise and a bilateral meeting where they confirmed their earlier decision to normalise relations without renouncing their differences.

The region “no longer permits unilateral, isolationist policies,” Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said in her address. “Today we have gathered together in a different context.”

Cuba’s full insertion and the advanced talks held since 2012 between the Colombian government and leftwing guerrillas to end the last armed conflict in the region, which has dragged on for over half a century, means Latin America can soon declare itself a region of peace, as sought by the 33 countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

In Rousseff’s view, “the consolidation of democracy and new political paradigms in each one of our countries led to a shift, and public polices now put a priority on sustainable development with social justice.”

Alcibíades Vásquez, Panama’s minister of social development, while being interviewed, surrounded by indigenous leaders who on Apr. 11 delivered to him the declaration “Defending our nations” in the name of 300 native representatives who participated in one of the alternative forums held parallel to the Seventh Summit of the Americas. Credit: Ivet González/IPS

The leader of Latin America’s powerhouse, who has a history of trade unionism and activism against Brazil’s 1964-1985 dictatorship, said “Latin America today has less poverty, hunger, illiteracy and infant and maternal mortality than in previous decades,” even though it remains the most unequal region in the world.

Rousseff called for sustained economic growth, unified development targets, the reduction of vulnerabilities in security, education, migration, climate change, guaranteed rights, cooperation, decent work and disaster prevention, as southeast Brazil is suffering the worst drought in 80 years.

After fielding criticism from Correa regarding human rights and respect for sovereignty, Obama said “The United States will not be imprisoned by the past — we’re looking to the future.”

He said he had fulfilled his earlier pledge “to build a new era of cooperation between our countries, as equal partners, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
“We are more deeply engaged across the region than we have been in decades,” he said. He added that “We still have work to do to harmonise regulations; encourage good governance and transparency that attracts investment; invest in infrastructure; address some of the challenges that we have with respect to energy.”

Castro, who was applauded at the start and end of the summit, discussed at length the history of relations between Cuba and the United States. He thanked Obama for trying to end the economic embargo in place against his country since 1962, which “affects the interests of all states” because of its extraterritorial reach.

He urged the hemisphere to strengthen cooperation in fighting climate change and improving education and healthcare, and cited the joint efforts by Latin America and North America in combating the ebola epidemic in West Africa, which has already claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people.

He said that currently 65,000 Cubans are working in 89 countries, as part of the country’s cooperation in the areas of education and health.

And he added that the hemisphere could do a great deal, because Cuba, “with very limited resources,” has helped trained 68,000 professionals and technical workers from 157 countries.

Argentine President Cristina Fernández invited more investment in the countries of Latin America to curb migration to the United States or Canada.

Meanwhile, Peru’s leader, Ollanta Humala, reiterated the need for the region to diversify production, which is based on commodities, and mentioned technology transfer.

The main point of friction at the summit was the Mar. 9 executive order signed by Obama, in which he called Venezuela a threat to U.S. national security. The prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, said 33 of the 35 countries meeting in Panama City had called for the repeal of the decree.

Although there was no official confirmation, the issue was reportedly the main cause for the fact that for the third time since these summits began, in 1994, the highest-level inter-American meeting ended without a final declaration, which was to be titled “Mandates for Action”.

Alternative or parallel forums

But the participants in the Fifth Summit of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala (the Americas) did agree on a final statement, “Defending our nations”, which some 300 native leaders delivered to the convention centre where the presidential summit was taking place, decked out in traditional dress complete with feathers and other ceremonial adornments.

“If all voices are not represented, prosperity with equity is impossible,” Hokabeq Solano, a leader of the Kuna people of Panama, told IPS.

“There was very little representation of our communities in the summit and the parallel forums,” another representative of the hemisphere’s 55 million indigenous people complained.

The indigenous gathering was independent of the Fifth People’s Summit, where more than 3,000 representatives of social movements participated. Since 2005, this meeting has been the alternative conference to the official summits.

In their declaration, the indigenous leaders demanded constitutional reforms that include native peoples, protection of sacred sites, and a roadmap for the unification of indigenous peoples. They also rejected development projects that entail forced displacement of communities.

Some 800 participants in the Forum of Civil Society and Social Actors, another parallel meeting, also delivered to the president a document with proposals on health, education, security, energy, environment, citizen participation and democratic governance.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Leonardo Padura

By Leonardo Padura
HAVANA, Jan 21 2015 (IPS)

All Cubans, on either side of the Florida Straits, but in places like Spain, France or Greenland – where there must be a couple of Cubans – as well felt it was a historic moment that included each and every one of us, when U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Dec. 17 the normalisation of relations after half a century of hostility.

Those of us who are in Cuba felt that way precisely because we live here; and those who live abroad felt it because of the various motives that prompted them, at different times and for a range of reasons, to move away and rewrite their lives.

The great majority met the news with joy and hope; a smaller percentage felt a sensation of defeat and even betrayal; and another small group perhaps felt little about what the decision might mean for their futures.

But what is indisputable is that each one of us was shocked by the announcement, which some media outlets even dubbed “the news of the year” – extraordinary, really (even if you consider it an exaggeration), given that we’re just talking about the normalisation of ties between the United States and a small Caribbean island nation that is not even decisive in the economy of the region and supposedly does not influence the world’s big political developments.

But for years Cuba’s small size, in terms of both its geography and economy, has been far out of proportion to its international stature and influence, and the “news of the year” really was (or may have been) such due to several reasons, besides the emotional ones that affected us Cubans.We Cubans who live on the island have already felt a noticeable initial benefit from the announced accords: we have felt how a political tension that we have lived in for too many years has begun to ease, and we can already feel it is possible to rebuild our relationship with a neighbour that is too powerful and too close, and relate to each other if not in a friendly way, then at least in a cordial, civilised manner.

This was because of its symbolic nature as a major step towards détente and as a final stop to the long-drawn-out epilogue to the Cold War, as acknowledgement of a political error sustained by the United States for far too long, because of its weight in inter-American relations, and because of its humanistic character thanks to the fact that the first concrete measure was a prisoners swap, which is always a moving, humanitarian move.

And it also was so because in a world where bad news abounds, the fact that two countries that were at a political standoff for over half a century decided to overcome their differences and opt for dialogue is somewhat comforting.

Three weeks later, the machinery that will put that new relationship in motion has begun to move. On the eve of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson’s visit to Havana to start high-level “face-to-face” talks with the Cuban government, President Obama announced the introduction of his government’s first measures towards change.

The policies will make it easier for people from the U.S. to travel to Cuba, expand the remittances people can send to Cuba, open up banking relations, increase bilateral trade in different areas, and help strengthen civil society by different means, including improved information and communications and economic support for entrepreneurs.

Cuba, meanwhile, released prisoners with regard to whom Washington had expressed concern.

The measures recently implemented by Obama could be extremely significant for Cuba. Above all because they have punched holes in the straitjacket of the half-century embargo and have practically made its removal a question of time, and since they eliminate many of the fears that investors from other countries had with regard to possibly investing here.

Cuba, in the meantime, is waiting to be removed from the U.S. government’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism, which it has been on for years.

And on both sides of the Straits, Cubans have an understandable sense of uncertainty about the future of the Cuban Adjustment Act, which guaranteed U.S. residency to any Cuban who set foot on U.S. soil – an issue that will surely be discussed during Jacobson’s visit.

But while the political agreements are moving along at a surprising pace, we Cubans insist on asking ourselves how this new situation created since Dec. 17 will play out on the island.

Because while Obama’s intention is to bring about a change in policy that will lead to a transformation of the system in Cuba, at the same time there are decisions that the Cuban government will be adopting internally to take advantage of the useful aspects of the new relationship and eliminate potential dangers.

The possible massive arrival of U.S. citizens to Cuba could be the first visible effect.

Today the island receives three million visitors a year. That number could double with the new regulations announced by Obama. Everyone is asking themselves whether the country is prepared for this – and the answers are not overly encouraging in general.

After a lengthy crisis triggered by the disappearance of the Soviet Union and its generous subsidies, and the stiffening of the U.S. embargo with the Torricelli Act [of 1992] and the Helms-Burton Act [of 1996, which included extra-territorial effects], Cuba today is a country with serious problems of infrastructure in communications, roads, transportation, buildings and other areas.

The lack of resources to make the necessary investments also affects the purchase of products that the presumed visitors would demand and will create difficulties for domestic consumption, where there are already problems of high prices and occasional shortages.

Perhaps the first to benefit from the massive arrival of U.S. citizens to Cuban shores will be the small businesses that offer accommodation (and the thousands of other people connected to them).

Currently in a city like Havana there aren’t enough rooms in the hotels (which belong to the state or are joint ventures with foreign companies), let alone quality service in the state-owned restaurants that would make them competitive.

That means a significant part of the money that will circulate will pass through the hands of those involved in private enterprise (the so-called “cuentapropistas” or self-employed) – a sector that even though they must pay high taxes to the state and extremely high prices for inputs purchased in the retail market (because the wholesale market that they are demanding does not yet exist), will make major profits in the scenario that will take shape in the near future.

And this phenomenon will contribute to further stretching the less and less homogeneous social fabric of this Caribbean island nation.

Another of the major expectations in Cuba is for the chance to travel to the United States because, even though this has become much more of a possibility in recent years, obtaining a visa is still a major hurdle.

And there are new questions among those who hoped to settle down in the United States under the Cuban Adjustment Act, and who now have the added possibility of not losing their citizenship rights on the island under the protection of the migration laws approved two years ago by the government of Raúl Castro, which eliminated the rule that if a Cuban stayed overseas for a certain amount of time, their departure was automatically seen as permanent, and they lost their rights and assets on the island.

And then there is the less tangible but no less real aspect of discourse and rhetoric. Half a century of hostility on many planes, including verbal, should begin to wane in the light of the new circumstances.

The “imperialist enemy” and “communist menace” are sitting down at the same table to seek negotiated solutions, and the language will have to adapt to that new reality to achieve the necessary comprehension and the hoped-for political accords.

In the meantime, we Cubans who live on the island have already felt a noticeable initial benefit from the announced accords: we have felt how a political tension that we have lived in for too many years has begun to ease, and we can already feel it is possible to rebuild our relationship with a neighbour that is too powerful and too close, and relate to each other if not in a friendly way, then at least in a cordial, civilised manner.

For that reason many of us – I include myself – have felt since Dec. 17 something similar to waking up from a nightmare from which almost none of us believed we could escape. And with our eyes wide open, we can catch a glimpse of the future, trying to see shapes more clearly through the haze.

Edited and translated by Stephanie Wildes

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Leonardo Padura. Credit: Courtesy of the author

By Leonardo Padura
HAVANA, Mar 28 2013 (IPS)

The reform process launched in Cuba by the government of President Raúl Castro has made several changes to the country’s rigid social and economic structure, with the ultimate aim of bringing this island nation out of its economic lethargy and making production, which is sinking under the weight of restrictions, controls and contradictions, more efficient.

After the announcement of the government’s intention to introduce “structural and conceptual changes” to “update” the model, the 2011 Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba – the sole legal party, which governs the country – approved the Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy which set forth the transformations to be carried out.

The programme laid out in the document, which is precise on some issues but vaguer on others, sets out guidelines and commitments for the proposed changes, small and large.

In response to demands or criticism that the pace of change is too slow for a country plagued with social and economic problems that range from the highest structural and macroeconomic level to the complicated daily life of the average citizen, Raúl Castro has stated on several occasions that the transformations will keep pace with well-thought out plans, in order to avoid new errors. He calls this tempo “slow but sure.”

Recently the vice president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers, Miguel Díaz-Canel, confirmed to the press announcements already made by the president.

While economic and social changes have so far brought about slight (or not so slight) shifts in the relations of production, property and citizen rights, such as the revitalisation of private enterprise, creation of agricultural and worker cooperatives, distribution of land for farming, or the important migration reform that allows a majority of the population to travel, changes in the years to come will have a more radical effect on the basic structures of the system.

As Díaz-Canel said: “We have made progress on what was easiest, in the solutions that required less depth of decision and less work to implement, and now we are left with the more important aspects, which will be more decisive in the future development of the country, as well as more complex.”

What is intriguing is that neither leader has specified what the changes will consist of, or what their sphere or scope will be. They merely respond that everything is laid out in the Guidelines.

But an event of international importance has made a big difference to the balance of decision-making in Cuba.

The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Cuba’s main political supporter and trading partner through bilateral and regional agreements, such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), is definitely a factor that Havana cannot take lightly.

If, as analysts expect, Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’s political heir, wins the presidency in the upcoming elections in Venezuela, Cuba will be able to breathe more easily, given Maduro’s promises with respect to the island and the loyalty he has pledged to Chávez’s thought and commitments.

But what no one doubts is that, with the passing of Chávez, the internal situation in Venezuela could become complicated in many ways, and its close relations with this Caribbean island nation, at least in economic terms, could change because of those unpredictable complications in Venezuela’s domestic reality.

This new turn of events will doubtless have been studied by the Cuban government, independently of political declarations or even silence. And the development will probably have an effect on the pace of internal change.

The fragile state of this country’s economy calls for efficiency, investment (including, of course, foreign capital), the redefinition of production relations, and the updating of state and private sector use of new technologies.

Meanwhile, the complex social fabric, that is so different today than in the early 1990s (when a severe crisis was triggered by the break-up of Cuba’s main political and trading partner, the Soviet Union) requires more realism and dynamism in the process of change, given that a large percentage of the Cuban population is made up of young people with different ideas and points of view, and also that many people have spent more than 20 years struggling to survive on low wages and facing concrete problems of all kinds.

Has the time come to cut short the pauses and accelerate the pace? And is it time for citizens to begin to learn what future is in store for them with those deeper and more complex transformations, that could define the destiny of the country and, certainly, of their own lives? In all likelihood, yes.

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Padura
HAVANA, Feb 27 2013 (IPS)

The Cuban National Assembly, the parliament, has just passed a historic milestone: the visible turning point when one momentous and complex phase in the life of the country begins to come to a close, and a door opens on a future that, however hard to predict, will in many ways be different.

Leonardo Padura. Credit: Courtesy of the author

General Raúl Castro, re-elected on Sunday Feb. 24 by the Assembly as president of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers for the legislative period 2013-2018, publicly reaffirmed that, independently of constitutional changes to limit terms for high positions, this will be the 82-year-old’s last mandate as head of state.

While Raúl made this declaration, former president Fidel Castro, in his 87th year — who held the reins of power in this nation for over 46 years — witnessed from his first-row seat in the parliament the statement that marked the beginning of the end of a historical period stamped by his personality and his style of government.

As it enters this period of potentially transcendent closures and openings, the country is already different to that governed by Fidel in 2006, when he became seriously ill and had to step down from power, first provisionally, then, in 2008, definitively.

Although the essential system has not changed, and there is still a one-party structure, the same electoral system and a socialist economy, it cannot be denied that the reforms introduced by Raúl as part of the “process of updating the Cuban economic model”, and transformed into a political programme as the “Lineamientos de la política económica y social” (Economic and social policy guidelines) approved in 2011 by the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, have gradually changed the reality of the country.

A series of economic and social measures, of greater or lesser scope, but in many cases convulsing the centralised, state-run political model, are beginning to change the face of the social and economic framework of this Caribbean island.

Among these changes is the elimination of prohibitions that limited the capability of self-realisation (access to mobile phones, the possibility of buying and selling houses and cars, etcetera), the various modifications that have been introduced (expansion and facilitation of self-employment, turning over unused state land to private farmers, creation of cooperatives, greater opportunities for marketing agricultural produce, availability of bank credits, a new tax law, among others), and even as transcendent a decision as approving a migration reform that, for the first time in half a century, allows free movement for the vast majority of Cuban citizens.

In parallel, the government of Raúl Castro has launched other campaigns, to strengthen the institutional environment of the country, to combat corruption at different levels of the economic apparatus, to change officials in charge of ministries and decision-making posts, and even an ostensible change in the style of government, moving away from grandstands, speeches and the constant and costly convening of mass mobilisations as part of the “battle of ideas”, to meetings behind closed doors where concrete goals are set, which to a greater or lesser extent have been making their influence felt in national life.

President Castro’s express purpose, ratified at his re-inauguration on Sunday, is to preserve the socialist system installed on the island in 1961. And for this he has tried to shore up the inefficient economy of the country and to find leaders among the upcoming generation who will be capable of sustaining it in the short to medium term, when Raúl and the other members of his generation can no longer fulfill their responsibilities, due to their age, and it seems, due to a forthcoming constitutional law.

However, in his latest public appearances the re-elected president has said that the most important “updating” motions are yet to come. Little is known about the nature of these changes, although there is much speculation.

Without doubt, the major challenges of any government in Cuba will be economic: the inevitable elimination of the dual currency that distorts the macro-economy, the micro-economy and family economy; the urgent need for wage increases to bring them in line with a living wage for the population; encouraging foreign investment capable of renewing the ageing infrastructure of the country; the controversial yet indispensable provision of access to the internet, without which it is impossible to think about individual, social and economic development in the digital age; and so on.

What kind of country will Raúl Castro hand over to his successors in five years’ time? Cuba continues to be the island with the finest tobacco in the world, and the most fiercely contested questions.

(END)

Excerpt:

Miguel Díaz Canel (right) is now the No. 2 in the Cuban government. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Ivet González
HAVANA, Feb 26 2013 (IPS)

The new faces in key positions in parliament and other branches of the Cuban state will need to prove their charisma and potential political leadership, possibly in a more participative way, in the context of current economic and social changes, analysts say.

The new leaders “will have to earn their promotion to their new appointments by their performance in putting into practice the ‘updating of the model’ (as the economic and social reforms are called) and by the popularity and prestige they achieve among their fellow citizens”, Carlos Alzugaray, a diplomat and university professor, told IPS.

At the first meeting of the National Assembly of People’s Power, the island’s single-chamber parliament, on Sunday Feb. 24, Raúl Castro was re-elected president of the country and Miguel Díaz Canel, a 52-year-old graduate of military academies with a solid career in the ruling Cuban Communist Party (PCC), became first vice president of the Council of State.

Díaz Canel takes over the second most important government position from José Ramón Machado Ventura, a member of the so-called “historic generation” of the Cuban revolution that was victorious in January 1959, made up then of young people who fought against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista (1901-1973).

The 82-year-old Machado Ventura, and the 73-year-old commander Abelardo Colomé, another historic leader, gave up their posts “in favour of the promotion of the new generation”, said Castro in the closing speech of the day, which had opened the eighth legislative period (2013-2018).

Castro announced that the next five years would see “the gradual and orderly transfer” of the most important posts.

Lázara Mercedes López Acea, the 48-year-old president of the PCC in Havana, and Salvador Valdés Mesa, the 67-year-old secretary of the Workers Central Union (CTC), the only trade union in Cuba, were also elected vice presidents of the 31-member Council of State.

Gladys Bejerano, the Comptroller General of the Republic, and commander Ramiro Valdés, were re-elected vice presidents, and Machado Ventura took up the last of the five vice presidencies.

Half of the 612 seats in the Cuban parliament, which are renewed every five years, are occupied by candidates elected in national elections, while the rest are elected by representatives of social organisations and the different sections of the PCC, the only legal party on the island.

Political dissidents in Cuba denigrate the electoral system and claim that their parties, none of which has legal recognition, should have the opportunity to present candidates.

The National Assembly elected its leaders at its first session after the general elections of Feb. 3, with the presence – for the first time since August 2010 – of Member of Parliament Fidel Castro, the historic leader of the revolution and elder brother to Raúl. Esteban Lazo, a long time leading member of the PCC, is now president of the Cuban parliament.

Ana María Mari Machado remained vice president of parliament, and Miriam Brito stayed on as secretary. The National Assembly held a direct, secret vote for a group of candidates to the Council of State, which is the supreme representation of the Cuban state under the constitution. The Central Committee of the PCC participates in the selection of the candidates.

The average age of members of the new Council of State is 57. Thirty-nine percent are Afro-descendants or of mixed descent, and nearly 42 percent are women. Lazo said the authorities wish to increase the proportion of women in the Council, and in all the country’s institutions.

Raúl Castro declared that this five-year period will be his last term of office as president, “independently of when the constitution is perfected”.

In 2011, the Sixth Congress of the PCC agreed to limit important state and government positions to a maximum of two consecutive periods, and to establish a maximum age for the holders. Making these changes binding, as well as other reforms introduced since 2008, requires constitutional modification by means of a referendum.

“The new leaders will not be able to govern Cuba as Fidel and Raúl Castro have done, because they lack the charismatic legitimacy and the authority they (the Castros) had as leaders of the historic generation,” said Alzugaray.

In some quarters called the “transition” and in others the “successor generation” or the changing of the guard, this phenomenon is “desirable and normal” according to the diplomat. In his view, this group faces the challenge of fomenting “a more collectivist and democratic model of leadership (and) expansion of public spaces for political deliberation” as well as more active citizen participation.

Member of Parliament Lisette Conde noted that young people are keen to be represented in Parliament.

“Our greater participation in the present legislature is an opportunity to express our opinions and experiences,” this 20-year-old lawmaker, the youngest in the National Assembly, told IPS.

Conde, a medical student who was elected by the 10 de Octubre municipality in Havana, said the process of changes in the country is “very important” for youth.

Updating the Cuban economic model, along with social and institutional adjustments, is now “entering questions of wider scope, complexity and profundity,” said Raúl Castro. A decree-law with new regulations, and greater openness to foreign investment, may emerge this year, he said.

The National Assembly is also planning to discuss and design a labour code to deal with the needs of the growing private sector and other forms of non-state activity. The Cuban authorities are preparing a programme for development up to 2030, which will set guidelines for the economic reforms.

(END)

By Leonardo Padura
HAVANA, Feb 13 2013 (IPS)

Early this month, Cubans went to the polls to elect delegates nominated by municipal and provincial assemblies to the island’s parliament, the highest government body where citizens’ votes carry decisive weight. The turnout, as usual, was over 90 percent, and all the municipal candidates, as usual, were voted in.

The people of Cuba voted as they have always done, as a matter of routine, says Padura. Credit: Leonardo Padura

The people of the island voted as they have always done, as a matter of routine, perhaps not realising the momentous changes these elections are ushering in.

On Feb. 24, at the first session of the new legislature, the 612 elected members of the National Assembly will elect from among their number the leaders who will constitutionally direct the country’s affairs for the next five years.

The most prominent news about the new legislature is the official confirmation that Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada will cease to serve as head of the National Assembly, a post he has held for the last 20 years.

According to public statements, Alarcón explained his departure from the position with the affirmation that 20 years is “too long”, and “there must be change, there must be change”.

But the prospect that is hardly talked about, yet which has implications of immense potential political and historical importance for Cuba, is that after the National Assembly has elected Raúl Castro as president of the Council of State (an outcome no one doubts), the countdown will begin: after 1,823 days, his term of office will end, as will the terms of at least five of the six current vice presidents, all of whom took office in February 2008 when it became evident that Fidel Castro would not be able to resume power and his brother was elected president of the Council of State.

It was Raúl Castro himself, during sessions of the Congress of the ruling Cuban Communist Party in 2011, who proposed that no political office should be exercised for more than two five-year terms – including his own, as president.

The proposal was approved by the party Congress, although it has not yet been incorporated into the constitution, which must also include reforms forged in the country’s new economic model that has been inspired, advocated and promoted by Raúl Castro.

This new situation — unprecedented in a country like Cuba, where political, state and government posts were exercised without limits for five decades – opens a scenario of expectations when it comes to the changes that will happen in the next five years, and what the future will look like in February 2018.

For over five years — first at a slow pace, with changes of vocabulary, and then with concrete economic and social measures for the short, medium and long term (like the migration reform that allows most Cubans to travel freely from January this year, after nearly 50 years of being unable to do so) — army general Raúl Castro has set in motion the machinery of Cuban socialist structures in search of what the country most needs: an institutional environment, financial control, higher productivity, economic efficiency, self-sufficiency in production of certain items, changes in employment policy and changes in property law, among others.

But these urgent matters lead irrevocably to other transformations that have been announced by President Castro himself, in a process that must develop to its fullest during the five-year term beginning Feb. 24 and, indeed, be reflected in the constitution, as it will be reflected in society and its actors.

What changes will take place within the Cuban model? Will there be deeper modifications to the economic structure of the country, which so far has only seen changes that, while significant, are not macroeconomically decisive, and have not been able to guarantee certain goals, such as food production?

What opportunities will there be for foreign investment, in a country that needs capital to renew its ageing infrastructure?

What other freedoms will be approved for citizens in coming years, after the key move of lifting travel restrictions? What kind of Cuba will the so-called “historic generation”, now in their 80s, after half a century at the helm of the island’s government, leave to future leaders who will be groomed and prepared in these decisive years? What economic, and even social, role may old and new emigrés have in the country?

Cuba is entering a phase of transformation, and the critical period for the resulting changes is the next five years: a long time in the life of a human being, but only a heartbeat in the timeline of history.

(END)

Excerpt:

Among millions of people flocking to the polls in Cuba to vote in general elections was the unexpected figure of former president Fidel Castro, making a surprise public appearance in what was interpreted as a reaffirmation of his support for the government of his brother, President Raúl Castro.

Former president Fidel Castro voting in Cuba on Sunday Feb. 3. Credit: Marcelino Vázquez Hernández/AIN

“Nothing is fortuitous: Fidel is (showing) his support for updating the economic model and the transformations that derive from it,” an analyst who asked not to be identified told IPS.

Castro cast his ballot and talked to Cuban media Sunday at his polling station in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución (Revolution Square) in the capital, Havana.

The former president said, “It is our duty to update the Cuban socialist model, modernise it, but without committing errors.” He also spoke about the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez who is convalescing in Havana from a cancer operation, saying he receives daily information about Chávez’s health and adding that he is “much better”.

Fidel, Cuba’s historic leader, became seriously ill in 2006. In 2008, after his resignation, the National Assembly (the single-chamber parliament) elected Raúl Castro to be president of the 31-member Council of State, which according to the constitution “is the highest representative of the Cuban state”.

Since then, Fidel’s chair has remained vacant at parliamentary sessions. Sunday’s elections were called to renew provincial assemblies and the parliament, and the former president was among the candidates. “Fidel is already a member of parliament,” said the source, without further comment.

The unique Cuban electoral system calls for half of the 612 candidates to the same number of seats in the legislature to be selected by municipal assemblies, elected in November of the previous year. The other half are nominated by a candidacy commission made up of mass organisations.

Voting is direct, by secret ballot, and electors can vote for one, several or all the candidates in their electoral circuit, a territorial division of municipalities and the basis of the Cuban electoral system. The only electoral campaign advertising allowed in Cuba is the publication of candidates’ biographies.

Critics of the Cuban political system claim that for elections to be valid, opposition candidates should be allowed so that voters have real options. But the official response is that Cuban elections are more democratic because of the mass participation of citizens and the quality of the candidates.

The slate of 612 candidates represents the renewal of two-thirds of the current parliament. The average age among the candidates is 48; nearly 49 percent are women, 37 percent are Afro-descendants or of mixed ancestry, and around 83 percent have higher education.

The authorities are trying to encourage more active participation by young people in the electoral process and in government institutions. State media highlighted that 53 of the candidates are under 35 years of age, and many of the polling stations were staffed by youth. All the ballot boxes were guarded by school children.

“This shows that the new generations are willing to participate in government,” Alejandro Domínguez, a 20-year-old university student, told IPS. But “the decision to become a legislator can change your life. Many young people do not look at politics as a career path they want to follow. It is not part of young people’s aspirations,” he said.

A notable absence from the candidate slate was Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly since 1993. Roberto Fernández Retamar, president of Casa de las Américas, a cultural organisation founded by the Cuban government in 1959, and Marcia Cobas, deputy health minister, responsible for the export of medical services, were also missing from the list.

Newly nominated candidates, on the other hand, include Ricardo Cabrisas, the vice president of government responsible for foreign trade; Mariela Castro Espín, director of the National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX) and the daughter of President Raúl Castro; and Bruno Rodríguez, the foreign minister.

Rodríguez received another important promotion in December 2012, when he was appointed to the Political Bureau of the governing Cuban Communist Party (PCC), the only legal party in the country.

According to the electoral laws, the new National Assembly must meet within 45 days of the elections and designate the 31 members of the Council of State, including its president, for a five-year term.

Raúl Castro’s re-election is taken for granted.

However, this will be his final term as president, if the provision approved by the PCC’s Sixth Congress in April 2011 — according to which high political positions are to be limited to two consecutive five-year mandates — is ratified by the National Assembly and written into the constitution.

President Castro himself suggested in early 2012 at the close of the PCC National Conference that this, and other, decisions of the Party Congress could gradually begin to be applied without waiting for constitutional reform.

The president also anticipated changes in the statutes and other PCC foundation documents.

Raúl Castro has repeatedly expressed concern over the lack of young people with the ability to take on the complex task of directing the party, the state and the government. It is a task, he has said, that “has strategic importance for the revolution”.

Miguel Díaz-Canel, vice president of the Council of Ministers and head of higher education, stressed that reform of the economic model will this year enter a phase of more complex changes, creating a demand for National Assembly members who are sufficiently prepared to participate actively and responsibly in this process.

* With additional reporting from Ivet González in Havana.

(END)

Self-employed Cubans can now take out bank loans. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Dec 21 2011 (IPS)

Rules allowing Cubans to buy and sell cars and homes, and now, to take out loans, are two of the latest steps taken to “modernise” the economy.

Some 500 bank offices throughout the country began receiving and processing applications on Tuesday for loans in Cuban pesos to non-state workers, farmers and people who need to repair or build their homes. Credits also will be available in the future for purchasing personal items. The new credit policy is governed by Decree-Law 289 and other resolutions issued in November that went into effect almost a month later. Until now, only farming cooperatives had access to loans.

The new loan policy is aimed at contributing to the growth of private enterprise, which is supposed to absorb hundreds of thousands of employees slashed from the public workforce.

The total number of self-employed workers, known as “cuentapropistas”, is now estimated at more than 300,000 – twice as many as last year.

The number of licensed trades and activities for cuentapropistas was expanded to 181, and the taxes they pay have been cut.

The new bank loan policy follows the legalisation of the buying and selling of motor vehicles and homes. A decades-long ban on those sales had fed a lucrative black market. The two measures were among the most anxiously awaited by the Cuban population.

“I’m not planning on selling, but it is very important for me to know that I am the owner of my house and my car, and have every right over them,” commented Manuel Martínez, a 55-year-old engineer interviewed by IPS. He added that he was looking at options for private work to raise his income.

“I have to see how the credits work, because I really don’t have anything to start with,” he said. Another man, a plumber who did not wish to give his name, told IPS that he was more interested in the possibility of hiring out his services to state companies.

According to the new legislation, state enterprises can draw up contracts with no financial limits for business dealings with workers in the emerging private sector. The workers must open a checking account, because transactions cannot be done in cash.

As the year comes to an end, popular expectations are focused on the updating of the migration policy announced by President Raúl Castro to parliament in August. “Maybe it will come as a Christmas present,” said Adriana, a young professional with plans to move abroad.

Her hope is that the promised change will involve the elimination of requirements such as the exit permit and letters of invitation, which are obligatory for Cubans who wish to travel for personal reasons. Moreover, the cost of the documents is considered excessive (about 350 dollars).

Changes are also expected in the policy of obligatory loss of residency for those who emigrate. “The fact that you want to live outside of Cuba because of economic or other problems does not mean that you should lose your residency for life,” another local resident, Alejandro Cruz, told IPS.

In that respect, some believe that the Housing Law reform that went into effect in November paved the way, to a certain extent, for migration changes by significantly changing the policy of émigrés definitively losing their right to the ownership of their homes.

Although the state can still confiscate the home of the person who emigrates, it is only a step in the transfer via payment to relatives or others who live in the home.

One of the law’s articles states that “acts of transferral of home ownership are valid, carried out by their owners according to the law, before definitively leaving the country.” The regulation is considered to be a tacit elimination of confiscation.

Many hope that Castro will announce changes to the migration policy during the parliamentary session set for Friday, although the agenda is expected to focus more on an assessment of the economy’s performance in 2011 and projections for 2012.

In that respect, the president announced progress during an expanded meeting of the Council of Ministers in late November. According to the meeting’s official report, economic growth for 2011 was expected to be 2.7 percent, lower than the projected 3 percent.

One reason for the shortfall was low production levels for foods such as beans, plantains, pork and milk, forcing the country to increase imports. “Just to buy powdered milk, it was necessary to spend an additional 15 million dollars,” the official newspaper Granma reported in its summary of the meeting.

According to official estimates, food imports totalled about 1.6 billion dollars in 2011. Imports are expected to decrease in volume in 2012, assuming an increase in domestic production; however, spending is not expected to go down, due to higher food prices on the world market.

Analysts have continuously noted that this was the third consecutive year that Cuba has not suffered from the impact of devastating hurricanes. In 2008, hurricanes caused an estimated 10 billion dollars in economic damages. In that sense, time has been on the side of change.