The following is a report submitted by Gloria La Riva for
discussion at the May 2010 meeting of the Central Committee of the Party
for Socialism and Liberation. In light of recent economic developments
in Cuba, and the heightening of U.S. aggression against the island
nation, the PSL is publishing this report. Our hope is to provide
context and background, and to aid revolutionaries living outside of
Cuba in examining the challenges faced by the Communist Party of Cuba
and the country’s people.
This report is divided into four major sections below:
I. LEGACY OF STRUGGLE
II. NEW THREATS TARGET CUBA
III. THE CUBAN ECONOMY
IV. SOLIDARITY IS CRUCIAL
We urge you to closely review this report and the PSL’s other writings on revolutionary Cuba.
I. LEGACY OF STRUGGLE
The Cuban Revolution has had a profound and inspiring impact on the
progressive struggles of workers and oppressed peoples around the world,
and for the socialist movement. The revolution has made enormous
changes for the people of Cuba; it is hard to believe that it is only 51
years old.
Despite gloating predictions in imperialist circles, and dire
concerns among some of Cuba’s friends that it could not survive the
demise of the Soviet Union—its principal ally and counterweight to U.S.
imperialism—the Cuban people’s resistance through the 1990s, its defense
of socialism and the survival of the revolution is testament to the
heroism of the Cuban people, their sacrifice and struggle.
A principal factor is the Communist Party of Cuba, its leadership,
particularly that of Fidel and Raúl Castro, and their forging of a party
of millions that is ideologically committed to Marxism-Leninism, that
has waged consistent struggle against privilege within its ranks, and
has consulted closely through the years with the masses about the
economic, social and political processes, and the critical struggles
they have had to undertake.
The greatest tests for Cuba’s Revolution have been the Bay of Pigs
invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Special Period of the 1990s.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was such a major test because Cuba, as well as
the Soviet Union, faced nuclear annihilation; yet the vast majority of
the population remained united with its leadership in facing the United
States.
The toughest and most prolonged struggle—with no apparent light at
the end of a dark tunnel—was during the Special Period. The Special
Period required a heroic level of steadfastness by the whole population.
It is very important to understand what the Special Period entailed
and how Cuba emerged intact from that crisis because I would
characterize today’s situation as a return to similar conditions of the
Special Period. The deepening capitalist crisis and U.S. economic
measures against Cuba may worsen the situation in the period to come.
A concerted campaign of attacks is being waged by U.S. imperialism
with the help of its European allies, much of which was laid out in the
Bush administration’s plan drafted by the “Commission for Assistance to a
Free Cuba.” In 2004, the Bush government made public a 458-page
blueprint for the intended overthrow of Cuba’s government. Another
report was completed in July 2006 totaling 93 pages. Part of the
commission’s report is secret.
From 1990 to 1996, due to the cutoff of 85 percent of its trade and
80 percent of its imports, daily life in Cuba was marked by a drastic
drop in caloric intake (from 2,500 to 1,500 calories per person),
constant blackouts, minimal personal consumption, a virtual collapse of
transportation, and a U.S. economic blockade that grew tighter as the
U.S. imperialists passed laws to crush Cuba.
Psychologically, the collapse of the socialist camp upon which Cuba
depended was a major blow to the Cuban people. No major allies or relief
was apparent for the foreseeable future.
How would Cuba survive the loss of the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe? How would it overcome the sudden loss of 80 percent of its
imports with no trading partner to fill the void?
How would it generate revenue when its biggest market for its goods,
such as sugar, citrus, nickel, tobacco and rum, was with the socialist
countries that had disappeared?
And most of all, how would it survive the plans of U.S. imperialism
that considered the overthrow of the Soviet Union the most propitious
time to destroy Cuba’s Revolution once and for all.
Two notorious U.S. laws were passed in the 1990s designed for this objective.
The 1992 Torricelli Law prohibited foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms
from trading with Cuba, and provided that any ship that docked in Cuba
would be banned from entering a U.S. dock for six months. The effect of
this was to force foreign firms to choose between the U.S. or Cuban
market.
The 1996 Helms-Burton Act, signed by then-President Bill Clinton,
punished non-U.S. corporations and investors that have economic
relations with Cuba. It allowed Washington to penalize foreign companies
trading with Cuba, or anyone “trafficking” in Cuban property formerly
owned by U.S. capitalists. This internationalized the blockade, and
sanctions are still being imposed on other countries’ corporations and
banks for doing business with Cuba.
After a decline from 1989 to 1993 of 34.5 percent of production, Cuba
was able to finally experience economic growth in 1996, and it
continued until 2008, after the world financial and economic crisis hit.
There have been new political developments since 1999—Hugo Chávez’s
election in Venezuela, followed by elections in Bolivia, Ecuador,
Nicaragua, El Salvador and elsewhere—giving Cuba a much more favorable
situation in Latin America. These developments were crucial to the
formation of ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our
America, which is a regional bloc for trade and cooperation. Now, with
Cuba and Venezuela at the core of this new regional alliance, the
historic hold by U.S. imperialism is being seriously challenged.
However, the threats by U.S. imperialism remain.
II. NEW THREATS TARGET CUBA
U.S. hostility toward Cuba has not abated. With President Barack
Obama’s election, many in the Cuba solidarity movement thought that
there would be a lessening of the U.S. blockade, the travel ban and
other longstanding restrictions on Cuba.
With the exception of travel for Cuban Americans, which is now
permitted, the opposite is happening. A more sophisticated yet still
aggressive U.S. stance is prevailing.
In many ways, the aggression is greater than ever before, as the
European Union is working hand-in-hand with Washington to bring about
the revolution’s demise. Some of the latest attacks on Cuba include:
- U.S. government denunciations and the European Parliament’s
resolution against Cuba after the death of the hunger striker Orlando
Zapata Tamayo. The EU has continued its “Common Position” on Cuba, which
has been updated every six months since 1996. - The “International Committee for Democracy in Cuba,” led by Vaclav
Havel and Jose María Aznar. The Czech Republic government has been part
of the attempts to foster counterrevolutionary activities in Cuba by
sending Czech agents to deliver cash to the counterrevolutionary groups.
For example, two Czechs—Ivan Pilip, now vice president of the European
Investment Bank, and Jan Bubenek, former member of parliament—were
detained in Cuba in January 2001 for 25 days. Their trip to Cuba was
financed by Freedom House. They were carrying a list of opposition
figures to which they were to deliver money and other resources. - Stepped up U.S. funding for counterrevolutionary activity in Cuba.
- A tightening of the economic blockade.
- The theft of Cuba’s assets by outrageous lawsuits in the United States.
- Spain’s role in trying to destabilize Cuba, which has increased since the election of Obama.
Many of these attacks are discussed in detail in the sections that follow.
The hunger strike and counterrevolutionary prisoners
The most known case is centered on the death of a man named Orlando
Zapata Tamayo, who died in late February 2010 after a 83-day hunger
strike. There were outrageous accusations by right-wing forces on the
island and in Miami—with the encouragement of the U.S. government—that
Cuba was responsible for his death.
Despite receiving excellent medical care, including intravenous
feeding, 83 days of refusing any nutrition orally made his death
inevitable. Cuba devoted one evening to explain what Cuban doctors did
to try to save his life in the Roundtable TV program.
His complete history, which led him to prison, was a string of
violent common crimes, including fracturing a man’s skull with a
machete. As he neared death, the counterrevolutionaries, a very small
group of people in Cuba, began to claim him as a “political prisoner,”
even though they had never previously considered him as such.
The European Parliament immediately issued a statement accusing Cuba
of human rights violations and demanding “the release of all political
prisoners.” These are the same countries that engage with the United
States in rendition and torture in their countries of Arabs, Muslims and
other victims of U.S. terrorism.
As soon as Zapata Tamayo died, another man, Guillermo Fariñas, who
the Western press called a “political prisoner,” went on a hunger
strike. There is just one thing wrong with this picture: Fariñas is not
in prison. Fariñas’s strike has gone on so long that the Catholic Church
in Cuba asked him to end it because he was losing credibility and it
was very obvious that Cuba was giving him excellent medical treatment.
But facts do not really matter when it comes to U.S. attacks on Cuba.
Just say there is repression, just claim there is torture, and the
Western wire services will repeat the lie without question.
We do not know how far the U.S. government plans to take this latest
campaign, but one indication is an unusual series of anti-Cuba
demonstrations in the United States in support of the hunger strikes and
demanding release of the remaining prisoners of the 75
counterrevolutionaries who were convicted in 2003.
Although the 75 are called “journalists” and “dissidents of
conscience,” the fact is that in the 1990s and 2000s they were acting in
close concert with the U.S. Interests Section. They were observed for a
number of months as they entered the U.S. Interests Section and
received large amounts of money and instructions on how to disseminate
deliberate lies to the United Nations and the European Parliament so
that anti-Cuba resolutions could be passed.
They also received money from known anti-Cuba terrorists in Miami. In
May 2008, it was revealed that Michael Parmley, chief of the U.S.
Interests Section in Cuba, was hand delivering $1,500 a month from the
Miami terrorist Santiago Alvarez through his “Fundación Juridica” to one
of the main leaders of the 75, Marta Beatriz Roque. Beatriz Roque was
released months after her conviction for health reasons and has been
part of the “ladies in white” protests. Alvarez is the long-time
financier of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who has his own long
history of terrorism.
Many of the 75 counterrevolutionaries have been released from Cuban
prison for reasons of health (something that never happens in U.S.
prisons!). These are the 75 people for whom the so-called Ladies in
White have been protesting, first with an action in April 2010 in Miami
of several thousand, led by the singer Gloria Estefan, and then a
protest in Los Angeles, led by the actor Andy Garcia, and one in San
Francisco.
The day before the Miami protest, Obama issued a White House
statement very hostile to Cuba, giving fuel to the forces of
counterrevolution.
Then on April 15, Gloria Estefan hosted Obama at her home in Miami in
a $30,600 per plate fundraiser. As a side note, Republican Cubans in
Miami are raising a storm and criticizing the Estefans, complaining that
they are using their prominence in the march to support the Democrats.
However, Estefan’s role in promoting the counterrevolution may gain more
prominence, and it is one more example of how Washington makes the
decisions when it comes to Miami and imperialism’s interests.
Not coincidentally, Posada joined the march in Miami. This is the
same man who has the blood of 73 people on his hands from bombing the
Cuban airliner in 1976, and who the Obama administration refuses to
extradite to be tried for that crime in Venezuela.
The fact that Posada, wanted for multiple crimes, feels so free to
march openly when there is worldwide knowledge and condemnation of his
terrorism, that not a word or action by Washington is made against the
blatant impunity he enjoys, is much more than an insult to the memory of
his victims—it is a clear message that the terrorists have a green
light to continue.
Alan Gross and U.S.-funded subversion
In early April 2010, the Obama administration announced that it would
allow the resumption of funds and communications equipment to
opposition groups in Cuba, after having suspended them on Dec. 9, 2009.
This was six days after the arrest of Alan P. Gross, the CIA agent
working for U.S. Agency for International Development subcontractors.
Gross claimed he was delivering satellite communications equipment to
Jewish groups in Cuba.
According to the Associated Press, the State Department notified
“organizations that receive U.S. funds for Cuban democracy programs that
they can resume the trips. … Word that the travel could resume was
accompanied, however, by a caution: Do not take to the island more
equipment or money than you can explain if you’re stopped by Cuban
officials.”
Washington has allocated $45 million in funds for
counterrevolutionary programs in Cuba for the fiscal years 2009 and
2010, partly to deliver items such as laptops, radios and other
resources.
The U.S. State Department also announced March 8 that it would
increase access of Cubans on the island for online communication
resources to encourage “free speech and information to the greatest
extent possible.”
The U.S. propaganda machine uses some of this money to promote the
blogger Yoani Sanchez, an outright counterrevolutionary, who claims
repression because she cannot have unlimited internet access. It also is
behind the letter initiated by Carlos Moore, the Black Cuban exile who
left in 1962 and has been at the service of imperialism ever since.
Moore regrettably got a number of African American personalities to
denounce Cuba for what he claims is repression against Black Cubans.
Tightening the blockade
The blockade is not a thing of the past, even though the perception
given by Obama’s first campaign comments regarding Cuba misled many
Americans, making them believe that he would lighten up on Cuba. If
anyone carefully listened to Obama’s words, he declared unequivocally
that the U.S. blockade would remain in place.
But there are a number of recent examples of European banks and
corporations being forced to divest of Cuban assets because of U.S.
economic treaties.
The blockade is Washington’s way of internationalizing its
overarching policy toward Cuba. It actually sanctions other countries
and foreign corporations—even to the point of fining them under U.S.
jurisdiction—for doing business with Cuba!
Every U.S. government embassy or consulate in the world has as one of
its primary tasks assigning specific agents who work to see that any
economic deal Cuba makes is thwarted, undermined and destroyed.
One example is General Electric, which has told its sub-subsidiary
Banco de America Central (BAC) that it can no longer carry out
transactions with Cuba or Cubans.
Without warning, BAC blocked the use of its credit and debit cards in
Cuba as of July 1, 2009. The cards were used by many families of
medical students for sending money, as well as by tourists and Cuban
Americans making family visits. This policy change happened because
General Electric bought BAC, which made the company fall under the
restrictions of the Helms-Burton law.
Theft of Cuba’s assets
Another unknown but critical fact about the intensified economic war
being carried out against Cuba is the wholesale theft of Cuban
telecommunications revenues that are held and controlled in the United
States. These include the hundreds of millions of dollars that Cuba had
in Chase Manhattan bank, now JP Morgan Chase bank.
Due to the “Law for the Protection of Victims of Trafficking and
Violence,” signed by Clinton in the late 1990s, U.S. citizens have the
right to sue for the seizure of those Cuban assets. There has been a
spate of lawsuits that boggle the mind—in their illegality and
absurdity—that no U.S. court would allow in any other case.
Here are a few recent examples of the confiscation of Cuba’s
holdings, including the revenues that it is due from telephone
communications between the two countries. U.S. companies recover their
monies as profits, but Cuba’s assets are withheld from it by the United
States.
These frozen assets amounted to roughly $268 million dollars, but
Cuba’s National Bank assets have now been completely emptied from the
bank, and the Cuban telephone entity has only $6 million remaining.
In January 2007, $91 million was awarded in U.S. court to families of
two CIA agents who died during the Bay of Pigs invasion. One was Thomas
“Pete” Ray, who piloted a B-26 bomber over Cuba and died when he was
shot down. Another man, Howard Anderson, was executed in April 1961
after being convicted of smuggling weapons into Cuba during the
invasion. $72.1 million of those awards was paid out to the families on
Nov. 27, 2007.
Also in January 2007, the family of Robert Fuller, executed for counterrevolutionary activity in 1960, was awarded $400 million.
In May 30, 2007, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Peter Adrien awarded the
admitted CIA agent Gustavo Villoldo—who brags that he helped capture Che
Guevara—the outrageous amount of $1 billion dollars. Villoldo
claimed—without providing any proof or evidence—that his father was
driven to suicide by Fidel Castro and Che. His father was a wealthy car
dealer who owned property in Cuba that was confiscated by the new
revolutionary leadership.
In April 2008, the siblings of Rafael Del Pino Siero were awarded
$253 million in Miami-Dade court. Del Pino was involved in
counterrevolutionary actions in 1959, was imprisoned and died 18 years
later.
On Aug. 22, 2009, Sherry Sullivan sued the Cuban government for $21
million in a Maine county court for the supposed assassination of her
father, Geoffrey Sullivan, even though he died when his military plane
was shot down over Cuba. The judge issued a summary judgment without
trial, which Cuba would not attend as it does not recognize U.S.
jurisdiction over it. Sherry Sullivan’s court document blatantly admits,
“Sullivan and Rorke [a journalist/CIA operative] had ‘participated in
various anti-Castro covert operations in Central America and Cuba’
including ‘Operation Mongoose,’ the covert-action sabotage and
subversion program against Cuba initiated in November 1961 and the
widely-publicized April 1963 bombing of the former Esso oil refinery in
Havana, Cuba, as well as collateral activities in the Dominican Republic
and Haiti.”
Federal Judge James King awarded the families of the pilots of
Brothers to the Rescue $138 million, and Jose Basulto won an almost $1.5
million judgment, even though his plane’s invasion of aerial space
created the crisis that led to the shoot down in 1996.
It is not just Cuba’s frozen assets in U.S. banks that are affected.
The lawsuits could end up confiscating Cuba’s assets in European banks,
which would deal a further financial blow to the island.
In the latest attack, a new lawsuit in Miami court threatens to shut
down all the charter companies that fly directly to Cuba from the United
States. They send approximately 200 flights a week from New York, Miami
and Los Angeles. This is because a woman named Ana Margarita Martinez
won three lawsuits against Cuba, saying she was jilted by her husband
who turned out to be a Cuban agent. The Cuban agent in question is Juan
Pablo Roque, who if he had not returned to Cuba in time would have
become one of the “Cuban Six.”
Although she has received $194,000 from Cuba’s frozen assets, she has
now sought an injunction against the nine charter companies to
confiscate the landing fees that they pay to Cuba. In a surprising move,
the federal court moved the jurisdiction to state courts, a potentially
negative development.
The U.S. government has weighed in, arguing against her suit. But of
course it is U.S. law that permitted this spate of suits in the first
place. Despite the U.S. government’s “opposition” to the $138 million
award to the BTTR pilots, the court still awarded the money.
The theft and intensified economic destabilization is not over. In
February 2010, seven Cuban medical doctors and one nurse who had served
in the internationalist mission in Venezuela but are now in Miami filed
suit against Cuba, Venezuela and the Venezuelan oil entity, PDVSA, for
$450 million. They claim they were reduced to modern slavery in
Venezuela for having to provide healthcare for poor people.
The suit is a class action suit. It would allow any other Cuban
doctor who wishes to join it to potentially recover $50 million each.
George Bush in August 2006 signed a law called “Cuban Medical
Professional Parole.” The law allows any Cuban doctor serving abroad to
defect and enter the United States easily.
The removal of Carlos Lage and Felipe Pérez Roque
The role of Spain in trying to destabilize Cuba on behalf of U.S.
imperialism has been unfolding over the last year. It involves Prime
Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s intelligence service. Part of
the plot ensnared Cuban leaders Carlos Lage and Felipe Pérez Roque, and
led to the Communist Party of Cuba removing them from their government
and Party offices.
In late December 2008, a Spanish law took effect called the “Law of
Historic Remembrance.” This law allows any person in the world to become
a Spanish citizen if they can claim to have grandparents from Spain. It
affects three countries the most: Cuba, Argentina and Uruguay. But the
greatest has been Cuba. Between 1898 and 1930, about 1 million Spaniards
migrated to Cuba. What is the law’s impact?
It provides incentive for any Cuban who can to obtain Spanish
citizenship and leave the island. This is more enticing to some in light
of the island’s growing economic difficulties. Even for supporters of
socialism, there are many who see economic opportunities by moving to
Spain. Some eventually desire to move to the United States.
The law was supposed to expire in December 2010, but now it has been
extended one more year by Spain. Cuba has protested to the Spanish
government about this law, but to no avail.
Spain is playing a key role in the U.S. and European imperialists’ strategy of trying to destabilize the Cuban Revolution.
One of these campaigns led to the removal of Cuban leaders Carlos
Lage and Felipe Pérez Roque from their Party and government posts on
March 2, 2009, the same day that they were exposed at the Political
Bureau meeting.
Fidel became gravely ill in July 2006, and for the next three years struggled for survival.
Lage was executive secretary of the Council of Ministers and vice
president of the Council of State, and Pérez Roque was Cuba’s foreign
minister, the youngest ever appointed to the post. Both were considered
as potential candidates for the succession of the revolution’s
leadership.
When they were removed from government and Party posts, many people abroad wondered why.
Much information has been revealed through the Spanish press, in
particular El Pais, a bourgeois newspaper. Other sources have also
confirmed the essential elements.
Esperanza Casteleiro, second in command of Spain’s intelligence
service, CNI, was assigned to coordinate an intelligence operation in
Cuba soon after Obama’s election. She moved to Cuba in November 2008.
She had also traveled to Miami to meet with counterrevolutionary groups.
Another key person was Conrado Hernández, a Cuban who has been a
close friend of Lage since boyhood, and who used their relationship to
gain many favors and access. As a Cuban whose direct ancestors were from
Spain, Hernández got Spanish citizenship. For about 10 years, he has
been the liaison between Cuba and the Basque region’s corporations that
do business in Cuba.
According to Cuba’s intelligence service, G-2, Hernández admitted
becoming an agent for Spain. Of course, we should understand that the
CIA would obtain any information that the CNI gathered.
In Hernández’s ranch in Matanzas province, there was at least one
party he organized, which Lage and Pérez Roque attended. The event was
secretly recorded by Hernández with the logistical help of Casteleiro
and the CNI.
The tape of that party and other materials were confiscated by Cuban
authorities when Hernández was arrested on Feb. 14, 2009, as he was
about to board a plane headed to Spain. The tape included disparaging
remarks by participants at those social gatherings about the top Cuban
leaders.
Hernández is still under arrest. He was also photographed and taped
by Cuban intelligence in a Havana restaurant meeting, reportedly with
Spanish agents, including Esperanza Casteleiro. At that meeting, he
agreed to comply with the CNI’s request for details about the Cuban
leadership, about Fidel’s health, about Cuba’s relationship with China
and Iran and other information.
Another part of this story is the cousin of Lage, Raúl Castellaños
Lage, who is a cardiac surgeon. He was being surveilled because of his
increasingly hostile position against the revolution.
On Feb. 23, 2008, the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP) held
a session to prepare for the historic elections to be held the
following day. The newly sworn in delegates to the National Assembly
were to elect a new president and Council of State. By then, it was
known that Raúl Castro would be elected president, but who would become
first vice president and other positions was still a big question. The
approval would come Feb. 24.
So, on Feb. 23, in the closed session where the slate was chosen by
the delegates, Ramon Machado Ventura—one of the original Granma
participants—was nominated for first vice president. Carlos Lage was
obviously disappointed, as he expected to receive that post.
That night at his cousin Raúl’s wedding party, he broke the
discipline that was demanded of all ANPP deputies to keep the
deliberations secret until the next day. Lage told Pérez Roque, his
cousin, Fidel’s secretary Carlos Valenciaga (via telephone), Fernando
Remírez de Estenoz (head of the International Department of the
Communist Party of Cuba) and Conrado Hernández that first vice president
was to be Machado. Lage’s cousin, Raúl Castellaños Lage, who was part
of the operating team when Machado had received medical treatment, then
remarked that it would have been better to let Machado die when he was
being treated for heart problems. He said, “The nation would have been
better served.”
Conrado Hernández immediately called Spain’s CNI with the
information. Cuban intelligence was aware that the news of the
leadership succession had reached Spain that night.
Without a doubt, the CIA was also informed. Given the openly-stated
U.S. policy in the Bush doctrine that no Communist Party leader would be
allowed to succeed Fidel—even though Fidel’s sudden illness forced him
to give up his official position, thus making that policy very difficult
to implement outright—and the constant danger of assassination and
other destabilization plots, the Cuban leadership’s insistence on
discipline in these matters is certainly necessary and understandable.
Imagine the scenario if Lage or Pérez Roque had been elected to first
vice president, or if they had remained in the Council of State. At the
very least, the tape-recordings and other espionage were meant to find
divisions and weaknesses.
The Communist Party of Cuba has since shown the Political Bureau
meeting video to all members of the Party across the country. This is
bound to bring home to all the lesson that no member of the Party, no
matter how high a position he or she reaches, is exempt from the bounds
of discipline, honesty and communist conduct.
The conduct of Lage and Pérez Roque was shown in videos that Conrado
Hernández recorded in his ranch, where they and others made ridiculing
remarks about the leaders, including Fidel and Machado Ventura.
According to El Pais newspaper, someone said, “‘Conrado even asked
former foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque to help him obtain a
diplomatic passport and [Pérez Roque] procured it for him in 24 hours.
He also got Lage to help him divert a river that could pass through his
estate in Matanzas.’”
There is virtually nothing in the bourgeois press about this matter
because it is not exactly an easy thing to exploit—that the Communist
Party of Cuba has purged its leadership whom the imperialists had an eye
on.
After their removal, Lage was assigned to work in a family clinic (he
is a trained pediatrician), Pérez Roque to a factory as an electrical
engineer, and Carlos Valenciaga in the National Library. Valenciaga was
removed in September 2008 from his job as Fidel’s secretary. He was
criticized for improper behavior after he held a party for his birthday
just two months after Fidel fell ill, in a room near where Fidel was
recuperating. He is seen in a video, drunk with a bottle of rum and a
“comandante’s” cap.
III. THE CUBAN ECONOMY
Many of the same factors that led to Cuba’s 1990s Special Period have
resurfaced or intensified, making it necessary for the government and
the Communist Party of Cuba to reintroduce or increase some of the
economic measures originally employed in the 1990s for its survival, and
to pull back on others.
Basically, the problems are a combination of the intensified blockade
and the world economic crisis. There is lately a drop in production for
lack of spare parts and raw materials, and a serious decline in the
country’s purchasing power for essentials of food, medicine and fuel.
The latter is due to the great increase in the world’s commodity prices,
like that of rice, milk and meat; the precipitous fall in nickel prices
(Cuba’s number two source of foreign income); as well as a decline in
tourist income.
For example, 50 percent of Cuba’s foreign earnings come from nickel.
Until the financial and commodities crisis hit in 2008, nickel commanded
a price of about $52,000 a ton (May 2007). Cuba in 2008 produced 70,000
tons thanks to foreign investment in its mines, mainly Sherritt Corp.
in Canada.
Then, at the end of 2008, nickel fell sharply, and Cuba announced
that with the market price falling to between $9,000 and $10,000 per
ton, Cuba was producing nickel at a loss.
It has recovered some, to about $18,000 per ton in late 2009. (As of
Sept. 14, 2010, nickel prices jumped to over $21,000 per ton.) Still, it
is nowhere near the price of 2007.
The loss in income from nickel has hit the Cuban economy the hardest of losses in any sector.
At the same time, Cuba has maintained its decades-long policy of
providing basic food subsidies for all the population, even as world
commodity prices are sky-high. It has done this while an estimated
189,000 able adults are not working or studying, but still enjoying the
full rights of free healthcare, housing (almost everyone owns their home
or pays pennies for rent) and schooling—with no economic support for it
by being engaged in production. This is becoming an untenable burden
for the economy.
A longtime top economist and currently Minister of Economy and
Planning, Jose Luis Rodriguez, said that on the island there existed
“189,000 people of working-age who neither study nor work; however, they
parasitically enjoy all of the country’s social benefits. It will be
necessary to face this situation using the appropriate methods to
resolutely eliminate that form of exploitation of those who work or are
studying by those who contribute nothing to society.”
In the early 1990s, some of these same factors led to inflation and a
major decline in the Cuban peso’s value. It fell to 125 pesos per U.S.
dollar in the mid-1990s. Therefore, with very little value in the peso,
since there were almost no goods to purchase and production had dropped
34.5 percent, there was a huge excess of currency in circulation,
roughly 13 billion pesos. As a result of the economic changes from 1993
on, the peso increased in value to about 25 pesos per U.S. dollar.
Agricultural problems and development
Food was in very short supply until the farmers’ markets were
launched and the majority of state farms were converted to UBPCs, “Basic
Units of Cooperative Production.” Most food for domestic consumption is
still produced in the UBPCs. The land is held in usufruct—owned by the
state, but the production is owned by the cooperative members.
After much study on the agricultural question during the early 1990s,
it was decided that the large state farms could no longer operate as
they had with large-scale machinery—tractors and harvesters, pesticides,
artificial fertilizer, fuel, tires and so on. To promote greater food
production, farmers’ markets were reintroduced in 1994.
The new policy allowed the growers to bring the food that they
produced—over and above the amounts assigned to the state—to the
farmers’ markets. There they were allowed to charge whatever price the
“market” would bear.
The prices were admittedly high, but they also had the effect of
reducing the underground market, where prices were astronomical. Within
weeks of the reintroduction of the farmers’ markets, food was much more
in abundance. It was a major relief for the population.
In 1996, I attended all the sessions of the Congress of the Cuban
Workers’ Confederation (CTC) and witnessed many of the debates on the
agricultural question. It was the first year that the economy showed
positive growth, albeit small. But the mood was very positive and the
workers were very enthusiastic about the improvement in their
production—an obvious sign that they are the owners of society.
A worker in a cooperative stated that, with regard to pricing, most
of the growers acted in a revolutionary manner and did not take
advantage by charging exorbitant prices. But he complained of those who
did. He said, “Well then, we have to resolve this problem by producing
more.”
And that is the crux of the problem today: Food is still the most critical problem to overcome.
For the country to be less subject to the dramatic vicissitudes of
the international market, it must produce more internally. That is one
of the main goals of the continuing agricultural policy.
In July 2008, Raúl Castro spoke to a session of the National
Assembly. Among some key pronouncements—including increasing the
retirement age to 65 for men and 60 for women over a period of several
years—he spoke of the agricultural situation. He reminded the deputies
of some of the food importation costs: In July 2007, a ton of rice
bought from abroad was $435; one year later it was $1,110. Flour in 2007
was $297, and in 2008 it was $409. Powdered milk was $2,100 a ton in
2007, and in 2008 it went up to $5,200.
But I want to emphasize that, unlike what the bourgeois press rather
crudely reports about agricultural developments, Cuba is not
“privatizing” the land. It is continuing the policy of land remaining in
state hands, and at the same time engaging in an intense, multifaceted
campaign to raise self-sufficiency by encouraging urban dwellers to
return to the countryside to start farms and raising prices paid by the
state to farmers for their produce, among other measures.
This is part of an attempt to increase cultivated land. Raúl
mentioned that the amount of land being cultivated had decreased by 33
percent between 1998 and 2007, and it must be reversed.
Another major problem for agricultural production is the
proliferation of the dreaded “marabu” weed. Calling it a weed is a
misnomer. Its trunk and roots are almost like trees and the needle-like
spines are two to three inches long. Bulldozers are needed to uproot it,
but with that machinery unavailable, up to one-third of Cuba’s arable
land was taken over by marabu. It renders land unusable.
Cuba is also suffering the worst drought since 1901. Of course, since
the revolution’s triumph many dams and water reserves have been
created, so they are somewhat better to weather the droughts, yet the
country has still been hit hard.
The 2008 hurricanes also caused more than $10 billion in damage. The
actual figure is higher when considering replacement costs for housing.
Cuba has done remarkable things to rebuild the worst-hit provinces.
Still, almost all the country’s warehouse reserves, which were always
kept in case of wartime or other major emergencies, have been emptied as
a result of the three hurricanes.
In agriculture, there are many major projects underway sponsored by the state.
For instance, the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) established large
farms in all the provinces, which are now 24 units—about 450,000
hectares out of Cuba’s total of 3.6 million hectares (2.37 acres per
hectare). The FAR farms are worked mainly by soldiers, but also by
civilians in the surrounding communities. Already 80 percent of the
military’s food is produced on them.
Raúl remarked in his July 2007 speech, “That is why I am an admirer
and strong defender of the industrial socialist state farm … but I do
not underestimate the cooperatives or the peasants.”
About 60 percent of Cuba’s food is still imported.
There have been important developments in Cuba’s agriculture, despite—and also because of—the Special Period.
This includes Cuba’s development of organic and sustainable farming.
In order to reduce reliance on fertilizer, there is much more crop
rotation and farms are diversifying what they produce. More vegetables
are grown and consumed than before the crisis of the 1990s.
In Havana’s urban area—which is over 2 million people—80 percent of
the vegetables consumed are now grown in the community urban gardens,
large and small.
The University of Havana has created an outreach program to encourage
high school students to go into the various fields of agronomy studies,
including allowing students who complete the 11th grade to go into
university to begin an agricultural education.
Challenges for the revolution
While the government has struggled to maintain the key necessities
for the population universally available and free, like healthcare,
education and very inexpensive housing, the current economic crisis is
making it impossible to continue without making similar adjustments as
ones made in the 1990s.
For example, many factories and other workplaces are operating at a
loss, and they have an excess of workers in many places, while facing
shortages in other spheres like agriculture.
In 2003, for instance, over half of the sugar mills were permanently
shut down because of the strategic restructuring of the sugar industry,
largely due to the extreme volatility in the world market prices. The
decision was made to cut down drastically on that crop’s production. In
2009, the sugar harvest was only about 1.4 million tons, down from the
traditional yield of 7 million tons. Cuba even had to import several
hundred thousand tons to provide for domestic consumption. The mills
were decrepit.
Raúl Castro, in his speech to the Young Communist League (UJC),
remarked that the government estimates that there is an excess of 1
million workers in some areas, while they have a shortage in other
areas, like teachers. The problem is not so much a lack of workers as a
low productivity in the workplace. So, the watchword for the last few
years has been “efficiency and more production.” In the CTC Congress and
in the workplaces, the drive has been for the workers to try to produce
more with less, to raise production in order to satisfy the country’s
needs.
Corruption is also a challenge for the revolution. In October and
November 2005, Fidel (then still president) gave two significant
speeches in which he posed the question of whether there was a danger of
the revolution collapsing from within.
In these speeches, he explained in detail Cuba’s developing problems
and emphasized the need to deepen revolutionary consciousness to
overcome the weaknesses and dishonesty among those who are engaged in
theft of the country’s resources.
The speeches are sobering, but also inspiring and very enlightening.
They are an important education for our comrades to understand the
serious challenges that Cuba faces and what it is doing to combat them.
Click here to read Fidel’s Oct. 28, 2005, speech.
Click here to read Fidel’s Nov. 17, 2005, speech.
Fidel addressed two main themes in the speeches.
The first was the debilitating effect of dollar remittances regarding
subsidized benefits. Some examples of this are the country providing
very inexpensive electrical power to the population that comes at great
cost to the economy. There is also a certain sector of the population
that receives the monies and does not feel compelled to work. This is
because so many of their basic necessities of life are available for a
tiny fraction of those imported dollars received.
The second theme was Fidel’s warning of actions against those who
steal from the state to enrich themselves. Shortly after these speeches,
a six-week campaign was conducted by 28,000 young social workers. They
took over complete control of the gasoline distribution system. The
Cuban social workers are a relatively new development in the country to
help resolve the social problems of the population that needed special
attention. These include attending to the seniors who live alone, to
young people who are not engaged in work or study, and more.
On the first day of that campaign, the social workers took over the
gasoline stations, replacing all the workers involved in the industry.
They accompanied the tanker truck drivers on their delivery routes, they
pumped the gas at all the stations, and they carefully measured the
gasoline sold and the income received.
At the end of the six weeks, it was determined that over half of the
gasoline distributed was being pilfered. A restructuring of the gasoline
system then was carried out by the state.
This and other campaigns have made the social workers very popular.
And the people began to demand the intervention of the youth in other
problems, especially to root out the inequalities and corruption that
they demand be ended.
There is another major corruption case today that is being
investigated. That is the allegation that some directors of Cuban
airlines were redirecting planes to conduct their own business.
While I have concentrated on the problems that Cuba is facing because
that is what we need to understand, I have not reviewed in detail the
continuing and remarkable advances being made in all spheres.
These advances include the new cancer vaccines and treatments, which
are quite promising; the reduction of infant mortality to 4.7 per 1,000;
the 30,000 doctors serving abroad whose mission is being expanded; the
ALBA alliance, which is of enormous help to Cuba economically and
politically; the strong backing of the population for the revolution;
and what I believe to be continued confidence by the overwhelming
majority of the population in the revolution, the Party, mass
organizations and its leaders, especially with the anti-corruption
campaigns and honest assessments by the leaders of what the country is
facing.
IV. SOLIDARITY IS CRUCIAL
Cuba is making an urgent appeal for solidarity against the current
U.S. propaganda campaign of vilification against it. This campaign is
just emblematic of a deeper and broader imperialist aggression that is
intensifying.
The blockade has been a constant, but the seizing of Cuba’s resources
and its economic crisis are giving U.S. imperialism a new opportunity
to try to create even more severe hardship.
It is clear that hopes pinned on the Obama administration by some in
the movement—that the travel ban will be lifted and other positive
measures would be taken—are just an illusion. In fact, the opposite is
happening. There has been a tightening of the blockade and increased
political hostility toward Cuba.
These developments must also be seen in the light of the 2009
Honduras coup, the growing belligerency of the United States and
Colombia against Venezuela, and other right-wing developments in Latin
America, as a way of trying to reverse the advances in the continent.
The Cuban people have endured heroically for more than 50 years. The
revolution has not only survived, but also extended the greatest
international solidarity to peoples around the world. Solidarity with
Cuba at this time is critical, as is the continued mobilization of
people here in the United States in Cuba’s defense.
