Tema: Report: Castro says Cuban model doesn't work

Seem that the time is ripe for the Cuban people to rise up in justify anger and rage, and march in the streets calling for the demise of the Castro brothers’ regime; to be replace for a form of government more in tune with their aspirations. Let not forget that around 20 percent of the Cuban population has chosen to escape the island of Dr. Castro, rather than yield to his insane experiment.

Two conditions are required for a rebellion to take place: A military loyal to the state, not to the Castro brothers, that won't open fire on protestors, and an event that will push people to demand change. Sooner or later, when these conditions are fulfill dictatorships fall.

Time is running out for the Castroit regime. They have no money, have frozen the accounts of foreign companies in Cuba and reduce the imports by more than 36 percent.

The only thing they care about is to keep in power. It is not about fighting imperialism or about communism or whatever lies and propaganda they use, is just simply to retain the power.

This is a forerunner of things to come. On October 22, 2009, Cuban university students from the Superior Institute of Art (ISA) in Havana, Cuba, protest again the regime for lack of food and water at the Institute. The protest quickly transcends those grievances to claim free space for creation and opinion.

Cuban communists headed for oblivion
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/17/2169612/cuban-communists-headed-for-oblivion.html

By CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
www.firmaspress.
April 17, 2011

An old and disappointed Cuban communist told me, during a recent brief encounter in Madrid: “This Sixth Party Congress reminds me of the atmosphere of sadness and nostalgia one breathes in those theaters that present their last show before being demolished.”

That’s a good metaphor.

Fidel Castro’s generation is now octogenarian. It’s giving its farewell performance. Fidel, 84, had his intestines removed in 2006, and Raúl, almost 80, will leave the stage before long. He gave himself a three-to-five-year period to transfer his authority in full and facilitate a sort of generational relay “so the heirs may continue the revolutionary task.”

What does all that mean? Nothing, except to stay in power. Although Cubans continue to repeat slogans, almost no one believes in Marxism-Leninism, while the government tries to escape from the system’s chronic failures by creating a few spaces that might allow private initiative to alleviate the disaster of collectivism. While they applaud revolutionary mottos, young people call Marx “the little old man who invented hunger.”

The adults, in confidence, acknowledge this outlook. After 52 years of dictatorship, without a hostile parliament or an opposition that could hinder the government’s work, the six basic elements that determine the quality of life of any modern society have decayed into nightmares: food, potable water, housing, electricity, communications and transport.

Raúl Castro, a realist who cannot understand why Cuban children can’t drink milk after the age of 7, is not unaware that his brother has been the worst leader in the history of the republic, founded in 1902. In 56 years of capitalism, despite bad administrations, corruption, frequent uprisings and periods of military dictatorship, the island became one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America, and Havana one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The public sector was mediocre or bad, but civil society functioned reasonably well.

In contrast, in 52 years of communism, society became pauperized, and the urban landscape took on the appearance of a bombed territory. The communist-imposed public sector was terribly clumsy, infinitely worse than the one in the capitalist era, and civil society (which Raúl is trying to revive via artificial respiration) was cruelly crushed.

This is the melancholy diagnosis with which Cuban communists must celebrate their Sixth Congress. Raúl has summoned a docile ruling circle and asked it to support his timid reforms and legitimize the handpicked functionaries. The idea is to appoint cadres under the age of 60, but the ones who existed — Carlos Lage, Felipe Pérez Roque, Roberto Robaina, Fernando Remírez de Estenoz — were destroyed by the rulers themselves.

Who will emerge as the heir presumptive? The name is whispered (though no one is certain) of Marino Murillo, a 50-year-old economist, former Army officer and former Minister of the Economy, despised by the apparatchiks (“he’s a lowly auditor, not an economist,” I was told by an especially shrewd observer), who today is in charge of disciplining the Party so that, during this Sixth Congress, it will accept, without a whimper, the changes proposed by Raúl. He is said to owe total allegiance to the general-president and to be committed to retaining the basic elements of the communist system, although eliminating paternalism.

Will he succeed? I doubt it. Raúl, with the aid of Murillo, his ideological stepson, wants to build a socialism without subsidies and a capitalism without markets. That’s impossible.

That monstrosity has to be buried, the way it was done in Eastern Europe. However, it is not improbable that, after the departure of the Castros, the armed forces will hold on tightly to power for awhile, but only until a spark is lit and we see in Cuba a violent finale.

Those who insist on impeding the natural evolution of history end up provoking devastating catastrophes.

Most people today have no idea how idea how far ahead Cuba was of most everywhere else in Latin America in the pre-Castro days.

Havana had the highest telephone density (telephones per 100 population) of any city in Latin America, was one of the first capital cities in the world with a 100% automatic dial telephone system in the 1920s (Washington DC did not complete the conversion from manual operators to dial telephones until December 17, 1949), and there were more telephones in tiny Cuba that in all but 3 very much larger countries in Latin America - Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Today Cuba's telecommunications development ranks it about on a par with Haiti.

Oscar Elías Biscet says Cuban dissidents are willing to discuss transitional government
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/10/2161375/oscar-elias-biscet-says-cuban.html

By JUAN CARLOS CHAVEZ
jcchavez@elNuevoHerald.com

Oscar Elías Biscet, the most important member of the opposition in Cuba, said dissidents would be willing to negotiate a transitional government to implement democratic measures that would avoid a civil war.

“If the regime were willing to have talks, we have demands,” Biscet told El Nuevo Herald from Havana. “We want Raúl and Fidel Castro to resign because they have drowned the country in misery, political assassinations and persecution. Let them assign other people to represent their interests and let us begin a transition toward freedoms for the Cuban people.”

Biscet was released on March 11 after mediation by the Cuban Catholic Church culminated in the release of 115 political prisoners. Fifty other prisoners are still jailed and there are no plans for their release. All, except Biscet and 12 others, accepted exile in Spain.

“The fact that a group is not willing to leave the country is a way to show the world that our fight is about love of our country and dignity for human beings,” he said. “It seems to me that this favors the Cuban people’s cause.”

Biscet, a 49-year-old doctor, said that Cuban authorities are giving the world and the people in Cuba false indications of change — allowing some to be self-employed, opening the country to foreign capital and opening a dialogue with dignitaries who advocate for human rights, such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Carter met with the Castro brothers and Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly of Popular Power, and other officials during his visit to Havana last week. He also visited Alan P. Gross, a U.S. government subcontractor serving a 15-year prison sentence in Havana. Gross was arrested for carrying transmission equipment for independent groups.

In his meeting with dissidents and bloggers, Carter was briefed on the economic, political and social crisis in the island, as well as on the corrupt, repressive and exclusionist nature of the regime.

“We made it clear to Carter that a dictatorship rules Cuba and that no sovereignty exists,” Biscet said. “We were able to communicate some things, a brief synthesis of our thoughts.”

About the Cuban economic situation Biscet said that any adjustment must be accompanied by policies that would guarantee, among other aspects, people’s fundamental rights, the legalization of independent groups and organizations within the civil society, religious freedoms and the release of all prisoners of conscience.

“We want comprehensive changes and a market system associated to freedoms and things that lead to a harmonious and happy life in our nation,” he said.

Biscet, founder of the Lawton Foundation for Democracy and Human Rights, accused the Cuban government of permitting acts of corruption and trumping up charges to get the members of civil society and their leaders out of the way.

“It benefits the government to have corrupt people because with such characteristics they will not fight against them, and that is why they are allowed to exist,” he said. “And when they feel threatened that a new leader could emerge within their party or among those who govern with them, they attribute acts of corruption to them so they would not have any followers.”

Biscet said that as long as a totalitarian dictatorship exists in Cuba there will always be a risk of raids and massive detentions of independent journalists and opponents, as was the case of the Black Spring of 2003.

Biscet was serving a 15-year sentence after he and 74 other dissidents were arrested. Biscet had been arrested many times since 1998.
“Everything is possible here. They are willing to go to any extent to never lose power,” he said. “This is one of the reasons why they do not sign any international or human-rights agreements, particularly those addressing basic freedoms.”

He said that despite the Cuban government’s extreme vigilance of the opposition movement, there is a social force — the younger generation — escaping from the regime.

“The Cuban youth does not believe in the system, and the spirit they are developing is not afraid of the government’s pressure. The fear the Castros wish to impose is not going to stop the wishes of the youth of pursuing the general welfare, including the economic and psychological perspectives,” Biscet said. “The youths will create their own space to accomplish their objectives.”

Biscet also mentioned the work of the independent reporters and bloggers on the Internet, which threatens to bring down the government’s information monopoly that keeps the population uninformed of the denunciations and criticism against the regime.

“They are giving the world different perspectives and ideas,” Biscet said. “And when these emerge everything else finds its place. This is very important for us because, associated to the state terrorist activities, the government wants to control all the information to continue deceiving the population.”

In 2007, the Bush administration gave Biscet the Medal of Freedom in absentia in recognition of his opposition activities and his appeals to civil disobedience.

Biscet said the U.S. government’s financial support is essential to promote democracy in Cuba. Recently Sen. John Kerry, who presides over the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, announced his opposition to $20 million included in the 2012 budget to promote democracy in Cuba.

“Kerry must know that resources are needed for this type of fight and he knows very well that Cubans in the island do not have those resources,” Biscet said. “If we are able to resist it’s because of our high morale not because we have resources. Here we have to depend on people’s mercy to survive.”

Cuban opposition leader Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet discusses the situation on the island and the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba. The Cuban youth does not believe in the system, and they are not afraid of the regime pressure anymore. Dr. Biscet mentioned a possible civil war. That's looming around and becoming more and more a possibility.Cuba will get rid of the Castroit regime and be free and Democratic again.

The Castroit tyrannical dynasty is one of the few countries that by the “pre-criminal social dangerousness” (minority report) law, allows the regime to jail and punish people before they commit a crime, based solely on suspicion of what they possibly could do in a future.

Under the Castroit tyrannical regime the people has no rights and liberties, with no laws preventing abuse of power, they quickly learn that they can be jailed for something as insignificant as speaking freely and voicing a dissenting opinion.

Under the Castroit tyrannical regime the people has no rights and liberties, with no laws preventing abuse of power, they quickly learn that they can be jailed for something as insignificant as speaking freely and voicing a dissenting opinion.

Cuba's theatre of the absurd
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/20/cuba-reform-theatre-absurd
The so-called reforms announced byRaúl Castro are illusory; a desperate, ridiculous attempt to camouflagerepression
CarlosEire
guardian.co.uk,Wednesday 20 April 2011 12.0

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/GUARDIARaul-Castro-Fidel-Castro-007.jpgN/Pix/pictures/2011/4/20/1303294299510/Raul-Castro-Fidel-Castro-007.jpg
Fidel Castro, left, raises hisbrother Raúl's hand as they sing the international socialist anthem at theCommunist party Congress. Photograph: Javier Galeano/AP

Theatre of the absurd. Characterstrapped in hopeless situations, frustrated by illogical speech, compelled byirrational forces to perform meaningless gestures. It was once the rage amongthe thinking classes of the free world. And decades later, unfortunately, it isenjoying a revival at the recent Communist party congress in Havana.

After 52 years in power – 47 of whichhe spent in his older brother's shadow– "president" RaúlCastrois seeking to reform his domain and change nothing at the same time. Two days ago, he toldthe party delegates that henceforth no one should serve more than two five-yearterms in government. Ten years in office; that's it for everyone from now on,himself included. "We need to rejuvenate the revolution," said Raúl.

The assembled delegates respondedwith thunderous applause. Then they swiftly anointed 79-year-old Raúl as theirsupreme leader and José Ramon Machado Ventura, one of Raúl's cronies, as hisimmediate successor. The number three spot went to another revolutionarysidekick, Ramiro Valdés. Machado is 80 years old. Valdés is 79. Then came thepièce de résistance: 300 proposals to shake up Catrolandia's centrally plannedeconomy, including one that would allow Cubans to buy and sell their homes.
The congress will be very busy for a while "voting" on these proposals.

What the government-controlled Cubanpress won't say, and what most foreign correspondents on Cuban soil don't daresay (lest they be expelled, as happened last week to Spanish journalist CarlosHernando) is that these so-called reforms are illusory, and a desperate,ridiculous attempt to camouflage repression and maintain the current statusquo.

Instead of opening up the Cubaneconomy, creating a private sector, or granting more freedom to Cubans, whatthese "reforms" seek is to control the black market that has been inexistence for decades and to tax it. Take, for instance, the plan to removehalf a million Cubans from the government payroll and transform them intoinstant entrepreneurs. This is not only an acknowledgment of the fact that manyCubans already engage in unregulated menial jobs under the table, such asfixing clocks, mending shoes, running errands, or catering to the whims oftourists, but also an attempt to establish a tighter control over theseactivities and claim a share of the money that exchanges hands in all suchtransactions. Even worse, the jobs which these half a millionsuddenly-unemployed Cubans are supposed to create for themselves are limited toa highly specific number of 178 menial professions, such as dog groomer, buttonsewer, and parasol tinker, each of which will require proper licensing,constant supervision, and crushing tax payments.

This much-vaunted "reform"is not new at all. A similar plan was put into effect in the early 90s, afterthe collapse of the Soviet Union left Cuba short of cash and subsidies. Suddenly Cubans were free toturn their crumbling homes into restaurants or inns and their antique cars intotaxis. Many did so, successfully, only to find themselves under the thumb ofbureaucrats who gradually taxed them out of existence.

Or consider the latest proposalwhich will "allow" Cubans to buy and sell houses. This, too, isdeceitful. First and foremost, a daunting obstacle stands in the way: lack ofcash, and the absence of loans. Individual Cubans have no savings. Everyone inCuba earns about $20 a month and all of that is quickly spent. The newentrepreneurs, busy with their wretched tinkering, are not likely to save mucheither, certainly not enough for a down-payment. Even worse, Cuba has noprivate banks and no means to come up with loans for its citizens, let alone topay its foreign debt, which is in the tens of billions.

Then there is the question ofownership itself, an ugly monster that this communist regime has kept tightlychained, chiefly because there are two million Cubans in exile who were neverpaid for the homes they owned and left behind, and those homes are now occupiedby others. Once this monster is unleashed, it will undoubtedly wreak havoc,especially if all those exiles start making their very legitimate claims. Oneneed not be an economist to realise that this alone makes all housing"reforms" moot, and a sign of desperation.

At the close of the Communist partycongress programme yesterday, a very frail FidelCastro appeared on stage. Many of theworld's newspapers reported that the assembled delegates greeted him with arousing ovation and tears in their eyes. One is tempted to ask: what is moreabsurd, the reception Fidel received or the mere mention of it in news reportswritten by external journalists who would be driven mad by bogus reforms ifthey had to live in Cuba as Cubans rather than as privileged foreigners?
Which raises another question: aretyrants ever denied thunderous applause, or tears of gratitude, even when theyconfront their mortality in the theatre of the absurd?

Carlos Eire is the T.Lawrason Riggs professor of history and religious studies at Yale University.He is author of a number of publications including; A Very Brief History ofEternity (Princeton, 2009), and Reformations: Early Modern Europe 1450-1700(forthcoming, Yale, 2011). His memoir of the Cuban Revolution, Waiting for Snowin Havana (Free Press, 2003), won the National Book Award in nonfiction for2003, but is banned in Cuba, where he is considered an enemy of the state.

US choose not to trade with the Castros’ regime due to the expropriation of US properties without compensation. The US is the largest exporter of agricultural food products and many other products to Cuba.The remittances from Cubans living abroad, is another reason why the Cubans in the island haven’t starved. We can see that the US has done more to help the common Cuban people than other European countries. The hundreds of thousands of people who have risked their lives to escaped Dr. Castro’s island paradise tell very loud everything needed to know about his regime, they have voted with their feet.

The proposal at the close of the much-awaited Communist Party Congress that it will allow Cubans to buy and sell homes and cars for the first time in 52 years proved that communism is the longest road to capitalism. The regime gerontocracy is just only buying time to remain in power.

After 52 years the impoverishment of the common Cuban is the product of the regime policies. That is the main reason the regime doesn’t want to make political concessions, they are afraid Cuba will be thenext Egypt.

Is It Fidel's Finale?
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/569809/201104201922/Is-It-Fidels-Finale-.htm

IBDEDITORIALS

Communism: Cuba rearranged the deck chairs of its sinkingTitanic by putting Fidel Castro out to pasture and naming another 80-year-oldin his place. Whatever the dictator ship claims, word is out: The end is near.

The defining reality of 52 years of communism in Cuba is massive economicfailure. The one-party state that rules with an iron fist in the name of"the people" is not only bankrupt, but completely incapable offeeding, housing, employing, medicating or providing any semblance of a decentlife for Cuba's 11 million citizens. On every last front, it's a failure.

But that hasn't stopped Cuba's communist party, at its 6th Congress, fromattempting to put a Potemkin face on "reform." Tuesday it named80-year-old Jose Ramón Machado Ventura as party chief and 79-year-old RamiroValdes, famous for cracking down on freedom of speech in both Cuba andVenezuela, as his lieutenant, supposedly to show it can correct course.

Fact is, it can't. Communism is a monopoly of power whose only ambition isto extend its rule into eternity. It creates nothing of value and cannot raisestandards of living, the way, say, Chile, a country the same size as Cuba, did,beginning in 1973.

In stepping down, Castro, 84, said as much when he declared he was confidenthis "revolution" would continue without him. No, not betteringCubans' lives, just his communist cronies continuing to rule.

But the Castroites' "reform" is no more than a rotten state'seffort to save itself by firing workers. Last year, the regime announcedlayoffs of 500,000 state workers and issued 200,000 business licenses formenial jobs.

It didn't go as expected. Half the workers have been laid off, but threequarters of the licenses have been grabbed by Cubans already running illegalbusinesses. Some workers at useless state jobs making $19 a month ask to belaid off to get licenses and be their own bosses.

It's set off a chain reaction of market activities the authorities arepowerless to control. Visitors to Cuba report that in the last four months,every house is now hawking something — string, paint, artwork, fruit — like avast national garage sale.

At some point small businesses become big businesses, as happened in theUSSR and Vietnam. Though the regime believes it's in control, it's not — not ata time when tyrants are being thrown out the world over.

The Castroit regime is broke and Raul Castro is applying band-aids rather than cures. The same old guard, which ruined the country for the last 52 years, isstill in the leadership position.

What they have to offer? People are desperate and indespair while the official propaganda machine keep proclaiming the accomplishments in health and education. Meanwhile the country keeps spiraling downward. The regime boast about universal educationat the same time that people with BA degrees are working on menials jobs with no hope of improvement. Universal health means doctors living in poverty, without medicines, equipment, and other supplies. This problem is by no means limited to the health sector. Cubans often have tremendous difficulty obtaining basic consumer goods and other necessities, including food.

The Castroit regime has force the people intos lavery and the country into a hellhole. You can see their handiwork in all aspects of the island. Corruption is widespread, workers steal from the government enterprises where they work, bribing their bosses to get the goods out of the workplace and resell them in the black market.

The sooner the Castro clique is removed from power, the better for the people living in the workers' paradise. How tragic will be if these Machiavellian characters will die in their beds. If there is any justice in the world, they should be trial and if found guilty of the tens of thousands of people they murdered over the years, face the death penalty.

The King retires and the Prince becomes King, the baton change hands from the “Maximum Leader to the “Minimum Leader.” It’s deja vu all over again. The more the brothers change things, the more they remain the same. The dynasty got rid of people with sound practical judgment and many of the ones left behind, except for a few brave souls, lack common sense.

Instead of appointing younger intelligent people to important high level positions, they kept themselves in power, an out-of-date leadership. The cult of irresponsibility continues as a central feature of the analysis and decisions of the regime high party leadership, more concerned with not losing the privileges they enjoy that in the hardships of the people.

Let see; the Castroit regimen has been in power for 54 years without democratic institutions nor opposition parties, in control of all the media outlets in the island, with control over the social, economic and political life of the population. Fidel was in power for 47 years without any limits to his authority regulating all aspects of public and private life. The definitions are a shoo-in.

Fidel, after health problems, appointed his brother Raul as his successor to the throne. Who will be next in line, one of Fidel sons? The regime isn’t only totalitarian but a totalitarian monarchy.

The visual evidence of what happened to some of the more than 35 patients that died from exposure during a cold in 2010, brings back memories of the WWII photographs of Nazi concentration camps. Similar to the images that shocked the world after the Second World War, bodies are piled one on top of the other like sacks of garbage to be disposed of.
These are pictures of starving skeleton like in Mazorra psychiatry hospital.
Links: http://www.cubaenelmundo.com/pics/mazorramuertos.jpg
Penúltimos Días » Los muertos de Mazorra

The Castroit regime doesn’t possess “some of the finest doctors in the world.” Many of the Cuban doctors that accept to work overseas do so as a way to escape from the miserable life in the island. Because they live their lives in servitude to work in those countries, many doctors in such medical missions defect to freedom. About 12,000 health workers, many of them physicians, have left Cuba in the last 12 years.

Financially, "doctor diplomacy" is an outstanding source of income for Castro's economy since his MINSAP pays doctors and other personnel only a small fraction of the millions of dollars that are received by the regime. Despite this wonderful health care, you only see Cubans leaving Cuba for the US and not vice-versa.

The regime education is under the absolute control of the Communist party, and begins in elementary school with the so-called "Cumulative School File." This file measures the revolutionary integration of the student and his family. The student must conform to the regime indoctrination, or he will be denied access to the university. The new Minister of Higher Education of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, ratified the historic slogan that says: “The University is only for the Revolutionaries.” (New Changes in Cuba - Havana Times.org)

The regime education which tries to create “the new man” is the most cruel and pitiless ever seen before in any civilized country. The family, relegated to a second place, suffers and remains silent when seeing its transformed son/daughter, where its native control on them, has been seized in the name of the party. What is education for if it turns into a weapon of mass indoctrination? No, it is not “a great educational system”, as the regime apologist want us to believe.

The regime use mobs to attacks and beat dissidents regularly on the streets and those who are only asking for justice and exercising their freedom of expression. They yelled profanities and racial insults at them. The European Parliament, Amnesty International and a growing list of prominent intellectuals and artists have condemned the regime for its repression.

If the Castroit regime is so great, then why the devil are people trying to escape from that place on makeshift rafts? The hypocrisy from the Left seeps through their pores. They'll never attack the Castroit tyrannical regime as they're accomplices to what happens in the island.

With insufficient access to credit and the US market, most of the new small enterprises will sink in the regime’s cash-strapped economy. The problem will be compound by the 1.3 million of workers expected tobe laid off in the near future. .

Are these people suddenly supposed to become entrepreneurs? They are starting from zero, so that’s a huge constraint. How barber jobs, hairdresser jobs, flower shops and restaurants are going to solve Cuba’s job problems? Until 1991 Cuba was under the sphere of the Soviet Union, that foot the bill at the tune of $5 billion a year for 30 years. Expecting change from this failed 54 years Castroit regime is a ridiculous expectation.