Gato por liebre y pollo por pescado
Pueblo cubano, rodeado de mar por cuatro puntos del horizonte, ha pasado
medio siglo añorando productos marinos
viernes, febrero 7, 2014 | Polina Martínez Shvietsova
LA HABANA, Cuba.- En la década de los 80, considerada la del, ficticio,
"reino de la abundancia", en el habanero mercado Centro se hacían muy
largas colas para el pescado, pero no todos podían comprar allí. Sin
embargo, a través de la libreta de racionamiento, el pescado, cuando
aparecía, era vendido a precios módicos y subsidiados.
En ese mismo periodo se discutió sobre el tema de "la Globalización y el
no pago de la Deuda Externa". Esto implicó serias discrepancias con
algunas de las naciones que habían prestado grandes capitales al régimen
cubano.
Varios países llegaron a acuerdos para embargar cuentas bancarias de
Cuba en el exterior y para decomisar las naves marítimas. Este fenómeno
provocó la drástica disminución de la flota pesquera y la marina
mercante cubanas.
Con la crisis de los noventa, desaparecieron los alimentos esenciales,
entre ellos el pescado, que pasó a ser un rubro del mercado negro. El
gobierno buscó soluciones desesperadas. Se propuso la construcción de
estanques para el cultivo de especies acuícolas como la tilapia y el
camarón o langostino. En ese periodo se comercializaron las llamadas
croquetas "saltarinas" o "explosivas".
Pero las distintas inventivas oficiales no han logrado, hasta hoy,
paliar la carencia de vitaminas de origen marino que sufre la población.
Se crearon los centros reproductores de alevines en el sistema de presas
fluviales del país. Se implementaron mini industrias locales aledañas a
éstas, para la elaboración de productos derivados.
Cartel pescadería Fornos, La Habana_foto de la autora
Para rematar, desde la lejana China se introdujo una especie fluvial
llamada Claria, o pez gato, con el objetivo de acabar con las plantas en
el lecho de los ríos. Pero en vez de acabar con las plantas, esta
especie comenzó a destruir la fauna acuícola autóctona. La Claria se
instaló como el pez devorador de todo. Porque en bajas aguas se arrastra
y engulle lo que encuentra a su paso.
Hoy, solo en determinados hoteles y en la red de restaurantes
particulares, se puede apreciar la diversidad y riqueza de nuestros
productos marinos. Las especies como el pargo, la aguja, el pintado, el
bonito, la albacora, así como el camarón, la langosta y los ostiones,
son asequibles a precios estratosféricos.
Recuerdo que hace unos años, en la década de los noventa, la orquesta de
música popular bailable NG La Banda colocó un hit cuyo estribillo decía
así: "¿Quién se come el calamar?, la gente de Miramar".
La reducida libreta de racionamiento sigue anunciando en sus páginas un
pescado que nadie ha vuelto a ver. En su lugar, los establecimientos
estatales venden otra especie animal: "pollo por pescado". El mar que
circunda la isla sirve a sus habitantes solamente para bañar las penas,
y también como vía de escape o como paisaje para la nostalgia.
Cuba, un archipiélago dentro de una plataforma insular, posee una rica
fauna, con diversidad de especies marinas. Sin embargo, el pueblo ha
pasado medio siglo añorando los productos del mar.
Source: Gato por liebre y pollo por pescado | Cubanet -
http://www.cubanet.org/actualidad/actualidad-destacados/gato-por-liebre-y-pollo-por-pescado/
Monday, February 10, 2014
Hard times for Cuba's elderly
Hard times for Cuba's elderly
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
El Nuevo HeraldFebruary 5, 2014
Retired Havana radiologist Lidia Lima says her $14 pension lasts her for
only 20 days out of every month. But at the age of 78, she "can't just
invent" a way of joining the growing ranks of Cuba's private businesses
to earn a few extra pesos.
Maximiliano Sanchez, 69, says his pension of $8 per month allows him
only "to survive, not to live." But the retired telegrapher adds that
heart and vision illnesses have left him too infirm to own or work at
one of the new businesses.
Cuban ruler Raul Castro's pro-market reforms have opened the doors to
hundreds of thousands of eager young and middle-aged entrepreneurs, and
many are profiting and joining a burgeoning middle class in the
communist-ruled island.
Carpenters, plumbers and construction workers can now easily and legally
work on their own, and so can barbers, seamstresses and student tutors -
in all, 182 permitted categories of "self-employment."
But the same reforms are hammering the estimated 1.6 million retirees,
already suffering under historically meager pensions and now pummeled by
the rising prices in the newly capitalist parts of the economy and
shrinking government subsidies on the basic staples they desperately need.
"The elderly are the most vulnerable sector of the Raul Castro economic
reforms," said Dagoberto Valdes, a lay Catholic activist in the western
province of Pinar del Rio who publishes the digital magazine Convivencia
- Fellowship.
Cubans say they see evidence of the pensioners' growing desperation
everywhere: elderly men and women begging outside churches and high-end
"dollar stores"; peddling peanuts and newspapers on the streets;
"dumpster diving" for anything they can resell; and offering to sell
even their most meager possessions, like a pair of shoes or a blanket.
Some earn a few extra pesos as parking lot attendants, getting spots on
Cuba's myriad waiting lines and selling them, or running errands for
friends and neighbors. A sack of crushed aluminum cans, picked out of
garbage cans, can fetch 60 to 80 pesos.
Sanchez said that from his 200-peso monthly pension - eight U.S. dollars
- after working for 30 years for the government communications monopoly,
he has to pay 30-40 pesos for electricity and 10-20 for telephone services..
He must also pay the government 65 pesos a month for the TV and fridge
he was forced to buy in 2005 as part of Fidel Castro's campaign to
reduce energy consumption by requiring all homes to replace their old
appliances with more efficient versions.
"What's left for food?" Sanchez asked in a phone interview from his home
in the eastern town of Palmarito de Cauto.
The answer is increasingly less and less, as food prices spike under the
pressure of market forces - 20 percent in 2012 alone. A pound of pork
today sells for 22 pesos, four tomatoes cost 10 pesos and a bottle of
cooking oil can go as high as 70-90 pesos.
And while medical care and medicines are supposed to be free, Cubans say
they are increasingly forced to give doctors under-the-table gifts, to
assure proper treatment, and pay for medicines if they are in short
supply. Sanchez said he regularly pays about 70 pesos per month for his
medicines.
Castro also has been tightening the government's belt by shrinking
ration cards that once provided all Cubans with a basket of essential
staples at deeply subsidized prices and was hailed as proof of the
island's egalitarian ideology.
Potatoes, peas, cigarettes, toothpaste and liquid detergent are now off
the "libreta" and sell at five to 10 times their old prices, while
rations of coffee and salt have been cut by half. Items still on the
card are estimated to cost a mere 30 pesos per month - $1.20.
"It's one thing to allow more of a market economy, and another to end
the (subsidies for) essential staples," Valdes said. Like the others
quoted in this story, he spoke by phone from the island.
Cuban officials have spoken repeatedly about plans to eventually do away
with the entire ration system - still costly to the government - and
replace it with a subsidy for the neediest, perhaps in the form of food
stamps.
Lima said even her above-average pension of 350 pesos - minus the 60 she
pays for her "better" fridge - and special chicken rations because of
her diabetes last her only the first 20 days of the month. And that's
buying meat only once or twice per month.
"I am pulling along, but if the pension was the only thing I had, I
would be dead already," said the physician, who retired five years ago
from the Joaquin Albarran Hospital in Havana.
Sanchez said he used to raise chickens, rabbits and pigs in his backyard
for sale, but they were all stolen and he has not replaced them because
of the rising crime - which he also blamed on Castro's push toward a
more capitalist economy.
Both Lima and Sanchez said they survive only with the help of their sons
and daughters in Cuba. Other pensioners receive cash remittances from
relatives abroad, especially from in the United States, that help them
make ends meet.
Cuba's revolution started out with one of the most generous retirement
systems in the hemisphere, covering 90 percent of the labor force and
allowing men to retire at age 60 and women at 55. But the country went
into a tailspin after the collapse of Soviet subsidies in the early
1990s, and a safety net that once guaranteed solid health, education and
welfare services began to erode significantly.
In 2008, the retirement ages were upped to 65 and 60 and the average
pension rose to 235 pesos but had only half the purchasing power of the
same amount in 1989, Carmelo Mesa Lago, a University of Pittsburgh
expert on the Cuban economy, wrote in a 2010 report on the pension
system. Cuba spent 4.4 billion pesos in pensions that year, almost twice
the contributions of workers.
Government homes for the elderly are known for the typical warmth of
their staffs, but they are too few, have long waiting lists for
admittance, their buildings are often in ruinous conditions, and food
and other resources are often stolen by corrupt officials higher up the
chain, Cubans say. The city of Santiago de Cuba, with 495,000 people,
reportedly has only two asylums and two day care centers.
Responsibility for caring for the elderly has been increasingly passing
to their families - a full-day caretaker can charge 300 to 500 or more
pesos - as well as the Catholic and other churches.
Several parishes have reported growing numbers of pensioners requiring
assistance with meals, their laundry, cleaning their homes and accessing
volunteer physicians, dentists and eye doctors.
What's more, the problems for the elderly - and for the country - are
likely to get worse.
Cuba's population is the oldest in Latin America after Uruguay, and
getting even older as many of its young migrate abroad, birth rates
remain low and the elderly live on average until the age of 79 - about
the same as in the United States.
Those 60 and older now make up 17 percent of the population and are
projected to hit 26 percent by 2025, according to official figures.
"Cuba needs youths doped up with caffeine, but the main actors in this
city/country are the old people," Havana blogger Daisy Valera wrote in a
recent post on the Web site Havana Times.
Source: Hard times for Cuba's elderly | World | ADN.com -
http://www.adn.com/2014/02/05/3310167/hard-times-for-cubas-elderly.html
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
El Nuevo HeraldFebruary 5, 2014
Retired Havana radiologist Lidia Lima says her $14 pension lasts her for
only 20 days out of every month. But at the age of 78, she "can't just
invent" a way of joining the growing ranks of Cuba's private businesses
to earn a few extra pesos.
Maximiliano Sanchez, 69, says his pension of $8 per month allows him
only "to survive, not to live." But the retired telegrapher adds that
heart and vision illnesses have left him too infirm to own or work at
one of the new businesses.
Cuban ruler Raul Castro's pro-market reforms have opened the doors to
hundreds of thousands of eager young and middle-aged entrepreneurs, and
many are profiting and joining a burgeoning middle class in the
communist-ruled island.
Carpenters, plumbers and construction workers can now easily and legally
work on their own, and so can barbers, seamstresses and student tutors -
in all, 182 permitted categories of "self-employment."
But the same reforms are hammering the estimated 1.6 million retirees,
already suffering under historically meager pensions and now pummeled by
the rising prices in the newly capitalist parts of the economy and
shrinking government subsidies on the basic staples they desperately need.
"The elderly are the most vulnerable sector of the Raul Castro economic
reforms," said Dagoberto Valdes, a lay Catholic activist in the western
province of Pinar del Rio who publishes the digital magazine Convivencia
- Fellowship.
Cubans say they see evidence of the pensioners' growing desperation
everywhere: elderly men and women begging outside churches and high-end
"dollar stores"; peddling peanuts and newspapers on the streets;
"dumpster diving" for anything they can resell; and offering to sell
even their most meager possessions, like a pair of shoes or a blanket.
Some earn a few extra pesos as parking lot attendants, getting spots on
Cuba's myriad waiting lines and selling them, or running errands for
friends and neighbors. A sack of crushed aluminum cans, picked out of
garbage cans, can fetch 60 to 80 pesos.
Sanchez said that from his 200-peso monthly pension - eight U.S. dollars
- after working for 30 years for the government communications monopoly,
he has to pay 30-40 pesos for electricity and 10-20 for telephone services..
He must also pay the government 65 pesos a month for the TV and fridge
he was forced to buy in 2005 as part of Fidel Castro's campaign to
reduce energy consumption by requiring all homes to replace their old
appliances with more efficient versions.
"What's left for food?" Sanchez asked in a phone interview from his home
in the eastern town of Palmarito de Cauto.
The answer is increasingly less and less, as food prices spike under the
pressure of market forces - 20 percent in 2012 alone. A pound of pork
today sells for 22 pesos, four tomatoes cost 10 pesos and a bottle of
cooking oil can go as high as 70-90 pesos.
And while medical care and medicines are supposed to be free, Cubans say
they are increasingly forced to give doctors under-the-table gifts, to
assure proper treatment, and pay for medicines if they are in short
supply. Sanchez said he regularly pays about 70 pesos per month for his
medicines.
Castro also has been tightening the government's belt by shrinking
ration cards that once provided all Cubans with a basket of essential
staples at deeply subsidized prices and was hailed as proof of the
island's egalitarian ideology.
Potatoes, peas, cigarettes, toothpaste and liquid detergent are now off
the "libreta" and sell at five to 10 times their old prices, while
rations of coffee and salt have been cut by half. Items still on the
card are estimated to cost a mere 30 pesos per month - $1.20.
"It's one thing to allow more of a market economy, and another to end
the (subsidies for) essential staples," Valdes said. Like the others
quoted in this story, he spoke by phone from the island.
Cuban officials have spoken repeatedly about plans to eventually do away
with the entire ration system - still costly to the government - and
replace it with a subsidy for the neediest, perhaps in the form of food
stamps.
Lima said even her above-average pension of 350 pesos - minus the 60 she
pays for her "better" fridge - and special chicken rations because of
her diabetes last her only the first 20 days of the month. And that's
buying meat only once or twice per month.
"I am pulling along, but if the pension was the only thing I had, I
would be dead already," said the physician, who retired five years ago
from the Joaquin Albarran Hospital in Havana.
Sanchez said he used to raise chickens, rabbits and pigs in his backyard
for sale, but they were all stolen and he has not replaced them because
of the rising crime - which he also blamed on Castro's push toward a
more capitalist economy.
Both Lima and Sanchez said they survive only with the help of their sons
and daughters in Cuba. Other pensioners receive cash remittances from
relatives abroad, especially from in the United States, that help them
make ends meet.
Cuba's revolution started out with one of the most generous retirement
systems in the hemisphere, covering 90 percent of the labor force and
allowing men to retire at age 60 and women at 55. But the country went
into a tailspin after the collapse of Soviet subsidies in the early
1990s, and a safety net that once guaranteed solid health, education and
welfare services began to erode significantly.
In 2008, the retirement ages were upped to 65 and 60 and the average
pension rose to 235 pesos but had only half the purchasing power of the
same amount in 1989, Carmelo Mesa Lago, a University of Pittsburgh
expert on the Cuban economy, wrote in a 2010 report on the pension
system. Cuba spent 4.4 billion pesos in pensions that year, almost twice
the contributions of workers.
Government homes for the elderly are known for the typical warmth of
their staffs, but they are too few, have long waiting lists for
admittance, their buildings are often in ruinous conditions, and food
and other resources are often stolen by corrupt officials higher up the
chain, Cubans say. The city of Santiago de Cuba, with 495,000 people,
reportedly has only two asylums and two day care centers.
Responsibility for caring for the elderly has been increasingly passing
to their families - a full-day caretaker can charge 300 to 500 or more
pesos - as well as the Catholic and other churches.
Several parishes have reported growing numbers of pensioners requiring
assistance with meals, their laundry, cleaning their homes and accessing
volunteer physicians, dentists and eye doctors.
What's more, the problems for the elderly - and for the country - are
likely to get worse.
Cuba's population is the oldest in Latin America after Uruguay, and
getting even older as many of its young migrate abroad, birth rates
remain low and the elderly live on average until the age of 79 - about
the same as in the United States.
Those 60 and older now make up 17 percent of the population and are
projected to hit 26 percent by 2025, according to official figures.
"Cuba needs youths doped up with caffeine, but the main actors in this
city/country are the old people," Havana blogger Daisy Valera wrote in a
recent post on the Web site Havana Times.
Source: Hard times for Cuba's elderly | World | ADN.com -
http://www.adn.com/2014/02/05/3310167/hard-times-for-cubas-elderly.html
When Lunch Time Comes in Cuba
When Lunch Time Comes in Cuba
February 6, 2014
Ernesto Pérez Chang
HAVANA TIMES – Comes lunchtime and it is again time for a break in the
workday. Time for relaxation, you might say. Forget it, for many it
means anxiety. Few workplaces now have a workers' canteen.
In keeping with the new policy of every man for himself decreed by a
government suitably wrapped in a nice watertight life jacket to keep
itself afloat, thousands of workers now have to take to the streets at
noon to work miracles on a budget so tight they can hardly eat.
From the top floor comfort of some Cuban ministry, some government
official, the kind that spoils themself silly in the VIP lounges of
capitalist airports across the globe and throws lavish banquets to spice
otherwise redundant meetings running on redundant agendas, has
determined that just over half a dollar is all a worker needs to lunch
in a country where a soft drink in a can and a roll and hot dog costs
you twice that much if not more.
Every month along with their lousy pay, some workers get a measly
gratuity in convertible pesos, supposedly so they can go to a hard
currency store in the neighborhood and buy something with it. But the
amount, based on work days calculated at a rate of 1 CUC for 25 pesos,
is only a break for the state which sets the rate in the first place.
For workers used to picking up a wage packet so paltry it hardly covers
the first few days of the month, getting anything extra is usually seen
as a blessing, rarely a cruel joke.
And even if the worker feels so inclined, challenging the pathetic sum
officialdom has calculated to be all he needs to support his/her family
for working all year, is not advisable. It won't go down well with the
boss. At a time of deep crisis and with prices in state controlled
markets in Cuba many times the real value of the underlying products,
they would need to pay workers a small fortune just to survive.
The official salary, calculated on a thirty-day period, has from time
immortal been under the daily amount needed to feed a family of three.
It is not even close to the minimum level at which poverty starts,
measured by international standards..
If the state calculates about 13 Cuban pesos per person per day just to
cover lunch, how much should the monthly salary be to cover breakfast,
lunch and dinner at home?
Because state enterprises are well aware that the official figure is
well below the mark, they turn themselves inside out to mask the scam,
particularly when it comes to the psychological effect a term like CUC
has on the poorest at the bottom of the ladder.
It is not uncommon to find workers who never in their life have had two
cents to rub together, viewing the miserable CUC supplement as a sort of
incentive to work. And the situation gets even worse when company chiefs
present the closure of canteens as a step forward if not an irrefutable
sign of the end of the Special Period.
The worst is when in reaction to those protesting the measure, they
laugh it off and make some off-the-cuff comparison with capitalism
praising the efficiency of a system which they repudiated only the day
before.
What kind of place is this we're living in, I wonder why all that talk
about revolutions over the years. How is it that sending government
officials round the world to winkle out the secrets of capitalist
austerity and apply them to saving socialism is no longer considered an
extremely toxic departure but, on the contrary, a very healthy one?
How can you explain all this to the worker who has been the most
vulnerable part of an experiment that did not work? What's to prevent
you from thinking that the official measures being taken to save the
economy are merely strategies adopted to underpin a particular ideology?
My parents, ever ready to make sacrifices, can no longer look me in the
eye in saying all that conviction was worthwhile. Nobody knows better
than they that no matter how often you turn over the few cents in your
pocket that go up in smoke, it becomes impossible to find the strength
to overcome.
We may have learned well enough to struggle and resist but it seems to
me the official discourse of the last five decades could be summed up in
that funny but terrible phrase describing our current circumstances:
"When I said, I say, I mean Diego says "In other words I take back what
I said.
When I see it is getting on for lunch time in the offices, I feel sorry
for the ones who cannot go out but have to stay in to consume whatever
concoction they have managed to rustle up with half a convertible peso.
And I feel even more sad for the ones who, to put food on the table at
home, settle for a glass of water and a croquette bought at a gloomy
cafeteria facing a resplendent establishment across the street offering
shrimp with garlic sauce and pork roasted on the grill, to the sound of
music and smiling faces, for the modest sum of a month's salary.
I feel sorry for the secretary who stills her hunger gulping a shot of
coffee because she has to save a few cents for shoes for her son or for
the sweet-15 party she has promised her daughter.
I feel sorry too for those who no longer have any arguments to offer
able to convince me that that strange, insistent faith, now ingrained in
the lines of dejection on the faces of people has been of any value. It
hurts daily and it hurts with increasing intensity.
It hurts more to know that words, writing, are not much either these
days but still I write and will continue to write without anyone holding
my hand. That is the only asset I have and the most precious.
Source: When Lunch Time Comes in Cuba - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101681
February 6, 2014
Ernesto Pérez Chang
HAVANA TIMES – Comes lunchtime and it is again time for a break in the
workday. Time for relaxation, you might say. Forget it, for many it
means anxiety. Few workplaces now have a workers' canteen.
In keeping with the new policy of every man for himself decreed by a
government suitably wrapped in a nice watertight life jacket to keep
itself afloat, thousands of workers now have to take to the streets at
noon to work miracles on a budget so tight they can hardly eat.
From the top floor comfort of some Cuban ministry, some government
official, the kind that spoils themself silly in the VIP lounges of
capitalist airports across the globe and throws lavish banquets to spice
otherwise redundant meetings running on redundant agendas, has
determined that just over half a dollar is all a worker needs to lunch
in a country where a soft drink in a can and a roll and hot dog costs
you twice that much if not more.
Every month along with their lousy pay, some workers get a measly
gratuity in convertible pesos, supposedly so they can go to a hard
currency store in the neighborhood and buy something with it. But the
amount, based on work days calculated at a rate of 1 CUC for 25 pesos,
is only a break for the state which sets the rate in the first place.
For workers used to picking up a wage packet so paltry it hardly covers
the first few days of the month, getting anything extra is usually seen
as a blessing, rarely a cruel joke.
And even if the worker feels so inclined, challenging the pathetic sum
officialdom has calculated to be all he needs to support his/her family
for working all year, is not advisable. It won't go down well with the
boss. At a time of deep crisis and with prices in state controlled
markets in Cuba many times the real value of the underlying products,
they would need to pay workers a small fortune just to survive.
The official salary, calculated on a thirty-day period, has from time
immortal been under the daily amount needed to feed a family of three.
It is not even close to the minimum level at which poverty starts,
measured by international standards..
If the state calculates about 13 Cuban pesos per person per day just to
cover lunch, how much should the monthly salary be to cover breakfast,
lunch and dinner at home?
Because state enterprises are well aware that the official figure is
well below the mark, they turn themselves inside out to mask the scam,
particularly when it comes to the psychological effect a term like CUC
has on the poorest at the bottom of the ladder.
It is not uncommon to find workers who never in their life have had two
cents to rub together, viewing the miserable CUC supplement as a sort of
incentive to work. And the situation gets even worse when company chiefs
present the closure of canteens as a step forward if not an irrefutable
sign of the end of the Special Period.
The worst is when in reaction to those protesting the measure, they
laugh it off and make some off-the-cuff comparison with capitalism
praising the efficiency of a system which they repudiated only the day
before.
What kind of place is this we're living in, I wonder why all that talk
about revolutions over the years. How is it that sending government
officials round the world to winkle out the secrets of capitalist
austerity and apply them to saving socialism is no longer considered an
extremely toxic departure but, on the contrary, a very healthy one?
How can you explain all this to the worker who has been the most
vulnerable part of an experiment that did not work? What's to prevent
you from thinking that the official measures being taken to save the
economy are merely strategies adopted to underpin a particular ideology?
My parents, ever ready to make sacrifices, can no longer look me in the
eye in saying all that conviction was worthwhile. Nobody knows better
than they that no matter how often you turn over the few cents in your
pocket that go up in smoke, it becomes impossible to find the strength
to overcome.
We may have learned well enough to struggle and resist but it seems to
me the official discourse of the last five decades could be summed up in
that funny but terrible phrase describing our current circumstances:
"When I said, I say, I mean Diego says "In other words I take back what
I said.
When I see it is getting on for lunch time in the offices, I feel sorry
for the ones who cannot go out but have to stay in to consume whatever
concoction they have managed to rustle up with half a convertible peso.
And I feel even more sad for the ones who, to put food on the table at
home, settle for a glass of water and a croquette bought at a gloomy
cafeteria facing a resplendent establishment across the street offering
shrimp with garlic sauce and pork roasted on the grill, to the sound of
music and smiling faces, for the modest sum of a month's salary.
I feel sorry for the secretary who stills her hunger gulping a shot of
coffee because she has to save a few cents for shoes for her son or for
the sweet-15 party she has promised her daughter.
I feel sorry too for those who no longer have any arguments to offer
able to convince me that that strange, insistent faith, now ingrained in
the lines of dejection on the faces of people has been of any value. It
hurts daily and it hurts with increasing intensity.
It hurts more to know that words, writing, are not much either these
days but still I write and will continue to write without anyone holding
my hand. That is the only asset I have and the most precious.
Source: When Lunch Time Comes in Cuba - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101681
Cuba Has Its Sweet Dreams
Cuba Has Its Sweet Dreams
February 6, 2014
Fernando Ravsberg*
HAVANA TIMES — The news that Brazil is managing the 5 de septiembre
sugar refinery in Cuba's province of Cienfuegos appears to be stirring
up the passions and interests of Cubans living at either side of the
Strait of Florida.
This is the first time since the nationalizations of the 1960s that a
foreign company has been authorized to manage one of these sugar
refineries, part of an industry that was the country's economic
locomotive for a long period of time and is today a mere rear coach.
Though Cuba continues to be the proprietor of the mill, the whole affair
causes discomfort among those who regard these changes as ideological
threats and constantly alert us to the dangers of returning to a past
which, in their eyes, entails the loss of national sovereignty.
They had every opportunity to do things better themselves but, despite
this, it must be very frustrating for Cuban high agriculture officials
to see a "contractual clause which grants foreigners autonomy in terms
of management and prevents interference in administrative affairs."
Brazil can triple production at the 5 de septiembre refinery thanks to a
US $120 million investment, technological upgrading and the fact the new
managers can skirt all of the obstacles set down by a bureaucracy that
has the rest of the agricultural sector bound hand and foot.
Cuban high officials in the sector have been promising improved harvest
results and mechanically repeating self-criticisms for improvisation,
disorganization, inefficiency and indiscipline for decades, but have
consistently failed to increase yields.
The failure of the Stalinist agrarian model became evident long ago. In
the 1970s, Fidel Castro advised French Communist Party leader George
Marchais to never nationalize the countryside, lest they lose their
cheeses, wines and foigrass (1).
Protecting the "Back Yard"
Abroad, the move has also angered those who were once the owners of
Cuba's refineries and practically the entire country. They proudly
repeat that they produced millions of tons of sugar without the need to
call in any foreign managers.
Cuban-American sugar magnate Alfonso Fanjul put aside his anti-Castro
rhetoric and rushed to Cuba to explore the possibility of doing business
there. The US press is saying he wants to prevent Brazilians from
settling in his family's "back yard." (2)
Though it is true Cuba's sugar industry was extremely productive before
1959, it was only making life sweet for a handful of Cubans.
"Agricultural workers lived in sub-human conditions. Anyone can be
efficient that way," an economist tells me and suggests I read a survey
conducted in 1957 (3).
According to the Catholic Youth University group, more than 40% of Cuban
farmers were illiterate, 99% lived in hovels made of guano and wooden
boards, more than 90% lacked water and electricity, 80% didn't even have
a bathroom and only 8% had access to public health.
Despite this, Fanjul told the Washington Post: "Do I have a weak spot
for Cuba? Of course, it's my country." He does not, however, let this
weak spot get the better of him and immediately sets down conditions,
adding, "Particularly if the investment will be profitable and its
security is guaranteed." (4).
In 1957, 40% of Cuban farmers and farm workers were illiterate, 99%
lived in hovels, 90% lacked water and electricity, 80% had no bathrooms
and a mere 8% had access to public health.
Some time ago, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told émigrés
living the United States: "I don't know how many Cubans you know who
could invest 200, 300, 500, 1,000 million dollars in Cuba. This is the
investment Cuba needs." It looks as though the first one's turned up.
It won't be easy to convince farmers to accept going back to the old
system of production, the same one endured by the sugar cane cutters of
the Dominican Republic, where some of these Cuban sugar magnates have
set up camp.
Cuban agriculture is still an unresolved issue, and the answers aren't
likely to come from the senseless "resolutions and circulars" issued by
a bureaucracy that would be able to ruin Argentina's livestock industry
and France's cheese production.
The problem, however, cannot be solved by returning to a past when the
sugar industry reaped efficiency by sowing human misery.
(1) 100 Hours with Fidel, Ignacio Ramonet
(2)
http://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2014/02/04/52f01fbfe2704efc2e8b458c.html
(3)
http://bibliotecavirtual.clacso.org.ar/ar/libros/cuba/cips/caudales06/fscommand/51T13.pdf
(4)
http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2014/02/03/actualidad/1391449872_553837.html
(*) A Havana Times translation of the original published in Spanish by
BBC Mundo.
Source: Cuba Has Its Sweet Dreams - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101685
February 6, 2014
Fernando Ravsberg*
HAVANA TIMES — The news that Brazil is managing the 5 de septiembre
sugar refinery in Cuba's province of Cienfuegos appears to be stirring
up the passions and interests of Cubans living at either side of the
Strait of Florida.
This is the first time since the nationalizations of the 1960s that a
foreign company has been authorized to manage one of these sugar
refineries, part of an industry that was the country's economic
locomotive for a long period of time and is today a mere rear coach.
Though Cuba continues to be the proprietor of the mill, the whole affair
causes discomfort among those who regard these changes as ideological
threats and constantly alert us to the dangers of returning to a past
which, in their eyes, entails the loss of national sovereignty.
They had every opportunity to do things better themselves but, despite
this, it must be very frustrating for Cuban high agriculture officials
to see a "contractual clause which grants foreigners autonomy in terms
of management and prevents interference in administrative affairs."
Brazil can triple production at the 5 de septiembre refinery thanks to a
US $120 million investment, technological upgrading and the fact the new
managers can skirt all of the obstacles set down by a bureaucracy that
has the rest of the agricultural sector bound hand and foot.
Cuban high officials in the sector have been promising improved harvest
results and mechanically repeating self-criticisms for improvisation,
disorganization, inefficiency and indiscipline for decades, but have
consistently failed to increase yields.
The failure of the Stalinist agrarian model became evident long ago. In
the 1970s, Fidel Castro advised French Communist Party leader George
Marchais to never nationalize the countryside, lest they lose their
cheeses, wines and foigrass (1).
Protecting the "Back Yard"
Abroad, the move has also angered those who were once the owners of
Cuba's refineries and practically the entire country. They proudly
repeat that they produced millions of tons of sugar without the need to
call in any foreign managers.
Cuban-American sugar magnate Alfonso Fanjul put aside his anti-Castro
rhetoric and rushed to Cuba to explore the possibility of doing business
there. The US press is saying he wants to prevent Brazilians from
settling in his family's "back yard." (2)
Though it is true Cuba's sugar industry was extremely productive before
1959, it was only making life sweet for a handful of Cubans.
"Agricultural workers lived in sub-human conditions. Anyone can be
efficient that way," an economist tells me and suggests I read a survey
conducted in 1957 (3).
According to the Catholic Youth University group, more than 40% of Cuban
farmers were illiterate, 99% lived in hovels made of guano and wooden
boards, more than 90% lacked water and electricity, 80% didn't even have
a bathroom and only 8% had access to public health.
Despite this, Fanjul told the Washington Post: "Do I have a weak spot
for Cuba? Of course, it's my country." He does not, however, let this
weak spot get the better of him and immediately sets down conditions,
adding, "Particularly if the investment will be profitable and its
security is guaranteed." (4).
In 1957, 40% of Cuban farmers and farm workers were illiterate, 99%
lived in hovels, 90% lacked water and electricity, 80% had no bathrooms
and a mere 8% had access to public health.
Some time ago, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told émigrés
living the United States: "I don't know how many Cubans you know who
could invest 200, 300, 500, 1,000 million dollars in Cuba. This is the
investment Cuba needs." It looks as though the first one's turned up.
It won't be easy to convince farmers to accept going back to the old
system of production, the same one endured by the sugar cane cutters of
the Dominican Republic, where some of these Cuban sugar magnates have
set up camp.
Cuban agriculture is still an unresolved issue, and the answers aren't
likely to come from the senseless "resolutions and circulars" issued by
a bureaucracy that would be able to ruin Argentina's livestock industry
and France's cheese production.
The problem, however, cannot be solved by returning to a past when the
sugar industry reaped efficiency by sowing human misery.
(1) 100 Hours with Fidel, Ignacio Ramonet
(2)
http://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2014/02/04/52f01fbfe2704efc2e8b458c.html
(3)
http://bibliotecavirtual.clacso.org.ar/ar/libros/cuba/cips/caudales06/fscommand/51T13.pdf
(4)
http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2014/02/03/actualidad/1391449872_553837.html
(*) A Havana Times translation of the original published in Spanish by
BBC Mundo.
Source: Cuba Has Its Sweet Dreams - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101685
La CIM prohíbe fotografiar las tiendas?
¿La CIM prohíbe fotografiar las tiendas?
Fernando Ravsbergfebrero 9, 2014
La Contrainteligencia Militar, CIM, es el organismo que habría prohibido
hacer fotografías en los supermercados, según la sorprendente versión
del gerente de la tienda de Boyeros y Camagüey, Fernando Casas.
Esa supuesta orden superior fue la que les dio potestad al gerente y
varios de sus muchachos para intentar arrancarle la cámara a nuestra
fotógrafa e impedirle que saque su automóvil del estacionamiento.
Al presentarme yo en el lugar, el gerente me agarró por el hombro y
empezó a gritarme amenazándome con las Fuerzas Armadas. "No puede tirar
fotos porque esto es de las FAR, acabo de llamar a la CIM y me dicen que
tiene que borrar la foto", me dijo el Sr. Casas.
Cuando le pregunté dónde estaban los carteles que prohibían fotografiar
me respondió que éramos unos prepotentes y se fue mientras uno de sus
ayudantes me puso su cara a 10 cm de la mía para recordarme que este no
era mi país.
Me cuesta creer que la CIM se dedique a garantizar "la seguridad" de un
supermercado. Es más posible que la gerencia tema que las imágenes
revelen ilegalidades, como la presencia de vendedores particulares de
carne sin las condiciones sanitarias mínimas.
Curiosamente nunca llamaron a la policía, algo que les pedimos que
hicieran desde el primer momento. Así que, por precaución, grabé toda la
conversación con estos personajes para evitar que posteriormente
tergiversen lo que dijeron.
Source: ¿La CIM prohíbe fotografiar las tiendas? | Cartas Desde Cuba por
Fernando Ravsberg -
http://cartasdesdecuba.com/la-cim-prohibe-fotografiar-las-tiendas/
Fernando Ravsbergfebrero 9, 2014
La Contrainteligencia Militar, CIM, es el organismo que habría prohibido
hacer fotografías en los supermercados, según la sorprendente versión
del gerente de la tienda de Boyeros y Camagüey, Fernando Casas.
Esa supuesta orden superior fue la que les dio potestad al gerente y
varios de sus muchachos para intentar arrancarle la cámara a nuestra
fotógrafa e impedirle que saque su automóvil del estacionamiento.
Al presentarme yo en el lugar, el gerente me agarró por el hombro y
empezó a gritarme amenazándome con las Fuerzas Armadas. "No puede tirar
fotos porque esto es de las FAR, acabo de llamar a la CIM y me dicen que
tiene que borrar la foto", me dijo el Sr. Casas.
Cuando le pregunté dónde estaban los carteles que prohibían fotografiar
me respondió que éramos unos prepotentes y se fue mientras uno de sus
ayudantes me puso su cara a 10 cm de la mía para recordarme que este no
era mi país.
Me cuesta creer que la CIM se dedique a garantizar "la seguridad" de un
supermercado. Es más posible que la gerencia tema que las imágenes
revelen ilegalidades, como la presencia de vendedores particulares de
carne sin las condiciones sanitarias mínimas.
Curiosamente nunca llamaron a la policía, algo que les pedimos que
hicieran desde el primer momento. Así que, por precaución, grabé toda la
conversación con estos personajes para evitar que posteriormente
tergiversen lo que dijeron.
Source: ¿La CIM prohíbe fotografiar las tiendas? | Cartas Desde Cuba por
Fernando Ravsberg -
http://cartasdesdecuba.com/la-cim-prohibe-fotografiar-las-tiendas/
Has Counterintelligence Prohibited Photographing Shops?
Cuba: Has Counterintelligence Prohibited Photographing Shops?
February 9, 2014
Fernando Ravsberg*
HAVANA TIMES — Cuba's Military Counterintelligence, CIM, is the body
that prohibits taking pictures in supermarkets, according to the
surprising version of Fernando Casas, the manager at the Boyeros and
Camaguey store in Havana.
The supposed order from above is what gave power to the manager and some
of his boys to try to wrest the camera from our photographer and prevent
her from leaving the parking lot in her car.
When I presented myself in the place, the manager grabbed me by the
shoulder and started yelling threatening me with the Armed Forces. "You
can't take pictures because it belongs to the FAR [Revolutionary Armed
Forces], I just spoke with the CIM and they tell me that you have to
delete the photo," said Mr. Casas.
When I asked where the signs are prohibiting photographing he replied
that we are arrogant and walked away, while one of his assistants came
up inches from my face to remind me that this was not my country.
I cannot believe that CIM is dedicated to ensuring the "security" of a
supermarket. It is more likely that management fears the pictures could
reveal illegalities, such as the presence of private meat sellers
without sanitary conditions.
Curiously, they never called the police, something we asked them to do
from the start. So, as a precaution, I recorded the entire conversation
to avoid them later misrepresenting what they said.
—–
(*) Visit Fernando Ravsberg's blog (in Spanish).
Source: Cuba: Has Counterintelligence Prohibited Photographing Shops? -
Havana Times.org - http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101765
February 9, 2014
Fernando Ravsberg*
HAVANA TIMES — Cuba's Military Counterintelligence, CIM, is the body
that prohibits taking pictures in supermarkets, according to the
surprising version of Fernando Casas, the manager at the Boyeros and
Camaguey store in Havana.
The supposed order from above is what gave power to the manager and some
of his boys to try to wrest the camera from our photographer and prevent
her from leaving the parking lot in her car.
When I presented myself in the place, the manager grabbed me by the
shoulder and started yelling threatening me with the Armed Forces. "You
can't take pictures because it belongs to the FAR [Revolutionary Armed
Forces], I just spoke with the CIM and they tell me that you have to
delete the photo," said Mr. Casas.
When I asked where the signs are prohibiting photographing he replied
that we are arrogant and walked away, while one of his assistants came
up inches from my face to remind me that this was not my country.
I cannot believe that CIM is dedicated to ensuring the "security" of a
supermarket. It is more likely that management fears the pictures could
reveal illegalities, such as the presence of private meat sellers
without sanitary conditions.
Curiously, they never called the police, something we asked them to do
from the start. So, as a precaution, I recorded the entire conversation
to avoid them later misrepresenting what they said.
—–
(*) Visit Fernando Ravsberg's blog (in Spanish).
Source: Cuba: Has Counterintelligence Prohibited Photographing Shops? -
Havana Times.org - http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101765
Sugar tycoon Alfonso Fanjul now open to investing in Cuba under ‘right circumstances’
Sugar tycoon Alfonso Fanjul now open to investing in Cuba under 'right
circumstances'
By Peter Wallsten, Manuel Roig-Franzia and Tom Hamburger, Published:
February 2
Alfonso Fanjul fled Cuba as a young man, leaving behind his family's
mansions and vast sugar-cane fields as they were being wrested away by
the communist Castro regime.
In exile in the United States, he built an even larger sugar empire,
amassing one of North America's great fortunes and befriending members
of Congress and presidents who benefited from his largess. The sting of
his family's forced departure from Cuba led him to become one of the
principal funders of the U.S. anti-Castro movement.
Now, contrary to what almost anyone could have imagined, the 76-year-old
Fanjul has begun to reassess old grievances and tentatively eye Cuba as
a place for him and other U.S. businessmen to expand their enterprises.
Quietly, without fanfare, Fanjul has started visiting the island of his
birth and having conversations with top Cuban officials.
"If there is some way the family flag could be taken back to Cuba, then
I am happy to do that," Fanjul said in a rare interview, publicly
discussing his recent visits to the island for the first time.
Fanjul's about-face is a startling development for the exile network
that has held a grip on the politics of U.S.-Cuba relations for decades
and has played an outsize role in presidential campaigns. His trips
place him at the vanguard of a group of ultra-wealthy U.S. investors
with roots on the island whose economic interests and political clout
are pushing the two countries toward a thaw in their half-century standoff.
Fanjul, in the interview, said repeatedly that his primary motivation in
visiting Cuba has been a desire to "reunite the Cuban family," referring
broadly to the Cuban diaspora and those who remain on the island.
Business considerations could be explored only if there are political
and diplomatic advances, he said.
"The [Fanjul] family was in Cuba for 150 years, and, yes, at the end of
the day, I'd like to see our family back in Cuba, where we started. . .
. But it has to be under the right circumstances," said Fanjul, who is
best known by his nickname, "Alfy." "One day we hope that the United
States and Cuba would find a way so the whole Cuban community could be
able to live and work together."
Fanjul, who lives in Palm Beach, Fla., and whose family holdings include
Domino Sugar and refineries across the United States, Latin America and
Europe, has managed to maintain a remarkably low profile for a
politically connected tycoon. His access to the highest levels of power
was evident during the Monica Lewinsky scandal of the 1990s, when the
special prosecutor's report noted that President Bill Clinton received a
call from Fanjul during a private Oval Office moment with the intern.
Last week, the Fanjul family's influence over policymakers was on
display when the U.S. House passed a farm bill that would cut subsidies
to many agricultural products while leaving unscathed the controversial,
taxpayer-backed program that protects sugar profits.
Fanjul visited Cuba in April 2012 and again in February 2013 as part of
a delegation licensed through the Brookings Institution, the Washington
think tank that has produced recent papers criticizing U.S. policy and
calling on the Obama administration to further loosen sanctions. In
Havana, he lingered with tears in his eyes at his family's colonial-era
manse, now a museum, with its elegant columns, lush inner courtyard,
sparkling chandeliers and grand staircase.
He was so taken by the nostalgia and excitement of returning to the
familiar streets of his youth, a travel companion recalled, that Fanjul
enthusiastically chatted up random people of all ages as he walked
around. He also met with Cuba's foreign minister and toured state-run
farms and a sugar mill with Cuban agricultural officials.
Unlike most other Cuban Americans who travel to the island, Fanjul has
direct access to some of America's most important policymakers. After
returning from his first trip, Fanjul met with his good friend,
then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to express his changing
views on Cuba. In November, Fanjul once again discussed his evolving
mind-set with Clinton and her husband at a Clinton Foundation fundraiser
in the Miami home of Cuban American businessman Paul Cejas, a former
U.S. ambassador to Belgium.
Many embargo supporters say U.S. policy should change only when certain
conditions are met, such as regime change or political reforms. Fanjul,
however, said he prefers not to answer the question of whether he would
require the fall of the Castro government or an end to communism before
doing business in Cuba — saying that he respects existing U.S. law.
"Right now there's no way for us to consider investing in Cuba. How can
you work a deal if you're not legally allowed to do it?" he said.
"Now, would we consider an investment at some later date?" continued
Fanjul, a permanent U.S. resident who maintains Spanish citizenship. "If
there's an arrangement within Cuba and the United States, and legally it
can be done and there's a proper framework set up and in place, then we
will look at that possibility. We have an open mind."
He said the Cuban government — which has business deals with companies
from countries such as Canada and Spain — would have to change its
economic structure to make it easier and safer for outside companies to
make money.
"Cuba has to presumably satisfy the requirements that investors need,
which are primarily a return on investment and security of the
investment, so they feel comfortable with what they're doing," he said.
"I personally would look at that in the same framework as any investor
would."
Evolving politics
The logistical, political and legal complexities involved in any
potential expansion of U.S.-based businesses onto Cuban soil are
staggering. Fanjul's willingness to hold meetings with the Castro
government puts him on a potential collision course with Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a Cuban American
whose campaigns have been supported by Fanjul but who is an unwavering
advocate for the embargo and has the power to thwart any attempts to
lift it.
Trickier still would be the impact on presidential politics, with
Florida's Cuban American electorate still a significant factor in the
battle for that state's crucial electoral college votes.
Already, there have been signs that younger Cuban Americans,
particularly those born in the United States, are moving away from the
hard-line views of their parents and grandparents. Now, as Fanjul's
recent gestures show, even some of the most entrenched exiles are
evolving, and politicians accustomed to embracing the Cuba trade embargo
in their pursuit of Florida's large Cuban American electorate will have
to calibrate the risks and rewards of evolving along with them.
Hillary Clinton, the putative Democratic front-runner for president if
she chooses to run in 2016, spoke out in favor of the Obama
administration's actions relaxing restrictions on family travel and cash
flow to the island. Yet she, like many politicians in both parties, has
repeatedly expressed support for continued sanctions. She is close with
several key players, besides Fanjul, who have stated an openness to more
engagement with Cuba.
Fanjul, a longtime supporter of Bill Clinton's campaigns and causes,
would probably be a major donor, as well as a close adviser on
Cuba-related matters, to Hillary Clinton should she run. Virginia Gov.
Terry McAuliffe (D), a longtime Clinton confidant, traveled to Cuba for
a trade mission in recent years and held discussions with high-ranking
government officials there. And Cejas, whom Bill Clinton appointed
ambassador to Belgium, has expressed doubts about the U.S. trade embargo
against Cuba.
"I can tell you one thing that became very clear to me: The embargo is
really an embargo against America ourselves. Because Americans cannot do
business with Cuba, where there are incredible opportunities for
growth," said Cejas, who traveled to Cuba with Fanjul.
The issue could prove thornier for Republicans, such as Sen. Marco Rubio
(R-Fla.), a Cuban American widely seen as a possible 2016 presidential
candidate. A staunch supporter of sanctions who blasted President
Obama's loosening of some restrictions as an "enrichment of a Cuban
regime that routinely violates the basic human rights and dignity of its
people," Rubio has cited the Fanjul family as a crucial source of
campaign funds and political connections.
The family recently hosted another possible GOP presidential candidate,
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who headlined a Republican Governors
Association reception last month at the Palm Beach home of Fanjul's
nephew, Jose "Pepe" Fanjul Jr., just as a scandal was erupting around
Christie.
The Fanjuls' internal family politics — Alfy backs Democrats and brother
Pepe Sr. supports Republicans — reflect both the complexities of the
Cuban American experience and perhaps the shrewdness of a family dynasty
that knows how to hedge its bets.
Asked about his brother's trips to Cuba, Pepe, in an e-mailed statement
from his office, said he has "always held firm that when the time comes
and Cubans are reunited, I will return and help our fellow Cubans
rebuild my birthplace." But, he added: "As you know, I have yet to return."
An untapped market
In recent years, other prominent Cuban Americans have begun to talk more
about opening relations with the island. A number of these exiles see
Cuba, communist or not, as a potentially lucrative market that has been
closed off to American corporations by decades-old trade barriers they
helped erect. Now, some say, the long-standing embargo has failed. They
say increased foreign investment in Cuba and greater engagement with
people there could spur greater reforms.
But such suggestions have frequently been met with anger by the older
generation of Cuban exiles.
Miami businessman Carlos Saladrigas, for instance, said he has been
openly branded a traitor in some circles because of his visits to Cuba
and his interest in possibly changing U.S. policy.
"I used to be as hard-line as they come," said Saladrigas, a member of
corporate boards for firms such as Duke Energy and Advance Auto Parts.
But now he warns that U.S. businesses, without the ability to invest in
Cuba, could find themselves sidelined if the island begins to open up.
"Do we as Cuban Americans, or do we as Americans, want to be left out of
the picture?" he asked. "You can influence Cuba's future much more by
participating in Cuba's future than by staying away."
But the shift by Fanjul is far more significant. Not only do he and his
family control one of the largest sugar operations in the world, but
they also have been major donors to activist groups, such as the Cuban
American National Foundation and the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, that have
been vocal advocates for trade sanctions.
Rumors of Fanjul's Cuba visit prompted Mauricio Claver-Carone, a
Washington-based board member of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, to
confront the sugar magnate during a recent private lunch in West Palm Beach.
Claver-Carone said that he told Fanjul his trips had served only to help
the Cuban regime. "I told him they were using him as a tool,"
Claver-Carone said, "and that with his stature comes responsibility."
Fanjul's trips followed policy shifts by the Cuban American National
Foundation, which has lost a number of its more conservative members
amid its support for loosening restrictions on travel and money as a way
to help Cubans living on the island. "Having known Alfy for 40 years, I
think we can trust him to do the right thing," said Pepe Hernandez,
president of the foundation.
Fanjul said repeatedly during multiple interviews that "this is a highly
sensitive issue." He said he needed to "stay at a high altitude" in
discussing potential changes in U.S. policies toward Cuba because of the
political challenges involved. "What I say can be taken in the wrong
context," he said.
An opening for foreigners
Fanjul's Brookings-organized trips coincided with calls by President
Raúl Castro to rapidly revive Cuba's moribund sugar industry. Castro has
begun permitting foreign companies to participate in sugar production
for the first time since the 1959 revolution, and Brazilian firms would
be likely candidates to seize new opportunities in Cuba.
Fanjul said his visits were unrelated to Castro's sugar initiative. He
said he has not met with Castro and held no specific discussions with
Cuban officials about investments in Cuban sugar. Yet experts say there
are many reasons that the Cubans would hope to entice the Fanjul family.
"The Cuban government can revive its sugar industry only with an
infusion of foreign investment," said American University professor
Philip Brenner, an expert on the Cuban economy and politics. "The old
Cuban mills are enormously inefficient, and the country needs
modernization and mechanization to increase productivity."
Investments by Brazilian sugar companies in Cuba put those companies in
the back yard of the Fanjuls' operations, which dominate the Dominican
Republic and Florida and have recently expanded into Mexico. Brenner,
who regularly meets with Cuban officials, thinks the Cuban government
may now "be willing to consider the possibility of permitting aging
sugar barons" from the United States to invest and participate.
Fanjul joined the Brookings board this past July and has donated at
least $200,000 to the think tank, which has hosted Cuban officials for
panel discussions geared toward encouraging greater communication and
loosened restrictions on doing business with Cuba. Ted Piccone,
Brookings' acting vice president and foreign policy program director,
wrote an open memo to Obama last month urging him to use his executive
authority to give direct aid to entrepreneurs on the island and expand
travel licenses.
The memo did not mention Fanjul, but it said, "These measures would draw
support from key political and business constituencies in the United
States (including Florida)."
The Fanjul trips to Cuba reflect a broader, though still subtle, easing
of Cold War-era tensions between the United States and the Castro
regime. In recent months, U.S. and Cuban officials have engaged in
small-scale diplomatic talks on issues such as immigration, drugs and
offshore oil drilling. And Obama drew attention to the relationship in
December when he shook hands with Castro at the memorial service for
Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
Obama hinted at a November fundraiser in Miami of more changes ahead
when he said U.S. policy toward Cuba should be "creative" and "thoughtful."
"Keep in mind that when Castro came to power, I was just born," he said.
"So the notion that the same policies that we put in place in 1961 would
somehow still be as effective as they are today in the age of the
Internet and Google and world travel doesn't make sense."
Fanjul's own travel to the island gave him insights not only about
business possibilities, he said, but other possibilities, too.
"Do I have a soft spot in my heart? Yes, that's my country. My interest
is finding a way to unite the Cuban family," he said. "When you talk
with people and hear them, it humanizes. Talking is the first step."
Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Source: Sugar tycoon Alfonso Fanjul now open to investing in Cuba under
'right circumstances' - The Washington Post -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sugar-tycoon-alfonso-fanjul-now-open-to-investing-in-cuba-under-right-circumstances/2014/02/02/4192b016-8708-11e3-a5bd-844629433ba3_story.html
circumstances'
By Peter Wallsten, Manuel Roig-Franzia and Tom Hamburger, Published:
February 2
Alfonso Fanjul fled Cuba as a young man, leaving behind his family's
mansions and vast sugar-cane fields as they were being wrested away by
the communist Castro regime.
In exile in the United States, he built an even larger sugar empire,
amassing one of North America's great fortunes and befriending members
of Congress and presidents who benefited from his largess. The sting of
his family's forced departure from Cuba led him to become one of the
principal funders of the U.S. anti-Castro movement.
Now, contrary to what almost anyone could have imagined, the 76-year-old
Fanjul has begun to reassess old grievances and tentatively eye Cuba as
a place for him and other U.S. businessmen to expand their enterprises.
Quietly, without fanfare, Fanjul has started visiting the island of his
birth and having conversations with top Cuban officials.
"If there is some way the family flag could be taken back to Cuba, then
I am happy to do that," Fanjul said in a rare interview, publicly
discussing his recent visits to the island for the first time.
Fanjul's about-face is a startling development for the exile network
that has held a grip on the politics of U.S.-Cuba relations for decades
and has played an outsize role in presidential campaigns. His trips
place him at the vanguard of a group of ultra-wealthy U.S. investors
with roots on the island whose economic interests and political clout
are pushing the two countries toward a thaw in their half-century standoff.
Fanjul, in the interview, said repeatedly that his primary motivation in
visiting Cuba has been a desire to "reunite the Cuban family," referring
broadly to the Cuban diaspora and those who remain on the island.
Business considerations could be explored only if there are political
and diplomatic advances, he said.
"The [Fanjul] family was in Cuba for 150 years, and, yes, at the end of
the day, I'd like to see our family back in Cuba, where we started. . .
. But it has to be under the right circumstances," said Fanjul, who is
best known by his nickname, "Alfy." "One day we hope that the United
States and Cuba would find a way so the whole Cuban community could be
able to live and work together."
Fanjul, who lives in Palm Beach, Fla., and whose family holdings include
Domino Sugar and refineries across the United States, Latin America and
Europe, has managed to maintain a remarkably low profile for a
politically connected tycoon. His access to the highest levels of power
was evident during the Monica Lewinsky scandal of the 1990s, when the
special prosecutor's report noted that President Bill Clinton received a
call from Fanjul during a private Oval Office moment with the intern.
Last week, the Fanjul family's influence over policymakers was on
display when the U.S. House passed a farm bill that would cut subsidies
to many agricultural products while leaving unscathed the controversial,
taxpayer-backed program that protects sugar profits.
Fanjul visited Cuba in April 2012 and again in February 2013 as part of
a delegation licensed through the Brookings Institution, the Washington
think tank that has produced recent papers criticizing U.S. policy and
calling on the Obama administration to further loosen sanctions. In
Havana, he lingered with tears in his eyes at his family's colonial-era
manse, now a museum, with its elegant columns, lush inner courtyard,
sparkling chandeliers and grand staircase.
He was so taken by the nostalgia and excitement of returning to the
familiar streets of his youth, a travel companion recalled, that Fanjul
enthusiastically chatted up random people of all ages as he walked
around. He also met with Cuba's foreign minister and toured state-run
farms and a sugar mill with Cuban agricultural officials.
Unlike most other Cuban Americans who travel to the island, Fanjul has
direct access to some of America's most important policymakers. After
returning from his first trip, Fanjul met with his good friend,
then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to express his changing
views on Cuba. In November, Fanjul once again discussed his evolving
mind-set with Clinton and her husband at a Clinton Foundation fundraiser
in the Miami home of Cuban American businessman Paul Cejas, a former
U.S. ambassador to Belgium.
Many embargo supporters say U.S. policy should change only when certain
conditions are met, such as regime change or political reforms. Fanjul,
however, said he prefers not to answer the question of whether he would
require the fall of the Castro government or an end to communism before
doing business in Cuba — saying that he respects existing U.S. law.
"Right now there's no way for us to consider investing in Cuba. How can
you work a deal if you're not legally allowed to do it?" he said.
"Now, would we consider an investment at some later date?" continued
Fanjul, a permanent U.S. resident who maintains Spanish citizenship. "If
there's an arrangement within Cuba and the United States, and legally it
can be done and there's a proper framework set up and in place, then we
will look at that possibility. We have an open mind."
He said the Cuban government — which has business deals with companies
from countries such as Canada and Spain — would have to change its
economic structure to make it easier and safer for outside companies to
make money.
"Cuba has to presumably satisfy the requirements that investors need,
which are primarily a return on investment and security of the
investment, so they feel comfortable with what they're doing," he said.
"I personally would look at that in the same framework as any investor
would."
Evolving politics
The logistical, political and legal complexities involved in any
potential expansion of U.S.-based businesses onto Cuban soil are
staggering. Fanjul's willingness to hold meetings with the Castro
government puts him on a potential collision course with Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a Cuban American
whose campaigns have been supported by Fanjul but who is an unwavering
advocate for the embargo and has the power to thwart any attempts to
lift it.
Trickier still would be the impact on presidential politics, with
Florida's Cuban American electorate still a significant factor in the
battle for that state's crucial electoral college votes.
Already, there have been signs that younger Cuban Americans,
particularly those born in the United States, are moving away from the
hard-line views of their parents and grandparents. Now, as Fanjul's
recent gestures show, even some of the most entrenched exiles are
evolving, and politicians accustomed to embracing the Cuba trade embargo
in their pursuit of Florida's large Cuban American electorate will have
to calibrate the risks and rewards of evolving along with them.
Hillary Clinton, the putative Democratic front-runner for president if
she chooses to run in 2016, spoke out in favor of the Obama
administration's actions relaxing restrictions on family travel and cash
flow to the island. Yet she, like many politicians in both parties, has
repeatedly expressed support for continued sanctions. She is close with
several key players, besides Fanjul, who have stated an openness to more
engagement with Cuba.
Fanjul, a longtime supporter of Bill Clinton's campaigns and causes,
would probably be a major donor, as well as a close adviser on
Cuba-related matters, to Hillary Clinton should she run. Virginia Gov.
Terry McAuliffe (D), a longtime Clinton confidant, traveled to Cuba for
a trade mission in recent years and held discussions with high-ranking
government officials there. And Cejas, whom Bill Clinton appointed
ambassador to Belgium, has expressed doubts about the U.S. trade embargo
against Cuba.
"I can tell you one thing that became very clear to me: The embargo is
really an embargo against America ourselves. Because Americans cannot do
business with Cuba, where there are incredible opportunities for
growth," said Cejas, who traveled to Cuba with Fanjul.
The issue could prove thornier for Republicans, such as Sen. Marco Rubio
(R-Fla.), a Cuban American widely seen as a possible 2016 presidential
candidate. A staunch supporter of sanctions who blasted President
Obama's loosening of some restrictions as an "enrichment of a Cuban
regime that routinely violates the basic human rights and dignity of its
people," Rubio has cited the Fanjul family as a crucial source of
campaign funds and political connections.
The family recently hosted another possible GOP presidential candidate,
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who headlined a Republican Governors
Association reception last month at the Palm Beach home of Fanjul's
nephew, Jose "Pepe" Fanjul Jr., just as a scandal was erupting around
Christie.
The Fanjuls' internal family politics — Alfy backs Democrats and brother
Pepe Sr. supports Republicans — reflect both the complexities of the
Cuban American experience and perhaps the shrewdness of a family dynasty
that knows how to hedge its bets.
Asked about his brother's trips to Cuba, Pepe, in an e-mailed statement
from his office, said he has "always held firm that when the time comes
and Cubans are reunited, I will return and help our fellow Cubans
rebuild my birthplace." But, he added: "As you know, I have yet to return."
An untapped market
In recent years, other prominent Cuban Americans have begun to talk more
about opening relations with the island. A number of these exiles see
Cuba, communist or not, as a potentially lucrative market that has been
closed off to American corporations by decades-old trade barriers they
helped erect. Now, some say, the long-standing embargo has failed. They
say increased foreign investment in Cuba and greater engagement with
people there could spur greater reforms.
But such suggestions have frequently been met with anger by the older
generation of Cuban exiles.
Miami businessman Carlos Saladrigas, for instance, said he has been
openly branded a traitor in some circles because of his visits to Cuba
and his interest in possibly changing U.S. policy.
"I used to be as hard-line as they come," said Saladrigas, a member of
corporate boards for firms such as Duke Energy and Advance Auto Parts.
But now he warns that U.S. businesses, without the ability to invest in
Cuba, could find themselves sidelined if the island begins to open up.
"Do we as Cuban Americans, or do we as Americans, want to be left out of
the picture?" he asked. "You can influence Cuba's future much more by
participating in Cuba's future than by staying away."
But the shift by Fanjul is far more significant. Not only do he and his
family control one of the largest sugar operations in the world, but
they also have been major donors to activist groups, such as the Cuban
American National Foundation and the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, that have
been vocal advocates for trade sanctions.
Rumors of Fanjul's Cuba visit prompted Mauricio Claver-Carone, a
Washington-based board member of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, to
confront the sugar magnate during a recent private lunch in West Palm Beach.
Claver-Carone said that he told Fanjul his trips had served only to help
the Cuban regime. "I told him they were using him as a tool,"
Claver-Carone said, "and that with his stature comes responsibility."
Fanjul's trips followed policy shifts by the Cuban American National
Foundation, which has lost a number of its more conservative members
amid its support for loosening restrictions on travel and money as a way
to help Cubans living on the island. "Having known Alfy for 40 years, I
think we can trust him to do the right thing," said Pepe Hernandez,
president of the foundation.
Fanjul said repeatedly during multiple interviews that "this is a highly
sensitive issue." He said he needed to "stay at a high altitude" in
discussing potential changes in U.S. policies toward Cuba because of the
political challenges involved. "What I say can be taken in the wrong
context," he said.
An opening for foreigners
Fanjul's Brookings-organized trips coincided with calls by President
Raúl Castro to rapidly revive Cuba's moribund sugar industry. Castro has
begun permitting foreign companies to participate in sugar production
for the first time since the 1959 revolution, and Brazilian firms would
be likely candidates to seize new opportunities in Cuba.
Fanjul said his visits were unrelated to Castro's sugar initiative. He
said he has not met with Castro and held no specific discussions with
Cuban officials about investments in Cuban sugar. Yet experts say there
are many reasons that the Cubans would hope to entice the Fanjul family.
"The Cuban government can revive its sugar industry only with an
infusion of foreign investment," said American University professor
Philip Brenner, an expert on the Cuban economy and politics. "The old
Cuban mills are enormously inefficient, and the country needs
modernization and mechanization to increase productivity."
Investments by Brazilian sugar companies in Cuba put those companies in
the back yard of the Fanjuls' operations, which dominate the Dominican
Republic and Florida and have recently expanded into Mexico. Brenner,
who regularly meets with Cuban officials, thinks the Cuban government
may now "be willing to consider the possibility of permitting aging
sugar barons" from the United States to invest and participate.
Fanjul joined the Brookings board this past July and has donated at
least $200,000 to the think tank, which has hosted Cuban officials for
panel discussions geared toward encouraging greater communication and
loosened restrictions on doing business with Cuba. Ted Piccone,
Brookings' acting vice president and foreign policy program director,
wrote an open memo to Obama last month urging him to use his executive
authority to give direct aid to entrepreneurs on the island and expand
travel licenses.
The memo did not mention Fanjul, but it said, "These measures would draw
support from key political and business constituencies in the United
States (including Florida)."
The Fanjul trips to Cuba reflect a broader, though still subtle, easing
of Cold War-era tensions between the United States and the Castro
regime. In recent months, U.S. and Cuban officials have engaged in
small-scale diplomatic talks on issues such as immigration, drugs and
offshore oil drilling. And Obama drew attention to the relationship in
December when he shook hands with Castro at the memorial service for
Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
Obama hinted at a November fundraiser in Miami of more changes ahead
when he said U.S. policy toward Cuba should be "creative" and "thoughtful."
"Keep in mind that when Castro came to power, I was just born," he said.
"So the notion that the same policies that we put in place in 1961 would
somehow still be as effective as they are today in the age of the
Internet and Google and world travel doesn't make sense."
Fanjul's own travel to the island gave him insights not only about
business possibilities, he said, but other possibilities, too.
"Do I have a soft spot in my heart? Yes, that's my country. My interest
is finding a way to unite the Cuban family," he said. "When you talk
with people and hear them, it humanizes. Talking is the first step."
Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Source: Sugar tycoon Alfonso Fanjul now open to investing in Cuba under
'right circumstances' - The Washington Post -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sugar-tycoon-alfonso-fanjul-now-open-to-investing-in-cuba-under-right-circumstances/2014/02/02/4192b016-8708-11e3-a5bd-844629433ba3_story.html
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